Power TO the people

In the start of the Civ3 Democracy game, we used CivFanatics own chat room as TurnChat room. But then we disturbed non-citizens of the demogame and they disturbed us. So we created a room of our own room. #DemoGame. To stop spamming and such so we decided to use the voice system to only allow Officials to talk.

But now we feel like we are excluding the citizens from one of their rights. The right to get their voice heard. That's why we are reforming the Voice system. Now every citizen are allowed to talk.

These are the rules:

1.) Citizens can talk if they have productive advice or are asked by an official. They can also take part in any poll taking place there.
2.) Only poeple taking part of the demogame can vote.
3.) Spaming, lobbying, repetive questions and any other unnecessary traffic in the chat is forbidden.
4.) Clones are not allowed!
5.) All acting against those rules are banned by devoicing the guilty citizen(s).
6.) The chat-operators hold the right to devoice all non-officials if the chat gets to confusing or is disturbed by someone permanently. the decision for this is taken by the active player.
7) The government hold the right to veto against any poll taken in the chat and do a Cabinet Poll instead.
8) Actions like veto or devoicing will automatically face investigations in the forum
During turn-chat, #civfanatics is still open for totally free discussions.

The chat should look like:
1) player describes situation
2) then ask every department in turn for their decisions. maybe answers questions
3) repeats a summarization of steps to take
4) plays out steps
--->1)

These rules are implemented by now, but will be object to discussion in this thread and may be changed at any time later.

How to find the chat.

The Turn Chat is done in the channel #DemoGame on IRC. It can be accessed using the Java applet that can be found in the CHAT section of CivFanatics (be sure to use the commando '/join DemoGame'), or you can use an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) client, such as mIRC, to access it. We strongly encourage you to use mIRC because it's much faster and convenient to use than the Java applet. You can get the original version of mIRC from www.mIRC.com, or heavily modified versions such as Silver mIRC and the Darkstyle mIRC. Both Silver and Darkstyle have many cool built-in features and are easier to use than the plain version. Once you have installed mIRC, connect to the IRC server at irc.webmaster.com then join the channel #DemoGame or/and #civfanatics for some fun chatting!


Coming soon: "Power OF the People" ... stay tuned!

the census office and the chat office fully comply to this proposal. this will boost the power of the people and also prevent the chat from being disturbed like in the early days.

Mr. President,

Grey Fox: 1.) Citizens can talk if they have productive advice or are asked by an official. They can also take part in any poll taking place there.
2.) Only poeple taking part of the demogame can vote.

Click to expand...

On whose authority is this implemented? This clearly goes against the constitution.

Besides, it would not work. Allowing everyone who attends the turn chats to vote would give more power to those who can attend compared to those who can't. Comments?

basically what the first part means is that if someone becomes a problem (isn't speaking to give productive advice and just cluttering the #demogame channel) the ops (the officials) will be granted the ability to De-voice those citizens.
This is in place to make sure that even citizens have a voice, and still have measures to make sure the choas problem from before doesn't resurface.

For each De-voicing an investigation will be called to ensure people don't abuse their power.

On the voting topic. GF doesn't mean that if you don't attend the chats you can't vote in the forum polls. I believe he just means that the IN CHAT polls will only be among those citizens present. The vote of anyone who is known to not be a citizen of Pheonetica, will not be counted twoards the decision.

It looks good, but I also agree with Zur (that's the one point that I don't really like). It's a gray area, since it'll make the demogame chat like the civfanatics chat. But, there should be a way that the citizens can see the chat and not have to read/respond to an 80K chat log. Maybe we could use something like a 'Press Secretary', that interacts with the citizens as the chat moves along.

An example might look like this:

17:04:00 - <Press_Secretary>: Turn 1 - 690 AD.
The Chinese have declared war, and we are moving our defenses to the Egyptian cities. Any ideas?

17:04:09 - <RedRain>: How many troops?

(Press secretary would ask or look in the demogame chat)

17:04:35 - <Press_Secretary>: a stack of 15.


--
I'll type up more later, gotta go. Another severe thunderstorm in my area.

Ohhh, By The Way....

The Military Dept. supports these turn chat reforms.

First, let me say I like this idea a lot. It'll probably make digging through the logs a bit rougher but that's the price of progress.

My problem is with the items on votes. I don't like that the citizenry can be polled and then the results basically ignored in favor of a cabinet vote. Also, what polls are these? I don't think there should be open polling for items specifically relegated to council votes by the Constitution. I'm guessing this would be for general feedback and decisions that the Designated Player has to make that don't fall under a Department or fall under a Department that isn't represented in the chat.

Originally posted by Zur
Mr. President,

On whose authority is this implemented? This clearly goes against the constitution.

Besides, it would not work. Allowing everyone who attends the turn chats to vote would give more power to those who can attend compared to those who can't. Comments?

Click to expand...

Zur, I am answering to your concern here. These rules are for all citizens, even cabinet members. They allow the chat moderator to remove anyone not contributing to the chat. There is a game to be played. When people get out of hand, the game suffers. I don't expect this to come up often, but sometimes people lose their sense of rationality.

While much of the turn is played by directions posted in the forums leading up to the round, events happen during the game that need spot voting or discussion, because the President may feel more than one option is viable or one departments policy is not clear on how it should be handled. This is where there is already power to decide things in chat. But who has the power now? Just the cabinet. By disallowing citizens to vote or voice, we are excluding them from these decisions & turns.

So, why not stop the round? Well, we can't stop every turn a decision like this comes up. What if a town finishes their build queue? Do we stop the game until we can get a new post from the (ill-prepared) governor? No. We carry on, often getting a spot vote on what to build next. Why should only cabinet members vote on this?

Citizens are already allowed to voice their support & vote between turns. Why not during? If we don't allow citizens to vote here, I believe we are truly excluding their voice from part of the game. There is a distinction here. We are not giving more power to the chat attendees. We are taking what power is in a chat & opening it to the citizens so that everyone can have a say.

The chat log may get more messy. There may be some awkward chats. We will test it out & iron out rough edges yet. I think it is a small price to pay for the inclusion of many more people in our game. I do not want to stand for more accusations that the game is out of the citizens' hands.

Edit: Shaitan. A good suggestion too. I'm not entirely sure what makes a vote "Cabinet" or "Citizen". I see your point as possibly a middle-ground. In the case of cabinet votes, the CouncilMembers' positions can be used for the voice of the citizens. If no CMs are present, the total of the collective citizens choice counts as 2.

I'm willing to see what the original suggesion yields at the next chat. I know I want to try to allow citizens to vote in all decisions, we shall see how it works practically.

Originally posted by chiefpaco
Edit: Shaitan. A good suggestion too. I'm not entirely sure what makes a vote "Cabinet" or "Citizen".

Click to expand...

Cabinet votes cover overruling a governor or Leader's instructions. I'll toss out examples:

The Pres needs a settler pronto but the city he wants it in has an existing build queue. He calls a Spot Council Vote to override the build queue.

A city builds the last item in its queue. The Pres doesn't have anything pressing to construct so holds a Citizen Poll to decide what the city will build.

EDIT: Just thought of a better way to explain it. Council Votes are needed to change things that were already planned. Citizen Votes could handle things that happen during the game that are not planned.

While I think that it might well be a good thing to give all citizens a voice in the chat, I am against the idea of having "open to all" votes to decide issues during turn chat. I think it would differ from the flavour of the democratic system used in the forum a bit too much. As far as I can see, the general spirit of the constitution is that of a representative democracy - ie: the people vote for the individuals they want to run the country who then make the decisions required to do so in consultation with the general public. Opening up those decisions to a vote of all citizens present at a chat will make the democratic model closer to "Pure" or "Athenian" democracy. I think that the same democratic model should apply to the whole of the demo-game, and that it should be the model set out in the constitution. I feel the Athenian system would be a particularly bad thing in the chats, since the whole population is never going to be in attendance due to the global nature of this game. The council should hopefully always have every department represented in chat via the system of deputies and chat-reps. I have no problem with the idea of holding an opinion poll during chat, though... the result of which would decide the vote of the At-Large Councilmember in the actual council vote.

Chiefpaco: Citizens are already allowed to voice their support & vote between turns. Why not during? If we don't allow citizens to vote here, I believe we are truly excluding their voice from part of the game. There is a distinction here. We are not giving more power to the chat attendees. We are taking what power is in a chat & opening it to the citizens so that everyone can have a say.

The chat log may get more messy. There may be some awkward chats. We will test it out & iron out rough edges yet. I think it is a small price to pay for the inclusion of many more people in our game. I do not want to stand for more accusations that the game is out of the citizens' hands.

Click to expand...

Both ways each has its own advantages & disadvantages. The only way to know which is better overall is to try it out. So I say give it a try!

Note also that this will mean that each department will only be represented by 1 voice, but other members of the department will be voiced as citizens.

Originally posted by Zur
Note also that this will mean that each department will only be represented by 1 voice, but other members of the department will be voiced as citizens.

Click to expand...

Excellent clarification. I'd also like to add that departmental rooms would still be a good idea so side conversations don't clutter the game chat room.

it is always possible to open a separate chat-room by
a)
using a normal chat client, not the java chat
and b)
just typing "/j #roomname". if the room is not used or reserved, then it is generated and the first person there is the op.

to the poll thing:
there will only be polls for things which would also be handled by spot-polls in the "old rules", but now the citizens can also vote... i think the constitution was not well enough prepared for the chat-turn, since (i think) it was the first time it was tried with a demo-game.
the idea behind the game is a DEMOCRATIC GAMING FOR THE CITIZENRY! which was not reflected in the constitution, but is with the new rules!
What should the reason be for a cabinet vote? Only that there are no citizens online. Why not use the power of the people?

The price we have to pay is maybe some clutter in the chats, but we gain proud and resposible citizens. If someone mocks up, he always has the possibility to take part in the chats...
The Votes there will NOT override forum decisions, as spot-votes now dont either. So forum-only citizens only have the disadvantage they also have now: They cant take part in the spot-votes coming up while playing the game.
So where is the real disadvantage (except the clutter)? There will be none.


Why did we implement it so fast?
Because
a) the chat is not covered by the constitution at all, so we dont have to change it nor have to vote for it. Its just a technical solution for the "turn-chat" part. It could also be a phone-call.
b) we are quickly loosing active citizens. as you can easily see in the polls only 50% vote, which is almost our rate of officials. If we only do a game for the officials, we dont need citizens any more. But this is not the way the game was thought.
c) maybe we should sometimes be a bit more unbeaurocratic.

I was just thinking about the demogame last night... maybe the citizens could have some say in the budget (like when you vote - or atleast here in the U.S. - you can say yes or no to things like "funding for public buildings, roadways, education, etc.) Right now, it's just decided "on a dime" (seemingly). I think there should be votes to accept or deny parts or all of the budget. That way, citizens can decide where to build a certain road in the game, or if they want a library...


If it is something that's already debatable (and I haven't seen anything that said it is), there should be "2 day polls" on whether or not we should put the budget to a certain area.

For example, the people might want more harbors, which would increase the budget in that area. Or, if they want more defense, it would increase the military's budget.

Originally posted by Chieftess
I was just thinking about the demogame last night... maybe the citizens could have some say in the budget (like when you vote - or atleast here in the U.S. - you can say yes or no to things like "funding for public buildings, roadways, education, etc.) Right now, it's just decided "on a dime" (seemingly). I think there should be votes to accept or deny parts or all of the budget. That way, citizens can decide where to build a certain road in the game, or if they want a library...


If it is something that's already debatable (and I haven't seen anything that said it is), there should be "2 day polls" on whether or not we should put the budget to a certain area.

For example, the people might want more harbors, which would increase the budget in that area. Or, if they want more defense, it would increase the military's budget.

Click to expand...

Specifically for the budget, the reason money is allocated to particular departments is too allow money to be spent in different ways without having to poll each time. Most of what you are talking about is money that would normally belong to the domestic or cultural departments. Anybody should feel free to present a proposal for the spending of this money on anything in particular. Simply start a discussion, and then if more than one other person supports the proposal, there will be a poll.

IMHO, this is exactly the point why ppl think they have nothing to say as normal citizens. those points should definitely not only come to a departmental discussion, but also to a public vote. the departments take too many decisions in their private chamber of the departmental thread, and dont take the out to public votes.

I'm still left with my original reservations regarding the votes.

The first problem is that, as written, these rules allow the Designated Player to disregard a public poll and have a Council Vote instead. I think that if a public poll is called it's results should be final.

The second problem is that certain polls must be reserved for Council Votes only. Specifically, overriding a governor's build queue or overruling a Leader's posted turn instructions.

Disorganizer, you stated that "The Votes there will NOT override forum decisions, as spot-votes now dont either" but the rules posted don't say that at all.

To be honest, I wish it could be that way, Chieftess and disorganizer. With the current pace of the game at about 20 turns every two days, it is just not possible. I would certainly be in favor of slowing the game down significantly for this very reason, however.

Also, the presumption I was working on was that citizens read the government threads, and if they disagreed with something, they could start a thread about it. Basically, I think the semblance of unilateral decision making is caused as much by the citizens as by the officials. If someone disagrees with a decision I make, I would like to know why, because there might be something I hadn't considered, or public opinion may just disagree with me.

isnt there a constitutional paragraph regarding spot-votes?
this was not meant as disregarding public votes. the rules only cover those spot-votes, as other votes dont happen in turn-chat (like now). the rules only say that those spot-votes are now not only for cabinet, but also for citizenry. if there is no constitutional paragraph regarding spot-votes in the constitution, we disregarded the constitution all the time because there were many spot-votes (otherwise we would still be in 2000BC by now)

maybe GF could clarify in the rules a bit more, but those rules where meant as i said (i was there).

lets just call them "public spot votes"

Originally posted by disorganizer
isnt there a constitutional paragraph regarding spot-votes?

Click to expand...

Here's the applicable section:

Section L: Council Votes

Article 4: Administrative votes are called by the President. An affirmative result overrules an elected official's instructions and decisions for game play.

Article 7: Spot votes are Administrative votes carried out within the turn chat. They are called by the designated player.