Constitution for Demogame 3

[Shaitan]

This poll is for approval of the basic ruleset for Demogame 3 as detailed below. This poll will remain open for a minimum of 48 hours. This ruleset was discussed in this thread. There is no quorum but an abstain option is provided.

The Constitution

We, the people of (Civ Name), in order to create an atmosphere of friendship and 
cooperation, establish this Constitution of our beloved country. We uphold the 
beliefs that each citizen must have a voice in the government and ruling of our 
country, that government itself is a construct of and servant to the people, that 
rules, regulations, and laws should be established to facilitate the active 
participation of the people and to make possible the dreams and desires of the 
citizens.

A. Governing rules shall consist of these Articles of the Constitution, such 
   amendments that shall follow and lower forms of law that may be 
   implemented. No rule shall be valid that contradicts these Articles 
   excepting an amendment specifically tasked to do so.

B. All Civfanatics Forum users who register in the Citizen Registry are 
   citizens of (Civ Name). Citizens have the right to assemble, the right to 
   free movement, the right to free speech, the right to a fair trial, the right to 
   representation, the right to demand satisfaction and the right to vote.

   1. Political parties are not permitted.

C. The government will consist of the Executive Branch, Legislative Branch 
   and Judicial Branch.

   1. The Executive Branch is headed by the President, the overall 
      Leader of the land, and shall include a Council of Leaders, each of 
      whom heads a department that is responsible for one major facet of 
      the country. Each of these Leaders will be generally responsible for 
      the items found under the respective Advisor in the Civilization III 
      game and esoteric aspects that fall under their department name.

         a. The President shall be the designated player of the game. 
            The President is responsible for following the legal 
            instructions of all Leaders during play of the game.

   2. The Legislative Branch will be formed of two houses, the Senate 
      and the Congress.

      a. The Senate will be formed of the Provincial Governors, each 
         of whom are a Leader responsible for the care, management 
        and use of the cities and lands of a province.

      b. The Congress will be formed of the entirety of the citizenry. 
         Congress shall have the primary duty of creating laws.

   3. The Judicial Branch will be formed of three Leaders and is tasked 
      with verifying legality of legislation, interpreting rules, and 
      determining when violations occur. Each also has a specific 
      area of additional responsibility.

      a. The Chief Justice is the overall head of the Judiciary and can 
         fill in for either lower position. The Chief Justice is 
         responsible for maintaining the legal books of the country 
         and the mechanics of Judicial Procedure.

      b. The Judge Advocate functions in a role of prosecution and 
         attorney to the state when allegations of rulebreaking have 
         been made.

      c. The Public Defendant functions in the roll of defense for any 
         and all accused citizens.

D. All offices will be filled via elections to serve fixed terms.

E. No person shall hold multiple Leader positions simultaneously.

F. The average of the number of votes cast in each of the most recent 
   contested elections shall constitute an active census of citizens. The 
   highest vote total of these elections shall constitute a full census (the 
   Congress). A majority of the Congress shall be required to amend the 
   Constitution. A 2/3 majority of the Senate shall be required to ratify said 
   amendment.

G. Elected officials must plan and act according to the will of the people.

H. Any game actions taken by the DP must be documented in a game play 
   log (examples: Notes or chat log). The game play log must be made 
   publicly available in a timely manner.

   1. Commission of any game action that is not instantly reversible by 
      any person other than the President while carrying out his/her 
      duties is strictly forbidden.

      a. Exception: Determining options in the renegotiation of Peace
	 agreements requires an action of acceptance or war to exit the
	 bargain screen. This may be done but the game must be immediately
	 closed without saving.

I. The constitution, laws and standards of (Civ Name) can never be contrary 
   to the rules and regulations of the Civfanatics forums. Moderators may 
   veto/correct any such items.

 

[Gingerbread Man]

I will vote yes.

However, there needs to be an article on changing the rules. I believe that the senate should vote a leader from among themselves, and that leader has the ability and the obligation to start a poll to put to vote a suggested rule ammendment if the senate votes in majority to put the suggested change to the people to decide on.

So the process of changing a rule would be:
A) a citizen puts forward a suggested rule change to a member of senate. The citizen could be anyone, including a senate member.

B) the senate votes on whether the change is a good idea, During this time changes to the rule can be made.

C)The rule is then put to vote before the citizens. they can vote YES or NO, or possibly vote that the idea needs more work. If the answer is yes, the law is put into practice. No, and the concept is abandoned.

D)The new rule is passed by a moderator, to see that it is not breaking any CFC forum rules, and that it is not completely absurd and undemocratic (e.g. the President is now king, and will rule until the end of term, when he will appoint a successor)

 

[Shaitan]

@GM - A good suggestion but adds a bit more beaurocracy than I'd like. That would be part of the lesser rules, not the Constitution. You should post it in the rules discussion.

 

[Fier Canadien]

@Shaitan: When the constitution is adopted, will the 3rd game finaly begin? If not, in how much time do you think it may be beginning? First elections for May? Later?

 

[Shaitan]

The rules are the last thing we need to start the new game. If this poll is successful we will open the new demogame forums and begin our first elections.

 

[Eklektikos]

Originally posted by Shaitan
The rules are the last thing we need to start the new game. If this poll is successful we will open the new demogame forums and begin our first elections.

Do I smell bribery and corruption in the air already?

 

[Stuck_as_a_Mac]

Yes, yes. Vote on it or be forever forced to deal with the DG2 forum

 

[Fier Canadien]

Another question: Why aren't political parties legal? I may just have missed the discussion when it happened but i'd like to know the motivations behind this prohibition of political force.

 

[Noldodan]

Originally posted by Fier Canadien
Another question: Why aren't political parties legal? I may just have missed the discussion when it happened but i'd like to know the motivations behind this prohibition of political force.

I missed it too, but judging from the resulting horror stories, I think that they just made things messy and cutthroat.

 

[Fier Canadien]

This is threadjacking!
@Noldo: Would be fun to have "Babylon" as our random civ! Imagine that: Hordes of Elite Elvish Bowmen!

 

[Noldodan]

Originally posted by Fier Canadien
This is threadjacking!
@Noldo: Would be fun to have "Babylon" as our random civ! Imagine that: Hordes of Elite Elvish Bowmen!

*Drools* But, if we DO get Babylon, we're not going to be building Bowmen anyway...

 

[Bootstoots]

Vote=Yes

I like Gingerbread Man's proposal to allow the senate to propose and approve rules

 

[eyrei]

Once again, I think we are forgetting that there will only be one member of this senate for several terms. That one person will have veto power over constitutional amendments during a time when we will likely be looking for ways to improve this document.

 

[disorganizer]

i will have to vote no... reason:

i see a problem as the constitution as it now is imho only allows the president and nobody else to play the game. no coc, no giving the right to someone else by edict.

the article i refer to is c-1-a. as it is a constitutional article, this wont be changed by a law. so it should be changed now.

i posted this and a proposal to not only ban political parties but also groups acting alike in the discussion thread.

im sorry i read the proposal so late... otherwise i would have posted before the poll went up.


EDIT:
to the proposals for adding law-ammendments and such to the cons: i would say no, as the first laws should define how they can be ammended. same with standards.
i think maybe the "logging actions of the DP" part of this CONS is too strict and more something for the laws instead of the CONS, but i could live with that (note that this was not done for DG2 and DG1... the chatlog will propably NOT be enough for this article!)

 

[Cyc]

I voted NO also.

Although I'm sure there will be ample opportunity to make the needed changes that will allow for a proper government, I believe we should have more discussion on the final document. The Constitution is, let's face it...THE CONSTITUTION! I believe we should finalize the basic structure of the document (especially if we will present it without any COL or COS to substaniate it) before we dive into the game officially. I also believe we should only start the game with a finalized Constitution. Therfore a little more discussion is needed. Just my opinion.

I also believe that it would be to our benefit to open up the DG3 forums now, so that we can start other discussions there, get elections started, set up the RPG, whatever. We're almost done with the Consitution, so hammering out the final draft won't be a major drag on the other work needed to start the game.

 

[Octavian X]

I'm voting down this proposal, too.

First off, hardly more than 6 people actually commented in the discussion thread. Heck, the actual proposal was buried inside a thread created for a different purpose. We need to wait for more input!

Second, this proposal will hardly create a government for us to use. In the beginning of DG3, I'm positive that we will start functioning under procedure that had be laid out in the CoL and CoS. We should at least stick some more guts into this document to give future newbies an idea of how we run things. If we start out with this uncomplete skeleton, we're going to scare away as many people as we did with our old monsters because we're all gonna be operating under a system that's been invariably imprinted into our skulls, and they won't have a clue of were to turn to to figure out what the heck we're doing.

 

[Shaitan]

Octavian, the discussion thread was specifically about the demogame rules for DG3. It has been active for 9 days. Lack of participation in the discussion is due to people not participating, not because they lacked the opportunity to do so.

Previous polling showed a majority want to go into DG3 with the Constitution only. That is why we have concentrated on crafting just the Constitution. Other rule discussions are in progress for lesser laws and those will be carried over to the DG3 forums but our only consideration here is a properly crafted Constitution.

 

[Paalikles]

@Shaitan: Perhaps the lack of activity in the discussion is due to the fact that DG3 will be starting too soon in ppl's opinion. <-- It is a possibility...
I know some who were more or less burned out (for reasons already mentioned....), and must admit to being on the edge of burning out myself -> for reasons I will not mention at the moment,and perhaps not at all (due to lack of documentation....). I think a poll should be in order here - start now, or later (if there already was one - which would be a surprise to me - then this post is outdated)

@Constitution:
My vote is no, supporting arguments made by Disorganizer and Cyc - the first being a good point, the second being base for my above statement in this post.

 

[Shaitan]

Actually we're taking a slow start this time. The time between DG1 and DG2 was negligible. This break will be a good portion of a month.

 

[Bootstoots]

Will we hold elections at the end of the month this time, or are we going to wait until we have a working CoL and CoS?