A discussion on the ruleset and a call to action

[ravensfire]

The past two terms have seen the ruleset taking a beating. Lots of angst, little praise. Some of that is justified – a lot of it isn’t.

Cyc and I are the major architects of the ruleset, along with significant help from zorven, Daveshack, DZ and others. I apologize if I missed you – those are just the names that really stick out. We started off with a concepts discussion that didn’t lead anywhere until we asked what DG’s ruleset we should start with. Overwhelmingly, it was the ruleset from DG2.

We changed things, and a lot of things. Most dramatically, we consciously limited the powers of those at the chat and altered the structure of the elected offices. Some of the other major changes were in the judicial actions (JR and CC), placing control of the slider and budget with the Senate. We defined, for the first time, what is a legal instruction. We dealt with vacant offices, and absenteeism.

We also created the largest set of rules out of the four DG’s. Admittedly, I’ve seen some rulesets from other sites that make this one look small, but it’s pretty big.

It’s also mostly straightforward. One – play nice. Two – do your job, and that’s it. Three – you are responsible for your job. Four – play nice.

One of the core concepts that both Cyc and I had during this is that of personal responsibility. We expected, and still expect, our leaders to fulfill the duties of the offices they hold. Part of that is that citizens need to hold their leaders responsible. Not once have I seen anyone push a leader. Look at Section A.6.b of the Code of Laws – citizens can force polls on various issues. You can also file a CC. Let me give you a great example on what this can do. We had a leader in Term 1 that didn’t post instructions on time, in fact, twice in a row. A CC was filed, and both sides agreed to the simple remedy of “I won’t do it again.” And that leader has lived up to that. Problem solved quickly.

Cyc and I both expected some growing pains, and saw them in Term 1 where instructions without leeway caused problems. Term 2 saw leaders creating better instructions, but still there are problems. I expect Term 3 to see fewer issues. Even within the ruleset, there are problems. Peri has created a Ruleset Bugs thread in the main forum – things are slowly getting fixed.

There have also been various rulings and situations that have stirred the emotions of people, causing much grief and distress; Sturm und Drang if this was a musical piece. Wonderful – although I’m part of the source for that – it’s nice to see people taking things personally. Some of the decisions I wish I could have done otherwise, but my decisions are driven by my analysis and my interpretation, not by my preferences. Yet what hurt is not the posts, but the absolute lack of willingness for people to get off their backside and make a change. THAT’S infuriating. Too often people feel that a harshly-written post will make their point and solve the problem they see. Half-right – words may make you feel better, they don’t do jack for the game or the ruleset.

Folks – I’ve seen people whining and complaining about this or that for almost the entire game. We’ve now got a CC filed due in part to that. The ruleset is pretty well defined, because that is what YOU, the citizens as a whole, wanted. This is DG4. It’s not DG1, DG2 or DG3 – so WHY do you keep thinking and acting like it is? YOU are responsible for the rules. The vast majority of the time, you don’t even need to think about it. If you do, just read the blasted thing and try not to make assumptions. If you don’t like a law, you have every right to try and change it. But whining and complaining about it won’t get anything done. I’m certainly not going to work on a change that I don’t like – but why are you, who support a change, NOT working on it?

So use this thread to whine and complain about the ruleset – it keeps it out of the Judiciary thread. But I’m not going to fix your problem for you. That’s your job. I might help with some wording if you ask me too, as with others, but I’ve got quite enough to do already. Use that lovely little button labeled “New Thread” and make the change – take action. But for the love of God, don’t just vent and expect that things will happen.

-- Ravensfire

 

[ravensfire]

And yes, I do feel a little better getting that off my chest.

-- Ravensfire

 

[Chieftess]

I think one of the problems is getting our voice visciously shot down by the other side. It's as close to political party intimidation tactics as you can get. I really do believe that, while there are no political parties in the demogame, there's "underground" parties in the sense of those who want things their way (seemingly atleast - mainly those in the judiciary who are experts in legalese), and those who just want the old ways back. If the demogame had some Nationalism feature, I'm pretty sure there'd be civil wars all over the place. Some people on both sides do take a little TOO much pride in what they believe in.

Also, if you take a look at who was in the demogame when the rules were started, about 1/2 (and I counted) haven't even been in the demogame since.

Here's some of my gripes -

Chain of Command - Traditionally, it was the leaders, deputies, chatreps, then citizens. This was used to determine who played the save if the president and others weren't at the chat. When did this change? This was a complete surprise to me...

Chat Stoppages - It seems that there's now SO many things that can stop a chat, legal-wise.

1 - No leaders at the turnchat.
2 - An instruction which, if followed, would have a negative effect. There's nothing apparently stopping the same official from copying and pasting the whole thing. An example is having the science slider at 100% because no one voted on the thing, and we run a deficit leaving us with -20gpt, and 10g on turn 0. Another is trying to build a worker in a size one town that won't grow fast enough. Other things can easily be inserted while still maintaining the build queue.
3 - Trade deals that change mid-chat because of some other diplomatic or domestic change. (i.e., the value of a resource or tech being depriciated). The trade advisor can't even change this.

The above 2 points are why we had spot votes in the first place (as long as it's still within the will of the people), AND also why officials could change their instructions mid chat. Why is that good? Take a look at trade (*EVEN* if you have to make trade the exception). Trade deals are funny little things. They change when you trade to a civ. Why? Devaluation of resources and techs. If something small comes up, like buying a worker for 20g, and domestic accepts that budget, then that's fine at turn 5. Granted, something like trading medicine would be a forum issue. There's also trade deals that are going to end mid-chat, too, like luxuries. Sometimes a civ might not want the same luxury. Maybe the citizens wanted some military plan that involved infantry, and our trade for infantry stopped. We'd need to find a new trade. If it were something as small as rubber for an extra wine, I think that's fine. Since the people WANT the rubber.

Here's my other gripes.

- Judging from the CC, it seems deputies have no power at all. So, why elect them?

- I see very little citizen discussion from leaders on issues such as techs, settler placement, build queues. Even if there is a discussion, it seems to sway like the wind. (not even a comprehensive settlement plan! We had one in place, then the people changed their minds at a whim). I really think people are voting just the why the leader tells them to sometimes.

- Any attempt at adjusting or changing laws seems to be meet with attacks by an elite few, and perhaps preventing others from participating.

Why don't we do this? CC everyone that hasn't even posted a discussion in their respected area. I can think of quite a few right now.

governors - I see no build queue discussion threads.
Internal Affairs - There've been 2 settler plans, but no real plan for development, since votes for city sites just change like the wind.

The entire senate and VP - NO ONE EVEN VOTES ON THE SLIDERS!!!!!! The last vote was 0-0. Does anyone not CARE about micromanaging something as that? That's why domestic used to be in charge of it.

Judiciary - There's still that Rik CC that hasn't even been processed. They're moving so slowly, it's ridiculous!

T&T - I'm not seeing full "What should the build queue be like" discussions like in the past. Why, I don't even know what the next enqueued techs should be!