A Flexible Government?

[Black_Hole]

The funny things is, right now, the designated way to create new offices in Flex is via CoL ammendment. But of course you can create and remove any office via CoL ammendment in the Tri just as well. So, I don't see any difference here.

What are you talking about?

C.8:

# All Officers of the Executive Branch may create lower offices to which they may delegate portions of their authority.

1. Executive Officers may appoint or remove Citizens as they please for the offices that are under their jurisdiction, expect in cases where the Citizen's Assembly has chosen to fill the office.
2. The duties of these lower offices must be publicly defined, and the office may be closed at any time by the Executive Officer to which it is responsible, except in cases where the Citizen's Assembly may chose to create or close a lower office.
3. These lower offices may be created, filled and closed via an Initiative of the Citizen’s Assembly.
4. All persons appointed to fill these lower offices may be Recalled by the Citizen’s Assembly. Lower Offices created by the Assembly may not be closed by the Executive Officer to which the lower office is responsible, while the Assembly may close lower offices created by an Executive Officer.
5. Irregardless of their origins, all lower offices shall close at the end of term during which they were created.

Do you actually read this? Nowhere says you need a CoL amendment, I am not sure where you are getting this idea.

 

[Swissempire]

The triumvirate allows for very little flexibility. If we don't need an office in the triumvirate it is there anyway, that isn't flexibility! If we don't need an office in the flexible government, we don't create it! The flexible government allows us to create offices, in the triumvirate, they are already created.

Thats not flexibility, thats just the elimination of jobs. As Blkbird pinted out, the same process that allow the flexible to "create offices" is in the tri for creating and disbanding offices. Also, which office in the tri is unneeded. None, and that swhy they are already created. instead of going through multiple beurocratic hassles every months, the Tri has already established all nessary offices and if needed and easily establish sub-offices. I think a government re-naming is in order. Also, if you already got the flexible theory put into the code of laws, then why do this? The people already got what they wanted, in fact more than the majority did!!!

 

[Blkbird]

What are you talking about?

Do you actually read this? Nowhere says you need a CoL amendment, I am not sure where you are getting this idea.

Did *you* actually read this? And did you actually read all the comments I've made (there are a lot of them) about this?

If you had read what you wanted me to read, you would have realized that those suboffices are temporar until the end of the turn only.

And if you had read what ravensfire wrote in answering me question how new offices could be established permanently, you would have known at least he thinks a CoL amendment is what to do then.

So, let me ask you, how much of this thread have you read and how much not?

 

[Black_Hole]

Did *you* actually read this? And did you actually read all the comments I've made (there are a lot of them) about this?

If you had read what you wanted me to read, you would have realized that those suboffices are temporar until the end of the turn only.

And if you had read what ravensfire wrote in answering me question how new offices could be established permanently, you would have known at least he thinks a CoL amendment is what to do then.

So, let me ask you, how much of this thread have you read and how much not?

I did read it and I knew you said that earlier, but you said: "The funny things is, right now, the designated way to create new offices in Flex is via CoL ammendment.", you never said permanently create...
There is a difference between creating and permanently creating

 

[ravensfire]

Blkbird,

Did YOU read what I said? No, you didn't, because you claim I said use a CoL Amendment.

Go back and read it again. It's also not for creating permanent offices, just temp offices that will last more than one term. Note further that my suggested approach would give the specific office holder a great deal of flexibility in exactly how the office is created, allowing additional duties or combinations of required offices.

I think what you're doing is confusing the Tri and the Flex. In the Tri, it specifically says that any new offices or change to be permanent must be through an amendment.

-- Ravensfire

 

[ravensfire]

The people already got what they wanted, in fact more than the majority did!!!

No, they didn't. The majority, twice, wanted the Flexible ruleset. If it wasn't for the outright fraud in those polls, among others, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

We'd already have the ruleset that the people wanted.

-- Ravensfire

 

[Blkbird]

I did read it and I knew you said that earlier, but you said: "The funny things is, right now, the designated way to create new offices in Flex is via CoL ammendment.", you never said permanently create...
There is a difference between creating and permanently creating

Correct, but I do not consider suboffices offices. When I say "offices", I mean full offices, not suboffices.

 

[Blkbird]

Blkbird,

Did YOU read what I said? No, you didn't, because you claim I said use a CoL Amendment.

Your exact words were: "Run an amendment to create the position." I interpreted "position" as "position of the office in question".

Go back and read it again. It's also not for creating permanent offices, just temp offices that will last more than one term. Note further that my suggested approach would give the specific office holder a great deal of flexibility in exactly how the office is created, allowing additional duties or combinations of required offices.

"Temp offices that will last more than one term"? What are those? How are they different from permanent offices?

This is very bad. The more I hear from you guys - the "core group" who originally created the Flex - the less I understand, and the more my confusion grows. This is definitely a bad sign. I can garantee you that there will be a lot of citizens sharing some of my confusions. I'm not even sure you guys correctly understand each other.

 

[Blkbird]

No, they didn't. The majority, twice, wanted the Flexible ruleset. If it wasn't for the outright fraud in those polls, among others, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Can we please stop with this "if", "would", etc. discussion regarding the history of our CoL? I'm really sick of it. There is no "if" in politics, and there shouldn't be. Specificly, what people once wanted doesn't have any direct relation to what the people want now.

 

[DaveShack]

The biggest problem I have with this proposal at present is that there are too few elected offices. The few, very powerful officials built into the base rules have the option to create suboffices and appoint people to handle those duties, but nothing says they actually will do that. The people can create an office via initiative, but then how is it filled? If a created office is semi-permanent, does it get filled by election the next term, or by appointment?

It's way too early in the lifetime of the Civ4 DGs to start trimming back on the number of elections. The first cycle we had every election contested, and some with 4 candidates. Do we want every election to be 4-way or more?

 

[Ginger_Ale]

Less offices isn't more Flexiblity, its just less positions for the new players trying to wet there noses a little! Boasting less offices doen't make you MORE flexible. The phrase LESS is MORE definitly doen't apply here. THough i'm not a total donkey. If you can convince me it is with real arguments and facts, i'll change my position! BUt i remain a loyalist, ya darn Flexie(j/k on the last bit)

Using your logic, why don't we create tons and tons of offices so that every new player and veteran alike can have an office? With more offices, you run the risk at the end of the game that they won't be filled. Even in Civ3 DG7, there were office shortages by Term 4 and 5.

 

[ravensfire]

Octavian,

Excluding C.8, I'm going to review the entire proposal, and try to nit-pick as much as I can.

As for C.8 - you've got a fair amount of feedback and varied viewpoints on it. I trust ya.

It should be up before my DGVII game session.

-- Ravensfire

 

[ravensfire]

Octavian,

General
Provinces - You mention them several times, but not who creates them.

Section A - Looks good.

Section B - Looks good. A bit stilted, language-wise, but works.

Section C - Add a "catch-all" to the President (C.2) "... and all other duties not assigned to another Executive Officer." This means if we find something that wasn't given to an officer, we don't have to panic about it - the Prez has it.

Section D - I like the change to Runoffs.

Section E - I would clarify that the DP poll is private.

Section F - Looks good.

Section G - Looks good.

Section H - Opinion polls aren't included as a poll type (H.1)? Looks good otherwise.

Section I - Looks good.

Section J -
J.1 - reversible actions can be prepared "earlier", not "off-line" - meaning is more obvious.
J.7 - I think we need to add in the customary additional saves - 0 turn (after all actions, but prior to pressing Next Turn), every 5 turns, ending save. We've got many new players, so we can't rely on custom. Alternatively, we require only the end save. Custom just won't cut it.

Section K - Maybe add "Officers will answer all reasonable requests for information in an area they control."

General - you call the elected citizens "Executive Officers", but continue to use Official(s) in the remaining ruleset. I'd just change it to Officer(s) throughout.

Looking quite solid, Octavian - nice work on this. Please note that I did not run it against the Constitution - that will take a bit more time than I have right now. I'll try to do that over the weekend.

-- Ravensfire

 

[Black_Hole]

The biggest problem I have with this proposal at present is that there are too few elected offices. The few, very powerful officials built into the base rules have the option to create suboffices and appoint people to handle those duties, but nothing says they actually will do that. The people can create an office via initiative, but then how is it filled? If a created office is semi-permanent, does it get filled by election the next term, or by appointment?

It's way too early in the lifetime of the Civ4 DGs to start trimming back on the number of elections. The first cycle we had every election contested, and some with 4 candidates. Do we want every election to be 4-way or more?

This makes elected positions much more valuable, which I prefer. Anybody who wants an office shouldn't get one.

 

[Octavian X]

The creation of lower offices (the suboffices, etc...), at least the way I've envisioned it, doesn't necessairily mean fewer elections. It should be legal for the Assembly to fill the lower office via an Initiative set-up as an election. An Official could also run an informal election to decide who he'll appoint for a certain office he's created - a move, I expect, that would be popular.

Thanks for the comments (and a special thanks to ravensfire and Blkbird) for their comments. I hope to have a new draft by tomorrow.

 

[Octavian X]

I'd like to annouce that my work on the Flexible Government project is currently on hold. I'm awaiting the judiciary's ruling on the official definitions of Initiative and Referendum, as these are concepts that I want to work into the next draft of the project.

 

[DaveShack]

I'd like to annouce that my work on the Flexible Government project is currently on hold. I'm awaiting the judiciary's ruling on the official definitions of Initiative and Referendum, as these are concepts that I want to work into the next draft of the project.

If you're waiting on something, I suggest a bump.

 

[ravensfire]

Octavian,

Speaking purely for myself, I would strongly prefer that you find the answers you are looking for in this thread. The Judiciary has ruled that the CoL can provide the details on decision making. I started this thread so that we could see if there is a concensus on what should be, and I think there generally is.

As you craft your version of the CoL, use the information here to fill in the details on polling.

-- Ravensfire

 

[BCLG100]

out of interest, what happened with the whole idea of a flexy government?

 

[donsig]

out of interest, what happened with the whole idea of a flexy government?

The people voted in favor of an alternative (Triumvirate) government.