Constitution Draft: Discussion

[DaveShack]

This is the constitution draft in a single post format, for discussion.

If you're active in the discussions so far, some of this will match what you want to see and some may not match. There are a couple of TBDs, for which some suggestions have been received and others, fewer suggestions.

• Forms of Law
  1. Governing rules shall consist of this Constitution, such amendments that shall follow and lower forms of law that may be implemented.
  2. No rule shall be valid that contradicts the Constitution.
     • Rules which are more specific on a given point may clarify more general points without being contradictory.
  3. These rules may not contradict the rules and regulations of the Civfanatics Forums. Moderators may veto any such rules.
• Citizens
  1. A citizen is any member of the civFanatics forums that participates in the Democracy Game in any way. Citizens are encouraged, but not required,
     to post in the Citizen Registry.
  2. All citizens share the same fundamental rights, including but not limited to:
     
     • The Right to Assemble
     • The Right to Vote
     • The Right to be Eligible to hold Public Office
     • The Right to Free Speech
     • The Right to Free Movement
     • The Right to a Fair and Speedy Trial
     • The Right to Presumption of Innocense unless proven guilty
     • The Right of Representation
  3. These rights may be limited by CivFanatics Center Forum Rules, which take precedence at all times.
• Decision Making
  1. TBD
• Elections
  1. Terms of service of all elected and appointed offices shall be determined in advance of the beginning of such term, as further defined by law.
  2. All Election and other polls in which specific individuals are chosen by name shall be private polls, and not public polls.
  3. The candidate with the highest vote total is the winner of an election poll, regardless of whether such vote total is a majority of votes cast or
     not.
     • Should two or more candidates tie for the most votes, as many runoff elections shall be held as needed to resolve the election, as further defined
       by law.
• Playing the Save
  1. No person may play the save other than a Designated Player specifically tasked to do so, or an official who is required to attempt certain actions
     
     to get information about what is possible in the game.
  2. Obtaining information about the game outside normal game play is prohibited.
  3. Inadvertent discovery of information shall not result in any penalty, provided no attempt is made to further disseminate the information or use it
     to advantage within the game.
  4. Use of any exploits is prohibited. No person may manipulate the game in any way other than by normal play mechanisms, unless expressly permitted
     by law.
  5. Lower forms of law are free to (and expected to) further define what actions are allowed and disallowed by this rule.
• Judiciary
  1. TBD
• Ratification and Amendments
  1. The Constitution shall be initially ratified by a majority (more yes votes than no votes) of votes cast in a public poll which shall be open for
     no fewer than 4 days.
  2. The Constitution may be amended by a 60% majority of votes cast in a public poll which shall be open for no fewer than 4 days.
     • A lower form of law may specify a procedure which must be followed to amend the Constitution.

 

[DaveShack]

What, no discussion?

 

[Alphawolf]

So the offices are not put in Constitution? And you never answered my PM.

-the Wolf

 

[Gloriana]

So far it looks good, no wonder there's no discussion going on!

 

[Cyc]

Remind you of anything, DS?

 

[DaveShack]

Remind you of anything, DS?

I'm having a horrible thought that maybe some folks don't like it but are waiting to blindside me when it comes to a vote...

Maybe all will be well, one can always hope!

 

[DaveShack]

So the offices are not put in Constitution? And you never answered my PM.

-the Wolf

The objective is to keep the offices separate from the basic rules. This would accomplish two major goals -- eliminate the need to change the basic rules every time we start a new game, and make it easy to recover from problems setting up the offices. This will be especially important this game because we don't yet know for sure which decisions are critical and which ones are trivial. It's hard to assign decisions to offices until some more people have experienced actual game play.

Check your inbox.

 

[Nobody]

i would prefer that citizens need to sign up in a registery If my calculations are correction, one of the crazy chat room operators because they are so boring the search over the old chat, cheiftess or padme will follow the link to this very page, if they do this they will find all traces of my rampent rule breaking destroyed. AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA

 

[Alphawolf]

i would prefer that citizens need to sign up in a registery

I think it's only fair, this being a democracy and all, to have a vote on it. I'll go set up one now.

-the Wolf

 

[DaveShack]

Power of the People has been added to the draft.

1. Power of the People
   1. All decision making power within the Democracy Game is derived from the collective rights of the citizens.
   2. The Power of the People can be delegated to officials of the game in one or more of the following ways, or in other ways which may subsequently be discovered.
      • By Mandate as evidenced in a citizen's selection to hold office via the elective process.
      • By Constituency as evidenced by citizen comments in favor of a decision, in a public discussion.
      • By Opinion Poll in the form of the results of a non-binding poll
      • By Referendum in the form of an official, binding poll which has force over the current decision only.
      • By Initiative in the form of a binding poll initiated by the citizenry, which has force over a current decision and future decisions of the same type
      • By Recall of an official and selection of a replacement via election or appointment
   3. In the event that two or more such delegations of the Power of the People are in conflict, the following hierarchy shall determine which decision has precedence.
      • An initiative has force of law and supercedes any other decision type (including an earlier initiative on the same subject) except another later initiative which repeals it.
      • Binding polls of any type have precedence over any other decision type.
      • Non-binding polls have precedence over non-polling decision types.
      • Citizen input has precedence over mandate.
      • If two or more polls or discussions occur on a matter, the last one to complete shall prevail.
      • Lower forms of law may modify parts of this hierarchy, except for the provision regarding initiative which may not be modified.
   4. A lower form of law may specify procedures and restrictions on implementing decision types, except
      • Initiative must always be allowed
      • No decision shall require more support than an amendment to the Constitution.

Once we fill in the Judiciary section and I paste in the preamble suggestion which I received via PM, the constitution will be ready for final discussion and ratification.

 

[Alphawolf]

I think term limits should be in the Constitution such as: any person my server an unlimited number of terms in any office, but my not serve two turns back to back in the same office. Incumbents always have an advantage and I would like to see that curtailed.

-the Wolf

 

[greekguy]

I think term limits should be in the Constitution such as: any person my server an unlimited number of terms in any office, but my not serve two turns back to back in the same office. Incumbents always have an advantage and I would like to see that curtailed.

-the Wolf

Totally disagree. Some people like one office over another or have certain civ skills that pertain to a particular office. For instance, if citizen A is very good at waging war at Civ 4 and wins his election for Defense Advisor in Term 1, and then does a splendid job at defeating an AI enemy, and then decides to run for re-election in Term 2, then why should we force Citizen A not to run for Defense Advisor in Term 2? Incumbents don't always have an advantage and taking away a persons right to choose what election to run in is not fair.

 

[Black_Hole]

I think term limits should be in the Constitution such as: any person my server an unlimited number of terms in any office, but my not serve two turns back to back in the same office. Incumbents always have an advantage and I would like to see that curtailed.

-the Wolf

no way...
Greekguy sums it up for me

 

[ravensfire]

Totally disagree. Some people like one office over another or have certain civ skills that pertain to a particular office. For instance, if citizen A is very good at waging war at Civ 4 and wins his election for Defense Advisor in Term 1, and then does a splendid job at defeating an AI enemy, and then decides to run for re-election in Term 2, then why should we force Citizen A not to run for Defense Advisor in Term 2? Incumbents don't always have an advantage and taking away a persons right to choose what election to run in is not fair.

There's more to the question though. Take, for example, an executive office. There's only one, and none of the other offices have a great deal of overlap. Basically, there isn't another office offering similar duties.

Citizen A has been in the office for several terms, and has done an excellent job - nobody denies that (not even Nobody!). They've also got some fairly strong core support amongst a group of people. Now take Citizen B, not new, but hasn't run for office before, and believes they are best suited for that same office.

There is virtually ZERO chance of Citizen B defeating Citizen A, even if B is as capable, or more so, that A. The incumbent, particularly one that has done well, has a strong advantage over another citizen. To defeat a competent incumbent takes a skilled campaign from a person with a strong track-record (see DG VI, Term 3 Presidential election). More than a few times I have seen a new candidate who actively campaigns and presents solid plans and goals lose to a multi-term incumbent that did nothing in the debate.

That's not helpful to the DG. We should ALWAYS be looking for ways to encourge all citizens to do more; for people to run for a new office; to try out new things.

A valid restriction would be to prevent any given citizen from running for election in an office more than 2 consecutive terms.

There are two important caveats in that phrase. The first is "2 consecutive terms", so run twice, take one off, run again. It allows for a great citizen to serve often, but not all the time. An opportunity is found for others to display their skills. The second is "running for election". If nobody runs for that office, nothing prevents the same citizen from being appointed to the vacancy. In the event of low participation, we're not hurting ourselves. We are still, however, giving an opportunity for others to show what they can do.

-- Ravensfire

 

[DaveShack]

Many of us feel so strongly that we need to constantly revitalize participation that we follow self-imposed term limits. Ravensfire is an excellent example of someone who sets a limit and sticks to it, almost to a fault at times. I try to do it, at least in the form of rotating through the offices.

We also tend to nurture and develop new (and old) players who show an interest in being leaders. I myself am an example of someone who received such encouragement, and passed it on to others. I've got my eye on several promising candidates right now.

RL events also conspire to "adjust" our participation levels, often not when we want them to. In any given month, we can count on at least one citizen appearing to drop off the earth completely. Sometimes it's one of our elected leaders and we have to adjust.

Where I'm going with all this is that we have had a lot of turnover in the past. Sure, when one of the high profile veterans decides to run for an office the little guy tends to get trampled (or get out of the way) but just about every term there are lots of opportunities for someone new.

One more thing, if we did decide to have term limits, they should be in the CoL instead of the Constitution. This is the type of experiment that should be easy to repeal and shouldn't carry automatically forward to the next game, just in case it causes problems.

 

[Black_Hole]

I would be willing to put a 2 term limit on some offices, but not a single term limit... If thats the case you can't finish what you started...

edit: Why not allow someone to break the term limit if no one else will run for that office?

 

[donsig]

This is the constitution draft in a single post format, for discussion...


[*]Decision Making

1. TBD

Looks good overall. I do have a few comments about some of the specific sections.

E2 needs rewording. It sounds like a citizen can't even look at the save to find out what's going on! The gist of this rule (I think) is to prohibit things like a citizen going back to an earlier save and playing *what if* by doing something different. All well and good. I just think the proposed wording
needs tweaking. Sorry I don't have time to make a suggestion as to how to change it.

E4. Exploits?! Have we already found exploits for Civ IV? This is a tricky thing to include in the constitution. Personally I would not include it unless I could list the forbidden exploits. Perhaps this clause should be reworded to the effect that exploits deemed by future rules to be exploits are prohibited.

G1 and G2. I think it should take more than a majority to ratify the constitution and certainly should take more than a majority of those voting in a poll to amend it! It is also, IMHO, not a good idea at all to allow a lower rule to adress how the constitution should be changed. The process for amending the constitution should be spelled out in the constitution and once it it set that amending process has to be followed in order to change the amending process. By allowing a simple majority of those who voted in a 4 day poll or some lower rule (that could concievably be even easier to pass) to change the constitution would be like allowing the president of the US to pack the Supreme Court. Not a good idea at all.

Refering to the later post about the power of the people, I think it's a good idea in general. (Also, POP is a much better acronym than WOTP! ) The only problem I see is that section refers to binding polls. Just what distinguished a binding poll from a non-binding poll? We had debate back in the Civ III demogames and we found it a very sticky situation. Does one merely state in the poll that it's binding or non-binding? Use who posted the poll (elected official versus just plain citizen) as the criterion? Come up with a standard definition of a binding poll? The last option is the best we could come up with.

The idea of making a hierarchy for resolving conflicts is great but remember there can be conflicts within each item and not just betwen different items. For instance you can have two polls (make them both binding polls if you like) that conflict. It would be nice to have the resolution procedure to such a conflict spelled out as well.

The main point I'm trying to make here is that, like with the exploits in E4, if you're going to put a term like *binding poll* into the constitution then it should be defined in the constitution.

As I said, overall it's a good draft. Sorry I can't be more specific as to how to improve it. Just thought it would be helpful to point out the pitfalls I do see.

 

[Slim_Chance]

I rather like the one term idea; I also agree that it should be in the Code of Laws not the Constitution. I think that there should be a clause that if no one runs for an office the incumbent continues for the next term. And for you example greekguy, yes the incumbent did an excellent job of beating up Gandhi (for example ), how to we know the new one couldn't have done a better job. We change civics to experiment with them why not change leaders, if you don't like them you only have to live with them one term. For the argument that it is best to stay with a known quantity: why don't we just elect an Imperator to make ALL of the decisions? This is a Game of Democracy, Democracy by itself is an experiment on what the People will do and what choices they make. At least this is my opinion.

 

[Ginger_Ale]

Regarding the term limit, YES we should be looking for ways to get new citizens active, but this shouldn't come at a price to veterans.

I think it would be more of a courtesy for someone to step down if a new citizen is looking to give it a try, rather than a rule - the incumbent won't 'always' win, as you say. Especially as someone has been a leader of the same department for 4 terms, I think the people will be willing to give someone a shot; the citizens will realize this and let someone else have the position.

So in short, it shouldn't be a written rule, but I can see it being a gesture and an unwritten rule - if someone new wants to run for an office, the citizens will realize this, and hopefully the incumbent too. I think we have the responsibility to let others try new positions and get them involved, but we shouldn't be forced to while shortchanging someone who truly enjoys the position.

 

[Alphawolf]

I'm interested to see what the general consensus is so I'll put up a poll.

-the Wolf