CoS Discussion: Section D/E - Turn Chat Rules

[ravensfire]

DG2 CoS Sections D and E:

D.  Chat Turn Procedures 
  1.  The Designated Player (see Chain of Command) should start the chat at least 
      10 minutes before the scheduled time and begin play at the specified start time. 
  2.  If the Designated Player is more than 10 minutes late a new player will be 
      chosen from the officials present following the Chain of Command. 
  3.  The Designated Player will upload a save of the game after turn 0, every 5 turns 
      after that and a final save at the conclusion of the chat. 
  4.  If the Designated Player leaves, they pass a current save   game and control to 
      the next person in the COC. 
  5.  If the Designated Player disappears and has not reappeared within 10 minutes, 
      the next person on the COC will become the Designated Player using the most 
      recently uploaded save game. 
  6.  If a game has to be used that is not current then the moves from the chat log 
      must be duplicated. 
  7.  Once a player has started playing, he/she is the designated player for that chat 
      turn and will not relinquish play to a late arriving/returning but higher ranked 
      official. 

E.  Chat Turn Rules 
  1.  Only citizens of the Democracy game will be voiced. 
  2.  Citizens are encouraged to provide constructive advice & positively contribute 
      to the chat. They can also take part in any Citizen Spot Poll. 
  3.  The Designated Player reserves the right to use Cabinet Votes instead of 
      Citizen Spot Polls. 
  4.  Spaming, lobbying, repetitive questions and any other unnecessary traffic in the 
      chat is forbidden. 
  5.  Clones are not allowed! 
  6.  Violations of the chat rules will result in the offender being de-voiced. 
  7.  The chat operators hold the right to de-voice all non-officials if the chat gets too 
      confusing or is disturbed by someone permanently. The Designated Player 
      makes this decision. 
  8.  De-voicing actions and the exclusion of Citizen Spot Polls will be investigated 
      by the Judge Advocate. 
  9.  During turn-chat, #Civfanatics is still open for totally free discussions. 
      Departments or special interest groups can also open private discussion rooms. 
  10. The Designated Player retains the right to end the chat turn at his/her discretion.

As these deal with the same subject, I combined them.

-- Ravensfire

 

[Cyc]

Transpose the words "chat" and "turn" in D.7.

In E.8 we should take out "and the exclusion of Citizen Spot Polls", and that should not be investigated. We should, however, put in a clause that states "A Designated Player may call for a Citizen Spot Vote or a Council Spot vote at any time, although the results of these polls are advisory at best and are not binding."

 

[Rik Meleet]

I am missing the concept of "the chat log" here.
It is a tricky one because not everyone (including me) is able to keep a log automatically.

 

[Cyc]

All actions taken in a Turn chat should be recorded in a chat log, RM. If you can't record a t/c log, you should make sure someone can and will before you start.

 

[Cyc]

Actually, D.7 should be changed to:

"Once a player has started playing, he/she is the designated player for that turn chat
and will not be required to relinquish play to a late arriving/returning but higher ranked
official. If a player does wish to relinquish control of the save to another player in the COC, the controling player will post a save in the Game Save post of the TCI. This is the save the new Player will take control of."

 

[ravensfire]

Although we explicity state it, I would like to add, under D.1., that the DP may start playing the save prior to the start time of the turn chat for the sole purpose of preperation activities that may be immediately undone without reloading the game, and that these actions may be done off-line.

I believe this is allowed under Article K, correct?

-- Ravensfire

 

[eyrei]

Unless the chat operators are elected, I oppose giving them even an inkling of power to devoice anyone.

 

[Cyc]

A repost of what I wrote in eyrei's request thread on this subject ~

So we'd have the owner of the room (who? disorganizer?), the Designated Player (automatically assigned Operator status - no need to be elected) and 2 back-up Ops (who would be elected?). Can we get an organizational chart going here to help us think this through?

 

[eyrei]

Originally posted by Cyc
A repost of what I wrote in eyrei's request thread on this subject ~

So we'd have the owner of the room (who? disorganizer?), the Designated Player (automatically assigned Operator status - no need to be elected) and 2 back-up Ops (who would be elected?). Can we get an organizational chart going here to help us think this through?

Since dis isn't around much, I would suggest replacing him with DZ and I. Other than that, I think 2 other elected ops would be fine. The DP should, of course, be an op.

 

[Cyc]

Works for me. If we can get a Moderator sanctioned election on this and if sucsessful, an order to move forward on this, our Chat Room will become current and accountable. Let's do it.

 

[Octavian X]

Though being a current operator makes me biased, I still don't believe that op elections are necessary. We've not had may trouble before with the current system, and I doubt we will in the future. Disorganizer has kept operators in line, often investigating devoicings himself. The last (and only) time I devoiced many in the chatroom, dis personally looking into the incident. Elections would be a needless hassle.

 

[Cyc]

Regaurdless of how we decide to go about handling the process of naming Chat Room Operators, we still need to make the changes in Sections D and E listed below.

D.4. If the Designated Player leaves, they pass a current save game and control to the next person in the COC. The controling player will post a save in the Game Save post of the TCI. This is the save the new Player will take control of.

D.7. Once a player has started playing, he/she is the designated player for that turn chat
and will not be required to relinquish play to a late arriving/returning but higher ranked
official. If a player does wish to relinquish control of the save to another player in the COC, the controling player will post a save in the Game Save post of the TCI. This is the save the new Player will take control of.

In E.8, we should take out "and the exclusion of Citizen Spot Polls", and that should not be investigated. We should, however, put in a clause that states "A Designated Player may call for a Citizen Spot Vote or a Council Spot vote at any time, although the results of these polls are advisory at best and are not binding."

 

[Octavian X]

Originally posted by Cyc
In E.8, we should take out "and the exclusion of Citizen Spot Polls", and that should not be investigated. We should, however, put in a clause that states "A Designated Player may call for a Citizen Spot Vote or a Council Spot vote at any time, although the results of these polls are advisory at best and are not binding."

Someone, remind me. Did we keep the clause somewhere in the CoL that allowed Council Votes to overrule legal instructions of other leaders? If so, than we need this particular clause to state that spot council votes during chats are legal as well.

 

[Cyc]

If we do decide to making changing legal instructions allowable with a Council Vote, Oct, then the above wording works. 1 the eclusion of Citizen Spot Polls being investigated automatically has nothing to do with what you said. 2. The other wording says that Council Votes could be called (such as for changing legal instructiuons) but would not be binding if the DP disagreed with the outcome. This is NOT saying that a DP couldn't call a Council Vote to change a legal instruction and have the results of that vote be official. Official is different than binding.

 

[ravensfire]

Originally posted by Octavian X


Someone, remind me. Did we keep the clause somewhere in the CoL that allowed Council Votes to overrule legal instructions of other leaders? If so, than we need this particular clause to state that spot council votes during chats are legal as well.

Octavian,

The current proposal for section D of the CoL does not include council votes of any type - spot or otherwise.

-- Ravensfire

 

[ravensfire]

Originally posted by Cyc
If we do decide to making changing legal instructions allowable with a Council Vote, Oct, then the above wording works. 1 the eclusion of Citizen Spot Polls being investigated automatically has nothing to do with what you said. 2. The other wording says that Council Votes could be called (such as for changing legal instructiuons) but would not be binding if the DP disagreed with the outcome. This is NOT saying that a DP couldn't call a Council Vote to change a legal instruction and have the results of that vote be official. Official is different than binding.

As most of you are aware, I am STRONGLY against any type of an "official" vote within a turn chat. As a citizen that chooses to not attend turn chats, I consider any vote during the chat that forces the DP to perform any in-game action to be unconstitutional as it violate my right to participate.

Now, can the DP request advice, which may or may not be expressed as a poll, sure. Must the DP follow such advice, nope. The DP should be allowed to go against the unanimous advice of everyone attending the chat.

-- Ravensfire

 

[donsig]

1 and 2 are confusing. There's a scheduled chat time. The DP should start the chat ten minutes early but if he or she is ten minutes late we move down the chain of command. Now is that ten minutes after the scheduled time or ten minutes after the DP is supposed to start the chat?

4 and 5 address the same thing. One should go.

I am totally against holding either citizen spot votes or cabinet/council votes in the chat. Since there is no guarantee that all citizens or all council/cabinet members will be present at the chat we should not use votes at the chat to make game play decisions. We've vested our trust in our DP, let him get whatever advice he wants and make the decisions or end the chat and go to the forums.

 

[DaveShack]

Originally posted by ravensfire

As most of you are aware, I am STRONGLY against any type of an "official" vote within a turn chat. As a citizen that chooses to not attend turn chats, I consider any vote during the chat that forces the DP to perform any in-game action to be unconstitutional as it violate my right to participate.

I would like to take a shot at changing your mind, to allow an exception making a chat vote binding for one very specific situation. I am equally strongly in favor of a provision which would require the DP to stop play if the chat participants vote to stop. It should be obvious (though some people have gone out of their way to miss this point) that the reason for having a binding vote to stop the chat is for the express purpose of allowing those who don't attend chats to have their say in the forum. Is this not the very reason you don't want to have free-for-all spot voting? Let's allow the chat participants to force a play stoppage so that you can have your say.

I would also like to make an instruction given during the chat by a leader or other department representative binding, though that is quite a different situation and I expect a great deal more opposition to this idea. I would be willing to limit this to a decision on how to handle a popup which is not already covered by the advance instructions from that leader. We all know that even with the most thorough planning, sometimes a decision pops up without warning. It's annoying that the game doesn't let us look around prior to answering the popup. I would rather place the decision on such an unplanned event in the hands of the person we elect to specialize in an area, than just leave all such decisions to the DP.

The reason for my position on this is that the DP is so busy following all the other instructions that offhand knowledge of our relative military strength, ongoing alliances, and other background data is less than you would normally see in an individual game where one person has been following everything, so the designated leader will likely have more current knowledge.

 

[ravensfire]

DS,

A good try - but I am still against it. For example - everyone at the chat wants to stop the session. That's probably 3-4 people. What if I, were I there, would want it to continue?

We have elected the person playing the game - why should we treat them like a robot. They are intelligent, thoughtful people playing the game to the best of their abilities. The DP should be the only person who can unilaterally stop the game mid-chat absent a legal instruction.

Leaders issuing legal, binding instructions outside of the instruction thread - that means that I, as a citizen not at the chat, don't have the opportunity to participate in the discussions about that decision. That's flat wrong. At this point in time, our leaders should have a good idea about what popups *might* appear in a session. Look at Boots during DG3 Term 5 - his instructions covered just about every possible scenario. Every popup I had to deal with as DP was covered - no problem.

Sorry, DaveShack, I still firmly believe that the only legal instructions the DP must follow are those in the Instruction Thread. The DP may request advice from those at the chat, but should consider that only advice. The citizens attending the chat represent a small minority of citizens there - I do not want them to have a disproportionate amount of power relative to the citizens who do not attend the chat. That blatently violates our Constitution.

-- Ravensfire

 

[donsig]

DaveShack, I know your heart is in the right place this holiday season but giving those at the chat the power to stop the chat opens the door for other votes. If we allow those at the chat to require the chat be stopped, why wouldn't we allow them to force the chat to continue? (Anyone remember PI#6?) Why wouldn't we allow them to have a voice in the unexpected pop-up window decisions? Etc. etc., etc. No, we are better off specifying in the code of laws a maximum number of turns that can be played (say ten), give the DP discretion to stop the chat before that maximum is reached and go one with demogame life. The DP can always play it safe and stop a chat if there's an outcry to do so. With a statitory(sp) limit on the number of turns played we can ensure (as best we can) that not many turns will be played past a critical decision point if the chat is not stopped.

I am also totally against binding instructions of any kind given at the chat. Our legal life would be so much easier if we explicitly defined what a legal game play instruction is and peg our laws to that definition. That will be difficult enough to do within the confines of the game play instruction thread, let's not create ourselves more headaches by trying to define legal instructions given during a chat. The DP will always be free to consult with any leaders and citizens at the chat anyway. By not allowing binding instructions to be given at the chat we can better monitor how our elected leaders are doing their jobs - for we can look at the game play instructions threads to see what they are doing with the authority we gave them.