Originally posted by donsig
That's all well and good in theory, Cyc, but what happens in practice? At the start of term three in DG3 it was as plain as day that the Aztecs would build a city in space we wanted, that we'd end up with blocking units within the Aztecs borders and then we'd get a *surprise* and *unexpected* pop-up window asking us to withdraw our troops. I pmmed the military leader asking that plans be drawn up for an Aztec war. The military leader did not respond. Neither did he issue orders to remove our units from foreign territory. I had also pmmed the foreign leader asking him to ascertain *the will of the people* regarding a possible war against the Aztecs. The FA leader opened the thread. In the absense of a poll on the matter all I had to go on was what was posted in that thread. Not only was there no great outcry against the proposed war, there was actually support for it. As far as I could tell *the will of the people* was for the war. I actively sought the will of the people through their elected leaders and when I acted on it I was villified!
Even when leaders try to figure out what the people want, the people are not always forthcoming. When a large group of citizens decide to forego posting in the forums in favor of making their opinions known at a *chat* it becomes even more complicated to determine *the will of the people*! What do we do, devise restrictive rules for legal instructions and polling in both the forums and the *chat*? Well, we'll need a way to combine forum input with chat input. Oh, shouldn't we figure out some way to make sure some guy isn't posting in the forums and giving input in the chat then? Otherwise this guy get's his vote counted twice! 
Donsig, I'd like to explain what happened in Term 3, in hindsight.
On the evening of July 2 (EDT), the chat went pretty well for the first three turns. On that third turn, however, an Aztec settler built a city next to our stack of units and promptly demanded that we move the troops or declare war. You chose the latter. This actually wouldn't have been a problem had a slight miscommunication not occurred. The chat, which was fairly spammy and chaotic before the incident, made it fairly hard for the DP to communicate what was going on the game, and when war was declared myself and a couple of other people got the idea that you had declared war unilaterally and attacked, or that you positioned your troops in their territory intentionally wanting them to give you that message so that you could then declare war. It soon began to seem like you were running away with the save as the city was razed and several settler stacks were ambushed, plus MA's started to be signed, and PI discusson began in #debates. Given the circumstances, you had every right to do that, but the miscommunication made it seem like a unilateral declaration by you followed by attacks on the Aztecs. Zarn got fed up with this and refused to allow you to sign an MA with Greece against Aztecs (I believe it was with Greece). When you disregarded this instruction, anger increased by quite a bit and a PI was filed around that time. Several more people joined my side in this issue. We considered this a valid instruction, though I do understand why it was found to be invalid it was still thought by us to be valid, as the FA leader had specifically rejected a treaty. It was actually on that point that most of us were the most angry about, not the Aztec war. As all hell broke loose in the chatroom, it became apparent that we should stop the chat to reassess the internal situation in the forums, and we requested you do so, but you refused, even after the majority of the people in the chat supported the ending of the chat. This was considered to be a breach of the will of the people as represented by the chat participants, and also was a denial of the forum-goers to have a say in this until Turn 10. I do still think you should have stopped the chat, as it would have given the forum users a chance to voice their opinion on this issue and the situation would likely not have gotten as out of control as it did. As you kept going, the people in opposition to this grew more and more angry, and formed a chatroom channel to discuss this incident. The triple incidents of the Aztec war, the ignoring of FA, and the refusal to stop the chat built on itself in our minds and the momentum against you grew until it reached a level where nothing short of moderator action could stop it. The rest of the whole PI fiasco is known by all of us, but an explanation of the events on that night from what I could deduce and see during and from that crisis is in order.
The problems that that small misunderstanding caused cannot be underestimated. Had we realized exactly what was happening, I'm pretty sure that we would have supported the Aztec war, FA would have allowed the MA's against them, and the issue of stopping the chat would likely either have not come up or we would have asked that the chat be stopped but not pressed it to the degree that we did. If it weren't for that misunderstanding, this crisis would likely have never occurred.
I also think that had you stopped the chat after declaring war and attacking the city and the settler stacks but without signing any MA's against nations that FA refused to allow you to, this wouldn't have been blown out of proportion like it was. The PI would still probably have been filed, but once an explanation was given to what really happened it would have been dropped or quickly dismissed due to No Merit.
I would venture to say that we were both in the wrong to some degree during that fiasco. Your refusal to stop the chat and denial of FA chat instructions was legal but was a complete violation of the spirit of the game. On our side, we blew this issue way out of proportion and kept this going for too long.
Hope this helps explain that crisis to you in better detail...it wasn't just over a war on the Aztecs, though that or more appropriately a misunderstanding of that is what triggered the rapid chain of events that led up to the PI crisis.
