Major Amendments to the CoL

[ice2k4]

Hey, first month into the game and I don't mean to be a politcial activist *******, excuse the french. Anyway, the game is becoming so ridiculous, that we can't get anything done, and half our offices aren't filled. I think the problem is the CoL.

It seems our current CoL is so democratic, the offices held have so little power, they must ask the citizen's approval before doing anything. With this, what's the point of holding an office, if your not calling the shots. I don't think this is a bad thing, I just think we should be more of a republic.

If you also look, half the discussion forums these last few days have diverted so off-topic there just swamps of judicial arguements. No one can stay focused on the topic title, because the judiciary is always finding something wrong with the government's actions. Everyone, lighten up a little, it's a game.

I understand our CoL, and I have respect for them. I'm not asking to totally re-write them, I'm just asking that some aspects be changed that gives office a little more power, and doesn't give citizen's total control. We have no leadership. I think the citizen's should vote on big subjects, just like they do now, but the votes should only be taken into consideration, even if they are landslide. If an SoW proposes a plan the citizens vote against, he should have the right to go along with the plan. If it fails, sucks for him, chances are citizens will be outraged. They still have the power to do something about it by not voting.

If the triumverate or the rest of the cabinet finds that a decision was made against the public's opinion, then the government should conduct an investigation and then have him tried under the judiciary system for [insert official name of charge here]

I don't want to undermine the citizen's power, and put more power in the hands of one person, I just think the game is moving too slow, is plagued by the CoL which triggers the judiciary to criticize every move made, and people don't even want to run for office anymore.

Discuss this here, and try not to throw too much flak at me. I would psot sections of the CoL pertaining to this, however, I do not have time right now.

 

[GeorgeOP]

I think the major problem is that the judiciary is overused. That, and a pending case in the judiciary shouldn't stop things from happening. If I said for example, that Ice should not be governor of Auda City because Section 23 of the CoL, he should still act as the governor until the judiciary rule that he should not be governor. As it is now, no one acts as governor because he might not be legal, and it's better to make everyone wait two weeks to see if he dotted all of his I's and crossed his T's rather than letting him do his job until he's thrown out.

 

[donsig]

It seems our current CoL is so democratic, the offices held have so little power, they must ask the citizen's approval before doing anything. With this, what's the point of holding an office, if your not calling the shots.

What's the point of citizen's discussing things if someone in office can just do what he wants? You can't have it both ways. You can't a game full of active players if the players never get to do anything. If you want only office holders calling the shots then the only active players will be the office holders.

I'm sorry I didn't read your whole post (couldn't get past the paragraph quoted above) but before you go rewriting the COL you need to realize that you have a big misunderstanding about office holders in this game. Unfortunately it is a common misconception in this first demogame. Office holders do NOT have to ask the citizen's approval for doing anything.. I do not think ANYONE playing this game expects that or ever did expect it. It is a shame that the people playing this game can only see the two black and white ends of a spectrum that has an infinite diversity of gray tones between those two ends.

It seems many of our players think that either our office holders can do nothing without explicit citizen approval or they can do anything they want despite what our citizens say. Worse than that, our players have developed a mind-set that a vacant office equals nothing getting done. Why is that?

I'm perfectly happy to have our officials *call the shots* as you say as long as they are incorporating what we say into those shots. I think most of the other people playing this game also feel that way. We've played anough demogames to know we don't have to discuss or poll every little thing. We've learned that many decisions can be made through discussion only. The ideal scenario is one where we discuss general directions we want to take and then leave it up to our officials to take us in the direction we decided upon. Sometimes we are split over certain choices. Those are the ones we need to poll.

While I'm willing to stand back and let officials *call the shots* I reserve the right to step in if I feel an official is a) not doing what we asked him to do; or b) is *calling shots* that I strongly disagree with. This right is actually built into our constitution as a citizen initiative and this concept has evolved over several demogames.

The trouble is not with our CoL being too democratic. Our legal system is very flexible. If citizens are inactive in a given area the corresponding official is free to make decisions. If an official is inactive (or non-existant) the citizenry can still go ahead and make decisions. Office holders can be leaders but one does not need to hold office to be a leader. Just as in a real democracy with a myriad of freedoms, each of us in the demogame is free to concentrate his or her efforts where we want and how we want. We are free to ignore those areas of the game that do not interest us. Our constitution and CoL allow and encourage many different types of participation. There is no need for major changes in our legal system. There is a great need for some of us to understand the actual potential each of us as as office holders and as citizens.

I think the major problem is that the judiciary is overused. That, and a pending case in the judiciary shouldn't stop things from happening. If I said for example, that Ice should not be governor of Auda City because Section 23 of the CoL, he should still act as the governor until the judiciary rule that he should not be governor. As it is now, no one acts as governor because he might not be legal, and it's better to make everyone wait two weeks to see if he dotted all of his I's and crossed his T's rather than letting him do his job until he's thrown out.

Pending cases in the judiciary do not stop things from happening. Don't blame the judiciary for this, blame the officials who are too darned scared to act.

 

[GeorgeOP]

Don't blame the judiciary for this, blame the officials who are too darned scared to act.

Yes, I do. I know it's not the judiciary's fault, they are just doing their job. It's the other officials that don't do anything while the judiciary decides the case. I should have been more specific in who I was upset at.

 

[robboo]

Sorta like the judiciary not acting on other cases while waiting for "Should xxxx recuse himself polls".

Don't throw stones in a glass house.

 

[ice2k4]

What's the point of citizen's discussing things if someone in office can just do what he wants? You can't have it both ways. You can't a game full of active players if the players never get to do anything. If you want only office holders calling the shots then the only active players will be the office holders.

Firstly that paragraph clearly wasn't thought through. In real life, atleast in America, that statement is proven false. Let me give you an example (not even based on the American representative-democracy.)

A lawmaker goes to pass a law banning all guns. The public gets word of it, and ask that he not pass the law. The lawmaker then passes the law, against the majority of the publics desicion.

A) If the result isn't positive, the lawmaker will take a lot of political flak, and will have a lot lower chance of being elected next term.

B) If it is such a bad decision, the people can overthrow the lawmaker (again realize I'm talking in general, I never said it has to be lawfully.) or can have him impeached.

With these type of amendments, we would get things going, and if the public feels a person really makes a bad decision, then he won't be getting re-elected. The people give their opinion on the subject, and the official will have to make the decision as to wether or not to follow the people's direction.

It seems many of our players think that either our office holders can do nothing without explicit citizen approval or they can do anything they want despite what our citizens say. Worse than that, our players have developed a mind-set that a vacant office equals nothing getting done. Why is that?

Also, didn't Robboo as SoW have to release his war plan to the public, for their approval? Isn't that a decision that was made by the citizens. And you can't argue that he didn't have to release his plans to the public, because if I remember he was pretty against it.

 

[donsig]

A lawmaker goes to pass a law banning all guns. The public gets word of it, and ask that he not pass the law. The lawmaker then passes the law, against the majority of the publics desicion.

A) If the result isn't positive, the lawmaker will take a lot of political flak, and will have a lot lower chance of being elected next term.

B) If it is such a bad decision, the people can overthrow the lawmaker (again realize I'm talking in general, I never said it has to be lawfully.) or can have him impeached.

With these type of amendments, we would get things going, and if the public feels a person really makes a bad decision, then he won't be getting re-elected. The people give their opinion on the subject, and the official will have to make the decision as to wether or not to follow the people's direction.

What you are suggesting would be a radical change from how we have made decisions in eight demogames. Whenever we as a group decide we want to do a particular thing then we darn well expect our officials to do that particular thing. This is not to say that we will or even want to make group decisions on each and every detail of game play.

For the life of me I cannot figure out where this mentality that nothing is getting done came from! Have game play sessions really stopped?

Also, didn't Robboo as SoW have to release his war plan to the public, for their approval? Isn't that a decision that was made by the citizens. And you can't argue that he didn't have to release his plans to the public, because if I remember he was pretty against it.

I haven't been following that issue. If the law says the SoW has to submit plans for apporival then the SoW has to submit plans for approval. The very fact that a specific law exists saying the SoW has to submit plans for approval just goes to show that in general we do not expect our officials to submit everything for prior approval. In other words officials can normally make up a plan and follow it without first getting it approved. The caveat is that citizens reserve the right to change said plans either in whole or in part via a majority vote.

The only other thing I could add about this is that the law you're referring to (like most laws) is subject to interpretation. Does this law call for very detailed plans that once approved can't be deviated from? Does it call for more general plans? A generic call for *plans* can be interpreted in many different ways.

 

[robboo]

I haven't been following that issue. If the law says the SoW has to submit plans for apporival then the SoW has to submit plans for approval. The very fact that a specific law exists saying the SoW has to submit plans for approval just goes to show that in general we do not expect our officials to submit everything for prior approval. In other words officials can normally make up a plan and follow it without first getting it approved. The caveat is that citizens reserve the right to change said plans either in whole or in part via a majority vote.

The only other thing I could add about this is that the law you're referring to (like most laws) is subject to interpretation. Does this law call for very detailed plans that once approved can't be deviated from? Does it call for more general plans? A generic call for *plans* can be interpreted in many different ways.

No the law does not say plans must be submitted...hence my complaining about it..

Ravensifre ( censor) posted a poll for early war approval and it required that I post my plansand get approval of them. In my opinion that is a power grab by a lower official. The censor esentially stopped me from sumbitting my unit orders as per the normal routine. In fact...technically I ddint have to post my orders since according to teh poll teh orders were set in stone adn now part of teh Censors orders..binding poll.

I have no problem with the citizens submitting their opinion as per the CoL. ( even if it ends in a binding poll) My biggest problem is then you have citizens submitting conflicting plans( which happened) so why have officials..everyone submit plans and lets vote. If we are to take this approach then we should do away with all the positions expect for DPs and the Censor. In addition no one requested that the cities build que get approved or that the worker movement get approved. No one got upset when a DP didnt follow the legally posted instructions..actually I got made out to be the bad guy by Ravensfire.

In my opinion this was a power grab by the censor in order to gain more control from a position which is frankly one of the least powerful in the demo-game. The censors procedure are written in the CoL and there is little room for interpetation. In addition when I threathen to post a Referendum to overturn his poll that required my war plan approved he basically threathen to do the same thing back t me..hence slowig the game. I let it slide because frankly the judiciary is a comletely useless and an invalid part of this game. You are above impeachment and you take ALL of the power from the citizens because of that very fact.

//Whats also disturbing is that our CJ does not know our CoL to see that there is no requirement for War plan approval. ( Didnt you criticise Nobody for the same thing--again you are throwing rocks in glass houses)

//Since Ravensfire has already stated in PM that he would not vote for me in certain offices I dont care if this gets him upset.

 

[DaveShack]

The war plans thing was indeed a power grab, at least in effect. I don't think it was truly meant to take that power, but it had IMO an unintentional side effect.

A little history discussion is in order. Over in the Civ3 DG, there were several legendary instances of polls to declare war but no pre-existing war plans. This sometimes resulted in the citizens voting against the war due to the lack of plans. Ravensfire might have taken those previous failures as an indication that the people needed to be reassured that there would be a plan before there was a war. The objective does seem to have been to ensure the war itself wouldn't be rejected due to lack of a plan.

The unfortunate part was in how the poll was worded. It was a mistake to require the SoW plan to go forward as a poll. What should have happened was saying the SoW plan would be presented to the people (by posting it), who would have the power to stop the plan via a poll if they wanted to.

Now I understand that robboo does not believe this was the case. I also understand that the way that robboo stated his complaint about the poll wording caused Ravensfire (and others) to believe that he thought his plans should be above scrutiny. Having seen how they both act when not under pressure, I'm quite certain that the poll was a mistake and not a power grab, and that the reaction to the poll was not indicative of any desire to escape citizen approval.

I hope we might see a couple of statements here (or somewhere).

Ravensfire, do you now see the fallacy of requiring a subsequent poll, when allowing the SoW to judge public opinion and post a poll if one was needed would also serve the same purpose?

Robboo, do you now see that saying you should not have been required to post a follow-on poll makes it seem like you think there are no conditions where your plan would require a poll, regardless of citizen input?

On the original topic of this thread

It seems "too democratic" around here because people are misusing the Constitution, particularily Article C. The only polls which are required by the rules are Elections, Guilt/Innocence, Sentencing, and the 5 things only the assembly can decide: Declare War/Make Peace/Alliance, to change civics, to begin construction on a Great Wonder/National Wonder/Project, a change in Taxes (the science/treasury/culture meter) greater that 10% more than once every 10 turns, and where to build new cities. We have ignored violations of the taxes change and civics change.

Officials are reminded they can use Mandate (no citizen input offered on a given topic having been given a chance) and Constituency (predominately citizen input in one direction on a decision), neither of which require polls. If the citizens don't like an official's plans, they can open a poll. If I were on the Judiciary (yes I could have been CJ but couldn't leave the President open) my ruling would be that an open unresolved binding poll ties the officials hands and delays a game session if necessary, just to ensure the people feel safe in letting officials act.

Edit: I should have finished this thought... The fact that a poll can be opened if an official goes off the path and it will prevent the "bad" decision from being carried out should give the citizens confidence to allow officials to act. This is a good thing for the official, not a bad thing as you might think on first reading.

 

[donsig]

No the law does not say plans must be submitted...hence my complaining about it..

Ravensifre ( censor) posted a poll for early war approval and it required that I post my plansand get approval of them. In my opinion that is a power grab by a lower official.

Did ravensfire post this poll as part of his official duties as Censor or as a citizen? It makes a difference. Again, I have ot followed the issue nor read up on the relevant law so I'm not sure if the Censor has authority to post polls about approving war plans. If not then the poll by ravensfire would be a citizen's initiative and well within his rights to post.

I have no problem with the citizens submitting their opinion as per the CoL. ( even if it ends in a binding poll) My biggest problem is then you have citizens submitting conflicting plans( which happened) so why have officials..everyone submit plans and lets vote.

As an official you should welcome multiple polls. First, it shows there are lots of citizens involved. Second, it gives you a chance to be a true leader. Unfortunately it is not enough to come up with a good idea. You have to sell it as well. Yeah, it's a pain to deal with multiple plans but it is precisely when we have differences of opinion like this that we need someone in office to help sort it out. No one is going ot complain if you try to steeer of towards the plan you want but you have to accept that if your plan is voted down you have to abide by that vote.

In my opinion this was a power grab by the censor in order to gain more control from a position which is frankly one of the least powerful in the demo-game. The censors procedure are written in the CoL and there is little room for interpetation. In addition when I threathen to post a Referendum to overturn his poll that required my war plan approved he basically threathen to do the same thing back t me..hence slowig the game. I let it slide because frankly the judiciary is a comletely useless and an invalid part of this game. You are above impeachment and you take ALL of the power from the citizens because of that very fact.

I don't think the Censor is one of the least powerful in the game. Having the power to invalidate polls could be considered the MOST powerful position! I am very sorry to hear you think the judiciary is useless. I will do what I can as CJ to convince you otherwise. It's not right to hold the non-impeachment clause against us. It was not Cyc, or CivGeneral or myself who put that there. I am already on record as saying I think that is unconstitutional and IIRC a CJ last term aslo said that. You can get rid of that clause by passing an amendment or perhaps even through a judicial review. Sayng the judiciary takes all power away from the citizens is not even close to being true. I've said it before that the judiciary should be the last resort in a conflict. Even when forced to decide a controvery, the judiciary's decision can be overturned through either a new law or a citizen's initiative. Judicial rulings should nver be looked upon as the last word. JRs should be used to get us over whatever hump is causing trouble. Once over the hump stpes should be taken by the Assembly (citizens) to institutionalize whatever interpretation they want to use concerning the JR. This could agree or disagree with the judiciary's ruling.

//Whats also disturbing is that our CJ does not know our CoL to see that there is no requirement for War plan approval. ( Didnt you criticise Nobody for the same thing--again you are throwing rocks in glass houses)

What makes you think I know the CoL by heart? What makes you think the CJ should know the CoL by heart? When presented with a case I go look up the law and make my ruling. There has been no case about war plans brought before any court I served on. I don't think I've criticized Nobody for not know ing the law. Can you direct me to the post where I did?

As for your other glass house remarks, I haven't delayed any official actions for fear of repercussions. My rulings last term were delayed because I attempted to confer with my collegues about the cases. As you know one lost internet connection and the other never did post some rulings. I assume RL got in his way.

EDIT: I would like to thank DaveShack for the history lesson. Knowing a little about the Civ III DG wars I suspected the origins of this controversy started there. This should also be a cautionary tale on polling. Remember the old adage about being careful what you ask for because you might get it! Finally, I would tend to agree with DaveShack's hypothetical ruling on an open binding poll but of course that leads to the question of when a poll actually becomes binding. Think about the Censor's role in validating polls.

 

[ice2k4]

Maybe I shouldn't of used the phrase "not getting done." It's not that things aren't getting done, it's just that were a) moving at a slow pace and b) theres not a lot of interest in government positions. I'm more complaining about how the judiciary (not to criticize you) has been jumping on every little thing thats been posted in the last week, and turning discussion threads into legal fights. I also think the judiciary is jumping on the wrong things. All these little things are being looked at, but when our DP messed up (mistakes happen, but he did take the time to name units after himself) and when teh censor undermined the SoW, where was the judiciary clawing at everyone there?

Edit: this post was made right after robboo's post, I have yet to read the last two posts.

 

[donsig]

Maybe I shouldn't of used the phrase "not getting done." It's not that things aren't getting done, it's just that were a) moving at a slow pace and b) theres not a lot of interest in government positions. I'm more complaining about how the judiciary (not to criticize you) has been jumping on every little thing thats been posted in the last week, and turning discussion threads into legal fights. I also think the judiciary is jumping on the wrong things. All these little things are being looked at, but when our DP messed up (mistakes happen, but he did take the time to name units after himself) and when teh censor undermined the SoW, where was the judiciary clawing at everyone there?

If you are referring to me in this post then please realize that there are two on me. There is me the citizen and me member of the judiciary. I don't think the latter has been jumping on much at all. (The only instance has been my posted intention to not recognize a JA appointed before the 72 hours was up.) Me the citizen has been jumping on a lot these past few terms but my interests are few: judicial recusals, length of certain polls and private initiative polls. I jump on these because that's what I'm interested in. I have neither time nor inclination to jump all over things I'm not interested in. As CJ I will certainly look into cases brought before the court but I'm not going out looking for business.

It is disconcerting (but not surprising) to hear that a DP messed up. Too much is done in the chats. Sorry, I gave up hope in that stuff in this game when the trading policy we decided upon was up ended in one chat because Chieftess was using a different version of the game than the rest of us.

 

[ice2k4]

I don't mean to say you're the problem, and once you become CJ and you jump on things (yes i understand your interest) the officials interperet it as the CJ jumping on it. I know you're doing it as a citizen, but if the president says I want to go to war, people interpert as "oh **** the president is about to delcare war on a country without our conscent first," although the president is just recommending it as a citizen (excuse the example as it does not go along with our CoL)

 

[DaveShack]

Ice2k4, a lot of your posts are triggering the auto censor. You might avoid those words in case any friendly mods are inclined to get upset over them.

Donsig, the problem with your interest as a citizen in the "lengths of certain polls" et. al. is that you use your position on the judiciary to hold the rest of us hostage to your views. You'll say to just pass an amendment, and yes that is a way to resolve the problem, but a cheaper, simpler, faster, and culturally better approach is for you to listen to the people, see that an amendment is a certain defeat for your views, and do the right thing for the game.

 

[ice2k4]

Sorry Dave, haven't read the rules in quite some time, didn't realize cursing was prohibited. I thought the auto-censor just did that job.

 

[DaveShack]

Sorry Dave, haven't read the rules in quite some time, didn't realize cursing was prohibited. I thought the auto-censor just did that job.

It doesn't actually bother me personally, just helping you stay out of the penalty box.