FionnMcCumhall
Emperor
i think reducing the positions discussions should be dismissed and we consentrate on the other problems at hand and also just discuss the responsibilities of the leaders
New CoL/Constitution
- Thread starter Octavian X
- Start date
Cyc
Looking for the door...
I agree. As I've said before, let's not cut off our hand because it can't write neatly.
We can improve our situation by improving the quality of work done by the Leaders. Everyone knows this. We don't need to eliminate positions.As Fionn has said let's define the responsibilities of each Leader positon and make damn sure everyone understands them before they accept a nomination for the position.
We can improve our situation by improving the quality of work done by the Leaders. Everyone knows this. We don't need to eliminate positions.As Fionn has said let's define the responsibilities of each Leader positon and make damn sure everyone understands them before they accept a nomination for the position.
Octavian X
is not a pipe.
OK, we'll put off consolidation of power until we can get everything else workings. Now, what about definitions of power? The constitution already takes care of governors and the judiciary, we just need some stuff for executive.
Vander
Privateering in Idaho
Fionn: We should keep freedom of speech (as long as it is in good faith). We, as a people, need to say what is on our minds.
However, the "satisfaction" part can go. How much satisfaction one gets is directly proportional to how much work they put in. What you put in is what you get out. The officals in charge cannot be held responsible for the satisfaction that one gets. They are there to get the job done; not to entertain the occasional passer- by.
However, the "satisfaction" part can go. How much satisfaction one gets is directly proportional to how much work they put in. What you put in is what you get out. The officals in charge cannot be held responsible for the satisfaction that one gets. They are there to get the job done; not to entertain the occasional passer- by.
FionnMcCumhall
Emperor
no freedom of speech is a definate must go, it wasnt in the previous 2 games. Reason why, CFC forum rules state we have a limited amount of freedom of speech, we just cant go off and troll and flame without majot reprecutions, mainly from the mods.
Eklektikos
Eponymous
Just for general information:
I've started drawing up a draft Constitution and CoL based around the discussions in the various threads on the topic. I'm doing so mainly to try to find the best way of integrating the Const with the CoL so as to minimise complexity, so rest assured I'm not making too many assumptions as to what the content will be as yet - merely playing with the structure.
I hope to have something presentable ready by sometime during the weekend (unless the project defeats me
). I'd have it done sooner but my free time is going to be very limited over the next couple of days.
I've started drawing up a draft Constitution and CoL based around the discussions in the various threads on the topic. I'm doing so mainly to try to find the best way of integrating the Const with the CoL so as to minimise complexity, so rest assured I'm not making too many assumptions as to what the content will be as yet - merely playing with the structure.
I hope to have something presentable ready by sometime during the weekend (unless the project defeats me
). I'd have it done sooner but my free time is going to be very limited over the next couple of days.
Cyc
Looking for the door...
TY, Eklektikos.
I would like to see valid instructions defined. Here is my opinion on what the law should say, for discussion. This will have to be reformatted if it is adopted...
My opinion is there are three kinds of valid instructions we should consider for inclusion into the law.
All instructions must be given in a public form. A turnchat is considered a public forum as long as it has been scheduled and announced in advance for at least 24 hours, and thus meets this requirement, but instructions given in chat outside of a formally announced turnchat are not valid. PM and email instructions are not valid.
Leaders may give advice in areas outside their responsibility. In the absense of conflicting instructions from the responsible department, the DP is free to consider such advice as citizen input, and should (but is not required to) follow such advice during gameplay, if it is sensible within the current game situation.
This part I'm not really sure about. It is designed to allow us to get out from under potential abuses of the system or bad decisions, while keeping some semblence of order. Any standing or gameplay instruction which is detrimental to the game (in a citizen's opinion) may be challenged by a citizen by opening a thread. Before the issue can be carried forward as a council action, it must be agreed to by a (different) leader or governor. This is required even if the citizen is a leader or governor, to ensure that one individual does not have the power to hold up the game by forcing a council review of decisions.
There is a timing issue in the preceeding description of challenges -- most leaders post just before the turn begins, so maybe this should apply to only standing orders...
If any council member or governor agrees that the issue needs review within 24 hours, continued discussion and a council vote shall be conducted on the subject of changing the instruction, prior to the next gameplay session. If a council member is the originator of the request, he/she must abstain from the vote to avoid conflict of interest. If the discussion and vote on an instruction under review has not occurred prior to the next gameplay session, the DP must either postpone playing the game, or ignore the instruction in question.
My opinion is there are three kinds of valid instructions we should consider for inclusion into the law.
- Standing Instructions -- which live from turn to turn unless superceded. These are of a general nature, like "do not sign any ROP or alliances without prior approval", etc.
- Gameplay Instructions -- posted in a gameplay / turn chat thread, these instructions apply to a particular play session, and supercede any standing instructions
- Spot Instructions -- When a chat is being conducted during play, and the DP encounters a situation which is not covered by standing or gameplay instructions, the department leader or representative can give an immediate, or spot, instruction which supercedes both standing and gameplay instructions. Any council member or representative present may challenge a spot instruction within a suitable but brief time (5 minutes for example), in which case an online spot council vote shall be used to resolve the disagreement. While it is acknowledged that some decisions must be spur of the moment, Spot Instructions must not be routinely used as a replacement for well-planned decisions using citizen input.
All instructions must be given in a public form. A turnchat is considered a public forum as long as it has been scheduled and announced in advance for at least 24 hours, and thus meets this requirement, but instructions given in chat outside of a formally announced turnchat are not valid. PM and email instructions are not valid.
Leaders may give advice in areas outside their responsibility. In the absense of conflicting instructions from the responsible department, the DP is free to consider such advice as citizen input, and should (but is not required to) follow such advice during gameplay, if it is sensible within the current game situation.
This part I'm not really sure about. It is designed to allow us to get out from under potential abuses of the system or bad decisions, while keeping some semblence of order. Any standing or gameplay instruction which is detrimental to the game (in a citizen's opinion) may be challenged by a citizen by opening a thread. Before the issue can be carried forward as a council action, it must be agreed to by a (different) leader or governor. This is required even if the citizen is a leader or governor, to ensure that one individual does not have the power to hold up the game by forcing a council review of decisions.
There is a timing issue in the preceeding description of challenges -- most leaders post just before the turn begins, so maybe this should apply to only standing orders...
If any council member or governor agrees that the issue needs review within 24 hours, continued discussion and a council vote shall be conducted on the subject of changing the instruction, prior to the next gameplay session. If a council member is the originator of the request, he/she must abstain from the vote to avoid conflict of interest. If the discussion and vote on an instruction under review has not occurred prior to the next gameplay session, the DP must either postpone playing the game, or ignore the instruction in question.
Cyc
Looking for the door...
I believe "legal" or "valid" instructions are those posted in the turn chat Instruction thread. If they are not posted there, they do not exist. This thought would include your gameplay and your standing instructions (if these were posted in the t/c Instruction thread prior to the t/c.
Your spot instructions should only be considered advice to the President when he asks for it. This is a very critical point and the one that the current mess is centered around. Some feel that almost all of the situations (if not all) that could come up in the current t/c should have already been discussed by that Leader and if necessary, a poll run. Then we run into situations where the Leader is on vacation and the Deputy is lacking or non-existant. What should we do in a situation like this? We simply default back to the rule. If the Leader's instructions are not posted in the t/c Instruction thread, they don't exist. This leaves the President the option of making a choice on the matter. But...this would not override the laws we're drawing up that would state game-stopping events, such as war or trades or whatever the finalized laws will be. If the game must be stopped, the game must be stopped. But if it's a matter of a common decision where the obvious move has not been posted or discussed or polled (whatever) by the Leader, then the decision goes to the President. If it is determined that he or she has not played according to the will of the people, then they will pay for this in the next election. But that person was elected to lead the country, not follow along aimlessly. We need to either leave legal instructions for him or leave him to do his job.
The last part, about overriding instructions needs a lot of work. I believe you've made it too complicated. Any cabinet member (or the President) should be able to call for an override vote by the Cabinet (Council Vote). An affirmative vote by the Council would allow the President to make the proposed changes immediately. That's what I feel anyway.
Your spot instructions should only be considered advice to the President when he asks for it. This is a very critical point and the one that the current mess is centered around. Some feel that almost all of the situations (if not all) that could come up in the current t/c should have already been discussed by that Leader and if necessary, a poll run. Then we run into situations where the Leader is on vacation and the Deputy is lacking or non-existant. What should we do in a situation like this? We simply default back to the rule. If the Leader's instructions are not posted in the t/c Instruction thread, they don't exist. This leaves the President the option of making a choice on the matter. But...this would not override the laws we're drawing up that would state game-stopping events, such as war or trades or whatever the finalized laws will be. If the game must be stopped, the game must be stopped. But if it's a matter of a common decision where the obvious move has not been posted or discussed or polled (whatever) by the Leader, then the decision goes to the President. If it is determined that he or she has not played according to the will of the people, then they will pay for this in the next election. But that person was elected to lead the country, not follow along aimlessly. We need to either leave legal instructions for him or leave him to do his job.
The last part, about overriding instructions needs a lot of work. I believe you've made it too complicated. Any cabinet member (or the President) should be able to call for an override vote by the Cabinet (Council Vote). An affirmative vote by the Council would allow the President to make the proposed changes immediately. That's what I feel anyway.
Veera Anlai
Southern Belle
I believe his intention in proposing that law is to *make* spot votes and such into legal instructions. Correct me if I'm wrong though.
I believe Spot Votes should be legal and allowed as long as they aren't used to over ride currently existing legal instructions. Y'know, just to take care of unforeseen circumstances that aren't worth stopping the chat for. I do *not* believe a leader should simply ignore the Forums simply because he or she will be at the chat and thinks they can pass along instructions there. These Spot Instructions should *not* override currently existing instructions: if necessary, at least use a council vote by default. Actually, I think I'll agree with Cyc here: spot instructions give too much incentive to simply just ignore the forums. Write a law for Spot Votes instead
You'll forgive me if I don't trust the president to make decisions for the will of the people.
donsig
Low level intermediary
If one looks back at the PIs we've had it is clear that they are always politically based. I do not buy into the BS bandied about that the will of the people wasn't followed and that gave rise to the PIs. True, the will of some people wasn't followed and they raised heck about it. The mess started when war was declared on the Aztecs. Some people didn't like that and complained that I did not get citizen approval for the war. Yet, I also made peace with the Aztecs without asking anyone and no one complained that I didn't have approval from the people to do that.
This is a forum based game and spot votes in a *chat* have no place in such a game. We are (trying to be) a world wide community and as such we cannot hold chats that are convenient for everyone. By institutionalizing chat spot votes we are giving more power to those who can attend the chats at the expense of those who cannot. Go back and look at the archives of the first demogame and you will see that it is the cahts that drove many of our citizens away from the game.
We cannot plan for every contingency and therefore we must leave the designated player of the game leeway to make decisions as they arise, or else the game would be stopped many times. This would lead to an very slow game where even those a the chats would lose interest.
This is a forum based game and spot votes in a *chat* have no place in such a game. We are (trying to be) a world wide community and as such we cannot hold chats that are convenient for everyone. By institutionalizing chat spot votes we are giving more power to those who can attend the chats at the expense of those who cannot. Go back and look at the archives of the first demogame and you will see that it is the cahts that drove many of our citizens away from the game.
We cannot plan for every contingency and therefore we must leave the designated player of the game leeway to make decisions as they arise, or else the game would be stopped many times. This would lead to an very slow game where even those a the chats would lose interest.
This has nothing to do with the situation that occurred while I was gone.
The point of including chat instructions in my proposal is to ultimately allow the citizens a straight up or down vote: are instructions in a chat legal? y/n/a We can do that by breaking the valid instructions law into sections and passing each one separately. Once it has been asked and answered, nobody can complain about it in the future.
As of now, some people feel it is codified that instructions in a chat are binding, and others think they are not, but nowhere in the constitution or current laws is "valid instruction" defined. And all due respect, but this is Demogame III, and what happened in previous games does not matter in this one. The current players must decide how they want to play this game.
BTW, if it were possible to stop in the situation which started the current mess, a prudent leader would have stopped. This has nothing to do with the game outcome -- the leadership should not have to cater to every whim of every player, but keeping the peace (or at least trying to) is all our job. I was not there (think I was on I-25 at the time) and thus have no idea whether the game could be stopped at that point or if it was one of those answers you have to click on something before the game can be saved, so have withheld judgement on the whole issue. I have no axe to grind and continue to maintain complete neutrality on the events from July 1 to July 7.
The point of including chat instructions in my proposal is to ultimately allow the citizens a straight up or down vote: are instructions in a chat legal? y/n/a We can do that by breaking the valid instructions law into sections and passing each one separately. Once it has been asked and answered, nobody can complain about it in the future.
As of now, some people feel it is codified that instructions in a chat are binding, and others think they are not, but nowhere in the constitution or current laws is "valid instruction" defined. And all due respect, but this is Demogame III, and what happened in previous games does not matter in this one. The current players must decide how they want to play this game.
BTW, if it were possible to stop in the situation which started the current mess, a prudent leader would have stopped. This has nothing to do with the game outcome -- the leadership should not have to cater to every whim of every player, but keeping the peace (or at least trying to) is all our job. I was not there (think I was on I-25 at the time) and thus have no idea whether the game could be stopped at that point or if it was one of those answers you have to click on something before the game can be saved, so have withheld judgement on the whole issue. I have no axe to grind and continue to maintain complete neutrality on the events from July 1 to July 7.
donsig
Low level intermediary
Not only does the constitution not define legal instructions it does not mandate that public chats be used. With this talk of institutionalizing spot votes and spot instructions and I am becoming even more anti-chat than I was before.
One big problem with your spot vote proposal DaveShack is that you say: and the DP encounters a situation which is not covered by standing or gameplay instructions then a leader can issue a spot order. That is carte blanche for leaders to ignore the game play instruction thread and just show up at the chat and start issuing orders. The use of spot instructions will also hamper our (already poor) efforts at pre-planning. Why should a leader bother to open a discussion about mid or long term plans when he or she can just attend the chat and issue orders?
As for on-line spot council votes, well, you want to ensure that one person does not hold up the game nor have too much power yet you're proposing a return to the 1-0 spot council votes of the previous terms.
One big problem with your spot vote proposal DaveShack is that you say: and the DP encounters a situation which is not covered by standing or gameplay instructions then a leader can issue a spot order. That is carte blanche for leaders to ignore the game play instruction thread and just show up at the chat and start issuing orders. The use of spot instructions will also hamper our (already poor) efforts at pre-planning. Why should a leader bother to open a discussion about mid or long term plans when he or she can just attend the chat and issue orders?
As for on-line spot council votes, well, you want to ensure that one person does not hold up the game nor have too much power yet you're proposing a return to the 1-0 spot council votes of the previous terms.
Now this is what I call a discussion. Wish it were happening in the threads on actual game play, and in all cases getting more people participating. 
Umm.. the only way to have a 1-0 vote is to have the DP be the only one present. In the case of no instructions the DP already has the power to act. Obviously there should be an exception regarding overrides of existing instructions, which is why the "two-person rule" is there in the proposal, or at least that was the intent.
I want something which will maximize enjoyment and flexibility without unbalancing the game. Both "sides" should be comfortable with the eventual answer, or my effort is wasted.
I must be too optomistic, thinking that it won't be abused. You might be right on this one. There are ways to avoid what you fear but it starts to get excessively complicated, like mandating that the ratio of gameplay to spot must be above a certain level or the leader can be PI'd for dereliction of duty. Or a leader must have posted some instructions, or placing a limit on specific areas that are subject to in-chat instructions so it's not just everything.
Umm.. the only way to have a 1-0 vote is to have the DP be the only one present. In the case of no instructions the DP already has the power to act. Obviously there should be an exception regarding overrides of existing instructions, which is why the "two-person rule" is there in the proposal, or at least that was the intent.
I want something which will maximize enjoyment and flexibility without unbalancing the game. Both "sides" should be comfortable with the eventual answer, or my effort is wasted.
donsig
Low level intermediary
Originally posted by DaveShack
Umm.. the only way to have a 1-0 vote is to have the DP be the only one present. In the case of no instructions the DP already has the power to act. Obviously there should be an exception regarding overrides of existing instructions, which is why the "two-person rule" is there in the proposal, or at least that was the intent.
I want something which will maximize enjoyment and flexibility without unbalancing the game. Both "sides" should be comfortable with the eventual answer, or my effort is wasted.
As for 1-0 spot votes that depends on who the DP is. If the president is DP, he or she does not vote in spot votes. (At least that's the way it's been in the past.) This is because the president is not a cabinet/council member. IIRC, the 1-0 spot votes of the past were cases where it was someone other than the DP who was casting the sole vote.
Over-rides are not only very confusing, they delay the turn chats. They are also not very representative of what the council as a whole might vote since we rarely have the whole council present for a chat. Also, we start opening up the absentee question. If the leader isn't at the chat but the deputy is, then does the deputy vote in spot votes? What if the deputy is also the leader of another department? Does he or she get one vote for each department? What if the leader and deputy are both gone but there is a departmental chat rep? Does this appointed chat rep get to vote in the spot vote? If we make the spot votes open to all citizens at the chat then we have come full circle in our quest for now I would argue that those at the chat do not represent our citizens as a whole. This is a forum based game and the focus should be on the forums.
I know you said we should not be bound by what was done in previous demogames but those of us who have been here from term 1 of DG1 have already run into these questions and problems. I for one do not wish to solve the same problems over and over. I'd rather move on to bigger and better things
IMHO, the best thing to do is to make only those instructions posted in the game play thread the legal instructions and leave decision making during game play sessions to the designated player. Doing that would help to get discussions going about what to do in the Civ 3 game we're playing. We just have to start doing some mid and long range planning and get into the habit of having our leaders post general as well as specific instructions.
disorganizer
Deity
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2002
- Messages
- 4,233
prosal:
* define which things can NOT be spot-voted in the chat by law (and also allow to spot-vote popup events in any case)
* define which things are a "must stop" for the chat
* define that each department can post additional "no-spot vote" things and "must stop" things in the turn chat instructions (in EACH thread for each chat).
examples:
* a "no-spot-vote" definition in the law could be war-declarations
* a "must-stop" definition could be that on a declaration or embargo against us the chat must be stopped, or on change of government type.
this way we can have spot votes and prevent the DP from deciding on his own (satisfying our democrats) but still dont force him to return to the forum on minor events.
to the 1-0 spot-votes:
those were ALWAYS events where the DP=the president had the vote... nobody else was there (maybe physically logged in, but absent). as example i can state shaitans first and famous chat where only he was present and he did some override spot-votes there ;-).
so that situation can easily be prevented if we do not allow the dp to vote in a spot-vote except for popup-events.
* define which things can NOT be spot-voted in the chat by law (and also allow to spot-vote popup events in any case)
* define which things are a "must stop" for the chat
* define that each department can post additional "no-spot vote" things and "must stop" things in the turn chat instructions (in EACH thread for each chat).
examples:
* a "no-spot-vote" definition in the law could be war-declarations
* a "must-stop" definition could be that on a declaration or embargo against us the chat must be stopped, or on change of government type.
this way we can have spot votes and prevent the DP from deciding on his own (satisfying our democrats) but still dont force him to return to the forum on minor events.
to the 1-0 spot-votes:
those were ALWAYS events where the DP=the president had the vote... nobody else was there (maybe physically logged in, but absent). as example i can state shaitans first and famous chat where only he was present and he did some override spot-votes there ;-).
so that situation can easily be prevented if we do not allow the dp to vote in a spot-vote except for popup-events.
disorganizer
Deity
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2002
- Messages
- 4,233
and a completely new idea:
what about if we define that at the beginning of each term (together with the elections) we let the populace decide whether to do this term in online of offline turn-sessions via a special election poll? (as said, running together with the elections and as such that wont delay the start of the term).
spot-votes would then be disabled for the offline turn-sessions and all spot-vote enabled things could be decided by the dp alone ;-)
what about if we define that at the beginning of each term (together with the elections) we let the populace decide whether to do this term in online of offline turn-sessions via a special election poll? (as said, running together with the elections and as such that wont delay the start of the term).
spot-votes would then be disabled for the offline turn-sessions and all spot-vote enabled things could be decided by the dp alone ;-)
Cyc
Looking for the door...
Quoting DaveShack:
Umm.. the only way to have a 1-0 vote is to have the DP be the only one present. In the case of no instructions the DP already has the power to act.
___________________________________
Quoting donsig:
As for 1-0 spot votes that depends on who the DP is. If the president is DP, he or she does not vote in spot votes. (At least that's the way it's been in the past.) This is because the president is not a cabinet/council member. IIRC, the 1-0 spot votes of the past were cases where it was someone other than the DP who was casting the sole vote.
________________________________
Quoting disorganizer:
to the 1-0 spot-votes:
those were ALWAYS events where the DP=the president had the vote... nobody else was there (maybe physically logged in, but absent). as example i can state shaitans first and famous chat where only he was present and he did some override spot-votes there ;-).
so that situation can easily be prevented if we do not allow the dp to vote in a spot-vote except for popup-events.
___________________________________________
Well, you are all wrong. But...donsig and dis came pretty close to being right. True, that the 1/0/0 spot votes of Shaitan were done by the DP alone. With no Council Members present the held vote came to a 0/0/0 tie and Shaitan cast the deciding vote. But in CT's 1/0/0 spot votes, there was a Council member present. This means the Council member, who just happened to be a close ally to CT, would cast their vote on a matter and it would pass. If CT figured that the Council member was going to vote against her wishes, she would not hold the vote.
So it doesn't matter if it's only the DP there or not. If there is only one Council member there, it's the same thing. Or if there are more than one Council member there, but it was decided that only one would perk up and vote, it is the same thing.
This means (to me anyway) that although donsig's recollecting of the past may have been incorrect, his solution works better overall. DaveShack's assumption about the 1/0/0 vote is incorrect as well as his two person solution. And dis' recollection of the past is incorrect as is his solution of not allowing the DP to vote.
We should probably just go with the historically tested and proven idea that donsig has proposed. It's less complicated and we know it works.
Umm.. the only way to have a 1-0 vote is to have the DP be the only one present. In the case of no instructions the DP already has the power to act.
___________________________________
Quoting donsig:
As for 1-0 spot votes that depends on who the DP is. If the president is DP, he or she does not vote in spot votes. (At least that's the way it's been in the past.) This is because the president is not a cabinet/council member. IIRC, the 1-0 spot votes of the past were cases where it was someone other than the DP who was casting the sole vote.
________________________________
Quoting disorganizer:
to the 1-0 spot-votes:
those were ALWAYS events where the DP=the president had the vote... nobody else was there (maybe physically logged in, but absent). as example i can state shaitans first and famous chat where only he was present and he did some override spot-votes there ;-).
so that situation can easily be prevented if we do not allow the dp to vote in a spot-vote except for popup-events.
___________________________________________
Well, you are all wrong. But...donsig and dis came pretty close to being right. True, that the 1/0/0 spot votes of Shaitan were done by the DP alone. With no Council Members present the held vote came to a 0/0/0 tie and Shaitan cast the deciding vote. But in CT's 1/0/0 spot votes, there was a Council member present. This means the Council member, who just happened to be a close ally to CT, would cast their vote on a matter and it would pass. If CT figured that the Council member was going to vote against her wishes, she would not hold the vote.
So it doesn't matter if it's only the DP there or not. If there is only one Council member there, it's the same thing. Or if there are more than one Council member there, but it was decided that only one would perk up and vote, it is the same thing.
This means (to me anyway) that although donsig's recollecting of the past may have been incorrect, his solution works better overall. DaveShack's assumption about the 1/0/0 vote is incorrect as well as his two person solution. And dis' recollection of the past is incorrect as is his solution of not allowing the DP to vote.
We should probably just go with the historically tested and proven idea that donsig has proposed. It's less complicated and we know it works.
disorganizer
Deity
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2002
- Messages
- 4,233
@cyc:
donsigs "historical" idea was never in the laws before... spot votes were always used in history... and donsig said not to use spot votes at all and allowing the dp all decissions...
the historically tested and proven idea would be using spot votes as in DG2...
donsigs "historical" idea was never in the laws before... spot votes were always used in history... and donsig said not to use spot votes at all and allowing the dp all decissions...
the historically tested and proven idea would be using spot votes as in DG2...
Cyc
Looking for the door...
@ dis - Spot votes were called by the DP. The DP used these results to make his/her decision. Therefore it was the DP's decision. As I've said before some DP's relied heavily on Spot Votes. others did not.
The Main "historical" I was making was that if Instructions weren't posted in the t/c Instruction thread, they didn't exist. Those and only those are legal Instructions.
The Main "historical" I was making was that if Instructions weren't posted in the t/c Instruction thread, they didn't exist. Those and only those are legal Instructions.
