Political factions

[Stilgar08]

Then join the Coalition of citizens... i also think there was a Union of Newbs...

I did that!

 

[GenMarshall]

No political parties should be allowed in the game. If they are allowed, they should only be special interest groups with little or no influence in the elections. I feel that political parties would create a voting block and create hurt feelings in the aftermath of a mudsling fest during election.

 

[RoboPig]

voting blocks arent neccesarily bad

 

[RoboPig]

I did that!

what are you talking about! i did union of newbs! i founded it!

 

[GenMarshall]

voting blocks arent neccesarily bad

Well, voting blocks are bad in my eyes. What if a person who is willing to go for the office and has the skills for that job but then there there is a political faction that creates a voting bloc because they just dont like the guy for whatever reason.

 

[RoboPig]

well he should get another factions support and run then

 

[Alphawolf]

I'd say the majority thinks them good.

-the Wolf

 

[greekguy]

Yeah, and i bet that the people who said yes are newbies and the people who said no are vets (including me). that's because we know the DG is fine without them and they will only make things bad. i know parties might look apealing, but elections should be based on issues not party affiliation. it will degrade elections into whose party has more members.

btw, could everyone make sure all polls you make (except election polls) are public, that way we know only DG citizens voted. thanks.

 

[GenMarshall]

Yeah, and i bet that the people who said yes are newbies and the people who said no are vets (including me). that's because we know the DG is fine without them and they will only make things bad. i know parties might look apealing, but elections should be based on issues not party affiliation. it will degrade elections into whose party has more members.

btw, could everyone make sure all polls you make (except election polls) are public, that way we know only DG citizens voted. thanks.

I agree to that statement . Thats also why I dislike political parties because that is what elections will degrade to, it will degrade to voting blocks.

 

[Ginger_Ale]

Yeah, and i bet that the people who said yes are newbies and the people who said no are vets (including me). that's because we know the DG is fine without them and they will only make things bad. i know parties might look apealing, but elections should be based on issues not party affiliation. it will degrade elections into whose party has more members.

btw, could everyone make sure all polls you make (except election polls) are public, that way we know only DG citizens voted. thanks.

Really? Do you know that for a fact? I think you don't. In fact, we've never tried a Civ3 Demogame (let alone a Civ4 one) with them. I think none of us here actually experienced them in the Civ2 Demogame. How do you know voting will only degrade to voting blocks? Not everyone likes everyone else in their own party - you don't have to vote for who is in your party. Heck, you don't even need to belong to a party. Nobody is forcing you to vote a certain way or for a certain person - though you seem to think so based on personal experience which you don't have and based on guesses you are making from things you have read. Don't make assumptions when you don't know the whole story.

And btw, not everyone who voted yes is a newbie. Unless I am a newbie... again, another total guess. How do I know everyone who voted no is NOT a newbie? Did you consider people that voted Yes might have actually read the thread and made a decision for themselves rather than randomly guessing?

 

[Armed_Maniac]

Well, voting blocks are bad in my eyes. What if a person who is willing to go for the office and has the skills for that job but then there there is a political faction that creates a voting bloc because they just dont like the guy for whatever reason.

Yes, it could stop some people with 'skill' to get elected, but if that is so, it is because they want to do things that the majority of the citizens don't want. I hardly see political factions imposing their will on their members... they usually pre-establish their will and members that agree with those join... So it is my first Demo game, but it's been a long time since it has been tried, and how many times did it 'mess things up'? It's always good to review old rules from time to time...

 

[GenMarshall]

Really? Do you know that for a fact? I think you don't. In fact, we've never tried a Civ3 Demogame (let alone a Civ4 one) with them. I think none of us here actually experienced them in the Civ2 Demogame.

I have been in the Civ2 Demogame and I have heard stories from The Duke (A mod who used to be the Civ3 DG untill it closed) that parties degrade to mudslingings that tread to trolling/flaming levels and hurtfeelings.

I have done some research on this (Its quite limited since TF has turned off the search for the forums and have to rely on Google search). I have gathered several posts regarding to this issue.

I believe parties are banned, because it is against the rule of CFC being one big happy family. We aren't exactly one big happy family anyway and you could see that in certain forums; however, the political parties COULD make the demogame horrible.
Original post

The CFC Demogame for the most part has avoided of "Political Parties" in a certain sence.

Political Parties as I'm refering to, is an entire organization which, tells it's members (as a organization) to vote for a particular candidate, or use the organization as a campaign tool for specific nominees (Debate Groups wouldn't be under this). Organizations which work twoards trying to fill the government with only members of their own "party." As I saw you mention elsewhere, this is one of those "unspoken" and often debated "rules." I use Rule loosly there.

However, Citizen organizations which support certain goals, but do not, specifically tell their members "vote for him!" do not come under this definition. And individuals (who may be leaders of organizations), however are allowed to put support for nominees in their signature, asking people to vote, in general, but not within the scope of the organization itself.

Now, poltical parties have been done elsewhere, not totally familiar with how they worked out.

But, the general I feel the reason against it is, it encourages mudslinging, it encourages "elitist clubs" discouraging new citizens from running for office.

But, like I said...this is a rather general, loose "rule" can't tell ya how many times I've seen someone try to promote the creation of Political Parties wondering "why not?" and thus starting a large debate about whether we should introduce 'em and see what happens or leave it as is.
Original Post

Citizens are given the right to assemble but not to assemble in such a way that breaks the rules of the forums, which political parties encourage. Not to mention all in all can decrease the "fun" in the game and causing a Demogame Failure.

There is nothing wrong with Citizen's groups who band together with a common goal, and discuss how events effect their goals, and rally behind a cause. Trying to work to inform people to vote for their option (ie. declare war on Egypt or rush culture instead of upgrading units), this promotes discussion, and interest in the game.

It's a far cry from Groups which encourage members to only vote for members of the same, or allied organizations, and would attack members of opposition organizations.

Essentially Political parties deal with people, candidates.
Citizen Groups deal with Ideas.

Speaking Historically here, even George Washington (the first US President) told the Nation in several of his speeches to Beware of Political Parties and steer clear of them at all cost. Now there are MANY people who just vote the party line, ignorant of the candidates themselves, (I wish to avoid a real life poltical Debate here) it's just as bad for Republicans to vote for Bush "just because he's a Republican" as it is for Democrats to vote for Kerry "just because he's a Democrat." Voting needs to be based on policy and ideas NOT which party you belong to.
Original Post

Secondly, I do not like political parties. They, in my opinion would only cause division among the ranks when we are trying to develop a more coheasive environment (albeit containing debate). One of the major problems with political parties is (as stated above) block voting. In all four Demogames, this was only really tried once, <snip>. This initiated a Public Investigation, as Private Messages were sent out to indiviuals asking for votes for candidates within the STG. All that did was make people mad because they come here to have fun, not be recruited.

So there, I DO NOT WANT POLITICAL PARTIES. But there should be mention of the Ban of political parties in the Constitution. Not in the Preamble. But somewhere.

Original Post

political parties=This was discussed and strongly squashed in the first demo game, and I never quite understood why it was not allowed. I think there is the possibility of political maneuvering going overboard and people feeling personally attacked or rejected. As GN pointed out, this is a great forum for building community and we don't want to jepordize that or create hard feelings between fellow CFCers. With that warning in mind, I think having different political parties, or something to that effect, could add a whole new element to the game that could be quite fun, and give folks who don't quite have a grasp on the game itself for whatever reason a way to get involved and participate. I think it's an idea worth continued discussion, anyway.

Original Post

And finaly, from the Duke himself:

The initial reason was based on the fact that political parties basically excluded particular people. Since the political 'party' would be based on nothing more than who is friends with whom. It wouldn't be based on anything like ideals or game concerns. Once that 'party' is able to get enough friends together, they can basically stuff the ballot box and elect whomever they want.

This would lead to people not even trying to run against them and thus stop playing the game.

In one of the Civ 3 DG, we had 'guilds'. These guilds basically satrted to act as political parties by recommending their favorite people to the rest of the guild.

The main concern is that political parties would effectively exclude people from the game and thus cause the game to lose players. The first is technically against ther forum rules and the other thing we did not want to happen for the game.

Hope that helps.


DoM
Original Post, quotations in Oct's post since it was done via PM between him and Duke

Wow, they are backward. I think having no political parties puts us a LONG WAY ahead of other demo-games, they all dengrate into in-fighting and mud-slinging. Poly had 2 parties and that was bad, these guys have half a dozen!!
Original Post

Even our own Duck of Flanders placed in more disadvantages of a political party

wel ,i gave this some thought ,and i guess political party's have their advantage's and disadvantages.

Advantage's:

-People of same oppinion's cangather under a coman party.
-The party can represent the oppinion of their member's by objecting to the decission's made by leader's and not in line with the oppinion's of the party.

Disadvantage's:

-Member's of party's can seriously influence ellection's as member's can conspire to vote for eachother
-Party's wouldn't always be balanced ,meaning that almost everybody would like to be with the most powerfull party.
Original Post

The problem with political parties is that people won't get their true say. The head of the party might say "Vote for XYZ leader". If they have 20 people in their party, that's 20 votes for them. But, not all of those people might agree with the decision. It might be 13 votes for that person. And if a person goes against a party, then that's a formula for trouble.Original Post

I also expressed my own opinion in regards to political parties in Demogame past:

I wouldn't say shot down, 15-20 isn't that bad....

Also I want to point out to everyone, if we don't ban political parties in the constitution they are allowed because of article A... actually this game political parties were legal(I think someone wanted to but a mod didn't allow it.... *sigh*)

All I am saying is its an idea worth exploring

Political Parties will spawn elitism, which is against the forum rules. Block voting is also not that fun also with groups of people just voting on the party lines just because the person is a member of that party while the more qualified person gets gybbed.

All I see in Political Parties is an elitist fraternaty group that will only accept people, as Chieftess pointed out, that only agree to the party's beliefs and thus becomes exclusive and elitist. It furthers becomes elitiest when voting blocks comes into play.

If we do establish a political party system (Which I hope we do not), then I will form my own political party based on the ideas of the Independent Party of the United States giving citizens an opportunity to associate and hold beliefs in different spectrums of the demogame. Also, my party will not advocate voting blocks and the member is free to vote for a person he or she feels like voting.

As I said before, Political Parties were bad news in the Civ2 Demogame and were imediately removed because it caused nothing but mudslinging and mini flamewars inbetween the party lines. I do hope that we never see any political parties to make an apperance in DG7.

<snip, Quote from the Duke is already been quoted>

I personaly hoped that the subject of political parties in the demogame would be "the old horse that's been beat on that subject a million times can be put away." (Octavian X). I guess some people want to intergrate the Model Parlament (Which has political parties) into the demogame.
Original Post

 

[Ginger_Ale]

Good job researching; FYI, search was turned on yesterday once again. Hopefully that helps.

 

[RoboPig]

honestly mud slinging shouldnt happen. but if you dont want it to happen to you, dont join a political party. pu it wont be a real democracy without some huge party vendetta

 

[GenMarshall]

honestly mud slinging shouldnt happen. but if you dont want it to happen to you, dont join a political party. pu it wont be a real democracy without some huge party vendetta

I honestly do feel that mud slinging would happen. The only solution to prevent it (other than moderator intervention) is to limit their influences during elections or just ban political parties compleately and have them be more like special interest groups.

 

[Armed_Maniac]

Indeed, those are all good points, and though it's possible that the current parties won't degenerate to such things as you quoted, i beleive we should not take the gamble and put some limits. As long as political partys ressemble citizen groups (but a little more complex), I would like to see them in the game, but they should not have any more powers than them.

Also, i would agree that a parlement system = bad for this demogame.

 

[RoboPig]

I honestly do feel that mud slinging would happen. The only solution to prevent it (other than moderator intervention) is to limit their influences during elections or just ban political parties compleately and have them be more like special interest groups.

why would slinging happen, nobody says 'hey, you belong to a more powerful party burn in hell while i scandal while scandal the crap out of you.

 

[greekguy]

Really? Do you know that for a fact? I think you don't. In fact, we've never tried a Civ3 Demogame (let alone a Civ4 one) with them. I think none of us here actually experienced them in the Civ2 Demogame. How do you know voting will only degrade to voting blocks? Not everyone likes everyone else in their own party - you don't have to vote for who is in your party. Heck, you don't even need to belong to a party. Nobody is forcing you to vote a certain way or for a certain person - though you seem to think so based on personal experience which you don't have and based on guesses you are making from things you have read. Don't make assumptions when you don't know the whole story.

if it ends up following American politics, then it will end up degrading to mudslinging and voting blocks.

And btw, not everyone who voted yes is a newbie. Unless I am a newbie... again, another total guess. How do I know everyone who voted no is NOT a newbie? Did you consider people that voted Yes might have actually read the thread and made a decision for themselves rather than randomly guessing?

you took that sentence totally out of context. i'm not saying i know for a fact it meant strictly on newb-vet lines. i said "i bet", which means more of the yes votes were probably newbies, while most of the no votes were probably vets. i'm not analyzing the results and proclaiming a scientific fact, just makinga guess.

 

[Donovan Zoi]

If some mud gets slung your way, then duck.

We had enough drama without political parties, so I don't really think they would add to it. Besides, the vote was overwhelmingly in favor of trying them out. No amount of quotes from members of Civ3 DG1 is going to change that.

 

[RoboPig]

well said DZ, this is democracy! we voted for political parties and we should hae them