Term 6 - Censor

[Sigma]

Office of the Censor - Term 6

Censor - Sigma
Deputy -

Term 5 thread (part 2) - Sigma
Term 5 thread (part 1) - Ravensfire
Term 4 thread - Ravensfire
Term 3 thread - Swissempire
Term 2 thread - Swissempire
Term 1 thread - Octavian X
Term 0 thread - Alphawolf

Election Dates
Term 7 Election Dates will be announced no later than June 18th.

Open Polls (official polls only)
Referendum - Tech Trading 1142AD - Closes June 17

Recently Closed Polls (official polls only)
Citizens Assembly - Should we build the Globe Theatre? - Result: Yes
Renaming Ning-Hsia - Tiebreaker Poll - Result: Basillica
Citizens Assembly - Science Rate - Result: 50%
Citizens Assembly - Government Civic - Result: Hereditary Rule
Citizens Assembly - Labor Civic - Result: Slavery
Referendum - Tech Trading 920 AD - Result: Calendar and 40 Gold from Germany for Polytheism and Alphabet
Citizens Assembly - Settlement Location 1070AD - Result: Do not settle a city at this time

Government Links
Triumverate
President - Nobody
Secretary of State - robboo
Secretary of War - Rihiter

Cabinet
Censor - Sigma
Minister of the Interior - ice2k4
Minister of Culture - Vind2
Minister of Science - dutchfire
Director of Intelligence - GeorgeOP

Governor's Council
Governor of Boaring Wallow - Fetch
Governor of Micalian's Gate - VACANT
Governor of Auda Minor - Vind2
Governor of West Licentia - Whomp
Governor of New Port City - Sweetacshon
Governor of Fort Impervious - Oldbus

Judiciary
Chief Justice - DaveShack
Judge Advocate - Black_Hole
Public Defender - GeorgeOP

Designated Players - GeorgeOP, Oldbus, Sigma, CivGeneral, Vind2, DaveShack, ice2k4

 

[Sigma]

The Term 6 Censor Procedures have been listed below. They are based off of Ravensfire's procedures, with a few changes.

Duties of the Censor
The Office of Censor is defined in the Code of Laws, in Section 1.B.III.IIIB. The Censor is in charge of conducting elections, validating elections and posting the official results of the elections. They are also responsible for validating all official polls, posting instructions related from Assembly votes and maintaining a list of names for cities, units and other items as approved by the Assembly.

Elections
All times will be listed in both UTC and EDT. The nomination and election dates and times will be announced in advance.

Nomination threads will be posted in the main forum, and will start at least 8 days before the end of the term. Citizens may nominate themselves or any number of other citizens to office. A nominated citizen must explicitly accept a nomination to be a candidate for office. Self-nominations are considered accepted unless other-wise indicated.

Citizens may nominate themself prior to the opening of the nomination threads by posting in the Censor thread or by PM'ing the Censor.

Citizens may not accept a nomination in more than one office. Should this happen, the Censor will attempt to determine the preference of the citizen prior to the election polls. If this cannot happen, the first office the citizen accepted the nomination for will be the election in which they are the candidate.

Election polls will be posted 4 days after the Nomination threads are posted, and will be set to run for 3 days. These polls will list all valid candidates, plus abstain, and will be marked as Private. If there is only one candidate for the office, no poll will be posted.

In the event of a tie between two or more candidates, a run-off poll will be posted once the previous poll closes. This poll will list the tied candidates, plus abstain, will be set to run for 2 days, and will be marked Private. This process will be continue until there is a single winner.

Candidates may withdraw from the election at any time. Although they cannot be removed from the ballot, their vote total will be ignored for the purpose of determing the winner. If there is only one remaining candidate after a withdrawal, that candidate is immediately declared the winner of the election.

Polling
Polls are used for Naming Polls, Opinion Polls, Referenda, Initiatives, Recalls, and Citizens Assembly Floor Votes.

Opinion Polls
Opinions Polls are all polls posted by citizens not labeled as Initiatives, and all polls posted by Officials acting in their area labeled as "Opinion" or "Informative". Results of this poll are considered non-binding, but may be used as the basis of a decision.

Referenda
Referendum polls are those posted by officials acting within their area. Results from a Referendum poll are considered binding and official, and superceed are other decision types except for initiative. A referendum may be posted by a representative of the official, if and only if that official agrees to it.

Initiatives
Initiative polls are the ultimate form of decision, and can only be superceeded by another initiative poll. Initiative polls are started by Citizens.

Citizens Assembly Floor Votes
Citizens Assembly Floor Votes are votes of the Citizens Assembly as defined in Section 1.A of the Code of Laws. Unless otherwise specified, a Floor Vote should have the force of an Initiative. The Censor is encouraged to open discussion and polls of the Citizens Assembly, though any citizen may do so.

Naming Polls
Naming Polls are all polls related to the naming of cities or units in game, and should be treated as referenda posted by the Censor. All naming polls shall require at least a 33% majority to declare a winner, otherwise another poll is necessary with only the top 3 options so that at least one will receive 33%. In the event of a rename poll, the current name for the city or unit will automatically be nominated as an option, and will proceed to the second poll if it is necessary.

Polling Standards
Polls must be written in a fair and clear manner to be validated. The first post of a poll must contain the question for the poll, the options with explanations if not clear, a link to the discussion thread(s), the type type of poll, the length of the poll and how the poll will be interpreted. Lobbying or supporting any option is not to be in this post.

Unless required otherwise, polls must be at least 2 days in length, with 3 or 4 days preferred if time is available. It is not required, although strongly preferred, that a discussion be held before a poll is posted. Polls must be public unless required otherwise by law.

Validation
The Censor or a designated representative will review each binding poll, and validate those that meet the above standards and other legal requirements. If a poll does not meet requirements, the Censor will work with the author to improve the poll and validate it. The Censor may override any decision by a designated representative. The Censor may also change the validation status of a poll after the initial decision, although this decision must reflect the standards in force at that point in time.

Any not poll not reviewed within 48 hours of closure is assumed to be validated.

Recall Polls
A Recall poll is one that asks if particular official should be removed from office. This poll may be posted by any Citizen, and follows the above standards with the following exceptions. The length of a Recall poll must be 96 hours. The Recall poll must be marked as Private.

Citizens are reminded that although Recall polls can be emotionally charged, they must act in a civil and respectful manner. Moderators will take special notice of such a poll due to its very nature - citizens should act with respect and courtesy towards each other.

Amendments to these Procedures
The Censor may propose and make amendments to the Procedures of his Office at any time, provided they are annouced and discussed 48 hours before they take effect. Should any citizen disagree with this amendment, he may post an initiative poll which will decide whether or not the amendment will take effect.

 

[DaveShack]

To remove confusion, I'd recommend saying the Censor validates all binding polls, instead of official polls.

Any quorum is nearly certain to run into the Constitutional prohibition on any poll requiring a higher standard to pass than a Constitutional Amendment. Take an amendment with a vote 4-2 in favor. This passes and is ratified because more than 60% vote in the affirmative, but fails the Censorial definition of a binding poll because it does not have 7 votes. Strider's complete CoL replacement failed its JR because it had a quorum provision.

 

[Sigma]

Okay, I took the quorum out. Although somehow it snuck through in Octavian X's procedures...

 

[Swissempire]

And mine....

 

[robboo]

Mr.Censor.
I desire a confirmation on which trade, if any, our citizens would like us to do on the next TC. Please reference and use the 3 choices in the thread below. I also request that the poll be run for as short as LEGALLY possible since we have a narrow window to the next TC.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=173390


/I like the narrow window between TCs but it makes polling difficult.

 

[Sigma]

How to score a Cumulative Poll

Cumulative polls are polls that have a succession of answers, such as a difficulty level or science rate. It's scored similar to a median. Starting with the lowest (or highest) option, you count up all the votes you've seen so far, progressing in order through the options until more than half of the total votes have been seen.

For example, if the results of a budget poll had 9 votes for 50%, 2 votes for 60%, and 10 votes for 70%, the result of this poll would be 60%. After adding together the 9 votes for 50% and 2 votes for 60%, you've seen 11 out of the 21 votes, and thus found the result of the poll. Had this been a normal poll, the result would have been 70%. But since the public was clearly divided, this type of poll finds the best middle ground.

If the poll receives an odd number of votes, there will only be one median and that will be the result. If there are an even number of votes, there will be two medians. If the two medians are on the same option, then that option is the winner of the poll. If the two medians are split between two options, then the option that received more votes wins. Should those two options have the same number of votes, a tiebreaker poll would be needed.

 

[Fetch]

Mr. Censor-

Two poll requests:
1. Where, if anywhere, should we use the new settler in this TC? (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=172617)
I guess the poll options should be: Red dot, Cyan Dot, Green Dot, Hold off.

2. Should a new worker be built? The main purpose of this worker is to improve the older cities and hook up resources that have become available from recent cultural expansion. The other option is to move a worker up from the south to do this job.

Thanks.

 

[Oldbus]

Mr Censor,

The nomations in the Big Naming Thread have closed and polls need to be posted. In the last 2 posts I have created mock polls so it should be relatively easy to create the polls (although I have guessed at the form the polls should take - please review to make sure they are posted properly).

I think it is traditional for naming polls to be posted by the Censor. However, there are 19 polls If you haven't the time to post the polls, please can you post in that thread and give me the proper wording and all the info required so I can create the polls in a legal fashion.

Apologies for all the work...

 

[robboo]

Sigma

post a poll for this...some good discussion in this thread to on the benefits/drawbacks to the trade.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=4165381#post4165381

I would like it to end before the TC if that possible

 

[Sweetacshon]

Censor Sigma

Could we repoll the quetion of the new settlement for next TC? However, this time I think it should be a two stage poll -
1. Should we create a new city?
2.(if needed) Where should this city be?

 

[robboo]

Mr.Censor...

I think we need 2 polls. one OKing the release of philsophy to Russia to get tehm to join agasint Bismark.

the second is a bit more difficult...price for peace. BAsically..what does our people want to do in order to secure peace.
Give techs, give resources, give nothing,

 

[dutchfire]

Mr Censor,
When do you expect the polls on the river/mountain/equater/sea names to come?