I'd like to sign up to this. I'm a noob to the Demo Game and I don't get an awful lot of time to contribute, but I have been trying to keep up with what has been happening. I'm offering a few thoughts as well as signing up. It deliberately doesn't have names as I hope to look positively to what we can do in the future, rather than what has happened.
One thing I haven't been very happy about is the way some of our officials (especially, but not exclusively, new folk) have been pounced upon when they have made decisions that were either: against our Constitution/CoL, very unwise with hindsight or did not meet with everyone's approval. I'm not saying that we don't need to correct our officials if we get it wrong or that we shouldn't express an opinion on the way our officials conduct themselves, but there are different ways to do this. I would suggest that being fairly rude to them and implying they are unaware of the way things have always been done or don't have the citizen's interests at heart is not a good way of doing this.
I joined the Demo Game after all the Alphawolf incident and, apart from one person whose posts I found a bit suspect (but who has since left the game and is therefore irrelevant) I don't think I have come across anyone here who did not have the interests of the DG and its citizens at heart. I think they may have made some wrong decisions that weren't in our interests, but I think from what I have read that these were merely mistakes and that no-one has any intention of repeating them.
I am particularly concerned about the stuff to do with officials because I know I would have made many of the same mistakes if I had been in office. I am beginning to see the light on the views about the amount of power elected officials have and just how important the Instruction thread is and how important it is to stop the turnchat rather than make important decisions on the fly that we as citizens must decide. I expect the reasons for my slow understanding are bringing with me a perception of the powers of elected officials from real life, combined with an obscurity of information in the Demo Game. When I joined I made a real effort to read the threads, read turnchat logs and I've even had a few stabs at the Constitution/CoL. However, it was not at all obvious to me that this was how the game was expected to function. I appreciate I have no skills at reading legal docs, but there may be grounds for clarifying them. Some of the arguments put forward have sounded very much like interpretation and when it is just interpretation then people can have differing views. It also hasn't helped that many of our more experienced members haven't upheld the spirit of the rules at times either and reading turnchat logs etc. can give a misleading impression. I think one of the things the Coalition might do is ask Strider to add info about this issue to the Information Department. This would include information for new citizens and fairly clear guidelines for new officials.
However, we might consider putting these guidelines up for review first. It seems that others have different opinions over this crucial issue and just because I and others want to play the Demo Game this way, doesn't mean everyone wants to. Whether or not previous Demo Games have been played this way I would say is irrelevant.
This brings me on to another point. While experience is very helpful, a statement like "X will not work - see DG N" is not. However, if someone says "I don't think X will work because of Y. We had experience in DG N" then that is rather different. I'm all for learning from past mistakes, but if you have experience to offer, then offer us newbies the insight from your experience. I don't intend to trawl vast amounts of previous posts from a DG I've never been involved in to pick up that wisdom.
Anyway, I hope that if anyone has read this ramble you have taken it in the spirit it was meant some positive ideas for our future.
Oldbus, thats what i feel like a lot of time too. Its a new demogame, but sometimes it feels like people don't regonize that. I would love to here more about your guidlines idea!
