The DG7 Constitution

Strider

In Retrospect
Joined
Jan 7, 2002
Messages
8,984
Okay, the results of this poll (which aren't likely to change much) says that we are going to use a modified version of the old constitution. So, let's get to modifying it!

The constitution may be found here

So, here are some of the things we need to discuss:
  • Codify the Polling Standards
  • The Designated Player
  • Codifying Forum Organization
  • Constitutional Organization
  • Misc./Voulanteer poistions
  • Absence of a President
  • Elected Poistions
  • Formation of Provinces

Edit: For any who cares.. I will be posting my input on this later today. Got sick last night and got very little sleep. Not in a very good mood right now, and I'm extremely tired. I'll try to post it tonight, but there are no promises.
 
Constitution for a 5CC

Elected Positions
President - plays the turns, controls workers, grants cash rushes
Military - advises Mayors on what to build, produces troop plans, where troops should be stationed, works with F&T on declarations of war against enemies
Foreign & Trade - works with Military on declarations of war, what to get in peace treaties, what deals to trade, how to handle demands
Science & Cultural - decides on tech path, sliders, advises what wonders to build, where, etc.
Mayors (5) - build queues, roleplaying, apply for cash rushes; basically are competing with other mayors to have 'best city'
Judiciary - same as it is now
That is a total of 12 positions. This number will NOT increase over the course of the game.

Volunteer/Appointed Positions
Naming Office - responsible for keeping track of city list and unit list and giving it to the President
Election Office - responsible for putting up nominations 8 days before end of term, elections 5 days before, each lasting for 3 days, as well as debate threads

Absence of a President / Designated Player
The designated player is the President for turnchats. If he is missing, follow the Chain of Command (order listed here in constitution: Military, F&T, S&C, Mayors (by order of founding date, tie to the closest city).

Provinces
Provinces are one city's 21 tile worked area and surrounding areas (via cultural expansion) based on the natural topography. If two cities overlap, the two mayors will agree upon a provincial border based on natural topography, giving each city at least 9 tiles (one 'ring' around the city including the city center).

Forum Organization
Strider's Proposal here, but also putting the Screenshots thread and Turnchat Summaries thread in the Citizens' forum.

Polling Standards
Each formal poll put up by an official other than the election office has to be up for 2 days to be considered valid. All formal polls, other than elections and citizen complaints have to be public. All election and citizen complaint polls have to be up for 3 days to be considered valid. They have to be private.

Formal polls by an official have to have some sort of the following three options: yes, no, and abstain. Abstain votes do not count towards a yes nor no vote. Abstain cannot win. If abstain has the most votes, the option with the next most votes will win.

Turnchats
Turnchats will last 15 turns in the Ancient Age, 10 turns in the Middle, Industrial, and Modern Age. A turnchat thread will be put in the Citizens' forum no later than 3 days prior to the turnchat. A log and saves from the preturn, 5th, 10th, and if applicable, 15th turn are required. Other saves, while not required, are useful. They will be held in #turnchat channel on the irc.irc-chat.net server, port 6667. The President will be an op, everyone else voiced. No spot votes will be held.


Everything else should be ok with me.
 
Also, we must have something in the consitution in the event we dont have a president as the result of no one running for the office or the president resigns the office without a vice president.
 
CivGeneral said:
Also, we must have something in the consitution in the event we dont have a president as the result of no one running for the office or the president resigns the office without a vice president.
If we do this, use ANYTHING but what was hastily thrown together in DGVI.

Anything. Draw straws. Throw darts. Random. Anything.

-- Ravensfire
 
we could appoint a monarch from the start, who plays the game when they want and , hands the DP over to other people when they feel like it. I am being serrious, this could be a way to bring people to gether (saying for the king and naming things like the royal commision). They could be the offical head of state while most powers are controled by a prime minister (same a president to day). The monarch would always name a successor and hopefull hand over the nation every few terms (but not complusary) also this postision could be filled b randomly picking someone from anyone who wants to enter the lotto. Some one like Thudnerfall could pick the random person, so it can be called devince right (literrly using a calculator or somthing) and the current kind could how their Heir. (replace kind with queen )
 
Okay, I promised this tonight.. so here we go:

Codifying the Polling Standards

It's a wonder no one asked why I put this in here, when it isn't really an issue. I would like to codify the Polling Standards. I've talked to Daveshack about it for alittle while, and once get gets back to me I'll post more on it.

The Designated Player:

I like the idea of someone other than the President being the DP, however I dont' think we should make such a large jump to electing several DP's. How about we allow the president to choose who the DP for each turnchat is? They can choose themselves, the Vice President, or any other citizen. If it turns out well, then we can move to elected DP's.

Constitutional Organization

I pressed this last game, and everyone ignored me. We need to title each amendment for we know what it is! No one knows what the heck Article D. is, but when you put Article D. President, Leaders, and Governors Duties. Then you know what is contained inside!
 
Why must the wheel be re-invented? Why doesn't a moderator just pick one of the former rulesets, start the game, and let the citizens use the ruleset to modify it in game? It would certainly save much time and aggravation.
 
I think the Polling standards and judical protocals shouldnt be constitution but just classfied as laws, (code of laws)
 
zorven said:
Why must the wheel be re-invented? Why doesn't a moderator just pick one of the former rulesets, start the game, and let the citizens use the ruleset to modify it in game? It would certainly save much time and aggravation.

We can't start before the beginning of the next month anyway. If we have our heads on straight, we'll be reusing most of the DG5 constitution, as amended, and with JRs included, as a starting point. Maybe 10-15% would change, unless we take a radically different approach and play 5CC or multi-team.

Take a look through the previous DG archives and look for places where moderators decreed things, and look at the public response. I think we may have reached a point where that's unlikely to happen again.
 
ravensfire said:
If we do this, use ANYTHING but what was hastily thrown together in DGVI.

Anything. Draw straws. Throw darts. Random. Anything.

-- Ravensfire

Care to toss out some options, or just throwing darts at the system? :mischief:

[sarcasm]
How about these fine ideas:
Just open nominations forever until someone accepts and let the game hang in limbo until the situation is resolved?
Don't let the last President leave?
How about just using the CoC -- first in line acts as DP until we have a President?
[/sarcasm]
 
I'd say a special election (with nominations conducted at the start of the new term, similar to what happened in DG3) would be a good idea in that case. As we can see from the recent no-president incident, several people jumped at the opportunity to be appointed president at the end of the game, even though no one accepted their nomination the first time around. If there is no accepted nomination in the second round, then we could probably just use the CoC.
 
DaveShack said:
Care to toss out some options, or just throwing darts at the system? :mischief:

[sarcasm]
How about these fine ideas:
Just open nominations forever until someone accepts and let the game hang in limbo until the situation is resolved?
Don't let the last President leave?
How about just using the CoC -- first in line acts as DP until we have a President?
[/sarcasm]

Sure!

If we're at the point where we can't elect a president, we've got issues, and something needs to be done. Fast.

Approach 1: Mods appoint someone.
Approach 2: Throw nominations open for 2 additional days, followed by 2 days of polling.
Approach 3: Allow the Judiciary to appoint, but include a confirmation poll option to limit abuse
Approach 4: Fix the problem, not the symptom. Seperate the DP and President roles, aviod the large-scale maps. Basically, look at the reasons people given NOT to be President, in any term, and try to reduce those problems.

That's off the top of my head. For a band-aid, I prefer approach 1, because it get's the game moving again. Given the structure of the ruleset we're going with, the President is extremely important. Regardless of the ruleset, the President IS the head of our government, they are the face of the DG. Not having one is rather embarrassing.

-- Ravensfire
 
ravensfire said:
Sure!

If we're at the point where we can't elect a president, we've got issues, and something needs to be done. Fast.

Approach 1: Mods appoint someone.
Approach 2: Throw nominations open for 2 additional days, followed by 2 days of polling.
Approach 3: Allow the Judiciary to appoint, but include a confirmation poll option to limit abuse
Approach 4: Fix the problem, not the symptom. Seperate the DP and President roles, aviod the large-scale maps. Basically, look at the reasons people given NOT to be President, in any term, and try to reduce those problems.

That's off the top of my head. For a band-aid, I prefer approach 1, because it get's the game moving again. Given the structure of the ruleset we're going with, the President is extremely important. Regardless of the ruleset, the President IS the head of our government, they are the face of the DG. Not having one is rather embarrassing.

-- Ravensfire

Look at the difference between approach 1 and approach 3 in your list. Three people make an appointment either way. You know as well as anyone here how the public respond to the mods making in-game decisions, so option 1 is off the table. The only thing we didn't do in the DG6 bandaid was have a confirmation poll, which can easily be fixed. I was only responding to the "anything but" post -- and you come back with almost the same thing we just used as one of the things on the list. :lol:

My preference is to leave nominations open for President until we get an accept plus another 24 hours for a 2nd entrant, and in the unlikely event that more than one accept in "overtime" then have a normal length election which just ends late. We also must allow people who already "have" an office resign and accept a nom for President -- that part of the Judiciary proceeding where they were going to exclude people who already have offices was right out of the twilight zone. :eek:
 
DaveShack said:
My preference is to leave nominations open for President until we get an accept plus another 24 hours for a 2nd entrant, and in the unlikely event that more than one accept in "overtime" then have a normal length election which just ends late. We also must allow people who already "have" an office resign and accept a nom for President -- that part of the Judiciary proceeding where they were going to exclude people who already have offices was right out of the twilight zone. :eek:

Sounds like a good idea to me, not the best of options, but we lack anything better. I just hope we never come to a spot where no one runs for President even after this. :(
 
Personaly, I would rather have the president be the DP in the game. If there is no president present in a TC, it can simply go down via the CoC. I see no problems going with the CoC and it has not presented a problem in the past.
 
Okay, I took the liberaty of getting both constitutions out of the archives.

Here is the DGV constitution:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=94616

And here is my modified version of te DGV constitution from before:

We, the people of $COUNTRY_NAME, in order to create an atmosphere of friendship, cooperation, and pride, establish this Constitution of our beloved country. We uphold the beliefs that each citizen must have an equal voice in the government and ruling of our country, that government itself is a construct of and servant to the people, that rules, regulations, and laws should be established to facilitate the active participation of the people and to make possible the dreams and desires of the citizens.

Article A. Citizen Rights
All Civfanatics Forum users who register in the Citizen Registry are citizens of our country. Citizens have the right to assemble, the right to free movement, the right to free speech, the right to a fair and speedy trial, the right to representation, the right to seek to redress grievances, and the right to vote.

Section 1. Rights Reserved to the People
Rights reserved to the people As provided by Article A of this constitution, all actions not forbidden by forum rules, or by this Constitution, are presumed to be within the right of every citizen. Actions prescribed by this Constitution may be substituted by other similar actions, provided such substitution lies within the spirit of these rules.

Section 2. Slate Polling and Political Parties
Slate Polling, or the agreement among certain citizens to vote for a single candidate is illegal and against the Sprit of the game. As such, political parties are also illegal and against the Sprit of the game.

Article B. Laws and Rules
Governing laws and rules shall consist of these Articles of the Constitution, the Code of Laws, and any administrative rules that a governmental official shall propose and are accepted by the people. No law or rule shall be valid which is in contravention of this Constitution, excepting an amendment specifically tasked to do so. The Constitution may be amended by vote of the citizenry.

Section 1. Amending the Constitution
Amending the constitution shall require a 2/3's majority of Yes votes over No votes. The poll must run for 4 days, and require that half of the current census had voted. Any Amendment to the constitution must be given to the Judiciary for confirmation, who will then post the amendment poll.

Article C. Basic Government
The government will consist of the Executive Branch, Legislative Branch and Judicial Branch. These Branches are tasked with the play of the save, creation of laws, and upholding of laws, respectively.

Article D. The Executive Branch
The Executive branch is responsible for determining and implementing the will of the People, and is headed by the President. The President is charged with organizing and monitoring the affairs of the Ministers, and is also the primary designated player. The President shall take direction from a council of leaders and from other elected and appointed officials via the turnchat instruction thread, including worker actions. The President is also charged with appointing citizens to uncontested elections, the election office, the Naming Commission, and the Newbies Society.

Section 1. Domestic Affairs
The Minister of Domestic Affairs shall be responsible for all domestic initiatives, including revolts and slider management, and the management of the national budget.

Section 2. Foreign Affairs
he Minister of Foreign Affairs shall be responsible for matters involving treaties with foreign nations as well as all espionage and embassy missions.

Section 3. Defensive Affairs
The Minister of Defense shall be responsible for all military strategy, troop activities, and unit upgrades.

Section 4. Trade
The Minister of Trade shall be responsible for negotiating trades both domestic and foreign, and monitored rival civs trade status.

Section 5. Research and Technology
The Minister of Science shall be responsible for all tech acquisition, foreign and domestic, and the construction of space ship parts.

Section 6. Cultural Affairs
The Minister of Culture shall be responsible for the construction of wonders, the analysis and maintenance of cultural borders, as well as the movement and actions of settlers. This official shall also be responsible for monitoring Japanatica's cultural level against that of all rival nations. The Minister of Culture is also charged with the responsibility of the formation of new provinces.

Article E. Legislative Branch
The Legislative Branch shall be formed of the House of the People and Governors of .

Section 1. The House of the People
The House of the People will be formed of the entirety of the citizenry and is responsible for the drafting of new Laws and Amendments to the Constitution. The House will present all proposed Articles, Amendments and Laws to the Judicial Branch for review.

Section 2. The Governors
Governors are responsible for the care, management, use of the cities, and use of lands of there province through the setting of build queues, allocation of laborers on tiles, and population rushes.

Section 3. Mayors
Mayors are appointed by a governor and tasked with the ability to monitor and advise governors for the care, management, and use of there city. They are limited to the power the governor gives them.

Article F. The Judicial Branch
The Judicial Branch will consist of the Chief Justice, the Public Defender, and the Judge Advocate. These three justices are tasked with upholding the Constitution and its supporting laws (if any) in a fair and impartial manner as prescribed by law. The Chief Justice shall have the additional responsibility of organizing and conducting the affairs of the Judicial Branch. The Public Defender will act as counsel for an accused individual. The Judge Advocate will act as the prosecution. The Judicial Branch shall have the additional responsibility of monitoring and upkeeping the census. The census shall be defined as the average number of votes cast, dropping fractions, in each of the contested elections in the most recent general election, and is used for amending the constitution.

Section 1. Judicial Procedures
The elected Judiciary shall create their procedures once elected it, to be located in the first post of that term's Judiciary thread. Any change after the Judiciary's posting of these procedures will require the Will of the People.

Article G. Elections, the Election Office, and Deputies
The Elections determine the elected officials of . Elected Officials shall have a fixed term of one month, starting from the first of the month. All elected officials must act according to the Will of the People, as mentioned below in Article J.

Section 1. Elections
All elected positions shall have a fixed term of one month. Each position will be granted to the candidate receiving the largest number of votes in that election. In the event of a tie between two or more candidates with the most votes, a runoff poll shall be opened between those candidates only. This poll shall run for 2 days, and be repeated as often as needed to resolve the tie. Nominations shall begin roughly 8 days before the end of the month, with debates following exactly 2 days after that, and elections 2 days after debates. Nominations will be closed once the elections begin, however debates will continue.

Section 2. The Election Office
The Election Office shall be comprised of those citizens willing to assist the election process. These citizens are appointed by the President, and are subject to a confirmation poll. The Election Office shall determine before each election who will post the threads for that election. The Election Office shall maintain on the initial post of their thread the dates for the current and next election cycle. The Election Office shall solicit and maintain a common list of debate questions for each office. This list shall be posted as soon as possible in each debate thread. Any non-trivial differences in the dates/times threads are posted from the scheduled time should be noted by the Election Office official posting the thread.

Section 3. Pre-Nominations
Any citizen may submit a Pre-Nomination to a member of the Election Office one week before the start of the election process (Nominations, Debates, and Elections).

Section 4. Deputies
All Executive and Legislative positions shall have a deputy. The Deputy will be permitted to conduct the affairs of the office as directed, or during a planned Absence of the elected official. If no instructions have been posted for an office within 24 hours of the upcoming Turn Chat, the deputy for that office may post the official instructions for the office. The Judiciary does not use deputies. In the event of an Absence, a pro-tem justice(s) may be appointed by the Chief Justice (or Judge Advocate if the Chief Justice if absent) and confirmed by the President and the remaining justice if not also absent. If both the Chief Justice and the Judge Advocate are absent, the Public Defender may appoint pro-tems to the other seats, with Presidential approval. A deputy is chosen by the elected official.

Section 5. Appointments
The President will appoint a citizen to any Vacant office. If a deputy exists for that office, the President must appoint that citizen. This appointment may be challenged by any citizen by that citizen posting a confirmation poll within 24 hours of the appointment.

Article H. Multiple Poistions
No person shall hold multiple positions of leadership (President, Vice-President, Department Leader, Judiciary, Provincial Governor, Deputy) simultaneously. The Election Office, the Naming Commission, and similiar offices do not count. However, a citizen may have up to 2 accepted nominations by the start of elections.

Article I. The Will of the People
Elected officials must plan and act according to the will of the people. The will of the people will be determined through discussion and polls. If pertinent discussion is done outside the scope of the DG forums, then it must be documented in the Turnchat Instruction Thread 6 hours prior to the commencement of the turnchat by the appropriate leader.

Article J. Turnchats/Turnchat Instruction Thread
All irreversible game actions must progress during a public turnchat, while reversible game actions (i.e. build queues) that adhere to legal instructions can be prepared offline.

Section 1. Turnchat Instruction Thread
A turnchat instruction thread must be created at least 3 days before the chat. All official instructions must be posted in the current turnchat instruction thread. Instructions must be clear and defined. Officials must post their instructions at least one hour prior to the Turnchat. However, officials may make changes to their instructions up to half an hour before the chat, so long as those changes are noted. The Designated Player shall be charged with the creation of a date and time for all public turnchats.

Article K. CivFanatics Forum Rules
The constitution, laws and standards of can never be contrary to the rules and regulations of the Civfanatics forums. Moderators may veto any such constitutional amendments, laws or standards.

Article L. Commission of Game Actions
Commission of any game action by any person other than the Designated Player while carrying out their duties that is not instantly reversible without reloading the save is strictly forbidden. Exception: Determining options in the renegotiation of Peace agreements requires an action of acceptance or war to exit the bargain screen. This may be done but the game must be immediately closed without saving.

Article M. Provinces
A province shall be formed by a collection of cities, based on similiar geographic, ethnic, and economic backgrounds. The land as seen on the city-screen, and all land inbetween shall make up the province. The Formation of a Province will be handled VIA discussions and polling, and must be handled in a timely manner. The Culture Minister manages all cities that are not placed under the domain of a province. If the province was created mid-term, the Governor for the remainder of that term is appointed by the President. A province shall be named by it's first elected governor.

Article N. Freedom of Information
All elected/appointed officials are charged with the duty to post enough information for the citizens to make a informed decision. This includes information from the save, discussions, and past polls. Any citizen of the demogame may demand a minister to supply more information. A elected official may appoint a citizen to do this task for them.

Section 1.Ministry Threads
Each Minister shall post a basic department update, every turnchat, inside of there respective Ministry thread. This update must include information about the progress of the minister and there respective duties.

Article O. The Naming Commission
The Naming Commission is charged with the task of creating a list of names for use by the Designated Player in the naming of cities and units. If a citizen fails to create a city name, then they will be skipped.

Section 1. Naming Order
The order of naming cities shall be decided by rank in the CoC. The naming of units shall be decided by the date joined inside of the registry.

Article P. The Newbies Society
The Newbies Society shall be made up of voulantary members appointed by the President. They are tasked with the organization and creation of help guides for newer players within the demogame. They are also tasked with the responsibility to upkeep a FAQ inside of the official thread, and to answer newer players questions about the game.

Article Q. Vacancies
Any elected official may declare themselves to be Absent for a period of time. During this time, the deputy or pro-tem will act with all power and duties of that office, surrendering them to the official or Justice when they return or at the end of the planned absence, whichever comes first. Should an official fail to post instructions for 2 consecutive turn chats without prior notice, the Judiciary may declare that office Vacant. If a Justice has not posted on any active Judicial matter for three days, the remaining Justices may declare the Justice Absent. If a Justice has not posted on any active Judicial matter for seven days, the remaining Justices may declare the office Vacant. If all three Justices fail to post on any active Judicial matter for 7 days, the President may declare all Judicial offices Vacant, and immediately appoint a Chief Justice.

Article R. Polling Standards
Any poll posted by a Citizen of the Democracy game is considered official and binding, unless otherwise stated. All polls must simply and clearly state the question and all options, and contain an abstain option. A poll should state the objectives of the poll and the time limit (if any) of the poll. A poll must also contain all releveant information, including links to the respective ministry thread, discussion, and other polls.

Article S. National Budget
The National Budgest consists of our national treasury(lump sum of gold), but does not include our additional gold per turn. It should be compiled and posted by the Domestic advisor each turnchat. It will include a list of the funds required for rushes, upgrades, trades, and espionage. Any instruction that is not listed inside of the national budget, is to be considered void. If the domestic minister decides to give certain elected officials a base sum of gold to use, then this must also be included within the national budget, with the maxium amount that can be used by that leader.

Section 1. Governor Loans
The Domestic Minister shall create a set point of funds to be spent each turnchat. If the current national budget has not reached that point, a governor may demand a rush, which consits of them informing the Domestic Advisor to add the rush to the National budget without the Domestic Advisors approval. However, if the total sum of gold for the rush will exceed the point defined by the Domestic Advisor, then a governor may not demand the rush. The governor's with more corrupt provinces get priority when demanding a rush, this priority will be decided by the Domestic advisor.

Article T. Chain of Command
The chain of command is used for determining the Designated Player of the chat, if the President has not assigned one. This is to be used if the assigned DP does not show up.

President
Vice President
Domestic Minister
Defense Minister
Trade Minister
Science Minister
Foreign Affairs Minister
Culture Minister
Governors (in order of date joined)
Deputies (in order of Minister)


Which one should we use as a basis for modifing our constitution further?
 
I think the 5BC is accepted as a middle ground, we're just deciding now on how to set the actual limit.

I'm not sure how there is really a difference between 5BC and epic as far as constitution goes. In practice, as long as the 1st 5 cities are each in a different province, we're set. I like the combination of offices in GA's post, but if we go that way we need to figure out what to do with the rest of Domestic's traditional responsibilites. The captured cities, if any, can be added round-robin to the 5 mayor / governor's areas of control. We also need to know who organizes the discussion / polling of which cities to capture and which to raze.
 
i think that everything like naming convention, polling standards, citizen groups, leaders thread ect should not be included in the constitution but in a seperate code of laws. so that everybody can have a fairly good knowledge of the constitution without having to read through all the small bits technical bits.

edit: if you want i could help by seperating the two. its not fair to leave all the work up one person. the offer is there.
 
We have three Constitution proposals on the table:
  • Ginger Ale's proposal tailored to a 5CC
  • DG5 as amended to include results of DG5 JR's
  • Strider's "updated traditional"

There are several proposals for (minor) modifications:
  • Reduce the impact of the Presidency by allowing delegation of DP duties
  • Relax the rules on playing the save back to the traditional set -- which included allowing preturn build queues to be set and micro managing outside the turnchat
  • Varying the number of turns to be played based on conditions
  • Shorter play cycles to a chat every 2-3 days instead of 2 per week.
  • Make in-game laws require a super-majority to overturn (with a safety valve that they expire after some time passes)
  • A provision for choosing a President if there is a vacancy and no vice-president

There are parts of DG6 that I'd like to keep. The election law, naming office for units, and judiciary setup seemed to work pretty well. Naming for cities can devolve to the first mayor/governor, who should seek the people's input.

This can't work without all your input. I've already said that the organizer(s) don't have any power to force a specific plan just because it's their preferred one. I wouldn't want that power, not to mention I'm squeezing what activity I can by skipping hours of sleep. It's not healty and I can't keep it up.

Anyone who wants to is more than welcome to handle this task of ruleset tuneups. I'd only ask that you submit a draft back to the discussion for comment prior to starting on ratification polls. ;)
 
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