Hey everyone,
First, I'm sorry for my absence. The electricity and heating in my home broke down and I had a lot of missed work to catch up on. I will be starting the Voting Phase for Session #3 tonight and extending it to ensure there are 7 days of voting time.
Second, thank you for your participation in the VP Congress!
It has come to my attention (after feedback from several community members) that the current schedule of the VP Congress is not working in the best interests of the community. To be more specific, having a VP Congress session every month is too hectic of a pace for change. It results in the following problems:
Lack of communication regarding proposals. The original intention was for proposers to communicate with the community, discuss problems, refine ideas, coordinate with sponsors, and then make proposals. Not a lot of this has happened, and a lot of it has to do with the fact that there is a constant debate over proposals going on, so people have less time to breathe and adjust to changes.
Sponsor and voter fatigue. For the same reason, the constant debating can get exhausting for members of the community.
Judgement calls regarding proposals affecting the same game mechanic. In this third session of the VP Congress, because two proposals affected the Forge building, which is also being modified by a proposal that was passed in the last VP Congress but was not yet implemented, they had to be vetoed under current rules, while a counterproposal which had a similar rationale but didn't affect the Forge was allowed to go through - which allows for gaming of the rules. In addition, having to make all these judgement calls is unfun for me, for the people who get their proposals vetoed, and for the supporters of those proposals. These judgement calls will always be subjective, and thus susceptible to human error and frustration.
(In the interests of the health of the system, I'm going to veto the counterproposal - sorry, @Legen).
Difficulty keeping track of changes. This is true for the community, for people making proposals, and for coders on GitHub. The pace at which changes are being made and proposed is too fast to effectively keep up with, from my observations.
To solve these problems, I am making the following changes to the VP Congress:
1) VP Congress Sessions will take place every other month, instead of every month. After this session (Session #3) has concluded, the month of February will be a cooldown period during which proposals are implemented. No proposals can be made until March 1st. This should allow more time to breathe, implement sponsored proposals, flesh out and discuss changes more, and generally make life easier for everyone involved in running the show. Session #4 will take place during March, then April will be a cooldown month, then Session #5 in May, etc.
This also avoids having a VP Congress Session in the month of February, so all months should have a similar amount of time for the Voting Phase. And if problems like those of this month hinder me from starting a phase on time, there is some wiggle room in the schedule due to the cooldown month.
While this may be disappointing, it is still more democracy than we had before, and I believe this will lead to a higher standard of quality, a smoother process, and most importantly, it will be sustainable in the long term. In addition, I am making the additional changes below to make up for it.
2) No more ratification of proposals and Ratification Options. With sessions taking place every other month, it is simply too much of a pain to do ratification, and Ratification Options become unnecessary. In our first ratification vote, not a single proposal was rejected and fewer people voted in it because it was a giant poll. In addition, it's hard to effectively express your opposition to a change you don't like for ratification with the current format.
As a result, if you don't like a change that was added, you can simply make a proposal to revert it in the next VP Congress Session, after it is implemented. This is ratification, in a sense, but instead of being automatic, a community member has to propose it (meaning changes which are universally liked, or which no one cares enough to propose to revert, don't need to be ratified).
However, balance changes which are made on GitHub by modders will still be ratified. They will be treated as a proposal in the Congress session following their functional implementation, and a thread will be created to discuss that particular change to separate it from the rest.
3) Strict sponsorship deadlines. If the proposal you sponsored is not implemented by the end of the cooldown month following the session in which you sponsored it - it is vetoed, no exceptions. The work can still be done, but others can make proposals affecting this, and the change will need to be ratified as if the modder made a balance change on their own initiative. Be sure not to bite off more than you can chew.
This will eliminate all issues relating to queued proposals conflicting with new proposals, and remove all judgement calls about whether or not two proposals affect the same game mechanic, simplifying the process greatly.
This rule will go into effect beginning in VP Congress Session #4.
4) Guaranteed release at the end of the cooldown month. While releases can happen at any time, a release will happen at the end of the cooldown month, including all implemented proposals that were sponsored in the previous session.
Thanks for your understanding, and feel free to provide any feedback on the changes below. They will be added to the VP Congress Guide shortly.
First, I'm sorry for my absence. The electricity and heating in my home broke down and I had a lot of missed work to catch up on. I will be starting the Voting Phase for Session #3 tonight and extending it to ensure there are 7 days of voting time.
Second, thank you for your participation in the VP Congress!
It has come to my attention (after feedback from several community members) that the current schedule of the VP Congress is not working in the best interests of the community. To be more specific, having a VP Congress session every month is too hectic of a pace for change. It results in the following problems:
Lack of communication regarding proposals. The original intention was for proposers to communicate with the community, discuss problems, refine ideas, coordinate with sponsors, and then make proposals. Not a lot of this has happened, and a lot of it has to do with the fact that there is a constant debate over proposals going on, so people have less time to breathe and adjust to changes.
Sponsor and voter fatigue. For the same reason, the constant debating can get exhausting for members of the community.
Judgement calls regarding proposals affecting the same game mechanic. In this third session of the VP Congress, because two proposals affected the Forge building, which is also being modified by a proposal that was passed in the last VP Congress but was not yet implemented, they had to be vetoed under current rules, while a counterproposal which had a similar rationale but didn't affect the Forge was allowed to go through - which allows for gaming of the rules. In addition, having to make all these judgement calls is unfun for me, for the people who get their proposals vetoed, and for the supporters of those proposals. These judgement calls will always be subjective, and thus susceptible to human error and frustration.
(In the interests of the health of the system, I'm going to veto the counterproposal - sorry, @Legen).
Difficulty keeping track of changes. This is true for the community, for people making proposals, and for coders on GitHub. The pace at which changes are being made and proposed is too fast to effectively keep up with, from my observations.
To solve these problems, I am making the following changes to the VP Congress:
1) VP Congress Sessions will take place every other month, instead of every month. After this session (Session #3) has concluded, the month of February will be a cooldown period during which proposals are implemented. No proposals can be made until March 1st. This should allow more time to breathe, implement sponsored proposals, flesh out and discuss changes more, and generally make life easier for everyone involved in running the show. Session #4 will take place during March, then April will be a cooldown month, then Session #5 in May, etc.
This also avoids having a VP Congress Session in the month of February, so all months should have a similar amount of time for the Voting Phase. And if problems like those of this month hinder me from starting a phase on time, there is some wiggle room in the schedule due to the cooldown month.
While this may be disappointing, it is still more democracy than we had before, and I believe this will lead to a higher standard of quality, a smoother process, and most importantly, it will be sustainable in the long term. In addition, I am making the additional changes below to make up for it.
2) No more ratification of proposals and Ratification Options. With sessions taking place every other month, it is simply too much of a pain to do ratification, and Ratification Options become unnecessary. In our first ratification vote, not a single proposal was rejected and fewer people voted in it because it was a giant poll. In addition, it's hard to effectively express your opposition to a change you don't like for ratification with the current format.
As a result, if you don't like a change that was added, you can simply make a proposal to revert it in the next VP Congress Session, after it is implemented. This is ratification, in a sense, but instead of being automatic, a community member has to propose it (meaning changes which are universally liked, or which no one cares enough to propose to revert, don't need to be ratified).
However, balance changes which are made on GitHub by modders will still be ratified. They will be treated as a proposal in the Congress session following their functional implementation, and a thread will be created to discuss that particular change to separate it from the rest.
3) Strict sponsorship deadlines. If the proposal you sponsored is not implemented by the end of the cooldown month following the session in which you sponsored it - it is vetoed, no exceptions. The work can still be done, but others can make proposals affecting this, and the change will need to be ratified as if the modder made a balance change on their own initiative. Be sure not to bite off more than you can chew.
This will eliminate all issues relating to queued proposals conflicting with new proposals, and remove all judgement calls about whether or not two proposals affect the same game mechanic, simplifying the process greatly.
This rule will go into effect beginning in VP Congress Session #4.
4) Guaranteed release at the end of the cooldown month. While releases can happen at any time, a release will happen at the end of the cooldown month, including all implemented proposals that were sponsored in the previous session.
Thanks for your understanding, and feel free to provide any feedback on the changes below. They will be added to the VP Congress Guide shortly.