Hear Ye, Hear ye...

[notyoueither]

Thank you for checking in...

The Constitutional Convention needs you. Yes, you.

Tell us where the holes are in the current CoL... Think back. What was that major issue, and where was the CoL deficient in helping us through it.

The GL you say? Good one. Now what else?

There are 4 (5) of us. We are aware of many things, but maybe some of you may think of something that we have overlooked.

I know OnOrthO has been waiting for this thread...

[Aro]

"Playing ahead". The CoL must be specific and detailed about that.

[ManicStarSeed]

How about spending powers? There has been some discussion on who really controls the purse strings....

[notyoueither]

Go on ManicStarSeed. Please continue.

[WhiteBandit]

Eh, I know it isn't a popular point. But I think term limits SHOULD be eliminated! The ultimate term limit is the voter. I'm not sure what the purpose of term limits are. If you want to give someone else a chance, then vote for them. Simply having a "mercy rule" is not in the best interests of our nation in my opinion. Why should officials be penalized from running for a position they KNOW and obviously like? Especially if there is voter apathy. I think this issue should entirely be up to the voters.

[notyoueither]

That's good WhiteBandit, but it has been discussed at length elsewhere. Please feel free to begin a new thread if you wish. Maybe opinions have changed.

BTW, did anyone notice that the current CoL does not mandate the length of elections?

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by notyoueither
That's good WhiteBandit, but it has been discussed at length elsewhere. Please feel free to begin a new thread if you wish. Maybe opinions have changed.

BTW, did anyone notice that the current CoL does not mandate the length of elections?

No... which brings up my question: Where would I find myself a copy of said "CoL", which I presume to beam Constitution of L---.

Danke.

[notyoueither]

Look here. Second and third posts.

http://www.apolyton.net/forums/showt...threadid=62223

It is always in the government threads stuck to the top.

[UnOrthOdOx]

/me cracks his knuckles and sits down for a long list...

Things to be looked at:

• Deputies: Their authority and use
• Term Limits: (already stated)
• Polling standards: get them clear for once, and please include abstain somehow...
• Changing Ministers: Only 3? Foreign (add trades here), Military (stay same), and Domestic (all cities, economy, workers, and whatnot)
• Regional Governers: It has been proven to work over the last two terms, these would report to the Domestic Minister?
• Standards for reporting and posting info. NYE, you know my concerns...
• Directory: Official, not? Look over my thoughts (linky soon)
• Great Leader: (of course)
• Changing administrations: My Amendment may not be the best way, but some format should be thought of
• Standards for turnchats/threads, and the notification thereof
• Repolls. If something passes, allow changes sooner?
• will add more later...

[Shiber]

I was just about to suggest that we discuss the authorities of deputies.
Should we oblige ministers to make deputies? Should deputies have full authority when the minister is unavailable? Can deputies be impeached?

[ManicStarSeed]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Go on ManicStarSeed. Please continue.

I guess it was brought up in this (Godking's)thread

I think it is important enough to be covered by the code of laws. Who sets the spending priorities? Do they have to be followed exactly? Are they just recommendations?

Obviously the prez actually does the spending, but what are the limits imposed on the office?

Does the Minister of the economy set the budget based on minister/prez input which the prez follows or do the MoE powers extend ONLY foreign trade deals?

This will become really important as the game goes on and many folks want to spend our limited cash reserve 5 times over with espionage and rush builds.

Just some thoughts..

Mss

[edit renamed financial minister to minister of economy]

[ManicStarSeed]

...Also who has ultimate decision making regarding Pop rushing. Which cities, What to rush... I think it should be city planner with go ahead from the masses on the general policy

More clarification will smooth the process in the end.




And what about an espionage branch of the government, not yet too important, but will become quite a task in the coming centuries.

Later
Mss

[DAVOUT]

To whom, when and how powers are (or are not) transmitted in case of temporary leave.

[Sheik]

NYE, you know what I am going to say:


The Great Leaders!

[Duddha]

If we are only to have three ministries I suggest making governors an elected office, which relies orders to the Domestic Minister. Allows more participation and makes things more interesting.

I would also like to add to the mix my idea of making a Council of Governors to act as a legislator, or create a legislator that the parties could fight over.

[adaMada]

*bump*

We ARE reading and discussing these -- keep up the awsome work!

-- adaMada

[UnOrthOdOx]

I have more, just need a minute...or day...or week...

Babies. Gotta love em. learnin to type with one hand holdin a baby, the other holding a bottle...

hence all the typos lately

[adaMada]

UnOrthO, you've contributed a lot, don't sweat. I just want to make sure no one misses this because it's on the second page, and also that people know that we're actually reading it .

-- adaMada

[GodKing]

Do you have any preliminary things you can share with us?

Regarding mayors.... It takes a long time to collect all of the mayors/regional admins/ whatever topics into a coherent plan for 5 turns. I often spent more than 5-6 hours just coelating and posting and I only had to deal with 4 areas (with one being mine). Now with 6 and still expanding, I hate to think of what time committment some future CP (domestic...) person will have to put into it. Also, toward the end of term 3, the RA's had stopped providing orders.... Which reduced time to compleat to less than 4 hours, including downloading, etc. The more I work with the RA's, I see them as more of a good check on what I was posting for orders, and as more roll playing..... I urge all to move to Macross City, and watch the Robotech Defence Force on their exercises.......

So, I would urge caution on the role of the RA's. Elections are fine, but we hardly have enough people to run for offices now. In term 3 there were only 2 close elections. In term 4, only 1 if I remember correct. The election process is IMO half the fun of being a minister.

Unortho has a very good list above, which almost word for word matches most of my items. One addition - ties in votes, how are they handled, particularly in terms of elections (Ninot/Trip prez election term 2....). And just what does the banana (abstain) winning mean? Repoll, revote, empty office, ammendment doesn't pass, etc.

Thanks.

[adaMada]

I don't know what information I'm allowed to give (if I'm given guidelines then I'll post more), but here's some very very general stuff that we basically all agree on:

There will be more appointed job then in the past, at least some of which will probably be formerly elected jobs.

The Government will be explicitly split into three branches: Senate (Players), Executive (Ministers), and Judicial. Executive will be further split, but the full details of that are still in discussion.

I'd love to tell more, which I'll happily do if I find out what's allowed. (NYE, any thoughts?)

-- adaMada

[notyoueither]

I think we would rather come to agreement about some clauses and then bring those back for discussion and input from the entire community. It could be confusing if we began discussing things here that change before we come back. Am I right?

[adaMada]

Ok, agreed. We'll try to come to some conclusions and then make reports back.

Do I need to take down the very general stuff I put up above, or should I just leave it up (considering that it's stuff we've either all agreed on or that's so general it's a given...)

-- adaMada

[kring]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
* UnOrthOdOx cracks his knuckles and sits down for a long list...

Things to be looked at:

• Deputies: Their authority and use
• Term Limits: (already stated)
• Polling standards: get them clear for once, and please include abstain somehow...
• Changing Ministers: Only 3? Foreign (add trades here), Military (stay same), and Domestic (all cities, economy, workers, and whatnot)
• Regional Governers: It has been proven to work over the last two terms, these would report to the Domestic Minister?
• Standards for reporting and posting info. NYE, you know my concerns...
• Directory: Official, not? Look over my thoughts (linky soon)
• Great Leader: (of course)
• Changing administrations: My Amendment may not be the best way, but some format should be thought of
• Standards for turnchats/threads, and the notification thereof
• Repolls. If something passes, allow changes sooner?
• will add more later...

Personally, I am all for term limits. This gives more people the opportunity to participate and have more imput into the political system. I realize that voters can impose term limits themselves by their votes. I would hope the goal is to get more people involved, not less. When the same crowd is running the show after a long time, people get discouraged about trying to run for office since they believe they can't win. We have enough problems with getting people to run now. Take away term limits and it will get worse.

Let's limit repolling as well. I get tired of having a poll show up multiple times because someone didn't think it through the first 2 times they started it. This goes whether it is an official or unofficial poll situation as well.

Also, there have been edits of official posts that have raised questions.

Playing ahead needs to include playing an earlier game to test a theory, like what was done with cutting the Persian road. Someone thought that would work, then tried it out in an earlier game save, and posted it that it did work. To me, that is playing ahead. Using an earlier game to gain knowledge that isn't available without playing the game. The difference between this and a minister trading is that the minister doesn't actually complete the trade.

I think we need to know what the Constitutional Committee is doing as well; the open govt. rule of the Constitution.

Pop Rushing and Starvation: I know Pop Rushing is not an issue now, but it could become one later again in the game. We are talking about killing off citizens. Starvation currently is an issue.

We are supposed to be playing a game of Democracy where such things would be frowned upon in most real Democracies, yet they happen without even batting an eye here.

If they are going to happen, then all our Citizens (including US) need to be at risk of dying in such instances. Think of that one Star Trek TOS episode. The one where the ship has been declared casualty in the 500 year war.

[GhengisFarb™]

I'm kind of skeptical of the one Domestic minister idea. That's an awful lot of work for one person. Choosing which tiles are used for each and every city. All production, science, tax rates, all worker actions, building ques, etc. That minister will be doing almost the entire game, leaving the President to be that minister's puppet.

I could see a Domestic Minister in charge of city production, with regional or city deputies.

And a National Minister in charge of workers, city sites, and science goals.

Basically, dividing the civ as a whole decisions from the individual city decisions.

[Odin]

We should have regional governers apointed by the Domestic Advisor and have the appointee get a yes/no vote by the electorate with a 60 percent majority. The regional governors choose city improvements and the Domestic Advisor operates the workers and building of units and can overrule a buld queue of a govenor. The Domestic Advisor also operates regions with no current govenor. The governors rule unless impeached by a 66 percent vote of the citizens.

[Duddha]

Umm, whatever happen to a government by the people, for the people, and of the people. Any position of real power should be elected.

[notyoueither]

Duddha, do we always have enough people to fill all the spots? How often have more than half the elections been contested?

Would you strenuously object to allowing a fewer number of elected Ministers to delegate to appointees? We are already allowing delegation of authority to aids, are we not?

What if the power remained with the elected official? What if he/she could overrule or replace as needed?

[GodKing]

Ideas:
Declairing war - how do we decide to attack (people vote?).
Change of government form
Names (cities, provinces, etc.)
The biggie - a person, elected, to act as a representitive to all the other Demo games out there. They would open an embassie thread in each demo game, and provide a means of communication between them. This is more a friendly jesture now, but when PtW comes out and we play against them, I see this as being a necessity.

[=OttomusCeasar=]

Originally posted by GodKing
The biggie - a person, elected, to act as a representitive to all the other Demo games out there. They would open an embassie thread in each demo game, and provide a means of communication between them. This is more a friendly jesture now, but when PtW comes out and we play against them, I see this as being a necessity.

It should be someone very spiteful do properly convey our haughtiness to the other websites.

[ruby_maser]

This is more a friendly jesture now, but when PtW comes out and we play against them, I see this as being a necessity.

is that the idea, then, that when PTW comes out this Democracy game will take on another?