Discussion about Constitution

[Old n Slow]

If the minority comes up with some winning thoughts after some votes were cast, then I recommend that the voters can post in the notes as to "revote". That way the majority still rules, but the majority is now comprised of an informed electorate.

[Gilgamensch]

Not sure what you mean

[Old n Slow]

Say you open a poll on Monday, and set the expiration for Wednesday. Most of the other players vote throughout the day on Monday. Late Monday night a player votes in the minority & explains why…and the explanation sways a significant portion of those who have already voted.

We can do one of two things; 1) let those who are swayed, and swayed enough to comment, thus “changing” their votes (with the new information) or 2) Say, tough too bad. In the first case the “majority” still rules, but now it is a different majority, so in a sense the “minority” has had its voice and isn’t downtrodden. In case 2), voters have an incentive to vote late, and may risk voting not at all -- so we risk less involvement in our political process.

With our polling system for votes, we tend to have some votes before all the discussion has taken place & we may want a failsafe to allow for that discussion and informed voting.

[Gilgamensch]

I see where you are getting to.

But this we could avoid (as example) with a pre-thread before the poll, to discuss and after expiration of it, run the poll. Might be easier to handle, or? (Although might be still worth keeping your option still active)

[Gilgamensch]

How often do you expect we will play?
Reason why I am asking, how long shall be the duration of polls?

[Old n Slow]

My choice is three days for a poll, make two moves a week. Each move might be 5 turns or so of game play. Post the first set of polls on Monday, make the moves Wednesday night, second set of polls on Thursday, Make the move over the weekend.

[Harry Seldon]

I think the prez should be able to run five turns a week. All polls should run three days. If we only do two turns a week this will take forever.

[Whoha]

hes saying 10 turns a week. Early on though, it will take more then 10 turns to discover whatever tech we want to research, so I'd advise a different plan, because we will just be pressing end turn until there is something to do(that is, if we do a prewarp start).

[Harry Seldon]

Ah. Reading is fundamental. Then I should clarify further that I support government making blocks of turns per voting cycle. I just want to make sure we aren't arguing over some MM for a couple of days just to click the Turn button once.

I'm thinking if we run into something more serious like a major war we may want to slow things down a bit by lessening the number of turns in a block, maybe even going turn to turn at critical phases.

[bakalov]

We can even start with faster speed - in the beginning the turns go much faster; We can slow down the speed when we get additional colonies or so ... When we start war with someone there may be battles each turn. We may want to have frequent discussions at war time and less at peace time.

[Gilgamensch]

Just to throw an idea in:

we only count the turns were something happened as turns? So when waiting 10 turns for something to happen (whatever it might be, tech/ship/.....) it means 1 'real'-turn for decision making. And those RT we might want to block into 5. And again we could say that, if changes are needed to the game play, we halt till we decided (suddenly war with somebody/......)

[bakalov]

Yes, this is the idea ... late in the game the events will start to occur more frequently.
The events that need some feedback from the player in the beginning are:
- tech researched - what shall we research next?
- construction finished - what shall we research next?
- population growed - what shall the new pop unit do?
- leader appeared - shall and when we shall recruit him/her?

For the first three ones we may have a plan and we will not need a poll, for the last we may have to discuss it.

[Harry Seldon]

A plan sounds good. Then we could eliminate the arguments over whether to build hydroponic farms or space academy. I think the tech should probably be excluded from the plan, though, with the random tech factor.

[Gilgamensch]

As we might get close to play, I think we shall refocus on out conny again..............

Hopefully later today, I will be able to put some drafts up and you can start to or about it.............

[Harry Seldon]

Bring it. I'll be out of town for awhile so if it's not posted by this afternoon CST then I'll have to play catch up on Monday.

[Gilgamensch]

Harry,

I shall be able to post some stuff in ~2 hours..............(I hope)

[Gilgamensch]

If Apoly would have allowed me.

Never mind:

The Constitution



C O N S T I T U T I O N


Table of Contents

Article I - Bill of Rights

Article II - Executive Branch: The Ministers

Article III - Judicial Branch: The Court

Article IV - Polling Rules

Article V - Government Changes



Article I: Bill of Rights


1. Any person who has registered to participate in this Democracy Game in the MoO2 Democracy Game which way?????????is considered a Citizen. No person shall be denied the right to become a Citizen.
2. No Citizen shall ever be in any poll denied the right to vote and to keep this vote private. No Citizen shall ever be forced to vote in any poll.
3. Freedom of speech and the right to associate into any form of organization shall not be denied unless it violates Apolyton rules.
4. No citizen may be punished in any way without the consent of the Court. Still no one shall be banned permanently from participating in the Democracy Game, excluding those who are permanently banned from Apolyton. Note that people may still be banned for any amount of time, as long as it is not permanent.
5. The government may not knowingly hide information or give false information to the people. Therefore all citizens shall have access to the saved games. However, no Citizen shall ever 'play ahead'.


Article II: Executive Branch: The Ministers


1. General Contents


(a) The members of the Executive Branch are called ministers and the positions in the Exective Branch are called ministerial offices or executive offices.
(b) Any citizen can become a candidate for an executive office by expressing his desire in the according thread
(c) An elected minister is charged with the duties explained in this Section 2 of this Article until the end of the term for which the minister was elected.
(e) The terms for all elected offices last one month. All ministers will remain in office for this period unless they resign or are impeached before the end of it.
(f) If a minister will be unable to perform its duties for some part of the term, this minister is obliged to choose a willing citizen as delegate, who will act on his behalf, until further notice from the minister or the end of the position term, whichever is the sooner. This delegate will still be subordinated to the citizen being replaced. A minister can be delegate of a fellow minister.
(g) A minister who expects to have to appoint a delegate for a significant portion of the term is encouraged to resign.
(h) Every in-game action made or recommended to the President by a minister must be posted to the forum, no matter how insignificant it is.

2. Government Positions

I. The President
(a) The President shall physically play the game on a regular and scheduled basis whenever possible and post the save and a complete report of the game events to the forum.
(b) The President is encouraged to use turnchats, turnthreads, or any other similar method while playing the game.
(c) The President must follow the instructions of the Court, the Ministers and their delegates while playing the game and doesn't hold any veto powers unless specifically named in the constitution. If an instruction is clearly erroneous, or by changed circumstances made impossible or harmful the President may decide in the best interest of the game.
(d) In case of missing orders for a whole turn from a minister and all his delegates the President may not play on.
(e) The President is responsible for the naming of all new colonies of the empire regardless of how the colonies were created or assimilated. A name has to be evaluated by the citizens through an Official Poll (Article IV, Subsection 3-II) before a city is named.
(f) The President has the power over the monetary reserve. Therefore every money spending decision must have the approval of the President in order to be act.
(g) The President is responsible of hiring/firing leaders, according to the decision made by the citizens. shall we stop the game, when this happens???????????


II. The Minister of Affairs
(a) The Minister ofAffairs is responsible for managing all colonies. This includes their distribution of specialists (farmers/workers/scientists) and production queues, rushed production requests and disbanding.
(b) The Minister of Affairs can only disband a colony after this action has been evaluated by the citizens through an Official Poll (Article IV, Subsection 3-II).
(c) The action of Rush buying items can only be perfomed with the President's approval.
(d) The Minister of Affairs is responsible for colony ships, choosing site for new colonies.
(e) The Minister of Affairs is responsible for spying/counterspying.


V. The Minister of Defense
(a) The Minister of Defense is responsible for all units, including freighters, and their orders including the disband order.
(b) Any action which would result in a declaration of war has to be evaluated by the citizens through an Official Poll (Article IV, Subsection 3-II).

Article III: Judicial Branch: The Court


1. Purpose:

(a) The Court is constituted to rule upon: contested disputes involving legal interpretation, validity of polls and elections, violations of the Constitution, or any other legal dispute involving the game.

2. Construct of the Court and Cases

(a) The Citizens are the court
(b) Any Citizen can raise a case, so long 1/3??????? of the citizens agree with this decision and announce so in the public.
(c) This shall be done in thread, entitled 'CASE:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx', whereas xxxxxxxxx stands for a short desciption of the case. Further information has to be clearly stated in the thread itself. This case can stay open for a maximum of three days.
(d) If a majority is already supporting the issue, the case will be seen as decided upon.
(e) Anyone having a objection against the case, may post so in this thread.
(f) If people may want to change their vote, they shall indicate by posting a 'REVOTE'.
(g) If this thread wasn't deciding upon the matter, a POLL shall be raised by the orginator of the case. This POLL, will be titled POLL: CASE: xxxxxxxx. This poll shall expire after three days.
(h) The majority will decide over the case. The case will be discarded if there is no majority deciding for the case.
(i) [I] How shall we decide upon the verdict???????????????? Leave it to the President upon his decision we will vote again???????[I]


Article IV: Polling Rules


1. Definition and validity:

(a) All official decision making will be done through polls, in which Citizens can express their opinion on issues. A poll is the standard vBB poll feature in which people can anonymously vote for one of a list of options.
(b) There are 4 types of polls: Election polls, Official polls, Amendment and Unofficial polls. Beside the ones discribed under the court.
(c) Any Poll that is not Unofficial (see Section 3, particularly Subsection V) and that violates any of the rules specified in this Article will be declared invalid.
(d) Any polls not declared ELECTION, AMENDMENT, or OFFICIAL will be considered Unofficial.
(e) The Court has the right to rule over the validity of polls. Invalid polls should be considered Unofficial and may be closed if the Court requests this.

2. Poll Organization:

(a) The first post of all polls must contain the following elements:
* A clear and unbiased explanation of the question and the answers, if needed;
* Expiration date, if applicable;
* Links to related threads or other information sources, if any;
* Type (see Section 3) and purpose of the poll (for example: information gathering or decision making).
(b) Two types of poll organization are allowed: Yes/No polls and multiple choice polls.
(c) Yes/No polls must have three options of which only one can be chosen. The three options must be:
* Yes, meaning that the voter agrees with what was stated in the poll;
* No, meaning that the voter does not agree with what was stated in the poll;
* Abstain, meaning that the voter does not have a specific opinion on what was stated in the poll or does not wish to express it. Abstain votes may not be considered to say anything about what was stated in the poll.
(d) Alternative terms for 'Yes' and 'No' may be used in a Yes/No poll, as long as their meaning is along the same lines as 'Yes' and 'No' (examples: 'I agree'/'I don't agree' or 'In favour'/'Against'). Terms are along the same lines as 'Yes' and 'No' when the question in the poll can be rephrased so that it can be answered with 'Yes' or 'No'.
(e) Multiple choice polls must have at least three options. Such polls must have an Abstain option as defined in paragraph 3(c). All other options are open for the poll creator to fill in as he wishes, as long as they are clear and unbiased.
(f) All polls except unofficial ones must have options of which only one can be chosen. Multiple selection polls (which are described in the vBB poll system as 'multiple choice') are expressly forbidden.

3. Poll Types:

I. Election polls:
(a) These polls must be started by the President. They serve to elect the persons who will fulfill the official positions of the executive branch of the government, as defined in Article II and Article III.
(b) The subject line must contain the word 'ELECTION', written in capital letters, and the name of the office for which the election is held.
(c) They have to be multiple choice polls with only the names of the candidates as options. They can only be decision-making polls, they cannot be used for not information gathering.
(e) They must follow the rules as defined in Article V.
(f) Election polls in accordance with Article V paragraph 1(h) shall expire in five days and the President must include the expiration time in the first post of the poll.

II. Official polls:
(a) These polls must be started by members of the executive branch of the government, as defined in Article II of this Constitution, and relate to the game.
(b) The subject line must contain the word 'OFFICIAL', written in capital letters.
(c) They can be either Yes/No or multiple choice polls and can be used for either information gathering or decision making.
(d) The government official who started the poll may or may not follow the opinion of the majority of the voters. In case (s)he does not follow what was decided, (s)he must make this decision public. Failure to do so will be regarded withholding of information, as defined in Article I Section 5, and can serve as grounds for Impeachment (see Article V).
(e) Official polls shall only expire at a time chosen by the officer who opened the poll. And if the poll has an expiring day the same officer who started it must include this information in the first post.

IV. Amendments:
(a) These polls can be started by any Citizen, including members of the governement, and must be used to propose Amendments to this Constitution.
(b) The subject line must contain the word 'AMENDMENT', written in capital letters.
(c) They have to be Yes/No polls. Multiple choice polls are not allowed as Ammendments.
(d) Amendments may change/append/override any existing Laws, judicial decisions regarding Laws or any part of the Constitution.
(e) If there are more votes in favour than against, and at least 1/6 of those citizens who do not abstain vote in favour, and the Court does not declare the poll invalid, then the Ammendent is considered passed. All Citizens must from that time on obey it.
(f) Amendments of the Constitution must be recorded by the Court. The person who proposed an Amendment that has been passed must inform the Court of this as soon as possible.
(f) Amendment polls shall expire in five days and the citzen who started the poll must include the expiring day in its first post.

V. Unofficial polls:
(a) These polls can be started by any Citizen, including members of the government.
(b) They may only exist to debate or gather information. Their outcome should not be used by the president to make choices during game play, but may be taken into account by the ministers when providing instructions for the president.
(c) Unofficial polls are the only polls in which more than one option may be chosen from the list of options.
(d) They do not have to follow all the rules specified in this Article. However, rules specified in Article I of this Constitution must still be obeyed.




Article V: Government Changes


1) Elections.

(a) The President is empowered to oversee all elections and is empowered to resolve any election disputes according to the rules in this Constitution.
(b) An officer can leave his office in three ways:
* The term of the office ends.
* The officer is impeached.
* The officer resigns.
(c) An election process must be initiated by the President before the end of any government position term. The previous officer will remain in office until the end of the term or until a new candidate is elected, whichever is the later.
(d) If an officer resigns or is impeached, the timing of the election process and allocation of duties is as described in Sections 2 and 3.
(e) At the start of the election process, the President must start a nomination thread. All citizens who wish to be candidates for an office must publicly express their nomination in this thread. For this they have three days.
(f) No citizen may be a candidate for an elected office if such candidacy might cause this citizen to be in more than one elected office simultaneously.
(g) If no candidate is nominated the President shall extend the nominations for a further three days. This extension can be repeated indefinately.
(h) Once the time in which citizens may express their candidacy for a given elected office has expired, the President will create an Election poll (see Article IV, Subsection 3-I) for the office, with the names of the candidates as options. The poll shall expire in five days.
(i) If only one candidate is available for an office, a Yes/No poll shall be held to decide if this person may serve in this office. This poll shall expire in five days.
(j) If the single candidate is rejected by a majority of voters then the President shall reopen nominations for that office.
(k) The candidate who has received the majority of the votes when the election thread expires will be declared the new holder of the office for which he was a candidate.
(l) In case of a tie in the election poll, the other newly elected members of the same branch of government position in question whose election polls were not tied will vote again to decide which one of the tied candidates will take over this position. If all polls for executive branch positions are simultaneously tied then the President (including the newly elected member, if there is one) shall select the President, and the President shall select the other ministers from the tied candidates in their respective election polls.
(m) In case of a tie in the election of a judge, the newly elected president will vote along with the two judges already in office in deciding who will be the new judge.

2. Impeachment

(a) Any Citizen may bring the case of impeachment of an elected Minister or President.
(b) The Court shall review the allegations made, allow an answer by the accused, and by a vote determine if there are proper and legal grounds to hold a CASE:IMPEACHMENT poll to decide on impeachment. If the accusations are found to be without legal merit, the allegations shall be dismissed.
(c) If the Court decides there are grounds for impeachment, it shall start a poll in which it clearly states the person to be impeached and outlines the events that led to the request for impeachment. If the impeachment is confirmed by a majority of the voters in the poll, the officer in question shall be removed from the office, losing all rights and responsibilities thereof.
(d) Elections for a replacement shall be started only if they could conclude at least one week before the end of the term for the office. If elections are not started a temporary replacement can be chosen as described in paragraph (g).
(e) The President may open nominations for a replacement for the impeached official at any time while the impeachment poll is open if it considers that the impeachment is likely to occur. In this case, the nomination thread must clearly state that the election is conditional on the impeachment of the official.
(f) If the impeachment poll closes and the officer is impeached and nominations have not yet begun, then the Court must start them as soon as possible.
(g) The President may choose a willing citizen to fill that office until a replacement is elected. The chosen citizen will have the word temporary as a prefix to the name of their office.
(h) If the President is to be impeached, the Minister of Defense shall take over the President's office and start new elections for the President. The game will be stopped till a replacement is available.

3. Resignations

(a) Any officer may announce his desire to resign at any time.
(b) Elections for a replacement shall be started be the court upon this announcement only if they could conclude at least one week before the end of the term for the office.
(c) The officer who wishes to resign shall be requested to remain in office until a replacement is elected.
(d) If the officer is unwilling to remain in office, then the Court may choose a willing citizen to fill that office until a replacement is elected. The chosen citizen will have the word temporary as a prefix to the name of their office.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by bakalov
- leader appeared - shall and when we shall recruit him/her?

Sometimes it seems automatic. Suppose Xentus (sp?) or Necron shows up, not hiring is really stupid (unless you can't get enough $$$)

[GhengisFarb™]

We could always stop and hold a poll discussion. It would give us something to do.

[Old n Slow]

Constitution looks complicated enough -- do we want a poll to ratify it?

[Gilgamensch]

Originally posted by Old n Slow
Constitution looks complicated enough -- do we want a poll to ratify it?

Good comment , but:

I marked couple of things in Italic as I wasn't sure about how we shall handle..........

Please give me some input

[Whoha]

why can't we just half-ass anything around here ? :P

[Gilgamensch]

Two reasons:

A Democracy is always based on something written (even those english had the Magna Carta).
And the next reason, just that everyone knows, how to do his job he was elected for and what the citizens can expect from him.

Some minor ones I won't mention.............

[Harry Seldon]

Good gravy that took some time to write. Looks pretty good to me. Thoughts:

Judicial: 1/3 seems like a decent amount. How will we keep track of how many people are playing? The president should render the verdict unless the judgement is against him, in which case the next highest minister should.

Impeachment: Is it a good idea to let the outgoing president choose a temporary replacement? Maybe whoever began the impeachment should choose the temp.

Government positions: The game should stop because if it doesn't and we have a power hungry Prez s/he could just fire everyone and delay hiring anyone else while playing all roles.

I'll look at it again later.

[Gilgamensch]

Actually, before people think I am a lawyer or whatever, I did take a copy of another DG and modified it to fit our DG. But I am not really happy with it, like it stands..........

[Old n Slow]

I recall looking at another democracy game -- citizens were "registered" with one thread (sticky iirc) and then participated.

I prefer simpler vs more complete -- arguments may happen anyway. Independent of the constitution we can have other 'rules' or 'agreements' in effect as well, not too mention admendments.

I'm concerned that interest may wane.

[Gilgamensch]

I was thinking of something like this, just a 'sticky' thread (here we call it topped ........

Simple is good, but what if there is a power-hungry minority trying to take over?

[Harry Seldon]

Then at least there is enough interest to warrant said takeover. If they do and the majority can't beat them back then they deserve to run the game for awhile anyway.

[Old n Slow]

Originally posted by Harry Seldon
Then at least there is enough interest to warrant said takeover. If they do and the majority can't beat them back then they deserve to run the game for awhile anyway.

This sounds like the mean squared error approach to utility theory.

[Harry Seldon]

This sounds like the mean squared error approach to utility theory.

Physics? Urban Engineering? Horticulture?!?