Game Reform Proposal Committee

[President Marokai]

So, on the order of the President, there is now a Game Reform committee that is designed to bring the minds together of the following individuals: Myself, Belgiansocialist, and Cincinnatus.

PRESS RELEASE

The Presidential Game Reform Panel

The President has finalised the current make-up of his reform panel with the appointment of Assemblyman Cincinnatus of the Northeast. He will join former Vice President Marokai and UDL Chairman belgiansocialst.

The terms of reference for the panel are as follows.

• The Game Reform Panel will meet in a manner and at a frequency of their choosing.
• The Panel will be required to produce an interim Game Reform Options Report by 15 August
  
  
• The Panel will be required to present the final Game Reform Report by 15 September to allow the President and the Senate to consider its contents before the end of the current term.
  
  
• The Panel will be able to examine all governmental and governance functions of the Federal government, however, the repeal of the Game Reform Act passed under the last administration will not be considered.

The goals of this little committee would be to, put simply, find ways to make the game more interesting. To identify problems in the current structure of the game, and come up with passable solutions that we can put together to actually solve those problems, or at least attempt to.

Finding ways to make elections more interesting, to improve under-appreciated offices, to make the national Senate work better in general, and anything else we can identify.. well, that is what we're here for.

We have until August 15th to come up with an interim report. For that interim report I think we should focus on identifying problems and coming up with a number of possible responses to those problems, perhaps from each of us individually, or collectively if that's what you two prefer. We can take the time we have after that to come up with a very specific approach to our highlighted issues with the game.

Frankly though, I'm not very happy with this timeline. I think we can do our work much faster, so what I'd like to shoot for is to actually have everything done by August 15th instead. I don't think we need two whole months to do this stuff. I have more faith in us than that.

So, let's start by meeting up here before we actually get started, and maybe highlighting our own issues with the game right now and then we can start discussing what to actually do about it, after that.

[Cincinnatus]

I think the biggest problems are;

1)  Disconnect between Regional and Federal Gov't. We have Gov's who don't know the right amendment forms to put for a vote, some citizens have no clue what the amendment would do, and most of them probably don't know what the constitution entails to begin with.

2)  Wiki

The Wiki is often a main point of concern.  This is the major outlet we have for new, and older players to understand their region/country, and see past law.  I doubt half of our players even know who the current Senators are, and none probably know when they join.

3)  Lack of events, figures, outlooks, to respond to

Since I've been here it seems very little than an occasional flood has been an issue to respond to.  Generally, the Govt's are proposing legislation that takes care of generic problems that don't effect much at all.  For example, how is this regions gun safety law helping to reduce violent crime?  What will these expenditures and/or taxes do to the economy/business.  This is a major thing for the cabinet to work out (and I'm sure with Marokai as GM the situation will improve).  However, regional specific events might increase interest among the respective regional Rep's. 


That would be three major things that everyone knows about, and need to be addressed.  Of course there are other things that need to be discussed, and I'm sure they will be mentioned.



Marokai's idea of allowing regions to use their desired election method is a great idea.  This is an example of how simple, and passable solutions can make each region distinct from another.

[Secretary Polnut]

So, on the order of the President, there is now a Game Reform committee that is designed to bring the minds together of the following individuals: Myself, Belgiansocialist, and Cincinnatus.

PRESS RELEASE

The Presidential Game Reform Panel

The President has finalised the current make-up of his reform panel with the appointment of Assemblyman Cincinnatus of the Northeast. He will join former Vice President Marokai and UDL Chairman belgiansocialst.

The terms of reference for the panel are as follows.

• The Game Reform Panel will meet in a manner and at a frequency of their choosing.
• The Panel will be required to produce an interim Game Reform Options Report by 15 August
  
  
• The Panel will be required to present the final Game Reform Report by 15 September to allow the President and the Senate to consider its contents before the end of the current term.
  
  
• The Panel will be able to examine all governmental and governance functions of the Federal government, however, the repeal of the Game Reform Act passed under the last administration will not be considered.

The goals of this little committee would be to, put simply, find ways to make the game more interesting. To identify problems in the current structure of the game, and come up with passable solutions that we can put together to actually solve those problems, or at least attempt to.

Finding ways to make elections more interesting, to improve under-appreciated offices, to make the national Senate work better in general, and anything else we can identify.. well, that is what we're here for.

We have until August 15th to come up with an interim report. For that interim report I think we should focus on identifying problems and coming up with a number of possible responses to those problems, perhaps from each of us individually, or collectively if that's what you two prefer. We can take the time we have after that to come up with a very specific approach to our highlighted issues with the game.

Frankly though, I'm not very happy with this timeline. I think we can do our work much faster, so what I'd like to shoot for is to actually have everything done by August 15th instead. I don't think we need two whole months to do this stuff. I have more faith in us than that.

So, let's start by meeting up here before we actually get started, and maybe highlighting our own issues with the game right now and then we can start discussing what to actually do about it, after that.

You could have said so earlier, lol...

[President Marokai]

Oh it's not criticism of you, Polnut. I just aim high.

[Prez Duke]

I can feel the joy radiating from Marokai in this thread!

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

I doubt half of our players even know who the current Senators are

I'm STILL not sure and I'm not new by any means.

Would it be wise to try to exert societal pressure to encourage players to make changes when THEY get elected to a position? We could try leaning on the AG but that requires an active AG. Why not try to parcel out the duties to each subsection - like Senators being expected to ensure that their names are properly listed. It can be ugly text-only crap, the AG can clean it up, but just to have something there to begin with.

[President Marokai]

Some of my main issues:

1. Senate elections have been the same for way way too long and regional elections in particular tend to be too predictable. The only difference in the way Senators are election in a region is that it's just within that regions boundaries, and otherwise it has exactly the same procedure as the national races. There needs to be variation in Senate elections in some way. Elections are a major part of Atlasia and when they cease to be interesting, the game starts falling apart.

2. The Vice Presidency is a useless position that serves more as a political football for big parties than an actual position that has any responsibilities. It also doesn't serve the game in any meaningful way. It could be elected separately, be given more legislative responsibilities, etc, but something must be done to revive this position and give it more importance and recognition.

3. The Senate is an inactive and decrepit mess. There's one bill on the floor right now that's been here for nearly 7 months, and most votes tend not to get the maximum number of votes. Yankee is constantly begging for people to pay f**king attention to things, and the number of legislation introduced and passed in any given session has basically cratered in the last year. I'm unsure of what we could recommend on this front, right now, but I think focusing on cleaning up or ditching old legislation from the statute might at least give people an interesting place to start. As for inactive people in the Senate..

4. The party system is the most predictable thing of all. Once again I don't know what any one specific proposal could do about this, but it's a problem and deserves at least mentioning. As the parties have become more and more entrenched, the game has progressively become less and less interesting, bleeds members old and new, and produces less and less active and dedicated individuals than we used to have a couple years ago. Finding some way to set up Senate legislative requirements or perhaps introducing a complete change of the national voting system for at-large Senate elections could at least try to shake Atlasia around and see if anything falls loose.

5. Wiki. It's still a mess. I've tried numerous things in my 2 and ahalf years in Atlasia to fix that thing but we still need to do more. Cleaning up the statute is a top priority, to be sure.

6. Things have inched up to being more complicated than they are fun. I'd been thinking of this for awhile but reading about the Mideast budget battle convinced me of it. At the end of the day Atlasia is still a game. When things get to the point that one random guy in the game is asked to tally up tax revenue for an entire region based on real-life numbers, things have gotten ridiculous. Grounding it in reality is a good thing, but one person cannot do the job that entire organizations are built to do in RL.

It's just going too far. Fair guesstimations based on real life events and numbers are fine, but we're edging to being too precise on things and it's causing a lot of people's eyes to just glaze over in boredom. Fun events and legislation (which can still be sort of serious, you know!) should get a bit of priority above the incredibly wonky and un-fun details work that probably three people in the game actually care about.

[Yelnoc]

I'll respond to number 6 since I've played a large part in pushing the regional budget.

When I joined Atlasia, regional governments could pass legislation spending or collecting money from numerous sources without effecting anything at all.  The GM was to subsumed with federal affairs to deal with each piece of legislation and even if he did get around to doling out consequences, after a month or so they would inevitably be forgotten and the cycle would start over again.

What the regional budget does is force the governments to be accountable.  It is a record of every dime spent by the regional government.  Doing this forces the regional officeholders to understand what they have done and that what they do will have consequences.  This is because the moderator team, mostly in the person of the SoIA can keep track of the budget and factor it into regional stories and statistics (such as that region's unemployment rate or whether a region's high amount of debt is negatively effecting their economy).

These budget might seem like quite a chore to set up but, once created, are incredibly easy to maintain.  The process of creating them is simple, if you need any pointers just shoot me a PM.  These budgets use real life state statistics as a base because, up until this point, economic data as been based (spottily) on the real world.  My vision is that one day every region and the government will have a relevant, constantly updated budget.  This will allow us to detach ourselves from the United States and truly become an independent government simulation; Atlasia.

I understand that "government simulation" might not sound that great to those of you who are only here for the elections.  I joined because the government aspect and, in my tenure as a citizen, it seems that a lackluster government precipitates boring elections.  Imagine if the federal government was locked in an ideological dispute over the budget, a dispute that threatened a shutdown of government.  In this game's eleven years, the foundations of government-economic interaction were never laid, or at least never laid well, and this has come back to bite us.  Going through with this project should have a much more positive impact then pulling back from the brink.

[President Marokai]

I have no problem with government simulation, but they are most definitely not "simple" in any way shape or form. Budgets just plain suck. They're often inaccurate because people never get all the information right (why do we spend money on Medicare and Medicaid? They were abolished nearly two years ago! And aren't we out of Iraq by now, yet we keep spending money on it? And why do people never get the tax rates right?), and the process of getting revenues tallied up is the sort of process that entire organizations in RL are set up to do, and now that's saddled onto one single person in a game.

It sucks all the fun out of trying to keep the game interesting when a person has to sit down for hours with a calculator and sift through pages and pages of tax websites just because a few people want a fantasy budget and the vast majority of everyone else doesn't give a damn. I understand the desire to separate us entirely from the United States, but there must be far more interesting and less taxing (pun not intended) ways of accomplishing that.

They're only "easy to maintain" after being set up if every single solitary thing has it's precise fiscal impact added up. Which requires more arduous research. But then we need more taxes later on to pay for them. Break out the tax revenue information so we can slog through PDFs! What is fun in trying to precisely tack down every single cent of everything brought up? It sucks the fun out of everything and it will literally kill me if I'm spending every minute of my free time just doing legislative analysis on obscure regional bills because some wonk got it in his head that we need to account for every dime every fantasy government spent instead of me trying to think of interesting stories or doing easier and more productive things instead.

There's a reason Badger basically the kicked the can on the Mideast budget for basically the entire time he was GM. It's easy to care about the budget when you just bury someone else in the work.

[Yelnoc]

I have no problem with government simulation, but they are most definitely not "simple" in any way shape or form. Budgets just plain suck. They're often inaccurate because people never get all the information right (why do we spend money on Medicare and Medicaid? They were abolished nearly two years ago! And aren't we out of Iraq by now, yet we keep spending money on it? And why do people never get the tax rates right?), and the process of getting revenues tallied up is the sort of process that entire organizations in RL are set up to do, and now that's saddled onto one single person in a game.

The Federal Budget is a cock-up.  I meant to fix as GM.  If you really need me to, I might be able to find some time do it for you.  That in itself is the fault of people, not the system.

It sucks all the fun out of trying to keep the game interesting when a person has to sit down for hours with a calculator and sift through pages and pages of tax websites just because a few people want a fantasy budget and the vast majority of everyone else doesn't give a damn. I understand the desire to separate us entirely from the United States, but there must be far more interesting and less taxing (pun not intended) ways of accomplishing that.

You only have to do it once.  Honestly, if you didn't want to crunch numbers you should not have accepted the GM position.

They're only "easy to maintain" after being set up if every single solitary thing has it's precise fiscal impact added up. Which requires more arduous research. But then we need more taxes later on to pay for them. Break out the tax revenue information so we can slog through PDFs! What is fun in trying to precisely tack down every single cent of everything brought up? It sucks the fun out of everything and it will literally kill me if I'm spending every minute of my free time just doing legislative analysis on obscure regional bills because some wonk got it in his head that we need to account for every dime every fantasy government spent instead of me trying to think of interesting stories or doing easier and more productive things instead.

Well, that's why we in the IDS set up a budget commission.  Granted, PiT and I did everything, but two is better than one.  You have SoIA Barnes to help you out; if you still feel the task is too overwhelming, petition Polnut to create a Budget Commission and appoint citizens to help you in this endeavor.

There's a reason Badger basically the kicked the can on the Mideast budget for basically the entire time he was GM. It's easy to care about the budget when you just bury someone else in the work.

From what I understand, Badger, a real-world lawyer, was involved in a real-world court case during his tenure as lawyer and thus was a but too busy for this.  So tasks were delegated.  As I said early, divide it up.  Trust me, once you finish it you will feel greatly accomplished.

[President Marokai]

Oh I'll try to get to work right away on fixing the national budget. Thankfully I know some of the immediate errors right off the bat.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying I won't work on these things. I'm happy to gather together a team and fix the budgets, I just want to caution things from getting too out of hand. Creating a budget is fine, and but I just want to make sure that calculating budgetary matters doesn't start cannibalizing other parts of my job.

[Yelnoc]

Oh I'll try to get to work right away on fixing the national budget. Thankfully I know some of the immediate errors right off the bat.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying I won't work on these things. I'm happy to gather together a team and fix the budgets, I just want to caution things from getting too out of hand. Creating a budget is fine, and but I just want to make sure that calculating budgetary matters doesn't start cannibalizing other parts of my job.

I know how you feel.  It can be a slog, but the wonderful thing about the new system is you can delegate your abilities.

Now, as a non-member of the committee, would I be out of line to offer a few general suggestions?

[President Marokai]

Oh I'll try to get to work right away on fixing the national budget. Thankfully I know some of the immediate errors right off the bat.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying I won't work on these things. I'm happy to gather together a team and fix the budgets, I just want to caution things from getting too out of hand. Creating a budget is fine, and but I just want to make sure that calculating budgetary matters doesn't start cannibalizing other parts of my job.

I know how you feel.  It can be a slog, but the wonderful thing about the new system is you can delegate your abilities.

Now, as a non-member of the committee, would I be out of line to offer a few general suggestions?

Please, feel free.

[Yelnoc]

Alright...

The Wiki
It is and always has been widely acknowledged as a problem.  It is very, very large and as unwieldy as can be expected despite great efforts on the part of several people.  One of the biggest problems, IMO, is that in both the federal and regional statute lists, each piece of legislation must be read and digested individually.  If the Attorney General would set up pages that summarize Atlasian law (and do the same for the regions or encourage regional figures to do so on their own), organized by topics, I feel that the wiki would become much more accessible to the average citizen. 

Elections and Political Parties
I have only witnessed one close election in Atlasia; it was an at-large senate election in which the last seat was hotly contested (forgot which election but it was the one where True Fed lost).  That is, obviously, a major problem for a game that is supposed to be an elections simulation.  The reason, it seems, that each election is a foregone conclusion stems directly from the current party system.  In regional elections, party's have by accident or design stacked their members in certain regions.  The only regions that seem to ever have competitive elections are the Northeast and Mideast; the Northeast's situation stems from the breakdown of the Populare's party which was at one point stacked in the region.

So we know the problem, the question is how to solve it?  What we have in Atlasia is a two-party system, a right-wing RPP and left-wing JCP (no, I don't consider the UDL a party).  In the United States, it can be argued that the electoral system is biased in favor of a two-party system.  In Atlasia that is certainly not the case.  Ultimately, it will fall to the players to shake things up.  The founders of the UDL tried to do this, but failed for not having any other reason then "shaking up the system."  Until another wedge issue emerges, the two-party system will likely remain unchallenged.

On the topic of senatorial elections, there are a few options.  The At-Large seats could be done away with and the regions given the ability to elect their second senator as they see fit.  Or, Regional Senate seats can be abolished in favor of an all at-large system.  Another idea that was bouncing in my head earlier was districts could be created by cherry-picking two or three states from each region to create 5 districts, 3 containing 10 states and 2 containing 11.  This would create districts that are free of both regional and at-large influence and require new strategies for parties to gain the seats.  The states could be arranged alphabetically to prevent selection bias.  Below is an example 11-state district.

District 1: Alaska (PA), Arizona (PA), Colorado (MW), Iowa (MW), D.C. (ME), Illinois (ME), Indiana (ME), Connecticut (NE), Delaware (NE), Alabama (IDS), Florida (IDS)

[Yelnoc]

I thought I would repost Fritz's proposal. 

I just had a novel idea.

If we are going to have the regions run the Senate elections, let's have them run the Presidential elections, too!  Each region would be allocated a number of "electoral votes", equal to the number of registered voters in the region (regardless of the number actually voting).  The regions would have to pass laws determining how electoral votes are awarded- probably winner take all, but could be allocated proportionately, too.  Just like the states.

Then, on the same weekend in February, June, and October, each region would open a voting booth for President and VP/Region Senator elections.  The Federal Gov't would still administer the at-large Senate elections.

Whatcha think?

I find it somewhat interesting.  It gives the regions a much greater say in presidential elections.  Each region would choose how to allot its delegates, adding another layer of strategy to the game.  However, there is potential for the parties to increase strategic registration.  Below is the most current Census Table.

Region	RPP	JCP	UDL	POP	Other	Ind	Total
Northeast	11	12	2	8	3	6	42
Mideast	14	4	3	1	1	5	28
South	11	4	1	2	1	5	24
Midwest	1	10	7	2	3	2	25
Pacific	3	9	5	1	2	4	24
Total	40	39	18	14	10	22	143

As you can see, the Northeast would start with nearly double the electoral votes as the other regions.  Thus, whatever region has the most registered voters becomes the most powerful.  It has been brought up that one party might try registering all of its members in one state, so that the votes of all its members are guaranteed for the candidate they voted for.  If one party seized control of the Northeast, they would automatically gain control of its large zombie voter/inactive citizen population.

As another example, the JCP might move all 39 of their voters to the Pacific.  This would guarantee an upwards of 50 EV's for the leftist candidate.  And herein lies a problem with the region stacking strategy.  The JCP would need control of at least one more small region to guarantee their candidate victory.  So long as Atlasia maintains a multi-party system or a large body of independents, that will likely be near impossible.  A much more sensible strategy would be to try and spread your party out among about three regions in which you can just barely maintain a majority in all of their active populations.

Thoughts?

[Cincinnatus]

I really like this idea, but your concerns do need to be addressed before it can move forward.  What would be the best time to determine electorate power?  (Best time in order to best prevent strategic voting).  What if it's not on population alone, but also reliant on party variation..?  This may be confusing, but something along these lines would be best to prevent such a negative outcome. 

This idea definitely deserves more discussion, and I hope anyone with any ideas/solution is willing to reply in this thread.

[President Marokai]

The idea of an electoral college is interesting, but I doubt it would get much traction beyond our academic minds.

That's really the key problem and should be the general idea of our approach. In discussing these problems and how to approach them we should try to keep in mind proposals that stand a reasonable chance of passing. Reform in the past (for better or worse.. I think worse!) has often fallen apart because it is too ambitious. We should just be careful about that line. It's a difficult balance, I suppose, but unfortunately is one we're saddled with being forced to make.

And is belgiansocialist away, I imagine? I haven't heard much from him but I confess I haven't really looked into his absence either. So if I've missed something I apologize.

[Yelnoc]

The idea of an electoral college is interesting, but I doubt it would get much traction beyond our academic minds.

That's really the key problem and should be the general idea of our approach. In discussing these problems and how to approach them we should try to keep in mind proposals that stand a reasonable chance of passing. Reform in the past (for better or worse.. I think worse!) has often fallen apart because it is too ambitious. We should just be careful about that line. It's a difficult balance, I suppose, but unfortunately is one we're saddled with being forced to make.

And is belgiansocialist away, I imagine? I haven't heard much from him but I confess I haven't really looked into his absence either. So if I've missed something I apologize.

He probably doesn't know he has been appointed

And if we want something passable, does this sound too ambition/insane?

On the topic of senatorial elections, there are a few options.  The At-Large seats could be done away with and the regions given the ability to elect their second senator as they see fit.  Or, Regional Senate seats can be abolished in favor of an all at-large system.  Another idea that was bouncing in my head earlier was districts could be created by cherry-picking two or three states from each region to create 5 districts, 3 containing 10 states and 2 containing 11.  This would create districts that are free of both regional and at-large influence and require new strategies for parties to gain the seats.  The states could be arranged alphabetically to prevent selection bias.  Below is an example 11-state district.

District 1: Alaska (PA), Arizona (PA), Colorado (MW), Iowa (MW), D.C. (ME), Illinois (ME), Indiana (ME), Connecticut (NE), Delaware (NE), Alabama (IDS), Florida (IDS)

How about this?

The Wiki
It is and always has been widely acknowledged as a problem.  It is very, very large and as unwieldy as can be expected despite great efforts on the part of several people.  One of the biggest problems, IMO, is that in both the federal and regional statute lists, each piece of legislation must be read and digested individually.  If the Attorney General would set up pages that summarize Atlasian law (and do the same for the regions or encourage regional figures to do so on their own), organized by topics, I feel that the wiki would become much more accessible to the average citizen.

[Cincinnatus]

The Wiki;

A summary may work, perhaps a small explanation at the bottom of each piece of legislation?  Homely and I have introduced a wiki bill in the Northeast that may want to consider doing something like this.  A big problem seems to be that there's only a few people who care to update the wiki.  It's not that hard to get account (Just message Dave), but we're humans, and thus, inherently lazy

Electoral college;

I find this to be a very interesting idea, however, to many people have concerns that would have to be addressed in order for this to ever be considered.  I think it would certainly change the game a bit, but it's ability to get passed is questionable at best.

Belgian;  I'm assuming he doesn't know he's a member of this committee, and I was told he's busy with real life.  No disrespect to belgian, but perhaps Yelnoc should be appointed to take his place?

Regional election freedom;  This seems to be catching on, and JBrase has given his support to such an idea.  I think this would be a key recommendation and proposal for debate.  Of course, we should talk about more options that can be refined by this committee.

[President Marokai]

What do we think of this proposal, people? I figure since there's no harm in it we as well discuss pertinent game reform proposals as they come.

Working with with Marokai, he and I (mostly him) wrote this. I have introduced this amendment and with some luck it will pass. (That is your que to start write/calling your senators demanding they vote in favor of this Amendmemnt )

Empowering Regions in Elections Amendment
1. A region's governing body shall have the authority to determine procedure for administration of voting booths and certification of election results for their own Class A Senate elections.

2. A region's governing body may determine the means of election to Class A Senate election.

3. To ensure fairness in changes in means of election, any alternative system of voting chosen by the region's governing body for Class A Senate elections must remain democratic, and may not take into account factors such as: post count, party affiliation, or username.

4. If a region fails to open a vote for their Senator within 1 day of when polls must open, a Federal Officer of the Executive Branch shall open the vote on behalf of the region.

[Yelnoc]

I don't see anything wrong with it.

[Cincinnatus]

I don't see anything wrong with it.

This.  It has the ability to pass, and will differentiate the regions to an extent.  A+

[Insula Dei]

Signing in and all. Probably try to start contributing tomorrow.

[Cincinnatus]

Right, we are all here.  I think it's about time we started moving again, yes?  Our deadline is approaching.

[Secretary Polnut]

I should stress again, that I think all Senators - whether at-large or regional should be elected by the same method.

I understand the want for regional autonomy on this issue, but I haven't seen a strong argument that would really favour this.