Napoleon/Kalwejt June 2012: Time to Revive This Game!!!!

[Yelnoc]

Napoleon, how do you feel about The Equal Representation Act currently being debated in the Senate?

I disagree with it, to a slightly larger degree than my disagreement with the Clarence/Yelnoc ticket's assertion that the Senate isn't broke and doesn't need fixed. In fact, I also disagree with your statements about gerrymandering, which would make my job more fun for whoever is fortunate enough to hold it.

There are many problems with the Regional Senate seats not limited to a lack of competition and inactivity. We should evaluate possible solutions but I do not see this amendment as a solution. I encourage Atlasians to keep an open mind about those of us voicing potential solutions. Change is not always bad.

No change is not always bad.  But sometimes change from the top down causes more problems than it solves.  The concept of regional senate seats is Not a flawed one.  You are correct that lack of competition and general inactivity is a problem which effects regional senate seats.  However, those issues effect every other aspect of the game.  Remember when Pingvin and Alfred Jones were elected in an At-Large Senate election unopposed?  You can't force activity, and getting rid of regional seats won't create the veil of activity the author of the bill seems to think it will.  Our current trough is merely a reality of the Atlas Fantasy Elections board.  As we near the 2012 Election, plenty of new people will sign up on this site.  After November, we will see an infusion of new blood and the consequential uptick in activity.  At that point in time, I expect much of this conversation about structural changes will cease, until our next period of activity in 2015 or thereabouts. 

No, change isn't always bad.  But you have to be smart about what you change and how you do so.

[Yelnoc]

I have been a regional Senator for two terms so what you say is nothing new to me. It might suffice to say that my own initial Senate victory was the last competitive regional Senate election. I would rather eliminate At Large seats for districts than regional seats. But saying "Regional seats at all costs" is very counter productive. If we moved to a four region map then the regional senate seats would still exist but in a different style.

I don't think saying "wait and things will pick up" is good enough for Atlasia, either.

I don't see any alternative to letting things run their natural course other than trying to make things smaller.  One way of doing that is by decreasing the number of regions to four.  I am not opposed to that by any means, and yes I recognize that in such a scenario the size of the senate would have to be reduced or some other sort of compromise reached.  But I am not someone who thinks that the fundamentals of Atlasia are broken.

[Yelnoc]

This is a game of elections. When so many of our elections are uncompetitive, the fundamentals are certainly broken. Whether that requires institutional reform is another story but there is a problem with the game's fundamentals that has been clear for a while now.

Do you have a solution in mind?  I fail to see how we can make more elections competitive without increasing activity or decreasing the effective scope of the game.  The former is mostly out of our control.  The latter is worth discussing, but if you make it to cozy then in a few months you'll have people that feel left out of the process.