Give it a week

[Blair]

Okay, the board has kinda gone into overdrive over the lat couple of days. I've heard everything from the idea of shutting down the game, to introducing term limits. It's clear that people feel that the game is broken, but I'm worried this is going to have a stampede effect. As many would agree I don't think the game should end, and I'm worried that it's going to end because of a couple of threads.

That's why I honesty think we should keep our heads, get a New GM in who can manage the game, let the new senators serve there term (if we have a full capacity senate it will help) and let's put some effort into the game. I know there's many problems with this game, and I know there's a need for reform. But maybe we should try and give the body a shot of adrenaline

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Blair has a point. Reform is not a substitute for actually playing the game. And even if we completely restart there has to be a burst of energy. Also the reforms have to make sense and the only concrete proposal I have seen so far is one that will indiscrimately eliminate people not based on activity, but age. WTF?!!!!

It is the fourth of the July and it is also the Independence Day Protest on a certain other board, which was aimed at specifically at not posting on this site and instead posting on that one to send a message to the forum administration. Granted, probably not going to accomplish anything but whatever. 

The Atlas had a 50% reduction in posts this Fourth of July over the previous two years. AAD is draining this site and many Atlasian players are participating in that board because of problems across the Atlas at-large. Some view Atlasia as the worst aspect of this site, I would say it is one of the few positives, but AAD is yet another reason why this game cannot afford to be treating people like crap. We need to welcome active contributors both new and old and make people want to come onto the Atlas to play it.

[Senator Cris]

Also the reforms have to make sense and the only concrete proposal I have seen so far is one that will

I suppose you are referring to term-limits.
Well, It's only a proposal, it's not a thing that will happen 100%. If there will be a constitutional convention, there will be a debate about it, but it will not be the only proposal.
There are other concrete proposals. Changing our system, changing the number of the regions and I'm sure that others ideas will emerge during the time.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Also the reforms have to make sense and the only concrete proposal I have seen so far is one that will

I suppose you are referring to term-limits.
Well, It's only a proposal, it's not a thing that will happen 100%. If there will be a constitutional convention, there will be a debate about it, but it will not be the only proposal.
There are other concrete proposals. Changing our system, changing the number of the regions and I'm sure that others ideas will emerge during the time.

Once I lost to Hagrid, any notion of there being a need for Term Limits for Senate went out the window and before it was based on the notion that me being their so long was deterimental even as I willing took on one of the most thankless tasks, that of running the Senate and did it well so other people could focus on legislation, for a good portion of that time. Setting that debate aside, turnover has never been low and it is even higher now then it was last year and right now we are sturgglign to get candidates, limiting the pool of some of the most active (longest serving Senators in 2014 were rated most active by one of the tracker things if I recall correctly) players will worsen the Senate not improve.

A legislative restart has merit, restructuring the relationship between the regions and the Federal Gov't and possibly redesigning thel egislative branch (bicameralism) are all ideas, along with an active and independent GM, are things I have supported for years. The hardest part will be getting people to aggree to one, much less all of these major reform facets.

Also as a word of caution, the more dastic the reform the greater the likelihood of it failing at ratification.

[Senator Cris]

Also the reforms have to make sense and the only concrete proposal I have seen so far is one that will

I suppose you are referring to term-limits.
Well, It's only a proposal, it's not a thing that will happen 100%. If there will be a constitutional convention, there will be a debate about it, but it will not be the only proposal.
There are other concrete proposals. Changing our system, changing the number of the regions and I'm sure that others ideas will emerge during the time.

Once I lost to Hagrid, any notion of there being a need for Term Limits for Senate went out the window and before it was based on the notion that me being their so long was deterimental even as I willing took on one of the most thankless tasks, that of running the Senate and did it well so other people could focus on legislation, for a good portion of that time. Setting that debate aside, turnover has never been low and it is even higher now then it was last year and right now we are sturgglign to get candidates, limiting the pool of some of the most active (longest serving Senators in 2014 were rated most active by one of the tracker things if I recall correctly) players will worsen the Senate not improve.

A legislative restart has merit, restructuring the relationship between the regions and the Federal Gov't and possibly redesigning thel egislative branch (bicameralism) are all ideas, along with an active and independent GM, are things I have supported for years. The hardest part will be getting people to aggree to one, much less all of these major reform facets.

Also as a word of caution, the more dastic the reform the greater the likelihood of it failing at ratification.

A new legislative system, a new regions system, changes in Cabinet are all things that would be addressed in a Constitutional Convention. So, join us and put your signature on the petition for a Constitutional Convention!

[/]

Good point OP

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Nah, if we do as the OP suggests than we'll lose the momentum necessary to get real changes implemented.

[TNF]

Giving this issue breathing room will put us right back where we started, the pit of inactivity. We have some small momentum now, so now is the time to strike. End Atlasia and start over!

[Leinad]

I concur with Senators Blair and Yankee on all counts.

This basically sums up my feelings:

As many would agree I don't think the game should end, and I'm worried that it's going to end because of a couple of threads.

Also, term limits would be silly. All over I see people talking about how there's barely enough people to fill all the posts, and it's true! Why would you make that even worse by rendering the most successful, active, and experienced Atlasians ineligible to run?!?

Nah, if we do as the OP suggests than we'll lose the momentum necessary to get real changes implemented.

Giving this issue breathing room will put us right back where we started, the pit of inactivity. We have some small momentum now, so now is the time to strike. End Atlasia and start over!

Momentum to run Atlasia into the ground isn't the right kind of momentum. Screaming at the top of our lungs and rushing in to fix problems never solved anything, we need sensible ideas that we can agree on, not a contest of who can type "REVOLUTION!!!" in the largest font size the most.

I'll support a ConCon, I guess, but I'd rather we don't reset without looking over other possibilities and trying to find solutions. What we really need is more activity, and simply resetting would do little but carry over the exact same problems to Atlasia 2.0.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

I gave you all a working framework for change in October 2013. It can be amended to include resets, reboots, whatever. No one listened. People were too afraid to change because this game is cyclical, they said. It'll come back to its old form, they said.

Well, here we are. This place has never been worse off. Yes, AAD hurts but if atlasia was worth participating in, plenty of us would still post here. But it isn't. There's no daily activity from anyone. The last election hardly had a campaign. The Federalist Party has totally collapsed and with it went all opposition.

But nothing will change. It never does here.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

AAD is draining this site and many Atlasian players are participating in that board because of problems across the Atlas at-large. Some view Atlasia as the worst aspect of this site, I would say it is one of the few positives, but AAD is yet another reason why this game cannot afford to be treating people like crap. We need to welcome active contributors both new and old and make people want to come onto the Atlas to play it.

Total red herring. AAD is a small membership high activity forum and many of its members continue to post quite happily on Atlas. And most of those that don't were either never active in fantasyland or have not been for many years.

[Lumine]

We had similar debates in 2013, I recall, and we waited. We had other discussions on 2014, and we waited again. How many times are we going to give it another week or another month for things to get worse or "improve" in the sense that we get one or two more offices not vacant? I'm personally tired of waiting.

[Blair]

We had similar debates in 2013, I recall, and we waited. We had other discussions on 2014, and we waited again. How many times are we going to give it another week or another month for things to get worse or "improve" in the sense that we get one or two more offices not vacant? I'm personally tired of waiting.

Well I wasn't here in 2013 or 2014

[Lumine]

We had similar debates in 2013, I recall, and we waited. We had other discussions on 2014, and we waited again. How many times are we going to give it another week or another month for things to get worse or "improve" in the sense that we get one or two more offices not vacant? I'm personally tired of waiting.

Well I wasn't here in 2013 or 2014

I know, Blair, and I can understand the stance of some of the newer players having been one myself (god that makes me sound old), but it is precisely because of it that I think something has to be done now. Far too many opportunities have been wasted already (specially with Duke's reform plans), and things have only gotten worse.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Yes, AAD hurts but if atlasia was worth participating in, plenty of us would still post here.

That is my point, Duke.

The Federalist Party has totally collapsed and with it went all opposition.

It takes months to grow a dead party back to life. I also don't have you this time to help with said rebuilding. We have raise up a new generation of Federalists from scratch and try to get old ones active again.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

We had similar debates in 2013, I recall, and we waited. We had other discussions on 2014, and we waited again. How many times are we going to give it another week or another month for things to get worse or "improve" in the sense that we get one or two more offices not vacant? I'm personally tired of waiting.

Atlasia was doing much better, and until a few weeks ago, we had more regions active then at any point in the last three years. You have to build on that success though and that was not done. There was no move to establish competative party systems in those newly active regions and the absence of such led them to collapse again.

[Blair]

This is my point, Atlasia relies on activity. It's a endless circle-if people don't put effort into it then it's going to be crap. Likewise if it's crap people aren't going to bother

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

This is my point, Atlasia relies on activity. It's a endless circle-if people don't put effort into it then it's going to be crap. Likewise if it's crap people aren't going to bother

This is the truth everyone needs to realize. You could change everything about Atlasia. You still have to campaign (an act which many of these "radicalists" have driven underground with their own tactics), you have to recruit, you have to encourage and nurture new members. You have to have issues to argue about in elections, debate and legislate about once in office, and you need a game engine to bring consequences for those actions.

That is our business model, that is how Atlasia has and will always operate regardless of how radical your changes or complete your reboot is. If you don't want to play this game to that level, you are going to be bored as hell and so will everyone else. President or Prime Minister, five, three or no regions,  Parliment or Senate, this is what an election sim is and that is the undeniable reality.