A new Mock Parliament

[TNF]

Hey guys,

Now that Atlasia is dead (beyond a reasonable doubt, tbh), the question of what comes next is before the lot of us who are interested in doing something different. After some preliminary discussions on the IRC that seem to indicate a bit of interest in a renewed Mock Parliament project, I think that its worth trying out. Dallasfan65 and Flo have both made maps (based on the United States) with proposed constituencies for such a game, and I think it would be great to get a look at both and discuss the merits of them and of doing something like a renewed effort at a Mock Parliament game.

Personally I think the biggest problem with Atlasia was that we had too many offices and not enough active or interested players to man them. In any parliamentary situation, I think it would be wise to limit the total number of offices. We can go ahead and skip the idea of regional governments, as they were more or less centers were inactivity could grow and fester in the old game. With maybe twenty constituencies, we could have a functioning parliament that would be able to elect a majority government and enact policy. Likewise, with the use of constituencies, the often boring kinds of elections we had with PR-STV won't be an issue.

As for an executive, I would personally rather us not have a Presidency with the ability to influence policy to the degree that the Atlasian president had. I think, however, we more or less have to have an executive, and in our case, perhaps a President elected by a 2/3rds majority of the parliament or something or another would be a good idea. The President would be a kind of ceremonial figurehead for the fictional government, representing the forum 'as a whole', or something to that effect. Court justices would likewise be approved by the Parliament, and would absolutely not serve life terms (a completely retarded idea for an Internet game), but would be limited to a term of six months, which could then be renewed, if they so chose.

Or something like that. I'm open to ideas. But I think that now is the time to pursue the project we want to replace Atlasia, and I honestly think a parliamentary-style game is the way to go.

[TNF]

We could also always do a combination of both. Perhaps ten seats are allocated by FPTP with constituencies and ten are chosen by closed-list PR?

[TNF]

Well for starters, we could all be members of Parliament, and we could serve as a kind of provisional parliament until we all agree on basic governing structures, constituencies, etc.

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I like the proposed map. How many constituencies does it have, Dallasfan65? 20?

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I'd like to join

Welcome to the game!

[TNF]

Welcome one and all! Don't fret about the parliament being full - we'll be having elections at some point or another. In the meantime, contribute to the public discussions that are being held, throw up a poll, join a political party, or start up a newspaper.