Determining regulations of Constitutional Convention. (FINAL VOTE)

[Leinad]

as opposed to a governor or chairman choosing inactive hacks.

If it comes to Governor's choosing, I, for one, would not choose inactive people. I'd go as far as to choose someone who disagrees with me politically but is active over someone who agrees with me but is inactive. I would say that activity is far more important than ideology on real life issues (i.e. libertarian, conservative, liberal, socialist, moderate, etc.), although ideology on game reform (i.e. dissolutionist, reformer, radical, status quo-er, etc.). I mean, stuff like tax policy, gay marriage, abortion, military spending, and the like won't be talked about here, it's more about the game's structure.

I'm inclined to say that the ConCon should be as representative as possible of atlasia as it is now, so I think that carving out different amounts of delegates for different interest groups like the senate or the governors or the parties should be avoided.

Why not just have 25 delegates decided by a whole nation vote?

I get what you're saying, but that won't work. I'll explain why: you simply can't have a 25-winner election. How will you do it? STV? That won't work--a ballot where you rank more than 25 candidates? Nope. Or are you thinking party lists? That puts even more power in the hands of the party chairs than partisan appointments ever would.

Even if you don't like appointments (I do--active elected officials can better choose who's best for the ConCon than hordes of inactive voters; then again, I'd want there to be some chosen by popular vote), it needs to be split into regions or even groups of 2-3 regions to elect the delegates. Unless you have an idea of how a 25-winner election could work...

[Leinad]

Voting on delegates would simply bog things down. Have the Senate select 10 delegates and the regions select 2 each, with a President of the Convention serving as a tie-breaker. It'd verge on the absurd if we let the organisation of the convention drag on for nearly as long as it took us just to get to this point.

What's needed is radical reform: dissolution of the present legislature, the election of a two-month, caretaker administration, a complete legislative reset, and a completely new and streamlined constitution at the minimum providing for regional consolidation, strong game simulation, and a focus on legislative flexibility and efficiency. Chuck everything out the window and start over-- no mucking about.

I guess I agree and disagree with that sentiment. Yes, we shouldn't get bogged down with stuff we can do quickly, but I think it might be more damaging to rush through things. It's not like Atlasia will fade away if it takes us two extra weeks to do something right. This is the same problem that happened in the start of the Mock Parliament--debate is stifled and alternate ideas are immediately rejected in a frantic effort to avoid people losing interest, as if everyone has the attention span of a hamster.

Atlasia's not dead, it didn't die when we gathered signatures for the ConCon, and it won't die in the preparation for the ConCon. I doubt any of the active people (myself, Cris, Truman, Kalwejt, other esteemed members of this body, and all the general cliched names listed whenever people list active Atlasians) will quit in the time it takes to make sure the Convention starts out on the right foot.

[Leinad]

what about random selection? perhaps restricted to people who have made more than x posts in the atlasia boards over the last week, if necessary?

I agree with the others, random selection won't work. I mean, if we went with random selection, there's a chance people like Cris, Truman, Griffin, etc. would be left out, but less deserving people would make it in. I suppose your post criteria would help that, but if it's true that we need to resort to an overly-simplistic measure like this, why not just pick the 25 most active posters in the two Atlasia boards? (Not that I advocate that, mind you, but it's better than random selection.)

Also, in response to Yankee's post, I'm now considering myself the Ben Franklin of Atlasia. Just FYI.

[Leinad]

i know random selection isn't a perfect solution, i was proposing it more as a "least-bad" option

That's what I thought, and I get it's merits, but I think that simply doing the top 25 in post count would be a better break-glass-in-case-the-Senate-is-too-stubborn-to-come-up-with-a-good-plan measure (which I don't think will be needed, although it's probably nice to have one).

What's clearly up for debate is how we divide the delegates.

How about this as a compromise regarding the party appointment proposal: we pick the delegates through non-partisan means, but with a quota based on party representation? It achieves the stated goal (every party gets represented proportionally) without the unconventional means of letting party leadership appoint people to an important group like this, and it also makes it easier to integrate independents--something that should be a red line for people on this.

[Leinad]

Truman's amendment looks great, but are you sure September 21st is the earliest we can have it? It should be tied to the passing of the bill, shouldn't it? As in, X days after the bill's passing?

this senate should not be picking nearly half the delegates. terrible amendment.

Nobody even likes your idea about random selection and the majority of active posters like this idea and if you didn't like this Admendment maybe you should tried harder to get elected.

go back to your neonazi rally or whatever kthx

I'm the neonazi here, look who's talking you commie.

Neo-Nazi? Commie? Now now, Speakers, you two are better than that. And to clarify, it's not the name-calling, per se, it's the fact those are groan-inducingly cheap insults. Seriously, be more clever. "Neo-Nazi" and "Commie" are so lame I can't walk after reading them.

By the way, I'm not for nominating the delegates via post-count, I just think it's a better last-resort idea than random selection.

[Leinad]

What length of time would  you suggest? A week maybe after passage?

Sure, that sounds good.

I would like to reiterate my opinion that holding elections is overly time consuming and that, with all due respect to Cris' amendment, the complexity of the selection method bodes ill for the convention's prospect-- it is precisely what we seek to avoid. The "partisan designation" element in particular seems particularly convoluted. I again humbly suggest this idea for the Senate's consideration:

Voting on delegates would simply bog things down. Have the Senate select 10 delegates and the regions select 2 each, with a President of the Convention serving as a tie-breaker. It'd verge on the absurd if we let the organisation of the convention drag on for nearly as long as it took us just to get to this point.

What's needed is radical reform: dissolution of the present legislature, the election of a two-month, caretaker administration, a complete legislative reset, and a completely new and streamlined constitution at the minimum providing for regional consolidation, strong game simulation, and a focus on legislative flexibility and efficiency. Chuck everything out the window and start over-- no mucking about.

Holding elections isn't that time consuming (what, a few days? Why the rush?!?) and people would raise more valid concerns if there weren't elections--specifically that it's just a bunch of elites (Senators, Governors, and maybe even party chairs) hand-picking the delegates, instead of the entire populace. Even in an internet forum game, the power of the government is derived from the people, not the other way around. Therefore, the people should have a say via democratic elections.

Again, why the rush? Atlasia won't die if there's a few more days of making sure we get it right.

Regarding the complexity, what exactly is so complex? I don't think there's anything that would go over the heads of your average Atlas forum member. Be more specific on what is complex about it, and how to fix it.

Your proposals mostly just consist of radicalism to be radical. Why do we need to dissolve the present legislature, elect a caretaker administration, have a complete legislative reset before the convention? Not only is there no constitutional mechanism for this, and not much support for it other than yourself, but if having an election to the ConCon itself is too "time consuming," why isn't electing a caretaker administration also just as time consuming?

[Leinad]

I understand Evergreen's position, but we're including the Senate in the selection of delegates in order to ensure representation to sectors that may not be elected, but whose input will be very important.

This is basically my position exactly.

I think that we need to ensure that no one slips through the cracks, and if we only have one form of selection (e.g. only appointment or only voting) this has a higher chance of happening than if we have a variety of methods.

The key is balance--ideological balance, regional balance, and method-of-selection balance. Since the number of active people who would want to do this probably isn't much greater than 25, it shouldn't be too hard to find people.

[Leinad]

I would like to see a list of reasons why the Senate should be completely excluded from the selection of any delegates, beyond just vague criticisms about it being the worst ever.

The selection of delegates to the Constitutional Convention has always been the unique provenance of the people, as reflected through region-based elections.  The idea that delegates should be selected based on the whims of the elites is a new development.

Who ever said whims? One could just as easily discredit popular vote by saying "whims of the people."

The "elites" consist of some of the most active Atlasians, who best understand the issues and know who will do best in the ConCon. Having delegates selected by popular vote is obviously a good idea too, and I'd be against any plan that didn't have that (earlier in this thread I defended the concept of electing delegates when Simfan said it would take too long) but I think Senatorial appointments are important, too, and it's unfair to characterize it as "whims of the elites."

Now, if they go and make stupid picks, I'll be harmonizing with you on the "whim" chorus; but that seems like a rash assessment as of now.

[Leinad]

This has already lasted three weeks. We are setting ourselves up to fail.

Holy crap, you're putting speed as the end-all-be-all; can't we try to get this right?!?

This is the same nonsensical attitude that led to the Mock Parliament having the lamest name ever. South America? A 5-year-old could think that up, but at least they would be smart enough to realize it sounds stupid. Not to mention the fact that no other ideas for a location were even allowed to be considered, because they had already made up their mind on that idea. Taking time to make sure we get it right? Not in our "Parliment!"

Rushing through things like you would have us do causes nothing but crappy results, which makes NOTHING better. If we have a ConCon in world record time, it will be utter garbage and do nothing to improve Atlasia.

We're setting ourselves up to fail if we rush through it, and we're also setting ourselves up to fail if we respond to everything that doesn't go our way with this kind of pessimism.

We're getting a Constitutional Convention, people. Be glad about that. Be optimistic that it will go well. Or at least naysay a little quieter.

(Sorry if that sounded a bit crabby. I just think that both the attitude of pessimism and the attitude of rushing through everything need to be nipped in the bud or this Convention will be less productive than the last one.)