ATLAS: Atlasians Thinking, Leading, Acting, Solving

[Purple State]

Welcome all to the ATLAS think tank,

In my work as Presiding Officer of the Constitutional Convention, Senator, and former Speaker of the Mideast Assembly, I have seen the passion and ingenuity of the members of this nation. While we all approach the issues differently and oftentimes have our disagreements, it is undeniable that every active member brings a valid, powerful set of beliefs that have the potential to move the game forward in a meaningful way.

As such, I am hoping to start this thread as a consortium of ideas. There will be no membership, no ranks or titles, and (likely) no consensus. Instead, the purpose of this think tank is to provide a platform for friendly and productive discussion of the major issues. Rather than the partisan bickering usually attached to discussions in legislation or campaign threads, this place will serve as a neutral location where thoughts can be aired, disagreement can be voiced, and solutions can be found (albeit rarely).

For purposes of progress, I hope to serve as a moderator in this think tank, bringing up one or two relevant and current issues a week. The first subject will be posted later this week after I hear from you. Is this something people are interested in? Would anyone be willing to participate, if even occasionally?

[Senator Ben]

Hell yes.  I am totally in.

[Countess Anya of the North Parish]

i would not mind.

[Fmr. Emperor PiT]

     Sounds like it would be quite a good thing for Atlasia.

[Devilman88]

I'm in.

[Fritz]

I will provide input, if I have an opinion.

[Vepres]

Sounds good. I'm in.

[Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Sounds like a wise endeavour. I will definately be interested in taking part here.

[Purple State]

Alright, looks like a fair amount of support. I will be posting the first topic tomorrow morning.

[Purple State]

The first (and most timely) topic for discussion: Election and campaign reform

The topic breadth ranges from making elections more exciting to secret ballot to clean campaign rules. How do you think we could improve the election sim aspect of the game, add competition to races, reduce the messiness, etc?

[Devilman88]

I don't like the way we currently elected people, it is a good way if we have more then one office to fill, but head to head matches it's kinda useless. Also, I believe making all senate races at-large will be better.

[Vepres]

I don't like the way we currently elected people, it is a good way if we have more then one office to fill, but head to head matches it's kinda useless. Also, I believe making all senate races at-large will be better.

I disagree with making all the senate seats at-large. Regional politics are fun. Besides, it adds many election to follow instead of one big one.

The first (and most timely) topic for discussion: Election and campaign reform

The topic breadth ranges from making elections more exciting to secret ballot to clean campaign rules. How do you think we could improve the election sim aspect of the game, add competition to races, reduce the messiness, etc?

I have a few ideas:

1. Have better organized parties, whether this structure is in the new constitution or not is for others to decide. The parties should all have conventions in the midterm elections as well as the presidential.

2. I don't know how this would be done, but it would be really cool if somebody could poll the public from time to time before elections. They could purposely only take a fraction of the population (though adjust for party identification) so there would be a margin of error and thus a surprise on election day.

3. I was debating whether this would be a good idea or not, I'll let you guys decide. What if we had senators elected every three months, thus creating eight senatorial elections a year. Just as one election ended, another would start to ramp up.

4. We need an active GM. This could engage the non-office holders in the governmental actions more, thus issues would be more important in campaigns.

What do you all think?

[Fine...I Made This More Civil]

1. I absolutely agree. More organized parties could lead to less chaos come election time.

2. Polls are always good, but we just don't have a big enough population for that sort of thing.

3. That's not a bad idea. It would keep interest levelss high, although it would be grueling for a Senator to run 4 campaigns a year. Also, Senates would hardly be together for long enough to make the gov't part of our sim interesting. There would just be one major bill per session.

4. Absolutely. The GM is a very important position and carries a lot of responsibility. When the GM is inactive, it adversely affects the entire forum.

[Devilman88]

I don't like the way we currently elected people, it is a good way if we have more then one office to fill, but head to head matches it's kinda useless. Also, I believe making all senate races at-large will be better.

I disagree with making all the senate seats at-large. Regional politics are fun. Besides, it adds many election to follow instead of one big one.

A lot of the times you have only one person running for senate in a region, and sometimes you don't have anyone at all.

[Purple State]

I don't like the way we currently elected people, it is a good way if we have more then one office to fill, but head to head matches it's kinda useless. Also, I believe making all senate races at-large will be better.

I disagree with making all the senate seats at-large. Regional politics are fun. Besides, it adds many election to follow instead of one big one.

A lot of the times you have only one person running for senate in a region, and sometimes you don't have anyone at all.

Perhaps reducing the regions to 3 would have the desired affect if we maintain one senator from each.

[Fine...I Made This More Civil]

I don't like the way we currently elected people, it is a good way if we have more then one office to fill, but head to head matches it's kinda useless. Also, I believe making all senate races at-large will be better.

I disagree with making all the senate seats at-large. Regional politics are fun. Besides, it adds many election to follow instead of one big one.

A lot of the times you have only one person running for senate in a region, and sometimes you don't have anyone at all.

Have we had a situation where NO ONE was running? If so, then maybe at large seats would be a good idea. However, it would completely remove the concept of regions. Governors don't do much outside the Mideast (no offense folks) and removing the only regional seat with any power just wouldn't make much sense.

[Devilman88]

I would love to reduce the Regions to three, you know the senate can do that, so why don't you guys?

[Jayhawker]

I would love to reduce the Regions to three.

I would actually support expanding by a few. I also think there should be more assemblymen.

[Devilman88]

I would love to reduce the Regions to three.

I would actually support expanding by a few. I also think there should be more assemblymen.

The problem is most Regions aren't active like the Mideast is. So you have pointless office olders that aren't really active and regions that are dead.

[Jayhawker]

I would love to reduce the Regions to three.

I would actually support expanding by a few. I also think there should be more assemblymen.

The problem is most Regions aren't active like the Mideast is. So you have pointless office olders that aren't really active and regions that are dead.

If we were to cut down, I feel that we need more members in the Assembly, so the people can be better represented.

[Purple State]

I would love to reduce the Regions to three.

I would actually support expanding by a few. I also think there should be more assemblymen.

The problem is most Regions aren't active like the Mideast is. So you have pointless office olders that aren't really active and regions that are dead.

If we were to cut down, I feel that we need more members in the Assembly, so the people can be better represented.

Each Assembly is governed by their own regional constitution, including the number of members. Honestly, we don't have enough interested and motivated members in this game to make increasing the number of regions or an increased number of assembly members viable.

Perhaps we could allow for non-executive office holders to serve at both the federal and state levels.

[Devilman88]

I would love to reduce the Regions to three.

I would actually support expanding by a few. I also think there should be more assemblymen.

The problem is most Regions aren't active like the Mideast is. So you have pointless office olders that aren't really active and regions that are dead.

If we were to cut down, I feel that we need more members in the Assembly, so the people can be better represented.

I agree with you, and hope that would happen if we do every reduce the regions to three.

[Devilman88]

I would love to reduce the Regions to three.

I would actually support expanding by a few. I also think there should be more assemblymen.

The problem is most Regions aren't active like the Mideast is. So you have pointless office olders that aren't really active and regions that are dead.

If we were to cut down, I feel that we need more members in the Assembly, so the people can be better represented.

Each Assembly is governed by their own regional constitution, including the number of members. Honestly, we don't have enough interested and motivated members in this game to make increasing the number of regions or an increased number of assembly members viable.

Perhaps we could allow for non-executive office holders to serve at both the federal and state levels.

I agree, non-executive office holders should be about to serve at both levels.

[Fine...I Made This More Civil]

I would love to reduce the Regions to three.

I would actually support expanding by a few. I also think there should be more assemblymen.

The problem is most Regions aren't active like the Mideast is. So you have pointless office olders that aren't really active and regions that are dead.

If we were to cut down, I feel that we need more members in the Assembly, so the people can be better represented.

Perhaps you should enter your name into consideration for the Assembly once Dan or I gets elected to the Senate. I wouldn't mind making the regions smaller, but the region that will be first to the chopping block would be the Mideast, due to its geographic location.

[Devilman88]

I would love to reduce the Regions to three.

I would actually support expanding by a few. I also think there should be more assemblymen.

The problem is most Regions aren't active like the Mideast is. So you have pointless office olders that aren't really active and regions that are dead.

If we were to cut down, I feel that we need more members in the Assembly, so the people can be better represented.

Perhaps you should enter your name into consideration for the Assembly once Dan or I gets elected to the Senate. I wouldn't mind making the regions smaller, but the region that will be first to the chopping block would be the Mideast, due to its geographic location.

The thing is, alot of the people who live in the Mideast are very active, so it would do the other two regions some good to have more active members in them.