Purple State and Marokai's BIG IDEA

[Marokai Backbeat]

I would first like to say that all ideas we're discussing are in good faith. I've cast aside all my preconceptions about centralist vs. regionalist sentiment, all my prior reactions to certain ideas in a genuine attempt to make things work. I believe, as Purple State does, that Atlasia is growing a little too old in it's current system. Sometimes one has to make renovations to keep a house in working order, and that's all we're proposing here today; major renovations keeping within the current system to make the game more interesting than it currently is.

The Constitution as it stands is undeniably a confusing patchwork mess. Large sections of the constitution have been removed but still stand as original text, clauses have been removed, reinstated, then amended, amendments are sometimes completely forgotten and not even attached to the page they belong on. We constantly have the problem of trying to find out exactly what the constitution says because of the years and years of amendments and repeals.

Our goal is to institute a new Constitution based heavily off the current Constitution that is simpler to understand, consolidates all since-passed amendments, and makes changes here and there to the system that make the game more fun to play.

Let me repeat that for some of those out there wary of changing the system at all: We're not turning Atlasia on it's head with these ideas. We're cleaning up the system and doing things right from the getgo, we're restarting what we need to restart to keep Atlasia from growing more and more stale and predictable.

Our statute is a similar disaster. Things are all over the place and completely scattered, laws have been passed, ignored, repealed, amended, reinstated, all over the place. By consolidating important pieces of legislation necessary for maintaining the system, such as retaining our tax rates, healthcare system, criminal codes, election rules, and other misc. important legislation, we can carry those laws over to a new system where we can build the rest of our statute anew from the ground-up, reigniting important legislation wrangling.

I'm willing to work with anyone here, to include all concerns and work to rebuild Atlasia with the current system as a mold but a rebuilt cleaner system that is easier to understand and can re-spark all that's been lost in the past. I want to do this all in good faith, I want everyone to come to the table as long as we can all agree on the basic idea of doing something fundamentally different instead of just trimming around the edges.

Some of the original changes we made include making it slightly easier to impeach individuals, reversing a majority of the Senate and a two-thirds referendum, to a two-thirds Senate vote and a simply majority popular vote (giving individuals more power in who their officials are if there's a reason to impeach them), slightly increasing the posting requirement for registering to vote (from 50 to 75), reducing the penalty for moving when moves are done within a region (same states within a region), among other things.

There are alot of other things we can do though that haven't been included right away, and some ideas I personally think are good ones, such as giving the President and Vice President the power to introduce legislation, Americanizing the ratification process, making amendments passed by the Senate permanently in the national debate but going directly to the regional legislatures to ratify or not ratify when they please.

But most of all, I think expanding regional representation and the size of the Senate deserves a discussion. All of these things can be discussed in the upcoming weeks and throughout our term if we are lucky enough to be elected.

What remains absolutely clear though, is that we are committed in any way we can, to changing Atlasia in ways that many have failed in the past. We're not going to be too afraid to do things because they might be hard, we're not going to be content with trimmings, or little token changes. We want to do things that we believe are absolutely necessary, and things we believe that everyone always knows we must one day do, but seldom admit.

Some things have to change to make the game interesting as time goes on, things must be altered over time to make Atlasia evolve. What we are proposing is merely a step in the evolutionary process of the game. So let's all talk in good faith about this ticket's ideas and others, and no longer respond with knee-jerk responses from both sides of the game reform spectrum.

[Marokai Backbeat]

     While I agree that elected regional legislatures is a good thing, I am not sure how I feel about forcing elected legislatures on the Midwest & the Pacific. Part of the beauty I see in the regions is that different regions run themselves in different ways, depending on the attitudes of their residents. Requiring the regions to all elect a legislature removes one degree of latitude they have for differentiation, requiring homogeneity for the most part in how they vest their legislative power.

Personally I see nothing wrong with universal regional legislatures. Electing them certainly adds an interesting element to the game, but if we're encouraging activity I think it could be done either way. It's a good thing to include in the discussion at the very least, but I myself personally would feel no loss if we merely mandated a regional legislature elected or unelected.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Is Purple State a Hamilton sock?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

A broken clock...

[Marokai Backbeat]

How about a bicameral national legislature?  The lower house would be elected by PR, while the upper house would consist of a member for each region, also elected.  The way I see it, a national legislature like that would make things more fun and competitive, with a larger number of members in a single house.  Of course, this may detract from regional legislatures, since it would probably detract from the potential pool of officeholders.

Bah! Be careful, please. This is often the problem with these efforts. One idea is proposed, then people try to radically change everything around. The very point of the system is to keep the general mold of what we have already but working within it. While I'm all for outside imput, we have to be careful not to fall into the old traps that always end up killing game reform. Our idea at it's heart is a reboot with some modifications. Reboot being a key word. It's not really a reboot if we turn the national legislature upside down.

There's no real point in having bicameralism for the sake of bicameralism, especially if that sentiment kills off half the support.

[Marokai Backbeat]

The key problem is that there is little to do anymore. What further legislation is there that can be passed? Unless we're to start from scratch, I don't see what can be done.

The key problem is that there is little to do anymore. What further legislation is there that can be passed? Unless we're to start from scratch, I don't see what can be done.

That would be the general goal, if people want it. IMO there comes a point where you have to do something to wipe the slate clean in any game, and I see this as a critical element for any sort of restart.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[Marokai Backbeat]

The idea is fundamentally sound - there are a few things I would like to still do a bit of work on in a Convention - much of it non-controversial. The present Article VIII, Section 2 needs a re-write though - you've kept too many of the old offices (SoFA!)

MaxQue brought up a similar point to me last night, Section VIII certainly needs work. Thankfully it's a simple draft.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Provided the Senate and Region sections remain like they are, this has my full support.

Personally I'd actually like to double regional seats and expand the Senate to 15 (my personal view of course), but I'm very happy we have agreement room here.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Provided the Senate and Region sections remain like they are, this has my full support.

Personally I'd actually like to double regional seats and expand the Senate to 15 (my personal view of course), but I'm very happy we have agreement room here.

     Would it be done by two-seat STV or United States-style? I would prefer the latter, though I will admit that I have a soft spot for the one-on-one race.

I guess in my hypothetical scenario it would be done by the usual STV system.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Purple State and Marokai, I can get behind your ideas on revising the constitution to make it more concise and manageable.  However, I STRONGLY OPPOSE this "re-boot" proposal.  Sorry, but Atlasia does have history, we can't just wipe that all away and start over.  Your logic appears to be something along the lines of: we've already legislated all of the fun stuff, so let's start over so we can do it all again!  Do you not see the silliness here?

As a matter of fact I do not. This is a game, a game where we will be legislating things over and over, up down and sideways, until the end of time or the site goes down forever. I would rather work in an environment where we have to retune every law in the books and add new ones rather than one where we have a patchwork disaster of a statute something like 5 years old.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Look, games get stale. You can't keep doing the same things over and over again and expect things to be fun. This game is a patchwork mess that is not at all fun. This happens all the time, the game sits and stagnates as time goes on and on, things are inactive and boring, nothing exciting happens except once in awhile, and each time an idea is attempted, people lose their heads.

If you want to change the game, come up with ideas. If you want things to be more interesting, come up with a passable proposal to do that. If someone wants to do absolutely nothing to change the game, I do not want their vote.

This is a game. A game. Something we play to amuse ourselves and little more. Taking Atlasia's history as seriously as real life history is silly and completely over the top.

I want you to answer a question and answer it seriously, and this goes for everyone: Are you happy with the state of Atlasia right now? Can you honestly tell me with a straight face that the Senate is still interesting, that exciting ideas have been legislated lately, that the game has seen any major change, or that anything at all is truly interesting?

When I look at Atlasia, I see a beast slowly dying. Population wise, we're fine, but unless something big is done we're going nowhere and nowhere fast.

If you don't want to reboot, what do you want to do? The constititional consolidation idea? Change the way we elect people? Abolish the Senate? Expand the Senate?

Even if you don't want to turn back the clock and do things right from the start again, you and everyone else needs to realize that this game has seen changes happen in the past, yes, without reboots. Having and later getting rid of districts to electing people via regions, having and later abolishing budgets. We've done something in the past, let's at least do something this time.

The Constitutional Consolidation could and probably can happen before you get into office so that's gone. And I'm against a reboot so if that's a major part of your platform I won't be preferencing you anymore.

Quite frankly, if doing nothing is a major part of your voting intention, I don't want you to preference us anymore. If you have any ideas of you're own I'd be happy to hear them, but judging from your past activities, such as being a stubborn "No Change" delegate in the ConCon a year ago, I doubt you'll come up with any unless it's "make everything regional."

I am a Centralist in this game no longer. I am a Socialist in this game no longer. I am a Reformist for the foreseeable future. An individual that seeks to do something, anything at all, to change the game and make things interesting.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I don't intend for there to be any "backstory."

But why should everything we've done here be placed in the memory hole?

To put it simply, if our choices are "Continue on a path where we have done anything and everything politically imaginable" or "Scrap everything and go into Atlasia: Remixed" I would choose the latter each time. I see no reason why keeping everything already passed in the last many years benefits us in any way.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I just want to state, we're open to ideas here, we just have a large set of them on our own and alot of work done now and in the future. We're by no means stubborn, we just want to do something different. At our hearts, we are a fundamentally reformist ticket, dedicated to game reform completely. We want to engage the citizenry in any way possible, and we will try to lead the way in doing something, changing something, anything at all.

So please, if you oppose our ideas, at least explain why, and what you think will be better. It tells apart the "let's do something else" folks from the "let's never do anything at all" folks.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Fritz's BIG IDEA

Marokai and PS, since you are open to suggestion, here is mine.  Rather than a legislative "re-boot", what we need is a consolidation/re-organization of federal statute, similar to your constitution re-write.  The original must be kept as a matter of record, however.

Perhaps this could be done as an index on the wiki, with links to statutes by subject matter (no links to repealed laws).

Just some thoughts.

Consolidation and reorganization of the statute would be a hefty task, but a good intentioned one. There seems to be PLENTY of room for agreement between us.

To put it simply, if our choices are "Continue on a path where we have done anything and everything politically imaginable" or "Scrap everything and go into Atlasia: Remixed" I would choose the latter each time. I see no reason why keeping everything already passed in the last many years benefits us in any way.

I disagree that there are only two choices. As I wrote earlier, it makes more sense to buy a new slate than to wipe clean the current one. Declare a Second Republic and - essentially - archive all that has been done over the past six years, but don't pretend that it didn't happen. Besides, a total re-boot is impossible; unless we want to spend forever and a day passing all the boring, minor legislation on issues that no one but Ernest cares about in order to establish the sort of legislative and regulatory framework a modern state needs.

Archiving the legislation seems like a good idea, if we passed a new consolidated/tinkered constitution, we could make a new statute page but the other statute would still be binding. We could also, instead of a reboot, reorganize the statute by consolidating things like election rules (or Purple's aforementioned DoFA reform) and repealing a host of things that are just ancient.

We'll see I suppose, but with these discussions we're heading in the right direction I think.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I'm perfectly fine with scaling back to a consolidation/reorganization of the statute in addition to a new consolidated Constitution, of course. It will take some effort to rake through old statute of course.