Senate Thread: Dismissal of Game Moderator Mr Reactionary (Passed)

[Pericles]

In accordance with the Game Moderator Reform Act, Game Moderator Mr. Reactionary is hereby relieved of his duties, pending Congressional assent.

[Pericles]

Not quite sure what the procedure is with this, so I think we'll start up with opening debate and I'll invite a Senator to advocate for the dismissal in the next 48 hours.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

So, is Mr R then going to be reappointed to fill the new role of Comptroller General?

[Former President tack50]

So, is Mr R then going to be reappointed to fill the new role of Comptroller General?

I can't speak for the president, but it seems unlikely to me that he would appoint the same person he just dismissed

[Peanut]

I'll advocate for this.

You know, Mr R's period as GM has covered literally my whole Atlasian career. I've worked with his Department as regional legislator, Governor, and now as Senator and I think that there has been an abdication of responsibilities which, I fear, harms the game and stops it from functioning correctly.

It also goes without mentioning that I'm sponsoring the GM reform bill currently in the queue (with the help of course of many illustrious Atlasians), and I therefore believe that restructuring the present team is a no-brainer if we're going to proceed with the reform (which is, incidentally, also the reasoning for my vote in ASV's confirmation hearing).

I think little more needs to be said, really. I plan to assent to this and I hope my colleagues do so as well: this is not a move against Mr. R, it's one for a better game.

[Devout Centrist]

So, is Mr R then going to be reappointed to fill the new role of Comptroller General?

I don't speak for the President, but I believe the answer is no.

[Devout Centrist]

To be blunt, we've had nothing but silence from the GM Department for three months. It's time to take action.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Speaking as a former game moderator and someone who supported naming Mr. Reactionary as my successor at the time, I unfortunately must support these proceedings. The game engine is broken, and while that is not entirely the fault of one individual, a thorough house cleaning must start at the top.

[fhtagn]

To be blunt, we've had nothing but silence from the GM Department for three months. It's time to take action.

You literally just had a confirmation hearing thread for Deputy GM...

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I believe this counts as a resolution so it would be SR21:15

[Devout Centrist]

To be blunt, we've had nothing but silence from the GM Department for three months. It's time to take action.

You literally just had a confirmation hearing thread for Deputy GM...

What? That's run by us in the Senate. Furthermore, that's the only activity Mr. R has done as of late: appoint ASV to replace Encke (who was even more inactive, for the record).

[fhtagn]

To be blunt, we've had nothing but silence from the GM Department for three months. It's time to take action.

You literally just had a confirmation hearing thread for Deputy GM...

What? That's run by us in the Senate. Furthermore, that's the only activity Mr. R has done as of late: appoint ASV to replace Encke (who was even more inactive, for the record).

You wouldn't have had the confirmation hearing if it wasnt for communication by the GM.

Encke was very active but at the end had stuff come up, which he communicated. Another previous deputy (tmth) was run out of the game because of actions done by your party members, which funny enough, none of you have bothered to address and call out said members for. One of the current deputies (Sestak) has been insanely inactive since being confirmed and while Labor members had no issues attacking Mr. R and Encke, not a single one of them publicly attacked Sestak for doing nothing, yourself included.

[Devout Centrist]

To be blunt, we've had nothing but silence from the GM Department for three months. It's time to take action.

You literally just had a confirmation hearing thread for Deputy GM...

What? That's run by us in the Senate. Furthermore, that's the only activity Mr. R has done as of late: appoint ASV to replace Encke (who was even more inactive, for the record).

You wouldn't have had the confirmation hearing if it wasnt for communication by the GM.

Fine, I thank Mr. R for writing one (1) sentence announcing ASV as Encke's replacement. Very active indeed!

Meanwhile, I had to write the budget on my own. Progress!

[Adam Griffin]

Sharing my comments from the House thread:

I believe many are familiar through longstanding prior discussions and/or first-hand experience of the lack of engagement coming from the GM for quite some time, but for anybody else who is concerned.

The past 5 months have been a stable and successful time for our country and this government on balance, but the one exception with regard to my "administration" (technically speaking) performing its roles as intended has been due to the Game Engine.

Numerous quotes, estimates and story-lines have either been unfurnished or returned with such a delay as to render them practically irrelevant. It has largely been like this from Day 1 of my Presidency, but the situation has only deteriorated further with time. From proceeding with sensitive NSC discussions and plans to the fact that we're now operating on a budget CR, this all runs back to the GM.

Game Engine reforms or not, this has been a long time coming and is completely independent of any efforts to reform the office. Frankly, the only reason such action wasn't taken sooner was that it was my belief the votes weren't there - even with plenty of substance to back up the position. While a "nuclear option" could have been taken that was perfectly legal to pursue with simple majorities, following the 2016 statute I believed was the best course of action - and best in avoiding some huge meltdown of forces.

I'd like to call upon the President to propose a few replacements.

This process is an independent and stand-alone procedure; it's a debate over whether the current officeholder has done his job properly and/or whether he deserves to be dismissed based on his own actions. Viewing it through the prism of who might replace him only creates bias in my view, when it has no bearing over whether the incumbent has performed his roles in a satisfactory manner.

I also don't like counting my chickens before they hatch. If and once Congress sees it necessary to replace the GM, I will move forward with replacement options. To those who may be concerned about not having a GM, I say to them: we pretty much haven't for the past several months.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Encke was very active but at the end had stuff come up, which he communicated. Another previous deputy (tmth) was run out of the game because of actions done by your party members, which funny enough, none of you have bothered to address and call out said members for. One of the current deputies (Sestak) has been insanely inactive since being confirmed and while Labor members had no issues attacking Mr. R and Encke, not a single one of them publicly attacked Sestak for doing nothing, yourself included.

Frankly there was some kind of massive break down in communication at the GM department and indeed Mr. R would be responsible for that but I would be curious to now why there was no proactive effort by Sestak, particularly at a time when both he and Encke were active in the game at large.

The passive acceptance of inactivity can easily become a justification for one's own activity. We know what happened to Tmth, we know why Encke's activity dropped off. I would like to hear Sestak's side of things for the sake of balance, particularly prior to the start of the school year. 

[Mr. Reactionary]

I mean, if yall have an actual replacement lined up Im happy to voluntarily step aside once they are confirmed. I likely would have done so if asked months ago, but then again no one ever communicates with me about any in-game requests since I quit Discord other than the Secretary of State and Yankee. My tenure was always intended to be that of a gap-filler with the eventual expectation of transitioning out once the 3 Deputy Departments were up and running smoothly and one of the Deputies could step up. Yall can confirm with WB, my offer to serve as GM was contingent upon literally no one else volunteering during the months following Truman's announced intent to retire. My belief was that with 6 months worth of stories planned out, running the story apparatus could be largely self-executing with a consistent story-writer to follow through. Alas, I've unfortunately outlasted 5 Deputies (assuming Encke resigned or something, again no communication).

If I am being honest, I don't foresee my future activity increasing anytime soon. I have a very fulfilling job in real life and average 2 - 4 hours of "work" (bill-writing) outside of work each day and spend most of my Saturdays "working" as well. Under those circumstances the last thing I want to do is logon to Atlasia and score tank costs 5 years out for a legislature that abandoned Paygo and thus clearly doesnt care or be told Im terrible for not allowing random players to invent NPC union bosses or not inventing lore for a bs amalgamation of european fascists. I got into Atlasia 2 years ago because I enjoy writing bills and policy debate; dirty politics and sleazy campaigns are meaningless to me. In real life I have been officially tasked with researching and rewriting my 800 page hometown City Code for the first time since 1986 (I've already completed 29 of 45 anticipated final bills and as a terrorist my goal is to have them all finished and front-loaded by January 1). Im thrilled to have written 2 bills being sponsored by my State Delegate in the January term as well, 1 of which amplifies free speech and I believe will pass. In some ways Im living the fantasy that I sought in fantasy government.

Meanwhile, Atlasia has devolved into recruiting zombies, nasty and baseless personal attacks, and Discord. Its pretty obvious the legislating aspects of the game offer me nothing anymore; I spent dozens of hours writing bills that many legislators even refused to read, let alone fairly debate. A mere 4 months after the "crisis" necessitating bill and sponsorship caps on account of its better to have empty slots than bills I wrote, MB has 7 bills on the Senate floor and no one is crying terrorist. More than 1 legislator has suggested repealing more or less any law Ive passed simply because I wrote it. With that level of in-game personal animosity in response to donating my time and energy contrasted with the professional courtesy and influence Ive earned in real life with real life lawmakers for donating my time and energy, as well as the fact that real life laws matter more than fantasy laws, I have not surprisingly been favoring real life over interwebz of late.

Im not going to apologize for being happy or prioritizing real life. I have no desire to kill or endanger the game; it was a lot of fun for me for like a year and a half and several friends still like it. Figure out if yall want to abolish the position or whatever first, no sense in making that decision rashly. As with the changes to bill sponsorship make sure yall arent just thinking with a hate boner. Then find and confirm the replacement(s) and we can swap places through an orderly process. Im not known for breaking constitutional norms.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

So Adam never even asked Mr. R if he would step aside for a replacement?


What a ridiculous waste of time and energy.

[At-Large Senator LouisvilleThunder]

So Adam never even asked Mr. R if he would step aside for a replacement?


What a ridiculous waste of time and energy.

That is way too "civil" for Adam and his party of sycophants. It's more fun for them to simply #cancel Mr. R.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

My only remaining interest in this process is if Sestak can find the time to post about his GM interactions, basically getting some redeeming value from this nonsense, a make shift committee investigation.


Other than that I see no purpose in continuing based on Mr. R's response.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I don't think the lack of communication begins or ends with Mr. R or even the GM department. There have been many times when I have come on and only after hours of bs Mibbit/Discord discussion did someone make me aware of something profoundly impactful that I really should have been made aware of hours earlier.


With the rise of Mibbit and Discord there is a presumption on the part of people they everything postd in there is known by all. The truth is you are really only speaking to 3 or 5 people and even if there are 20 people actively posting in there, some may have stepped out to eat or someone is changing his TV station or looking at a different tab.

And we know our people love to get tagged on discord.

We need to get back in the habit of PMing information. Unfortunately, with the PM limit of five, Discord is far more effective for the Senate but even there (remember the recommendation to introduced house bills into the Senate queue), stuff just goes unseen some times. 

[thumb21]

So Adam never even asked Mr. R if he would step aside for a replacement?


What a ridiculous waste of time and energy.

That is way too "civil" for Adam and his party of sycophants. It's more fun for them to simply #cancel Mr. R.

You are correct.

Labour leadership and legislators met and we couldn't control how triggered we were at Mr. Reactionary's micro-agressions. At that point, there was no alternative but to introduce a parchment of cancel to finally rid this forum of right wing thought.

Of course, thats a silly way to summarise a serious issue. As toxic as cancel culture can be because every person is inherently redeemable, the dismissive right wing reaction is more toxic because it doesn't try to understand other people's issues.

As I said before, I respect anyone who'd take up a role in the game engine and that includes Mr. Reactionary. If he can't or doesn't want to continue, that is entirely his right, this is a voluntary game. However, GMs should also know what is expected of the role and if they can't fullfill that, they should resign. I'm not aware of the level of communication that existed between the President and GM in private but in public, the President has been open in his criticism of the GM's inactivity so the idea that out of the blue, the left simply came out and decided to "cancel" Mr. Reactionary for his right wing views is ridiculous.

> There have been many complaints about the lack of stories from the GM. What are your thoughts on this and the role of Game Engine more broadly?

The Game Engine is fundamentally broken at present: not because of the way it is designed, but because of who is managing it. Tmth tried to provide us with stories before his departure, but ultimately decided to leave. The reality is that the lack of stories from the GM is just the tip of the iceberg of the problem with this department at present (as referenced above).

Another issue that frankly inhibits story-telling more broadly is the lack of response from the citizenry. As somebody who held the office of Game Moderator twice, I can tell you that players almost only respond to story-lines when they have something to nit-pick about or complain. Getting people to act on stories told by the Game Engine is difficult and has always been so, and I’m not sure there’s any way to change the collective mindset of players regarding this. However, telling stories is a fundamental responsibility of the Game Engine and should be offered regardless of public engagement. Those who don’t feel up to the task should do what I did after I grew tired of people not responding to my stories: resign and let somebody else take over the role.

Amazing to see Mr R give this thread more attention in the past few hours than his GM duties in the past 4 months!

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I never said this came out of the blue. My point is that this could have been dealt with both sooner and simpler.

I think the key point here is that there has been a shift in priorities. For years, based on difficulties in getting people as GM, the going procedure was to tacitly or begrudingly accept a less than stellar Game Moderator as opposed to having no GM at all, "until a better candidate could be found" (which is the approach Mr. R was taking).  I understand why that mindset has shifted to one of "its basically vacant already". However, the point I was trying to make is that it doesn't at any point seem like people directly communicated with Mr. Reactionary and while I respect "potential concerns" about interference or fear of disrupting process. There wouldn't have been a problem with say communicating on the basis of either to obtain a plan for greater activity or requesting that resignation be considered.

Look I know how the echo chamber works, I have seen it and overcome it regularly to make sure that things get done. It is not hard to fall pray to the presumption that someone will not cooperate and then just skip that step. I will make note, that there were certain people who posted erroneously that I would never make a deal with Blair to split a term as President. If you contact someone in a professional manner and stick to the issues at hand, you can typically get things done even if said person and you don't have the best of relations.

As many of you know Oakvale and I do not have a good history in this game, but I still managed to get him to resign as Representative for the good of the chamber.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

I love how this discussion has become about trying to pin the blame for Reactionary's inactivity on literally anyone else. Deflect, deflect, deflect!

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Also, re: "no-one was communicating with the GM,"

(On that note I'm particularly interested on what ended up happening with Venezuela, the Kims, the two Koreas and the aftermath of the peace in Asia)

*ahem*

Checking one's official office thread is not an unreasonable request of anyone, I should think.

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

So can we move to a final vote?