OOC: "Third World" inclusion in the World Congress

[Auditorii]

You misunderstood me, I don't want a church or a party to vote in the GA, just the Forgein Minister on behalf of their country, I can say with 100% confidence my church or party shouldn't be voting on SC resolutions, but I can say I would like countries not in the SC to have a bigger voice.

Okay, great idea...except we couldn't get 2 countries who were elected to the Security Council to show up. Luthori showed up, Selucia got kicked out. Try to do that now with 59 countries, with lets say 5-6 empty, another 30 that don't have ANY RP whatsoever, 15 that kinda RP but only newspaper posts about elections and you remain with potentially a handful of active RPers in world affairs.

[John Cracker]

Well I suppose your right, the only other idea would be for regions to vote, IE: Pirland, West Bolton Ect. but I am uncertain about that idea.

[Auditorii]

Fortunately and unfortunately, depending on how you look at it the current structure is the best structure that we've determined after a few years of experimentation. I'm fine for tweaking it (i.e. adding a seat for the Third World, moving some seats around) but generally the WC operates relatively well for being a player driven experience imho.

[jamescfm]

Let’s not get distracted by other matters, this thread is for discussion of the Third World’s position in relation to the Security Council. I am open to any suggestion about reforming the World Congress but please discuss it in an appropriate manner that does not draw attention away from the matter at hand.

[John Cracker]

I would like to see 3 seats added for the Third World, one for the north on for the middle and one for the south, page would be made for nations to cast their votes.

[Auditorii]

I would like to see 3 seats added for the Third World, one for the north on for the middle and one for the south, page would be made for nations to cast their votes.

So you'd like to have 1/2 the Security Council comprised of nations that may or may not be occupied? Throughout most of the TWs history, we've had 1-3 occupied this is literally the most we've ever had lol

[Locke1342]

I am very supportive of introducing a 3rd World Seat to the SC. Hopefully it will help maintain the increase in popularity of the 3rd World if nothing else.

Personally, I don't think it is justifiable to say that the WC could give a reason for their exclusion given that in the RL security council all nations that are part of the UN General Assembly can become non-permanent members with enough support. That being said, what QV73 said about internal stability is right and if we are mirroring the real UN then it would be unlikely for many third world nations to be voted onto the council as they wouldn't get the votes from other countries.

My idea and one that I know at least some people have shared is that we provide a single Security Council seat for the active (occupied) Third World nations and they can either rotate or take it among themselves to vote on.

I don't think the seat should be rotated. In the case there is an active 3rd World RPer who has justified their nation's appearance on the SC through winning the support of other 3rd Nations and actively getting involved internationally, there seems to be no reason to rotate it to a nation which wouldn't be as justified. As you said previously, working towards a permanent seat is an incentive, but then so is working towards a non-permanent seat (albeit to a lesser extent), its just earned through diplomacy RP rather than economic/military RP (as we are seeing now in the race for Seat C).

I would like to see 3 seats added for the Third World, one for the north on for the middle and one for the south, page would be made for nations to cast their votes.

So you'd like to have 1/2 the Security Council comprised of nations that may or may not be occupied? Throughout most of the TWs history, we've had 1-3 occupied this is literally the most we've ever had lol

Yeh three seats is too much in my opinion. I would say two i.e. one for Dovanian 3rd World Nations and one for Vascanian & Temanian nations (especially given all other non-permanent seats are decided by continent) would be preferable if 3rd World participation remains high, though this in itself may also still be impractical for the reasons laid out by Auditorii above.

[jamescfm]

Okay, thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts. I think we have a good starting point for the discussion here so I'd like to take a moment to summarise what has been said and pose some specific questions.

On the subject of explaining the exclusion, I think that we should adopt an explanation based on the playable countries being the original members of the World Congress and this being the current basis on which they are eligible for Security Council membership. The reason behind these particular countries being the original members can be a combination of economic development, internal stability and democratic government. Perhaps the Security Council has only recently decided to allow this collection of non-founding members access to the full benefits of membership. Whatever we agree, I would recommend that we confirm it through in-character mechanisms (i.e. by passing a resolution in the Security Council) to develop the concept a bit more.

Moving to how we should seek to include the "Third World" countries, it seems to me that nobody is in favour of including them alongside the playable countries. Implicit in most of your responses is the idea that these countries should have a separate seat to the playable countries and this is something which seems sensible to me. Trying to manage votes that are split across the forum and the in-game mechanism would be a bit of a nightmare. However it does present a challenge to the idea of "continental seats".

The current seat system can best be described as quasi-continental. Seat B is the only seat that properly represents a single continent, Majatra. Seat A contains all of Artania but it also contains Keymon, which most players consider Seleyan. Seat C contains most of Seleya (with the exception of Keymon) but it also contains Yingdala, a country that most players consider part of Dovani. Seat D contains Makon and Keris and the playable countries in Dovani (except Yingdala). In terms of numbers, this means all the seats have 14 countries except Majatra which has 16. All this to say, the current seat structure is primarily based on ensuring each seat has approximately the same number of countries rather than on any geographical or cultural concerns.

In terms of applying that to the "Third World", there are currently between 24 and 26 countries depending on how you treat Vascania and Ntoto-Hanzen. If we were to use a similar number of countries per seat this would mean having two seats on the Security Council, each representing 12 or 13 countries. Using the continental criteria would not be particularly helpful here though, since Temania and Vascania have at most seven countries (if you include Rapa Pile and treat the two other Vascanian countries separately).

This means we either need to have one massive seat for the whole "Third World" or draw a line that best represents some cultural or geographic cleavage while retaining a similar number of countries in each seat. My preference would be the latter because I do think that the prospect of two Security Council seats would entice more players to the Third World. Frankly the Security Council would benefit from a little bit of added diversity given that it's already been acknowledged both in and out of character that it's dominated by countries modelled on Western interventionist powers at the moment. I am open to hearing the thoughts of other players on this matter.

Finally there is the matter of how to manage the elections in the new seat(s). Simply rotating them would be good in terms of ensuring activity and organisational ease, however I do think that part of the appeal of the Security Council for a lot of players is that it's the only part of the game that actually involves a fundamental part of politics, campaigning for votes.

With that said, I would propose this: around a week before the session is scheduled to start, I'll open a thread (or two) where Third World controllers can indicate their intention to stand and then the remaining players can cast their vote up until the deadline. I would hope that players who control multiple countries can be trusted not to undermine the in-character nature of the vote and cast votes on behalf of both countries but perhaps this would have to be something we monitor. Non-controlled countries would either be simulated to match the end result or treated as abstentions.

My apologies that this post became such a treatise but hopefully it has clarified a few things. The questions that I would like to hear answers to at this point are: does the in-character explanation for exclusion I formulated above work? should there be one or two "Third World" seats on the Security Council? if there should be two, where would be an appropriate dividing line between them? how should these seats be elected?

[Auditorii]

I don't think there should be two seats quite frankly, the Third World has ALWAYS struggled with popularity and while it is popular right now I am not entirely sure that it will hold. I think a single seat of ACTIVE Third World nations would be best, not all but those that are occupied by players.

[Locke1342]

If we were to go for two seats then I think the appropriate dividing lines can be found between the (very rough) Africa-Asia/North-South split in the Third World. There might be a couple of anomalies to this culture line but I think it works fairly well:

Southern (Asian) Seat: Temania, Vascanian Empire, New Alduria, Xsampa, Medina, Ntoto-Hanzen, Kimlien, Dalibor, Utembo, Bianjie, Tropica, Rapa Pile and Noumonde. [Total: 13]

Noumonde and New Alduria stick out culturally, but these are the exceptions to the rule, and obviously fit geographically.

As for the Northern (African) Seat: New Verham, New Englia, Kurageri, Mina/Cifutingan, Istapali, Liore, Midway, North Dovani, Ostland, Statrica, Suyu Llaqta, Utari Mosir [Total: 12]

Again you have the anomalies of Ostland, New Verham, and New Englia but otherwise it follows a fairly consistent pattern.

This is not to say that I think we should definitely have a second seat, rather that if we did have a second seat, what would the split look like. I think the preferred option would be to have that second seat but there needs to be a concerted effort by the active player-base to make sure that activity in the Third World remains consistent. I would like to be optimistic about people's participation and suggest that there is no harm in trialling a second seat and pulling back to one seat in the case that people were to stop playing.