World Congress & Security Council

An archive of previous sessions of both the General Assembly and Security Council as well as various ad hoc consultations and meetings.

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World Congress & Security Council

Postby Aquinas » Tue Oct 04, 2016 11:14 am

As someone who was around in Particracy near the beginning back in 2005, I can tell you people have been talking about introducing an in-game United Nations and Security Council from near the very start, but nothing long-standing has ever gotten seriously off the ground. We've all talked and talked, and fantasised grand schemes, and argued about the finer technical points, and squabbled and bickered...but nothing has materialised. For over a decade.

Well, now we're going to make it happen - and yep, this is serious and this is "official". On November 1st 2016, we will have the identities of the initial 5 elected members of the Security Council. For more information, see here.

If you really want one of the 5 special top spots for your nation, then you're going to need all of the political skills you can muster if you're going to amass the nominations you'll need.

But remember too that not every nation will make it all the way to the Security Council - there are 58 nations, but only 5 positions. However, just because your nation isn't leading in the nominations race doesn't mean its not part of the process. Your nation may not be able to get a position - but it CAN help to decide which nations do. So get stuck in to the negotiations and do your best to ensure those who do get onto the Security Council share your nation's vision for Terra!

So what are you waiting for? Log-in to the game and get nominating! :) You'll see the voting options right there on the laws page.

To see how well the candidates are doing so far, check out the comparison pages fir Seat A, Seat B, Seat C and Seat D. Yeah, I know they're all set to "Abstain" at the present moment in time, but hopefully that will start to change over the coming weeks and months.
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Re: World Congress & Security Council

Postby Rathon » Tue Oct 04, 2016 2:22 pm

I'm a bit upset that the ideas that were on the table were basically scrapped without further discussion, but at the same time, I'm glad to see this get off the ground.

Also, I would hope there would be a place for people to actively campaign. But since HoG positions can change every election, it's difficult to do so. I might support a country now, only to have the HoG change five times between now and November 1st. And then, if the HoG changes during the term, that means the Security Council representative changes too? It just seems very risky to vote for an active nation with a broad political spectrum- a Socialist could vote for a nation and end up supporting a right-wing Security Council member when the HoG changes.

I'd prefer a system where there's a deadline for a nation to nominate a candidate, say Oct. 15th, by a majority vote in-game. Then the players RPing those candidates have time to campaign and actually drum up support. That makes things a bit more complicated, of course, but at least voters will know who's going to be the country's candidate.

Otherwise, I'll probably vote primarily for traditionally one-party states, where I can expect some stability.
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Re: World Congress & Security Council

Postby Siggon Kristov » Tue Oct 04, 2016 4:07 pm

Aquinas wrote:We've all talked and talked, and fantasised grand schemes, and argued about the finer technical points, and squabbled and bickered...but nothing has materialised. For over a decade.

We've actually came up with some solid proposals over the past 2 days, which could very well work with the frame you're using.

Rathon wrote:I'm a bit upset that the ideas that were on the table were basically scrapped without further discussion, but at the same time, I'm glad to see this get off the ground.

Actually, what Aquinas is implementing isn't far from any of the ideas we have discussed. It's basically a global council, like we proposed in #3, #4, and #5. The only thing is that there are no internal "primaries" in any region like you wanted in #2. All nations just pick their favourite nation from each region. Every region has a seat. It also eliminates the problem that I raised as criticism against #2 (which would also apply to #3, #4, and #5), that a nation may be popular globally, but not be so popular among its own neighbours.

The only thing it doesn't make clear is whether there will be a global leader, but there are at least 4 options, here:
1) The 5 council members choose a nation among themselves to hold world leadership for the entire term
2) Seat A gets world leadership for 3 years, Seat B gets it for 3 years, etc.
3) Players nominate characters for the position, and the council would simply vote on them (cuts out the complexity of involving all nations)
4) Have no global leader; we don't need one.

I'm actually quite glad to see this very simple system get off the ground. Also, as players will see the whole Security Council thing in the legislative options, it will have the benefit of leading these players to inquire about where the Security Council meetings actually take place (the whole point Aquinas raised in the other post). I see much RP potential for this.

Another benefit is that we don't have to conduct "an election" every term, so we don't need to really do any work. This means terms can be shorter, to make more sense IC. Terms can be 10 or 15 years, I guess. That would just determine when exactly Moderation checks the law variables to update the composition of the council. There wouldn't need to be any big announcement. It would be the responsibility of nations to know when a term begins/ends so they know to campaign. They don't even have to wait until the end of the term; they can capitalise on a blunder to seek support (but the composition of the council wouldn't change until the term ends).

--

Just 2 suggestions, if you're still welcoming them, Aquinas:
1) Include the non-playable nations. Maybe the Global RP team can roleplay their government positions.
2) Rename the seats to the continents they're from, so rename "Seat A" to "Artanian Seat" and "Seat B" to "Majatran Seat", etc.
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Re: World Congress & Security Council

Postby Aquinas » Tue Oct 04, 2016 4:55 pm

Rathon wrote:I'm a bit upset that the ideas that were on the table were basically scrapped without further discussion


I'm sorry if it came across that way, but the ideas being discussed on the other thread have not been "basically scrapped". Something serious could still develop from that, and if it did, I promise you I would do whatever I thought I could to help. Bear in mind what was being discussed there were proposals for an international person/figurehead, whereas what has just been implemented is an elected Security Council of nations.

Siggon Kristov wrote:The only thing it doesn't make clear is whether there will be a global leader


At least at this point, the idea is that the General Secretary of the World Congress will be very much a technocratic figure, role-played by the RP Team (or someone they designate). He/she will chair meetings of the General Assembly and the Security Council in an efficient, fair/balanced and generally low-key way.

If we were to elect this particular figure, my concern is we'd end up with a very flamboyant/forceful/formidable sort of character, who maybe wouldn't be the ideal person for chairing these meetings, if that makes sense. Bear in mind also that the kind of player who has lots of flair and is great at winning big elections etc. might not necessarily be the person who would be interested in role-playing all of the much more mundane stuff the General Secretary has to do.

This does not mean, though, that we cannot have a Terra-wide election involving the election of some kind powerful figurehead (or a committee of powerful figureheads, or whatever).

Siggon Kristov wrote:1) Include the non-playable nations. Maybe the Global RP team can roleplay their government positions.


That's an idea I thought about, and perhaps it could come in later, if there was a real enthusiasm for that. However, it could potentially be controversial/sensitive if the RP Team (usually just 3-5 players) was able to control such a large swathe of the nominations. It would probably mean they would have the potential to swing the voting in a decisive way. So this is a tricky one. ie. How would it all work?

Siggon Kristov wrote:2) Rename the seats to the continents they're from, so rename "Seat A" to "Artanian Seat" and "Seat B" to "Majatran Seat", etc.


Interesting you say this, because this was actually in the original draft plan I had. The reason it was changed to "Seat A", "Seat B" etc. was out of concern that, for example, if players saw an "Artanian seat", it would be too easy for them to wrongly presume only Artanian nations could cast nominations for it. Without wanting to sound patronising, the reality is a lot of players exhibit rather short-ish attention spans when it comes to this sort of thing.
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Re: World Congress & Security Council

Postby Siggon Kristov » Tue Oct 04, 2016 5:14 pm

As I've said, I actually think that what you implemented is very very close to the ideas we developed, so I'm not actually disappointed, because it reflects some of the main themes we were going for.

Aquinas wrote:
Siggon Kristov wrote:The only thing it doesn't make clear is whether there will be a global leader

At least at this point, the idea is that the General Secretary of the World Congress will be very much a technocratic figure, role-played by the RP Team (or someone they designate). He/she will chair meetings of the General Assembly and the Security Council in an efficient, fair/balanced and generally low-key way.

If we were to elect this particular figure, my concern is we'd end up with a very flamboyant/forceful/formidable sort of character, who maybe wouldn't be the idea person for chairing these meetings, if that makes sense. Bear in mind also that the kind of player who has lots of flair and is great at winning big elections etc. might not necessarily be the person who would be interested in role-playing all of the much more mundane stuff the General Secretary has to do.

You are correct. Ideally, this person should be neutral. However, we ultimately define the role; we could set this person to just be a moral voice and not give them any actual power, and we can also count on nations to support someone who is neutral, calm, and balanced. We don't even really need a global leader. The only hype around it was just having a Terra election since the USA is electing their president. I much prefer council/parliamentary politics over presidential politics (hence the system I play with in Lodamun and Ikradon).

Aquinas wrote:This does not mean, though, that we cannot have a Terra-wide election involving the election of some kind powerful figurehead (or a committee of powerful figureheads, or whatever).

Well that's how I interpreted the Security Council, i.e. I already see it serving this role. Perhaps we can just make that small committee the "World Council" instead of having it being specifically "The Security Council" - If they want to call a summit on security matters, they can call the Ministers of Defence and the Ministers of Foreign Affairs. They can just call any summit on any issue, and name the first one "The 1st World Congress" and the 2nd one "The 2nd World Congress" but that small council (the one you've implemented), as it is, is already satisfactory for a world body.

So we would have a "World Council" which consists of the nations we elect, and we would have sessions of a "World Congress" which would consist of all nations, like the UN General Assembly. The latter wouldn't be some formal implementation where nations have to go through the process of continuously appointing delegates; nations would only need to appoint delegates (or just send a particular politician or cabinet member) whenever a World Congress summit is called.

Aquinas wrote:
Siggon Kristov wrote:1) Include the non-playable nations. Maybe the Global RP team can roleplay their government positions.

That's an idea I thought about, and perhaps it could come in later, if there was a real enthusiasm for that. However, it could potentially be controversial/sensitive if the RP Team (usually just 3-5 players) was able to control such a large swathe of the nominations. It would probably mean they would have the potential to swing the voting in a decisive way. So this is a tricky one. ie. How would it all work?

The idea that I had is that the Global RP team would just RP the positions of the individual governments, just like we have playable nations having different positions. The non-playable nations would have different positions on things. It would still be regular players who elect these nations to serve on the small council. So if a non-playable nation is big on environmentalism, it's the regular players who would be choosing whether to support that nation for Seat F, but they could also choose other non-playable nations that have different stances on things.

So it's not a case where the Global RP Team just appoints a nation to Seat F ad Seat G, then they RP their positions. It would be a case where the Global RP team makes their positions known to us, then we choose which non-playable nations get those seats, just like we choose which Artanian nation gets Seat A or which Majatran nation gets Seat B.
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Re: World Congress & Security Council

Postby jamescfm » Tue Oct 04, 2016 5:55 pm

Just a query, am I right to assume nations can vote for themselves?
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Re: World Congress & Security Council

Postby Aquinas » Tue Oct 04, 2016 6:05 pm

jamescfm wrote:Just a query, am I right to assume nations can vote for themselves?


Definitely, yes.

Although over time, once it becomes clear who the leading candidates are for each seat, I suspect we will begin to see a lot of tactical vote-switching. So some of the nations which begin by voting for themselves might later on switch their support to another nation which has a greater chance of winning.
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Re: World Congress & Security Council

Postby mpog » Tue Oct 04, 2016 7:13 pm

I have one concern, one question, and one request.
1.
Rathon wrote:I might support a country now, only to have the HoG change five times between now and November 1st. And then, if the HoG changes during the term, that means the Security Council representative changes too? It just seems very risky to vote for an active nation with a broad political spectrum- a Socialist could vote for a nation and end up supporting a right-wing Security Council member when the HoG changes.

I share this concern. Another problem of voting for nations is that due to changing majorities in the elected nations we may end up with players that don't RP in the Council.

2. What is the role of the Security Council and of the World Congress?

3. Could we have the option added to not participate? I don't mean abstaining in votes, but the possibility of nations not being members of the Organisation.
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Re: World Congress & Security Council

Postby Autokrator15 » Tue Oct 04, 2016 8:16 pm

May I suggest we put the entire World Congress to a seperate forum? Or a sub-forum in the Role-play section? I think its better that way so that its not hidden in conferences and given the importance and status it deserves.

Then on to the questions, I wonder, If I dont change my vote does it stay the same even after the election or will it be reset to abstain when new elections come?
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Re: World Congress & Security Council

Postby Siggon Kristov » Tue Oct 04, 2016 8:49 pm

Autokrator15 wrote:May I suggest we put the entire World Congress to a seperate forum? Or a sub-forum in the Role-play section? I think its better that way so that its not hidden in conferences and given the importance and status it deserves.

It can just be pinned in Conferences.

Autokrator15 wrote:Then on to the questions, I wonder, If I dont change my vote does it stay the same even after the election or will it be reset to abstain when new elections come?

I assume it will stay the same, and I have no problem with it being that way.
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