Polites wrote:Phil Piratin wrote:Proposed new Game Rules wrote:The Global Role Play Accord (GRA) is an opt out index of nations. There are two types of membership in the GRA: A full membership allows the RP team to determine the nation’s culture as well as its economic and military characteristics. Whereas a partial member allows the nation to choose one option or the other.
To opt-out of the GRA a nation should pass a bill with a ⅔ majority of seats stating whether they are opting out of the whole accord, or part of it in which case they should specify which part.
To opt back in a nation should pass a bill with a ⅔ majority of seats and state what part(s) of the GRA they wish to opt into.
Could you provide more precise details on what this would entail?
We're still ironing out the details,
That's fine, of course, but speaking for myself, at least, I really do feel a
lot more detail is needed before this proposal can be meaningfully considered.
Polites wrote:but short story is culture will be centralized under the RP Accord, with an opt-out option and two types of membership.
Would you talk us through what Moderation's thinking/reasoning is behind pursuing/proposing this reform? ie. What are the objectives you are aiming to achieve?
I won't comment much on the RP Accord proposal for the moment, partly because I'd rather wait for more detail, but the one thing I will do is to query the formula that has been proposed for ratification/de-ratification. ie.:
a nation should pass a bill with a ⅔ majority of seats
As most of us here know, Particracy elections, besides being unpredictable, can often result in large disparities between the amount of seats won by the different parties. This means that a party or coalition of parties which represents 2/3rds of the seats may not represent more than half of the players who are playing in that nation. To give just one example, let me show you the current situation in Solentia, where the 3 largest parties hold a 2/3rds majority of seats between them:
This means, for example, that theoretically speaking, you could have a situation where the controllers of the 3 largest parties voted to de-ratify the RP Accord, but the 6 other players voted to keep it. In this scenario, the "2/3rds of the seats" formula would mean the nation would be withdrawn from the RP Accord, despite the wishes of 2/3rds of the players. At least to me, a situation like this would seem a little odd and unfair. Could the formula be reconsidered?
I am 100% agreed with Elf that it would be desirable to have a shorter Game Rules document, with simpler language. However, at the same time, I am concerned that if the new document is
too vague/imprecise then we will end up with a situation where both Moderators and players find themselves regularly having to refer to the old (ie. the current) Game Rules. I hope we can all agree that's not what we ideally want; the new Game Rules needs to "stand on its own", as it were.
At least to my eyes, the document has come along a lot since I first saw it, although to be honest, I think there is still a problem with a degree of imprecision/vagueness, and some important things not even being included at all (although I appreciate it's not finished yet and there is more to come, so I don't want to judge that too harshly yet).
Take early elections as just one example. As most here will know, the convention is:
10.2 In nations where no parties have seats, a player in the nation may request an early election on the Early Election Requests thread.
Yet when you read the draft, this has not been communicated as well as it might have been. Part 6h says "Users can ask Moderation to trigger early elections using the Early Elections thread", which is a little vague, and may give players the impression they can go to the forum to ask for early elections even if there are parties with seats in their nation. Then, later on, in part 7g, the reader is offered a different formula: "Users can request early elections on the Early Election Requests thread if they are the only active party in their nation". That is more precise than 6h, but still not really quite precise/accurate enough. It may result, for example, in players thinking they can't petition Moderation for an early election if there are multiple active parties in the nation without seats, or even assuming that if they are the only party in the nation but have seats, then they need to ask Moderation for an early election instead of using the game mechanics to call one themselves.
Also completely agree with Arapaima13 that the RP rules need a lot of close attention, and that radically slashing them down would be imprudent. That said, I don't doubt there is scope for both improving and simplifying them. Although I have to say I question the necessity and the desirability of the proposed RP Law Dismissal procedure (5eii), which involves players being required to notify Moderation on the forum every time a RP law is voted out.
Anyway, to sum up, along with others who posted before me, I'm really grateful to the Moderators for looking into redrafting the rules, as some things could do with changing. As far as the draft goes, there are some things I'm unsure about and some things I really like. Honestly, I think this has probably still got quite a long way to go, but we've got a talented and dedicated team of Moderators and a lot of really good players who take an interest in helping with these things as well, so I've every confidence we're gonna get to where we need to go.