Auditorii wrote:I'll be quite honest, one of your points talks about apathy and lack of desire and that's precisely what I haven't been involved with the SC since I've come back. Quite frankly, after repeated attempts to reform the SC and at times the World Congress itself, they were met with either outright opposition or just ignored entirely. I'm not the biggest fan of putting time and work into something when it just falls off.
To me that's understandable. I personally think the apathy is because the WC was created as a quasi-game mechanic instead of as a RP group. I agree that Permanent Members are a step in the right direction. More on that below . . .
Polites wrote:Ok, a quick response for now:
You guys make some very good points regarding the voting rights of Permanent Members, so we'll change the proposal to allow them full voting rights, and we'll remove the cap. In order to solve the issue of breaking ties in case of an even number of SC members, we're considering the option of giving the President of the SC one vote, and having the presidency rotate alphabetically among SC members (either just Permanent or all of them), so a random SC member will have two votes in case of a tie. We're still thinking of removing Seat E and alternating membership for elected members, as that would lower the threshold for a successful SC campaign and eliminate the need for Moderation to dismiss inactive members (which as far as I can tell rarely really worked). The level and consistency of international involvement of various nations is then likely to be more seriously taken into consideration when the next rankings are released, since the rankings would guarantee a spot on the SC.
Will offer a more detailed response later today. Thank you all for your suggestions!
Personally I think these are good improvements, but as I was saying with Auditorii above, I think it misaligns game play styles with game mechanics, which I believe is the root of some players' SC frustrations. Simply put: most Particracy players do not RP, they only vote on laws; the WC vote is just another law to most players; but the SC is a RP group, not a law-voting group; this means that non-RPers are hampering RPers' ability to play the RP game.
With that in mind, here're my suggestions:
1. Get rid of Seat E
2. Give Permanent Security Council Member status to the Military Great Powers
3. Allow the General Assembly to pass Resolutions in the form of Game Laws
4. Give Great Powers (permanent members) Veto Power over GA and SC resolutions
5. Leave Seats A-D as is
6. Let SC elect its own presiding officer
What this does is align the WC system with the three main Play Styles in Particracy: Foreign Policy RPers (Great Powers aka "deep RPers"), Domestic RPers (elected SC members and GA regulars, aka "light RPers"), and Non-RPers (law variables voters, aka "casual players"). It would allow all three play styles to participate in WC gameplay without impeding the other play styles. A few explanatory points about how it could work:
1. At the start of each new session (beginning of every month), the
SC will elect a new presiding officer (doesn't matter who this person is, only that the players elect them; this is an easy jumpstarter to get RP going; the moderators or a CRC can conduct the vote). The winner can also preside over the GA or the GA could be allowed to elect its own presiding officer if it helps increase RP activity.
2.
Any GA or SC member can propose a GA Resolution by making a proposal thread in the GA forum. The proposal should be
3 sentences or less and must include at least 2 voting variables (usually YES and NO). Five governments must support the resolution before it can be voted on (1 proposing government + 5 supporting governments = 10% of nations). A head of government, foreign minister, or WC ambassador can support a GA resolution on behalf of their country by signing the country's name in the proposal thread. Third World Nations and NGOs cannot propose or support proposals, but they can get any of the 58 Nations governments to do it for them.
2A. To keep moderator workload and involvement minimal and keep things moving quickly, SC members and the presiding officer(s) have a collective responsibility to ensure GA proposals abide by the rules.
GA Proposals must be short, legible, to the point, and supported by 6 nations (the proposer plus 5 others). When a proposal is ready for prime time, any SC Member or presiding officer can post the proposal in the Final Approval thread.
The moderators would copy and paste the proposal and its law variables from the Final Approval Thread
onto the game system as a new law. Moderators should basically approve any proposal that doesn't violate game rules; since these are only designed to be on the game system temporarily, the extended scrutiny given to permanent law variables in the Creating the Law forum isn't as necessary.
2B.
30 votes are required to pass a GA Resolution. If there's a plurality in cases of 3 or more variables, it's up to the SC to decide whether and how to implement it. If the proposal garners 30 yes votes or plurality support from the 58 nations, the presiding officer will inform the SC. The SC can then vote on whether and how to implement the GA Resolution.
A no vote by any Great Power will veto the GA Resolution. The SC and presiding officer(s) have a collective responsibility to keep the World Congress Section of the game system laws uncluttered and up-to-date by requesting that moderators remove proposals from the game system at appropriate times. Once a GA Resolution garners 30 yes or no votes, the presiding officer may declare the vote closed and ask moderators to remove the proposal from the game system.
If a proposal has been on the game system for 1 month or was proposed in a prior WC Session, moderators have discretion to remove the proposal from the game system at any time.
3.
Security Council Resolutions are on the forum only, they DO NOT go on the game system. Only
General Assembly Resolutions go on the game system.
4 votes are required to pass a Security Council Resolution.
A no vote by any Great Power will veto a Security Council Resolution.
Swapping out Seats A-D should be unnecessary in this system because 1) any nation can get a resolution passed via the GA and 2) the Great Powers hold the real power. This set-up gives players of all playing styles three ways to force WC action (win SC election, propose a GA resolution, or become a Great Power). To get even more activity, the Rankings period can be shortened from 6 Months to 4, 3, or 2 Months to allow players more opportunities to compete for Great Power status.
I think concerns about tie-breaking should not be built into the system. Instead I think the system should be tweaked as necessary if ties ever become a problem. As of now there are three Great Powers. Come April, there are only two real contenders for promotion to Great Power: Malivia and Dorvik. As of now, there's no guarantee that either will be promoted. And even if 4 Great Powers resulted in an 8-member Security Council, that does not significantly increase the likelihood of ties because throughout SC history, at least one member has usually been inactive. So instead of adding rigidity to the system, I think the system should be allowed to respond to RP as much as possible and if a problem arises in the future, it can be fixed at the time rather than pre-empting a solution that currently has no problem.