FD: Amendment to Law 28, Article III Section 2

Law 28, Article III, Section Two

Inactivity

1. Assembly members whose nation has CTE'd (Ceased to Exist) or who have moved out of The North Pacific when not on official business shall be removed from membership automatically by the Speaker.

2. Assembly members who fail to indicate their activity on the forum by posting for over 15 30 days shall be removed from membership automatically by the Speaker unless a notice of absence was submitted to the Speaker before the absence takes place.

3. Assembly members who have missed two consecutive votes on any Regional Assembly items shall be removed from membership automatically by the Speaker, unless a notice of absence was submitted to the Speaker before two consecutive votes occur.

4. As used in this Section.

A. "Two consecutive votes" are defined as two votes on any items that are conducted at different time intervals of at least 3 days between the start of each vote, but are voted one after another. Votes on two or more items at the same time are not defined as two consecutive votes.

Link to preliminary discussion.
 
I maintain my position against this motion. I see no reason to promote the preservation of dead weight in the RA. It's hard enough keeping people active already.
 
Against, it only increase inactive candidates and voters which the region doesn't need at the moment.
 
I'm torn on this issue. I agree that we need to keep the RA active, but even with the 15 day rule, we still see RA members dropping, and you'll still see RA members dropping with a 28-30 day rule. While I prefer the 15 day rule, pragmatically speaking a 28-30 day will probably serve our needs better. At least with a longer time frame, maybe our candidate list for elections won't be 1 or, ADMIN forbid, 0 people.

The real problem in TNP is apathy, and that is the issue that we need to address, though I suppose this isn't the thread to do it in.
 
Until "apathy" is fixed, inactivity cannot be fixed. I personally don't see apathy as having been addressed yet, so I don't see how changing this rule could help us at all.
 
The only good thing I can see about changing the rule is that it might give us a larger candidate for elections.
 
I support the sentiment of the 15-day rule (in fact I voted for it). I recognize the negatives of the stricter rules but I do not for a second think having members show up every couple weeks is an unreasonable thing to ask. AMOM's last point, however, is undoubtedly true.
 
I.ll consider 28 or 29 days, but only if we can get a consensus in the discussion for either.

One important think we have to keep in mind is that people have lives; some show up only during the weekdays, others only during the weekends, and some may have other things that preclude presence during every week or every day.

There have been periods where the R.A. was in paralysis because a Speaker wasn't around, and the Delegate or the Chief Justice wouldn't be either. In those instances, it was well neigh impossible to get anything done for months. People got used to that and simply didn't check in as much. Over the past 18 months or so, maybe two years, I have tried to systematically work to remove issues in the Constitution, the Legal Code or in R.A. Procedure that made it difficult to get anything done. For those of you who may think it is hard now, you should have been here then --it was worse before.
 
As we all know, I have only been lurking around here over the last past couple of months. I have posted very little and participated in fewer conversations. I have made it a point to get on here at least once a every other week, if not once a week. I have fallen behind in conversations and can not keep up with a lot of the things going around here only checking in once or twice in a 2 week period. I could not imagine how far behind I would be if I was 30 days behind.

I guess this is just a long explanation of stating that I am against changing this because if someone really wants to be a part of TNP then they need to be somewhat active and not being active every 2 weeks (15 Days), without prior notice, is not being active in my books. If they are not active during this period then they are going to get way behind and can not make rational decisions based on the conversations that were happening while they were gone.
 
I am in favor of maintaining activity requirements for serving officers of the government, whether it executive, legislative or judicial branch.

I'm not picky on the number - anyone who is committed enough to actually put their name out there for office should be expected to at show up fairly regularly.

This only has two provisos:

1) There should be a mechanism to allow for a scheduled and/or emergency absence. This is a game, RL sometimes takes precedence.

2) We must be committed to expanding basic democratic rights like voting and running for office beyond the Regional Assembly. There MUST be a different standard for Citizen's - one that allows for more casual gameplay, but still encourages a greater depth of participation. We want to pull people in, not build walls to keep them out.
 
I like that someone is doing this because when i tried rule on this issue I was told that i did not have the power wow how times have changed.
 
This amendment only deals with R.A. membership.

The Constitution, Article I, Section 3, Clause 10 provides:
10. If any elected official should fail to check into their account for two weeks without prior notice, the dual consent of either the Speaker, the Delegate, or the Chief Justice will commence the special election of a replacement. This replacement will fulfill the remainder of the term.

That covers the judiciary, the Delegate, Vice Delegate and Speaker.

The R.A. and S.C. have their own provisions on activity. Given the stricter requirement for elected officials, I just don't see any reason to have a 15 day requirement for the R.A. And as I said when I first proposed this amendment, the change from 30 days to 15 days has proven troublesome and has frequently having members reappling for admission just hours or days after being removed. And in the meantime, they are deprived of voting rights in the R.A.
I dread to think what will happen under a 15 day requirement in December, which has always been a slow period going back to at least 2004, which was the second year of Nationstates.

So I join in the motion to bring this proposal to a vote.
 
I object to this proposal being moved to vote.

The change didn't address how this will increase activity in this region, but only that it will increase inactive nation in the RA.
 
Motion will be moved to vote momentarily.

EDIT: Speaker requests clarification from Grosseschnauzer as to what the most recent version of this amendment is.
 
While I offered to adjust 30 days to 28 or 29 days in the discussion if a consensus emerged, no such consensus did emerge, so the proposal remains as it is in the first post of this thread.
 
Back
Top