Informal Vote How long should a general activity requirement be for the RA?

Grosseschnauzer

Grosseschnauzer

TNPer
The two earlier polls have established a consensus that any activity requirement should not include a consecutive vote requirement of any kind, and that a general activity requirement should take the form of a log onto the forums requirement. The split is over how long a period this general activity requirement should take.
Part II suggests an even split between the 15 day and 30 day period; so we're going to limit the choice to those two options and see if one becomes a consensus over the other as between those two choices.
 
Another vote?

I know we are suppose to be a democracy, but this is getting ridiculous.

15 days for me, if you can go 2 weeks without any activities then clearly you do not have an ability or the desire to participate in TNP's government at that moment.
 
These are not formal votes in the RA, Felesia, but a tool to help figure out how to draft legislation either as part of Elu's package revision or as a separate bill. The positions of those who responded in part II were pretty evenly divided for the two extremes (15 days and 30 days) so it made sense to try one more time to see if a consensus can emerge.
 
Seriously, why are we doing all these non-useful votes? Just to give the illusion of fixing things while in actuality nothing gets accomplished?

Motion to bring this to an actual vote in the actual RA.
 
I've rethought this one a bit.

How about a compromise position: two weeks unless some kind of official 'leave of absence' is requested or granted, or, if there is a sufficient and previously unannounced mitigating circumstance (like you were walking in the woods and your kneecaps got gnawed off by a pack of coyotes with halitosis rendering you indisposed) in which case the mitigating circumstance would immediately restore RA status (and as long as the coyotes stayed at home).
 
15 days 3 (30%)
30 days 4 (40%)
Other (specify) 1 (10%)
Don't favor any requirement 2 (20%)
Total Votes: 10

Assembly member's still seem to be all over the place when it comes to this requirement. we should either reduce this vote to two choices, or just table the subject completely until after the elections.
 
Peoples empire, these are informal votes in the drafting process. At the moment, 13 members (less than half so far of the RA) have expressed an opinion, so I'll wait a few more days. At the moment, 7 of 13 favor a 30 day period, which is the one currently in law 28; although the current requirement is a posting requirement, not a log in requirement.
We're getting there. But this topic has been complicated by layers of overlapping requirements which is in fact difficult to keep track of, and these layers have been the result of amendments to the original law.
 
Grosseschnauzer:
Peoples empire, these are informal votes in the drafting process. At the moment, 13 members (less than half so far of the RA) have expressed an opinion, so I'll wait a few more days. At the moment, 7 of 13 favor a 30 day period, which is the one currently in law 28; although the current requirement is a posting requirement, not a log in requirement.
We're getting there. But this topic has been complicated by layers of overlapping requirements which is in fact difficult to keep track of, and these layers have been the result of amendments to the original law.
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As I said earlier I have dropped my argument do to growing support for the 30 day requirement
 
Or we can also have roll calls once in awhile to all RA members besides the general activity period; RA members must reply to the roll call thread within 5-7 days or else we get booted out automatically. Of course, a PM which contains the link to the topic will be sent to all RA members to notify them of such roll call going on.
 
James2spooky:
Or we can also have roll calls once in awhile to all RA members besides the general activity period; RA members must reply to the roll call thread within 5-7 days or else we get booted out automatically. Of course, a PM which contains the link to the topic will be sent to all RA members to notify them of such roll call going on.
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I suggested something similar to that a couple of weeks back and nearly got my head handed to me for it. It pertained to taking a role call and those who responded during a certain set period of time constituted the quorum.

It went over like a lead balloon. :unsure:
 
From what I'm seeing in the pool results, it looks as if the strongest support on the topic is that the only activity requirement should be a requirement that RA members must log into the forums at least once every 30 days; and it is my suggestion that the overall legal code reform bill or the law 28 reform bill should reflect that approach.
 
Seriously? We needed all that to determine that people hate the current activity laws and they really must change? Well then, I can already tell this ConCom is going to be a do-nothing joke.
 
I think we need to have an elected Constitutional Committee with a time frame to come up with a new/revised constitution. Each amendment could go before the Regional Assembly for approval at the end of the period of time. Amendments that fail to pass will be revised and resubmitted.

I know BW doesn't think this would work.. but thought i would suggest it none the less.
 
Generally speaking, no, I don't think it will work.

We've been trying to fix the system for years without any progress. Without a definitive time table in place that includes mandatory actions if deadlines are not met this ConCom is doomed to fail.
 
^I agree. There needs to be a timeline for sure, otherwise it will stretch out for years and years, and quite possibly not get done.
 
we also need a legislation to address the issue when Members of government and elected officials lose their RA membership during their elected terms.
 
I very much want to, but because TNP laws require a super-majority to do so, and because there is a hard-core minority of "say nay to everything"-ers, we can't establish such a timeline with anything short of a popular overthrowing of the Constitution backed by at least the Delegate and the Vice-Delegate at a minimum.
 
We may be approaching this from the wrong angle. How about come up with a couple or three simple types of government that can function under extreme conditions of participation levels, that doesn't have a constitution that ends up looking like all 32 volumes of the OED, and that can be expressed in simple terms and which is flexible in terms of implementation?

Then write a constitution for it.
 
Romanoffia:
We may be approaching this from the wrong angle. How about come up with a couple or three simple types of government that can function under extreme conditions of participation levels, that doesn't have a constitution that ends up looking like all 32 volumes of the OED, and that can be expressed in simple terms and which is flexible in terms of implementation?

Then write a constitution for it.
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If I may be so bold, that is quite a vague statement. Find three systems and write a simple constitution on it, if only it were that easy. No doubt they came up with the idea for this system, and then attempted to write a simple constitution and legal code. Nobody sets out to make something deliberately complex.

We could outline three simple systems to the people, who vote in a non-binding referendum. The constitutional committee then writes/deliberates and comes up with the new constitution for a vote before the people. This committee should be subject to deadlines with a clear timeframe for completion. The final draft will then be opened for a vote, in section my section.

It would be easier if we could have a 2/3rds vote supporting the amending the constitution as a whole... and then only require a simple majority vote to amend each section. Easier.. Illegal, possibly.

If some or all fails to pass, the constitutional committee will reassess and resubmit.
 
That is true, but amending a constitution one part at a time generally results in unintended consequences. The reason this happens is that each section of the constitution affects other parts of the constitution and amending a constitution piece by piece results in a never-ending affair if it isn't done all at once.

What I said earlier was indeed nebulous because it was a passing thought.

Specifically, we need to go back to the basics and simplify, but we also have to be able to preserve certain elements that make for good representative and democratic government. One of these principles is checks and balances so that one branch of government doesn't rule all of the others.

Our current constitution has attempted to do this and quite successfully all things considered. We have Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches, but we often get bogged down in details and complexities that I think can be simplified.

What I think we need is more of an 'enumerated powers' system which contains government so that it doesn't expand until everything is the state - we want a system in which the government is a function of the people, not the other way around. But we need to do this in an efficient and compact way that doesn't get out of control should activity levels drop for one reason or another. To get a system like this in place is actually easier than one would think.

One of the things that can be done is to produce a 'chain of succession' that comes into play should people in top positions become indisposed to action (be absent unexpectedly for extended periods of time). This is what we did with the order of succession from the Delegate via the SC. It's a good idea that can be extended to other branches of government as well.
 
That is true, but amending a constitution one part at a time generally results in unintended consequences. The reason this happens is that each section of the constitution affects other parts of the constitution and amending a constitution piece by piece results in a never-ending affair if it isn't done all at once.
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I more meant, rather than amending it one piece at a time, allowing the assembly to vote down certain sections if they don't like them/don't think they will work.. Rather than passing a whole new document in one vote, and having discontent with it later. We could make a date of proclamation for these laws, so that they only come into effect once the whole constitution.

Although it is possible that by using an elected constitutional committee, people could make submissions, and the use of non-binding polls could be used to test peoples satisfaction with the proposed amendments.

Interesting concept. ^sorry if it makes little sense, just my train of thought
 
I agree with everything said, and we should try our best to get enough consensus from everybody on these issues, or else will have to vote for a new constitution every 2 months.
 
Kicking people out of the RA for being inactive is the most mindboggling counterproductive aspect of this region's entire government structure. Frankly that's saying a lot.
 
I agree. But that's what you get when you set the quorum levels with actual RA member lists. The easy solution is to eliminate quorum and base the results of a vote on how many people actually cast votes to pass an item and eliminate RA activity clauses entirely.

Just floating an idea for discussion:

One way to deal with the RA activity clauses is to have 'sessions' of the RA that last a couple of months. If someone doesn't re-up when a new session is opened, they are dropped from the RA list. If they re-up during a session, they are added to the list of RA members until the end of the session. At the end of a session, everyone is removed from the RA list and they have to re-up. That way, remasking is largely done en mass and not piece-meal for the most part.

My general attitude is that if you don't choose to participate then you abrogate your ability to make a choice without affecting whether or not the government can still function, at least legislatively.
 
One reason for a quorum requirement is to prevent an unusually small number of people from taking unfair advantage of those periods every year where many are afk, no matter how much some want to rant and rave about "forcing" people to be active with unreasonably strict activity requirements.
One reason for having a reasonably generous requirement, such as the apparently preferred 30 day log in provision is that it allows a way to remove members from the active rolls. We used to have a suspended mask for RA members after a revision of the application oath but that got amended out of existence. What we have now is that removed members due to inactivity are put in the citizen mask(s); which is sort of the same thing, but while it's not as fair to RA members as a suspended mask due to inactivity, it is better than just dumping them into the general forum member mask.
One aspect with Constitutional revision is the need to form a broad enough consensus in order to have changes adopted. There simply hasn't been a broad consensus for a sweeping change in the structure of the Constitution. Trying to use other means of pressure won't force a consensus to form artificially. Under these circumstances a phased approach is probably the best.
For example I am troubled conceptually by Eluvatar's idea of "joining" and "unjoining" registered citizens from the R.A. during elections. I just don't think the way its been described is workable and I think it will cause confusion more than anything else.
We've been able even recently to re-work the problems of inconsistent drafting that has plagued the current Constitution. One word of caution though, one person's view that something is extraneous and unnecessary may not be the next person. My problem with some of the proposed changes to Law 28 is not removing language from the oath per se; it's making sure the thing being removed from the oath are somewhere that can be pointed to for enforcement. I'm not yet totally convinced that it's been done, and I will continue to have problems with, for example, how to enforce the "one player one vote" philosophy that has been at the heart of the governmental framework from the beginning if the language in the current oath is removed without something explicit that can be specifically enforced. Regulating the use of proxy servers, by itself will not address that issue.
I have to point out that the provisions prohibited admissions to the R.A. during voting was the direct result of admissions taking place in the middle of votes and those new members voting, even though it was clearly in the law that they could not participate in any vote that was in progress (including elections) when they were admitted. Now there are complaints about delays due to overlapping back-to-back votes and elections; some of which were mandated and not subject to the discretion of the Speaker. That's actually a new problem for TNP, there have been more overlapping votes in the last five months than I've ever seen here. The one thing that has to be kept in mind is how to have a workable mechanism to prevent votes by RA members admitted in the middle of a vote. Be sure that has been solved first, and then ways of addressing the overall topic will be easier. I'm not convinced yet that repealing the two provisions in and of itself is the best solution because I'm not convinced we've solved the underlying problem yet. And that is tied into the issue on activity clauses because that also affect who is and isn't a current RA member.
 
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