TW Council - UPDATED w/ structure

[the_paul]

lol what is this

[Gazo]

How can I be elected?

[Crescent Seal]

this council ever being formed

[Shaddowknight]

I had actually questioned that Demonic. It basically kills the idea. It would likely be mentioned at next council meeting, but may not be needed as it would be posted on forums and whatnot. The idea would need to be revised and resubmitted from scratch. Of course the sysops can (and would be helpful to) give advice on how to solve the issue that made them veto, or at least give some specifics so the idea could be revised. Of course some things are just flat NO, as in it will NEVER be happening. Basically a dissenting opinion on the topic. Similar to how the US supreme court members have to when they vote no on an issue.

[Demonic]

TW Council
Legislation within TW

We've had a formation meeting to decide the initial state of the Council. The Council can modify its own rules using standard procedure, as necessary. Its purpose is to promote deliberate, well-reasoned change within the zone, as a collaboration between staff and players.
(Yes, this is going to be a very dry read.)

TW Council will consist of 9 players (elected) and 9 members of staff (selected by department heads). Current staff:

Sysop: M_M God
Sysop: Demonic
Sysop: Beasty (replacing WingZero)
Dev: ThePAP
PR: Shaddowknight
Events: Willby
TWL: Tiny
TWD: Nurse.
Chairman: qan

• Meetings will be conducted using Robert's Rules of Order, with minor alterations to make it compatible with SS.
  • Short 2-page guide: http://www.abateofaz.org/pics/Simpli...lesofOrder.pdf
  • Long guide, but still simplified: http://corp.sbay.org/board/rules-of-order/ubc-sroo.pdf
  • Full text: http://www.robertsrules.org/rror--00.htm
  
  
• A majority vote = 55% of the voting members (not simple majority). This is 10 out of 18 (10v8) if the full Council is in attendance.
• Quorum, the minimum number of members required to conduct business, will be 55% attendance. 4 staff Council members and 4 player members also must be in attendance.
• Players may join the Council by running for an available position (or positions). Players will not represent a specific area of the zone (as will most staff members), but they will be encouraged to run for Council from all areas of TW.
• Players running for Council will have a formalized opportunity to detail exactly why they should be picked for Council, to appear in a forum thread. This thread will be advertised via zone message on TW before elections begin. Players are also encouraged to talk in-game to others in order to garner support.
• Rather than voting for a specific player or players, every person voting will have the opportunity to vote YES, NO or UNDECIDED on each player running for Council. This will provide a +1, -1 and 0 vote modification, respectively. The players with the highest ending vote "score" will win the Council position.
• A verified login will be required to vote, voting can be done only once, and votes may not be changed once entered.
• Both players and staff will serve for a 6 month term, or until they resign, or do not show up for 3 meetings consecutively, or at the discretion of the chairman based on the recommendation of the Council.
• Both staff and players can run for consecutive terms, but will need to be re-elected (in the case of players) or re-assigned by the department head (in the case of staff). Staff may eventually be voted in by their department as a whole, or a vote may taken to provide a recommendation for the department head.
• As the spirit of fair play is absolutely essential to the proper proceeding of the Council, unethical conduct related to the Council from members of staff or players both part of and not part of the Council will be dealt with severely and on a case-by-case basis.
• The scope of Council is not explicitly defined, allowing for a wide margin of legislative potential. Given this allowance, any motion passed within a Council meeting may afterward (outside of the meeting) be vetoed by two current zone sysops. This is to be used only in the instances where protecting the zone from adverse harm requires it, and not to advance any personal or special interests. Sysop members of the Council will not have any special authority or deference within meetings or other Council proceedings.
• Meetings will be conducted when there are items on the agenda to decide and discuss. Any Council member may add an item to the agenda for discussion. The frequency of meetings is likely to be about once every two weeks. A time limit will be set on each meeting.

If you're interested in participating, contact me by in-game PM, via ?message or by :MessageBot:!lmessage qan:msg if you have any questions, or are interested in running for Council. We're in need of more player candidates.

A thread will open up soon to allow those who are running to demonstrate why they should be chosen to represent the zone. When all candidates have had a chance to post (and the dev work is done to make it happen!), the polls will be open, and Council meetings will begin shortly thereafter.

good stuff, I notice the veto by sysops section and figure I would get in there first as im sure others will pick up on this. Now in theory a sysop can veto most changes, but we probably should state under what circumstances "harm" is considered as would a change to twl that sysops think could harm twl count? I don't think it should as we don't necessarily always know best :P The only obvious one should be zone security ie. enable cheaters to thrive or allow players to be hacked etc..

Also if it is veto'd, would it be a good idea prior to veto'ing bringing it up in the next or ideally current meeting as a potential issue as players may suggest a subtle change, meaning the idea could go through without problems. Everything else looks good tho

[qan]

Thread updated with the initial Council structure and quite a lot more concrete information. Thanks for your patience, everyone.

[Spock!]

An Idea for Council voting:

I don't really know exactly how staff are going to have the voting go down, so im kinda grasping at straws here...But it would be very beneficial to have a place on the forums for potential candidates to write up a short "mission statement" about what their general plans, visions, and idea for SS are, as well as where they generally play.

This way, voters would be able to vote for somebody who represents their interests in pub/league.

Just my penny in the pot.

[qan]

Robert's Rules

Here's the follow-up post I didn't quite finish yesterday.

My recommendation is that we adopt a simplified version of the ruleset for meeting procedure used by democratic organizations/pseudo-democratic bodies/rubber-stamp parliaments worldwide, which is to say...

ROBERT'S RULES OF ORDER

(Looks classy, right?)


I first used Robert's Rules as a wee lad of 12, initially as a participant in the daily meetings held at the start of each school day in order to announce business, propose new ideas and change the set of laws that governed our strange experiment of an education. Later I ran for and was elected as meeting chairman, and became much more familiar with the particulars of Robert's Rules of Order. Initially I was thinking they might be too complicated for TW... but, in truth, they provide an excellent starting point for conducting any meeting -- satisfying most questions of ambiguity and equity.


Under Robert's Rules, here's how your typical meeting goes:

• Meeting is called to order; roll call
• Minutes of last meeting are read back, which explains what happened, in brief
• Reports are made by any special officers (for example, staff member from TWD might explain any league changes that have occurred outside of Council, to bring everyone up to speed -- if we included this, it would be the only special role staff members would have, unless players also were assigned special roles, such as "Player liaison to leagues," "Player liaison to pub" or similar)
• Committee reports are made. Committees are special groups assigned to investigate an issue that is difficult to evaluate without more investigation. (Here's where calling for metrics and so forth would come in.) A committee is the result of a main motion from a past meeting -- someone proposed a decision be made, but the Council decided there's not enough information. Once a committee presents their report, they also issue a recommendation as to what should be done in regard to the question at hand.
• Important business that has been specially designated to be discussed at the meeting is then heard, accompanied by a motion. (Note that simply because a motion/question is put to the assembly, it doesn't have to be voted on immediately.)
• Any unfinished business from the last meeting is then discussed. Unfinished business includes anything left undecided, often simply because the meeting ran out of time. Motions that have been "tabled" can also be picked up here -- motions where the question was set aside in a past meeting, either for further discussion outside of the meeting (forums, in-game chat, etc.), or simply because the Council would like to let it sit (even sometimes just until later in the meeting). If a motion remains tabled throughout the whole of any meeting (carried over from last meeting), or unfinished business is left unfinished, the motion/business dies on the floor. If anyone wishes to bring it up again, they'll need to make a new motion.
• NEW BUSINESS. This is the main part of the meeting. Believe it or not, most of the stuff above is more protocol for certain special occasions, and won't take much time at all. At this point, new main motions may be brought to the floor. The first person to raise their electronic hand takes the floor. They state their motion clearly. ("I move that we remove the Javelin ship from all of TW.") At this point, someone seconds the motion, demonstrating that they believe it should be considered. If not, the motion dies, stillborn. After it's been seconded, the person has a chance to argue for their motion -- a specific amount of time (probably somewhere between 3 and 10 minutes). After they finish, the next person to raise their e-hand will speak (no queues/lines -- this encourages people to remain attentive to have their say ... and that they will start speaking immediately, and won't have forgotten what they meant to say). They can speak once, and again, just for a designated amount of time. After anyone who wishes to speak on the matter has spoken, the person who made the motion has a chance to speak one last time, responding to any comments made.
• (New business, continued.) At this point, a vote is generally taken, unless a secondary motion is made -- for example, to table the motion, refer it to a specially-appointed committee, postpone it indefinitely, etc. While a motion's being considered (discussed), members of the assembly can also use secondary motions to limit debate on a motion to a time frame, end the debate immediately, table and kill the motion at once ("postpone indefinitely"), etc. ... but these require their own vote.
• Last but not least, any important announcements are made, including the time of the next meeting (which can be decided on by the group, if needed). Then you adjourn, leaving feeling happy and probably a little bit smug.

Seems like a bit much? Fortunately it's all pretty simple and natural in practice. Very few special points are ever referred to... normally things move along simply and easily. As long as your moderator is at least reasonably well-versed in how the rules work, there's almost nothing that can't be worked out without much hassle for the members. A little bit of special language and procedure (and a few things I hadn't mentioned, such as how to and when you can interrupt someone who has the floor), but after that, it's easy. Oh, and you can also run for your City Council after you know Robert's Rules, or at least go to the meetings and have some idea of what's going on.

(Also... 6 year olds used Robert's Rules at my school. So, I'm pretty sure you guys can handle it.)

Anyone have any thoughts on this? We can simplify things as we see fit, but here's the basic framework for nearly everything we need. I think it'd be a good way to go.

More info on Robert's Rules
Short 2-page guide: http://www.abateofaz.org/pics/Simpli...lesofOrder.pdf
Long guide, but still simplified: http://corp.sbay.org/board/rules-of-order/ubc-sroo.pdf
Full text: http://www.robertsrules.org/rror--00.htm

[qan]

may I pls be on tw council? where do I apply?

You're already on the list of players that people will have to vote on -- think you were actually the first person to contact me about it, hahah.

[pee pee sock]

may I pls be on tw council? where do I apply?

[qan]

In reply to a few points brought up:

Adding more players: I think we're sticking with a 9 and 9 arrangement. Believe it or not, staff not only disagree all the time, but on pretty much every single issue ever presented, short of "should we disband staff?" -- and even in that case there's some healthy disagreement.

There might be some worry of collusion among the head sysops, but I don't think that's going to be a large issue. Each has only one vote, after all. And, for better or for worse, influencing others (ideally with the strength of your ideas, and not your supercool internet clout) is part of the process.

If there are any staff members of the Council who are afraid they'll lose their elite volunteer job because they talked back to a bigger spaceship, they probably aren't going to be a good fit for Council, anyhow.

Requirement for players from different areas: I hope we have a diverse group of player constituents, but I'm not in favor of requiring 2 from this section or that section of TW. Most players use multiple parts of the zone, and can provide an informed opinion on the zone itself, though they might be better informed in one area than another.

I'd also like to make it clear that staff from various sections don't (at present) have any special designation or voting power on their sections. I don't see players having such special power, either. They might be the go-to people for a committee to bring a recommendation to Council, though.

Voting on players in the Council: It's not decided yet, but I'd like to do an up/down method of voting in players to Council (and maybe staff, eventually). So you vote on every candidate, up or down (or abstain/neutral). This should be available to players, but also to staff, as staff are, yes, oh god, believe it or not, just players (but with better haircuts and those neat shirts that say STAFF in bold letters on the back). Re: recruiting Council members, I'd definitely like to stay away from staff selecting people, even if they're the perfect fit. It would slide too easily into favoritism -- a charge that (rather fairly) has been leveled against staff time and time again. But after a bit more has been decided on how we'll run this, we'll definitely be pushing some players to run for Council.

Most of the other issues (for example many that you brought up, Eph) I'd like to talk about in the next post.

[Spock!]

My suggestion is you should have 9 staff, and maybe 12 players since there is no chance of collusion between the players, for a total of 19 or 21. This would also be helpful since some staff may have beliefs that are far to identical and not independant enough just due to their position and point of view perhaps.

I didnt really check the staff listed and their assigned positions (ie tasks) but try to split it between DEV, BAN, ZH, ER, and other leadership roles throughout to get as much of a overall opinion as possible with as little chance of error as possible due to everyone being knowledgeable in their own area contributing a vote.

You should try to get 2 or 3 players from each major aspect of the game. Ie, Basers (1-2 from pub, 1 from TWD), LT (2 from pub), Social reps (2 from pub that are the most social or outgoing, pee pee sock is a fine choice for example)... stuff like that.

If thats too complicated then just do it however you can but emphasize a votes to be split per major area of TW, both in staff and public, and leave popularity out of it, recruit based solely on experience, unbiased (able to see both sides and weigh), and status/passion in their respectable area (ie most closely related to basing or LT)

I agree with there should be more players, since as you stated, we (the players) will be divided on just about any topic. Putting people into different groups (Basers, LT's) is also groovy. That way people from all sides of the spectrum get represented and have a "voice" in pub matters.

There should also be somebody to represent those that just play pub and don't particularly base a lot. Like the people who like to fly around solo on a private freq, crap like that.

There should still be a voting mechanic in there somewhere for the players to vote. But perhaps staff who know different aspect of the zone could be the ones nominating the players that meet the following requirements:

1. Show an interest in helping the zone develop/stay alive
2. Have a desire to be on Council
3. Belong to one the the aforementioned groups of players
4. Who are active

Thats my penny in the pot.

[Wazzaaa.nl]

when do i become council member?

i think cranium qualifies for council member
just becuz of his awesome banner

[BooBiesYaY]

My suggestion is you should have 9 staff, and maybe 12 players since there is no chance of collusion between the players, for a total of 19 or 21. This would also be helpful since some staff may have beliefs that are far to identical and not independant enough just due to their position and point of view perhaps.

I didnt really check the staff listed and their assigned positions (ie tasks) but try to split it between DEV, BAN, ZH, ER, and other leadership roles throughout to get as much of a overall opinion as possible with as little chance of error as possible due to everyone being knowledgeable in their own area contributing a vote.

You should try to get 2 or 3 players from each major aspect of the game. Ie, Basers (1-2 from pub, 1 from TWD), LT (2 from pub), Social reps (2 from pub that are the most social or outgoing, pee pee sock is a fine choice for example)... stuff like that.

If thats too complicated then just do it however you can but emphasize a votes to be split per major area of TW, both in staff and public, and leave popularity out of it, recruit based solely on experience, unbiased (able to see both sides and weigh), and status/passion in their respectable area (ie most closely related to basing or LT)

[Cranium]

when?

when do i become council member?