TW Council - basic information

[qan]

TW Council
Legislation within TW

TW Council is a governing body in Trench Wars set up in addition to the decision-making organization of TW staff.

It consists of 9 players, who are elected by the population of TW as a whole, and 9 members of staff, 6 of whom who are selected by department heads of the appropriate department, and 3 of whom are current zone sysops.


Staff representatives (listed by department)

Chairman/point of contact: qan
Sysop: M_M God
Sysop: Demonic
Sysop: Beasty
Dev: ThePAP
PR: Shaddowknight
Events: Willby
Moderation: Left_Eye
Leagues: Reckful


Player representatives

Zizzo
Star Fox
Weak
Wazzaaa.NL
iPad
Spock!
Drosophila
Exalt
sleepyjoe



Council procedures

• Meetings will be conducted using Robert's Rules of Order, with minor alterations to make it compatible with SS. Members of Council (and candidates or aspiring members) are encouraged to read (and print out) at least the 2 page guide to have a passing familiarity with how the meetings will be conducted.
  • 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 tovote 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.
• Meeting minutes (a summarized record of the meeting) will be posted to this forum.
• Meetings will be public, but only members of Council will be permitted to speak, unless a player is brought in as an authority on the content of a particular motion.

Note: This is a reproduction of the first Council thread on the main forum, with minor additions and corrections.

[qan]

NOTE: on the staff side, the TWL & TWD Council spots have been merged into a Leagues spot, in order to make room for the Moderation department to have a seat at the table, previously an oversight. Nurse., no longer a member of staff due to IRL obligations, will also no longer be on Council, and Tiny will represent Leagues; Left_Eye will represent the Moderation department.