And what shall this document do for smaller, less powerful Empires? How will it help us?

Nevermores, I would have the same concern in your position. I had my own little empire for some time, and only decided to join up with one of the major ones a couple of months ago.

What is being created here is a core group of people interested in improving everyone's Metaverse experience. The core group will be players from a few of the larger empires because word spread first there, but read Mumblefratz's paragraph above that starts with

2) Initial representation

.

Incorporating members from small empires and those not in empires at all will be a high priority. This group will only have any real weight if it can demonstrate a wide base of support.

I hope you will continue to watch these threads and contribute to the process; nobody is being asked to perch, and sit, and nothing more.   

Well, i am no longer the writer. More of a contributor, its Mumbles draft we are most likely using. As you can see it is simple, thats what we want. I trust in the Coucnil to make reasonable decisions without a set of rules to follow. But some questions just needed to be answered in writing, to preserve and remind those that are a part of the community and the Council. At first i started coming up with so many diffrerent ways that would insure that the Council would function and people would be kept happy. Soon i found that approach illogical, thanks to Mumble and DethAdder. So we all decided to keep it simple and trust in the judgement of the Council(ahaha, a quote from the Thrid movie yes it is), once it came together.

Plus, i think Mumble generates most of these posts in Word anyways.

I trust in the Council to make reasonable decisions without a set of rules to follow

Perhaps you're beginning to see the wisdom in the Light side of the Force.

I'm a lapsed anarchist, which makes me especially sensitive to the notion of a "representative group" that has anything close to meaningful authority

I think what we're doing actually stays quite a good distance from anything remotely resembling meaningful authority.   

p.s. The "red tape" vs. "checks and balances" thing is worth a thread of its own, if not a whole 'nother forum

I have no doubt that this is true. That's why I'm so eager to avoid it. I'm afraid I don't have enough years left for us to come to a decision. The following is one of my favorite phrases. What we need is to strap on a pair of balls and make a decision.

I view this whole thing more as a Statement of Purpose at this point.

I was thinking something along those lines as well Marshall. I was going to say a Mission Statement.

This is who we are...
This is what we want to accomplish...
This is how we plan to accomplish...

It is however a bit more complex than that, but not by much...

Deth Adder's draft included:

The purpose of this Council is to increase interest and participation in the Metaverse by the general Galactic Civilization II community. To achieve the stated purpose the Council is presumed to act with the combined weight and authority of all those the Council represents.

Let me speak of the dangers of assuming to speak for someone that is not yet in your own camp. You will find they will rarely join you, but more likely rally in opposition to you.

I am happy to see 2 drafts available, but long to see the remaining 2 (as per my suggestion, of a draft per empire). On a close tangent... which empire has spawned each draft, and which posters can we comfortably assume speak for each of these empires?

Lastly, I would revise my prior statement about a popular ratification: The organization, assuming the constitution avoids overstepping its authority, should come into existence with the approval of the founders. Councilor Mumble's eegant words on the matter swayed me. HOWEVER, whenever speaking for 'the metaverse players' it would be best if such declarations were accompanied by a forum petition or poll to give the nonrepresented in council (but represented by assumption) players a chance to voice their opinion. Any such constitution claiming the organization's right to speak on behalf of said independants MUST include a provision to verify its authority in the matter..

[/end rant]

Glad you clarified that Mumble, I was looking around trying to find if I missed a second draft  . Hope you don't mind me reposting it. I just wanted to make sure everyone that went to one of the active threads on the subject would get to see it.

Long live the Metaverse.

Our best chance to involve more peopl is to get positive feedback from the community before DA comes out. Hopefully its release will bring back players to the community and bring a little life. Plus, more empires will probably be formed and as long as those stay a float long enough for us to get wind of them, we should be able to reunite this community. In my opinion, we should leave the popular vote for later, once more interest has been sparked. But, for now we will opperate with the approval of the 4 Founders, and any others that wish to join us.

I tried to post this a couple of days ago but it went a little wrong, sorry if some of this seems like back-tracking a bit.

Opening application to any number of empires would allow you to gauge the number of players supporting it much more easily than limiting it. In fact, I don’t see how limiting the number of seats would help with this at all.

I can see how the logic of giving time to work out the rules and aims makes sense. But if as soon as you allow the other players to take part they want to change the rules and aims it would have been a waste of time to work them all out in the first place. Also, if you use the 70% or 80% requirement to make the changes, then you have lowered the ability of players who have chosen to be in smaller empires (and therefore later joiners) to decide on the principles of the council.

I also see the logic on not wanting too many people discussing the issues at hand at once. However, correct me if I’m wrong, but these council “meetings” will be posted on a forum correct? Rather than using some form of relay chat?

If so, I don’t see why (example number) 147 different people could post their point of view. I agree someone will have to filter it down into a few precise statements to be voted on, but that is not a reason why the empire representatives who vote and discuss the issues cannot be a large body, even to begin with. It doesn’t have to be the same group of people.

When it comes to voting on policies in national government ideally every citizen would make their own individual vote on each issue. The only reason such a system isn’t used is because it would cost too much to organise the vote counting. On the internet we do not face that problem. Having 20,000 people vote on a poll on a forum is no more costly than five!

Besides, I’m not proposing NO representation at all, each empire would be represented by a single individual. Well at least I thought so, you proposed two representatives each. What is the reasoning behind that idea?

EDITING TO POST IN SMALLER CHUNKS, PLEASE WAIT

If you look at some of the threads that have been discussing these issues you see how difficult it is to get anything done in an open forum.

A case of misplaced Post hoc ergo propter hoc here:
Just because this forum doesn’t get things changed, and this forum has lots of members. Does not mean that the reason it doesn’t get things changed is because it has lots of members.

I have been part of several open forums all of which have been more successful at getting things changed than this one. It simply depends on how it is set up. Incidentally, this isn’t a bash at the GalCiv2 forums. They were not designed specifically to get things done. They were designed to allow players to discuss tactics, share their work, and give feedback to the developers. All of those it does do well. Your council forum on the other hand will be specifically designed to make changes to the metaverse, and assuming you set it up well with good principles it will succeed in doing that, regardless of whether or not it is open to the majority of empires, or open to only a select few.

It’s certainly easy to bitch and moan about things, but it’s not so easy to seriously discuss some issue that has importance to you and actually get something constructive done about it. People are constant sniping, or flaming, or hijacking the thread with the most harebrained of ideas. The more people involved the bigger this problem is. I defy you to find a single thread on this forum that has actually changed something ever.

I’m also unsure how your argument counters the idea that activity is not a necessary requirement for member empires. I agree with the above quote entirely, but allowing unactive empires to join would not significantly increase the number of conflicting views posted. An inactive empire would not be making any posts at all (or very few, depending on your definition of unactive empires).

I see with your point about wanting “should this be changed” questions requiring more than 70/80% approval. I don’t agree that it would be worthwhile. But I understand your logic there. However, I do not think that the majority of votes can be worded in that way. Just look at this thread, some possible questions that could be voted on:

“What percentage of the council needs to vote for a change to be approved?”
“How should our constitution be worded?”
“Is activity is members required?”
if yes: “How should activity be measured?”
once worked out “What level of activity is needed?”

Now obviously if these were worked out before hand (ie now) then some of them would be “changing votes”. But how do you propose to work them out before hand? Argue for a few months until you get unanimous consensus? Get a majority?

And for the final part of my above post:

I think you’ll find that this is the sort of issue you will need to vote on more often than not. Another advantage of only requiring majority votes is: You can have more than two options for each poll. Eg:

Blue logo
Green logo
Red logo
Purple logo
Orange logo
Silver logo with white dots and red stripes

You can have as many as you like, and take the winner.

I don’t think the council requires a constitution at all to be honest. Well, if it does, it can work it out after it is formed rather than us discussing it now. The only reason there should be a constitution is if you didn’t want the council to be able to change things in the future, in which case I think deciding which empires will get represented defiantly should be one of the things to go into it. Of course, at any time the largest empires could leave the council and make a new one if it wasn’t going how they wanted it to go. So again, no point in a constitution

Opening application to any number of empires would allow you to gauge the number of players supporting it much more easily than limiting it. In fact, I don’t see how limiting the number of seats would help with this at all.

The floor *is* open to any number of empires willing to show interest that have a *reasonable* amount of *active* members. At this point reasonable seems to be about 10. If there are any other empires out there that fit this criteria they’re welcome to join in now. However this has been discussed in one thread or other for 3 weeks now, I’ve yet to hear any other empire speak up. If you know of any please let them and us know about it.

Also, if you use the 70% or 80% requirement to make the changes, then you have lowered the ability of players who have chosen to be in smaller empires (and therefore later joiners) to decide on the principles of the council.

You’re making the mistaken assumption that the “original” representatives will in some way obstruct something reasonable that’s preferred by the newer members. I don’t believe this to be true. In any case I would expect that when a change is made to the way in which representatives are “elected” that would require the “original” representatives to be re-elected by the same criteria. I see no conflict of interests here.

Just because this forum doesn’t get things changed, and this forum has lots of members. Does not mean that the reason it doesn’t get things changed is because it has lots of members.

I disagree. And with all due respect and appreciation for the obvious effort that went into your post, your post is a perfect example of why things can be so difficult to accomplish in an open forum. It’s not that your questions are unreasonable or not deserving of attention. It’s just that you’ve made perhaps two posts of this amount of effort, I’ve already made over 100 posts of this length and complexity trying to answer each and every question, most of which are well meaning, but some are not. Frankly, I begin to tire from the effort.

I’m also unsure how your argument counters the idea that activity is not a necessary requirement for member empires. I agree with the above quote entirely, but allowing inactive empires to join would not significantly increase the number of conflicting views posted. An inactive empire would not be making any posts at all (or very few, depending on your definition of inactive empires).

Not quite sure what you’re getting at here. How exactly would inactive empires vote to approve the council or vote to select a representative. How can you justify some ancient empire with 100 members on record only one of which is alive and posting to deserve the representation of a 100 member empire. You’re not making sense here.

I do not think that the majority of votes can be worded in that way. Just look at this thread, some possible questions that could be voted on:

You’re comparing apples to oranges. Setting up a metaverse council is unique and never been done before. It’s pretty much guaranteed that there’s no status quo on which to fall back on. In the case of what the metaverse council is actually trying to do it involves change to an already existing structure, I think it will be very common that there is a status quo in pretty much everything we try to do and where there isn’t then as stated we will fall back on a simple majority. In any case even where this is no status quo striving for a 70% margin could easily force compromise to achieve such a margin. I don’t see that as a negative.

Good reply

I don’t have counter arguments to a lot of your points, and some I do have counter arguments for aren’t very important, so I won’t waste your time on them but there is one I feel most strongly about. I can empathise with why you wouldn’t want to post quite as much as you have been having to in order to respond to me, but if you’d be willing to continue discussion on this issue I’d appreciated it.

The issue of whether this will be open to all empires or only have a small limited number of seats, you say that if there are any empires out there with 10 “active” members, they are welcome to join now?

If you are going to allow them to join now, and allow them to join a little while after the council is formed, why not allow them to join at any time. I would think that after the council is first created would be the most important time to have people sign up, to get the ball rolling as it were, and to provide input on the council’s main direction.

Having lots of people posting their views on a forum is not a bad thing. Even though they may have the right to do so most empire leaders won’t (yes that is an assumption, but one that will most likely hold). Even if they do post, I think that having to read through and debate with lots of people and lots of conflicting opinions is partially a good thing, and partially a bad one that we just have to put up with in any fair sort of community.

In reply to GW Swicord’s example: Maybe not many people would feel qualified to vote on the quality of fish. But then I would have thought a lot of people aren’t qualified to judge who should represent them in the government either! One can only hope that if such a decision were given to the masses many would have the wisdom to abstain (a right which representatives of the council should also have imo), leaving the choice of who makes the decision in the hands of those who do feel qualified.

Sure people might vote who know nothing about the subject. But that is the price you pay for running a democratic system rather than a meritocratic (“ruled by those who most deserve to rule”) one.

In fact you have just given one of the strongest arguments against a democracy. I forget who said it, but it goes something like this:

“I refuse to believe in any political system which rates the opinion of a village idiot equal to that of Aristotle.”

Good to see this thread return to better terms. Hopefully your questions have been answered. I have nothing more to state, seems like everything is resolving itself, time to present the draft to the Empires for approval in my opinion.

We are having good luck indeed, two founders have already approven. I cant speak for Diplos but i think they will also soon approve. As for the Orcas, who knows when they will wake up.