::little evil squirrel claps::

I go away for two hours to do some reading, and now what do i get to do. MORE reading, yeah me!!  

Council of the Metaverse - we build smiles through debate.

Seesm that i dont have to add anything. Well one little one little comment. Please from now one READ the threads before you post. It will save us hours of time, ofcourse if you dont "feel" like reading through a bunch of crap(excuese me), you feel like us. We will TRY our BEST to help, but within reason, we have our own lives you know. On a side comment, your responses have been very very welcome, i love the amount of feedback the three threads combined have recieved. I respecte each and everyone one of your views and hope that your questions have been answered. Seems like things are going well.

Heres an update:
Arrakis: Reps have been selected(TGE + Vukasika), and the Constitution has been approved.

HCH: I have surfed their forums. Ratification is occuring and rep voting polls are being wraped up. Will check back later to make sure. Unless their Emp can put in a comment.

::little evil squirrel claps::

That's such a big bottle of beer (Bud isn't it, my favorite) for such a tiny little squirrel. No wonder he's so evil. I hope the clapping is for appearing to finally coming to a decision.   

Arrakis: Reps have been selected(TGE + Vukasika), and the Constitution has been approved.

More good news. Awaiting HCH status.

As far as the lengthy disscussion this morning I think that all that's been said does indeed apply. But I for one in the interests of KISS do not feel terrifically obligated to make the one sentence change. If anyone does feel the need is absolutely necessary then speak now or forever hold your peace.

If anything needs to be changed, that will be decided by the Council. It is its right isnt it? The Draft has already been aproved by one founder and is supported by two of the others, what more do you need?

Hi! I'll go ahead report whats up with the HCH.

Our polls seem to be winding down, and it is a pretty close election so far. I'm going to let it go for a little while longer, still trying to get more members from our empire to the HCH forums. So there might still be some members yet to vote, and a vote one way or another at this point could change the out come. We are currently running two polls, but they are going to be combined when voting finishes. Feel free to come by and check it out!

Also the HCH seems to approve of the new Constitution.

I'll keep you guys if there are any further developments.

AlexAtticus

I go out to cut some wood, come back and there is a whole host of developments. I haven't anything to add yet. I've got to catch up on whats taken place. I'll be back in a while(gotta go repair my chainsaw), and try to get caught up on everything.

Long live the Metaverse.

Thanks Alex for the update, and hope to see some imput on your part when you come back Adder

hope to see some input on your part when you come back Adder

DethAdder's input would be the same as I gave in post #100. He and I are the Diplomat reps and constitutional ratification is on-going.

Alex, I see that you have a close one, by all means wait until the outcome is clear.

It's clear that we will be getting a decision from HCH though it may be a matter of time. That leaves only the Orca's.

---

Anyone that has seen TGE and myself post to the Orca's thread is probably aware of the situation. In the interest of full disclosure, I want to let everyone know what's going on. Also in the interest of KISS, I want to let everyone know what I've decided to do about it.

There are clearly Orca's coming and going, however all attempts so far to contact the Orca emperor, Thebestaintyou, have come up empty. The Orca's website is also apparently abandoned.

Syrrus K, an Orca who currently has both the 1st and 5th place metaverse characters, has recently posted to the "Is anyone out there" thread, the "B.C. Space Orcas" thread and this thread supporting the idea of a metaverse council. Syrrus K has been contacted and has agreed to be a representative for the Orcas until such time that he can be confirmed or replaced. A number of other Orca's have recently posted to the Orca's thread as well as recently posted games to the metaverse. We've left a message in the Orca's thread that the next guy in should stand up for his empire and the metaverse and do the same as Syrrus K.

I made the decision to make that offer totally on my own initiative, with all the weight and authority of a rather large set of balls that my wife allowed me to walk out the door with this morning. I made this decision both in the interest of KISS as well as in the interest of winding up a process that has taken far too long already. This decision is not set in stone and if I hear large screams of anguish, I'm willing to rethink my decision. Also, I would be looking for the council (sans Orca's) to either approve or disapprove of this as the absolutely first vote taken by the council.

The reason that I did this instead of eliminating the Orca’s as a “founding” empire was that I felt it was irresponsible to eliminate the 1st place metaverse empire with over 100 members, 50 of which have posted games in the last six months when there is obvious activity in both their thread and in recent games posted to the metaverse. It seems to me that this is an empire that has simply been abandoned by it’s emperor. Anyone that object’s to this should please post your objections quickly.

Well, I'm glad to hear there is some actual council members now  .

I have seen where Syrrus K is willing to represent the Orcas. That is great news and I'm sure another from there midst will surface soon.

What is the state of the proposed alteration to the Magna Carte? I seen the proposed change, but didn't see anywhere(at least not in this thread) if it was approved or not. I believe the new wording, even being somewhat parallel in meaning to the original, does convey the sentiments in a simpler context.

There really isn't much more I can say right now. I still haven't been to see what's transpired at the Core, but will be headed there soon.

There has been some good questions and equally good answers here and I hope people will continue to feel free to express their opinions or concerns. Together we can make a difference  .

Long live the Metaverse.

What is the state of the proposed alteration to the Magna Carte?

After discussing this all morning no one seemed terrifically anxious to worry about it all that much. Since it's been approved by Arrakis and at least halfway through approval by the Diplomats and HCH, I saw no compelling reason to redo it and start approval over. Again, unless I hear great screams of anguish that's how I'll leave it.

But I think that people now more fully understand our intent and I think the gentle readers of these posts would like us to get on with it as much as we would.

However again, if anyone feels particularly strongly about this let us know ASAP.

As I've stated, I felt it really wasn't changing the meaning that much, just the wording. So no screaming here  .

All complaints will have to be submited in triplicate form to the Complain Departement of the Community Relations Comitte of the Human Resources division of the Council. It will then be subjected to public quary, lost, found again, submited to more public quary, and then your complaint will then be submited to the Barrying and General Storage Foundation for recycling.

Thank you for you contribution

As they're two different websites, that's not even technically possible. At the Core though you can just as easily have it remember your login so you rarely ever need to give it a thought.

I'm an obvious Kryo fan and I have to scoff this. 1) the word "website" has no real meaning to laypeople and barely any to professionals. The original point of HTTP was interconnecting data. 2) It's clear that this crowd is not short on folks with concerns about privacy, which makes that "remember me always" stuff a tad spooky at best.

That said, my hat's off to TGE's Complaint Dept talk...

The AltMeta is something not controlled (or sanctioned) by Stardock. It can be changed of our own volition without requiring Stardock to change anything. However, there is no AltMeta without the "official" data from the real metaverse.

What a classic example of questions leading to other questions. But Mumble's reply 94 might have helpe me sharpen my preceding question. Is the overall purpose of the council aimed at influencing decisions within Stardock or do we need to think about things like who else is paying for the server maintainence and bandwidth for this beautified Metaverse?

p.s. Yes, I'm trying to keep myself and anyone else who needs it a bit humbled by comparing this effort to your local orgs who put pretty plants in your highway medians to help keep drivers thinking well of TPTB.

Our main goal is to increase Metaverse involvement and activity and to make more fun for newere players. If we just so happen as to influence Stardocks views, and show them that the Meta is worth it then that would be awesome. But, we dont want to set our hopes too high.

Is the overall purpose of the council aimed at influencing decisions within Stardock or do we need to think about things like who else is paying for the server maintenance and bandwidth for this beautified Metaverse?

The purpose of this Council is to increase interest and participation in the Metaverse by the general Galactic Civilization II community (sentence #2 of "constitution"). The kinds of things that we want to do have been documented ad nauseam in the 146 posts of the "Is anyone out there?" thread plus a good percentage of posts (116 and counting) in this thread.

At this point in time there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that we can get Stardock to do anything that could conceivably help the metaverse player. So instead of tilting at windmills, we’ll make what changes we can where we actually have a chance of making them, which is Kryo’s AltMeta2. Hopefully, the changes made will indeed fulfill the council’s stated intent and thereby accomplish three things in the process.

The first thing that’s hoped to be accomplished is to (where have I heard this before) increase interest and participation in the metaverse. The second thing is to gain some respect with Stardock by actually accomplishing the first thing. The third thing is to demonstrate that we *can* speak with the weight and authority of the bulk of metaverse players.

Yet another benefit of the council is to allow the filtering out of superfluous issues and concentration on the handful of issues that really matter and have virtually universal approval among metaverse players. I must have said this at least ten times now but I’ll say it once again. Even if they wanted to, Stardock cannot respond to literally hundreds of requests each backed by a handful of people, but they would find it difficult *not* to respond to a handful of reasonable requests backed by hundreds of people.

So I guess my ultimate response to your question is that we intend to make improvements in the AltMeta2 to directly further our goals and secondarily to build up our credibility with Stardock so that they are more amenable to our requests and to filter those requests so that they’re something that Stardock may be willing to accommodate. But regardless of what Stardock is willing or unwilling to do we’ll still do what we can with the AltMeta to further our goals.

I know that you haven’t been closely following these threads, but I’ve made essentially the same argument at least 20 times in 20 different ways. Also, on the subject of paying for bandwidth or maintenance, we’ll of course try to do things “on the cheap” but as we say in New England “we’ll drive off that bridge when we come to it” if you get my drift.

Speaking of filtering out, will this council have its own site, forum and, therefore, threads? I only discovered the forums here when the council idea was mentioned in the HCH forum and, frankly, couldn't even FIND the 'is anyone out there' thread.

Starting what sounds like at least three more threads in the glacivII forum site would increase the clutter. A new website might increase slightly the amount of time you spend on the 'net but it would seem like you have less reading to actually DO.

This is just a personnel group from a person who isn't actually on too many forum's so feel free to ignore it if you wish.

Mumble if you aren't already, you could try one thing I do for often repeated phrases or links. I usually have notepad minimized and if there is going to be a phrase I plan on repeating or links I plan on using at a later time, I just copy them to the notepad. I'll save it on the desktop for easy access later and add to it as I go. Sometimes I'll put little notes next to entries to keep track of links and such. It helps a lot.

feel free to ignore it if you wish

No need to self denigrate there's plenty here that will do it for you. So far everything that I've seen from you has been thoughtful and intelligent.

I’m not sure why you wouldn’t see the Is there anyone out there thread. That’s in the metaverse category in the GalCiv II forum. Do you click on the everything link or do you go to forums.calciv2.com and select a specific forum?

What I’ve found to be the best to see everything is to go to forums.calciv2.com and watch the bottom of the screen for recent posts or click on the link for “More Recent Posts”. Hope this helps.

But to answer your question the council could, if it wishes, have it’s own private area for reduction of clutter purposes, but I would think such an area would be seldom used and then only for final discussions that occur right before a vote. I would hope most discussions occur “in the clear” so that everyone may view them and contribute as well.

I would think the council might open dedicated threads for various purposes such as a suggestion box as well as dedicated threads to discuss a specific issue. Not sure that this answers your question but I expect that almost all communication would occur in the metaverse category of the galciv II forum here on the GalCiv2 site (the same location as Is anyone out there and this thread.

[edit] Thanks DA, I do copy and paste from all over the place but sometimes it's just as easy to replicate as to find what I'm looking for. Plus I think I got it down pretty good by now.    [/edit]

[edit] I got called to dinner after posting this but once finished I still was able to edit so I corrected some things including the quote from hobbitween01. So if this post looks different that's why. [/edit]

I propose that we move the future Council discussion to the Core. Its an active site with plenty of members to offer view points. And other Empires can also set up their own little domains withing the forum to stay up to date. Sure well post here to keep the unaligned and new players up to date, but i dont really favor having Council votes and decision made here, these forums just dont offer enough.

Does anyone object? Or even better should we let the Council decide?

Does anyone object? Or even better should we let the Council decide?

It's a definite option. The council should do the actual deciding. I also think it's a good idea to do as much as possible here just so that people can look in and see what we're up to and perhaps make suggestions as well.

It may also be good to set up a chat channel as well. There is one at the Core that's never used as far as I know. I guess it depends on what time zones we're all in.

It would be nice to have both a public and a private area in the Core, just to have a place to go if it gets to be too much. The public interest is a fickle thing. One moment you're the center of attention being pounded with incessant questions, the next moment no one is really interested. In the end we'll either accomplish some of what we're trying to do or we'll be ignored, possibly both.

Frankly, I could deal with a little peace and quiet for a bit.

Here's another question that deserves some thought. Is the difficulty that we've had contacting folks and having votes indicitive of a lack of interest in the metaverse. Or is it perhaps a lack of interest in the forums?

I think perhaps it's as much or more the latter than it is the former. That's why the census data is so important. Take Syrrus K for example. He has more games posted to the metaverse than he has posts to the forum.

I mean look at the numbers of people voting in HCH and the Diplomats. HCH is new, healthty and vibrant. About 100 members with over 90 submitting games within the last six months. I can't believe that over 90% of HCH is now inactive. But that's what is being suggested by the numbers of votes that they're getting in the polls. And the numbers we got from the Diplomats are simliar but actually a little bigger. The Diplomats are an old empire, it's possible that there could be that many inactive Diplomats but not HCH. One reasonable conclusion is that the metaverse players are playing and submitting games, but they're just not posting and reading the forums.

Its one thing to be part of a community, its a whole nother to be actually involved in it. Thats why we need this Council, because even those lost souls will one day wonder across the forums and hopefully become intrested. You have to look at how many people are registered on the HCH forums though, about 40. So thats only 40 out of a hundred and about 10 of the 40 voted or submited imput so its not too bad. I have been part of struggling communities before, it isnt pretty. Hopefully, we can get Gal Civ out of this slump quickly(DA will definetly help).

Thats why i want it on the Core though, easier to contact people(Privat Messages)and you can have private areas. But, we will always keep a link to these forums to provide news about our decisions and to allow us to analyze input.

Yeah this is very concerning. I can't figure out why more people in the HCH are not voting, we seem very active. I've been trying to keep track of as many members in my empire as I can, and most of them are submitting games. The thing is when I tried to send emails to everyone in the HCH, about the voting and visting the forums, half of them I could not send emails too because they have never posted here.

One reasonable conclusion is that the metaverse players are playing and submitting games, but they're just not posting and reading the forums.

That is my conclusion too.

Right now only 8 members of the HCH have voted, and we have ties! So i'm inclined to allow the HCH elections go into tomorrow. It seems some members are trickling in, so hopefully more will have voted by tomorrow. Also some of my emails to members did not get out till today, so some may still vote. If the votes more clear I would go ahead and call them, but as of now it is too close.

Thanks for the patience,
AlexAtticus