Hmm, for some reason was not getting alerts for this thread till now, so just want to comment on a few things. As the establisher of an outpost, you are considered the owner, in a dictator sort of way, not democratic. (This falls in line with the "Empires" update that is in the works for the future, and our focus on Empires in the frontier.) For this outpost to be democratic in any sense, you will need to make some changes: (Note: This is my personal opinion, not as staff. As staff, you guys are pretty much doing everything you need to do.) Vote for a leader. No leader, means no central goal for the outpost. Whether you like it or not, I strongly recommend voting for a leader in some form, and making this person the outpost "owner" from our perspective. In order for us to act, we need one person who is the "owner" of the outpost. Create a derelict policy for the chosen "leader" so that the leadership doesn't become stagnant. Meaning, if they are derelict for a set amount of time, a new leader is elected to fill their position. (Discussion will need to happen to choose how long this will need to be. Do they need to log in every 30 days, at least? Every 100 days? Once a week?) Also, decide when and how you will elect new leadership if you are not pleased with the current. Perhaps do elections once every 6 months, or once a year? This will also keep the leadership fresh, working to improve the outpost, and on their toes. Make sure that any of the above decisions are made on the official threads (this and the establishment thread) and discuss the changes with staff. That way, our records correctly represent who the owner is, and keep it a smooth transition between leadership. While this is a "global outpost" (for every EMC player), I would recommend making a clear list of "active members." That way, you know when they vote when there is a "majority," rather than just guessing or ending the vote after a certain amount of time has passed. I would suggest trying to find a better way to vote on proposals and such, because the current setup could become confusing when there are 20+ pages, 2 or more proposals at once, and 30+ people voting on them. To make Albion your new claim, I need to know a few things, too: Is it already established? If yes, who is the current owner, and who will be the new owner? If no, who will be the owner of the establishment? It is kind of late for me, so if I wrote something in a confusing way, or have any grammar/spelling mistakes, please let me know. If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask. I love this idea, and I want to do my best to help you guys grow into a very strong outpost that will last a long time. Good luck!
I've just gone and checked out Albion. I'll admit that it is irritatingly hilly, but we'll probably be able to work around that. I'll draw up a town plan or something soon for some inspiration. In regards to what JD was talking about, I've devised a political system as simple as I believe it can be. I've explained it in an earlier post, but I'll report it here in a bit more detail. There would exist a small council, made up of between five and ten members, plus a President. This council acts as a combined executive/legislature, making and executing decisions as necessary. When decisions or new rules need to be made or amended, the council would work to do so by consensus. However if a consensus can't be reached, then the decision can go to a public vote. Public votes on everything would be incredibly time consuming, and so delegating this power to the council would make things work more smoothly. Requiring a consensus rather than just a vote would reduce the power of political parties or blocs that would likely form, although there is no reason to prevent them from forming. The President would be the head of what small government there is, and would be recorded by the staff as the leader of the outpost. They would assign members of the council areas to oversee such as infrastructure, transport, etc. As well as chair meetings and Every few months, elections would be held for the council and presidency. Obviously these elections would be open to all. The council members (excluding the President) are elected using a proportional representation method (this would be the most complex element of the system). The President is elected using a runoff voting method. It's important that the system is as simple and as easy to explain as possible. This prevents issues of people becoming confused and disinterested, and from people thinking they have power they don't actually have. I'd recommend that the system (among other things) be written down in a constitution of sorts that's available to everyone. I've got a few of these from prior outposts that may be used for inspiration.
Some very good stuff right here. I'll come back to this later, I think we can take a lot from this. More interesting thoughts.
Voting for a leader is indeed important. Democratic or not, we need somebody who feels like they are responsible, if you know what I mean. We could ask who would want to make themselves available, and then vote. I think it would be good reelect a president once a year. It seems often enough to me, and if we do it too often we'll probably have the same leader for a few consecutive terms anyway. If the leader wants to step down themselves, they can, and we can reelect. I think that in that case the new president should be leader for a year still, even though that will make the election day change. A council could be good, but I am afraid that the council would make up for at least 80% of the total amount of active members, and that doesn't feel nice to me. We could technically have every active member be a part of the council, as long as there aren't too many, but that might not encourage not-yet-active members to become more active. Hm, still a lot I'm unsure about, but I think we should at least choose a leader sometime soon! And get the base established, of course.
The issue with long terms for a president is that people will become disengaged when they feel they have no opportunity to play a part. The same for a council. It doesn't need to be a huge number of people, four or five would suffice I'd think. I'd think that here there could be enough turnover of members that a president may struggle to serve multiple consecutive terms. But a max consecutive terms rule could also help. The most important thing is that people feel like, and actually do have a role to play. Otherwise they may become disinterested or disengaged rather quickly, or after an election or two.
Ok ill fill you in on what has worked for Estona in the past, We now have a council and it works great but as for presidential election we had an election ever 2 1/2 months. In regards to what JDH is asking, Albion sits in Estonan Established Territory, so it mat need some work arounds with the Establishment area, perhaps we can add them to the owners list and they can have owners right on their island? The Empires Update itself will be hell, it really limits close knit communities like the east wild a mess to do. If all else fails you can live under Estonan Territory but do your own thing we dont give a flying fluco I will call a founder council assembly tonight to discuss the release of Albion tonight
JD has said that for something like this where an established outpost is giving some of its land away, exceptions in the 3000 block radius are allowed. It shouldn't be a problem as long as a leader in the official Estona thread says that this is happening. To keep things rolling, I propose the following to get around needing one leader until we can get an actual government set up. I propose that I (jkrmnj) officially establish the outpost. In establishing the outpost, I also only gain the ability to be an in-between for what is a passed proposition and the staff. I do not gain any other additional powers. This can be revoked at any time through another proposition as long as someone else is given the equivalence of this power in that proposition. For example, I can be replaced or a new system of government can move this power into someone else. As for an actual government system and a better way of voting, I am currently writing something up I will post my opinion and ideas later.
If anyone wants to be taken out to albion, or reside in Maximus until you are ready to fully move in I am happy to take anyone out today
So while thinking about a better voting system, I ran into a problem. Doing things on the forum makes it easy to ensure people don't cheat with voting. Compare that to a Google Form and everyone will be able to enter any username they want. To get around it I was thinking of having public private key stuff but that raises the barrier for players to vote. Does anyone have any good ideas for fixing how we vote? Have Google Forms ever been a problem in the past?
The LLO had a vote last year where some people spammed answers, we solved that issue by required the users to put in their username. Someone could theoretically enter any username they want, but numerous votes in close succession, or a user appearing to have voted multiple times, should raise enough suspicion. We'd also be generally aware of who the members are, so if apparently random people are voting, then those votes could just be invalidated.
That's what I was considering too. But I think what mba said, having to input your IGN, is enough. If there's a double vote or somebody votes who one wouldn't expect to vote, we can ask for confirmation here. Oh, and should the results of the forms be public? I think they should be, honestly. They were here, too, and I didn't see any problem with that. Although... if the results are public, people could technically get into trouble for what they're voting, with potential blackmail and such. But I would like public results myself, so we can all make sure things are as they appear.
I was definitely thinking it would be public. I imagine that blackmail is not allowed in any form here so the staff can intervene if something like that does happen. Public results keep things transparent though and definitely seem like a good idea. That sounds like a good idea and should work well enough. I noticed that Google Drive also has a limit to one response option that should help. The next question would be who makes the Google forms. My current idea is that anyone can and they just edit a document in the op to link to their form. As a requirement, they must post a link to the form and an editable one to the the spreadsheet. Being editable means anyone can see if someone else modified or changed the data in some way, including the document owner. How does this sound?
The limit to one response options requires a google account I think? As for who runs votes, I think its probably easiest if someone who can be trusted is appointed to operate it. As for the publicity of results, the final results should be, but I don't think peoples individual votes should be. There's a reason all polls in real life are secret ballots, I don't see why here there needs to be an exception.
I am going to put the new voting system to a vote just so we can keep things moving and see what people think. Remember, if you disagree or agree with it, make sure you explicitly say that in your post and quote this. Otherwise, things enter a grey area under the current system. Here is the proposition: To change the voting system such that things are handled in Google Drive. In order for a vote to be done, the one making the proposition must create a Google Form that allows only one response per person. It must clearly label the proposition, a yes and no option, and require the user's username. The creator must also click the button to create a spreadsheet with the Form and post that spreadsheet, with edit permissions, along with the form. These two things will be posted into a public document for all to see on the OP. If this passes, detailed instructions will be posted to reduce the barrier of entry for making a vote. The goal for this system is to create transparency, prevent fraud, and have a low barrier of entry. I believe it strikes a pretty good balance of all three.
I'm against. First off: I want to have the Google Form not allowing only one response per person, as that requires a Google account, and not every player on EMC might have a Google account, while I think everyone should be able to vote. Also, you could still cheat anyway. I, for example, have access to 4 Google accounts. I think requiring IGN input is enough. If something's fishy, anyone can ask for confirmation. I was also trying to make a point about wanting to have everything organised in one main folder. I'd really like that. However, then I realised that if everything is supposed to be able to add things, everyone will be able to remove things too. And this is not only a problem with my proposition. It'll happen with yours too: anyone can be a nuisance by deleting things from the spreadsheet. Sure, it's reversible, it's reversible when people delete files from a folder too. But it could be a problem if people from outside of EMC start trolling. So, I think perhaps we shouldn't give everyone access. It would be nice, but there's no way to distinguish EMC players from non-EMC players, publicly accessible is publicly accessible. We were talking about a possible council, right? I think perhaps that council should be who's got access to the folder with the stuff in it. Anyone can see it, but only the council members and the president can edit stuff. If anyone else wants to make a proposition, they can, they can post the proposition here and the council will create an appropriate form and spreadsheet ASAP. This makes it so anyone can still contribute, but we won't have to deal with vandalising.
Oh, another point: during discussion, people might alter their opinion. Thus, there needs to be a way to retract or reverse a vote. I don't think a Google Form would allow for that, though. A possible solution would be simply asking for a council member to change or remove the vote in the spreadsheet.
Making a Google Account is free and takes a minute or less. You don't even need to make or have a gmail account. If the player can make an account on a forum website for Minecraft, there shouldn't be much of a problem with linking whatever email they used (or another) with a Google Account. I do see how it is still easy to bypass though. As for public edit permission, it is possible to grant public "edit" permission without allowing everyone to edit it. Here is an example. Anyone can view the spreadsheet and history (file->view revision history), but no one can edit it except the owner. Having the history visible keeps the owner accountable as well. Basically, the edit permission is required for the link so the history can be visible while sheets has an option to prevent anyone from editing the actual file. I agree about the opinion altering, and Google does have a way to do that. There is a checkbox to allow previous respondents to alter their response when making the form.
