The Washington Society

[Leinad]

X Leinad

I 100% agree with this, and would agree with this more if that was mathematically possible!

Why I'm joining: I'm just some crazy Libertarian millennial in Atlanta with too much time on his hands who decided to use that to join this site. I've taken an interest to Atlasia more than most sane people would take interests in things. As part of the partisan uncivil nonsense that is unfortunately one of the hallmarks of the game and a big reason why the nation is suffering, I was recently accused of being a sock by two of the Doomsdayers--a Senator and Cabinet member, no less. Most people would be offended enough to quit, but due to my poor judgement I have no intention of doing that. In fact, that makes me, even more, want to help solve the nation's problems.

We need civility, bi-partisan solutions, and capable leadership to bring Atlasia out of this mess and to a brighter future. I applaud--nay, give a standing ovation to Speaker Truman for his efforts, and let's hope that together, the Washington Society can bring us to that brighter future!

[Leinad]

I'm in favor of a ConCon, but I don't think a reset would be a good idea just yet. At least do the Convention, make some reforms, wait a bit to see if it works, and revisit.

Here's the defects (I'll add another one) and possible solutions:

1. A general lack of competitive elections, especially at the Regional level.
Possible solution: More people. If there's a better solution, I'd love to here it.

2. More offices than can be filled by active users.
Possible solution: Same as above.

3. A lack of engaging issues for lawmakers to deal with (the "everything's already been done" aspect that Blair and others mentioned)
Possible solution: Encourage an active Game Moderator. Both Blair and Yankee have praised GMs like Kalwejt for their activity, even if it's sometimes controversial. Without GM-based events, there really isn't much for them to do. I mean, it's not like they can make marijuana even more legal or make the death penalty even more abolished.

4. An unstable and inconsistent Game Engine
Possible solution: More details on how the GM should operate. Maybe automate some things (specifically economic matters).

5. A lack of ideological competition (this is somewhat related to points 1 and 3).
Possible solution: I think that would fix itself if 1 and 3 are fixed.

6. A lack of civility in the game. This makes it harder to keep new members (see solutions for points 1 and 2).
Possible solution: Just refraining from being jerks. It's not hard. I'd hate to think we'd need laws to abolish jerkery, but if so, that shouldn't be ruled out. Important people like the President should encourage better behavior.

[Leinad]

3.) Parties- Clearly there's an issue with the way that parties have become, largely the fact that as many said you can simply join a party without any campaigning and get elected to a regional seat. People literally vote for a donkey with a rosette-this happens on all sides of the political spectrum. The Party system has lead to awful rivalries that seemed based on absolutely nothing apart from long term fueds. Labor seem hated for their relative power in the last couple of months, along with it's reserves of voters, TPP have split in two over this issue and have always been a strange party in that they have  centre left liberals and centre right conservatives. The Federalists have fallen apart, with a slight fightback and Civic Renewal are a new party that whilst active only has 1 Federal office holder. The Party system is clearly broken with all parties becoming rather souless.

I disagree with you on certain points, but I think the essence of your observations are correct. How do you propose we fix this?

Outside of pulling 100 more active participants from a clown car, it would be tricky to find ways to fix it. The competitiveness is the issue, if there were more candidates, you'd actually need to run a good campaign, even to get elected to regional legislatures. But considering the sheer number of elected offices that exist, it's hard to beat major parties in that region in multi-winner elections, and as we saw in the last regional senate elections, 2-candidate races can be rather uncompetitive as well.

Two things that we can do to fix this is: increase activity, and/or decrease the number of offices. The former could be done either by bringing in new active members (which would be hard to do without inviting an epidemic of socks) and/or making our current "zombies" more active. The latter could most easily be done by consolidation of the Midwest and Pacific--which I'd support if the regions themselves support it (I'd strongly oppose any forced consolidation against the will of the citizens).

Overall, I think all of Atlasia's problems are either sources or side-effects of the main problem: a lack of activity. The sources that we have listed include: lack of people who care, GM, government, game engine, lack of issues, lack of ideological competition, and lack of civility, while the side-effects include: lack of party quality, more offices than users, and a lack of competitive elections. Not to mention the lack of activity is a partial cause for itself: if this place was more active, it would be easier for people to take part in making it more active, and more appealing for possible-active users to join.

Does anyone have any possible solutions for the lack of activity?

[Leinad]

Here's a crazy idea for the Senate:

4 regions (South, Northeast, Mideast, West). 12 Senators in two classes. Each class has 4 regional senators elected in a single-winner IRV system, and then 2 additional at-large senators elected in an interesting way: there are two items on each ballot, the regional vote and an additional at-large vote that has all of the candidates from each region. Like in STV, the voters who voted for the regional winner wouldn't count to a certain threshold. The two candidates who do best, via STV, in the at-large vote get those two seats.

The same idea could apply with a 3 or 5 region system, just different numbers.

The pros: it's not a single-winner system, so it doesn't lead to major-party dominance. At the same time, it's not as uncompetitive as the current at-large system.

The cons: it's terribly confusing and kind of stupid.

[Leinad]

Here's a crazy idea for the Senate:

4 regions (South, Northeast, Mideast, West). 12 Senators in two classes. Each class has 4 regional senators elected in a single-winner IRV system, and then 2 additional at-large senators elected in an interesting way: there are two items on each ballot, the regional vote and an additional at-large vote that has all of the candidates from each region. Like in STV, the voters who voted for the regional winner wouldn't count to a certain threshold. The two candidates who do best, via STV, in the at-large vote get those two seats.

The same idea could apply with a 3 or 5 region system, just different numbers.

The pros: it's not a single-winner system, so it doesn't lead to major-party dominance. At the same time, it's not as uncompetitive as the current at-large system.

The cons: it's terribly confusing and kind of stupid.

 
My main concern with this is that it amounts to a net increase of offices nationwide at a time when we are struggling to find enough candidates as it is. There's always the possibility that more users will come along, of course, but I don't think it's wise to be creating new positions at a time when we can barely fill the ones we have.

That said, this is something that hasn't been tried before, and that's exactly the kind of thinking we need. If you can think of a way to do this without increasing the number of Senate seats, I'd be all ears.

Actually, it wouldn't overall. If it goes to 4 regions, then the consolidation will take out more than enough seats to make it a net decrease. And if it's 3 regions, then it would only be 10 Senators (3 regional+2 at-large per class).

[Leinad]

I'd like a parliamentary system, but it's a valid concern whether other American users (while there are many non-American Atlasians, like Blair, Kal, and even our current President, Bore, I think the majority of users are American, and almost everyone on US Election Atlas is familiar with our system of politics) would be less likely to play that than a reformed US-system game. It might would be an interesting poll question.

[Leinad]

Again, I've yet to see one person say that they wouldn't play Atlasia if it became a parliament. I think it's a pretty stubborn view, and again the current version is hardly popular is it.

I think I've seen some people say they wouldn't play, but maybe I've just seen so many people raise the concern that others won't play. Which would be kind of funny, if it was the case where everyone would be fine with playing but they simply assume that others wouldn't.

I agree that it would be a debate best resolved in a non-biased poll. It is a fact that a reformed parliamentary system would be better than the status quo, but that's not the question: the question is whether a reformed parliamentary system would be better than a reformed US system. I saw a proposal from Senator Polnut (another active non-American, by the way) characterizing the debate as status quo vs. parliamentary vs. dissolution, which is clearly a false narrative (I mean, a Constitutional Convention literally fits nowhere in those options).

[Leinad]

Again, I've yet to see one person say that they wouldn't play Atlasia if it became a parliament. I think it's a pretty stubborn view, and again the current version is hardly popular is it.

I think I've seen some people say they wouldn't play, but maybe I've just seen so many people raise the concern that others won't play. Which would be kind of funny, if it was the case where everyone would be fine with playing but they simply assume that others wouldn't.

I agree that it would be a debate best resolved in a non-biased poll. It is a fact that a reformed parliamentary system would be better than the status quo, but that's not the question: the question is whether a reformed parliamentary system would be better than a reformed US system. I saw a proposal from Senator Polnut (another active non-American, by the way) characterizing the debate as status quo vs. parliamentary vs. dissolution, which is clearly a false narrative (I mean, a Constitutional Convention literally fits nowhere in those options).

I don't think a poll would work beacuse there's really no such thing, as a non-biased poll beacuse people that have already de registered or don't play can vote beacuse it's an open poll, if that were to be an option, I think a referendum would be the better option.

I'm thinking that overall opinion should be gauged before a referendum.

By unbiased poll, I meant the wording. So, something like this:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

rather than something like this:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

that creates a false choice by not including every option, or something like this:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

that phrases the question in a way that skews the results.