Number of Regions/Regional Governments (DEBATE CLOSED)

[Adam Griffin]

Aye

[Adam Griffin]

Abstain

[Adam Griffin]

Region A (blue) Wolfen
Region B (green) Griffin
Region C (red) Hamilton

[Adam Griffin]

Region A (blue) bgwah
Region B (green) Duke
Region C (red) Scott

FTFY

Sorry, those don't have a mnemonic device!

[Adam Griffin]

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[Adam Griffin]

Aye

But we also really need to specify that there will be some sort of (in parentheses) regional identifier (likely based on geography) recognized in federal documents/Wiki if when the names become silly.

[Adam Griffin]

How can there be a final vote on this article when the article clearly isn't finished yet?

[Adam Griffin]

Even with the clarification, nay - I feel there are still discussions to be had here.

[Adam Griffin]

Sorry guys, I had a bit thing typed out last night, forgot to post it, and lost it. I'll get it rewritten sometime in the next day or so.

[Adam Griffin]

OK, so allow me to try to rehash what I wrote but lost. This isn't everything but it's a part and I've failed to get it all posted thus far so here we go:

One issue is that a simple principle vote doesn't automatically imbue the document with a guarantee, in my opinion; it justifies what must next be brought up for a vote in terms of the formal language being added. So when we voted to let the regions name themselves, we didn't actually add any text to the document, for instance (as evidenced in what we voted on last).

Furthermore, there were minute errors like the scratching of the "Article" identifier in the last respective amended vote we had on the particular topic. I don't believe the PO gets to automatically alter text in the document based on a mistake in the amendment process in order to clarify it; what we vote on and approve in terms of text is actually what is in the document.

With that being said, this is everything we have approved thus far in the document (excluding any simple principal votes that didn't result in a later specific amendment) and so this is what the actual document from this thread currently looks like. I had begun editing the document in preparation of offering an amendment but I cannot recall specifically what I had edited other than what I have put in bold below.

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[Adam Griffin]

I think everything looks good here more or less. Are we going to specify which article this belongs in now, or later?

[Adam Griffin]

Aye

[Adam Griffin]

It will inevitably be a necessary construct if we are to have a functioning government that avoids the problems of the past, so hopefully people have grown to understand this by now.

[Adam Griffin]

The single biggest and initial deterioration of activity in this game was fueled by regions that could not properly govern themselves with respect to ensuring that there weren't too many or too few elected positions available. This is why we're here, ladies and gentlemen. There are too many offices in the game. That problem rests solely with the Regions, of which there are too many and often too many offices within each.

The Regions most definitely do not possess nor will possess the foresight or ability to properly "reflect upon the mistakes of the past", because I've been screaming about the need to reduce the proliferation of offices for over two years and not a single Region properly moved to ameliorate this problem when it was a problem of both the past and the present. Regions are rather selfish entities in terms of how they operate; they don't often regulate themselves based on the broader framework of how all of their individual actions impact the game, and more often than not, they don't even regulate themselves based on the very same problems when confined within their own boundaries.

If we don't have a governing mechanism for regional office management that can be based off of a sensible and uniform formula, then there is no damn point of this convention and no damn point of us being here. The biggest problem of the past and present will continue to be the problems of the future. Those of you who haven't been around long enough to truly observe this need to listen to those of us who have been. If the Regions' numbers of offices are not regulated, then we are going to end up with more offices in the game than we have currently, because we have expanded the legislative branch and the Regions are not going to be unanimous, sensible and conscious about this fact in the long-term. Even if the current generation somehow does manage to do it, people years from now will not understand the problem and will replicate the same issues we face now without this regulation.

[Adam Griffin]

NAY

You guys are going to kill the future of this game with your ignorance.

[Adam Griffin]

The people in the regions can look out for themselves. We don't need to be treating them like small children.

No, they literally cannot: the proof that such is true is the entire reason why we're having to have this process occur in the first place. You guys were wrong two years ago; I was right. You're wrong today; I'm right. Unfortunately, I'll only get to brag with evidence about being right today after we've implemented yet another ed-up government and it comes to fruition once again.

[Adam Griffin]

The people in the regions can look out for themselves. We don't need to be treating them like small children.

No, they literally cannot: the proof that such is true is the entire reason why we're having to have this process occur in the first place. You guys were wrong two years ago; I was right. You're wrong today; I'm right. Unfortunately, I'll only get to brag with evidence about being right today after we've implemented yet another ed-up government and it comes to fruition once again.

Mr. President, would you mind explaining the benefits of the Federal Government controlling legislatures instead of Regions? I voted Aye to this being repealed due to the non-specificity of the "manner prescribed by Congress" could you maybe explain to me what this would entail and why this is so vital?

I mean, I have explained this multiple times throughout this effort and in the two years prior to this, but it boils down to a very simple concept: there have been too many offices in this game, the Regions have been the sole cause of this (which is why consolidation was necessary above all else), every Region operates based on its own desires and opinions, they cannot be trusted to make the right nor expedient decisions in this area, and all of that negatively impacts the game at-large.

Even if an individual Region is able to justify expanding its legislature at a given point, that expansion has an impact on the rest of the game. In a scenario where each Region's seats are regulated, people who believe there isn't enough competition or ability for them to run in a given Region will naturally gravitate elsewhere; this "backfill" prevents the opposite problem from developing in other Regions. In a scenario where each Region can regulate its own seats, said Region will expand its seats, which more often than not will prevent other Regions from having potentially contrary effects ameliorated.

It's easier said than done...saying Regions will just fix the problem themselves.

First of all, history does not suggest that this is the rule, but rather, that it is the exception. If it were the rule, then the problem of inactivity and empty offices would have never been as big of a problem as it has been. Yet, even during the peaks of activity in the game, there have been anywhere from one to three Regions with serious activity problems. The only time during my nearly four years (!?!) in this game that this hasn't been a problem was for about six months, from September 2012 to March 2013.

Secondly, activity can ebb and flow. I tend to think that with fewer Regions, the problem might have less variance in the future, but there is still the issue of how population changes can be massive from year to year, season to season, and how that will justify expansion or contraction in a relatively rapid fashion. If a Region were to be responsible, it might very well need to expand and subsequently contract the number of seats over a period of six months to one year: that's three separate changes. It creates an array of surface-level problems, and that before you get to the issues of inactivity and competition - and that's also assuming that the Region actually has the common sense and resolve to act on the matter in the first place. With a formula in place, it's easily handled.

My ideal proposal in terms of specifics was really simple. You set three groupings: <25% of the game's population, 25-40% of the game's population, and >40% of the game's population. Every two months, the Census is consulted and the seat allocations are made based on that. The <25% and >40% groups have the same number of seats. This means if a Region becomes too small or too large, the number of seats is reduced to discourage clumping of citizens and a drain from other Regions. I'm confident that exact formula or something very close to it would emerge. It's also perfectly reasonable to not formally encode the exact procedure in the Constitution, because that's overly-restrictive in the event large elements of governmental or regional structure change in the future.

[Adam Griffin]

If you're saying the regions have a complete incapability to get it right, what on earth gives the federal government the power to not fudge everything up just as bad? I mean, it's roughly the same people, unless you're going to say a new level of consciousness is achieved upon election to the federal government.

There are more opportunities for them to get it wrong. It's four dynamics (3 Regions + Federal) versus one. It's akin to facing a choice where you install four separate parts - each with effective obsolesce - or one part. Considering that even just one Region getting it wrong will impact the entirety of the game (as I explained above with respect to population distribution), there is a vested interest in the game at-large giving this power to a centralized entity that can handle it more efficiently, rapidly and universally. The game's residents as a whole don't have a vessel through which they can unilaterally demand change if a particular Region has too few or too many offices; only the residents of that Region can require action to be taken - unless there is a federal solution.

Which is why you enact a proactive auto-adjusting system. If a region feels it can increase the number of seats, it's not bound to keep it forever. Hell, it can change it next election--it can even pre-program into law the mechanism to automatically do that!

Yes, and the only way you can have a "proactive auto-adjusting system" is for it to exist at the federal level. What you're actually advocating for is the lack of a proactive auto-adjusting system, with the wish that each Region will voluntarily and independently adopt such on their own. However, there are genuine arguments against this - even if all of the Regions did adopt such - because the formulas could be out of sync with one another and could still result in way too many regional offices as an aggregate to be in existence. The likelihood of them all adopting identical measurements is not guaranteed, and that's the whole point: the regulation needs to be standardized in order to ensure a given Region's office allocation does not indirectly impact competition or the lack thereof in another Region. With only three Regions in the new incarnation, this dynamic is going to be a lot more relevant than it is currently with five (it's quite irrelevant currently). The ideal is to say, "this is the maximum number of regional (legislative) offices that can exist in the game; population distribution will then determine how many each Region gets". It's almost like redistricting in a way. Your method does not set such a standard.

Perhaps a couple flaws of mine are a lack of experience in Atlasia, and a tendency to value philosophical arguments over interpreting facts. So I'll try the other route:

Last September, 0 candidates ran for the Southern Legislature, but the most recent Census report at that time (taken by yourself) had 26 citizens in the region. This time, Clyde's most recent census report has 24 people. So, there's been a net decrease in population over the 4 months since

But this time, with slightly less residents, 5 candidates are running.

Your plan seems to rest on the assumption that census data and activity always perfectly correlate. Hopefully I have displayed to my fellow delegates that this is not the case.

Yes, your argument is inherently philosophical and ideological in nature, and not based on the actual game mechanics that we have encountered and will encounter. Your assessment is also based on an isolated instance and is rather subjective. In the aggregate and over the long-term, more people nationally tends to lead to more activity; fewer people nationally tends to lead to less activity. The same applies for competition. It's also not ideal to isolate one particular Region for this assessment: we're building a new game and having to factor in national dynamics. However, if we're going to isolate individual data-points and specific periods of time, then consider the following: this is arguably the deadest the game has been in at least the past four years, and it's also the least populated the game has been in the past four years. The period in which it had the most activity (late 2012 to early 2013) was the period in which the game had the most players. There are going to be outliers and exceptions, but a regression analysis (if we had quantifiable data-points for activity and population for each period in time) would show this to be largely true.

[Adam Griffin]

Aye for the record. I trust the regions to decide the number of their legislative assemblies.

Literally the majority of the reason we are here is that we cannot "trust" them to handle this task effectively, and because of the failed little experiment of "muh regions" that infused this game with way too much inflation office-wise.

[Adam Griffin]

Nay as a protest vote, because we have stripped the biggest individual enforcement mechanism in this document designed to prevent the problems that brought us here in the first place, and history will vindicate me yet again.