Number of Regions/Regional Governments (DEBATE CLOSED)
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  Number of Regions/Regional Governments (DEBATE CLOSED)
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Author Topic: Number of Regions/Regional Governments (DEBATE CLOSED)  (Read 63157 times)
tmthforu94
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« Reply #700 on: January 09, 2016, 12:17:23 PM »

After reading through the debate, I think there has been some confusion over what we are voting on. I change my vote to Aye, but considering the confusion that has ensued, I urge Truman to clarify and restart the vote.
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Clyde1998
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« Reply #701 on: January 09, 2016, 12:22:53 PM »

Aye to it being removed.
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Unconditional Surrender Truman
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« Reply #702 on: January 09, 2016, 01:47:17 PM »

Okay, seeing as there seems to be a bit of confusion as to what, exactly, is being voted on, I'm going to restart this vote. Delegates have 48 hours to vote AYE, NAY, or Abstain on the following amendment (proposed and objected to by myself to make the object of this vote more clear):

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Clyde1998
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« Reply #703 on: January 09, 2016, 01:54:43 PM »

Aye
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Associate Justice PiT
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« Reply #704 on: January 09, 2016, 01:59:00 PM »

     Aye. The people in the regions can look out for themselves. We don't need to be treating them like small children.
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windjammer
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« Reply #705 on: January 09, 2016, 02:03:41 PM »

Nay
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tmthforu94
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« Reply #706 on: January 09, 2016, 02:13:39 PM »

Aye
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ilikeverin
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« Reply #707 on: January 09, 2016, 02:21:44 PM »

Yup
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NeverAgain
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« Reply #708 on: January 09, 2016, 03:09:27 PM »

Aye.
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windjammer
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« Reply #709 on: January 09, 2016, 05:53:41 PM »

Nay
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VPH
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« Reply #710 on: January 09, 2016, 06:27:44 PM »

AYE
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Adam Griffin
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« Reply #711 on: January 09, 2016, 06:34:02 PM »

NAY

You guys are going to kill the future of this game with your ignorance.
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Former Lincoln Assemblyman & Lt. Gov. RGN
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« Reply #712 on: January 09, 2016, 08:27:23 PM »

Changing vote (previous voting) to AYE
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Adam Griffin
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« Reply #713 on: January 09, 2016, 10:14:20 PM »

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.
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NeverAgain
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« Reply #714 on: January 09, 2016, 11:58:22 PM »

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?
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Adam Griffin
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« Reply #715 on: January 10, 2016, 12:43:28 AM »

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.
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Leinad
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« Reply #716 on: January 10, 2016, 05:17:42 AM »

Aye!



I'll try not to clutter this up with another wall of text (I had a long rant typed out, by the way--I thankfully used the nifty "backspace" function on that), but a few things can't go without addressing:

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.

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.


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!

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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.
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bore
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« Reply #717 on: January 10, 2016, 07:36:50 PM »

Nay
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Lincoln Republican
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« Reply #718 on: January 10, 2016, 10:51:59 PM »

NAY

There needs to be some controls in place to prevent this game  from going completely overboard.

What do you plan on doing, keep holding re-votes until you get the results you are looking for?
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Adam Griffin
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« Reply #719 on: January 10, 2016, 11:49:26 PM »
« Edited: January 10, 2016, 11:55:00 PM by President 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.
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Unconditional Surrender Truman
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« Reply #720 on: January 11, 2016, 02:03:26 PM »

NAY

It's interesting that some have brought up the South as an example of how the Regions can handle this themselves, considering that just days ago the Southern Legislature was on the verge of expanding its membership to unsustainable levels (and would have done so had I not spent a good chunk of my weekend explaining to them why this was an utterly horrible idea).
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Unconditional Surrender Truman
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« Reply #721 on: January 11, 2016, 03:46:07 PM »

By a vote of 8 Ayes, 5 Nays, and with ten delegates not voting, this amendment has PASSED.
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MyRescueKittehRocks
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« Reply #722 on: January 12, 2016, 02:01:59 AM »

Aye for the record. I trust the regions to decide the number of their legislative assemblies.
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Senator Cris
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« Reply #723 on: January 12, 2016, 11:58:27 AM »

Nay for the record.
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Prince of Salem
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« Reply #724 on: January 12, 2016, 03:37:12 PM »

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