SB 104-13: NPC Elections Visibility Act of 2021 (Passed)

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

AN ACT
Establishing greater visibility for NPC elections.


Be it enacted by the Senate of the Republic of Atlasia assembled:

Section I. Title.

This legislation may be cited as the NPC Elections Visibility Act of 2021.

Section II. National news updates.
1. The Game Moderator shall post updates on actions taken by state governors and state legislatures as a part of the national news cycle.
2. Each state should have at least one feature in each four-month national election cycle (October to February, February to June, and June to October).

Section III. Determining state-based actions.
1. In order to determine the actions of specific legislators, groups of legislators, or governors, the Game Moderator should consult the chairman of the national party (or a publicly announced designated official by the party chairman) that the officeholder is a member of to determine said officeholder's actions. If a group of officeholders consists of officials from multiple parties, the Game Moderator should consult the leaders or designated officials from each party involved.
2. If no party chairman or designated party official is available for such an officeholder (if, for example, said officeholder is an Independent), then the Game Moderator shall determine the actions such officeholders take.

Section IV. Effects on current actions taken by the Game Moderator.
1. State-based actions, on the advice of partisan officials or on the decision of the GM (as determined in Section III), may affect or be affected by national news stories.
2. State-based actions have the potential to affect regional unemployment rates.

Sponsor: wxtransit Weatherboy

The gentleman from Texas is recognized.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

This is a very interesting proposal, but we need Peanut to sign on. Don't forget that the GM job isn't exactly an easy one as is.

[OBD]

Going to wait to hear from Transit and Peanut but I doubt the GM office currently has the capability to make this reality. Even without the NPC elections I would like to see the provisions of this act become reality but this would certainly difficult without the GM getting additional support, perhaps from a newly appointed deputy?

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

Going to wait to hear from Transit and Peanut but I doubt the GM office currently has the capability to make this reality. Even without the NPC elections I would like to see the provisions of this act become reality but this would certainly difficult without the GM getting additional support, perhaps from a newly appointed deputy?

It seems obvious to me from the issues we had with June's NPC elections and the delay this month that Peanut needs a Deputy. The question is who.

[wxtransit]

Thank you, Mr. President.

I will be the first to recongize that this bill is not particularly groundbreaking. Much of the bill's actions are usually already taken care of by the Game Moderator, and much of Section IV is intuitive based on the very nature of news stories produced by the GM. However, this bill does still accomplish several important aims.

First, the bill helps to engage our nation more directly with NPC elections. By ensuring each state is represented at least once every four months (left intentionally vague aside from that requirement as to allow the Game Moderator freedom as to how to design their stories) and that party leaders are able to directly engage with governing/legislating in state politics, NPC elections gain greater visibility, become more engaging, and have more of an effect on Atlasian poltics.

Second, this bill provides a framework for establishing greater visibility of NPC elections. It is clear to Atlasians on both sides of the aisle that the overall activity of our nation could be improved, and I believe now is the time to explore innovative solutions to help solve this problem. As NPC elections are one of the newest assets with the most potential and yet are only frequented by one to two people from most parties, I believe we are underutilizing NPC elections in our political framework. We are at a crossroads as a nation, and we should utilize all of our assets and ingenuity to think outside the box and seek real solutions to our problems. For example, we could have a special "NPC seat" added to regional legislatures in each election cycle that is determined off of the party that holds the most governorships in each region at the time (such a member would be a real player appointed by the party chair -- obviously, such a specific proposal that deals with regional legislative seats should be handled by the regional legislatures themselves, but I wanted to put such a proposal forward just as an example of what we can do). While the contents of the preceding paragraph do not directly relate to the bill as currently written, I believe that this bill serves to generate discussion on the state of NPC elections (and, if the Senate agrees on something that could be changed, such a proposal could be added as an amendment to the current bill).

And finally, this bill also helps to generate discussion about the office of Game Moderator. While this aim is technically not directly related to the bill, the bill does affect the GM, and as such we would need an active GM to carry out the requirements of the bill.

[wxtransit]

Going to wait to hear from Transit and Peanut but I doubt the GM office currently has the capability to make this reality. Even without the NPC elections I would like to see the provisions of this act become reality but this would certainly difficult without the GM getting additional support, perhaps from a newly appointed deputy?

Absolutely agreed. Not only would a deputy assist in the functioning of this bill (obviously, I had in mind several news stories combining multiple states as the aim of this bill, but if the GM's office wanted to make a story about each state individually, that would likely require some assistance), but a deputy would likely assist in the recent pattern of inactivity in the office.

[Joseph Cao]

I do wonder how much of this could theoretically be compared against the existing Burr System which Lumine set up for the NPCs, in the interests of consolidation of all NPC-related directives.

The Burr System:

Formalizing a game system

As of today I have issued a number of GM directives (003 to 008) which formalize much of what I've been doing thus far with NPC elections, thus technically binding my eventual successor - not planning to leave anytime soon, just to be sure - until those directives are amended or rescinded. This to make sure this game mechanism ideally becomes a long term project that is hopefully sustainable after I'm eventually gone. They are the following:

The Pontifex Maximus shall run NPC elections for the state and local governments of the Republic of Atlasia at the end of every month, based upon a public and previously determined calendar and schedule. This and subsequent directives regarding said elections will be legally based upon Article VI, Section 1 of the Constitution of the Republic of Atlasia; and Section 3, ii. b of the Game Engine Reconstruction Act.

The Pontifex Maximus shall maintain a thread for rules and results concerning NPC elections for the state and local governments of the Republic of Atlasia.

State and local NPC elections shall be governed, both in terms of rules and results, via use of a formal game system. The system must consider grading methods for campaign materials, penalties and bonuses for different aspects, and its results shall be calculated by an unequal combination of three main electoral factors: player campaigning, registration and voter dynamics, and fundamental factors.

The Pontifex Maximus shall implement the electoral methods and systems determined by the regions for NPC elections via appropriate legislation within reason, and will reserve the right to determine the level of detail based on his/her possibilities as an individual.

The Pontifex Maximus will be allowed to offer limited feedback to players concerning NPC elections, ideally - but not exclusively - via a news article after every monthly set of elections. However, he/she will not be under any obligation to disclose the specific details of the "game system", campaigning marks, or any other info judged as sensitive. He/she will additionally be barred from preferential treatment in terms of disclosing information.

The Pontifex Maximus, until this directive is amended or revoked, shall make use of the "Burr System" (created by LumineVonReuental) in terms of its "game system" for NPC elections. An appropriately censored version of the system will be made public at the earliest possible moment.

[wxtransit]

I do wonder how much of this could theoretically be compared against the existing Burr System which Lumine set up for the NPCs, in the interests of consolidation of all NPC-related directives.

Good point, Lumine's directives certainly go the distance on codifying major elements of the NPC system, including establishing the points system and other key elements of the game as we know it today. However, several aims of the Visibility Act (including the codification of regular news stories for each state/group of states and GM consultation of partisan officials to determine the actions of selected state officials, perhaps the more groundbreaking of the two) are not currently represented through the directives of the Burr System. As such, the only way in which these two aims can be codified as core components of the NPC elections system are through the passage of a bill such as this one, or the GM himself announcing directives designating these aspects as corollaries to the current Burr System.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I am okay with Section III, though it does pose some problems itself in terms of the added difficulty to the process it is relatively more manageable the second area of concern for me and that would be the four month cycle in Section II. While I get the benefits of having a more expeditious cycle, I would worry greatly that this would essentially amount to a giving cycle requiring 50% more work to be completed and thus risk the ability for it to be completed at all seeing as we have already missed a cycle under the present arrangement.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Any other thoughts on this? Especially me concerns regarding section II creating a bigger work load?

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

We still need Peanut to comment first. Contacting him.

[wxtransit]

We still need Peanut to comment first. Contacting him.

I did as well last weekend, this action being the reason for my refraining from commenting in this thread since.

[wxtransit]

I am okay with Section III, though it does pose some problems itself in terms of the added difficulty to the process it is relatively more manageable the second area of concern for me and that would be the four month cycle in Section II. While I get the benefits of having a more expeditious cycle, I would worry greatly that this would essentially amount to a giving cycle requiring 50% more work to be completed and thus risk the ability for it to be completed at all seeing as we have already missed a cycle under the present arrangement.

Also for the record, I would certainly be open to reducing the frequency of the cycle in Section II to every two election cycles (eight months) if Peanut felt necessary (or another cycle if needed), as I certainly agree with the points you have made. Section III does add some difficulty to the process, though I believe it would be less than any burden posed by Section II and the overall benefit in engaging actual players far more in NPC election outweighs any burden, in the interest of creating a more engaged future of NPC elections.

[Lumine]

If I may offer an opinion, and while I can't speak for Peanut, I feel a project of this sort - a worthwhile idea on its own - would not only require a deputy, but also changing the timing of NPC elections. Although being burnt out myself had much to do with RL, I have grown to believe having them take place each month is asking too much and adding too much pressure. The system would work better, I think, if we had them every two months, whether that is by extending the campaign period to last two months, or, preferably, taking a break each month to prevent player and GM exhaustion.

If there were steady breaks, it would probably become more feasible for the GM - and/or deputies - to spend more time on simulating governance.

[wxtransit]

If I may offer an opinion, and while I can't speak for Peanut, I feel a project of this sort - a worthwhile idea on its own - would not only require a deputy, but also changing the timing of NPC elections. Although being burnt out myself had much to do with RL, I have grown to believe having them take place each month is asking too much and adding too much pressure. The system would work better, I think, if we had them every two months, whether that is by extending the campaign period to last two months, or, preferably, taking a break each month to prevent player and GM exhaustion.

If there were steady breaks, it would probably become more feasible for the GM - and/or deputies - to spend more time on simulating governance.

I very much agree on both points, and your last point about governance could enrich the nature of Section III. Would an amendment to the schedule have to go through the regional legislature or could it be added as an amendment to this bill?

[Lumine]

If I may offer an opinion, and while I can't speak for Peanut, I feel a project of this sort - a worthwhile idea on its own - would not only require a deputy, but also changing the timing of NPC elections. Although being burnt out myself had much to do with RL, I have grown to believe having them take place each month is asking too much and adding too much pressure. The system would work better, I think, if we had them every two months, whether that is by extending the campaign period to last two months, or, preferably, taking a break each month to prevent player and GM exhaustion.

If there were steady breaks, it would probably become more feasible for the GM - and/or deputies - to spend more time on simulating governance.

I very much agree on both points, and your last point about governance could enrich the nature of Section III. Would an amendment to the schedule have to go through the regional legislature or could it be added as an amendment to this bill?

Regional legislatures set the timing, so they would have to authorize changing the schedule. I imagine that would have to be accomplished first before its included on this bill?

[Continential]

Why not hold every single election at one date and have the campaign length be 6 or 3 months?

[Senator-elect Spark]

I support having clarity as it relates to NPC elections.

[OBD]

A 'midterm system' could indeed work, with more elections being held at a time but with more space between said dates. Alternatively, there could be an 8-month long cycle with 4 rounds held every 2 months, which spaces out the elections more without increasing the monthly workload for the GM too much.

Regarding articles, I thought of an idea where the GM can 'commission' articles from willing writers, specifying the target state, target party/group, and desired effect on target party/group, as well as a general topic (e.g. affirmative action). The story would then be written and sent back to the GM for approval and publishing. This could be a creative way to reduce the workload for the GM while retaining impartiality.

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

I’m not sure if that system would be better, considering the stress some of us may go through making so many events. Look at May.

However that citizen written story idea is good, presumably anything that could be seen as partisan can be vetoed by the GM.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Why not hold every single election at one date and have the campaign length be 6 or 3 months?

Crams a lot of work into a very short time frame for the GM and deputies.

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

Why not hold every single election at one date and have the campaign length be 6 or 3 months?

Crams a lot of work into a very short time frame for the GM and deputies.

yeah, I'd assume trying to grade 3 months worth of events is probably close to cruel and unusual punishment.

[OBD]

Why not hold every single election at one date and have the campaign length be 6 or 3 months?

Crams a lot of work into a very short time frame for the GM and deputies.

yeah, I'd assume trying to grade 3 months worth of events is probably close to cruel and unusual punishment.

On the flip side of the coin if the GM grades events as they come in it's more manageable.

Though knowing the work ethic of typical online demographics this is probably asking for trouble anyway lol (not a knock on Peanut btw)

[wxtransit]

I’m not sure if that system would be better, considering the stress some of us may go through making so many events. Look at May.

However that citizen written story idea is good, presumably anything that could be seen as partisan can be vetoed by the GM.

Agreed on both counts. I'm still awaiting Peanut's feedback, and considering his integral part in this bill I'm withholding some thoughts I am planning on bringing up with respect to changing the timeframe (though it would have to first be introduced regionally and is thus technically out of the scope of this bill) and other thoughts until he returns.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Why not hold every single election at one date and have the campaign length be 6 or 3 months?

Crams a lot of work into a very short time frame for the GM and deputies.

yeah, I'd assume trying to grade 3 months worth of events is probably close to cruel and unusual punishment.

You would also rather quickly begin to lose various features since the sheer scale of the work load would dictate the impossibility of completing such for each state.