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

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Sorry, but the more I read this bill the less I see it actually working in practice,

For a modest rule change, currently campaigns are graded by home state and then home region. Why not give subregions somewhere between that system that gives both players and non-players the ability to subregional campaigners and more to elected officials (including legislators) extra credit for that as well, especially since they directly represent the people who elected them?

[wxtransit]

Sorry, but the more I read this bill the less I see it actually working in practive,

For a modest rule change, currently campaigns are graded by homestate and then home region. Why not give subregions somewhere between that system that gives both players and non-players the ability to subregional campaigners and more to elected officials (including legislators) extra credit for that as well, especially since they directly represent the people who elected them?

I am inclined to agree, specifically given the fact that feedback has not yet been delivered on this bill. As such, given the fact that this session is winding down, and given the fact that several new avenues of reforming NPC elections have been brought up in this bill, I will be introducing a large-scale amendment sometime either tonight, Monday, or Tuesday. I am also supportive of the inclusion of subregions into the NPC process, though I am a bit confused about your application -- are you suggesting that subregions be taken into account for "home subregion effect" or that NPC legislators are elected on a subregional level and they are allowed to campaign for NPC elections?

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Sorry, but the more I read this bill the less I see it actually working in practive,

For a modest rule change, currently campaigns are graded by homestate and then home region. Why not give subregions somewhere between that system that gives both players and non-players the ability to subregional campaigners and more to elected officials (including legislators) extra credit for that as well, especially since they directly represent the people who elected them?

I am inclined to agree, specifically given the fact that feedback has not yet been delivered on this bill. As such, given the fact that this session is winding down, and given the fact that several new avenues of reforming NPC elections have been brought up in this bill, I will be introducing a large-scale amendment sometime either tonight, Monday, or Tuesday. I am also supportive of the inclusion of subregions into the NPC process, though I am a bit confused about your application -- are you suggesting that subregions be taken into account for "home subregion effect" or that NPC legislators are elected on a subregional level and they are allowed to campaign for NPC elections?

The former - home subregion effect.

[Peanut]

Reserved post for more detailed commentary on this bill soon. To start, interesting proposal, and I actually have some comments regarding the current structure of the Game Engine we could work on with this.

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

glad to see the GM has risen from the dead

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

glad to see the GM has risen from the dead

And then the thread died.

[wxtransit]

glad to see the GM has risen from the dead

And then the thread died.

If need be, I can return to revising this bill with a new amendment (which I paused indefinitely when the GM announced he would have a statement on the bill). I'll probably wait a tad bit longer for some feedback but ideally would like to have at least some substantive discussion on either the bill or an amendment progressing towards a vote before the new session starts (perhaps I am too optimistic with that assessment though).

[wxtransit]

After mulling over making some more drastic changes, I realized that perhaps the easiest way to go about getting some real, quantifiable change with NPC elections would be to focus on one aspect rather than address multiple. Whenever the GM is able to elaborate on his comments, I do think those should be incorporated into such a bill, but for now, I will submit the following amendment.

As a strict activity requirement will likely be too big of an ask and as any changes to the NPC cycle are outside of the scope of this bill, the only change I made in this amendment was to make part two of section two read as a suggestion rather than a requirement. (Additionally, I added a time limit on party leader requests, allowing the GM to conduct business in a timely manner while also not rushing party leaders as a week is a reasonable length of time.) I would have liked to see some input on a new direction that this bill could take the GM's office and NPC elections towards, however, that input has not been posted yet and I would like to see something passed on the NPC front. I would be certainly willing to introduce a new bill once feedback is received to initiate more structural and deeper overhauls to the NPC system if such feedback is received after the conclusion of debate on this bill, but I do think that a significant amount of time has already been spent waiting for feedback and the nation deserves some action on this front.

My reasoning for focusing on the communication aspect even given the current state of activity is that it is a change that quite drastically affects the NPC process, engages more players with the actual governing aspect (hopefully making the process more fun for everyone), and was well-received by the Senate. It would not take a considerable amount of effort to implement as there are frankly not that many stories that are posted in a given period (and feedback from party leaders on the direction of a story would not be too hard to obtain, just being a few simple DMs every few days at the most), so I am confident that such a change would overall make the most observable and beneficial change with the least negative impact on the workload for the GM's office. And, such a change would only be in effect when stories are actively being published, which means that the GM could decide their own workload under this change as they decide when stories would need to be written.

Given these reasons, I feel that this change would be the one worth focusing on when striving to see this bill passed through the Senate.

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. The Game Moderator's office should strive to cover each state at least once a year.

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. Additionally, if an official as identified from part one does not respond to a request from the Game Moderator's office within a week, the Game Moderator reserves the right to determine the actions of such NPC officeholders.

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.

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

I'll accept sponsorship since transit is no longer in the Senate.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Senators have 24 hours to object to the amendment, and to the sponsorship of Senator Weatherboy.

[Joseph Cao]

No objections to either.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Hearing no objection, the amendment is adopted and Weatherboy is recognized as sponsor.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

It would be nice if the current GM *cough cough cough cough* would give us some indication as to when or if he plans to continue these...

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

It would be nice if the current GM *cough cough cough cough* would give us some indication as to when or if he plans to continue these...

Its been 12 days since he last posted.

[wxtransit]

It would be nice if the current GM *cough cough cough cough* would give us some indication as to when or if he plans to continue these...

Its been 12 days since he last posted.

:/

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Since there's clearly no interest in NPC elections anymore, I'm honestly of the opinion we should just suspend them indefinitely. Being one of three people in the entire game to give a crap sucks, frankly.

[Joseph Cao]

If – big if – interest in NPCs rises again and people want to return to the system that Lumine and Peanut have tinkered with, it still makes sense to ensure the Senate’s feedback on them is heard so the entire thing doesn't follow the same path it just took. I would support passing this with a clause to trigger it sometime in the future when that scenario does occur, if it occurs.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Sounds fair. Here's an amendment giving the GM unilateral authority to suspend or resume NPC elections at a given time.

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. The Game Moderator's office should strive to cover each state at least once a year, but may suspend all NPC elections indefinitely due to lack of perceived interest.

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. Additionally, if an official as identified from part one does not respond to a request from the Game Moderator's office within a week, the Game Moderator reserves the right to determine the actions of such NPC officeholders.

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.

After this, I think we should move to a vote. And maybe a moment of silence for what was a really neat part of the game at one point.

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

Friendly.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Senators have 24 hours to object to the amendment.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Hearing no objection, the amendment is adopted.

Well, I think we're done here for now. Final vote opens in 24 hours.

[Joseph Cao]

Not sure if I’m outside the amendment window, but this was something closer to my initial statement.

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. The Game Moderator's office should strive to cover each state at least once a year, but may suspend all NPC elections indefinitely due to lack of perceived interest.

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. Additionally, if an official as identified from part one does not respond to a request from the Game Moderator's office within a week, the Game Moderator reserves the right to determine the actions of such NPC officeholders.

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.

Section V. Enactment.
1. Upon the passage of this Act, the contents of this Act shall, in conjunction with the Burr System, be acted upon by the Game Moderator during all periods of NPC elections activity.

And the moment of silence was very much observed.

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

Friendly.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Senators have 24 hours to object to the amendment.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Hearing no objection, the amendment is adopted.