View Topic

1.  Section 2 of the Underhusen Procedural Rules shall read:
          Any Skrifa may introduce proposals to the Underhusen at any time after the selection of the Speaker. 
            (a) At the beginning of the term, the Speaker shall designate one Skrifa as Secretary of the Underhusen, who shall have the responsibility to post newly introduced proposals to the Citizens' Platform and to notify Citizens of new proposals through various means of communication.

2.  Section 3 of the Underhusen Procedural Rules shall read:
        Any proposal introduced into the Underhusen must be considered by the Underhusen for a minimum of two days before a motion to vote or table can be made.  If no motion has been made or seconded after five days, Skrifa must enter a motion to vote, table, or extend discussion. 

        Section 3(a) of the Underhusen Procedural Rules shall read:
           Any Skrifa other than the Speaker may motion to expedite at any time after a proposal has been introduced.  If the motion receives a second, the bill will immediately proceed to a vote. 
   
   Section 3(c) shall be added to the Underhusen Procedural Rules, and it shall read:
      If a motion to table a proposal passes, the proposal will be tabled.  Should a Skrifa wish to revive debate or bring the proposal to a vote, they must motion to revive discussion or motion to vote.  If either motion passes, the Underhusen shall follow normal procedure for discussion or voting. 

        Section 3(d) shall be added to the Underhusen Procedural Rules, and it shall read:
                For a motion to table to pass, a majority of Skrifa must support the motion.  After a motion to table receives a second, the Speaker will ask the Skrifa to announce in favor or not in favor.  The Speaker shall not vote on a motion to table except in the event of a tie. 

3.  Section 4 of the Underhusen Procedural Rules shall read:
   Any Skrifa other than the Speaker may motion to vote on any proposal once the two-day debate period has expired.  The Speaker shall open the vote no later than five days after the motion to vote has passed. 
   (a)  The Speaker shall notify the Citizens of Wintreath whenever a proposal comes to a vote.

   Section 4(a) and section 4(b) shall be rendered null and void. 

4.  Section 6(d) shall be added to the Underhusen Procedural Rules, and it shall read:
   "Abstain" votes shall not be considered when determining whether a bill has passed, tied, or failed.  Only "Aye" and "Nay" votes shall be considered. 

5.  Section 9 of the Underhusen Procedural Rules shall be rendered null and void. 

6.  Section 10 of the Underhusen Procedural Rules shall read:
   The Speaker of the Assembly shall have the power to bring matters before the Underhusen to a vote within the parameters established by Section 4 of this Act.

7.  Section 11 of the Underhusen Procedural Rules shall read:
   The Speaker will close votes after seven days of voting, or if enough votes have been cast to decide the outcome of the proposal. 
   (a)  In order for a proposal to pass (excluding amendments to the Fundamental Laws), the number of "Aye" votes cast during the voting period must exceed the number of "Nay" votes.
   (b)  After closing a vote, the Speaker shall decide the outcome of the vote according to the above criteria and notify the Citizens of Wintreath with the result. 
   (c)  The Speaker may close a vote, but leave the record open to allow other Skrifa to record their votes.  Votes cast after the vote has been closed will not affect the result of the vote.

8.  Section 13 of the Underhusen Procedural Rules shall be rendered null and void.

9.  Section 14(a) of the Underhusen Procedural Rules shall read:
   The Speaker pro tempore, whenever he or she is presiding over the Underhusen, shall assume all of the responsibilities of the Speaker as listed in relevant law, and shall be subject to the same constitutional and statutory restraints placed upon the Speaker. 

Changelog:
 - Changed "(b)  After closing a vote, the Speaker shall notify the Citizens of Wintreath of the result, based on the above criteria." to "(b)  After closing a vote, the Speaker shall decide the outcome of the vote according to the above criteria and notify the Citizens of Wintreath with the result."  for clarity

 - Added "Section 3 of the Underhusen Procedural Rules shall read:

        Any proposal introduced into the Underhusen must be considered by the Underhusen for a minimum of two days before a motion to vote or table can be made.  If no motion has been made or seconded after five days, Skrifa must enter a motion to vote, table, or extend discussion."  based on discussion. 

 - Added "1.  Section 2 of the Underhusen Procedural Rules shall read:
          Any Skrifa may introduce proposals to the Underhusen at any time after the selection of the Speaker. 
            (a)  Whenever a proposal is introduced to the Underhusen, the Speaker will immediately post the proposal in the Citizen's Platform as "Citizen Discussion of [Proposal Title]"
            (b)  The Speaker may delegate this responsibility to any willing Citizen, including other Skrifa." based on discussion.

 - Added "Section 3(d) shall be added to the Underhusen Procedural Rules, and it shall read:
                For a motion to table to pass, a majority of Skrifa must support the motion.  After a motion to table receives a second, the Speaker will ask the Skrifa to announce in favor or not in favor.  The Speaker shall not vote on a motion to table except in the event of a tie.  "

 - Changed Section 2 amendments to read: "(a) At the beginning of the term, the Speaker shall designate one Skrifa as Secretary of the Underhusen, who shall have the responsibility to post newly introduced proposals to the Citizens' Platform and to notify Citizens of new proposals through various means of communication." - basically a change from "The Speaker May..." to "The Speaker Must..."

I do rather like these proposed amendments, actually.

Although this:

(a)  The Speaker shall notify the Citizens of Wintreath whenever a proposal comes to a vote.

should be changed to this:

(a)  The Speaker shall notify the Citizens of Wintreath whenever a proposal comes to a debate within the Underhusen.

It goes back to what I was saying earlier that I strongly believe the citizens should be included in the sense of gathering their input the moment a proposal is brought into the Underhusen.  That way when the time does come for a vote (with expedited issues being another matter entirely), we can use their input to help us gear towards how we should approach voting on the proposal.

That being said, since this is a proposal within the Platform, I would love to hear others input on these as well.

Would you be opposed to mandating all bills be posted in the Citizen's Platform before going to the Underhusen?  Perhaps there's a way we could eliminate the 48-hour debate in the Underhusen and have the motions to vote come straight from the Citizen's Platform?

Would you be opposed to mandating all bills be posted in the Citizen's Platform before going to the Underhusen?  Perhaps there's a way we could eliminate the 48-hour debate in the Underhusen and have the motions to vote come straight from the Citizen's Platform?

I think that part might be a tricky thing to implement and might be met with some contempt since it's part of the UH's role to debate new things brought to them.  Not to mention we'd have to form some kind of rules as to how debates and discussions would go within the Platform since a motion to vote could take quite some time...which I'm not sure it's within our authority to establish such rules outside of the UH.

I think mandating that all potential bills be posted in the Cit. Platform before hitting the UH isn't too bad of an idea, though.  Considering proposals usually hit there first anyways, it'd just be including bill proposals made by UH members...which I think they should be included to fix any potential mistakes before they're put out there for discussion.

But that's just my thoughts on it.  Like I said though, I want to hear others thoughts on this as well, since my first sentence in this post could be far from the actual truth.

Edit: Added another part.

Perhaps rather than having the requirement on the Speaker to notify the masses of new debates in the Underhusen a ticker banner could be added somewhere on the home page, much like an alerts system, that notifies the reader of new debates in the last 48 hours by detecting new topics automatically? Perhaps it could include a feature to show whether you've read it or not and if there's been new posts in said topics.

Admittedly this is work placed solely on Mootles' shoulders, but thus far he's demonstrated nothing less than exemplar coding capabilities :p

Perhaps rather than having the requirement on the Speaker to notify the masses of new debates in the Underhusen a ticker banner could be added somewhere on the home page, much like an alerts system, that notifies the reader of new debates in the last 48 hours by detecting new topics automatically? Perhaps it could include a feature to show whether you've read it or not and if there's been new posts in said topics.

Admittedly this is work placed solely on Mootles' shoulders, but thus far he's demonstrated nothing less than exemplar coding capabilities :p

We're working on ways to make posts and topics more visible. We've restructured the forums, we're working on the news feed feature, and of course we've had the active topics page for awhile now, and my sense is that we're getting to the point where if people don't respond or get involved in a discussion, it's not because they weren't aware of it, but because they don't want to get involved. My thought is that if these debates are posted in a public area, active Citizens won't need further notification, and inactive Citizens won't get the notification anyway.

I'm not saying there won't ever be an alerts system that could be used, but I'm saying this application wouldn't make it a high priority in my mind for those reasons.

That being said, there are potential areas to reach out to...you could notify people on the RMB or via regional telegram to people that aren't active Citizens. We have a large group of Citizens that are active on the game but not here, and maybe that's something that would interest them in being more involved. If you wanted to go the route of having someone notify them or even active Citizens, perhaps the Underhusen could consider having a Underhusen Secretary whose job was just to handle those sorts of things, and could either be a member of the Underhusen itself or a Citizen that they 'hired'. You have to remember that the job of the Speaker is to direct the legislative flow and ensure the procedures are getting carried out correctly, and you probably don't want to bog the position with bureaucracy, considering only one person has stood for the position in each of the last two sessions as it is.

Just some thoughts.

Perhaps it would be enough for a thread to be opened in The Citizens' Platform every time the Underhusen opened their own discussion. If an Underhusen member opened a discussion called 'Declaration of War Against the NLO', for example, there would be an obligation for a thread to also be opened in the Citizens' Platform, named something like 'Citizens' Gallery for the Declaration of War Against NLO'. If the citizens' thread is active, then the input will be taken into account in the Underhusen discussion.

If it's not so active, then it'll be assumed there just isn't much interest. As Wintermoot said, you can only take a horse to water.

Are there any plans to remove the 2-day debating time in the Underhusen? Or at least, extend it by a few days?

In my mind, optimally, we can make motions after 48 hours and we must make a motion after 120. That way debate could extend without an extension motion ruining the flow up to five days but we also could make a motion to table or to vote after only two. But that's just me.

Also, a lot of the things we do don't necessarily have to become laws... Most likely if we just start just making a thread in the citizen's platform for everything we put in the Underhusen future people will be expected to do it.

I mean, additionally, any citizen could also do that. Doesn't even have to be the OP of the Underhusen thread. Though I think it is good will to do so... Definitely a great way to use all of our resources and to increase region wide participation in things.
Also a great way to encourage candidate rotation.

So... In short... For that last bit. We can just do it. Not everything has to be law.

At the moment after the 48, can't we just extend debates for however long we want/need to before motioning for a vote?  If that's the case, then removing the 48-hour period is unnecessary. 

But I actually like the current base period since unless it's a huge controversial or important act, it shouldn't take the UH more than 2 days to debate it and bring it to a vote.

Motions to extend make things very unclean. It just seems to me that a motion to extend debate is really... Annoying to make and would rather avoid them. I thought that was a smooth midway point between not having a true debate period and having to make a motion to extend debate all the time.

Motions to extend make things very unclean. It just seems to me that a motion to extend debate is really... Annoying to make and would rather avoid them. I thought that was a smooth midway point between not having a true debate period and having to make a motion to extend debate all the time.

I can understand that.  It just goes back to what I was saying though that unless issues are something monumental to Wintreath or (in the case of anything judicial) somewhat controversial, then it shouldn't take over 48 hours for the UH to debate, and some have even been expedited to avoid the debates altogether.

That being said, however, I would get behind extending the overall time in general simply to allow the corresponding thread in the Plat. to get a bit of attention before we hit the voting deadline.  Considering it would take more than 2 days to get decent responses from the citizens.

But again, that being said...we have to tread carefully in extending it too much.  We don't have an exceptional amount of time in office for a term, and if we want to introduce a good amount of legislature, then we can't spend too much time debating on a singular issue.  If we extend the days too much, we're going to be doing just that and building a backlog of other acts/legislation that are waiting to even hit the discussion stages...unless we really get good about multi-legislation (IE discussing and voting on multiple acts/amendments/proposals at the same time).  But then that brings another issue of if we have, say, 3 different things being talked about and people are so busy discussing in one that they don't get to the others, then that brings a completely different problem to the table.

Well one might say that a good underhusen who is good at debating things is more likely to have more things to debate...
While a bad underhusen who is bad at debating things won't... Kinda this mathematical relationship we got going... Bit of an inverse. So I'm not particularly worried about that... And five days of POSSIBLE debate hardly seems like too much. It would only go that far for judicial stuff or total reform things, most likely. Also just inactive underhusens before they're forced to decide.

Made some changes based on our discussion.  Give feedback plz.

I see no problem with the proposed changes thus far.

1.  Section 2 of the Underhusen Procedural Rules shall read:
Any Skrifa may introduce proposals to the Underhusen at any time after the selection of the Speaker. 
(a) Whenever a proposal is introduced to the Underhusen, the Speaker will immediately post the proposal in the Citizen's Platform as "Citizen Discussion of [Proposal Title]"
(b) The Speaker may delegate this responsibility to any willing Citizen, including other Skrifa.

I am hesitant on increasing the responsibilities of the Speaker. Posting a thread in The Citizens' Platform immediately after the bill is introduced in the Underhusen is great but it can simply be a standard set by this current Underhusen, as Reon had pointed out previously. It doesn't have to be part of the Underhusen Procedural Rules.