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So, beyond what I've already said about supporting this idea, I did just want to say that the creation of a Constitution beyond what we already have with the Fundamental Laws does seem a little... not extreme, that's the wrong word, but I feel like I would like to keep Mootles role as more than a figurehead in terms of the legislative aspects. His involvement in the Overhusen often sheds light on things we've not considered, things that he's ideally placed to know about. My first concern would be what role the Monarch would have in this proposed system.

Beyond that, and after some consideration, I do think you've hit upon a novel way of dealing with our activity issues in the legislative. By inducting new members (and expanding the size of our legislative permanently) you're sidestepping the problem of people having to prove their dedication to the region by ensuring that they'll have had to be around for X amount of time before they can be brought in anyway.

As we seem to be moving a little towards the idea of a meritocracy, I think we should definitely explore this avenue further. Perhaps, in a throwback to the OH, the new Assembly could create a committee to deal with particularly contentious issues (made up of those who haven't got strong feelings either way, and not necessarily open only to assembly members) to serve as a revisionary and balancing body. I've only put a few minutes consideration into such an idea, but I think it might have merit.

Oh, it should go without saying that Wintermoot would be more than welcome to join the assembly. He could appoint himself, or do the whole application thing, or even run in an election, if he so chooses.

As for the latter two points, could you elaborate?

So, beyond what I've already said about supporting this idea, I did just want to say that the creation of a Constitution beyond what we already have with the Fundamental Laws does seem a little... not extreme, that's the wrong word, but I feel like I would like to keep Mootles role as more than a figurehead in terms of the legislative aspects. His involvement in the Overhusen often sheds light on things we've not considered, things that he's ideally placed to know about. My first concern would be what role the Monarch would have in this proposed system.

Beyond that, and after some consideration, I do think you've hit upon a novel way of dealing with our activity issues in the legislative. By inducting new members (and expanding the size of our legislative permanently) you're sidestepping the problem of people having to prove their dedication to the region by ensuring that they'll have had to be around for X amount of time before they can be brought in anyway.

As we seem to be moving a little towards the idea of a meritocracy, I think we should definitely explore this avenue further. Perhaps, in a throwback to the OH, the new Assembly could create a committee to deal with particularly contentious issues (made up of those who haven't got strong feelings either way, and not necessarily open only to assembly members) to serve as a revisionary and balancing body. I've only put a few minutes consideration into such an idea, but I think it might have merit.

Excessive is the word you might be looking for

And if/when such a legislature under this proposal gets large enough, we can afford creating subcommittees within the UH to debate ideas based on certain legislators' expertise. These committees could also be advisory committees and both include non-UH members and make more use of the "non-binding resolution" clause of the Fundamental Laws.

Isn't there a risk that by letting the assembly grow too much we'd be creating a legislative blob that has members who joined just because it was so easy for them and are not really pulling their weight (which becomes problematic when the size starts slowing down approval rates of new members)?

What's the point of balance of the elected and the appointed if they are merged into single chamber? Would their votes be separated or could a law get passed with marginal support from the appointed if large majority of the elected support it?

I also wonder how well this mix of applications and elections would actually work, who'd vote for someone the assembly he/she is running for deemed unworthy?

Wouldn't committees just complicate the legislative process? Who'd choose the committee, who'd decide what issues require a committee? How would Wintermoot's will be represented? How would they deal with sudden inactivity of a member? It's just like a mini-legislative within the real one, which really doesn't sound worth the trouble.

I'd also wish for a system that wouldn't rely so much on Wintermoot. I love having him around, but let's give the man at least the theoretical possibility of taking a vacation one day. UH masking power is something he might give away someday, after a large bottle of vodka or two, but it's hard to replace him if someone needs to be appointed by him personally.

I'll be discussing the questions and concerns by having each number refer to an individual paragraph of yours.

1. Who ever said it would be easy to join? The process would be simple, but not easy. You'd get probed to see how active and knowledgeable you are, and how well you handle criticism.

Someone like you, for instance, wouldn't have a hard time getting in, but a completely fresh face would struggle quite a bit.

If the core elected people didn't pull their weight, then obviously new people could get elected in their place. If core appointed members don't pull their own weight, I highly doubt Wintermoot is just going to allow them to continue having a useless seat. If people who get in through application, they could either get recalled through the citizenry, or by the assembly, or by Wintermoot. So really, one way or another, seat-warmers aren't going to be welcome.

2. The idea here isn't to split their power to vote or give one group the power to overpower the other, the idea is to have core members who got in through merit (appointment by monarch) and democracy (elections), thereby creating a balance between the two which would be most useful for deciding which applications to accept. So yes, they wouldn't be seen as separate entities when it came to voting. If 4/5 elected members voted FOR something, and 2/5 appointed members voted FOR that same thing, while 1/5 elected and 3/5 appointed voted AGAINST that thing, then it wouldn't be seen as the two separate entities reaching different conclusions, because there would be no such divide. It would simply be 6/10 FOR that particular act.

That's assuming there are only the core elected and appointed members in the assembly, of course. In reality, it might be something like 7/13 FOR, since those who applied and had their applications approved would contribute to that majority.

3. As for who would vote for someone who was considered unsuitable, I haven't the slightest idea. One assumes the assembly would have a solid reason for not granting such a person access. If not, then I suspect some recalls might follow, as that would show a disconnect between the elected, and the will of the people who elected them.

4. I'm not sure where this committee your referring to is coming from. I haven't mentioned anything about committees, have I? Committees to do what? Or are you referring to Barnes' and Weissreich's thoughts on the topic?

Wintermoot's will would be presented by himself. I might even make the suggestion that aside merely from the 5 appointed and 5 elected core members, Wintermoot would himself be a core member who can never be removed. That would mean there are 11 core members, which works nicely so there would be a reduced risk of draws with the uneven number.

And as for inactivity, well, how do we currently deal with it? It's one of those problems I haven't really been able to find a solution for. Just look at my own recent inactivity. If someone really felt strongly enough about it, I suspect I would have been recalled. And yet that didn't happen. Why? Do people just not care enough? Do people just expect there to be drops in activity from time to time? Do they just not want to be mean?

So the only thing I can really say to that is that it is a definite concern, but a concern we'll have with any system we can come up with.

At least with this one, if someone becomes inactive, they can be removed, or recalled, or whatever. If that seems like something that's a bit too extreme (particularly if they fully expect the person to continue with a normal activity level again at some point), then Wintermoot could simply appoint a new core member, which would necessarily be followed by an election for one other core member as well, meaning there would always be ways to increase activity.

5. Well, as the monarch, it's inconceivable that anything we do wouldn't require significant contribution from him either way. He's the one people naturally turn to when they have a problem, but don't quite know who to take it to, and the fact of the matter is that he's the only one with vast administrative powers on the forums. So I don't see how we're going to come up with anything that doesn't involve him to a large degree unless he suddenly gives a few other people the same admin powers he possesses, and as he's said, the conditions with one of the previous crown-princes (Charax, I think it was?) has made him reluctant to do so.

So while I would like to give Wintermoot a break, the reality is that it's completely up to Wintermoot, and also realistically, this region would fall apart without his involvement, or else become a place where various factions are pretty much doing their own thing without a clear leader and uniter to be found.

Instead of having the chamber grow continuously forever, I think we should have it continuously grow to a maximum size proportional to the number of active members in the region. This way, we can still have a growing legislative house that doesn't eventually turn into a massive blob that swallows everyone up into it.

Edit: This allows it to grow as the region gets bigger, but it also makes it shrink as the region gets smaller since the number it's supposed to be proportional to would have then shrunk, causing the maximum number of seats to shrink.

This is just my idea to keep it from getting overwhelming.

How is this formula decided? Is it simply agreed upon by the legislature before each potential election? Is it automatically applied through mathematics, like one seat for every hundred registered members or every ten "active" members (warranting another definition), or a more complex formula?

It shall be set in the Constitution that there will be a maximum of 1 seat per X amount of active citizens. That number shall be determined by the rest of you, as I have no idea what that number should be.

There is also a need to consider the criteria in which a Wintrean can be deemed as an "active citizen".

Wintreath currently has 95 Citizens [as of the last citizenship check].

I'm not sure if that meets the definition of "active" but it's about as much as I can go off of, unless we define a monthly post requirement to remain in the legislature like the Cabinet had at one point. (Maybe it still does.)

I don't think we're going to have an easy time coming up with a definition for "active." After all, if it's relative, then someone who makes 5 posts a week (while the average for citizens is 1), would be 5 times more active than the average. And yet, that's still not very active on the surface. So do we give those in the legislature some arbitrary number to reach, or do we say they should match the average for citizens? What do we do?

It's important to note that this could well be asked of our current system. There's no getting around that. If we're criticising this proposal on this particular issue, then we have to solve it for the status quo too.

I've given up hope of tackling inactivity in the legislature, because sometimes, there just isn't much to do.

4. I'm not sure where this committee your referring to is coming from. I haven't mentioned anything about committees, have I? Committees to do what? Or are you referring to Barnes' and Weissreich's thoughts on the topic?

Yup, my bad. They're still welcome to leave any comments to my comments.

2. The idea here isn't to split their power to vote or give one group the power to overpower the other, the idea is to have core members who got in through merit (appointment by monarch) and democracy (elections), thereby creating a balance between the two which would be most useful for deciding which applications to accept. So yes, they wouldn't be seen as separate entities when it came to voting. If 4/5 elected members voted FOR something, and 2/5 appointed members voted FOR that same thing, while 1/5 elected and 3/5 appointed voted AGAINST that thing, then it wouldn't be seen as the two separate entities reaching different conclusions, because there would be no such divide. It would simply be 6/10 FOR that particular act.

That's assuming there are only the core elected and appointed members in the assembly, of course. In reality, it might be something like 7/13 FOR, since those who applied and had their applications approved would contribute to that majority.

Wintermoot's will would be presented by himself. I might even make the suggestion that aside merely from the 5 appointed and 5 elected core members, Wintermoot would himself be a core member who can never be removed. That would mean there are 11 core members, which works nicely so there would be a reduced risk of draws with the uneven number.

With the current system, the Overhusen can safeguard the regional values probably pretty well even without Wintermoot himself, given how small and carefully picked group it is. With your proposal Wintermoot would have to personally step in every time, and I don't really see the point of him appointing people when they'd be basically helpless and powerless.

Appointed, elected, applied & approved... it's all the same?

3. As for who would vote for someone who was considered unsuitable, I haven't the slightest idea. One assumes the assembly would have a solid reason for not granting such a person access. If not, then I suspect some recalls might follow, as that would show a disconnect between the elected, and the will of the people who elected them.

This raises another problem, either we'd need an option to vote against someone in public elections or we'd have to accept the possibility that someone might get elected with nothing but their own vote. (Keeping in mind how the strong candidates would have a faster way to get in.)

5. Well, as the monarch, it's inconceivable that anything we do wouldn't require significant contribution from him either way. He's the one people naturally turn to when they have a problem, but don't quite know who to take it to, and the fact of the matter is that he's the only one with vast administrative powers on the forums. So I don't see how we're going to come up with anything that doesn't involve him to a large degree unless he suddenly gives a few other people the same admin powers he possesses, and as he's said, the conditions with one of the previous crown-princes (Charax, I think it was?) has made him reluctant to do so.

So while I would like to give Wintermoot a break, the reality is that it's completely up to Wintermoot, and also realistically, this region would fall apart without his involvement, or else become a place where various factions are pretty much doing their own thing without a clear leader and uniter to be found.

Expanding masking power without full administrative powers is possible and has happened, so while it is a stretch, systems similar to our current one could be run without him. So technically speaking, our legislation could function even over an election without him, but if we move to a system that requires him to pick people constantly, we'd be fucked if his activity ever sees temporal sudden drop for any reason.

I'm a little more optimistic about our future should Wintermoot ever disappear for a brief moment. We have rock solid Riksråd, we'd be fine as long as he'd eventually come back. The less activity we need to cease for such a period, the better.

It's a slow process but I'm starting to agree with this kind of system. I don't necessarily see the size a problem. Votes will work with deadlines and fairest way to handle the inactivity issue would be by citizenship. Size would likely always be capped by the number of people Wintermoot would be willing to appoint, so while I'm not a big fan of building all the logistics irreversibly around him, I could live with it.

Someone would better be ready to keep him happy, just imagine if he finds someone.

Maybe it said it somewhere but I missed it, so will the appointed always be equal to the elected, or can the elected continue to grow while the appointed doesn't (if Wintermoot doesn't find anyone to appoint)? If the latter is true and the elected can outnumber the appointed, to give the appointed some power to prevent being drowned out perhaps they can be given the ability to overrule a vote if they vote unanimously. Or if the former is true, then maybe Wintermoot can appoint a member who was previously elected (if he wants) to allow someone new to fill that elected seat.

For elections, maybe the assembly can vote every few months to decide if they want to increase, decrease, or stay the same size. If they decide to increase, then it'd only be one spot available to run for, and the option to vote for none of the above should be there so that they don't have to vote for anyone if there isn't anyone running whom they'd support -- then if "none of the above" wins, nothing happens.

If they decide to decrease in size, someone could volunteer to step down (to take a break or whatever) or the assembly could vote (for someone who isn't doing a good job or has become inactive). The latter would allow for a recall without having to call for one by itself.

Just some thoughts.

@tatte, while I'm glad you're starting to like the idea, I do wonder if somewhere in the debate, some things got lost. Wintermoot wouldn't be the only person who would be able to bring people into the legislative, as the assembly itself would have the power to approve and deny applicants who wish to join as well.

I hope this doesn't limit your support of this, and I don't know whether you were already aware of this, but I'm just making sure. The last thing I'd want is people voting in a system that's different from what they thought they were voting in.

If aggressive expansion is judged to be too much of an issue, then we could limit the growth of the legislature by admitting only 3 people to join per month, or every two months, or whatever time frame and number of seats people feel most comfortable with.

And no, the appointed, elected and approved aren't the same. I should instruct people to read over the discussion between me and Sapphiron to see where much of my original proposal got changed. Among other things, one of the things we agreed on was that it might be best not to hold elections unless Wintermoot appoints a new core member. So the three avenues for getting in would be:

1. Apply to get in, and then in your application thread, all the members of the assembly would ask you questions to test your knowledge, personality, activity and commitment. If the assembly is satisfied you'd be a welcome addition, then you get approved, and you join the assembly. And then you get to take part in the application process of other hopeful citizens too.

2. Get appointed by Wintermoot as one of the core appointed members. If this happens, then option 3 becomes available to someone else, which is;

3. Run in the election for a core elected seat that needs filling. If Wintermoot appointed 2 people, then two seats would be available to be filled as well.

Since I don't have any talent for naming things, I'm just going to go with fruits to represent each type of avenue to get in. Those elected by the citizenry will henceforth be known as the Lemons, those appointed by the monarch will henceforth be known as the Apples, and those applicants who were successful in their applications to join the assembly will be known as the Oranges. They'd have no difference in power, and their duties would be similar. They each just got in through different avenues, and the Lemons and Apples will always be equal in number to maintain a balance between meritocracy and democracy.

Though if I do think about it, the inclusion of a constitution that aims to prevent the worst possible outcomes of an open assembly that gets high-jacked by malicious foreign gameplayers does decrease the need for the equilibrium to be maintained at all costs. So a few more Lemons than Apples, or a few more Apples than Lemons shouldn't be the end of the world, as long as the Lemons, Apples and Oranges can still get on with their jobs.

So yes, this post was a strange hybrid post that addressed some of tatte and Gerrick's questions and comments simultaneously.

Also, tatte, can I just say what a relief it is that you're liking the proposed system? You're usually one of the hardest people to convince of something, and with good reason.

And also, in case it's not abundantly clear by now, I'm still trying to figure this system out myself.

Other than how they get in, all the fruits still sound the same. I suppose oranges have the chance to outnumber the salad of core members? What I'm not really getting is the reason to count any type of fruit if they all have the same power.

Wintermoot's Apples do sound like something that would at best work as a super fast track for some of the current members, but new members in the future would likely be accepted by the rest of the assembly much sooner than they'd even get close to getting appointed by Wintermoot.

Could giving Apples more voting power over the rest be considered, to justify the value of that avenue? If oranges can outnumber the rest as equals, why bother with the other kinds of fruits?

I'd have easier time understanding a system where Winterapples get two votes per apple, the lowest kind is either elected by citizens or approved via application process and given one vote per person, and Winterapples are counterweighted by equal or close to equal number of fruits that are selected via application process from inside of the assembly, weighing in with 1.5 votes each. Elections could be held every five or so failed applications to provide second chances at basic entrance.

Please be kind with your tone when you respond with "you don't get it", I get scared easily.

In any case, limiting growth by time might not be the best option, if we move to a more open system, let's make sure it is open whenever a promising person blooms and not make them wait additional months just because there's too many people in already, especially since inactivity is always to be expected. Being able to take in people as they graduate from the integration might well be the greatest change we can make.