View Topic

I'll get on it in a little bit.

Ok, I've given some more thought to this, and I'm able to at least not run away in fear.

I'm not sure what I of the Storting at this point. Between the Convention itself and my experience in Lazarus, I've soured on the open assembly concept. It does drive activity, but it also leads to too many cooks, where people with different ideas on contentious issues debate endlessly to the point that actual decisions are never made. Whatever system we have for making decisions in the region, it has to be more decisive than that.

Then I go back to the original purpose of the Convention, which was to give the Storting a purpose, which remains the real problem here. What's the point of changing the structure of the Storting if there's nothing for it to do? The last piece of legislation that was voted on was the Citizenship Integration Amendment Act back in early May...four months ago. I think the closest we've came to giving the Storting a purpose was Pengu's idea to give the Storting power over roleplay issues. I think that could possibly be a viable idea, but then is it a real legislature or a roleplay one?

Is there any purpose in continuing to have a real legislature?

I said it at the very start: no.

But it can get occasional use, such as revocations.

Yeah, really all the legislature does here is give out Paragonship/Commendations, revoke citizenship, pass treaties, and serve as members of the judiciary -- all of which occur very rarely. Everything else it does is just for its own existence.

So if we can find an alternative way to deal with these situations, I don't think there really is a need for the Storting. I mean, we'll lose the very temporary bit of activity that elections bring as well as the very temporary feeling of accomplishment that new members get after getting elected, but I don't think that's very significant.

I believe at one point I came up with an overly-complicated proposal where the legislature was dissolved, but if one of the above situations arose, then a small group of people were chosen to deal with it. Perhaps something along those lines would work better?

If we do decide to have a roleplay legislature (which I think could bring more activity as well as be more fun/less stressful than a real legislature), then I think it should not be tied to the situations above as those are not roleplay.

Rant to get off my chest

Goddammit, I'm not going to deny how frustrating this is to me. I said pretty much the exact same thing as Wintermoot just did at the start, and everyone fought me on it at the time. Fucking hell.

Now that that is off my chest...

I still like the simplicity of Aura Hyperia/New Hyperion's system. It's there when we need it, and it's governed 100% by the Chancellor, who is himself governed by the Emperor/Autarch, so shit doesn't get nearly as out of hand.

That said, Wintreath's culture is slightly different, and much more unwilling to submit. So why don't we just dissolve the Storting, but elect a Chancellor from time to time, to form and organise whatever committee may be needed for specific legislative and judicial things that need doing? After it's concluded, those committees get dissolved again.

This is a very bare-bones idea. Honestly, I'm out of ideas.

EDIT: Just to make something that might be unclear, clearer: the position of Chancellor wouldn't get dissolved. Maybe we elect one every 4 months. But then the person forms, organises and dissolves whatever committees are necessary. We could simply have a large jury for whatever court cases and revocations need doing and whatever. Those jurors would get chosen randomly, and the Chancellor would sit at the head.

If the problem is that the rather-often elections makes little sense for an inactive Storting, perhaps more powers could be given to the Overhusen?

I foresee people screaming from the rooftops because of lack of representation, but I honestly wouldn't have any problems with tau's idea.

So why don't we just dissolve the Storting, but elect a Chancellor from time to time...

Phase 2 of NH's takeover of Wintreath?

God damn, I knew I should have used a different word. You caught me, red-handed, Gerrick.

But, um... you think we're only at phase two?

*Laurentus begins laughing uncontrollably

But fo reel doe. You basically literally stole my idea. Except instead of being called "Chancellor" it was "the Jarl of Appointing Temporary Law-Makers or something". (Ah, how much has changed since I joined last November. )

The only problem I could see with a Chancellor is that they "unintentionally" stack committees with those who would favor the Chancellor's view of the issue.

...and much more unwilling to submit.

Submit. Obey. Serve.

To be fair our original system was both because of Spiritus, and because Wintermoot didn't want to run everything or have complete power...IIRC

Oh, true, that could be a problem. But people could always recall the Chancellor.

EDIT: OMG I REALLY DID STEAL YOUR IDEA!! WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME?!

Gerrick's Original Plan

I’m very new here, so I may have some fundamental misunderstandings of how the government works. Regardless, I’d like to give another opinion on how things could work after hearing about the current problems.

To me, the only purpose of the Overhusen is to act as a veto power to prevent bad laws from being passed in the Underhusen or invaders taking power in the Underhusen and fucking everything up. This means that the Overhusen is only as active as the Underhusen, which as we know has been having the problem of not being active in the sense of not knowing what to do in its role of legislators. My impression (in the past couple days I've looked around here) is that the Storting recently has been doing pretty much nothing positive and has only been bringing stress and petty politics.

I have two ideas that draw from several others’ ideas to try to alleviate this burden:

IDEA 1 is to merge the Overhusen and Underhusen and give the veto power to the Monarch/Riksråd. The newly-merged Storting could then be organized with something like 5 members from the Overhusen (or those appointed by the Monarch) and 4 from the Underhusen (or those elected). This would allow more trusted members (the appointed) to prevent an overthrowing of power or passing of bad legislation before it even has a chance to be vetoed. The appointed would also be more experienced, which would mean they could help to propose or improve legislation (or just promote activity in general) where before they could not.

The inclusion of elected people into the Storting keeps the aspect of the Underhusen that even normal citizens can have the chance to rise in social status and have a direct impact on legislation. Plus, the Riksråd are already appointed, so it makes sense to me that they could play the role of the current Overhusen. Then again, they might be a lot busier with their current positions than I'm imagining.

IDEA 2 (which is a bit more complicated) is to completely disband the Underhusen, create a sort of social ranking system where any citizen can propose legislation to a newly-created Riksråd position (the Jarl of Appointing Temporary Law-Makers or something. I suck at naming.)  or the Overhusen, then if it’s decided it’s not ridiculously stupid or harmful, somebody (this new position or the Overhusen) randomly selects a certain number of people (excluding the citizen who proposed the legislation) from each rank to discuss and amend the legislation and eventually vote on it. The Overhusen retains the power to veto the proposed legislation.

This system essentially removes the stress of the responsibility and politics of the Underhusen to feel like they need to be doing something by just removing it, gives every citizen the ability to take part in legislation, prevents too many new people from messing things up, and gives the ability to advance in social status with ranks (give them interesting, lore-friendly names). Ranks could be determined by a point system (like Wintermoot suggested) where having so many posts/Karma/active time/donations/passed legislation places you in a certain social class, or you could be given extra points for doing something outstanding (maybe awards for future events?). The points could very slowly depreciate to the minimum of your current rank (so you have to be active to go up), and the only way to be demoted would be by the Overhusen/Monarch/whomever. The ranks will really be for this legislation-voting thing, but will also encourage people to be more active and, again, advance in social status.

The people selected for discussion/voting of legislation would have to say if they accept as we wouldn’t want an absent person to be given a spot. This temporary group would then have to talk amongst themselves (perhaps in a private forum that becomes public after the fact) and come to a conclusion on the legislation that will either be dropped or passed on to the Overhusen. This actually -- now that I think about it -- sounds like a mix of jury duty and the ancient Athenian boule (aka the council of citizens, where normal citizens drawn by lot hold political positions). This could, however, end up becoming really inefficient and draw the law-making process out, or it could encourage people to get more involved.

Then again I could have this all wrong.

This convention has ruined me.

Yeah, people could, but how often do you think people would actually do it? So there'd need to be some other safeguard against that, but I like the idea.