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There are currently talks in the Riksrad to have elected Thanes to allow for more mobility into, change within, and interest in the government. Because the Patriarch of the RP Guild is a Thane of Culture, it would make sense then for there to also be elections for the leadership of the RP Guild.

Duties of the Patriarch and the Council

The Patriarch, as the head of the RP Guild and a Thane of Culture, is responsible for:

• representing the roleplay community in the Riksrad and regularly taking part in Cabinet meetings and discussions;
• managing and moderating the forums in the Roleplayers' Gathering;
• encouraging roleplay and facilitating its growth in the region;
• working with the Council to manage the RP Guild and its roleplays by helping members start up and host roleplays, helping find a new host for a roleplay if the host goes inactive, and helping decide whether to reboot or archive inactive roleplays;
• welcoming new citizens who may interested in roleplay, introducing them to the RP Guild and the Roleplayers' Gathering, accepting new members into the RP Guild, and helping out beginners with roleplaying.

The Council is responsible for:

• helping the Patriarch in his Guild responsibilities;
• encouraging roleplay and facilitating its growth in the region;
• working with the Patriarch to manage the RP Guild and its roleplays by helping members start up and host roleplays, helping find a new host for a roleplay if the host goes inactive, and helping decide whether to reboot or archive inactive roleplays;
• interacting with new and prospective members by welcoming and accepting them into the Guild, helping beginners with roleplaying, and helping new members join roleplays.

The Patriarch and the Council may also together decide on further duties for themselves as well as the direction, rules, and new features for the RP Guild.

The current idea for Guild elections would run very similarly to the UH and its Speaker. Only Guild members would be able to run and vote in the elections. There would be 4 open spots to run for, and the 4 people with the most votes at the end of elections would then become the guild leadership. The 4 elected members would then vote who among themselves would become the Patriarch of the Guild. Because the Patriarch is a Thane and, thus, member of the Riksrad, I would need to vet and approve the elected members who run for Patriarch. If there were a tie for Patriarch, and a winner could not be decided, I would choose the new Patriarch. The other 3 elected members of the guild leadership would then become the Council.

Elections would be held every three months concurrently with elections for Delegate (as well as for the other Thanes).

So, what does everyone think?
Also, as a less significant side discussion, since the Ministry of Culture will now likely consist of five members (the Jarl, the RP Guild Patriarch, and three other Thanes), I was thinking perhaps we should change the Council to be called the Tribunal and remove the Ministry of Culture members section from the roster list. The other Thanes' roles will neither be related to nor have mod powers over the RP sections, so I wouldn't think it'd be necessary to list them in that section. The Council also consists of three members (as opposed to the Ministry of Culture's five), so "Tribunal" would make more sense for them. Then again, if it's too confusing changing names after they've already been established, we can just remove the Tribunal section.

I object to spreading the electoral process beyond the Underhusen.

Any specific reason, Sapphiron?

Then why dont we just appoint an RP Council? Let the Thane of Culture just appoint an RP Council.

Well, the whole idea is that every Thane of every Ministry will be elected.
Something someone brought up in the Cabinet discussion was that if the RP Thane is exempted from elections, how will they be held as accountable as the other Thanes for being active and involved in the Cabinet? It could turn into a more static position whose occupant rarely changes regardless of merit.

We could just have direct elections for Patriarch, and then the Patriarch appoints the Council, but I figured the UH/Speaker style would allow for more input from the Guild members since they would elect the top 4 people they want rather than just the 1 who could then choose anybody regardless of merit as their Council.

If anyone can come up with a better way to implement elections in the Guild, though, I'm definitely willing to listen.

I understand elections are a good way to ensure having active members in the leadership, but I've seen far too many elections boil down to who is more popular over who is more qualified. If people don't know you, they don't vote for you. So if you're picky about the RPs you participate in and only take part in, say, two out of ten RPs, your name isn't out there as much as the guy in six or seven of those RPs. You may be highly qualified for the position, but hardly anyone knows you. I just feel like elections in the RP Guild might do more harm than good. I can see the council being elected as a possibility, but the Patriarch position should be left alone.

That's just my opinion.

Democracy hasn’t worked well in Wintreath. When we first tried to have a full elected cabinet (all Jarls), we ended up with inactivity. The Underhusen isn’t famed for its activity level, and instead has been a source of conflict. I don’t really want more elections.

The fact that all candidates would need to be vetted by the Jarl, and chosen only from among the Guild would make up for that, dontcha think?

Not in the slightest.

Why not?

Democracy hasn’t worked well in Wintreath. When we first tried to have a full elected cabinet (all Jarls), we ended up with inactivity. The Underhusen isn’t famed for its activity level, and instead has been a source of conflict. I don’t really want more elections.

But has the current system ever worked well either? Throughout the last few years, I've noticed that Cabinets tend to end in one of two states that usually require my intervention: stagnant or burned out. That's why I started a discussion in the Cabinet about how to make it more consistently vibrant, which lead to this idea. A vibrant Cabinet is better able to come up with better ideas and plans, take advantage of opportunities that benefit us, and work as a team so each member isn't in their own silo just doing their own thing.

I think that in moderation democratic systems do have benefits...they give people obvious avenues to join the leadership of the region in an area they're interested in, something to work for over time, and elections provide a venue for people to bring up their perspectives and ideas in a way that suggestions topics just don't seem to do. Even if someone loses an election, their ideas can still be taken up if they're good ones. And the nature of elections tends to help resist stagnation (the Underhusen with its many other issues notwithstanding).

The question is how to balance democracy with meritocracy, to make sure that you don't end up with candidates who haven't proven themselves as deserving of the position they're running for. In this case, Jarls will vet all candidates before the election to make sure they have a history of being part of and contributing to the area they're running for, and only the people involved in that area will be able to vote for them. Hopefully you won't have a case where someone that isn't involved in an area and doesn't know what it's about is voting on who should be leading it. And if any other ideas for meritocratic safeguards come up we can certainly discuss those too.

That's how I would hope it would work out anyways, but if we needed to make changes in the future or reverse course we could easily do so, since this can be enacted and modified by decree. It may be that even with the safeguards we've added things will end up as inactive as the last time we tried elections, or because of those safeguards we may end up with no candidates that are both deserving and interested. But my feeling is that we won't know if we don't try, and there isn't much to lose in trying this.

Does anyone have any more comments, suggestions, or questions?

Elections for Thanes will become a thing very soon, but as Wintermoot said, this does not have to be permanent if it solves nothing. With the chance that elections do help, though, we should try to decide on the best way to implement them. Right?

So with that in mind, do people think the UH/Speaker election style acceptable, or is there a better way to elect the Patriarch? Would it be preferable to directly elect the Patriarch? Would it be preferable to have further safeguards like only members of the top 2 ranks can run?

I'm serious when I say there's not much for me to do as Patriarch of the RP Guild. You want activity in the RP Guild? So do I. But things like school and various life events have a big tendency to get in the way. You want new ideas? So do I. Never have I said I don't want ideas from anyone. In fact, I've openly stated I'm open to new ideas and want to hear them. Nobody has said a word to me except Gerrick. You think I'm failing at my role? I think the Guild as a whole is failing. I want it to succeed, but without the help of my fellow peers I can't see how to make that happen.

If want to replace me, just get it over with. Don't toy with me. I really don't appreciate when people beat around the bush.

If you want these elections so badly, let's give it a shot. When things continue to be as stagnant as they were, I'll be first in line to say "I told you so."

If want to replace me, just get it over with. Don't toy with me. I really don't appreciate when people beat around the bush.

If you want these elections so badly, let's give it a shot. When things continue to be as stagnant as they were, I'll be first in line to say "I told you so."

If I wanted to replace you, I wouldn't go through the time and effort of changing the entire way we do things in the Cabinet to do so. The proposed election system isn't about you, and it isn't even about the RP Guild. It's about the Cabinet as a whole, and if we adopt the system it would impact taulover, Emoticonius, and Justinian as well. It isn't reflective of any individual that's currently in the Cabinet.

If the guild is failing though, I'm curious what's been discussed or decided by the guild to try to overcome the issues causing it to fail.