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[Phase 2: Move to an Open Assembly, or stick with the current system?]

Phase 2: Move to an Open Assembly, or stick with the current system?

Stick with the UH

Move to an Open Assembly

Before I start this, I want to state that I'm not trying to restart the constitutional convention (shudders), and I have no attachment to this idea, but it was an interesting thing that came to me as I took a shower.

What if we reworked the Storting to be a good middle-ground between an open assembly and the tried-and-tested system we have now?

We'd have a UH and OH, still, with the OH still being allowed to veto votes. The UH wouldn't so much just vote on things anymore, but their votes would count more than, say, a person who's only voted for 5 different pieces of legislation. Like, a UH member's vote would count for 3 points, whereas a new Citizen's would count for 1 point, and an already-established Citizen's vote would count for 2 points. This is to try and stave off the inherent security risk associated with normal open assemblies. The UH and older citizens would also be able to overturn the OH's veto capabilities, and the UH members themselves would have to be elected only by older citizens. It would still have a speaker, and the speaker's vote could count for even more points, let's say 5.

The OH members' votes would also count for 3 each, and the Chairman's 5, to be a perfect counter-weight to the UH.

This is a very rough idea, and there are probably a lot of flaws. And hey, even if it is ultimately deemed as batshit insane, it would at the very least be a juicy thing for candidates in the current election to debate on.

I love the fact that you're raising new ideas about how to administer the regional government.
However, I detest the core idea of weighting votes on seniority, positions held, or anything else.
I think that disincentivizes most new people getting Involved, and so the only ones we'd see getting involved are those who would be solely looking for some kind of personal advancement in the first place (which are, generally speaking, not the best people to have in any position of power, since they tend to be dicks about it).

My fundamental opinion about our administration is this: pick a side and stick to it. Either we move towards a more democratic system where we're limiting the powers of the monarchy and trying to shift towards more direct democracy, or we move towards a more autocratic (read: absolutist monarchical) system.

Obviously, Moot has been a stellar monarch. Nobody is more committed to the success of Wintreath.
And so of the two options I present, I'd prefer we did shift towards a more autocratic mode of governance, because, shit, that's pretty much how NS, forums, and Discord servers all work with their gradations of permissions disseminated down from a Region Founder/Root Admin/Server Owner.
And realistically, I think Laurentus' suggestion would be sauntering in the vague direction of absolutism. But it also seems primed to go down the shitty variant of that path, which would be a political nightmare hell of pseudo-feudalism (pseudalism?), where the glorious nobility are the only ones who really get a say in anything, but we cloak it all in a mask of 'oh but see direct democracy', even if realistically the mass of the citizenry might have less than half the voting power in any actual decision.

Obviously people may disagree with me that there should only be two directions to move in, but I suppose I'm just not creative enough to think of what a third option should be.

Those are fair criticisms.

Direct democracy is not actually something I'm all that afraid of, but the idea caused some... unease in the last constitutional convention, one of the primary fears raised by Chanku being that it could be abused by our enemies. And my thoughts on it back then was 'Yeah, no, not really, because there is no fucking way that Moot would just sit around and let it be abused.' Still, the events that happened afterwards made me reluctant to go down that route.

I am also not opposed to Moot taking absolute control, but there are certainly a few people who don't share that sentiment.

Hence the middle ground here, that tries to get past both the security concerns and the sentiment of still giving the citizenry a moderate voice.

Also, it wouldn't be so much a meritocratic or noble system, just one where you have to contribute to the legislature a bit before you can get classified as a 'senior citizen' (I still don't know what to call it). Anyone who would run for the UH can also still do so immediately in the elections, no matter the post count or activity level, but only the senior citizens would actually vote for 'security reasons.'

Anyone who would run for the UH can also still do so immediately in the elections, no matter the post count or activity level, but only the senior citizens would actually vote for 'security reasons.'

I hate that idea. I think it's naked fearmongering. Because, what, we both think that some raider group or whatever is gonna try and come flood the region with bodies to suborn our system of direct democracy, and we're all going to be too stupid to understand that's happening?

(I'm assuming we're keeping our systems of citizenship acquisition here - where people in the Cabinet or the Monarch are the ones evaluating people for citizenship. Sure, our current process is less 'evaluation' and more 'check the box of having a person actually take 3 seconds and look', but in a situation where 10, 15, 30 people are coming in, registering for citizenship, and immediately voting on some particularly contentious bit of legislation, I'd like to imagine that us in the Cabinet are not all total idiots, and I'm pretty certain that Moot isn't.)

And realistically, even if we switched to perfect direct democracy where all decisions require voting on (unlikely considering that it can occasionally be a struggle to just get 5 people in the UH, people who've specifically expressed enough interest in governance that they campaigned for it, to vote on something), the fact that those hardcoded Regional Founder/Root Admin/Server Owner roles exist in the first place serve as a pretty major administrative check to any attempt to suborn our governance.

'Security' is, to my mind, only a concern if we're convinced that literally everyone in the community is a naive idiot, and that everyone outside of the community is a dangerous shark waiting to eat us the moment they smell blood in the water.

The irony here is that you're saying pretty much exactly what I did when these objections were made during the constitutional convention. 

Still didn't prevent the outcome when the idea of an open assembly actually went to vote amongst the citizenry.

I think this is the most original idea to restructure the Storting that I've heard yet, but my concern is that it would disincentivice people to run for UH, since the only purpose in doing so would be to get one or two more votes. I also wonder if people want to open the UH up at this point. Everyone agrees that the UH is usually inactive and doesn't have much to do, but they also seem to support the institution as a status symbol for those elected, which is why I think Doc's Burn it Down initiative went down in...well, flames.

But I think we have to recognize that restructuring the Storting isn't likely to make it more active...we can certainly do so if we would like to, as we almost did during the last Constitutional Convention, but it's mostly rearranging the chairs. I think to make it more active we would have to give the Storting an enhanced purpose, and nobody has come up with a way to do that other than giving it powers from the Monarchy, which even then I'm not convinced would solve the issue. I personally think the Storting has more power than it realizes, anyways.

For the record, I'm not really concerned with a foreign entity attempting to subvert the region through the Underhusen. It would take a large infiltration effort into a mid-sized UCR that's completely irrelevant to gameplay, and all they would get out of it are shits and giggles. I doubt it's worth the effort to them.

Taking everyone's feedback into consideration, I've thought up a few adjustments to the idea.

1. I've gotten rid of the tiered citizenship idea, but kept the role of the UH and OH alive, as they still also serve a vital role in our court systems, as unlikely as we are to utilise said function. The rest of the region would move into a type of (gasp!) open assembly, but would now look to the UH to guide them, and would still have the OH to make sure none of the laws clash with what the monarchy wants.

2. The UH would consist out of only 3 people, now. I'm basing this on the possibility that @Katie brought up of giving the Speaker PT more responsibility, but as I see it, the only roles that are essential in this new system would be that of Speaker, who will now direct the assembly the same way they used to direct the Skrifa; the Officer of Information to keep the citizenry abreast of legislation passed and stuff the same way they've been doing; and finally the Speaker PT, who, rather than sitting by quietly waiting for their power to be activated, would be given the new task of breaking down proposed legislation to the citizenry, and serve as the link between the citizenry, the UH and the OH, to make sure all parties involved are on the same page about legislation. Even if this complete restructuring idea doesn't kick off, I feel like this might also be a good avenue to explore for the continued existence of the Speaker PT.

3. The rest of the citizenry would now, for all intents and purposes, be Skrifa themselves. They would be free to debate legislation, and vote on it as they see fit. The OH would still be there to prevent horrible legislation from passing, and since I've never been fond of the idea of overruling the OH to begin with, and this has never been done, an extra security measure could be brought in to eliminate the possibility of overruling them. They're good at what they do, and even though I don't always agree with them, they're a vital check that would still prevent this open assembly from becoming a tyranny by majority.

So yeah. I'm going to invite the new UH to give their thoughts, and also going to tag a few key players in Wintrean law to share their opinions.

@Wintermoot, @Doc, @taulover, @North, @Wuufu, @Chanku, @AJ BLarg, @_zM (your name is a goddamned nightmare to try and mention, BTW), @Ruguo, @Gerrick, @Elbbsas, @trader, @Cinciri, @Aragonn.

Hey, I liked the tiered citizenship idea, it was one step closer to me realizing my dream to turn Wintreath into a New Prussia.....I mean, not that. Not that at all. Ignore that.

I'm somewhat opposed to an all-citizen UH, as part of the appeal the UH has is that it's a publicly-elected legislature, but I'm willing to bite my tongue on that one. It could be beneficial to the region to have all citizens be in the UH and have the option to vote.


I'm also vehemently opposed to the no-overruling of the OH idea. That restricts the freedom of the Storting. Also, how would that even work? What counts as overruling? It'd need some real overarching language to talk about that.

Regarding the OH, sure, it restricts the power of the citizenry, but in practical terms, when has the UH actually overruled a decision by the OH? It has always had the power to do so, but it's never actually done it.

Basically, this could be a good step into preventing a tyranny by majority scenario. Demagoguery is a real thing, and this would protect against that. We have many stories of open legislatures from all across NS where people were banned simply because they were unpopular, for example. I'd rather not that ever be a thing here.

Did someone say restart the constitutional convention?! 

No, PENGU, STOP THAT! WE DON'T NEED TO GIVE PEOPLE IDEAS!

VIVA LA CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION! *is forcefully dragged out* YOU CANT SILENCE WHAT THE PEOPLE WANT!

*Laurentus clears his throat and looks around the assembly nervously as the troublemaker is dragged out.

Er... We here at Laurentus States wish to clarify that all views expressed by individual members of the assembly are theirs and theirs alone, and we do not condone said messages to restart the constitutional convention.

But yeah, honestly, I really want to see if we can sort out all the kinks and reach some sort of consensus before we even consider restarting the convention.

I don't think any changes will actually help the Sorting be more active. I think the old joke was that the Sorting only ever really governs itself?

There have been a few instances where the sorting's choices have affected more than the sorting itself. Not particularly many come to mind. Maybe if the Sorting affected the lives of our members more then it would be more active? Possibly having political parties? That might be an interesting approach. Public approval poles and things.

I'm just spitballing, what do you guys think?