[Draft] Deshret Activity Requirement Amendment

[Cormac]

Deshret Activity Requirement Amendment

Section 1: Amendment

1. Section 1.3 of the Procedure of the Deshret will be stricken and removed.

2. Section 1.4 of the Procedure of the Deshret will be renumbered as Section 1.3.

Spoiler

Deshret Activity Requirement Amendment

Section 1: Amendment

1. Section 1.3 of the Procedure of the Deshret will be amended as follows:

3. Any Councilor who fails to post on the regional forum a minimum of five times per month without declaring an official leave of absence will be removed from the membership rolls of the Deshret following a monthly activity check by the Keeper, but will be eligible for reapplication. Posting must occur in forum topics in order to count toward this requirement. This requirement will not apply to anyone who has been a citizen for less than one month. Forum administration must verify a Councilor's failure to meet this requirement.

This is fairly straightforward: In my campaign for Keeper, I talked about switching from a Deshret voting requirement to an overall posting requirement as the basis for Deshret membership. This will be much easier for both individual Councilors as well as the Keeper to track.

I had originally proposed a minimum of two posts per month, but someone noted that may be too low, and so I've raised it to five posts per month. I'm still open to a different number if anyone feels that is too high or low a number.

I've required forum administration to verify that a Councilor has failed to meet the posting requirement, because there are areas of the forum the Keeper cannot see, and thus will not see posts from when clicking on a user's posts per month. Forum administration has the Staff permission set and thus can see everything. Forum administration won't need to verify that Councilors have met the requirement, because if the Keeper can see five or more posts made, clearly that person has met the requirement. So I don't believe this will impose a heavy burden on forum administration.

Thoughts?

[The Almighty Jesus Whale]

This will cull a good chunk of the Deshret, even though they vote every time, and don't have the time to post elsewhere.

I don't like this.

[Koth]

>dont have time to post elsewhere
>do have time to subvert our legislature

okay

[Cormac]

This will cull a good chunk of the Deshret, even though they vote every time, and don't have the time to post elsewhere.

I don't like this.

Of the current Councilors, only the following would have been cut for failing to meet this posting requirement I'm proposing in the month of January:

Ninja Kittens
Rickyaugustus
Ainocrez
Amy
Henri
jash7
Zaolat

Of those seven, four have not posted at all anywhere -- including voting in the Deshret -- since Fall 2015 (October and November). Zaolat has not posted since December. I would have to double check, but I suspect these five should already have been cut from the Deshret under the current voting requirement, but that it is not being kept up to date. Only Ainocrez and Henri have posted at all so far in this calendar year.

While I sympathize with the fact Ainocrez and Henry are actively voting and would potentially be cut under this new requirement, they are not "a good chunk of the Deshret," and they will be aware of this requirement and will have the opportunity to post more than five times per month. I don't believe we should opt to continue a less efficient activity requirement because two people who are actively voting don't want to actively post five times per month. It's not like they won't be given the opportunity to continue voting by posting slightly more frequently.

[The Almighty Jesus Whale]

It's a lot easier to pop in once during the five day voting period than to sift through the forum to find something to post on five times a month.

The post once a day thing didn't work too good while you were pharaoh, did it?

[Cormac]

It's a lot easier to pop in once during the five day voting period than to sift through the forum to find something to post on five times a month.

The post once a day thing didn't work too good while you were pharaoh, did it?

Their votes will also count as posts. We have spam games if they can't find something substantive to post on.

Look, this isn't meant to be punitive. We're trying to make sure Councilors are still active without the inefficient vote tracking requirement that is exceedingly difficult to track. If they do fail to meet the requirement, they can always reapply.

I will also note how much more efficient this system is: I just performed the check, unofficially, in under thirty minutes, without the use of a spreadsheet or having to scour the past several votes to see who voted and who didn't.

[Koth]

It's a lot easier to pop in once during the five day voting period than to sift through the forum to find something to post on five times a month.

The post once a day thing didn't work too good while you were pharaoh, did it?

I really hope you're not referring to Cormac when you are talking about the Pharaoh bit, because that was me. Realized the similarity of your post times.

Additionally, that was a non-binding request in an opening address and not legally binding legislation. You'd think people would be a bit more keen to post if it meant they could continue influencing our government.

Also obligatory blah blah this existed in the KRO we're all gonna die blah blah

[Cormac]

Also obligatory blah blah this existed in the KRO we're all gonna die blah blah

To be clear regarding the KRO, this existed for citizenship there, which made it a lot worse as once a person was stripped of citizenship for failing to post, they could be easily denied citizenship in the future and barred from any meaningful contribution to the regional community. So that was very different than imposing a requirement on Deshret membership, which won't affect citizenship.

I will add to my previous posts: The other option we could pursue is eliminating an activity requirement altogether, which would allow Councilors to remain Councilors as long as they remain citizens and aren't removed from the Deshret by a supermajority vote. So that is one possible alternative to this proposal.

I honestly don't much care which path we pursue, as long as we don't stick with the status quo, which imposes an unnecessary burden on the Keeper. Until you've served as Keeper (or in my case, presiding over the Deshret as Vizier earlier on in the OFO's history), you don't really understand how time consuming and difficult it is to track voting. The difficulty leads to inconsistent enforcement of membership requirements. That needs to change, whether by going to a simple monthly posting requirement as I've proposed here, or by eliminating an activity requirement altogether.

[Jakker]

I do understand the intention behind this amendment. My only concern with post requirements is that it requires plenty of opportunity to do so. There are been multiple times when we have seen a lull of things going on. Not much really there to engage in conversation. If we are to pursue something like this, we need to also think about how we can engage our Councilor with plenty of opportunities within the region.

[Cormac]

I do understand the intention behind this amendment. My only concern with post requirements is that it requires plenty of opportunity to do so. There are been multiple times when we have seen a lull of things going on. Not much really there to engage in conversation. If we are to pursue something like this, we need to also think about how we can engage our Councilor with plenty of opportunities within the region.

I agree; there have been whole months in the recent past in which the government has done next to nothing, and given no one a reason to post. This was part of why I initially proposed two posts per month, instead of five.

I would be fine with reverting to two posts per month. The idea behind activity requirements, in my view, is to make sure Councilors are still here and active enough that they won't miss votes -- not to ask them to prove something to us by posting enough. I will note that with two posts per month as the requirement, both Ainocrez and Henri would meet the requirement, leaving only the five on the list who haven't posted at all so far in 2016.