Join the new world

For all those who have been in the eUK’s Congress at any time this year, the issue debated most passionately by many congressmen has been whether they should chat with each other on the forums, or in the in-game PMs. This has been particularly vitriolic and intense this month, and for a time at the start of June completely overrode all other congress discussions, including congress’s discussion on the recently signed NSPP.


Just a flavour of the quality of debate in Congress

What followed was a completely ridiculous and ill thought through ‘FORUMS YES/NO’ vote, which just served to divide and inflame congress even more than it was already. From what I gathered from the mess that constituted a debate, it was being proposed that congress talk be moved entirely onto the forums, a motion which passed (14 votes to 7 with some abstentions). I have an issue with this vote:

Simply, it’s just tyranny of the majority, where a section of congressmen are imposing their views on how Congress should talk to each other simply because they are in the majority. Ultimately you cannot, nor should you, force people to sign up to the external forums in order to participate in discussions. People have fundamentally signed up to the game and not the forum and if they choose not to join the forums, that is their choice and it is one the rest of the community should respect. Denying congressmen access to congressional discussion because they won’t sign up to an external site is a restriction of their right to participate, in my opinion.

Luckily, the Speaker hotfuz has wisely kept the PM threads running to actually try and include all congressmen in discussion.

What we needed was a sensible debate on this, so that Congress could produce a system which it was unanimously happy with, not just a majority. What we got was a stupid premature vote which detracted from the real issues. It is not, nor has it ever been, a straight choice between using the forums or using the PMs. There is no practical reason why, with enough organisation, all forms of communication (Forums, PMs, IRC) can’t be used together.



To me, the solution to this has been a simple one for quite some time. Let people participate in whichever way they choose. If some congressmen would rather participate in congress discussions on the forum, then the Speaker should ensure that debate threads are opened in the relevant sections on there for every topic, just as he would put information into the Congress PMs. In addition to this, a good way of drawing the two sets of players together is through Congress meetings on IRC.

All solving this problem takes is a bit of willingness to compromise with the different egos within congress and a bit of organisation. If you leave Congress to it’s own devices, it inevitably falls into chaos and ineffectiveness, with the sole exception of last months congress- which due to the quality of the players involved was a great asset to the eUK. Real tax changes were actually discussed and passed, before this congress absurdly decided to repeal them without even waiting to see what the effects of the changes were.

---

I’m not just going to sit here and moan about the state of Congress, I intend to do something about it, so I will be running for Congress and Speaker in three weeks time, to try and sort this mess out so that all members of congress can participate in a structured, ordered and effective environment.


Tl😉R

The ‘Forums YES/NO’ vote was ridiculous and should never have gone ahead without an actual proposal being put forward. Moving all Congress discussion to the Forums would be undemocratic.

Just let everyone participate in the way the want, and the Speaker can draw it all together to create a cohesive discussion. It just needs a bit of effort and organisation. I intend to do something myself to sort this mess out, and so will run for Speaker if I get into congress on the 25th.

Cheers,

Adastros