Join the new world

Hello all! I've checked the corridor and I think it's safe to come out now.

It will not have escaped your attention that tomorrow (25th) is Congress election day. Yet again I've included my 1-0-1 of why to vote below - if you already intend to vote, you can skip that part!

So what has Congress been up to this month? Anyone with an eye on the media will see it has been far from uneventful - my personal thanks goes to those Congressmen and the one PP who stood up for the eUK’s community in the face of some unhinged and unpleasant behaviour. It's the naughty step next month for the perpetrator.

Now onto the really saucy party, what was voted on:


Saucy

A Greenlight of Donate proposals - Increasingly people wanted to discuss donations before voting, so we do a ‘greenlighting’ discussion to achieve consensus to ensure everyone is happy voting yes.

A tweak of Congress guidelines to factor in Greenlighting at the start of term.

Several funding streams were ringfenced - one for a social fund, one for an activity/rewards framework, and one to support energy distribution schemes. This helps make sure our tax revenue can benefit a wide pool of players.

We then approved further tweaks to the Congress guidelines around expectations of the Speaker role, and held a speaker election (I’m not going to ruin the results for you, look below!).

Should you have any questions about the role of Speaker, Congress Guidelines or how you can become a Congressmen just drop me a line.

The Tables

As has become customary the closing of Congress is complemented by two tables reporting on engagement in and voting on the non-admin proposals. In short a look at how Congress concluded to push the buttons it did and their vote spreads.

% Participation

The below table maps out the number of percentage of Congresspeople who participated in each debate and vote, split by party. The top half is our Congress debates and the second half are the admin votes.



The percentage relative to members shifts over time as Congresspeople changed parties

And the Averages:


Vote Spread

The next table shows the vote spread of our non-admin votes (all admin votes are on the country admin page). If it isn’t immediately obvious what the proposals may be (got to keep those columns neat!) get in touch and I can clarify.


eDino WikiEds’ Speaker vote was not counted as they resigned before the election concluded.

Speakers Observations

We reached new heights in turnout for a non-admin vote this month with 80% (32) Congressmen participating in the vote on Activity Incentives. We have also had a new medium of debate in holding discussions on themes without proposals attached to them. It was encouraging to see people discuss these topics and I know it was useful to the Country President in being able to see how Congress felt, what questions they had and so on. Long may it continue.

eHansard

Lastly it is worth mentioning non-admin debates and votes are archived and I am happy to share the logs with anyone who might be interested in seeing them. All of these stats are auditable.



Voting 101

When election days come, remember:

Voting gets you 5 EXPERIENCE POINTS!, wow, 5. Any adult citizen can vote, and we can all feel fuzzy inside if our turnout twitches slightly.

Voting also determines WHO ENDS UP IN CONGRESS!, as President, or in charge of parties. no surprises there. But it may influence your choice based on the engagement or demeanour of a particular party.

You CAN GET ELECTED TOO! The top 5 parties can elect Congressmen so pick one of those and they may run you (the PP positions you on the party list). Typically there are 40 Congresspeople.

Congress HAVE BUTTONS! They can use them to do laws. These include donating currency to orgs, converting gold to currency, fiddling around with taxes and minimum wage, setting natural enemy or launching airstrikes (or signing MPP's and approving peace, if you're an optimist). More info, as always, can be found on the wiki.

Congress HAS OTHER BUTTONS, a whole keyboard full, which they use to discuss what's what, how things might run or to point at things they don't like, and theoretically stop them. Congress is, in game terms, where accountability meets mouse clicks and so this part of Congress life is pretty important (especially when things go wrong!).

So make sure you VOTE - do it for me! (Or your country? if you're that way inclined).

Thanks for reading,

Mr Woldy



P.S. I have published this from work so I shall double check it all when I get back this evening!