GLD wants your opinion on Senate!
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by GLD HQ
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GLD wants your opinion on Senate!
Not every eUNL citizen knows that eRepublik for some parts consists out of 2 platforms. There is the ingame part (erepublik.com) and the forum part (enetherlands.nl). While most of us use the first part to eat, work, drink and basically makes sure our avatar get through another day the forum part is a place where (with) discussion and debate, we all try to manage this country together. Ensuring the states company have their income, so they can supply jobs for the ingame part, making sure that we decide upon going to war or not going to war.
Right now, there are strong ties between the ingame and forum part. For example: most decisions are being made through congress. To get into congress you need to succesfully run for office in the ingame part. Where people like you and me (eUNL citizens that is) get to decide who the people that will represent them are.
With 212 votes in the last election we are sure that there are many more people participating in politcis ingame then on our forums. Congress shows us which political parties you have the most faith in, which in turn helps us appoint a government that is also active on the platform part. Lastly, our president also gets elected through the ingame part.
However, participation of chosen congress members isn't what it should be, some congress members get elected and then never show up in the forum part of the game - and in doing so neglect your votes - and seem just to be doing this to get a nice medal + 5 gold. There is little we can do to stop this.
However, at this very moment in the forum part a debate is being held about separating the ties between the two platforms a bit more. The solution was found in creating a senate within the forum part.
Our party the Green Liberal Democrats understands that eUNL is not created by the people on any of those 2 platforms but by the synergy between the two. It gives the eUNL citizens who don't necessarily want to participate politically or get to know other citizens through eUNL a voice. Heck, you could not even have any ties with eUNL but only live here because you bought a company on our ground or think that our workers are the most dedicated in the entire eRepublik: still the decisions being made on the political stage could hurt your business or help it.
We want to know how you feel about senate, so we can get a good understanding of how the majority of people that make up eUNL (and help it stay alive and slowly climbing the ranks) feel about senate.
Make your voice hear😛
HERE
If you want more information about senate. Keep on reading, below is a FAQ.
Q What will be the difference between senate and congress?
A: Senate is the forum part and congress the ingame part of our government.
Ingame congress will be voting on ingame laws (taxes, impeachment, donation). Everything else: confidence votes, issues with other countries, "Privatising State Companies" and also how tax money is spend.
Q How are members for Senate and Congress elected?
A: Congress will be elected through the ingame voting rounds, whereas Senate will only be voted upon once every 3 months within the forums.At this very moment roughly 1/4th of the people that voted in eUNL in our last congress election (a total of 212) are active on these forums (that is - roughly! - 53 people!). So 1/4 th of eUNL will decide who gets to represent them in Senate and who will be their government.
Q Will Senate finally solve the problem of inactivity by those who are elected?
Well, that is hard to say at this very moment. Senate would consist out of 25 players. The Green Liberal Democrats feel that right now there is more activity on the ingame voting part then the forum part.
Example: Congress is active on the forums as it is. The debate before putting any proposal into voting ingame. Two days ago the GLD made a proposal to give our president a mandate to negotiate action against another country. The proposal was a difficult one, because there is a lack of evidence if that country has done anything wrong in the first place. But at least our president would have been given a mandate to pose this very question internatonally. In the en😛
9 congress members took time to vote. Out of 45 chosen congress members this is really low. The ingame voting (last one: proposal for closing war with England) was held around the same time and got 29 votes! So probably these congress members are not on holiday, but only care to vote ingame and not on the forums.
Q: Why do we need a senate in the 1st place
A: Well, some people feel that the ingame government system is not adequate to govern all the institutions (mostly state owned companies). They also feel that the erepublik citizens and people who run for congress don't take it very seriously (they only join because of the 5 gold you win for getting elected). Also
Q: What are the states companies, how are they run?
This is difficult to answer. Not much is known about these companies, they provide jobs for new players - which is a hard group to provide work for in most ecountries, while they really need it. That is a good thing. Companies are probably paid for by using tax payers money to buy raws and operate these companies. However, no-one has to give a financial review of what they are doing. It is basically trust. If a company owner would decide to go rogue: there would be no chance to stop him/her. He/she could be hurting the economy for a long time before this is discovered. About state companies the following is stated in Chapter III:
Article 22
All government organisations and state companies are the legal property of a counsel of elders. This counsel will give ministers, secretaries of state and state managers access to the organisations and companies
So, if some people feel that the Q5 weapon companies are using a lot of tax money to supply a small group of the military to help a small group gain military ranks, then basically they are right. On the other han😛
those players are needed to fight battles: they are called tanks. It is however difficult to see how the money is spend and if everyone is being given a fair chance.
Q: If the game is broken in some part (i.e. congress isn't working as it should), then why not try to change the game itself?
A: A very good point. Instead of putting our energy in a senate, why can't we make up a decent system and try to get it through to the eRepublik Developers. Right now they have a suggestion page up so that could be a good starting point. If we rally some other countries - sure we are not the only one with this problem - then this could allow other countries to vote as well. This way we can make the game itself better, and not just our single community.
Q: Is it true that there is an group of elitist witin eUNL that decides basically everything that happens, and will they be in senate?
A: Did 9/11 happen because of government involvement? (oh wait, maybe not such a good example, there may be people who actually believe that) So: NO, there is no such thing going on, no group of beta-old players that decides what is best for you, no group of elitist that run this country. However there are older and more experienced players who feel that they know what is best for this country. They are right a lot of the time, and sometimes they are not. Point. Some of them will not always to listen to suggestions from people outside of their group. But the same happens with new and less experienced players.
However, as it is (based on forum participation) chances are that senate will consist out of a lot of those experienced players. As sai😛
this is not a bad thing, with experience comes knowledge, however: a lot of new players might not get a feeling they belong within our community and look for some other place to live. We need to organize our forums and community and political bodies so that people feel welcome and not alarmed.
Q: So is the GLD for or against a senate?
A: GLD is for community participation in all political, economical and military fields eUNL has to offer. We feel the strong need to keep everybody on board as this is the best way to keep players motivated, interested and participating in building our nation. The way it is executed right now, we feel that senate may not be the best alternative for a state body that already exists within eRepublik, namely congress. We would rather beef up congress (i.e. try to make party members debate and vote in congress more seriously, promote a newspaper that informs players about what is going on, put some mechanics into place that will help ensure congress members are active: a blacklist for inactive members, maybe a monetary incentive for those who are active and so on.). However, we are curious as to how you feel so go ahead and vote
HERE
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Comments
Good stuff, very helpfull to many I think.
Great article.
By the by, it is written by Paladijn like all our GLDi articles until now. The guy is to modest to put his name below, but I think you all should know. 🙂
I know this is for the best of us all. But with this, you give more powers to the so called "elite" . And I realy dont like the idea of self made rules or things.. it may have benefits, but also has its down sides.
example. Pietje doesnt like forums, thats why he just plays erep. But even when he plays this game every day, takes a look several times a day, some see him as an inactive player
WTF is this for bullshit? And i think, this effect will increase with a Senate
SuBruo, we realise more players think the way you do, hence why we made this article and poll. We want to know what everybody thinks, not just the people on the forum.
Well done.
It clarifies so many things about senate
Great article, nice work Paladijn!
@SuBruo: You cannot do everything that needs to be done in this game. There's no infrastructure for debates and articles disappear from view within a day or three. That's why some of players (like me) are also active on the UNL forum.
But that does not mean you can't be active if you're not on the forum! Imo it is the game that has priority over the forum, I don't want to force anyone to join the forum.
Members of congress that do not show up on the forum get blamed, for example in this article. But there's nothing wrong with not being on the forum.
But we need to debate about things like our state companies and like I said, ingame there's no infrastructure to facilitate debate. So we need a congress on the forum. But not many of the ingame congress members actively participate on the congress part of the forum. As it is now, very few people decide on issues there. We need more people to participate. With a (senate) election on the forum, you'll most likely get candidates for the congress forum who are active on the forum. So with luck, more people join the debates!
Except when governing a country you can't rely on luck.
Cocoamok, really now. Every member of our party can join our Private Forum. If they don't, then they are still free to run for party presidency. I've heard no protest whatsoever on Pander becoming our Party President. And the 'active members' do not decide who runs for congress, Pander decided to run himself. A few members did encourage him, this was done on the private forum, but there is nothing against that is there?
Thanks for this argument, I believe the same. It is the same for Senate, all citizens can register on our forum and will be able to vote and discuss on the senate. But against the Senate GLD is campaigning.
It was for party presidency Pander Sols was running (not for congress). He is not chosen, because the results are not there, Scrouger is ingame party president for GLD at this time. That is another argument for elections on our forum, admins make many mistakes in the elections.
I would have to disagree with my party on this one. I don't really buy the synergy argument. Of course, there are many people who just work, train, eat, and vote without using the forums. But that's precisely the reason to get the Senate in the first place. We give them an incentive to join the forums. Isn't an active member preferable to a two-clicker? Why should we deny the Senateon the basis that those who aren't interested in being part of the eUNL community in the forums?