Updated: First days of Congress

Day 2,442, 09:57 • Published in United Kingdom United Kingdom • by Mr Woldy


Hello all!

I have taken it upon myself to offer some brief updates on what has gone on in Congress over the past few days, as there has been a few discussions and proposals already launched.

Firstly, dealing with the speaker. According to the guidelines, the outgoing speaker or the country president should arrange the candidates for speaker whilst the Congress election is happening, so that on the 26th voting may start immediately. For whatever reason this wasn’t followed this month, so after the election I added the few congressmen not on my friends list as a friend, and when the last one accepted I set up to discussion groups to get the speaker sorted ASAP. After a day of allowing people to candidate themselves, the voting has started and all congressmen have been sent details on how to vote.

Rob the Bruce was the only candidate, but as a matter of formality a vote has been ran offering Congressmen a choice between Rob or renominations. I am confident Rob will be elected speaker and he will likely set up new messaging threads and will organise communication with cabinet as he sees fit.

Update: Rob has won the vote 31 - 2.

Whilst that has been going on three proposals have been opened in the Congress part of the forum (which you can find here). The first proposal is to repeal the speaker act, the second is an immigration bill, and the last is a discussion on moving Congress onto the forums.



So far only a small number of Congressmen have participated, this I put down to there being no speaker and the discussion hasn’t moved ingame yet. The discussion on repealing the speaker act was opened by Dan Moir, and so far the general sentiment seems to be more in favour of reform than it does repeal. Personally I am pro reform and after this month I specifically want to rethink how candidates for speaker are selected and voted open, to allow us to hit the ground running each month and not be dependent on outgoing speakers or government members who may not fulfill the ‘preparing for next month role’, which has been the shortcoming of the current act. I also believe that a MoLA is not good for Congress - I believe that Congress need a representative in Cabinet (in the form of a speaker) and not the other way round (ie: a CP appointed person lording over Congress).

The immigration bill named the Citizenship Act has been proposed by Tiger Style, and is addressing a pretty hot topic in the eUK, with the whole PTO business going on. Discussion on it has been somewhat limited so far, but my two cents is that in its current form the bill could do with some alterations. Mainly on the size and selection of the committee, and how people are penalised if they break the rules. As Congress under the new voting system are held to account by their PP’s, I feel that it would be best to have PP’s agree to some form of punishment, or to involve them directly in the process. I hope this bill gets more attention once the speaker is elected.

The final proposal also by Dan Moir is to relocate Congress discussion back onto the forums. So far, most people who have commented are in favour of this move, though I suspect that may be because congressmen not on the forums haven’t seen it yet. If you peruse the thread, you will see that I am opposed to moving Congress discussion onto the forums. There are two main reasons for this; firstly is simply that not everyone uses the forums. It may be a good public record and an efficient way to discuss issues - but only for forum users. I am hoping we can find an acceptable alternative in using messaging threads for general Q & A and holding key debates on articles in the comments, as had been done before and as is being done successfully in various other eCountries. That way, an ingame record exists that everyone can access easily (especially if a wiki page is updated archiving the debates). My second reason for opposing the move is that, we as Congress need to introduce some activity checks and standards on ourselves, and if part of those checks become an expectation to use the forums then it will unfairly penalise people who do not use the forums, and as such will create an elitist Congress.

I have a feeling that this will be a contentious issue this month. The forums do make discussion easier, I just think they lessen the egalitarian ethos which Congress has started to embody by moving ingame. All we need to do is make sure that our private message threads are made public every week and that we hold key debates in the public eye anyway, which I believe has the same benefits as using forums. To try and gauge public opinion on this I have set up a poll, which I have sent to all Congressmen and members of my own party, but which I invite the public at large to fill in.

The poll is here: http://tinyurl.com/CongressOpinions

You would be helping out me and others discussing this topic by filling it in, so if you are an eUK citizen feel free to do so!



I hope to make one or two proposals of my own this month, both aimed to improve accountability and activity amongst congress. In the meantime you’re gonna have to find your fun playing games or going outside, ew!

Thanks for Reading.
Mr Woldy.







To apply for the ‘Woldy’s Young Achievers’ Scheme, be below level 25 an😛
Request a welcome ingame (via PM): 15 Q7 Guns + 20 Q5 Foods.
Post on the forum thread: 10 Q7 Guns + 20 Q5 Foods.
Get elected a Congressmen or PP: 10 Q7 Guns + 10 Q5 Foods.


As part of the Royal Writers, every player under level 25 who releases an article with at least a paragraph of decent content, whether it be political, humorous, or informative, will receive 150 GBP. Any writer under level 30 who gets an article into the top 5, will receive 300 GBP. Message me for your prize.


The Royal Fun Fund is a program which aims to encourage fun and games in the eUK by bankrolling prizes for contests, quizzes and other fun stuff. If you have an idea for an entertainment program, message me to apply for prize money funding!