The Law: Introduction/Introductie
Day 3,095, 06:24
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Published in Netherlands 
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by
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by Spir Tus
Voor de Nederlandse versie, scroll naar beneden!
Thanks to recent developments I decided to start writing some articles. I want to do something interactive with the whole community and I invite you all to participat! It will be all about exploring the current law book. The intention of these articles will be to show everyone what the law book contains, and asks openly if it is important that we have certain laws in our lawbook. Sometimes it will be very detailed, sometimes it won't.
Every article I want to ask everyone the question if you agree with the part of law we discuss in the article. This first article will be an introduction to the article series, so I will ask you the following question:
Is it necessary to have a law book?
At the end of the article series I would like to ask the same question again and see if there are any differences.
Right now in this article I will explain why we have a lawbook and what it's purpose is. The lawbook contains of 6 Chapters, which describes in general the institutions we have in the eNetherlands. How should congress and government function? Who has access to our treasury? What is the role of the dictator? These are some questions where the answers will be in the lawbook. There are two major institutions, congress and government, who use the forum as primary communication tool to interact with eachother. Congress is even completely on the forum, thanks to the lack of possibilities for congress members ingame. Because the acts of congress can't be ingame, they have to be on the forum. This means there have to be clear rules and guidelines to have this congress function as good as possible. This is the reason you will find a lot of rules and laws which are dedicated to the functioning of congress.
Thanks for reading this introduction, and don't forget to answer the question! In the next article, I will start with Chapter I, the constitution and focus on the preamble and the first couple of articles. I would also like to know if you like this idea of me writing these articles, or if this is a pure waste of time.
Door de recente gebeurtenissen heb ik besloten om een paar artikelen te schrijven. Ik wil iets interactiefs doen met de hele gemeenschap en ik nodig jullie allen uit om hieraan deel te nemen! De artikelen zullen het huidige wetboek verkennen. De bedoeling van deze artikelen zal zijn om iedereen te laten zien wat het wetboek inhoudt, en openlijk de vraag stellen of we deze wetten echt nodig hebben. Soms zal dit gedetailleerd zijn, soms ook niet.
In elk artikel wil ik iedereen een vraag stellen of je het eens bent met het stukje van de wet waar het artikel over gaat. Dit eerste artikel zal alleen een introductie zijn voor de hele serie, dus vandaar de volgende vraag:
Is het noodzakelijk om een wetboek te hebben?
Aan het eind van deze serie zal ik weer dezelfde vraag stellen en kunnen we zien of er enige verschillen te zien zijn.
Nu wil ik in dit artikel uitleggen waarom we een wetboek hebben en wat het doel ervan is. Het wetboek bevat zes hoofdstukken, die in het algemeen de instituties die we in eNederland hebben beschrijven. Hoe zou het congres en de regering moeten functioneren? Wie heeft er toegang tot de schatkist? Wat is de rol van de dictator? Dit zijn een aantal vragen waarop het wetboek een antwoord heeft. Er zijn twee grote instituties, het congres en de regering, die het forum gebruiken als primair communicatiemiddel om met elkaar te overleggen. Het congres is zelfs alleen op het forum te vinden, dankzij het gebrek aan mogelijkheden die congresleden ingame hebben. Doordat de handelingen van het congres niet kunnen plaatsvinden ingame, is het forum een plek geworden waar het congres zich bevindt. Dit betekent dat er een hoop duidelijke regels en richtlijnen moeten zijn om het congres zo goed mogelijk te laten werken. Dit is de reden dat je veel regels zult vinden die te maken hebben met het functioneren van het congres.
Bedankt voor het lezen van deze introductie, en vergeet niet om de vraag te beantwoorden! In het volgende artikel zal ik starten met Hoofdstuk I, de grondwet, en zullen we ons richten op de preambule en de eerste paar artikelen. Ik zou ook graag willen weten of jullie dit een leuk idee vinden om deze artikelen te maken, of dat je denkt dat het pure tijdsverspilling is.
Spir Tus
A Bastion of Truth
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Comments
yes it is necessary.
Without our lawbook the president can completely change the course of our country every month. Our financial management would be at risk. No lawbook does mean that every elected CP can execute his program without much hassle. If there is no lawbook our congress would have to be involved in all CP decisions 90% of the time agreeing and 10% starting a vote on a decision. If this doesn't happen they will act as damage control as they will always be late.
I believe we need a lawbook
Ps. Nice article and great topic!
Sorry, but what financial book? Until now we just have a commune in USA which don't represent any income, at least there's 0 info about that on forums, I asked a lot of times,
Now about the "law book", it's necessary: yes, but the problem is the people which uses the forum aka odan who abuse of that "law book" with few votes to approve some sanctions/laws, that's antidemocratic and that's the problem behind all this.
Ministry of finance has a finance sheet on forum.
Also the complete financial sheet is available to all players although last time I checked it was rather simple instead of detailed. But for readability for non fanacials that aint bad...
As I said I asked a lot of times, I think the info was denied
you never asked. Nothing but lies from you.
You were whining and never gave me the info, you still do the same
I haven't seen you ask but if you would have asked in a normal way I'm sure you would have received the link...
Sure
Nice but face the facts. Our community is as small as sedonia. The law does not have any influence when we don't have enough people to fill the congress seats and to act on the forum as a representative Congress of all Dutch citizens. Just because half of the congress members even don't go to the forum.
So yes it's nice and necessary, but simple not 'uitvoerbaar'
That half the congress members do not do anything, means effectively we can ignore them. They're simply getting elected because we have 40 congress seats, and too few active people to fill them effectively.
Of course it is necessary to have a set of rules. But laws don't ensure a community is going to abide to them. Laws don't make order, but follow order 😉
I don't believe the laws are the problem. I believe the institute that makes them (the forum Congress) and especially the institute that interprets them (the forum administration) is the genuine problem.
How could this be solved? First of all laws only work in real life because there's an independent juridical system that can judge on the interpretation of laws. Because such a system is not possible in eRepublik, it means that the interpretation of laws is just an orgy of law-bending by the 'strongest' - in this case the strongest establishment power on the forums. That will make a situation in which laws aren't considered as holy anymore and just a product of an unrepresentative class of the eNetherlands. Eventually, the laws are not going to be abided and that is not a desirable situation to anyone.
Which is exactly the case right now. The law is no longer the 'wish' of the majority of the country, but a method of power to push a minority agenda in the form of a status quo. Right now Congress isn't even allowed to make opinions on specific cases, but the forum administration is.
What the solution is? Bring the in-game closer to the forum. That means abolishing the Dictatorship, laying active links between in-game votes and forum discussions (which means a duty for the CoC to be active in-game with PM Groups and Articles). Keeping secondary laws about procedures and (forum) administration as low as possible. Perhaps a whole new medium should be considered. And most of all: The country should be governed by the people by law, not exclusively by law with excluding the people as it done now.
Indeed the problem with the law is its vagueness with a lot of things. It's open for interpretation, or how you like to call it, common sense. This acting based on common sense is the problem in my opinion. It is very biased to base judgemental stuff on opinions. Therefore we can use laws to have general rules to apply to specific situations. In reality this means a stricter lawbook than we know them in real life. Which I think should be the ultimate goal of congress. To create a lawbook that excludes all opinions which can be used by people to profit, like you and Odan do.
I hope with these articles to bring ingame a bit closer to the forum. Or the forum closer to ingame. But as I experience myself in doing this, it requires activity, which we don't have much. It needs collaboration, which we don't have much.
I think my solution of a better law book won't work. It's my utopia which was created when I first started playing this game. I think your solution won't work either, because it requires too much.
I think the best thing to do in the end is just work all together. We have not so much active people. Let all the active people work together. If we can abolish the party system, that would be a great first step 😛 (also very unlikely)
I don't get it why you don't like the forum administration. If you don't like it, you have the power to prevent it from happening, but you don't use this power. So in a sense it is 'eigen schuld dikke bult'.
Added to Tonies remarks;
The Law ain't fitting game mechanics anymore plus they are (Or at least; Were when I was politically active, but I don't think that's changed) vague/multi-interpretable which led to discussions on the exact meaning and applying forum admins interpretation to it as a rule while they were and from what I hear for the most part still are not neutral nor focussed on the real game. Just on remaining forum power. The one that had a connection to the game (but still most of the time unwilling to change a law that didn't fit anymore) sadly left us a while back.
I can write a lot more and give several examples but Tonie pointed to the majority of problems. Adding extra stuff due to examples will only make some people feel personally attacked as they seem to be unable to distinguish between comment on a law/role or a person either. Not to mention the fact I don't intend to spend much time on this issue again. I've done my share, tried for a long time but lost faith.
7. The Dictator can never simultaneously be a Country President. If someone attains both offices, he must resign one of them.
this seems pretty easy to understand.
Yup. But given the current situation in game its outdated. Auggy said it quite right a while back already.
But thx for pointing to the main problem I have with several forum players; sticking to a rule that clearly is not the best one in the current "real world" of the game in stead of working towards a swift solution. As it is now we're in a deadlock resulting in hardly scoring pounts and therefore no resources until now.
actually some of us "forum players" were looking at a solution. but some people can only see party politics and it therefore did not pan out.
This law odan quoted is based on the results of the referendum with the outcome we should have a neutral dictator. The Dictator law is recently (February this year) updated.
The current deadlock is the responsibility of one person. Tonie knew about this law, but yet he broke the law. It could have been easily solved if he just followed the rules like everyone else, or discussed the possibilities before he actually broke the law, which he didn't.
If you don't stick to the rules, it's better to have none at all. A bit of flexibility is needed from everyone, but I think you can't expect everyone to just accept the fact someone is breaking a law for personal gain only.
Can't see the whole picture? Odan abuse of their position in the forum to close, delete and take decisions without the participation of all congressmen, that forum is a cancer that is killing this ecountry, it's not the "law book" it's the use some people give to these laws
"The dictator" refers to the dictator of the time, "a dictator would be the wording if we wanted it to apply to all dictators. It is also nice to know the law only applies to males.
Indeed odan, party politics often is an issue. People don't tend to look at the importance for eNL. It's no surprise thats the case now also.
Yes Spir Tus it could have been prevented if Tonie didn't run. Yet it was clear when announced, even without thorough reading, that it would be best to keep matters in one hand this month to be able to act quickly. Tonie not running ain't the solution at that point. Its congress that should have been pro-active and create a temp law or exception month or whatever way to do it. And we all know active is already a problem for several (if not locked out by admin) let alone pro-active.
It's precisely this kind of, not that often needed, quick adaptations that forum congress is unable to perform that gives clashes between the game and our laws and therefore devides our nation. And also which is why I always state there are forum players that play with laws and such and game players that try to do what is best in game the moment something pops up or when action is needed.
Sadly there are hardly players left that do both. We had several and still have a few but way to less. I will not start elaborating on the reasons why. Most players that are here for a while know why. For as long as forum players and/or congress are not able to adapt quickly when needed I can't take them seriously nor can I bother to try to move towards them. I stick to the game while working together with the few players that actually try to do the best for the eNL community. An amount countable on one hand 🙁
It's convenient to leave out the fact that a motion to make an exception this month has been blocked by CoC Odan, as well as a mption of no confifence against the CoC. Both supported by a majority by the way. Even more conveniently, all these actions only benefit the forum cronies themselves personally, at the cost of letting the country and stall. The law is not here to serve the people, but is used by some meta-elites to oppress the actual Ecountry
Ingame is far away from the forum these days indeed. That means the people who are interested in the laws can't adapt quickly, because the ingame is too far away. Because the ingame people aren't familiar with the laws, and are unable to work with them, which cause this division. There is indeed a lack of players to do both. I honestly have tried in the beginning but quit because of the big differences. For as long as ingame players aren't able to accept laws, I can't take them seriously nor can I bother to move closer towards them. I will work with everyone who wants to work together to a better working ecountry.
I think everybody accepts laws Spir Tus. As long as they serve the game/community. If they don't the law should change, not the other way around. And precisely that is what's lacking. Like you I have tried, but as long as there are certain groups on forum blocking change it will never work.
I am sorry Spir Tus, but this serie of articles are unnecessary, the problem is the abuse by the people in charge of the forum, they abuse of their position all the time, so this "change" or "ideas" aren't the solution.
We need impartial people in charge of the forums, not abusive people full of hungry power
The people have the power to change who is in power of the forums. If people don't visit the forum, it's their fault if others take over. Of course the people on there will do everything they see and can to prevent abuse of forum rights, but those people are maybe biased. I want to ask with these articles the question if the law and the forum is really needed. If the answer is yes at the end of this series, then we should encourage everyone to be on this forum and help changing it.
The current admin use his party members, friends in other parties and some old moderator to prevent any change or improvement Spir Tus (deleting or closing topics/posts), we have saw the same problematic in the past. Until the day this community realise is under an abusive group of people nothing will change, we need to expose them!!
Again the law book is not the problem it's the people who uses the laws and forums for abuse, inactivity is something common yes, but the current situation is worse
The funny thing is, it is actually really easy to get rid of someone abusing his powers. Odan is chosen over and over again as CoC, all MoNCs fail. Do you know why? Because the lack of interest of people who oppose odan to actually get rid of him. Geuzenpartij, 9 elected, only 2 vote regularly. ReL, 8 elected, only 2 vote regularly, 2 sometimes if it is important for their party to vote.
There are enough people with power to change things, but they don't do anything. Thanks to their inactivity, the active people will profit from this and those people are the forum elite.
We need those people with power to do something. And if those people aren't doing anything, it's up to their parties to mobilize themselves. I think it is the lack of interest in politics of a lot of people which causes this situation getting worse.
Yes it is necessary to have a law book, as stated to protect our finances and the basic rules. But as (it think) many players including me, i dont visit the forum that much (last few months even not) so a little looksie in the rules is always nice!
Mijn complimenten voor het artikel! Heel goed dat het ook in het Nederlands is geschreven!
Tomorrow the first real article in this series. Thank you for all the good comments! This was exactly what I hoped for (more comments than votes is the goal, my own comments excluded 😛)