Just the Facts
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by MaryamQ
Hello, fellow eBelgians:
There has been a lot of heated discussion in the past few days about the upcoming elections, both in the forums and in the media. I have stated my position freely in both areas, but what I would like to do at this point is present the facts, as calmly and dispassionately as I can, and let you decide for yourselves.
FACT: We have 3 candidates in the upcoming election for Country President:
1. AlphaMFPEFM_Z, running for Belgium for Belgians
2. Thore Thoreson, running for The Free Belgium Party
3. Radakovic Nemanja, running for the Nikola Tesla Party
FACT: There are some clear differences among these candidates.
1. AlphaMFPEFM_Z is a former eFrench national who obtained eBelgian citizenship on June 18 expressly for the purpose of buying the CP medal in exchange for 300 gold to be donated to the eBelgian treasury. He is also a field marshal, has no publications, and no previous political medals, but has won 7 hard worker medals and 4 super soldier medals.
2. Thore Thoreson has been elected to Congress 3 times. He, too, is a field marshal, has 12 hard worker medals and 4 super soldier medals. He is the press director of the newspaper Valhalla.
3. Radakovic Nemanja has also been elected to Congress 3 times. He is a colonel, with 4 hard worker medals, 1 super soldier medal, and no publications.
FACT: There has been considerable division in Congress and within parties over the issue of selling the CP medal. Two members of Congress have switched parties over this debate.
Without naming names or parties, I wish to present you with the following information, from which you may draw your own conclusions:
Voting for the proposal to sell the medal, in a nonbinding poll vote:
No. Date signed in Posts on forum Medal donation
1. June 26 236 Yes
2. June 26 570 Yes
3. June 26 382 Yes
4. June 27 16 Yes
5. June 26 86 Yes
6. July 3 167 Yes
7. June 26 367 Yes
8. June 26 60 Yes
9. July 2 19 ?
10. July 2 2 ?
11. June 28 6 Yes
12. June 28 63 Yes
Voting against the proposal:
1. June 26 260 Yes
2. June 26 105 Yes
3. June 26 681 Yes
4. June 26 93 Yes
5. June 26 303 Yes
6. June 26 102 Yes
7. June 26 203 Yes
8. June 26 125 Yes
9. June 26 131 Yes
10. June 26 937 Yes
11. June 26 219 Yes
12. June 26 705 Yes
Those elected to Congress but not voting in this poll:
1. June 26 427 Yes
2. June 27 201 Yes
3. June 26 415 Yes
4. July 2 5 ?
5. July 3 9 ?
6. Has not to date Unknown ?
Note: The first column refers to the date signed into the congressional section of the forum, where debates and voting take place, after the June 25 election. The second column refers to the total posts on the national forum at the time of this writing, including posts not related to congressional business. The third column refers to the traditional donation to the national bank of gold won from the treasure map when elected to Congress.
FACT: With regard to the statement that 4 of 5 party presidents agreed to this plan:
1. Belgium for Belgium PP was mattinouet at the time of this debate. He has since resigned and been replaced by ThomasRed, who first put this proposal before Congress and continues to support it.
2. Res Belgica PP Reaussou has publicly stated that he supported the proposal on a personal basis, but does not support the way it was implemented, and was not speaking for the party. In keeping with the majority opinion of the party, he has published an endorsement of the candidacy of Thore Thoreson.
3. Belgian Research Party PP mudduck95 was not elected to Congress this term and has not made a public statement that I am aware of, but it is believed he supports the plan.
4. Nikola Tesla Party PP Radkovic Nemanja favors the plan.
5. Free Belgium PP Palodigon has publicly opposed it.
Finally, dear readers, I would ask you to examine the facts, examine what each candidate stands for, and make an informed vote. And please, if you comment, and I hope you will, keep it respectful on both sides.
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Comments
Nice article. voted.
Fact: The 300g will help our eCountry increase its income from anywhere to 33-50%.
Fact : Large % of the number of posts on national forum of more than a lot of forum members are in the Forum games subforum and are posts like : 199,198,197, etc... (final coutdown)
I really don't like to compare forum members messages to make your point. It's not because someone posted more than an other one that his voice is more important.
Belgian Research Pary support the plan, as stated by their two leaders, Mudduck95 and M.Leviathin.
Finally, here is how i see the situation and the facts :
1. Thore Thoreson will be President at the end
2. Voting for ALPHA will help eBelgium with a 300 gold (!) donation
3. Voting for Thoreson won't help eBelgium economy
So make your choice, and help eBelgium !
Fact: Without an open war, the president has basically no aability to harm Belgium. The only one to lose out with this plan from a game mechanics perspective would be Thore's medal page & bank account, by about 3-4 gold.
With all due respect, to the last 3 posters, I have included no facts that were not verifiable and about things that have already happened. What good or harm may be done by voting for Alpha is in the future and is not verifiable. Also, I agree that many of the forum posts are in forum games, etc., which is why I did state that not all posts were for congressional business. However, a total of 16, 19, 2 or 6 posts in the national forum does not appear to me to suggest an overwhelming interest in the country or the business of Congress for which these representatives to Congress were elected.
Option 1:
Vote for ALPHA
Get 300 gold
Thore becomes president
Option 2:
Vote for Thore
Thore becomes president
If you do the math, Option 1 is clearly the winner 😃
It's just that i wanted to defend a bit the Congressmen that are active ingame but not on forum... Indeed i prefer to see them active also on the forum, but at first eRepublik is a web based game and not a forum game and that is their choice to stick to the website and not to spend time on the forum...
In the same way of idea, I would like to see all Congressmembers on IRC, to discuss, debate, etc with our citizens, and to be able to meet people from others countries, to exchange ideas, etc... Unfortuntalety there is less than 10% of Congressmembers active on IRC, but i do not blame them, and it doesnt make their voice less important.
You do have a point, Thomas, about IRC, which I know you have encouraged. I personally am not usually comfortable in any kind of chat room, where there is less time to think about what people are saying, but I can see the benefits in meeting a broader range of people and exchanging ideas. I would point out, however, that it is on the forum the official business of Congress is conducted, and while people may be active in game without entering the forum (as I was myself for some time), they are missing out on that business and failing to represent their constituents if they rarely or never visit the forum.
Most of countries of eRepublik have also a special Congress Channel on irc, and it become a real place to debate, in // of the forum, which is just the official support for the non ingame vote...
A lot of debates we have on the forum are not very good to make our ideas and exchanges clear for the citizens, and most of the time it affraid them...
If Congressmen had the possibilites to debate first on irc, to exhchange ideas, etc, and then to post on the forum, the quality of the Congress forum will be for sure improved...
We can see for example a lot of questions on our forum, which are always the same and don't help the forum to be clear... If people were active on irc, they will be able to ask any questions any time with an direct answer...
Again, you have a good point, and if such a congressional channel were set up for eBelgium, I would feel it was my duty to participate in it as an elected member of Congress. I agree there is often misunderstanding in the forum debates, and perhaps if we talked things out in IRC first we could indeed make ourselves clearer to the citizens. On the other hand, RL considerations might limit the number of members of Congress who could participate in any given discussion. The forum at least has the advantage of allowing anyone to participate whenever it is convenient. I seriously doubt that people who do not participate in the forum would do any better in IRC.
Jofroi and Pieter557 are two people very active on IRC, but not active a lot on our forums for example... The forum is indeed essential, but the irc can help too. It's also a good place to strenghten links between our citizens, and it's also very important to create a community.
Thank you for pointing that out, Thomas. Anything that strengthens our community has to be considered a benefit to our country. I also was not aware that these 2 congressmen were more active on IRC than the forums (although neither is among the extremely low forum posters I was suggesting are not interested in serving). You have convinced me to try IRC, perhaps not tonight, but in the coming days. I just hope my very slow computer will tolerate it! 🙂
IRC requires a lot less computing power than web messenger.. see you there!
By the way, MaryamQ, as Minister you will have to come on irc, so it's nice you decided to do the step forward and to discover IRC...
There is a private channel for governments members, #eBe_Cabinet, where governments members can discuss of their plans, and we used to organise a weekly IRC meeting with all Ministers to make an update on their works... It was also planned to make an ingame report of these meetings, to let all citizens being able to know what is going on in eBelgium and to improve the transparency. It's not always easy to stick to this goals when we suffer from inactivity, but it's a nice way to improve communications.
Thanks, Thomas. Another thing I didn't know. And thanks for the reassurance, Hugo. As you can see, I am not used to IRC, but I guess I will become so!
Day 958, 09:58 I never trusted IRC either, but I am considering an internet phone. How easy is it to access IRC from a phone?