What Changes Would You Make?

Day 2,086, 17:50 • Published in Switzerland Switzerland • by sgtchewy

I for one am always complaining that the admins of eRep haven’t done anything to update, change, or improve the political module in any way, shape, or form. They make plenty of changes to the military module, but none to political one. Tonight, I asked myself, “What would I change if I could?” I thought that it would take two seconds for me find three dozen changes that would make it better. It didn’t. It took me a lot longer than that. Thinking of good political changes that most people wouldn’t argue against is hard. Once I got going, however, it became easier to think of good ways. Here are just a few of my ideas. Please give me yours, I want your ideas. Any reason to yell at the admins is a good reason. 😃

The Cabinet

The cabinet of the president has absolutely no In-Game power. Maybe that should change. Each position could do a lot more, if it had any actual power. Here are just a few ways that this could happen. Keep in mind that all of these ideas are still in development. Some people think that some out of game stuff should stay out of game, such as alliances. I’m not going to agree or disagree with that.

Minister of Defense: The MoD could be given the power to set an IG prio list for everyone to see. The CP would also have the power to change that. Egov already does that, but not everyone sees it.

Minister of Education: They could be given easy access to everyone who enters the country under a certain level, that way they can send out set messages at various levels so that the game modules and abilities can be better taught and explained. I would also like them to be able to see a list of people under a certain level on a list, that way they can contact them all personally. That may be an impossible task for large countries to handle, but for small countries, it may be the only way to keep new players.

Minister of Foreign Affairs: An easy to access list of all the registered cabinet members would be helpful. I honestly don’t have bright idea for this one.

Minister of Information: Any article written by the MoInfo’s newspaper organization automatically goes to the top of the Newspaper list on the Top 6 for that country. It cannot be voted for. It’s a simple way to make sure that the government articles are seen. And ruin the eRep economy, because it will hurt VC. Whatever. It’s already ruined, what more could happen to it? (I should probably never ever say that again…)

Chief of Staff: The chief of staff will be notified whenever someone in the cabinet uses their in-game function. That way everything can be kept track of. A little Big Brother but I don’t care, it would be useful.

Minister of Immigration: The minister gets a CS pass, and can mark each applicant with an IG suggestion for congress members to see such as: Please Deny, Accept, and No Opinion.

vCP: This is frankly the most obvious, and the one that will get the most backing. The vCP should be given some sort of power. It’s so fundamental that it’s almost ridiculous that they don’t. There should be two people on most presidential tickets: A CP and a vCP. When you click on the vote button, you will be voting for both of them. The CP should be able to temporarily give the vCP the CP position and powers in the interim, at the expense of their own. These can be revoked at any time by the person elected CP. This way, whenever the CP has to be gone a weekend, there can still be someone in a position to make judgment call, etc.

Let me give it to you in an example. Let’s say I am CP. I have to be gone for the week. Instead of leaving the country to get on without a CP, I can simply hit a button that temporarily makes my VP a CP. Once I do that, I no longer have the IG abilities of the CP, all of those now lie with my VP. If I ever want them back, all I have to do is hit a different button, giving them back to me. There can be limits to how often I can do this, or how long my vCP can take over, but for now the idea is good enough that I think it should be implemented yesterday.

Petition System

Let’s face it, sending a massive flood of tickets about an idea just doesn’t work. I wish it did. That is why I propose a Petition system. An idea is placed in a petition sent to the admins. There, it has an hour to pick up so many votes or it is removed automatically. After 3 hours, the same thing happens. If it makes it to so many votes after let’s say 2 days, the admins then are forced to read it. I know it is essentially the same as the ticket system. They don’t have to implement any idea we throw at them, so what good is it. Well, for one, it will give them an idea of just how popular each idea is. Also, it is much easier for any one citizen to hit a button to button saying “Vote” than it is for them to write a detailed ticket in. Much more efficient, plus it saves the admins precious time sorting through all the useless gobldy-gook. I know that this will also produce the effect that people will shout various petitions at you, and that WILL get annoying, but if it is the price that must be paid, I am willing.

Your Suggestions

In-Game Messaging
All IG messages should have a "kill" button, available to the message creator that would stop the conversation but keep it open for viewing. -thedillpickl
The creator of an IG message should also be able to easily remove and add people to and from it. -Lotus Black

Immigration reform
At first, visas should be temporary, with a 30 day grace period where the applicant can't take part in national politics. Anytime within that first 30 days that citizen can chose to vacate their visa and return, free of charge, to their original country. -mccvii

Political Party Change
It should take 5 days for one to become an official member of a political party. That way, around party president elections, there can't be a massive switch for party president votes. -mccvii

I still have more I want to add, but that's all for now. 😃

Those are just a few of the ideas I came up with. Mind you, they were the best ones. After a while they just started getting worse and worse. If you to have an outrageously good idea, please write it in the comments below, or message me; I might add it to my article (with your permission of course, I’ll also credit you with the idea.)

Maybe I'm hopelessly naive for believing that the admins are even willing to think about any of this, let alone that they'll change anything. I don't care, I'll keep my naivety if that's what it takes to keep trying. Eventually, far in the future, they may realize that it might be a good idea to change the political landscape, but until then, I'll keep posting these useless articles in hope.

Thank you so much for enduring this block of text. For those of you that tl;dr’d. The two best ideas are at the bottom. I thank you for noting them or, as it might be, completely skipping them.

If you people would kindly rip all my ideas to shreds below, I would be very happy. There is a downside to each one of these ideas, and I need to hear it.