Condensed Constitution (formerly in Latin, but yeah...)

[Iskar]

I have been thinking about the daunting bureaucracy of the Curia and its Constitution, the fervour with which some (including me) adhere to its every letter and how alienating this probably is to many people. I personally do like rules, but Shuu was right with his complaint about the blind strictness of constitutional specifications. So, I took a look at the Constitution and it occurred to me that actually most of the text are numerical specifications, pseudo-legal precautions, pathological exceptions, etc. So I undertook it to find out what in it was really fundamental - as should be the case for the contents of a constitution. All the bureaucratic specifications and numerical values could easily be stored in a separate handbook. I deleted what I deemed un-fundamental and made some minor changes to wordings, though not to content. The result is what you see below. I find this to be much better at explaining what Citizenship and the Curia are about than the current document. This is not an amendment proposal, though. I just wanted to demonstrate how much we have buried our original ideas of participation under a heap of bureaucracy. Open another tab and compare this here with the Constitution itself - it should be quite enlightening.

Preamble

The guiding principle of the site is to be that barring technical or fiscal obstacles, any considered mandate from the appropriate legislative body of contributing members will be implemented by the Administrators.

This document is not absolutely authoritative. It is a compilation of the Curia, written and approved by the Citizens, which may become outdated or contain oversights.

Section I - Citizenship and Curatorship

Article I. Citizenship

Citizenship is the fundamental award conferred by the Curia for contributions benefitting the site and community of TWC.

To qualify for Citizenship, a member must not have received a Moderation Warning or Curial Warning within the past six months. An individual may hold only one account awarded with Citizenship.

Article II. Patronisation

Any Citizen who has held their Citizenship for three months can patronise a non-Citizen for Citizenship. The patron and candidate conceive an application which is posted in the Curia. To this thread the Curator will add a poll, which is successful if the candidate receives sixty percent of the non-abstaining votes. If an applicant fails they are not eligible to apply again for one month after the conclusion of the of the poll.

[Article III scrapped, no need to state administrative procedures about awards]

Article IV. The Curator

The Curator is responsible for ensuring the Curia's day-to-day tasks are accomplished and is removed from office in case of undue absence. Upon entering office the Curator must officially appoint at least one Citizen to fulfil the Curator's role on a planned or unplanned absence, and should the Curator wish, to assist with day to day tasks. No matter who carries out the tasks assigned to the elected Curator, the Curator is the one responsible for seeing that they are done promptly and correctly.

When the office of the Curator is empty the Censor whose term is closest to completion will organize the election for a new Curator and assume day to day administration of the Curia.

[Section II scrapped, no need to state the obvious about Hex and Staff]

Section III - The Legislature

The Executive shall create within the Forum a place for all Citizens of the Site to discuss and propose Decisions that affect the governing of the Site and Site Policy, and also to amend this document. This place shall be known as the Curia and shall be a place for an exchange of ideas. As the Curia is considered the heartland of the Citizens' right to influence their community, infractions of Forum Rules and the Terms of Service made in this forum are considered to be doubly serious.

[Article I scrapped, the names and structures of subfora are irrelevant for the basic concepts]

Article II. Election Procedure

When an election is required the following process shall be applied.

Elections

When a Curial Election is required the Curator shall open an application thread in the Curia. The Hexagon Council may veto applicants and, should more than six members apply for any position, may shortlist six members to stand for the election.

Once applications are complete the Curator shall open a poll which shall last for one week and the member who receives the plurality of votes shall be elected. In the case of ties a run off vote is held between the tied members lasting three days. If there is only one applicant a ratification vote shall be held with options "Yes" and "No". If there is no applicant the application period shall be prolonged and the incumbent will remain in office until a replacement has been elected.

In the event that a Curial officer wins an election for another Curial Office, they are required to immediately resign their original Curial Office.

Votes of No Confidence

At any time any Citizen of Total War Center may initiate a Vote of No Confidence against any member holding a position elected by the Curia, or in any individual who is responsible for managing some part of the site. A VoNC may only be initiated for neglect of duty or abuse of authority. Frivolous use of this procedure shall be considered grounds for Curial disciplinary proceedings. VoNCs are exempt from veto. A VoNC against an elected member results in that member's immediate demotion, whilst other VoNCs are non-binding.

Article III. Legislative Procedure

Bills can be brought before the Curia by citizens or by sufficient support for a Rostra proposal.

Once it meets the requirements a bill can be moved to vote at the proposer's request. All Amendments and Decisions are considered to have immediate effect and no retroactive effect unless specifically stated otherwise.

Section IV - The Judiciary

Article I. Citizen's Behaviour

The suspension and removal of Citizenship is handled by the Citizen's Triumvirate.

If any Citizen receives a staff warning from a Moderator they will be referred to the Citizen's Triumvirate for potential action. The referred will then be asked by the Curator to produce a defence and the Triumvirate will decide whether to dismiss the referral or take further action. Further action may entail a formal Censure, temporary suspensions or removal of Citizenship, decided on by the Triumvirate.

If a Citizen is referred by another Citizen, the process is the same, except that the warning is substituted for the referrer's accusation, and the defendant shall receive an anonymous copy of the accusation from the Curator.

At the conclusion of the process, the Curator informs the referred member of the result. The referred may decide on public or private archivation of their case.

Large Curial Awards may only be revoked by a Decision of the Curia or by the request of the award holder.

Appeals

If a referred Citizen is not satisfied with the result of their referral they may request that a public appeal take place. The appeal will be discussed and decided by any Citizen that chooses to participate and the result is binding and is not subject to further appeal.

The Curator will publish the original referral and open a discussion and all necessary polls in the Curia to determine whether to keep, overturn or change the ruling and what to change it to in the last case, determined by a simple majority.

[Article II scrapped, no need for administrative specifications on the triumvirate]

Article III. Censores

The two Censores act as voting judges in the Triumvirate. They are removed from office in case of undue absence.

[Article IV scrapped, the workings of the Tribunal are irrelevant to the Curia]

Article V. Magistrates

To serve on the Tribunal two Magistrates shall be elected.

Magistrates rotate as acting Tribunes, each voting on one of every two cases. Should a Tribune recuse themselves or there is a tie between Tribunes, the other Magistrate respectively votes in their stead or is called to break the tie. Magistrates are terminated by a unanimous vote of the Tribunes.

[Section V scrapped, this can just as well be listed elsewhere for reference]

[Veteraan]

I am in favour of the thought behind this. But, starting a discussion about simplifying stuff and getting rid of superfluous and perhaps even pompous content (my interpretation) whilst using yet another thread title in Latin.....

[Lifthrasir]

I think Iskar loves Latin (I mean language)

Anyway, I agree about the purpose of this: the more simple, the better.
But I'm not sure to be able to give an opinion on the form and content. "Administrative text" is not my cup of tea

[Iskar]

I am in favour of the thought behind this. But, starting a discussion about simplifying stuff and getting rid of superfluous and perhaps even pompous content (my interpretation) whilst using yet another thread title in Latin.....

I can change it to whatever you like. To me Latin is not particularly elitist, but we could also call this thread "SUPER DUPER CUTEY BABY KITTENS FUNNY VIDEO - MUST SEE!!!!!!!" or anything in between the two titles.

[Sir Adrian]

The idea is good but imho you should wait until all the current proposals pass or fail


Title could be worse, could be in high german with compound words like Donau*dampfschiffahrts*elektrizitäten*hauptbetriebswerk*bauunterbeamten*gesellschaft (even google translate can't manage that word)

EDIT: Even TWC can't display properly. Omg.

[Veteraan]

Even the "short" ones sometimes make me look twice: Führerstandmitfahrt

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It may look a bit sinister but in fact it just means "cab ride".

I agree that the idea is good, but the timing could be better.

As for the title, it's not that important of course. It struck me as not being in the same spirit as the text. I for one can't read Latin except for the more commonly used words. I would have no problem with a German title, but I suspect a lot of people would not. It is a bit odd to me at least that we use a lot of Latin text in (often important) Curia thread titles where everything on the site is supposed to be in English, or at least accompanied by a translation to English.

Yes, I realize there is some history involved here.

[mishkin]

We should look at the future: Everything in Korean.

Regarding laws (constitution) versus (haha) allowing the curator some freedom of maneuver, I prefer a clear and precise text with the necessary specifications and clauses just in case some curator does not show much common sense.

[Sir Adrian]

That curator can always be VonCed. We all love a good forum execution. I always find that a little less security but more leeway is much better than more security and no freedom to maneuver, but maybe that's just the balkaner in me.

[PikeStance]

Keep the numbering, it is consistent with any by laws that gover most groups. If anything, gets I'd off he pseudo government references. Constitution in any language is still constitution.

[Iskar]

I haven't thought about any timing and I do not believe this would be viable as an amendment anytime in the foreseeable future. It was just an idea to put things into perspective and illustrate how much we burden ourselves with bureaucracy that has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual spirit of citizenship and the site.

[PikeStance]

What burden? You propose, get three supporters, vote, then implement if pass. Elections are similarly simple and straight forward. The second paragraph of the preamble, the forgotten paragraph, allows for common sense when things are not explicit. Moreover, we easily change vague text to explicit text pretty easily when the demand for it arises. With the exception of the pseudo governments referecs, de nothing wrong with it as is.

The "Constitution" explains how things work, so the admin's role would need to be stated.

[StealthFox]

Can you reformat it with [del] tags so we can easily see what you're removing?

[HigoChumbo]

Double post.

[HigoChumbo]

I would personally reduce the legislative character of the Constitution to a minimum and make it an informative reference text, with more suggestions than rules.

I'll get into more detail when I get back from my trip, discussing these things ovet the cellphone is a pain in the ass.

[Iskar]

Can you reformat it with [del] tags so we can easily see what you're removing?

Sorry, but that is not the scope of what I wanted to demonstrate. (Not proposing an amendment here.) It would also be more work than the original thing I did here.

All I did was remove the procedural and numerical specifications, exceptions and precautions to get to the constitutional core - that which actually says what all this Curia and Citizenship stuff might be about.

If something like this were ever considered for implementation, then I would advocate keeping all the procedural and numerical specifications in a separate rulebook, where the Curator and anyone interested in them can look them up, but where they do not obstruct the view on the guiding principles and structures of the Curia/Citizenship for those that have no interest in the bureaucratic side of things (which I think is the majority).

A good example is Sec III, Art III (Legislative Procedure). It is extremely long and full of specifications how many supporters are needed here or there, how long things are going to be discussed, how long they are voted on, where they are voted on, who votes on them, how they are implemented, where they are noted, where they are archived, what vote options there shall be, what may be posted where, etc.

All of this is utterly irrelevant to the constitutional principle that the citizens of TWC can pass bills - be that for recommendations, amendments or nominations.

The latter can be expressed in two lines (and perhaps less), the former takes up 31 lines and four sub-boxes, most of which are completely irrelevant to the people proposing a bill, as they only govern how the Curatorship deals with proposals and votes.

I don't have a problem with - and like mishkin probably even prefer it - the procedural and numerical specifications having binding character for the Curator (one can relax some, but an orderly framework should remain), and I think the Constitution should be binding, but I think it is beneficial to at least realise that the guiding principles and the procedural specifications are not necessarily linked and can be codified separately so that the latter do not obstruct the view on the former, when they are irrelevant to most people around here.

[Veteraan]

"Constitution for Dummies"* I like it!

* Before anybody gets the wrong idea, I am referring to the popular books with the yellow covers.

[Sir Adrian]

I would personally reduce the legislative character of the Constitution to a minimum and make it an informative reference text, with more suggestions than rules.

I'll get into more detail when I get back from my trip, discussing these things ovet the cellphone is a pain in the ass.

This. 1 million times this

[mishkin]

I would not oppose

[PikeStance]

The Term Constitution is a misnomer. The Constitution is more accurately the sites "By-Laws"

The rules and regulations enacted by an association or a corporation to provide a framework for its operation and management.
Bylaws may specify the qualifications, rights, and liabilities of membership, and the powers, duties, and grounds for the dissolution of an organization.

Most sites includes these matter within the Terms of Service. However, TWC allows its members to alter the "By-Laws" (amendments) and thus it is separated from it.

If you want to streamline it, you could do away with three supporters before going to vote. However, even in organization, it takes at least two people for a proposal to go to vote. Plus, I suggested reducing the the number of threads necessary for elections and votes, but I am guessing that would need to wait until after the proposal complete the votes.

The guides actually served as an informal reference text.

[mishkin]

Jesus. It seems that people are eager for new amendments