(Moved to vote) Phalera Award

[Ragabash]

Proposer: [user]Ragabash[/user]
Supporters: [user]jimkatalanos[/user], [user]=Eclipse=[/user], [user]Arakorn-eir[/user]

Version 1.5.

Curial Decision

All references to medal sizes are removed in section: Article 2 - Community Medals.

Large Size

Divus

To achieve apotheosis and Curia vote, the nominee must be supported by three fourths of non abstaining elected members of the Consilium de Civitate. The nominee must have served as a Council Officer (or previous equivalents), made a clear and distinguished contribution to the community and provided exceptional service to TWC in their capacity as an administrator. They cannot be nominated within three months of resigning their Officer Position.

Any Citizen can nominate a former Council Officer and does so by PMing a Consilium de Civitate member. The Consilium de Civitate will contact the nominee and ask if he or she will accept the nomination. If the nominee should decline, or fails to respond within one month, no further action need be taken and the nomination declared null and void.

If the nominee should accept, the Consilium de Civitate will create a thread within the Consilium de Civitate Forum to investigate the legitimacy of the nominee’s accolades. The Consilium de Civitate has the right to request any and all relevant material from the Staff Officers to ascertain this, with the approval of the Council. The Consilium de Civitate will discuss the nominee and his qualifications for at least a week before the vote is held.

Should the nominee receive the support of three fourths of non abstaining Consilium de Civitate members, the Curator shall create a discussion in the Prothalamos lasting at least three days and then move the nomination to vote as per the procedure in Section 2 Article 3. The vote shall last one week and the nominee shall require a two-third majority of non-abstaining votes to become Divus. A nominee who fails the vote is not eligible to be nominated again for a six month period.

Opifex

To qualify for as an Opifex award, the nominee must have made served the Total War Center or Total War Community with exceptional input to TW sections of the boards, either by modding or other contributions related to TW section any of the boards or mods in any capacity other than that of a Staff Officer. A member of any Rank is eligible to receive an Opifex award, but must also meet the criteria to become a Citizen. His nomination must also be seconded by an elected member of the Consilium de Civitate.

Qualifying nominees shall have their nomination posted in the Prothalamos and will be moved to vote as per the procedure in Section 2 Article 3. Once moved to they shall be voted upon for a period of one week and require a two-third majority of non-abstaining votes to achieve the award. If the nominee was not already a Citizen, this Rank shall also be conferred upon them if they pass. A nominee who fails to pass his vote is not eligible to re-nominated until three months have passed.

Phalera

To qualify for an Phalera's award, the nominee must have made exceptional input or otherwise made significant contributions inside the CC sections of the boards. A member of any Rank is eligible to receive an Phalera award, but must also meet the criteria to become a Citizen. His nomination must also be seconded by an elected member of the Consilium de Civitate.

Qualifying nominees shall have their nomination posted in the Prothalamos and will be moved to vote as per the procedure in Section 2 Article 3. Once moved to they shall be voted upon for a period of one week and require a two-third majority of non-abstaining votes to achieve the award. If the nominee was not already a Citizen, this Rank shall also be conferred upon them if they pass. A nominee who fails to pass his vote is not eligible to re-nominated until three months have passed.

Section 4 - The Judiciary

A Rank may not be removed except by the procedure outlined in this Article. Divus, and Opifex and Phalera awards may only be removed by a Decision of the Curia or by the request of the rank holder.

Section 4 Article 2 - Tribunal

To defend the rights of Members, and to ensure fair and just punishment towards those who violate the laws of TWC, a Tribunal shall be established

The purpose of the Tribunal is to provide those members of TWC who have been punished in the past by the Moderation Branch a place to request the reversal of their punishment. This is in no way a guarantee that the punishment will be removed, but every case presented will be reviewed by a panel of three judges.

Members may create a thread in the Tribunal Forum, The Judges will study the case details, and may request any additional information on the member from the Senior Moderators. The Judges will then post the majority decision. The Judges are not tasked to decide the appropriateness or validity of a Forum Rule of Term of Service, and may only rule on whether the Term was correctly enforced and the punishment suitable for the offense.

Section 4 Article 3 - Judges

To serve on the Tribunal, a panel of three Judges is chosen by Hex. The judges can include any member from Hex, save the CoM, as he is is part of the appeals process. The candidates are not limited to Hex members and can include members with a Moderator's Mace

[Justinian]

I support. Obviously this needs to be raised immediately with the removal of all these ranks, and though there's a few details that need to be hammered out it looks good. However, I would automatically include all past recipients automatically receiving this award. If the Curia doesn't want someone to have it, they can always vote to remove it, and I doubt the CdeC wants to suddenly go through a couple hundred deserving cases.

[Ragabash]

I just wanted to give an option for the curia to decide should we award past Patrcians with this award(if the bill passes the vote) as this has quite little to do with the actual rank, other then that both are given for significant contributions to the site.

And if there are any mispelling or grammar errors, please let me know and I'll fix them soon as possible.

[makanyane]

Oh well I might as well post the post I'd saved when board wouldn't let me yesterday, it might not make a lot of sense at the moment but I'm sure the rest of the discussion will be along to join it shortly:

I think the discussion here is starting to show why these ranks and medals are a bad idea generally - I agree with Kagemusha that the current situation probably won't last long.... unfortunately. Everytime anything like this gets debated one class of contributor feels hard-done-by because they don't have something to recognise X, if they do get 'recognised' other people want something to show they are a step above.... which seems to be how we ended up with too many things in first place.

I'd be happy to see more of it go - personally including Opifex (mine will be wending its way back anyway, if the curator gets his way with changing the vote process for teams).

Not to mention the fact that being assessed and voted on just for the sake of some shiny badge is hardly pleasant anyway - especially for those who fail public votes, does anyone really want to risk being humiliated just for chance of wearing some little .png ?

@Kagemusha - the vote just passed doesn't change Opifex, it always was open for other contributions, this proposal is the one suggesting using it more for those. I supported the proposal just passed as it gets rid of some vague basis for awards that always looked like the curia awarding things to its buddies. The medals that remain do favour staff positions but at least that is quantifiable - you did X for X months, rather than we think you are a jolly good fellow, lets vote you something...

To make my own position absolutely clear I resign from the non-existent rank/medal/badge of Patrician and decline any version of it that might be making an appearance.

I have posted a thread in curia main about listing achievements of past patricians etc.... which would I think allow what people have done to be recognised rather than just having another shiny thing stuck in profiles...

[Ragabash]

This award has nothing to do with the actual rank, other then the name.

And I don't believe we are heading to same road with medals as before if we create own medals for exceptional contributions in both, CC and TW sections.

I wanted to propose this soon as possible, and want to know what Curia decides, as if we start to alter these changes later, it will be a much bigger problem then.

[sapi]

Oppose.

There's no reason to re-instate awards that the curia has just voted to remove; and that is, essentially, what you're doing.

[Ragabash]

I favored Superfluous Rank and Medal Removal Amendment but never agreed that we should have just one award for exceptional contributions for the site in both, CC and TW. This is not an award that was removed just a while ago, this is an extension to have own awards for both, CC and TW sections. And don't tell me that if we decide to have one medal for both sections, CC and TW, we need to take same road as before and make awards for eveything.

If we do not decide on this now, it will be much harder to make changes in the future.

[makanyane]

I still don't agree but if you're determined to go down this route don't call it Patrician - its too mixed up with whole history of having been something that you used to get on automatic upgrade from citizenship, used to be about patronising etc. And you've also got modders who got Patrician rank for TW contribs (I assume thats how I ended up with it) - and they'd want to know why they didn't get it back if others on CC side did......

[Ragabash]

That is why I want the Curia to decide should past Patricians have the award or not.

I need to think more about Curial Decision: Automatic Awards section of bill, but other then that, I don't see a reason not to puruse what this bill aims for.

[Perikles]

To quote myself from yesterday:

Well I have to say that I've never seen such a self-serving and irrelevent bill.

*some random thing LR said*

What happened to the Curia being more about helping the site than the perpetual 'back patting'?

[Ragabash]

Perikles.

As I said in my above post; I will need to reconsider Curial Decision: Automatic Awards section of the bill, but even then, I find it quite insulting that I'm being accused of "self-serving" with this proposal.

Also, I don't see single reason how this bill goes against Curia's main role as an advisory body. If I'm not allowed to bring up issues with new feature we have just decided, then perhaps I should not bother with the Curia no longer as it's quite clear my views and feedback is not welcome.

Feedback is always welcommed, but what you said in above post was not constructive but just throwing this idea away for the sake of disagreement.

[Perikles]

I had about 10 posts of constructive criticism yesterday which got ignored, there is no way you can accuse me of that, so I've posted the last (I think) post I made, which basically summed up what was happening.

I had said that we don't need a medal to show contribution as we already have Citizenship. If someone has made a contribution worthy of more than Citizenship they get Opifex. People from the TW section (FATW etc.) have been given Opifex and from the CC too (WBK). Therefore we don't need a middle medal. We certainly don't need a medal to differentiate between the CC and TW either if we seriously need a medal, we have Civ. and Art, for that. That is why this is irrelevent. And to put the award on a par with Divus and Opifex is absurd.

However, this was ignored by the vast majority of people (not people like Ragabash fortunately) posting in this thread to support. They didn't read the thread, they didn't care, they just saw the title, noticed they might get their medal/rank back and posted 'I support'. That is how it is self-serving and 'back patting'.

The idea of the Curia is to advance the site, I find it quite telling when a bill that gives people a medal gets tonnes of support within hours, whereas other bills which were far more relevant to the advancement of these forums took days to garner support. Same old Curia.

[Ragabash]

And as I explained, ranks can be changed whenever wanted, so that isn't a good indicator for member contributions.

Also, ranks are always more confusing to new members then any awards. Medals are perhaps the easiest, and best ways to give proper look to one contributions withing the site, not the ranks.

I guess we just disagree on this, but that alone should not prevent us to vote on these matters. It's not like this bill aim is to overhaul last decision, more as a make small improvement and addition to it.

About Curia's role; I agree that there is a problem that rather "small" bills such as this get more attention then larger amendments, but that should, and will not be fixed by stopping to change Constitution, for the better.

[jimkatalanos]

I support.

[iudas]

*SirPaladin supports
*SirPaladin has a deja-vu
*SirPaladin faints

[Muizer]

My 2 cents on this proposal:

- Opifex in theory applies to any major contribution other than staff IIRC. In practice it is primarily a modder's award. This is reminiscent of the situation concerning citizenship: it used to be for any contribution but in practice modders were disadvantaged until the artifex rank was created.
So, as an analogy, it may require an award equivalent to opifex for CC contributors to be recognized. From that angle, I would not want to dismiss the idea so readily.
- the choice of "patrician" as a title and the notion it would automatically be awarded to past patricians is unfortunate. If this conversion takes place, I suspect Lord Rahl (and General Sun?) would be the first recipients and would set the standard. The former patrician rank would not be equivalent to this: there was a list of possible areas of contributions, but as far as I know members were not evaluated regarding concrete areas of contribution..........as is the case for Opifex and would be the case for an equivalent CC award.

- Finally, lumping the Curia together with the CC together, and thereby divorcing it from the TW section is anathema. It's something that could only pass if the Curia were, or wanted to be, what Professor420 maintains it is: a CC bulwark.

[pannonian]

My 2 cents on this proposal:

- Opifex in theory applies to any major contribution other than staff IIRC. In practice it is primarily a modder's award. This is reminiscent of the situation concerning citizenship: it used to be for any contribution but in practice modders were disadvantaged until the artifex rank was created.
So, as an analogy, it may require an award equivalent to opifex for CC contributors to be recognized. From that angle, I would not want to dismiss the idea so readily.
- the choice of "patrician" as a title and the notion it would automatically be awarded to past patricians is unfortunate. If this conversion takes place, I suspect Lord Rahl (and General Sun?) would be the first recipients and would set the standard. The former patrician rank would not be equivalent to this: there was a list of possible areas of contributions, but as far as I know members were not evaluated regarding concrete areas of contribution..........as is the case for Opifex and would be the case for an equivalent CC award.

- Finally, lumping the Curia together with the CC together, and thereby divorcing it from the TW section is anathema. It's something that could only pass if the Curia were, or wanted to be, what Professor420 maintains it is: a CC bulwark.

My problem with this Bill was that it had the same requirements of the old patrician rank, which was deemed to be problematic in the current system, yet was going to be substantially restored, problems and all, in this Bill. This Bill does identify some things that shuold be discussed, but it lumps them into an unsatisfactory whole. Instead of reviving the patrician rank in whatever form, we should look at the problems there currently are, then try to solve them in as unproblematic a way as possible.

Problems
1. Old members' contributions weren't recognised any more with the dissolution of the patrician rank, annoying some.
2. There are gaps in the recognition of members' efforts in certain areas.

Suggested solutions
1. Institute a patrician's medal for former patricians, but restrict it to former patricians only. This is to recognise their work for TWC, but since it overlaps too much with the existing system, it should not be expanded any further, either in scope or in members. I suggest an olive branch as the medal.
2a. Have the opifex rank primarily as a technically-oriented award, which is given for significant site-based or mod-based contributions. There may be some existing opifices who were given their award for CC-based contributions, and they should keep them, but new opifices should be chosen for these merits only. I suggest a general's cloak for this, or a panoply (suit of armour).
2b. Have an award for CC-based contributions. As a matter of personal taste, I would ask the committee to look for awardees primarily from the Vestigia, though the Athenaeum and EMM would also be suitable. I suggest a closed scroll as the CC medal.
2c. No additional awards should be given for site administration. There are already enough awards for that area, while experience in the higher reaches will give one an advantage in elections and votes, which is the highest reward of all.

In addition, former patricians and other dissolved ranks should check wiki to see if they already have a bio there, and to write one to makanyane if they do not. Admins with access to the CdeC archives should also compile the writeups for the patricians' and other abolished ranks' nominations, which will be part of their wiki entry.

[Tom Paine]

If this is an attempt at an equivalent to the Opifex Bill it cannot be retroactive. The Opifex was awarded very differently for far greater contributions to the site. Ergo, I don't think that its supportable in its present state - of course, it seems not to bring any benefit except a few more shiny baubles for people anyway, but meh. People like baubles...

[Ragabash]

Yes Ozymandias, that is why this bill was created, for the sake of shiny baubles. And how thoughtful and constructive feedback from you, I doubt you even read the whole discussion with a thought and just wanted to throw out what you had in your mind before giving the idea a proper thought.

For the third time; As I said, I will have to take Curial Decision: Automatic Awards part of the bill into new consideration, and how separate medals for both, CC and TW sections is just a pointless ranting for the sake of shiny baubles, is beyond me.

I understand that people might disagree, and some always will, but I can assure that if people take proposals like these without even giving a thought, and then make comments about the proposal as being completely useless(without further feedback), its quite clear my presence is not needed here.

[pannonian]

Yes Ozymandias, that is why this bill was created, for the sake of shiny baubles. And how thoughtful and constructive feedback from you, I doubt you even read the whole discussion with a thought and just wanted to throw out what you had in your mind before giving the idea a proper thought.

For the third time; As I said, I will have to take Curial Decision: Automatic Awards part of the bill into new consideration, and how separate medals for both, CC and TW sections is just a pointless ranting for the sake of shiny baubles, is beyond me.

I understand that people might disagree, and some always will, but I can assure that if people take proposals like these without even giving a thought, and then make comments about the proposal as being completely useless(without further feedback), its quite clear my presence is not needed here.

If you are disgusted with unconstructive criticism like, say Ozy's, why do you not respond to mine? Is that not constuctive? Heck, it even sets out to construct an alternative view of the problem, along with alternative solutions.

Let us put the Bill aside for a while, and let's list the problems that you see in the current system. Then suggest solutions for each of those problems. Then, and only then, write a Bill containing the solutions for those problems. Follow a basic from-the-bottom process of building a solution - identify the problem, and only then suggest a solution to the problem. Let's not suggest solutions to problems that do not exist, simply for the sake of creating a solution.