Bill V (?) Legislation Ammendment

[King Henry V]

Legislation
Any Patrician is able to post a Bill in the Prothalamos for discussion, which does not require named support. If a version of the bill becomes supported by a minimum of three other Patricians, the proposer can request that the Syntagma Curator move the supported version of a bill to a vote three days after it was first posted.

Should it be judged that after the minimum of three days more time is needed for debate on the subject, or that the debate is active, and moving the Bill would be premature, the progression to voting of the Bill may be delayed at the discretion of the Syntagma Curator. If the Syntagma Curator decides to delay the vote on a Bill beyond one month, then this decision is subject to staff ratification in the same way as a staff veto.

Once moved to vote, all bills shall be voted on over a one-week period. All Bills will be required to run for the full duration so that all Patricians may be able to vote if they so wish. Patricians are proscribed from viewing the results of any poll in the Curia they have not voted in. In addition, responses (including indirect methods such as signatures) in the Curia Vote sub-forum will be limited to notification of having voted. A Bill shall pass on the basis of a two-thirds majority in favor. Abstentions are not considered when determining whether a Bill has achieved the required proportion of voters. If any Bill fails a vote, no revote on a substantially similar bill will be permitted for twenty-eight days.

To the extent made possible by the forum software, no member will be able to view the results of a poll in the Curia until he has voted in the poll or it has closed.

If the forum software cannot reasonably be modified to prohibit viewing of poll results by any given member, that member, is hereby obliged on their honour as a Patricians not to view the results of any poll in the Curia he has not voted in unless necessary for the execution of any duties he may have to the site.

Now that we are supposed to be the new and improved Curia, I think we are all mature enough not to be influenced by other member's decisions. However, I do agree that debates within the voting threads were annoying, so this should be changed to:

Any Patrician is able to post a Bill in the Prothalamos for discussion, which does not require named support. If a version of the bill becomes supported by a minimum of three other Patricians, the proposer can request that the Syntagma Curator move the supported version of a bill to a vote three days after it was first posted.

Should it be judged that after the minimum of three days more time is needed for debate on the subject, or that the debate is active, and moving the Bill would be premature, the progression to voting of the Bill may be delayed at the discretion of the Syntagma Curator. If the Syntagma Curator decides to delay the vote on a Bill beyond one month, then this decision is subject to staff ratification in the same way as a staff veto.

Once moved to vote, all bills shall be voted on over a one-week period. All Bills will be required to run for the full duration so that all Patricians may be able to vote if they so wish. Patricians are proscribed from viewing the results of any poll in the Curia they have not voted in. Patricians may post in the voting thread for which options they have voted, however they are not under any obligation to do so. However, any continued elaboration, such as why they have voted for that option or why any other Patrician should or should not vote for that option is prohibited. A Bill shall pass on the basis of a two-thirds majority in favor. Abstentions are not considered when determining whether a Bill has achieved the required proportion of voters. If any Bill fails a vote, no revote on a substantially similar bill will be permitted for twenty-eight days.

To the extent made possible by the forum software, no member will be able to view the results of a poll in the Curia until he has voted in the poll or it has closed.

If the forum software cannot reasonably be modified to prohibit viewing of poll results by any given member, that member, is hereby obliged on their honour as a Patricians not to view the results of any poll in the Curia he has not voted in unless necessary for the execution of any duties he may have to the site.

Please be gentle with me, this is my first proposal.

[Belisarius]

Support.

[Publius]

I support. I never did like not being able to say how I had voted.

[Spiff]

Nah i dont support this, if people see everyone voting one way they will be inclined to vote that way themself, and i dont see any reason to think the voters here and any different to the majority of people as, Mim showed us when this bill first passed through various studies.

Anyway.. the word "However" in the second sentence of the added text is awkward and could do with being removed..

[King Henry V]

Nah i dont support this, if people see everyone voting one way they will be inclined to vote that way themself, and i dont see any reason to think the voters here and any different to the majority of people as, Mim showed us when this bill first passed through various studies.

Anyway.. the word "However" in the second sentence of the added text is awkward and could do with being removed..

Do people have no backbone? If certain Patricians here are so weak they are afraid to go against the majority, then they have no business being here and may as well return to the rank of civitate.

[Spiff]

If people have no backbone it isnt their fault. Why let the potential for bias creep into votes with no gain whatsoever. If we are as mature as we say we are, why do we need to go out of our way to prove that by declaring our vote for all to see, why cant we just keep it in the proth as imb39 says?

[imb39]

Do people have no backbone? If certain Patricians here are so weak they are afraid to go against the majority, then they have no business being here and may as well return to the rank of civitate.

Mim has provided evidence in previous debates. You talk of back bone etc - what about... erm... simple human nature. No one has explained to me the BENEFIT of this change. I can see a BENEFIT for the status quo.

[King Henry V]

Mim has provided evidence in previous debates. You talk of back bone etc - what about... erm... simple human nature. No one has explained to me the BENEFIT of this change. I can see a BENEFIT for the status quo.

However, whatever Mimirswell did was before the reforms. There may be no benefit other than people's desire to express for which they have voted, however, just because there is no benefit doesn't mean it should be illegal.

[Fabolous]

Mim has provided evidence in previous debates. You talk of back bone etc - what about... erm... simple human nature. No one has explained to me the BENEFIT of this change. I can see a BENEFIT for the status quo.

Quite right. Mim has sold me on this. Lets keep uneeded influences out of the voting box and keep things about voting on the issue.

[imb39]

I really fail to see why people need to say this. As has been stated before hand - you can declare it but in the Prothalomos. Let the voting forum be that - for voting. If the arguments are so weak that you feel compelled to drag it into the voting forum, then that is another issue. If it is through prtide that you vote, then that is another issue too. Just leave the voting forum be.

[Spartan]

I support this proposal. I like to assume that our "new age" system carries with it a group of intelligent, independent thinking and reasonable people; otherwise what was it all for??

[Oldgamer]

I prefer just to post one word in voting threads, "Voted ...". If I say something for or against the the proposed bill, I will do so in debate, as I am doing now. My personal preference is not to see a voting thread turn into a circus.

However, I would like to see the following:
Once moved to vote, all bills shall be voted on over a one-week period. All Bills will be required to run for the full duration so that all Patricians may be able to vote if they so wish. Patricians are proscribed from viewing the results of any poll in the Curia they have not voted in. In addition, responses (including indirect methods such as signatures) in the Curia Vote sub-forum will be limited to notification of having voted. A Bill shall pass on the basis of a two-thirds majority in favor. Abstentions shall be considered when determining whether a Bill has achieved the required proportion of voters. If any Bill fails a vote, no revote on a substantially similar bill will be permitted for twenty-eight days.

During the twenty-eight days that follow, persons who abstained for one reason or another will be able to explain themselves, and have their votes count for something other than a protest. After the second debate, the Bill goes back for another vote, where only a simple majority is needed for approval or disapproval. The logic behind this is that those who abstained on the first try will be able to explain exactly what they found wrong with the original bill. They may be dissuaded from another abstention, or the debate may convince those who have voted one way or the other to change their vote.

Democracy. I love it!

[Ardeur]

If you want people to see voting results, why not just take away the directive not to view them prior to voting.

[Perikles]

JP supports...

*is nosy and likes to see what others have voted after he has*

[Muizer]

I do not support. Instead I would like to appeal to all to desist spamming the vote with "voted" messages and restrict any comments to the discussion thread.

[Publius]

Lets not forget people can still see what the voting trends are before they vote themselves. I think pressing the 'View Reults' button is more likely to be the cause of bias than someone sifting through each an every post before making their vote.
On the flip side of things, this is not something I go down tooth and nail fighting for, as really its something fairly trivial. I do think however we should have the choice to voice how we voted.

[Spiff]

clicking the view votes requires concious effort and shouldnt be done before voting as there is a rule against it.. viewing responses and seeing that every single person has voted a particular way will undoubtably influence someones vote, if even a little, with no gain to the voting process at all

[Publius]

Clicking a button is conscious but reading multiple posts is not? And there may be a rule against it, but thats all built around the infamous honor system. Quite honestly I could care less if we still could only say 'voted,' but it seems a bit hypocritical to condemn it for the reason of influencing votes when there is a much easier and quicker way to assess who has voted how.

[Spiff]

its not hypocritical at all, there is a rule to help minimise sources of bias in clicking the reveal button, just as there is a rule to stop people from declaring their votes in an innapropriate place. Both rules exist to the extent of the forum software.

[Ragabash]

I disagree with this proposal.

I would like to see CVRIA votes being closed so members would not be able to post inside them. At least it would be worth of trying out, I don't believe that after a while many would miss chance to post "voted" once in a while.