The Case against the Patrician Class

[Perikles]

I am opposed to the Patrician class, this is known, and for the sake of letting the constituion pass quickly (and our sanity) I let the issue drop and promised to return with it after it had passed. Now is that time.

In our new constitution the Patrician class is mentioned 16 times. I shall give you a rundown of the context in which this word is mentioned and summerarily state why it is not need:

• 'The Speaker of the House is elected by the Curia, as per the procedure in Section 2 Article 2, from among those members ranked as Patricians, and will serve a term of six months.'
  
  • We should be able to trust the Curia to elect our own representative to Hex fairly, otherwise there would be no point in having this ability. We all know who is worthy and who is not worthy, the patrician rank just makes things obvious.
  
  
  
• 'Each version of the bill requires named support from at least three Patricians'
  
  • All Citizens can vote on legislation , why not be able to support it?
  • A better solution to this would be 'named support from 1 CdeC member'
  
  
  
• 'A delay of longer than a month is at the Curators discretion only upon at least three patricians requesting more time for debate.'
  
  • What if 3 Citizens want to debate, but no Patricians? This should be opened up to all Citizens (with a chance for curatatoral discretion)
  
  
  
• 'If three or more Patricians state an objection, implementation will be postponed.' (Council Implementations)
  
  • Yet again, why can't this be opened up to all Citizens?
  
  
  
• 'The elected members of the CdeC are all Patricians.'
  
  • We know who is good and who is bad for a position, no need for this.
  
  
  
• 'Only Patricians may hold this Office.' (Curator)
  
  • Yet again, the Curia will elect the person it sees as the best for this position.

So it seems that the Patrician rank is only around to a) act as a buffer between positions and b) stop superflous use of 'curial mini-vetoes' and objections.

Firstly, we do not need a buffer between ranks. Like I have said, we know who is suitible for a position and who is not. I trust the Curia to elect thier representatives correctly and pick a candidate that is fit for the job, if not entirely eradicating popularity then minimising it. All we are doing is opening up these postions to a bigger pool of candidates.

Secondly, if 3 Citizens place an objection to something, shouldn't we value this as much as an objection from 3 Patricians? They are Citizens of the Curia, we allow them to vote on legislation, we allow them to discuss legislation, why not allow them to object to the implementation of certain things or be allowed to prolong debate if they deem it necessary?

Therefore, I propose, that we either over haul the Patrician rank or abolish it (and devoid us of another uneeded rank). If we want to overhaul it we face some options:

• Give it to members of the CDC when they are elected to easily identify them, they lose the rank when they leave the CDC
• Change it back to being conferred upon 3 months good service as a Citizen (and then allow only patricians to patronise)

I don't mind either of these options or any other suggestions, as long as we change this rank into something meaningful or strike a mark through it permanantly for the sake of less bureaucracy.

(Sorry for any of my notorious spelling mistakes)

[Tom Paine]

I support its abolishment... if we give the new constitution some time to settle in before radical changes. We haven't even elected a Speaker and Curator yet.

[Perikles]

That's why I haven't proposed something, only discussion for now, as I know this can be a divisive issue and we want things to settle first.

[Shaun]

I also support the abolishment of the patrician class.
Does this mean that civs will essentially be the exact same as what patricians currently are?

[Silver Guard]

Needless to say:

[LIST][*]'The Speaker of the House is elected by the Curia, as per the procedure in Section 2 Article 2, from among those members ranked as Patricians, and will serve a term of six months.'

• We should be able to trust the Curia to elect our own representative to Hex fairly, otherwise there would be no point in having this ability. We all know who is worthy and who is not worthy, the patrician rank just makes things obvious.

Trust the Curia to vote on people? Haha, the day we do that is the day we vote on the head of tech and do not allow moderators to be appointed. The Patrician class is a CdeC fool-proof barrier. If they are not worthy enough to be a Patrician they're hardly going to fit the needs of Hex.

[*]'Each version of the bill requires named support from at least three Patricians'

• All Citizens can vote on legislation , why not be able to support it?
• A better solution to this would be 'named support from 1 CdeC member'

Again, Trust the Civitates? I'd vote them about as far as I can shoot on minigames, enough so that they can post in the Curia, not enough for them to be the end all and end all of legislation. This is another fool-proof in the Curia, and I know plenty of fools in the Civitate class.

[*]'A delay of longer than a month is at the Curators discretion only upon at least three patricians requesting more time for debate.'

• What if 3 Citizens want to debate, but no Patricians? This should be opened up to all Citizens (with a chance for curatatoral discretion)

[*]'If three or more Patricians state an objection, implementation will be postponed.' (Council Implementations)

• Yet again, why can't this be opened up to all Citizens?

I agree with these, they're unneccisary. Civitate's debating I can have no problem with.

[*]'The elected members of the CdeC are all Patricians.'

• We know who is good and who is bad for a position, no need for this.

They do? I'm afraid thats a matter of opinion, I certainly don't think so.

Firstly, we do not need a buffer between ranks. Like I have said, we know who is suitible for a position and who is not. I trust the Curia to elect thier representatives correctly and pick a candidate that is fit for the job, if not entirely eradicating popularity then minimising it. All we are doing is opening up these postions to a bigger pool of candidates.

I don't, as I said before, I wouldn't trust the Curia to lead me blindfolded to the Ethos and not a porn site, let alone choosing important individuals, especialy when once a mistake is made, it is almost impossible to erase.

Secondly, if 3 Citizens place an objection to something, shouldn't we value this as much as an objection from 3 Patricians? They are Citizens of the Curia, we allow them to vote on legislation, we allow them to discuss legislation, why not allow them to object to the implementation of certain things or be allowed to prolong debate if they deem it necessary?

As I said above, it depends on the situation. If its a case of letting the Civitates debate I have no problem with it, they have the right to debate, leave it with them. But there are more significant areas where Patricians serve as a buffer to stop foolish decisions being made. To be honest, if two patricians and a civitate called for a debate to be continued, id cast my vote even if i disagreed, as there can be no harm in debate.

• Give it to members of the CDC when they are elected to easily identify them, they lose the rank when they leave the CDC

• Out of the question, the Patrician rank is an honourary rank first and formost (the buffer roles are useful advantages of its existance)
  

• Change it back to being conferred upon 3 months good service as a Citizen (and then allow only patricians to patronise)

[Perikles]

Trust the Curia to vote on people? Haha, the day we do that is the day we vote on the head of tech and do not allow moderators to be appointed. The Patrician class is a CdeC fool-proof barrier. If they are not worthy enough to be a Patrician they're hardly going to fit the needs of Hex.

Irrelevent. The Curia already votes on these people, we are only extending the pool of candidates.

Again, Trust the Civitates? I'd vote them about as far as I can shoot on minigames, enough so that they can post in the Curia, not enough for them to be the end all and end all of legislation. This is another fool-proof in the Curia, and I know plenty of fools in the Civitate class.

There has never been a problem with Civitates supporting bills, ever. For some reason it got changed to Patricians only.

They do? I'm afraid thats a matter of opinion, I certainly don't think so.

I don't, as I said before, I wouldn't trust the Curia to lead me blindfolded to the Ethos and not a porn site, let alone choosing important individuals, especialy when once a mistake is made, it is almost impossible to erase.

Once again, irrelevant. Citizens can already vote in elections. How are mistakes impossible to erase?

As I said above, it depends on the situation. If its a case of letting the Civitates debate I have no problem with it, they have the right to debate, leave it with them. But there are more significant areas where Patricians serve as a buffer to stop foolish decisions being made. To be honest, if two patricians and a civitate called for a debate to be continued, id cast my vote even if i disagreed, as there can be no harm in debate.

Why don't we save us the bureaucrarcy then and open it up to everyone if that is the case?

Out of the question, the Patrician rank is an honourary rank first and formost (the buffer roles are useful advantages of its existance)

And thus remove its very significance, it becomes a pathetic ad on with no real purpose which may as well not exist, if it is to become a purely honourary rank it should atleast be harder to achieve!

When I joined the Curia the Patrician rank was just an addon. It suddenly gained this seemingly magnificent role which has been slowly eroded until now, where it is nothing but a buffer.

Realy I feel the Patrician rank is vital. Why is this, well consider the following.

Modders: Get the opifex rank for outstanding contribution
Moderators: Gain the senatorii rank.. for being moderators.
Admins: Gain the divus rank... when the Curia feels like it.

Seems like a bit of an unbalance no? Well it gets worse.

Non-modding/moderators: Nothing without the Patrician rank.

The Patrician rank was never designed and never should be just an honourary rank as you think it is, or it serves no purpose and should be abolished/reformed. If the only reasn you are a patrician is to be SG > the civs then there is a problem.

I not only feel that the Senatorii rank should have some restraint as to its approval, but that people who do not have the time for moderation, or the dedication to the game for modding, should have another way of being recognised for their effect on the forum

Opifex is for Community Contributions, think Rahl and WBK, not just modding. So the Community has it's rank for contributions already, so Patrician does not serve any purpose.

Besides the point that the Patrician rank is the only buffer rank we have. If we are to remove that role I'll have quite a few ostrakons and legislation sections added to make the Civitate rank more difficult to achieve.

And I'd have no problem with that.

[Silver Guard]

Irrelevent. The Curia already votes on these people, we are only extending the pool of candidates.

Indeed, to people I think are not worthy of the rank, if they were, then they'd be Patricians already

There has never been a problem with Civitates supporting bills, ever. For some reason it got changed to Patricians only.

I remove my opposal to this change

Why don't we save us the bureaucrarcy then and open it up to everyone if that is the case?

I'd have no problem with changing those two, its very different to abolishing the entire rank.

When I joined the Curia the Patrician rank was just an addon. It suddenly gained this seemingly magnificent role which has been slowly eroded until now, where it is nothing but a buffer.

And?

The Patrician rank was never designed and never should be just an honourary rank as you think it is, or it serves no purpose and should be abolished/reformed.

well it ended up as one, no matter what the original purpose is, it is now simply a way of showing those who contribute and are dedicated to the forum, like a lesser version of the opifex but all round, not biast.

If the only reasn you are a patrician is to be SG > the civs then there is a problem.

If you expect that to be taken at anything less then a personal insult then you are sadly mistaken. What is the obbsession of blaming me of being power hungry or some insane ego freak every time I defend the Patrician rank! If it'll salve your puritan fevour then I'll give up the rank just to prove you wrong.

Opifex is for Community Contributions, think Rahl and WBK, not just modding. So the Community has it's rank for contributions already, so Patrician does not serve any purpose.

There are two with Opifex outside modding, many more within, it is primarily for modding and it'll take a big change to make it otherwise

[Shaun]

Is it just me, or does anyone else seem to think that the main reasons why SG wants to keep the patrician rank is that it can be SG > Civs? Who cares about a badge and a rank?

[Elrond]

I proposed something like this before the new constitution but there wasn't much interest.

You have my (apparently second class citizen) support.

[Erich von Manstein]

I have mixed feelings on this issue, although I speak to you as a lowly citizen. On the one hand, the patrician class is a barrier to absolute enfranchisement for all Citizens. Most of the elected staff positions are only open to patricians. Patrician support is necessary for a bill to be allowed on the floor for a vote. It almost feels like the patrician class is the good ol' boys club, so to speak. They get to filter everything - if it doesn't get by them, the proposal dies.

On the other hand (and yes, I'm repeating myself), they filter everything. This does have its benefits, despite what I just said in the above paragraph. For one, nonsensical proposals aren't going to make it to a vote. Restricting staff candidates to patricians also ensures (for the most part) that the candidates will all be upstanding people. After all, it would be incredibly difficult for an incapable person to pass the dual tests of Citizenship and patricianship. Especially as we're currently in the process of expanding the citizenship (by removing the monthly limitations on patronisation), it could be beneficial to have at least one level of filtration before the very top.

As I said, I have mixed feelings about patricianship. I cannot support the proposal in its current form. My feelings on this matter have nothing to do with Perikles - he has developed a good proposal and is to be commended for it. At the moment I think the same means could be achieved by a laxation of the patrician filter; requiring the support of 1 patrician and 2 civitates for bills headed to a vote rather than 3 patricians. I'm glad Perikles brought this up for discussion, as the current system could use some tweaking in the future.

[Muizer]

I've always been of the opinion that a considerably increase in numbers from its starting composition was a condition for the success of the patrician rank. Without this, the basis would simply be too narrow to support the CdeC as an elected college. Adding it as a requirement for other offices does not help.

IMHO the required increase in the numbers of patricians has not materialized. That leaves us without an alternative to opening up CdeC membership to citizens. There can be no doubt that places the relevance of the Patrician rank in doubt.


Concerning the support for legislation, the ability to prolong discussion or postponing comittee decisions, 3 patricians could be replaced by a larger number of citizens. I think that would be a good idea anyway. I'd say no fewer than 6.

[Rolanbek]

sigh

R

[Simetrical]

I support.

[the Black Prince]

i do not support

pericles seems to have missed the main purpose of the rank, and i suggest he go read Appendix A to find it.

Patrician, like Citizen is an award, in this case awarded to those citizens who not only make worthy contributions to the community, but go above and beyond anything we expect of citizens in their dedication commitment and service to TWC.

AS a result of this, patricians are considered senior citizens (poor wording perhaps LOL) whose opinion does indeed carry more weight than that of the average citizen. Additionally, those higher curial officers, the ones that carry a great deal of responsibility are drawn solely from this sub class, and not the whole citizenry.

[Perikles]

i do not support

pericles seems to have missed the main purpose of the rank, and i suggest he go read Appendix A to find it.

Patrician, like Citizen is an award, in this case awarded to those citizens who not only make worthy contributions to the community, but go above and beyond anything we expect of citizens in their dedication commitment and service to TWC.

This rank was never intended to be a reward/honourary rank, it is therefore not the main purpose of the rank. I can clearly remember it was decided we would only have those who had contributed in to the site in the Curia, as they should have a major say in things. This experiment failed and we are now left with a rank that has none of it's original meaning.

AS a result of this, patricians are considered senior citizens (poor wording perhaps LOL) whose opinion does indeed carry more weight than that of the average citizen. Additionally, those higher curial officers, the ones that carry a great deal of responsibility are drawn solely from this sub class, and not the whole citizenry.

Do we want a few patricians to influence the opinions of everyone else? I am quite sure we want the opposite of this. Also, we are only opening up elections to a few more people, former patricians can still run and would have a good chance of passing.

As I said, I have mixed feelings about patricianship. I cannot support the proposal in its current form.

There is no proposal, I'm just bringing the issue up the gauge support and hopefully get a proposal later on.

[imb39]

I am unsure...

I can see the Patrician class working really well IF there is an expansion. I genuinely believe that the bar has been too high - but that is for the CDC to work out.

[the Black Prince]

the original patrician rank was to seperate those who could patronise from those who could not, and was granted as of right after being a citizen for 3 months. that position has long since been subverted, and is not one that i disagree with.


i definitely agree with Imb that there are too few patricians, though i cannot at this time put my hands on a complete list of them.

i think the problem is twofold in that regard. one, like patrician promotion is nomination driven... its been a while since the CdeC received any nominations for promotion to this rank. two, there are few new active citizens. a large proportion of the citizens i have seen promoted by the CdeC i have served on have gone on to do the same thing as they did before they got the rank. now there's nothing wrong with that, but it means that there is too little new blood coming into the curia, so that we have problems that ragabash has warned of, whereby positions that are patrician only receive to few applicants because there is not enough interest.

[Perikles]

the original patrician rank was to seperate those who could patronise from those who could not, and was granted as of right after being a citizen for 3 months. that position has long since been subverted, and is not one that i disagree with.

I liked the old style rank better.

i think the problem is twofold in that regard. one, like patrician promotion is nomination driven... its been a while since the CdeC received any nominations for promotion to this rank. two, there are few new active citizens. a large proportion of the citizens i have seen promoted by the CdeC i have served on have gone on to do the same thing as they did before they got the rank. now there's nothing wrong with that, but it means that there is too little new blood coming into the curia, so that we have problems that ragabash has warned of, whereby positions that are patrician only receive to few applicants because there is not enough interest.

If the problems are:

a)Patricians participate in the Curia no differently than if they were Citizens
b)There are too few applicants to patricians only postions

It seems that abolision of the rank is the obvious way forward as it will open up positions to a bigger pool of people and will encourage new blood in the Curia to participate more as they are not intimidated by a higher rank.

[Silver Guard]

I liked the old style rank better.

I didn't
Jp, you may have liked the old style better, and the new version of the Patrician rank was based on a flawed ideal, but as it is, why change so drasticaly? Why abolish it? There are sections of the Patrician rank which are wrong, like needing their say so to continue debating legislation, but it does have its uses, and no matter what people say, its the only real way for a non-modder to gain an honourary rank.
No, thats not how it was planned to act, I agree as far as thats concerned. But who cares how it was first created? That was a disaster in most people's eyes, so forget it, leavve the Patrician rank as it has become, an honourary rank with a few RHIPs.

a)Patricians participate in the Curia no differently than if they were Citizens

How many consistant and dedicated contributors to the Curia are non-citizens? Look at the proth, the majority of posters are Patricians, look at post history, the people from a few months back after the counter-reform who still post now are mostly Patricians.

b)There are too few applicants to patricians only postions

Then get more Patricians! It's hardly the systems fault that no one thinks anyone is capable of getting the position! If you think someone is worthy of a Patrician-only rank, then he is capable to be a Patrician! So nominate him for Christs sake!

will encourage new blood in the Curia to participate more as they are not intimidated by a higher rank.

Personaly I think that's BS. Should we get a survey amongst the citizens seeing just how much Patricians "intimidate" them?

Personaly I see one of the problems is that not enough citizens are nominated. I feel if a citizen wishes to become a Patrician-restricted rank, he should be able to nominate himself as with tribunous applications. So I feel the rules should be change so that citizens can apply to the rank, and broaden its rank so that it can remain a buffer without the drawback of lack of numbers (which is becoming less applicable with the increacing numbers)

[Muizer]

IIt's hardly the systems fault that no one thinks anyone is capable of getting the position!

The fact is there aren't enough patricians. It seems to me you have a choice between two: Regarding patronising, either the system is fine, but the people populating it aren't doing what can be expected of them to keep it running, or the system is at fault because it assumes people will do what cannot be expected of them.