[vote requested] Proposing a Democratic System for Changing League Rules

[pacers]

Proposing a Democratic System for Changing League Rules
Note: For context for this poll, please read this post to the end!

One of the beautiful things about this league is that it’s a living entity. Rosters are shifting, player composition is shifting, the metagame is shifting. Even the composition of the league itself is shifting, with GMs joining and leaving our ranks.

But currently, the rules of the league are static. As a society of GMs under one Sim God, we need rules - which we have, thanks to the O6 - but we also need a way for all of us to engage on and change those rules over time. Even small and obvious changes to the rules aren’t made because we don’t have a consistent and transparent process to explain changes, engage our fellow GMs on them, and pull them through - hence, we consistently revert to the status quo.

I believe we need to put a system in place to change the rules of the game in a democratic way. I’ve dedicated a lot of thought to this over the past few months, with the goal of proposing a system that’s:
- Simple - low overhead and easy to understand
- Self-governing - requires the engagement and approval of fellow GMs
- Dynamic but not hasty - lets us shape the league for years to come, without shifting the ground under our feet too quickly

Here’s what I’d propose:

• We create a new board called “Proposed Rule Changes.” Anyone in the league can post Proposed Rule Changes on the board, and the Moderator of the board has the right to remove any underbaked proposals.
• All Proposed Rule Changes have 1/ the format of a poll, which can have multiple options, and 2/ one of the options of the poll must be to keep the status quo.
• Proposed Rule Changes can be posted at any point during a season, and to be enacted, must have a supermajority of the league (20/29 GMs) voting for a single option in the poll.
• All Proposed Rule Changes have 2 seasons to be approved by the league (that is, changes that do not reach the approval threshold within 2 seasons are automatically rejected).
• At the end of every season, the Moderator posts a summary of all Proposed Rule Changes that reached 20 approvals during the course of the season.
• Ashes has the right to veto any Proposed Rule Change. Even democracies answer to God!
• Approved changes are enacted the following season.

To show the above with an example:

1. A GM wants to propose that the RP trade cap should be enforced on a net basis instead of a gross basis.
2. In the middle of the 2018-2019 season, the GM posts in the Proposed Rule Changes forum a poll with the proposed change (net basis) and the status quo (gross basis), with an explanation in the post of what each option means.
3. During the 2019-2020 season, this Proposed Rule Change reaches 20 approvals.
4. Ashes does not veto the proposed change, and therefore the Proposed Rule Change is approved.
5. Starting in the 2020-2021 season, the RP trade cap is enforced on a net basis instead of a gross basis.

I’d like to use this proposal as its own guinea pig. Please vote in the above poll whether you’d like to see us enact this Proposed Rule Change to implement a rule change and voting system, and if we as a league approve it according to the guidelines laid out above, I’m happy to help create and launch it.

Thanks for reading!

[jwoo]

Thanks for doing such a thoughtful job on this Tong - curious what people think but as I said on the pod I just think it's good to have a system in place for new ideas, whether or not we actually end up enacting anything major (I suspect with the amount of smart people in our league, having some platform for this will be beneficial)

[Concepts of a Plan]

In an ideal world, when proposing a new idea, I think it’s best if there’s actual discourse on if you agree or disagree on a new rule. I think oftentimes there’s a silent majority who is fine or ambivalent to something but no one speaks up, so the loudest voices on either side become the prevailing narrative.

Tong out here being the change he wishes to see in the world!

[Skillz]

I support this and would love Tonger to be the Rule Board mod since he is clearly thinking about this more than most! Curious to hear ashes' thoughts.

I do think there is prevailing wisdom on some of the rules that have been baked into doing this game for 15-20 years and would caution against hasty changes, so feel strongly that a 20 or 22 vote majority makes the most sense.

[Joe]

I like the net cap thing because it adds an additional strategic element and probably results in more trading league-wide...with a couple of caveats because RP spending abuse / inflation was rampant in our old league (read: Nav was basically the German government in the 20s in SLOR, whenever he needed something he just printed more money and then bought players with wheelbarrows of it).

I think we should still keep a gross cap (maybe 2500 or 3000? not sure, but we can play with it, and at the rate RP is being earned, I don't think anyone's trading numbers like this with any degree of frequency), but the net cap would allow you to trade up to that number as long as you never breach the 1500 outgoing cap at any point (i.e., you can't trade out 2000 and then later on trade in 500 to get "under the cap", you'd have have the 500 incoming occur before you got to do another 500 outgoing). We would also need someone to monitor this so Jesse doesn't have to manage additional complexity

[Joe]

To be clear, I also support democracy! Definitely nothing less than a supermajority for rules stuff though and as a whole defer to ashes for vetoes, as outlined here

[Skillz]

(Oh and on the RP trade cap…I am against doing net cap )

I want to be able to accommodate our entire GM pool. I think you can make a strong argument that the most active GMs and content-generators already have a significant advantage - as they probably should - but instituting a net cap instead of a gross cap will disproportionately help the same guys that already benefit most from the current RP system

[pacers]

Bumping this. Please vote if you haven't already! Appreciate the support and voters thus far!

[ashes]

This is fine

[bpankin]

we did it guys