This is basically the same point I tried to make, indeed.
The way I understand it, it also lets the delegacy holder focus on endorsements, I was thinking this could be expanded into having them engage more with residents and new nations to have them join the WA or become citizens. Like a minister of recruitment, this what I mean by “executive”
I agree with Zuk’s reply. Sure, the Delegate can nominate Arbiters. But on account of the future Delegate position being held within the Praesidium, then I don’t agree that it’s practical for the Delegate to be nominating and appointing Viziers; this should be done by the HoG and Magisterium.
I don’t mind this being under the Praesidium in general, the way citizenship currently is, but I think the Delegate’s role should be somewhat minimal beyond supervision and assistance as they please. That’s also something more suited for law, since EPPS and Citizenship are given to Praeprae only in law.
I don’t mind the Delegate nominating Viziers, as I discussed with Waterfall State in DMs as well, but since this is controversial amongst the Magisterium I’d prefer it be a separate, follow-up amendment so as to prevent HOGS from failing wholesale as a result of one controversial piece.
I agree with this we should leave this discussion for laws later and go through with the current proposal
I’ve done a big update!!! Here’s the change log.
- Included Aurora’s A, B, and D amendments to allow Praesidium confirmation of Viziers
- Extended GV term until the effectuation of the amendment as well
- Corrected grammar of D.1.1, D.1.2, and D.1.6, . Thanks Zuk and Bach for helping me there.
- Clarified RO order of precedence re: Zuk’s suggested wording.
- Moved all provisions on the Delegacy in D.1 to D.2: “The Delegacy”
- Adopted some of the reorganizing of the Delegacy’s tasks as suggested by Bach, but kept it mostly the same due to other suggestions I’ve incorporated and to prevent subclauses in the Concordat.
- Moved “The Delegate cannot concurrently serve” clause into D.2.2 to cut down the fat
- Reworded Acting Delegate procedures to clarify what circumstances would require an Acting Delegate election
- Moved Arbiter nomination duties to the Delegate per Domais, Zukchiva, and Cappedore’s suggestions
- Changed the Delegate election process from a citizen election with Vizier candidates to a Vizier election subject to Magisterial confirmation (Cretox suggestion - thanks Cretox)
- Permitted the CM to serve as Vizier simultaneously AND to serve as Delegate simultaneously with Praesidium permission (Cretox)
These last three are the most pressing changes. Cretox also suggested keeping the Chief Minister term for 4 months instead of 6 and to reform the Delegacy term so that, instead of serving for 1-year terms, the Delegate shall serve indefinitely but the Praesidium may begin election proceedings whenever they like. I’m curious as to what everyone’s thoughts are on these two potential changes to the HOGS system. I can also stomach a compromise whereby the Praesidium can do a new election whenever BUT there’s an automatic reconfirmation in a year like with Arbiters.
Right now, in addition to new thoughts, fixes, and suggestions I’d like to explicitly solicit opinions on the following:
- Delegate nominating Arbiters over CM
- Delegate elected by Prae and confirmed by Magi instead of elected by Cit w/ Viz Candidates
- CM serving as Del with Prae permission
- CM 4 month v 6 month terms
- Del indefinite term with any-time election-calling
I also hope to begin the CM naming contest soon, but I’d like everyone’s agreement to abide by the results of that contest vote if that’s possible. Again, I really don’t want this sinking because of some naming disagreements. I will also not rename Delegate because I think that defeats some of the point of this amendment, it’s also a bit too much to do TWO naming contests, and it can just be done later. I don’t want, for any period of time, to have a temporary HOG name though, since I don’t want a weird transition period.
Aiv included pretty much everything, but I’ll elaborate on my reasons for proposing those changes:
- Delegate being selected from among the Viziers by the Praesidium (and confirmed by Magi) on an ad-hoc basis instead of Viziers running for yearlong terms: I think a yearlong term is needlessly rigid for holding the ingame seat, and diminishes the Prae’s ability to be responsive to the evolving needs of the region and people’s RL situations. Things change over the course of a year, and having a yearlong term risks saddling us with up to a yearlong “acting delegacy” should the elected ingame Delegate need to step down for whatever reason, while also limiting Prae’s ability to handle inactive or otherwise ill-suited ingame dels, and running into the TSP issue of diluted election focus. We should instead leverage the potential flexibility and responsiveness that comes with a nonexec ingame Delegate. The law itself can either require each new ingame del to be elected by the Prae with a majority vote, or just require the Prae to produce an ingame del via internal procedure (subject to Magi confirmation in either case). There could also be periodic reconfirmation votes, or we could sync reconfirmation votes with the CM election cycle.
- Chief Minister potentially serving as ingame Delegate with Praesidium permission: This is how Europeia does it, and it’s how TNP would’ve probably done it. Should a Chief Minister feel well-suited to also being ingame Delegate, they can make a request to the Praesidium, which will then deliberate and vote on whether to approve them. This permission can be revoked by another Prae vote at any time, and will naturally expire at the end of the CM’s term. This will give the Prae discretionary flexibility to approve solid picks for the ingame seat (high endos, trusted, long time in the region, former Vizier, etc.) while having the del/HoG split be the normal state of affairs. I suggest requiring a Chief Minister to make a new request upon reelection, and requiring Prae to immediately get to work on a replacement Vizier del should they vote to revoke the CM before their term is up (which would be rare and likely due to new security concerns coming to light).
- 4-month Chief Minister term: I think increasing HoG term length to 6 months is too much, and even if I didn’t, I think it should be done after seeing how the split works in practice rather than lumped into the same bill. 6-month terms are brutal, especially for newer players, and encouraging more people to run for HoG would be undermined by removing 33% of opportunities for people to actually get elected. I’m concerned it’ll lead to stagnation and burnout.
- My personal preference is for the Delegate to nominate Arbiters and for the CM to nominate Viziers (though, I’m not particularly wedded to those preferences).
- If the role is just locked to Vizier candidates, then I’m happy for the Delegate to be elected by the Praesidium and confirmed by the Magisterium.
- I would prefer if the Delegate was excluded from being the CM to ensure that powers are appropriately separated. The Viziers are supposed to be a check on the CM, and allowing a Vizier to also be the CM seems counterintuitive to that.
- I’m fine with the CM’s term limit being increased to 6 months, but would like to revisit this matter in a year and get input from the CMs as to whether the term limit is suitable or needs to be shortened to 4 months (that said, I would also be fine with keeping it at 4 months and asking input from the CMs as to whether they think it would be okay to increase the term duration).
- I am… okay… with the Delegate’s term being infinite, subject to reconfirmation votes each term, and if there are provisions that allow the Viziers to submit a new Delegate for confirmation due to inactivity.
Permitted the CM to serve as Vizier simultaneously AND to serve as Delegate simultaneously with Praesidium permission
I’m not sure I like this - I don’t really see a point in allowing the CM to stay as Vizier and have full Vizier functions. I mean I guessss it doesn’t matter THAT much, but I’d be more comfortable with suspending their Viziership for the duration they’re CM and letting Viziership automatically restore itself once their CM term is over.
- Delegate nominating Arbiters over CM
I think letting a Vizier Delegate do this is a GREAT move. The Conclave has kinda always been the weakpoint of our region, and I think making it so only the Delegate can nominate Arbiters adds a pretty strong security barrier that we lack at present.
- Delegate elected by Prae and confirmed by Magi instead of elected by Cit w/ Viz Candidates
Totes fine with this
- CM serving as Del with Prae permission
I’ll be honest - I don’t like this that much. Yes its more secure than what we have now, but what’s even MORE secure is just making Delegate a straight up Vizier.
If we struggle to find people willing to be Delegate, I could see this as a good solution. However, at present I think the Delegate really should be just a Vizier.
- CM 4 month v 6 month terms
idc, either seems fine to me. but i do think 6mo term has more propensity for burn out
- Del indefinite term with any-time election-calling
This I very staunchly oppose on its own. I understand and appreciate the idea, but the problem with TEP is that we’re way too kind. We’re not really the type of region to remove people - hell it was seen as controversial when people were noting some Delegates had low endorsement counts a few years ago.
I wouldn’t mind keeping this as an additional mechanism, but at the minimum we need a Magi reconfirmation every year as a check-in. So I guess the way I imagine the process is: Delegate gets voted in by the Prae/Magi and gets automatically reconfirmed every year by the Magi (like Arbiters do now). At any point of a Delegate’s term, the Praesidiium can call for an election and elect a new Delegate, etc.
I think yearlong Vizier del terms would have this exact issue coupled with potentially very long “acting delegacy” periods should someone need to step down.
Could sync del reconfirmations to CM terms, whether they be 4 or 6 months.
If you have strong opinions on names, add them here. I’ll work with the new Delegate’s staff to promote this as they transition.
I disagree. A year long Vizier term signals an end to the term and allows for someone to re-think on their own if they can do things. It gives the Delegate themself a better ability to re-assess how they’re feeling about the job, and it gives the Magisterium an automatic field to hold the Delegate accountable with questions. Neither of this is accomplished by having a system wherein a Vizier Delegate serves indefinetly until a snap election is called, because the decision to call a snap election itself is a very active and in a sense challenging (in the form of facing off with the incumbent Delegate, so challenging said Delegate) political act that TEP doesn’t do good with.
TEP isn’t like TSP/TNP/Euro/Thaecia, wherein democratic winds tend to be stronger and the populace more ready for political strife and conflict. TEP tends to shy away from that, which means we very rarely remove officials or would (in this case) call a snap election. We’re pretty content to let people keep doing their jobs so long as they do their jobs, even if it’s utterly subpar work. The modern Magisterium may be an exception to this but even then most removals are just for very clear signs of inactivity. So whatever system I think should rely less on snap decisions (removals, snap elections/challenges) and more on automatic breaking points (reconfirmations) to account for that.
And like I said, I wouldn’t mind a combo system wherein the Vizier has to reconfirm every year by the magi AND at any point the prae can call elections to elect a new Vizier to a whole one-year term.
i guess i wouldn’t mind that - just have a reconfirmation every X months in the calendar year?
I should add based on my personal experience with the modern Prae that the reasons for snap elections are much less likely to be “hell yeah i can seve as delegate give me a shot” and more “we really need someone to be Delegate cuz the current one is just inactive so imma just run”. I.e. more a “we need to do this” than “politically exciting time to be alive” election, so more akin to a removal than anything.
It looks like conversation is trending towards the following:
- Allowing Del nom of Arbiters
- Confirming via Magi after a Praesidium election for Del
- Keeping four month HOG terms
- Doing a one-year term for Del BUT still allowing elections to be called midterm
- Not allowing the HOG to be a Vizier or Delegate but only temporarily suspending Vizier status rather than forfeiting it upon election
I’ve bolded the parts that would be divergences from the current proposal. Please comment if you disagree with these, as I will likely be incorporating these elements in the near future. For full transparency, I also plan to use this opportunity to define what the “Praesidium” is – whether it’s just the Viziers or all of the Security branch. Feel free to comment your thoughts on that as well.
If there are any other elements you’d like to see, or anything in the current proposal you personally oppose, please indicate as such. If you mentioned something earlier that I didn’t incorporate or mention here, please repeat yourself as I do not have the capacity to go back through all 50+ posts and compare them to the lengthy legalese of my proposal.
In eight days, we should have a name for our HOG, which I will also incorporate into this proposal. I have no further plans for now, and so I will tentatively aim to make a motion for a vote on March 15th, one month following the beginning of a traditional February term. This would make it likely for the entire thing to pass before April, ahead of schedule. However, I am open to delaying if people want more time to look, think, and comment, or if debate picks up and I find it prudent to push things back appropriately.
Again, please please please lmk if you have any thoughts, suggestions, questions, comments, hopes, dreams, fears, or favorite colors related to this proposal. In this thread we have showcased and will continue to showcase the legislative strength, creativity, and unity of our region. This proposal would not be possible without all of you.
Also, as far as I can tell, Lucklife is the only person who is against the idea of HOG in principle.
- If you are not Lucklife and you are against in principle, please do make it known. I’d love to chat about fears, motivators, etc.
- If you are against in principle, whether your name is Lucklife or not, I’d still appreciate ideas on what the best way to implement this would be IF we went forward. I don’t want to lose out on valuable input on implementation from skilled legislators due to differences in principle here. You won’t be expected to vote yes just because you suggested ways to make this safer and better, but you would be ensuring that, if the vote doesn’t go your way, you’ve helped mitigate at least some of the problems you might have seen.
I’m sorta against the idea of four month HOG terms, if you want a compromise, go five months.
Hard disagree. Five months is untenable in a twelve-month calendar year. It’s either 4 or it’s 6, and I’m personally leaning towards 4.
I mean I personally would prefer six months but since the HOG isn’t tied to the Delegacy, idm more frequent transitions. I can see the argument that it would be a good bulwark against burnout as well.