Resolution 0506: New Ruling Committee of the FRPG

Drafted by: T.K. Williams

Based on recent frustrations being brought out to the council by a number of players throughout the fleet, I offer this resolution for consideration. It's evidenced that a large number of veteran players have lost respect and faith in the current leadership
system the FRPG employs. The perceived secrecy and aloofness of the game's administration has a direct link to the apathy and lack of interest in the FRPG as a whole.

We propose to make this game whole again keeping the council format, but instead of having a system of appointees, where the community as a whole has no say in what goes on, that we instead hold elections to fill those positions.

In all fairness, this resolution should be discussed openly and freely - on a message board or similar forum so everyone in the FRPG community can have a chance to see what people think, why they think that way, and to monitor and participate in the discussion that happens during the debate of this resolution. In this case, the final vote of the Council should be published with names and vote to avoid accusations of secrecy and corruption - we submit that with something this important, that current Main Council members include a short written paragraph as to why they chose to vote this way.

Now, for how a restored community would work and the changes needed to make it so:

Council:

(Timeline)
June 1: Campaigns for council seats, and deputy chair are held, and elections drawn.
June 15: New elected officials take their positions as council/dChair January 1: Chair retires, dChair assumes chair
position. New dChair is elected.

The chair's duties would need to be expanded to include hand holding new elected officials from the units, showing them procedure and how things are run, as well as its current duties. The chair will be in position for 6 months. After 6 months, the Chair retires and is replaced by the dChair, with a new dChair being elected. Both of these positions would be free and open to all members of the community regardless of current character rank.

It may seem that the Chair position gets replaced often, but we believe it to be important to keep someone fresh in the positions. Burnout is a big threat to the bureaucracy of this community, and this would help to prevent that.  The Chair would also be eligible to run for the position of his/her unit representative and for the dChair again, once that position becomes available.

Every ship would vote to their representative on all debates within the Council as well as a deputy to fill in should the Councilor be unavailable.  Each player would send a mail to the Council chair voting on who they want as their representative. A subject line of (for example) Election 2006: USS FARRAGUT: Taylor Williams/Ken Fields would be sufficient.

Resolutions:

This would require a slight alteration in the form resolutions take. It would be determined by the drafter whether to send the proposal to committee (just the representatives, who may poll their crews as they so desire) or to an automatic fleet wide vote.

Committee Resolutions:

This would be used only for basic decisions, such as promotions and awards to units and such, and would be voted on by our elected councillors.

Fleet Wide Resolutions:

For all future resolutions pertaining to rules changes or fundamental alternations to the nature of the FRPG, a mailing list is adopted (the old Yahoo groups, for example or http://frpg.bb2.org/ ) where debates are conducted in public via message board. Every member of the community would be able to see the arguments presented, for and against, and offer arguments of
their own on that message board.

When a vote is called and seconded (by two members of the Main Council), the Council representatives would be responsible for polling their crew, using e-mail to send out and explain the presented legislation, tallying those results, and finally forwarding a single YEA or NAY vote to the chair. The representatives would be required to keep votes and produce them on demand (in case of a JAG investigation) for a minimum period of 90 days.

Resolution votes will be restricted for primary character players only. For example, all current COs with secondary characters will receive one vote only, and are not eligible to vote on the unit where their secondary character is based. This applies to all
players with secondary characters.

Open Command Officer Positions:

Anyone interested, and who qualifies, should submit their applications to the crew of that vessel. That crew would then submit its votes to their representative, who would then notify the Councils and Chair. This ensures that, while the position would be
open to everyone in the community, only the crew of the unit affected would select their new ExO or CO.

Time Limits:

Once a vote is called, there will be a deadline for individual players to submit their votes to their unit's Councilor. A dedicated time should be established to have votes submitted by, ie: 2000 hours GMT time, June 12th. If someone doesn't submit a vote by that time, they lose their chance to affect the outcome of that election. This is an accurate reflection of real-world voting - if a player decides not to vote within the elapsed timeframe, their vote will not be included when their CO tallies the results for the unit's YEA or NAY vote.

Representative Requirements:

There are no pre-conditions set on those who wish to run as the representative to the Main Council or its deputies - all active members of the FRPG community are free to run for these positions. An internal majority vote on the individual unit will decide who the successful candidate is.

Abuse/Discipline:

Any time something like this is attempted there is the potential for abuse or incapability. In a situation of abuse, a complaint would be lodged with the fleet JAG. They would investigate the charge, and act accordingly including removal of that player from the game.

With incapability, it's less drastic. If the unit a player represents feels that their representative is incapable, a majority vote of no confidence from within that unit should be submitted to the Chair. That representative will then be removed, and the
Deputy Rep will take his or her place, and a special election for that ship be held to fill the vacant position. This guarantees the freedom of individual crews to select who they wish to represent them on the Main Council.

ACT/Department Heads:

In the new system, ACT will not have a council vote. However, The Academy Commandant would be put into a position of an administrative Department Head, like JAG or Chief of Operations, or the Archivist. When a resolution or a problem erupts where one of these areas is affected, that department head will get a council voice.

Pros/Cons:

Pros: This would open up the leadership of this game to more people, and give them the ability to shape it and take us in new directions. It has the possibility of bringing every idea to light, not just ones from popular players. It eliminates the closed door policy of the council, and probably the US vs THEM mentality that this situation breeds. It also enshrines a fundamental right of every member of the community to have a vote in the passing or rejecting of resolutions, something that regular players have never had before. Under this new system, universal suffrage would be adopted.

Cons: The amount of work to get this started, the added work put on the Chair position. It would slow things down some in June while council was changing over.

The Future:

Should this resolution be passed and successfully implemented, various roles within the game will change:

- The Main Council, currently composed of COs, would be dissolved and be replaced by 5 elected councillors, one from each unit, plus one Council Chair. Both of these positions are largely administrative. The councillors would oversee the democratic running of their individual units and assist players in tasks such as drafting resolutions, understanding tabled resolutions, and passing on comments from other councillors and/or Admin officers; also, they would collect the internal votes of their individual
units and declare a YEA or NAY to the currently tabled resolution on behalf of their unit.

- The ExO Council would also be dissolved and replaced by a group of Deputy councillors. These Deputies are stand-bys in the event that the unit's elected Councilor is unable to fulfill their duties for a period of time.

- The role of a unit's CO would no longer be political. The CO will now resemble the Games Master of a unit, organizing missions and concentrating on the game-based development of their units. They will retain the services of an ExO as back-up.

- Current Administrative positions would remain unchanged, except JAG (see above).

- The Chair position's duties would be unchanged.

- The regular player of the FRPG will now have a chance to view tabled resolutions, participate in the debate on them, and then finally make a vote on whether it should pass or not.

-As with all monumental tasks, issues will crop up when implementing this change. This is expected and, like the current set-up, can be solved with future resolutions to tweak our new government.

By a vote of 5-1, this resolution passes.

SD 2.50610.0700