Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Proposal: Legacy of Elbridge

Timed out 1 vote to 5. Failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 23 Sep 2016 09:14:40 UTC

In the rule called “Auld Anchorage”, change the following text:

This information is tracked on the Auld Anchorage page

To read as follows:

The Auld Anchorage page tracks both the Current Constituency map and the Proposed Constituency map. Unless otherwise stated, any action that requires reference to or editing of Auld Anchorage, Constituencies or the map should be carried out in reference to the Current Constituency map.

If there is a rule entitled “Gerrymander”, amend it to read as follows. Otherwise, add the following text as a new rule to the ruleset, entitled Gerrymander:

As a Daily Action taken no more than three times a week, a Councillor can Gerrymander. When a Councillor Gerrymander, they choose one block of the Proposed Constituency map of Auld Anchorage and change its Constituency to any other Constituency. When changing the Constituency of a Block, the following rules must be observed:

  • No Constituency may have fewer than 8 blocks.
  • All blocks in a Constituency must be connected to all other blocks of that Constituency in a contiguous group.

Add a new rule to the ruleset, entitled Boundary Commission:

As a Weekly Communal Action, a Councillor may call a meeting of the Boundary Commission by making a post in the Story Post - Votable Matter category entitled “Minutes of the Boundary Commission: x”, where x is the date of posting and the body of the text contains the data held in the Proposed Constituency map at the time of posting.

A meeting of the Boundary Commission is a Votable Matter. It resolves as per the resolution of proposals but is otherwise not considered to be a proposal for the purposes of any other rule.

If a meeting of the Boundary Commission passes then the Proposed Constituency map that it contains becomes the Current Constituency map.

Comments

Kevan: he/him

21-09-2016 11:53:50 UTC

I like this for adding an element of negotiation to the three-per-week gerrymandering, but it feels too easily circumvented. Why bother with a Boundary Commission proposal when you can make a regular old proposal of “make the map look like this” (including whatever extra bribes and riders you like, to help it attract votes)?

Josh: Observer he/they

21-09-2016 12:22:14 UTC

I think you can have both. The nice thing about the Boundary Commission is that it’s persistent - even if you overwrite the current map, through proposal or boundary commission, the proposed map still exists and can revert any excessive changes. It shows the pace of change down a bit, is a slightly conservative influence, and that’s interesting to me.

Brendan: he/him

21-09-2016 19:29:02 UTC

against I like the general idea of having a staging ground for negotiated changes, but I’m against slowing down the pace of change. Blognomic tends to slow down of its own accord.

qwertyu63:

21-09-2016 20:40:34 UTC

against

Kevan: he/him

22-09-2016 07:54:55 UTC

It’s not really any more persistent than the live map, though. If I’m pushing through a proposal to rearrange the map to suit my cronies, which I know will get a quorum of support, I’ll just tack on a clause to make the same update to the Proposed Constituency map. There might be some principled pushback from honourable Councillors who’d reject any boundary-change proposal that also scribbled on the Proposed Constituency map, but not - I think - very much.

I could get behind the slow construction of a second historical map of Auld Anchorage, with the threat of some localised Passport to Pimlico style interactions with the current map. Or maybe an underground mining and utilities map which had subtle repercussions for the city above. But I don’t think this slow-refresh-the-whole-map model is going to work in practice, when it seems likely we’ll be refreshing the map more quickly through regular proposals.

against

ShareDVI:

22-09-2016 15:55:03 UTC

imperial

RaichuKFM: she/her

22-09-2016 20:49:15 UTC

against Per Brendan, Kevan.