Proposal: Sitting this one out
Reached quorum 5 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.
Adminned at 20 May 2024 08:52:35 UTC
In “Rules and Votable Matters” part of the Clarifications section of the ruleset
replace
If the City has voted DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, that vote is instead considered to be valid and either FOR (if more Thieves have a valid FOR vote on that Proposal than have a valid AGAINST vote on it) or AGAINST (in all other cases). However, in either case, votes of DEFERENTIAL made by other Thieves on the same Proposal are not considered to be valid. If there are six or fewer Thieves, then the City’s vote of DEFERENTIAL on a proposal is only affected by this rule if all Thieves who are not the City have cast a vote on that proposal.
with
If the City has voted DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, they are not considered to be a Thief for the purposes of totaling quorum on that Proposal. Votes of DEFERENTIAL made by other Thieves on the same Proposal are not considered to be valid, but the Thieves who made them still contribute to quorum
Recently we had a couple of proposals time out that were 3-0 with one def vote from Kevan. Due to the “six or fewer active players” clause, this was not enough to get 4 votes and pass the proposals before a timeout. However, unless Kevan changed his vote the proposals were a lock to pass, because even if the other two people voted against it would still be 3-2 (and oddly enough suddenly be able to pass when previously it couldn’t until the timeout)
I believe this keeps the vote as intended—as an explicit way for the emperor to opt out of a proposal.
It does mean in some circumstances where say, a 7 person dynasty is split 3 FOR 0 AGAINST 1 IMPERIAL DEF that the proposal cannot be enacted but I’m not convinced that is a bad thing. The idea being reaching quorum and enacting something early is that unless someone changes their mind or joins the dynasty, everyone elses votes can’t change the result. But in the 3/0/1 scenario, the other three people still voting could change the result. So I think its arguably an improvement to not let proposals get enacted in that state.
JonathanDark: he/him
We could try this in steps as well. The current problem seems to be mainly due to fewer players. We could put this change in only when the “if there are six or fewer Thieves” clause kicks in.
I feel like that would solve the current issue of Proposals timing out even though their passing isn’t going to change.