I'd like to raise the following;

(10-22-2016, 07:26 PM)sandaoguo Wrote:

Quote:

Political Parties Act

An act outlining political parties and their benefits.

1. Defining Political Parties

(1) A political party is any group of people in The South Pacific, counting at least as many members as senior Cabinet officials, who organize together in an official association for political or electoral purposes.

(2) Associations for purposes other than politics, including satirical, social, or casual groups, do not qualify as political parties under this Act.

2. Rights of Political Parties

(1) Political parties have the right to exist without undue government interference, per the freedom of assembly guaranteed in Article III of the Charter.

(2) Political parties have the right to engage in coordinated legislative and electoral efforts, without fear of reprisal from any government official.

(3) Political parties have the right to conduct business in private, without the arbitrary interference of the government or arbitrarily being compelled to publish private communications.

3. Benefits to Active Political Parties

(1) Political parties that maintain an accurate public membership roster, and field at least one member for public office in an election per year, qualify for a dedicated public and private subforum.

(2) Political parties may petition the Chair of the Assembly for approval for a subforum. The Chair of the Assembly will verify the qualifications of the party, and if the party meets those qualifications, notify the Forum Administration to create the party's dedication subforum.

(3) Dedicated party subforums will consist of two parts--
(a) a public top-level subforum, where the party must post its membership roster;
(b) a password-protected subforum, which will have the necessary permissions to ensure non-members cannot read threads without authorization.

4. Archival of Inactive Subforums

(1) The Forum Administration will non-destructively archive political party subforums if the requirements listed in Article 3 are no longer met.

(2) Inactive political parties may petition the Chair of the Assembly for revival of their archived subforums, under the same process outlined in Article 3.

Looking through this thread the words top-level mysteriously appeared among Glen's changes, without any explicit mention. Looking at the way the forums are currently organised, with political parties presented above and before the actual government itself, this seems to be a rather blatant case of undue prominence - and inappropriate. It also follows a pattern of Glen's, previously mentioned by others, of making alterations and "forgetting" to point them out to anyone.

This legislation was meant to be about regulating political parties, not promoting and advertising them - the un-publicised addition of this clause has clearly perverted the purpose of the bill. I should not need to remind people that there is already a "Civic and Political Organization Center" designated as "A place where nations can discuss civic issues in the region and build political organizations."

As such, I submit a proposal to strike the words "top-level" from this law.

EDIT: It must be noted that since I wrote this Glen has moved the political parties down the forums, into a less blatantly improper position - as such this is no longer quite so much of a major issue, but the fact that he thought he could get away with the original forum organisation despite the rather blatant conflict of interest and the associated misuse of his status as an admin is still something I find troublesome.