I noticed that there are open legislator applications dating from October 8th, which is 11 days ago now. While I assume applications may have been on hold for the cabinet elections, those concluded 5 days ago now, and neither the Chair nor the Deputy Chair have processed applications.

Are applications on hold in general, or is there something else that is holding up the 5 open applications?

(This post was last modified: 12-20-2017, 08:57 PM by Nakari.)

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I would suspect they are still on hold as we are now electing a new chair.

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Then I presume we also had elections in these cases:

• The 7 applications between July 8 and July 19 (11 days)
  
• The 6 applications between July 23 and August 1 (9 days)
  
• The 8 applications between August 2 and August 22 (20 days)
  
• The 17 applications between August 25 and September 11 (17 days)
  

Given that we seem to have elections this often (more often than I had realized), wouldn't it be prudent for the Chair to inform applicants within a reasonable timeframe that their applications will be on hold until they can be processed?

(yes, I'm being an asshole about this)

(This post was last modified: 10-19-2017, 01:41 PM by Roavin.)

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Since it is in fact allowed to accept legislators during an election - they just aren't allowed to vote in the election - I don't see the point in waiting until the election is done on the 28th, especially since that would mean a 20 day wait time for some applicants, without even being notified that they are on hold. This must be pretty discouraging especially to new players, wanting to jump in and get involved but held back for nearly a month.

If the Chair insists on not accepting applications during elections, then perhaps they should have accepted some in the 24 hour period between the Cabinet and Chair elections. If that is not enough time to process applications, there was plenty of time to go through them during the previous election, saving them to post until the votes were closed. Again, though, it is completely legal to accept applications for legislator during elections:

"Anyone admitted to legislator status during a forum election in which only legislators may vote, from the time nominations begin until the conclusion of forum voting, may not stand for election nor vote in that forum election."

And by all this I mean: please let me in, I'd rather legislate than legiswait, or at least give me a good reason why not?

(This post was last modified: 10-19-2017, 06:36 PM by Nakari.)

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We have a long tradition of closing applications during elections. It’s practically common law by now. If the Assembly wants to change that, then I think it needs to be done legislatively. Otherwise, tradition should hold.

The point of pausing elections is to disrupt attempts at short-term infiltration and vote stacking. Sometimes special elections lead to an entire month of paused applications. That’s not the end of the world, and it doesn’t happen often. The Assembly isn’t exactly bursting with business at the moment, so prospective legislators aren’t missing out on anything.

If you guys want to excoriate the Chair for being slow on applications during non-election times, that’s one thing. But we shouldn’t be changing our regular practice of pausing applications during elections.

I also oppose fiddling with the application process as proposed above. The Chair already has a massive amount of administrative duties, much more than any single person in the rest of government & forum administration. Creating a two-track system — legislators who can vote in elections and those who can’t — is just more administrative work for no clearly obvious benefit. This isn’t the real world, nobody is being denied their god given right. It’s just a matter of circumstance that special elections have led to a sequence of the Cabinet and Chair elections. If the Assembly wants to a void that in another 4 months, then we can extend the next chair’s term by a couple weeks.

(This post was last modified: 10-20-2017, 08:43 AM by sandaoguo.)

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If the Chair insists on not accepting applications during elections, then perhaps they should have accepted some in the 24 hour period between the Cabinet and Chair elections. If that is not enough time to process applications, there was plenty of time to go through them during the previous election, saving them to post until the votes were closed. Again, though, it is completely legal to accept applications for legislator during elections:

"Anyone admitted to legislator status during a forum election in which only legislators may vote, from the time nominations begin until the conclusion of forum voting, may not stand for election nor vote in that forum election."

Largely I had just been following historical precedent in regards to elections. Beyond that, I was preoccupied with organizing and running debates for most of the last election, and by the end I was simply worn out. Between exhaustion and doing RL stuff I simply did not have the time to address applications during the gap.

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If you guys want to excoriate the Chair for being slow on applications during non-election times, that’s one thing.

Let me focus on that then (and really, that was the point of all this, if the blatant sarcastic passive aggressiveness wasn't obvious). Only taking into account gaps longer than a week not overlapping with any forum election votes, we have the following gaps:

• 6 applications queued up between July 23 and August 1 (9 days)
  
• 8 applications queued up between August 2 and August 22 (20 days)
  
• 17 applications queued up between August 25 and September 11 (17 days)
  

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I don’t think it’s that big of a deal, particularly since we haven’t had an influx of 31 active players corresponding to those applications.

Maybe instead we shouldn’t put so much stress and administrative duties on the chair. I know you think it’s your dream and you’d be great at it, but the tedium does tend to fall to the wayside when you have to manage debates and votes, along with any other jobs you have here.


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Perhaps they'd have been more active if their first impression of legislation wasn't having to wait a month to participate.

I agree that there are a lot of responsibilities placed on the Chair. Is there not also a Deputy Chair to help shoulder these responsibilities, or are they not permitted to admit legislators? (Meant to add here: if they aren't able to admit them, at least to free up time for the Chair to process them.)

(This post was last modified: 10-20-2017, 11:11 AM by Nakari.)

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There is a Deputy Chair, Naka. They are permitted to accept, although Altmoras hasn't been doing so this term. Talk to him, Papi Warden.

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