Users browsing this thread:

**Belschaft** · 03-16-2021, 03:29 AM

The gap is only 36 endorsements - there are ways we could speed that up, such as temporarily unendorsing Seraph & Amerion and calling in allied troops for a few days to push Bee over the top. Long Delegacy transitions aren't unprecedented and we haven't been doing everything in our power to make this as fast as possible.

Edit: If every legislator removed their endorsements from Amerion & Seraph the transition would happen this week.

_{Minister of Media, Subversion and Sandwich Making}
^{Associate Justice of the High Court and Senior Moderator}

PREVIOUS ROLES

(This post was last modified: 03-16-2021, 04:32 AM by Belschaft.)

***Tsunamy*** · 03-16-2021, 12:28 PM

(03-16-2021, 03:29 AM)Belschaft Wrote: The gap is only 36 endorsements - there are ways we could speed that up, such as temporarily unendorsing Seraph & Amerion and calling in allied troops for a few days to push Bee over the top. Long Delegacy transitions aren't unprecedented and we haven't been doing everything in our power to make this as fast as possible.

Edit: If every legislator removed their endorsements from Amerion & Seraph the transition would happen this week.

I don't know about others, but I already unendorsed Amerion and Seraph before the 36 gap.

And, while I think all the help is useful right now, it also misses that it's taken ... 6? 8? weeks to get to *this* point.

-tsunamy
[forum admin]

**Belschaft** · 03-16-2021, 01:15 PM

That's longer than most transitions, but not out of the range to be expected - and with a six month term plus another transition at the end won't be a huge deal in the grand scheme of things.

_{Minister of Media, Subversion and Sandwich Making}
^{Associate Justice of the High Court and Senior Moderator}

PREVIOUS ROLES

**HumanSanity** · 03-18-2021, 02:29 PM

(03-15-2021, 06:55 AM)Witchcraft and Sorcery Wrote: As for the discussion at large, i don't know that i am 100% behind a six-month delegate-elect transition, but I think something like Penguin said is certainly reasonable and prudent. I can see the reasoning for it, but six months preparation followed six months in the delegacy is a long time to ask anyone to commit to consistent activity on this game. You're asking candidates to look 6-12 months into the future and tell us in no uncertain terms that things will be the same then as they are now. I just don't see how that is a reasonable ask even for a delegate candidate.

I agree with this. I understand the convenience, it's just simply not reasonable to expect someone to know they're going to be consistently available for the next calendar year. At the same time, could it make sense to start Delegate elections 1-2 months before the start of the legal "term"? Feels like a healthy middle ground. Also helps with incumbent Delegates deciding if they want to run for re-election.

Witchcraft and Sorcery · 03-20-2021, 06:06 PM

Yeah, that was what I was referring to when I was talking about Penguin's idea. She suggested something similar like having declarations start a month or so before the actual legal term begins in order to give prospective candidates time to tart up and get in line with the Coral Guard at least, perhaps higher. Which I agree with - it's a reasonable ask given that the term is six months and the transition has taken this long as it is. Though we are much closer now than we were a few days ago - the gap is under 20 and I've just ordered the SPSF to return to TSP and endorse Beepee.

Witchcraft and Sorcery

Former Prime Minister and Minister of Defense. Formerly many things in other regions. Defender. Ideologue. he/they.

(This post was last modified: 03-20-2021, 06:08 PM by Witchcraft and Sorcery.)

North Prarie · 03-20-2021, 07:47 PM

To be clear - this would just be moving the nominations period up to a month before the voting, correct?

Midwesterner. Political nerd. Chipotle enthusiast.
Minister of Culture of the South Pacific // Former Prime Minister

Penguin · 03-21-2021, 11:23 AM

That is the idea of my plan. We have them for a week or so and anyone who qualifies for the ORIGINAL terms is able to do the endo tarting to a percentage of the sitting delegate can go through with the ACTUAL election. Everyone else can wait for another try.

This is Penguin!!
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Penguins shall one day rule the pie!
And by "pie", I mean "World"!!
Goddess Empress Queen Princess Lady of TSP
Lilium Inter Spinas // Non timebo mala
I have done a lot of things in the Region in my History.
There's a list somewhere if you wanna go looking.

**HumanSanity** · 03-21-2021, 03:31 PM

What's the comparative benefit of that model over one where we just move the date of the election up 1-2 months from the start of the new Delegate's term? In that intervening time, whoever is then elected Delegate can endo-tart their way up to almost where the outgoing Delegate is, and then SPSF/allied militaries can be brought in when the term officially starts to finish the transition (like what is done in most Delegate transitions).

I think the "meet higher endorsement threshold prior to election" idea is certainly an improvement over the status quo, but doesn't fully solve the problem.

(This post was last modified: 03-21-2021, 03:31 PM by HumanSanity.)

**Somyrion** · 03-25-2021, 08:18 PM

I think we're mixing up terminology a bit here. I find myself repeatedly emphasizing a fact that (understandably) does not seem to have sunk in for most South Pacificans: the Delegate election already occurs a few months before the start of the new Delegate's official term.

Delegate terms, according to the Elections Act, begin at a Delegate-elect's inauguration upon their ascension to the in-game delegacy and end when they depart the in-game delegacy. Before achieving the most endorsements (= inauguration), they have zero power other than a duty to endotart -- but they are not Delegate and they have not yet begun their term. Similarly, the incumbent Delegate -- that is, the one holding the most endorsements -- remains Delegate even after the Delegate election happens to pick their successor. They are no less the official Delegate of the region the day after elections as they were the day before, and the clock is still ticking on their term. The incumbent Delegate's term does not end until they are actually replaced in the in-game seat.

Beepee became Delegate four days ago. I don't mean that in just the in-game sense. I mean before Monday, he was just some guy we selected a few months ago. We might have called him "Delegate-elect" out of convenience, but his term had not yet begun. Everywhere -- on gameside, on the forums, on Discord -- we were still legally living in the Reign of the Admiral General Stewie G., whose responsibilities, powers, and status were exactly the same as they were before the election began. There was no "transition period" during which Amerion's term had ended, or Beepee and Amerion were sharing power, or anything: Amerion's term was still going on, and Beepee's only began on Monday.

So, W&S and HS and others have thrown out the idea of, supposedly, "mov[ing] the date of the election up 1-2 months from the start of the new Delegate's term ... In that intervening time, whoever is then elected Delegate can endo-tart their way up to almost where the outgoing Delegate is, and then SPSF/allied militaries can be brought in when the term officially starts to finish the transition". If you've been following, this is exactly what happens already. When was the date of this past election, for example? January 1, and it concluded a few weeks later, in late January. When was the start of Beepee's term? March 21. The date of the election was located almost exactly 2 months before the start of the new Delegate's term... and in that intervening time, the person elected to be the next Delegate "endo-tarted their way up to almost where the outgoing Delegate [was], and then SPSF/allied militaries [were] brought in when the term officially started to finish the transition". Voilà -- it already works like this!

The only difference at all between what I imagine they're thinking of and what currently happens is that the length of time between the election and the beginning of the term is currently dynamic, lasting exactly as long as it takes for the elected person to reach the in-game Delegacy. What they're thinking of, I imagine, would involve setting a specific length of time after each election -- say, exactly 50 days -- after which the term would commence. But since it actually can take widely varying lengths of time for an elected person to reach the in-game Delegacy, a specific mandated period would be unwieldy and cause unnecessary confusion. (Think: "It's been only 20 days, and I've already managed to reach the delegacy! Yay, now I'm finally dele-- oh, wait, there's actually a whole 30 days left until I'm allowed to be delegate, I guess I just have to hang out here at ten endorsements below the delegate for another month...".)

Penguin's idea -- putting a gap of a month or so in between nominations and voting, or even between the forum voting round and the gameside voting round, to allow candidates to endo-tart -- is intriguing, and could certainly help. That's a separate thing. But "moving the date of the election up 1-2 months from the start of the new Delegate's term" is not an "alternate model", because that is literally what we already do. There's nothing you could change about our system in order to implement that "model" (other than the dynamic vs. static date thing, which really is not the change you're after).

~ Aumeltopia ~

Auphelia Wrote:Raccoons are bandits! First they steal your food . . .
and then your heart/identity!

Altmoras · 03-26-2021, 07:58 PM

I don't think there's really a problem with the current system. There would be an issue if the timing of our elections was 6 months after the Delegate's inauguration or something, but since the elections are on a fixed date I don't see a problem. The outgoing delegate retains the powers of their office until the incoming delegate exceeds them in endorsements, so if the incoming takes a while to tart then they're only hurting themselves.

Quote:Legislators wishing to run for Delegate must hold a number of endorsements equal to at least 80% of the existing applicable endorsement cap at the commencement of the election period.

If you're looking for a practical way to make the transition shorter I would change this requirement to 90%.

Benevolent Thomas-Today at 11:15 AM
"I'm not sure if Altmoras has ever been wrong about anything."