(03-11-2016, 07:18 PM)Aramanchovia Wrote: Thanks Glen, I am aware I probably won't be voting, yes, despite this not being stated anywhere in legislation that I can see, and if that is the case right through the GC, so be it. I think that Sopo and myself are the only non-citizens to post here so far in any case.
I was under the understanding this GC was meant to be open to anyone. If you restrict it to citizens only, you will not be getting the views of the entire region. I guess some people here would prefer that, but it is not legislated anywhere that GC's are restricted to Citizens as far as I can see, only that GC's can only be called by a Citizen. As it is, as a non-Citizen I cannot propose any laws during this GC, which I am fine with (it is quite clear, despite me not completely agreeing with it), but I am still planning on stating my opinions, along with those of the rest of the region for everyone to consider or ignore as they wish. If a Citizen wants to draft legislation based on those opinions - that would have to be considered, but I am not going to be asking anyone specifically to do so.
From my quick look, it is unclear in the legislation if non-citizens can vote or not on proposals, but why am I not surprised at there being something unclear in the legislation. Closest I could see was that it says in the GC Organizing Act "Additionally, the Great Council must decide how voting on proposals will occur." - which seems vague as to WHO can vote. I didn't see the part in the Charter which stated that "Great Councils must meet the same legislative requirements as the Assembly" as Glen mentioned BTW, I'm probably missing something though - it's still early here, and I am more of a night owl 
Seeing as we are pointing things out, even if these may or may not be correct, as hinted above I'd like to point out that I plan on asking on the RMB if anyone has anyone has any suggestions for improvement and then reposting these ideas here for consideration once we get to the next few phases of this GC. I know quite a few people do not want to sign up and post here based on the many problems these forums have. Fair enough too. These problems won't be fixed if we try to ignore them, as has happened previously. I hope nobody has problems with this - please be honest if you do, I am genuinely interested to know and won't hold your opinion against you, unlike what some others here seem to do.
I'm not going to be asking a legal question on who can/can't vote throughout this process, as I don't want to hold anything up. It doesn't seem clear though to me. Feel free to point out the stuff here I clearly missed from skimming the various laws if you want. My single vote is probably not going to make much difference in any case, and this'll probably affect 1-2 others at most anyway.
The provision in the Charter requiring Great Councils to meet current legislative requirements is Article 10.3:
"3. Legal changes resulting from the Great Council shall meet current legislative requirements."
All laws passed by the Assembly can only be voted on by citizens, so it stands to reason that all laws passed by the Great Council can only be voted on by citizens. If you have a case where citizens vote and it's a 5-10 outcome, but if you count non-citizens and it's a 15-10 outcome, I think that clearly wouldn't pass legal muster.
The clause in the Great Council Organization Act is referring to the actual methodology of voting. E.g., how to vote on conflicting proposals.
Citizenship is an incredibly easy process, and Drugged Monkeys has been very on top of things. So there's really no reason, in my opinion, to open up voting to non-citizens. That always carries the risk (and given the participation of
many Gameplayers with questionable history, the
actual likelihood) of somebody doing a mass TG campaign to get people to vote on their preferred proposals. That's not helpful, and it's not something we can stop by just asking, "Please, please don't do it." You have to register on the forums to vote regardless, and gaining citizenship takes just one post. If somebody cares enough to genuinely get involved in the process, they will probably care enough to get citizenship. Your stance of purposefully not being a citizen out of principle is unique, really.
I definitely welcome input from everybody, and if RMBers have good ideas, let's hear them. I think we've all been operating under the assumption that non-citizens can participate in the debates.
