On The Inevitable Doom Brought About by The Increase in The Human Population

Started by Luca, April 22, 2022, 07:44:29 PM

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Luca

Lads,

The Regional Map do be getting a bit thicc. There's 5-6 CTE nations that have gone within the last two weeks, so they did not get removed from the map as of the last update. If they come back before the next update, they will remain. But even if they get dropped, it seems like people are already starting to feel like their desired representations on a map can no longer be achieved because space is now so limited.

The map itself is also large and complex and takes quite a while to process updates, which is why I have increasingly put them off. For the last year and a half, the map was updated every month, but this last update did not come until just yesterday. A second, supplementary map would likely compound this difficulty.

The current situation has not been ordained by god or otherwise made inflexible. We have often made up laws, policies, or offices to help the good management of the region, and as this seems like a situation that looks like it needs help.

What sort of options appeal to us here? Should there be some kind of cartographer office created? Would anyone fill it, and would it be a Regional Councillor?

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Catherine

I'd be happy to help out with something like this in future now I've been here a little longer and have found my feet.

I think a councillor position makes most sense as it allows people to choose to contribute at a time that suits them and not need to do a lot of map stuff when they've got major life commitments. Also, as a player that really doesn't know much about wider NS stuff but loves hanging out in this community, it'd be one more position like Culture that's easier to take up without needing to be more confident in gameplay.
Good morning friends and foes

PetiteTarée

It'll be cool to have a Regional Councillor who do that yeah.
I'm new here so idk if I'll be like welcomed to do that but I'll love to, I have so much time because I'm disabled and have like pension to live, I have time to do all of that, I love Refugia a lot, and I want to help if I can ^_^

Emily

This is probably a little weird, but since I run the map dispatch and have been taking care of filtering and responding to applications, I could just take on the map entirely. Since it'd be more of a full-time job, we could just elevate the delegate position to regional Councillor and put cartography as a secondary duty besides voting (since the WAA programme has already been offloaded from delegate responsibilities). Elevating the delegacy to a full council position would also mean I wouldn't be running for other offices :derp: 

I know it doesn't make a lot of lore sense for the delegate to be purely in charge of the map, but it's a decent workload and, since we've occasionally had councillors either disappear immediately upon their election or otherwise delay duties, I worry about the map going potentially months without update because people don't want to deal with how impressively frustrating Azaar's can be.

That being said, if people want to work on it and volunteer and try out being a Councillor of Cartography, I'm happy to give it a chance. Nothing really bad could happen from it. Worst case scenario in that case, a few people will try it out and then I'll run for it a lot :laughing:

On the topic of the map space running low, I'm not sure what to do about that. Right now, we've got a load of people who have CTE'd since the last update:

It could be self-sustaining but I'm not sure yet.

Luca

I have no thoughts on who has it, although I am interested in seeing new faces instead of the same ones who have been around since 2019. Here's my thought while this is back on the docket:

The map is something people take kinda seriously or personally -- mainly gamesiders. So it's most important that it's done well and right. Sometimes things like that are not super well-suited to a democratically elected position. So should a hypothetical cartographer be a ward-like system, or should it be something more substantial like a Councillor seat.

Would the person who fills that role need it to be a councillor seat in order to offset the work, or is the work infrequent enough to be an acceptable volunteer project?

Catherine

That makes sense, Emily.

Before Luca posted, I'd typed: "I wonder if similar to Ops & Wards and FA & Envoys, if there was a team of volunteers to help lighten the load for you, but that didn't need to be relied on blindly." So thinking along the same lines as them I think!

It would also mean you could have someone to fall back on in the case of busy periods irl, or as a safety net if something happened like another WA ban-cident that wasn't sorted quickly, and the next delegate didn't want to take it on, they'd have some people who knew what they were doing?
Good morning friends and foes

PetiteTarée

I think it's actually a good idea to have like a councillor and have a fallback like said Catherine, like a vice-councillor ?

Aav

It should be pretty simple to revise the RRS to accommodate this. Here is some draft language, highlighting the map portion in green to amend the RRS. It obviously can do with a bit more polish.
Quote from: Proposed RRS ChangesAmends RRS 7 to append as follows:
Quote from: RRS 7f. The World Assembly Delegate, who is a Member State of the Region who holds a plurality of endorsements from other World Assembly Residents.

  • The Delegate shall:
    • Assist favourable proposals in the World Assembly in reaching quorum through the approval process.
    • Vote on resolutions-at-vote in the World Assembly.
    • Supply an opinion if they choose to not vote in alignment with the regional majority opinion.
    • Handle all map applications, updates, and otherwise manage the regional map of Refugia.

  • Should a disruption occur such that the Delegate is unable to serve in that role, an election to determine a long-term replacement will be initiated unless the disruption was the result of being overtaken in endorsements.
    • The election will consist of a three day candidacy period, followed by a three day voting period.
    • On the seventh day, the results will be announced and a swift transition will commence, if necessary.
    • In the event of no candidates, the Member State with the highest number of endorsements will serve in the role.

Strikes from the Revised Statutes RRS 8, and decrements the number of each statute proceeding RRS 7 by one.
Quote from: LucaI maintain my assessment, sans Obama

Zukchiva

I'll be honest, I'm not really a fan of making the Delegate the de-facto position to handle the map. As it is, the Delegate's current duties are essentially what any WA Delegate would do, which I think makes the most sense considering the Delegacy is determined by endorsements in many cases. I don't think someone who ends up having the most endorsements would be necessarily ready to handle the map. I'm aware this is probably at minimum a year, if not way more, until we have to deal with this, but I think it's best to consider that future.

I also do agree with Luca in that it may be best to have newer faces handle the map, mostly on a matter of principle in that the more regional involvement we have from everyone, the better it is for the region. It is also true that a democratically-elected carto may not fare well, considering how integral the map is. However, one thing I've noticed through the Councillor-system is that it has resulted in an overall expansion of what each Councillor tends to do in the long-run. Like how Culture is increasingly hosting small unique events, or WAA now posts IFVs when it did not originally. I think having a cycle of people handling the map could result in more innovation in the long-run for the map as well, which would be beneficial.

My suggestion therefore would be to make a Councilor of Cartography, but have it filled out by application at the start of each term and decided by the Arch-Administrator (or if we want to be more democratic, have the applications be decided upon by the out-going Council excluding the current Carto Councillor if they apply again). I think opening applications allows people to set forth campaigns and ideas, but also allows us exercise discretion and choose the person who may be better for the job, even if they aren't as popular in the ballot.

Another idea may be to just have the Carto Councillor choose its own successor like the Arch-Administrator does, although I think this does loose out on innovation aspect the Council tends to bring unless we set term limits on the Carto Councillor.

Separate from the Carto discussion, I'd be down to make the Delegate a Councillor by default even if we don't expand the position's duties. They're a bit of an outlier considering they're the only non-Councillor position that isn't appointed by another Councillor, afaik.
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Luca

Quote from: Zukchiva on July 09, 2022, 12:53:09 PMWAA now posts IFVs when it did not originally.
One slight correction: this isn't the case. When the Councillor of WAA was established by SR#4, it shipped with this task.

Agree with most of the rest from Zuk. One possible solution is to bring back Councillor of the Interior and give it the roles of Cartography and perhaps archival duties as well so it is more of a fleshed out position instead of a seat that does one singular periodic task.

I'm probably okay with a democratic seat in this manner if there's some kind of paper trail of back-up save files so we can reconstruct the map if something goes wrong.

Zukchiva

Quote from: Luca on July 09, 2022, 01:24:24 PM
Quote from: Zukchiva on July 09, 2022, 12:53:09 PMWAA now posts IFVs when it did not originally.
One slight correction: this isn't the case. When the Councillor of WAA was established by SR#4, it shipped with this task.

Agree with most of the rest from Zuk. One possible solution is to bring back Councillor of the Interior and give it the roles of Cartography and perhaps archival duties as well so it is more of a fleshed out position instead of a seat that does one singular periodic task.

I'm probably okay with a democratic seat in this manner if there's some kind of paper trail of back-up save files so we can reconstruct the map if something goes wrong.
Oop, my bad

That's another good solution yeah
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