Willard Political Rework

[The_Grass_Man]

Give me a stun-stick and the power to enforce my beliefs on others and u got my vote fr

 

[Merlinsclaw]

Give me a stun-stick and the power to enforce my beliefs on others and u got my vote fr

>BURN DOWN THE SLUMS FOR THE 3RD TIME

 

[0xNiklas]

sounds like an IC issue.

certainly is.

 

[vilhjalmrf]

I'm going to throw a brick into your washing machine.

 

[CuulG]

Willard Networks
Politics Part 2: Electric Boogaloo

After some time of writing/debating/talking with the Assembly and other members involved and interested in the return of politics towards Willard Networks, we bring you to a document created by Vinyl, Elaina and Windbomb on the return of politics to Willard.

Previous iterations caused chaos, ooc hatred and other forms of unfun. This version seeks to change that.

THE DOCUMENT

Enjoy reading it, and keep the comments nice and with good debate. Screaming at each other will cause a thread lock.​

why does a video game about oppressive tyrant aliens need political parties? seems redundant as combine would see them as a threat and shut them down to maintain control

 

[Donavin Jones]

+Support
I want riots to happen again.

 

[Furious]

1:1 in 1984

I thought it's already been established, 1984 is quite literally the current system already.

 

[RedHotGinger]

Hot Take Incoming:

I do not like this and think it basically just cannonballs into the very things that make Willard politics as flawed as it is. document looks good, although given its OOC, being more frank and straightforward with information really would have been better imo. Binder section was particularly difficult to sift through.

The Party:

Going to be very broad with this as the problems with it are pretty much consistent of a single through-line. The major problem, being that all this proposed implementation of the party really does is basically solidify the complete lack of value and purpose to the tier system, and its statuses, while also heavily discouraging RP between the respective commoners and party members.

Firstly, Tier 3 I believe is subject to high rations, making that distinction slightly less credible. Beyond that, the wider party is largely characterized by the following according to this document:

They are promised perks such as proper housing, priority rations, queueing, treatment, and restricted luxury goods to the ‘Commons’; they also are excluded from random inspections and stop and searches. Civil Protection teams might often turn a blind eye towards any non-social behaviour they do, as long as it’s not a major threat.

The only accurate perk here would be luxury goods. Within the map, Normal housing is nearly identical to priority housing in size and luxury. Ration lines are rare and thus no benefits regarding them are notable in the slightest. T3 are capable of receiving loyalist rations, so that also is out of the picture. So far, high tier loyalists have been included in almost every single search, so this is also not really something that applies, nor are CP's enforced to turn their backs on anti-social behavior. In fact, quite the opposite is true as the party is written to be more scrutinized.

The Inner party also pretty much suffers the same fate, although with an even more grueling twist.

it is considered ‘wrong’ or anti-civil to communicate with ‘Commons’, or even be friends with them.

This is bad, and will only prevent people from ever interacting with high-tier members at all. This is a massive restriction that basically prevents the few people of this rank from interacting with a *vast* majority of the server. Granted, this is only flavor text and nobody would ever uphold it, but it should still be mentioned for that reason alone, as its at best redundant.

There is also the doubling-down on the LA being the only means in which anyone can actually assert influence or proper benefits from within the party system from the looks of it. More so now, as politics is not optional within the system, but rather a requirement, as normal members are required to join a political group within 3 weeks of entering it.

The politics:

Firstly, in a system designed to incorporate change via player-run political bodies, it seems incredibly strange that the highest achievable position, the one that would matter most to any aspiring leadership, is a permanent position that cannot be usurped without just...killing them. Since, if they can get rid of any Adjudicator at any moment, all you need to do to completely fail is just not be liked by this one guy - in which case any other efforts are basically folly.

There also seems to be massive rank and position bloat within the system to a point I can almost assure you, no matter how good it sounds, will find itself barely able to function due to the sheer amount of time zone/availability issues that will arise between its many required members. This also will not help the problem the LA already has of information regarding it being buried under 5 different layers of redundant pages or unrelated information.

Also, Wider party is a pretty silly name when paired with Inner party. Just call it the Outer party. Its already alike 1984 enough that a simple name isn't going to make or break its legitimacy.

General Thoughts:

All I can say aside from the above, is that there isn't much here to separate this idea from what didn't work in the past. Inevitably 2 or 3 parties will rise and then be the only notable players within the game for the entire duration of it. As well as the fact that most parties will be fueled just as they were before, which is OOC bias and meta-planning in order to cheaply secure In character power/points. It happened before, and I see no reason why it will be any different this time under a similar plan.

Lets say that some party does rise to a point of prominence and threatens to break apart the mold as it presents itself. Well, right now it seems like its designed to make sure that all parties can be squashed at a moments notice if they get too stupid - which fair enough - but such a thing makes me question the value of the system as a whole.

Lore wise, this obviously makes little sense, but that's not exactly an unknown. Everyone understands that and it mostly becomes a conflict of whether or not its 'good for the server.' I personally, am not convinced, as politics has been bad for the server each time its been introduced. To this day, I just think there should be more support for underground movements that fly under a more open system, but maybe that's a bit wishful in its own implementation.

Also, personal note. I noticed mentions of internal agents and such, which I can only assume is the OSI. I personally despise the semi-faction that is the OSI, so anything that falls under the mercy of them is something that will inevitably be less fun. Historically the group has been willing to tear things apart or hold entire portions of the server silently hostage with no issue - thus I don't trust this thing one bit. That's just me though.

Anyhow, those are my thoughts for the time being. May have missed some stuff, as the document was a bit hard for me to read at times, possibly because it is getting late. I don't think this is going to implode Willard upon its implementation, I just think its going to go exactly as each interpretation of politics has in this community. Which is ultimately, not well.

 

[KG!]

Screaming at each other will cause a thread lock.​

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH​

 

[Lord Beckett]

This reminds me of the book "1984" by George Orwell.

 

[John Rico]

Not really familiar with CCA roleplay, but the Chairman suddenly becoming a permanent position feels odd to me too. Why the change? The document doesn't really explain it, it just drops that without any other context for the decision and jumps immediately to explaining the new adjudicator, which just sounds like it'll do what the Chairman did before this. It's really confusing.

• I also agree that the document lays out a structure of committees and bureaucracy so big that I doubt the LA would be able to realistically fill without allowing a lot of T2 and T3 legislators in it. Which maybe it already does under this new system? But again, it's still a very confusing draft.

 

[Donavin Jones]

 

[Furious]

Chairman suddenly becoming a permanent position

Why the change?

Not necessarily much of a change. This has been the case for the past few months.

 

[Pawlu]

CASTO! CASTO! CASTO!

​

 

[Stonetb]

Pls add clickable headlines to the doc

 

[Aspect™]

why does a video game about oppressive tyrant aliens need political parties? seems redundant as combine would see them as a threat and shut them down to maintain control

For fun

 

[Ansty]

 

[Windbomb]

I noticed mentions of internal agents and such, which I can only assume is the OSI. I personally despise the semi-faction that is the OSI, so anything that falls under the mercy of them is something that will inevitably be less fun. Historically the group has been willing to tear things apart or hold entire portions of the server silently hostage with no issue - thus I don't trust this thing one bit. That's just me though.

The Internal Committee is just a renamed Party Committee. They have nothing to do with the OSI.

 

[Vulpes Callida]

It is a commendably well prepared document, and on effort and dedication alone you should 100% enlisted to partake in future reforms regarding the matters you discuss. (Beautiful presentation!)

But, without wanting to go on @RedHotGinger lengths of discussion (I agree with him in most of his points made, so why repeat) (besides, he already stole my THUNDER in another post before...) I would want to highlight perhaps the points I think are most controversial and/or detrimental for me:

- The article promotes a very segregating attitude between players. IMO, the interaction between the 'proles' (whom you call commons) and the rest of the citizenry is already hampered enough. I appreciate the attempts of realism and striving to contribute to a more class-based dystopian environment where some are seen as 'true nobodies' the higher-ups shouldn't interact with, but one of the issues of the CCA+LA, IMO, is that they already have little reasons to interact with the lower classes (and most of the server). Doing that will reduce the RP even more.

- The stratification suggested is exemplary, such as the Internal Committee and the binders in themselves, etc. I would like this idea to come into play but it has two major issues: one, that it'd require a minimum of 17 people (at min. 1/pos) to fill out all the roles without one single person hoarding multiple positions (a prominent issue on the server that I think should be against the rules... Role-hoarding (especially on a single character) is both unlikely IC and unfeasible OOC). And two, that a lot of these stratos feel like fancy names without real utility. A notary isn't much more than intermediate positions of power that won't see a lot of real utility, for example, and such is the case with many more of the listed.

- Following up the second point, I think the document fails to adress what is in my eyes the biggest issue of the CCA/LA in all of this. Which is, they hardly ever do anything, and when they do, it's generally very disconnected from the general playerbase. You provide original organisations which I'm all for, and I can see them existing in the Genevan setting, you even suggest voting blocs, which are great, but there's still no clear direction established. What guarantees are there that the system won't be riddled with inactivity, positions permanently held by people who never flag, or that it'll propulse a higher degree of implication serverwide?

- This one is a personal one, but I think this server suffers from a major issue that distances me from ever wanting to participate in the CCA, and it's the overinfatuation with personal visibility and role permanence. Every CCA here is some sort of a gigantic public figure, their portraits make up for 10% of all the edicts in the server and can be found literally everywhere. It's very... Anti-universe, and very OOCly ego-stroking, in my opinion. For the case of the administrator, I get it, but... The Union is, by all intents and purposes, a de-personalizing alien-communist dystopia that wishes to control its citizens through the extinguishing of all things individualistic; even in 1984, where I can see you based most of your document from at certain parts, the Inner Party are kept as nearly fully secret and serve as near exclusive policing control of the Outer one. There should be no celebrities, no big names, no excessive ranks. Or if there should be, they shouldn't have to feel as artificial as they do now. Remember, the existence of more ranks and positions gives the ideal of power and control to the user, which can result in the abuse of it for personal gain, something the Union are actively fighting against, as for insurrections breed in places where people think they might have the strength to fight. By keeping them all the same, and fighting eachother, this is avoided. All they should know is a boot on their necks, no matter the class, so they are cogs in the machine. I have seen maybe two and a half people actually online out of the 23 different paintings that exist. "Legacy" isn't an excuse either, as I'd reckon the Union rewrites the past as they please, and having those things lying around is just a liability. All this rant to say, I think this system contributes to this very Americanised conception of power where faces are to be sculpted on mountains even if you're an Amazon warehouse worker (since each of these positions will be considered 'above' or 'important') and isn't befitting of the setting. The CCA should hold a degree of power but shouldn't be so on-the-nose and... Frankly, less openly 'evil' and 'boisterous' and 'comedically loyalist-conservative', since some of them feel like a hybrid of Donald Trump and Elon Musk on twitter (I say hybrid but the distance between the two isn't that great anyway). Some of the speeches I've seen are... Yeah.

(And more hierarchical doodads like this will contribute to more people overstepping their authority OOC...)

TL;DR I love politics but I don't think they are being executed very well nor that despite the brilliance behind this document it'll help people grasp them any better. It feels like a reskin. Root of the issue still is there are no clear guidelines as opposed to other factions (I.E: the resistance must fight, the CP must patrol) in their daily execution, and no matter the changes if people are as creatively bankrupt as they are the faction will remain dead. Out of the last few bills I've seen passed only one seemed original (Nexus kitchen) and it isn't being really used (I'll give it a few more days) nor is it very ICly viable or respectful. The biotic changes are IMO detrimental to RP (from an OOC perspective, biotics have nearly ceased to exist), and the fact CCA/LA can now access CP premises is an useless change as none of the facilities there are usable by them (I get it's done to increase interaction, but uh... to interact with people, you sort of need a base, not just freedom of access).

We should maybe consider just how much we should let politics impact the server.

EDIT: I went on RedHotGinger lengths of discussion.

 

[Kamilisha Haijulikani]

Not really familiar with CCA roleplay, but the Chairman suddenly becoming a permanent position feels odd to me too. Why the change? The document doesn't really explain it, it just drops that without any other context for the decision and jumps immediately to explaining the new adjudicator, which just sounds like it'll do what the Chairman did before this. It's really confusing.

• I also agree that the document lays out a structure of committees and bureaucracy so big that I doubt the LA would be able to realistically fill without allowing a lot of T2 and T3 legislators in it. Which maybe it already does under this new system? But again, it's still a very confusing draft.

Committees are a pre-existing organization within the Legislative Assembly, that aside from a name change undergoes very few changes with the implementation of the above document. The Committee themselves have stood the test of time, and to my knowledge, worked rigorously well in their assigned purposes, though a contentious issue is the lack of activity for some members, which has unfortunately led to cases where certain duties about specific individuals have been forgotten, but overall have proved to be generally successful in their designated purposes.

It has been several months before the Chairman position has long become a permanent position within the Legislative Assembly since Vinyl's ascension to the role back around May to June in practice, so I believe the document is just 'officiating' things for clarification of the acting Chairperson role.

The Party:

Going to be very broad with this as the problems with it are pretty much consistent of a single through-line. The major problem, being that all this proposed implementation of the party really does is basically solidify the complete lack of value and purpose to the tier system, and its statuses, while also heavily discouraging RP between the respective commoners and party members.

Firstly, Tier 3 I believe is subject to high rations, making that distinction slightly less credible. Beyond that, the wider party is largely characterized by the following according to this document:

They are promised perks such as proper housing, priority rations, queueing, treatment, and restricted luxury goods to the ‘Commons’; they also are excluded from random inspections and stop and searches. Civil Protection teams might often turn a blind eye towards any non-social behaviour they do, as long as it’s not a major threat.

The only accurate perk here would be luxury goods. Within the map, Normal housing is nearly identical to priority housing in size and luxury. Ration lines are rare and thus no benefits regarding them are notable in the slightest. T3 are capable of receiving loyalist rations, so that also is out of the picture. So far, high tier loyalists have been included in almost every single search, so this is also not really something that applies, nor are CP's enforced to turn their backs on anti-social behavior. In fact, quite the opposite is true as the party is written to be more scrutinized.

Partially agree with the first half concerning 'The Party' on how the implementation of the 'Binder-system' can serve to invalidate some aspects of the tier-system, but I am inclined to label this as not the fault of the proposed changes, but instead, an overall underlying issue of the server, wherein Tier-Fours and Tier-Fives privileges feel rather underwhelming and do not uphold to the pedigree that it should ideally be.

Becoming Tier Four can be a strenuous and monumental undertaking, but the benefits themselves are rather frugal and underutilized or outright ignored, making it feel at times more of a status change rather than the ascension of an individual to a loyalist. You're also pretty much capped at Tier Five citizenship, which in itself, is also underwhelming and is just a status change without introducing any new or useful privileges.

On the other hand, the proposal makes the effort to further include and empower the tiered system, primarily the Upper-Party, by opening up more channels for discussion and reaffirming their privilege to promote up-and-coming loyalists to Tier Four and Tier Five, albeit with some changes. By including all Tier-Fours and above in the Legislative Assembly, you are similarly giving them a channel to connect and collaborate on through social relationships, which, if played well, can entirely refute the early point of invalidating certain aspects of the tier system and can be played to its advantage instead. The only concern is that this can seem extremely monotonous at the cost of opening the way to change for average Party members.

Frankly, these issues warrant another thread discussing them in themselves, but this generally just feels like a rehash of Collaborator privileges and thus does not warrant, in my opinion, the intense scrutiny here. It isn't an issue that the Legislative Assembly can expect to resolve on its own.

The Inner party also pretty much suffers the same fate, although with an even more grueling twist.

it is considered ‘wrong’ or anti-civil to communicate with ‘Commons’, or even be friends with them.

This is bad, and will only prevent people from ever interacting with high-tier members at all. This is a massive restriction that basically prevents the few people of this rank from interacting with a *vast* majority of the server. Granted, this is only flavor text and nobody would ever uphold it, but it should still be mentioned for that reason alone, as its at best redundant.

There is also the doubling-down on the LA being the only means in which anyone can actually assert influence or proper benefits from within the party system from the looks of it. More so now, as politics is not optional within the system, but rather a requirement, as normal members are required to join a political group within 3 weeks of entering it.

Intermingling with Commoners shouldn't be dissuaded, agreed. Personally don't find many issues with doubling down on the LA being a venue for political power, since if played right, it could greatly empower concurrent Tier-Fours & Tier-Fours, but as stated earlier, it can seem like a monotonous task to partake in for some.

The politics:

Firstly, in a system designed to incorporate change via player-run political bodies, it seems incredibly strange that the highest achievable position, the one that would matter most to any aspiring leadership, is a permanent position that cannot be usurped without just...killing them. Since, if they can get rid of any Adjudicator at any moment, all you need to do to completely fail is just not be liked by this one guy - in which case any other efforts are basically folly.

Lets say that some party does rise to a point of prominence and threatens to break apart the mold as it presents itself. Well, right now it seems like its designed to make sure that all parties can be squashed at a moments notice if they get too stupid - which fair enough - but such a thing makes me question the value of the system as a whole.

You mentioned this later, I believe this is meant to be a fail-safe to squash unsavoury individuals which seek to use their influence to undermine the whole system, which as you stated, questions the value of the whole system. Previously, the Chairperson served exactly that; in a supervisory role for the parties.

But as the Legislative Assembly was first formed, and both @Robert and @Merlinsclaw can confirm; it was decided that the Legislative Assembly was free to explore either two options in its creation; empowering the Legislative Assembly, maintaining the status quo, or empowering the Chairperson. To me, this seems like a natural IC progression towards the latter after countless weak leaders maintaining the status quo, with Vinyl being the only one to fully capitalize on the potential of the Legislative Assembly and using it to expand his power base.

It seems to me that the only way to proceed is to compromise the power of the Chairperson and empower the Legislative Assembly or return to the status quo, as I'd like to put it. I am supportive of Vinyl remaining in the Chairperson role and the Chairperson role maintaining its current power, but I do see the need for some compromise to be struck, to give some goal to the Adjudicators, especially to give the potential for those less malign.

There also seems to be massive rank and position bloat within the system to a point I can almost assure you, no matter how good it sounds, will find itself barely able to function due to the sheer amount of time zone/availability issues that will arise between its many required members. This also will not help the problem the LA already has of information regarding it being buried under 5 different layers of redundant pages or unrelated information.

Also, personal note. I noticed mentions of internal agents and such, which I can only assume is the OSI. I personally despise the semi-faction that is the OSI, so anything that falls under the mercy of them is something that will inevitably be less fun. Historically the group has been willing to tear things apart or hold entire portions of the server silently hostage with no issue - thus I don't trust this thing one bit. That's just me though.

Internal Agents refer to members of the Party Committee, now known as the Internal Committee. No dead factions permitted.

Can't speak much for the bloat, but the Committee themselves, management included, have proved successful in maintaining activity and fulfilling their designated functions. The rest of the roles will be occupied by the members of the Assembly, including newly inducted Party members. I'm unable to attest to the activity of anything other than the committees.

General Thoughts:

All I can say aside from the above, is that there isn't much here to separate this idea from what didn't work in the past. Inevitably 2 or 3 parties will rise and then be the only notable players within the game for the entire duration of it. As well as the fact that most parties will be fueled just as they were before, which is OOC bias and meta-planning in order to cheaply secure In character power/points. It happened before, and I see no reason why it will be any different this time under a similar plan.

Lore wise, this obviously makes little sense, but that's not exactly an unknown. Everyone understands that and it mostly becomes a conflict of whether or not its 'good for the server.' I personally, am not convinced, as politics has been bad for the server each time its been introduced. To this day, I just think there should be more support for underground movements that fly under a more open system, but maybe that's a bit wishful in its own implementation.

Anyhow, those are my thoughts for the time being. May have missed some stuff, as the document was a bit hard for me to read at times, possibly because it is getting late. I don't think this is going to implode Willard upon its implementation, I just think its going to go exactly as each interpretation of politics has in this community. Which is ultimately, not well.

I believe some restrictions do remedy the possibility for metagame and overall rule-breaking, but I am entirely unsure how it will play out in practice. I'm overall supportive of the inclusion of politics in some form or another, as it allows for greater office politics and roleplay, and I heavily disdain their removal in the first place as they were a very popular and successful avenue of roleplay, despite prior hiccups in their implementation. I hope this proposal succeeds albeit with a modicum of changes, as it was really fun and exhilarating. I think politics is really good for the server, just as how it was prominent and good for other servers in the past.

if any part of my argument feels incoherent, feel free to point that out. I started writing this early into 6 Am.