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« on: November 05, 2016, 06:26:03 PM »
When commenting, please indicate which topic you are replying about in the beginning of your post. I am going to edit in a summary of the concerns to this first post so it is easier to locate the information when it comes time to make voting threads.
TOPIC 1: What ratios of jinks to non-jinks will be on the Council?
[eric]: No ratios should be made due to members potentially gaining or losing a beast which would then throw the ratio off.
TOPIC 2: Who can bring an issue to the council for consideration?
[eric]: should only handle issues brought to their attention
TOPIC 3: New Council Creation: Should we hold elections or just call for volunteers?
[eric]: A call for volunteers should precede the actual election in order to solidify candidates. Once the candidates are solidified, THEN the election thread should be created. The new Council becomes officially active one day after the vote closes.
TOPIC 4: How often are New Councils created?
[eric]: I think every 3 months is best, because really, we need elections far more frequently in order to cycle out fatigued individuals.
TOPIC 5: How are council members replaced between New Council Creation Cycles?
[eric]: Runner-up candidates should be considered "backups" as long as they received at least one vote during the election. Otherwise, mid-season elections are in order where the Community votes on potential replacements.
TOPIC 6: Division of the council chamber: Primary branch, Secondary Branch, and community? get rid of secondary branch?
[eric]: A single chamber of 5 to 7 individuals, I think, is the best way to go. In hindsight, the Secondary Chamber is pretty redundant as far as "officialness", and the Community "chamber" is always present anyways, so only one named "chamber" if you will is necessary imho.
Primary Chamber: These are the 5 council members. They make rulings based on existing rules, or improvise if no rule exists to handle the current issue. In such a case, after the ruling is made, a new rule thread will be made for the community to either adopt this method into the rule set, or to create a different rule to handle the surprise issue. Other duties can and should be assigned to this chamber of the council. For instance, they may have to step in and enforce a rule upon members of the lower chamber. Duties of this chamber of the council may evolve overtime as each new duty comes to light and needs to be determined who will handle it.
[eric]: What kind of rulings are the Council members making here? Are they essentially the rule enforcers (the vibe i"m getting) who have the power to declare strippings and awards that result from strippings?
Secondary Chamber: This consists of any number of volunteers who will act as judges, not only for bijuu matched but sparing in general. A pledge of activity is assumed. These are people who are willing to lend a hand, are knowledgeable about the canon and creative aspects of SL, and have a general love of giving of their time. Activities may include, judging matches, spars, commenting on rules, deliberating with Primary Chamber issues upon request. Members can be anyone, prior or current hosts, village/organization leaders. If we have a large enough pool of volunteers, then we should be able to avoid situations like...Suna's Kage judging a bijuu match with a Suna warrior involved. Such conflicts of interests should be self-monitored and then to decline participation in that specific conflicting issue. Barring self-monitoring, certainly community objection would be acknowledged and a suitable judge found.
The Community: Yes that is for us all. And we can help make rules, give input on issues, bring issues to the general public or the council to sort out, and dare I say it...commit to a level of activity just because we enjoy being here and making things happen.
TOPIC 7: Council Transparency. Council discussions will take place in public for the interest of transparency with either closed for council member only discussion topic threads, or open to public discussion topic threads. certainly a closed topic may at a later time be opened for community comment at the discretion of the council members.
TOPIC 8: Leading discussions: A council member will start a topic thread, when a concern is brought before the council, and as such will be leading the discussion. His/her voice, however, is not considered to have more weight than the rest of the council members but only to serve as the facilitator to keep the discussion active, on topic, and productive through to resolution of the issue at hand. As such, a facilitator council member may be prompted to moderate the discussion as to behavior of its participants if things get on the volatile side, poke other members for activity, and post the decisions of the discussion and close the thread upon resolution.
TOPIC 9: Council voting threads: during the creation of rules, there were two separate topics. one for discussion...and then one for voting was set up AFTER the discussion had run its course. this should keep bickering down to a min. during a vote. A vote should not be called until all new commentary has been made. Posting the same opinion over and over is not presenting new material and so does not count for extending the discussion beyond that running its course.
TOPIC 10: Current Issues:
All council members must participate in each issue that is brought before them to deliberate and make a decision upon. Each issue should start as an open thread so that all concerned parties within the community can voice their thoughts upon the matter. After this, the thread should be closed to council members only to make their rulings. Issue should be handled in the following manner:
Fact finding: open thread for community comment.
Deliberation: closed thread for council member only discussion.
Ruling: announcement of the voted upon decision should be posted to the end of the thread which is then locked.
TOPIC 11: Unpopular Decisions. What to do when enforcing the agreed upon rule and issuing the consequences, the rule having been voted on by the community and then adopted, then the community decides to vote and over turn the enforcement of the rule breaking?
TOPIC 12: What to do in the event of distributing numerous bijuu.
TOPIC 13: The council enforces the rules by dealing with violators and then deliberating on what punishment to hand out if one is not already clearly stated in the rules as to what that penalty should be.
TOPIC 14: What if no rule exists for the issue brought before the council?
TOPIC 15: What if the Council is divided on a vote? Do we call for a community vote? Do we get a new volunteer to stand in and vote?
TOPIC 16: Court of Appeals: dissatisfied person may appeal a decision IF and ONLY IF, they have something new and illuminating to contribute to the prior discussions that brought about the ruling. This is not to be used to cry baby about things not going our own way and to just keep repeating ourselves.
[eric]: I am not of the mind that an Appeals Court is really necessary. After all deliberations and such, I think the ruling should be pretty much final. No need to invite the birds with that can of worms.
TOPIC 17: Creating rules: [ This is not a power of the Council, but a power of a community member. A council member is also a member of the community and he may comment and vote on making rules just like any other community member, without the weight of his status as a member on the council behind him. Rules are not made by the council, but by the community.]
A thread is made by any person with a proposal for a rule. Discussion occurs with everyone who wants to participate commenting. The proposed rule is then written up in a clear fashion and posted to the top post of a voting thread. A vote is held with anyone participating. The rule is then posted to results with the vote count. The rule is then added to the rough draft.
[eric]: In the previous/current iteration of the biju council, the council members were not able to explicitly create new rules, but rather, the community as a whole did that in a manner similar to the Great Biju Discussions of mid-2016. I think that should not change.