A request for requests for legislation

[Ari Rahikkala]

Your Niftiness,

I propose that bounties be set for writing various pieces of legislation that we need in order to regulate matters that need regulation, and implement Imperial Decrees requesting legislation for their fulfillment. Here's a probably incomplete list of things that I rather prefer we'd have (and that I'm not going to be doing myself):

- A law for MCS claims. We really need to have a law that actually tells who in Shireroth can make what claims. A good, simple principle would be that dukes can post modifications affecting only their duchies without asking anyone (and can give that power or parts of it to other people as they like), but any other changes have to go through the Landsraad or the Kaiser. Or we could resurrect the MiniCart and just make all the cartography go through that.

- Amendments to the Landsraad procedures for preferential voting (traditionally used for things like electing the Praetor). I could take an evening to write something to tally votes and do the calculations for Condorcet voting so the Praetor doesn't have to do them manually, but we would need at least some vague kind of a legal description of the voting method anyway. We don't have to use Condorcet, of course, though I do tend to be quite fond of it myself.

- Amendments to the Landsraad procedures for presenting and passing bills that do not change the Lawbook. Or, alternatively, giving treaties, honorary citizenships, awards, MCS claims, statements of opinion, etc. a place in the Lawbook, though that sounds a bit implausible even if they wouldn't all need to go in the same Wiki page.

- Amendments to ministries to implement Imperial Decree #302 fully.

The MiniTrade should probably set down the limits on what kind of money the government is willing to pay for these.

[Andreas the Wise]

Oh, that's me mentioned. I was going to give up reading at Condorcet and start replying that you should use the preferential voting system whereby if nobody has an absolute majority the votes of the least successful candidate are distributed amongst the other candidates according to their second preferences, and so on until someone has an absolute majority ....

I do think 200 is a good base rate for bounties. For the shorter Landsraad laws,only 150. For a longer one like voting, up to 250.

[Ari Rahikkala]

Aka instant runoff. *shrugs* that works too, possibly better. I'm not an expert on voting/vote-interpreting methods...

[Erik Mortis]

umm... que?

I thought preferential worked by ranking your top three choises, and point values assigned to the ranking 1st = 3 points..etc. At least that's how I ran elections in the past, and would myself prefer.

[Andreas the Wise]

It depends what model you're using. I'm using the model the Australian House of Representatives uses. Which sounds easier than the one Ari proposed. The only difference to the one you're mentioning is that in mine, you have to rank every candidate and so in the unlikely case we had to go to fourth preferences out of five duchal votes we could.

[Kaiser Loki III]

I still like one Duchy, one vote.

[Andreas the Wise]

You mean 'First Past the Post'? Simple majority takes all. It could be the candidate three Duchies ranked absolute last, "we'll have a Babkhan before zir," but because two agreed on zir and the other three each voted first for a different candidate each, that one gets in?

[Kaiser Loki III]

Beware of Babkahns, Caveat Emptor.

[Kaiser Loki III]

oops.

[Malliki]

F&B hereby states an interest to draft all those pieces of legislation.

[Kaiser Loki III]

As a service pro bono, or for?

I have trouble assigning someone to write a law who will later be called to rule on it.

Calm my fears..........

[Malliki]

For the bounty set by the Treasury, whatever that may be (not to little of course). There is an advantage though to me writing the law, that is that I will know my intent when I wrote the thing. I won't have to think about what the writer of the law thought when he wrote it since that will be me.

I base my rulings on the letter of the law, tradition and precedence. If there is a conflict of interest, which I highly doubt there will be, well that's what the AssArb is for.

[Erik Mortis]

That abbreviation angers me...

[Andreas the Wise]

Ari, you know how much effort the legislation would be, you pick an appropriate amount, and I'll approve it.

[Malliki]

What abbreviation? F&B?

I hope we get this. I think it would be a good example of government sub-contracting for the rest of the economy.

[Ari Rahikkala]

Ari, you know how much effort the legislation would be, you pick an appropriate amount, and I'll approve it.

The buck's not supposed to be passed in circles

Uhh, let's make it 150 for the ministries amendment, 200 for the MCS claims act, and 250 for both of the amendments to the Landsraad procedures (500 together). That'd add up to a bill of 850 erb, which sounds appropriate to me for a lump of work this size.



Oh, and as something of a separate proposal... you're probably going to have to read this closely because it's the kind of stuff that a (bad) software engineer would come up with, and I always seem to have trouble explaining this kind of stuff. It's a simple idea but I'm blowing it up into a longish text because otherwise you'd just blow past, not understand it, and answer with a "what?". (meaning that if you come up with a way to say "so ll boils down to..." you're probably right)

A voting method, for our purposes, consists of three things.

One, a way to set up a motion. With the current system that exists in Shirithian law, all motions are implicitly given two choices (I'll be using that word to describe "something that you can vote on regarding a motion"), yea and nay.

Two, a way to vote. With the current procedures, you either don't vote at all, or vote for exactly one of the choices.

Three, a way to count the votes. With the current procedures, the number of votes either choice got are simply summed and the sums are compared.


I propose a single new voting method, replacing the old one for *all* motions in the Landsraad. It would probably be based in instant-runoff voting. The legislation for the method would describe the method itself at its most general ("general" in the mathematic sense, not as in "usual"), and provide ways to restrict its use for each motion based on the kind of motion.

Motion setup: For bills changing the lawbook, two choices (yea and nay) are presented. For Praetorial elections, each of the nominees is presented as a choice.

Voting: Members of the Landsraad eligible to vote rank any number of choices according to their preference.

Vote counting: Votes are counted according to the IRV method.

For all practical purposes, in the case of bills this system would reduce right down to the same voting procedure we had previously. For Praetorial elections, we get a simple system that we don't have to come up with on the spot before the election. For whatever strange elections we might come up with in the future (maybe something with multiple winners?) we'll already have a system in place.

Multiple-choice bills like Andreas's tax bill would also work just as easily under this voting system. However, the law probably will have to specify that in motion setup, a "none" choice will also have to be presented.


A couple of more or less specific situations that could arise using this voting system:

Example 1 (generic because there really is no change of any significance). A bill to amend the section on the rights of chickens in the Lawbook is presented, in the traditional way. Dukes vote either "yea" or "nay", or whatever happens to be unambiguously readable as either. Or they don't vote at all, that's OK. Dukes may vote "yea 1, nay 2" if they like, but that has the exact same effect as just voting yea. Votes are counted by summing the ballots with yea (or the ones giving yea as the first choice), and the ballots with nay (or nay as the first choice), and the result is taken by comparing the sums.


Example 2. A motion to choose between Alice, Bob and Cecilia as the Praetor is presented to the Landsraad. In the motion setup, the nominees are presented as possible choices to vote. Let's say that due te strange economic circumstances (that simplify the example), each duchy happens to have 1000 votes. Each duke then votes, say, as follows:

- Brookshire votes Bob
- Elwynn votes Cecilia 1, Alice 2, Bob 3
- Kildare votes Cecilia 1, Bob 2
- Yardistan votes Alice 1, Bob 2
- Straylight votes Bob 1, Cecilia 2
- (not voting for anyone would also be possible, of course)

The Praetor counts the votes, starting with everybody's first preference. On the first round Bob and Cecilia both have 2000 votes behind them, Alice 1000. Because nobody has a majority, the one with the least votes - Alicia - gets removed from the election, and the votes for her are redistributed. That means Yardistan's vote. Now Bob has 3000 votes against Cecilia's 2000, a majority which wins him the Praetorship.


Example 3. A multiple-choice tax bill like Andreas's is presented to the Landsraad. I don't really see any reason not to offer this possibility to the Landsraad, after all. Voting and votecounting would work as in example 2. Motion setup with the caveat that the people voting should be reminded they can also vote for no change.



I'd pay something in the 600-800 range for a piece of legislation that describes this neatly and that won't cause a situation in the Landsraad where everybody's running around confused because nobody understands what votes they can cast and how, and how their votes get counted.

[Andreas the Wise]

Makes perfect sense to me. It's just IRV voting (the Australian system) for all bills, and where there are only two choices, it is run exactly the same as we currently do because someone has to get a majority. An abstain vote is covered by merely not voting (no compulsory voting). Where there are multiple choices we rank, and it goes IRV. Easy.

Though I think that bounties rather high for what is effectively a simple piece of legislation ....

[Kaiser Loki III]

I'm a tad confused.

There are 5 duchies.

One half of 5 is 2.5

Three wins.

OR

There are, say, 90,000 erbs in the duchies.

When position A or B gets 45,00.01, that wins.

Why all the rigamarole?

Like I said before, that's all Landsraad proceedure, and not being a Duke it's not my issue, but, Hey?

[Malliki]

Uhh, let's make it 150 for the ministries amendment, 200 for the MCS claims act, and 250 for both of the amendments to the Landsraad procedures (500 together). That'd add up to a bill of 850 erb, which sounds appropriate to me for a lump of work this size.

The ministries amendment is moot with the latest Imperial Decree and the MCS claims act is addressed in another thread. F&B will accept to draft the amendments to the Landsraad procedures if it's an offer.

[Andreas the Wise]

300 for the ammendment to voiting procedures. I don't think its that hard. Ari can add extra stuff if he really wants.

[Kaiser Loki III]

That is up to the Landsraad.

[Andreas the Wise]

I meant Ari can add payment out of his own pocket ....

[Malliki]

The first amendment to the procedures (voting procedure) is more complex than the second one. I would prefer it if the payment reflects that.

[Andreas the Wise]

Weren't you the one who said we shouldn't have gone from a 20 bounty base up to a 70 bounty for Yvain's notes that probably took Scott hours and hours to do?
Wasn't the point of inflation that bounties could now go from 200 to 250 and that seem like a significant increase. And thus that 300 is insanely high?

[Erik Mortis]

Yes.

[Ari Rahikkala]

Makes perfect sense to me. It's just IRV voting (the Australian system) for all bills, and where there are only two choices, it is run exactly the same as we currently do because someone has to get a majority. An abstain vote is covered by merely not voting (no compulsory voting). Where there are multiple choices we rank, and it goes IRV. Easy.

Though I think that bounties rather high for what is effectively a simple piece of legislation ....

Hey, you're the MiniTrade, so far you're the one in charge of bounties

[Andreas the Wise]

I'm putting it at 300 then. Mike can decide if he does it for that or not.

[Malliki]

I accept for 300 and I will do it right after the MCS bill is completed.

[Jonas]

I'm against example 2, too much work and I like it if it's just simple!

[Ari Rahikkala]

Hey, you're the highest officer of the Landsraad. I'm sure you've heard of the verb to delegate

(hey, who knows, you could ask the Kaiser or MiniTrade for a budget to get someone to Lawbookise the recently passed bills!)