Neualtenburg Constitution

If this isn't the best thread in the history of the forums, I don't know what is. Bravo!

Let's keep the intensity up for one more day and then I'll do a summary on Saturday, when I have some more time. So now is your chance to throw in every idea you've had concerning the government. Nothing is too big. Nothing is too small. Everything will be considered.


I have a couple of things I'd like to toss in. They are the concepts of binding citizens, groups, and branches to the city and individual accountability.

One thing I hear a lot of in SL, is users who claim if a change, which they disagree with, occurs in the game, they will leave the game. I believe, due to the nature of politics and SL, that we could have an exodus of very valuable people, if an unpopular political event takes place. Thus, I would like to bind all entities to the city. No group, branch, or faction should be allowed to leave the city in protest. All creations by citizens remain property of the city. Citizens can leave but only with a two-week (or greater) notice. In return citizens receive the right to a hearing before discharge due to a violation from the city. What do you think?

Next is the concept of individual accountability. I read this quote on the web the other day:Where I work, there are clear rules on where to lay blame. Typically it lands squarely on the shoulders of the first tier of management. I would like to build accountability into the system. All party leaders are inherently responsible for transgressions within their party.

~Ulrika~

Ah, I took too long to reply... sorry about that... I was browsing the Wikipedia and furiously typing figures on the calculator, comparing different methods of rating votes for seats... I guess all of you moved on while I was busy

Ok, let's try to propose a variant description for the way the Representative Branch should work:

1) The legislature of the Representative Branch is called the Representative Assembly, or RA for short, and it's an unicameral system.

2) For each 4 citizens in Neualtenburg, there will be one seat at the RA (rounded down to the nearest odd number). The current population is 35, so this means 9 seats.

3) Seats are held by Representative Deputies (RD for short) who are members of lists presented by parties.

4) Citizens vote for parties. 1 citizen, 1 vote.

5) A party is a SL group created specifically for the purpose of running for seats in the RA. While SL enforces a minimum of 3 members to create a group, we should have a minimum of 5 members per party.

6) All party members in the list must be citizens.

7) Distribution of the seats at the RA are done by the Hondt method. If the population grows, the RA may vote to enlarge the number of seats. New seats are taken also by the Hondt method without the need of elections.

A mandate lasts for 4 months. All RD can be reelected, either by staying in the same party, or by changing parties.

9) At the start of term, the Burgermeister will deliver his state address, and empower the new RA. The first act of the RA will be to nominate the next Burgermeister for the current mandate, by a simple majority vote of the present members. The RA will then empower the new Burgermeister, who can be re-elected for two consecutive mandates only.

10) Laws are introduced/proposed by any RD. A first vote will be required to "accept the motion", with a majority of the present members. A second round will "accept the law generally", also with a majority of the present members. This will be followed by a round of discussion for each detailed point, and a second round of votation (again, with simple majority) to "approve the law". After the discussion, points at the law are allowed to be changed and proposed for the final draft.

11) All laws are passed by a majority vote of present members, except for changing the Constitution, which requires 2/3 of all RDs. Constitution revisions will be ordinary (at the beginning of each new mandate, ie. every 4 months) but can also be called extraordinary by a simple majority vote

12) Vetos from the other branches are overruled by an unanimous vote by all RDs.

Vote EGGY LIPPMANN for Neaultenburg dicta^H^H^H^H^Hpresident!!!
I will lead the "Ulrika Zugzwang Fan Club" faction

Talen, I have read your suggestions again, and I think that I understand what your problem really is: lack of time and a desire to hurry things up. The basic idea I get is, better to have a bad system in place, but have it operational (we can always improve it later) - instead of an excellent system, but which needs a lot of discussion, and the end result is, we would never implement it in time.

While I generally agree with that (ie. let's move fast), I specifically disagree that we just throw up something without thinking about the consequences (ie. let's do it wrong and expect that it will sort out itself later).

Moving into general thoughts again (and yes, I think I'm a stubborn person myself), I still mantain that, despite "being an experiment", we should still learn from political science, and, most important, from history. We have perhaps 3,000 years of accumulated political science knowledge. Shall we throw it all away and pretend that we are better than the few billion people that lived for that amount of time, and come up with something radically new? I speak only of myself, and I cannot claim to be that arrogant. I know about "successful" systems and "unsuccessful" ones. I prefer to base any "constitution" upon a "successful" system (and tweak it to our taste to make it more interesting/challenging) instead of inventing something and expect that "it works".

The overall structure of the City Government as proposed, with its three branches, is quite unusual - but solidly based on the municipal forals of 11th and 12th century Iberian Peninsula towns. These were granted by Kings to towns to allow them self-rule. They had an "assembly" (our Representative Assembly) which nominates a Burgermeister, and they were rooted upon the Guild of Guilds (later taken over by the Mercahnt Guild), which provided the "backbone" of the executive branch of the Town Hall. This scheme worked so well that it quickly expanded to most countries - especially those where the feudal institutions were much more shaky, like in Italy - and by the 14th century or so, most towns and cities throughout Europe had a system for self-rule quite similar to the one proposed for Neualtenburg. The "slight variation" in our proposal is the social-democratic attitude and the "University" as a judiciary/constititutional branch, which I think very interesting. The rest is pretty well copy & paste from 900-year old documents with a new wording. Even the "assembly deputies" were elected at that time, but, of course, there were a small percentage of people with a "vote", and almost all were Guild Members as well, and nominated by them to "hold office" at the Town Hall Assembly. But things like the tax system, or who is able to designate spots at the city for special purposes, all this that we have discussed, it's pretty clear to me from where the inspiration came. All very well thought of (btw, congratulations, I don't think I have publicly congratulated this magnificent effort!) and very well incorporating "social democracy" with a touch of "medievalistic burgeousie". Until the beginnings of the autocracies in Europe, this model worked wonderfully well on underpopulated regions for several hundred years.

So I also feel that we should draw from history and political science - our "common background", if you wish - to set up our own systems, instead of relying upon our fertile imaginations. Let's use the imagination to tweak things to make them interesting, not to build castles in the air.

Back to specifics. All types of organisations I worked with (almost all non-political, but still needing assemblies, elections, and vote rules) usually started with a two step process:

1) An Installation Commitee, or, if you like, a Provisorial Government (also called a Junta). That's what we have right now. Their job is throwing out a constitution and self-extinguish after the first Constitutional Election.

2) A First Constitutional Election, which will work to put the Constitution in place, and hammer out the laws. (wording differs if you're talking about things like a local club, a non-profit organization, or the Board of a company, but the two-step process applies to them as well)

What you're proposing is:

1) The Provisional Government holds power to promote the creation of a Provisorial Constitution. Their task is to hammer out a few rules for step 2), and then self-extinguish.

2) The Provisiorial Constitution allows elections for a Second Provisorial Government. The task of the Second Provisorial Government is to create the Definitive Constitution, while holding power to be able to rule the city in the mean time.

3) The Definitive Constitution is finally accepted, new elections are called, and a Definitive Government is installed. The Second Provisional Government self-extinguishes.

What are the problems of the three-step system? Well, the Second Provisional Government is "elected" and holds power, but may not hold sufficient power to change the Provisional Constitution - or, put it simply, it may not want to change it, mantaining their status quo for ever and ever. If you forget to state simple things on the Provisional Constitution like the mandate term, or who calls the next elections, you may block yourself out, and be unable to throw them legally (ie. constitutionally) out of office. Since under the current model the Philosophical branch may veto laws, but not "force" laws upon the Representative Assembly, the system could lockdown completely if the RA can't pass laws or even have the power to change the Constitution.

What does this mean? Revolution, of course. Overthrow the government, start from scratch, and rethink it all again. This time do it properly. But, speaking strictly for myself, I would prefer to avoid it just because "we have not enough time to think about it properly right now".

That's the main reason why, instead of inventing something in a hurry that just "sounds different", I prefer to draw from real-life models and make sure we have a starting base to be creative afterwards.




Names are important. There is a reason why we have three branches called "Representative", "Artisan", and "Philosophic". We could start with "Alpha", "Beta", "Gamma" instead. But we didn't, since the names mean things to us.

Historically, a "senate" is a nominated body (or elected by its peers), ie. not democratically elected (either directly or indirectly). From the Wikipedia: "Its meaning comes from a very ancient form of even simple social organisation in which the decisional power is reserved to the eldest men. For the same reason, the word senate is correctly used when referring to any powerful authority characteristically composed by the eldest members of a community, as a deliberative body of a faculty in an institution of higher learning is often called a senate." Thus, this more resembles the proposed City Council (ie. an informal, advisory board including the Burgermeister and a few members of each Branch, which was proposed to exist to facilitate and speed up issues, and which I fully support!)

I'm well aware that countries like the US, France, Canada, or Australia "elect democratically" their senators, but this is just a misapropriation of an historical designation.

What the Representative Assembly really is, it's an unicameral legislature with directly elected members. You could call it "assembly", "parliament", "house", or, if you want to be more neutral, "legislature". I thought of calling it "Das Rat" (historically, the advisory board to the Burgermeister in the Town Hall Council, ie. Town Hall = Rathaus, literally, "house of advice" but then I saw that Das Rat was also a nominated body, e.g. a senate.

Still, if people really want to mix up all historical names just to make things more funny and creative, that's fine by me as well! I abstain on the vote on calling it a "senate" on the grounds it means something quite different from what it's supposed to be.



Sure, I fully agree that there won't be 11 parties, even if theoretically possible. Yes, I took that in consideration, and I quite agree that it won't happen. However, I was aiming for a "permanent constitution" that you can work with, and that will work as well with 50 people and 9 seats at the RA, as well as 5000 people with 900 seats.

The provisional government has the task to forge out the Constitution. That's the two-step model I said before. Not to get a quick-and-dirty "election system" and expect things to change if it's all wrong

(we'll analyse the capacity for "passing required laws" under your proposed system further below)




Yes, we have direct election of party lists instead




Outside interference? I don't understand.

The Hondt method is just a well-proved algorithm to distribute votes in party lists among seats. Systems with direct election where you don't have party lists use other methods. The Hondt method is not "perfect" and there are several variants on it, all well-proven and tested on several governmental systems world-wide.

Creating something "wholly from scratch" has the big issue of having a much higher risk of failure, but I agree that it could be a very interesting idea. Who among you has the mathematical capability to design a voting system and demonstrate its applicability? This could be a very interesting project - designing it, analysing it mathematically for soundness, and then implementing it in SL to show that it works (as well as on a small case, as on a large scale). I would like to see that!

However, being a practical person myself - and since everybody keeps telling that "we have to rush"! - why not pick up a proved method that works well (and, as said, I just proposed ONE that is adequate to our model of the RA, but there are several available), gives us a good starting base, and then change it later? At least it's better than having a constitution that says "elected members of the RA will 'somehow' be elected, but we will vote later on that". How were they elected? How will they vote? The Constituition has to say at least that.




Bipolar systems are systems were only two parties decide (even if the number of parties are bigger than 2). Under your system, the third party had just a vote.

Actually, your system is only bipolar if there is no vote discipline. If there is, it's an "advisory dictatorship", where the two parties either agree on a bill of law, or they have to convince the third party on that bill of law. So, you see, you have either "unanimous votes" or the the third party will always decide. That's not democratic at all.



Well, the "explanation" is just a result of statistical methods applied in very different contexts, nothing more and nothing less.

I fully agree on odd numbers for the number of members.




Does that mean that the Provisional Government will not address peoples' wishes at all?

Hmmm.




Well, this should go into a philosophy thread and not be explored here. When two people argue to decide the fate of a third one, this is politics. RL or SL is irrelevant, politics apply to all scenarios, starting with your Neighbourhood Association, going through a local club, local government, federal government or the UN. It will apply to colonies in Mars as well As soon as we get humans to decide stuff, all the knowledge body of political science in the last 3000 years will apply. We can't be "non-humans" just by joining SL and pretending that we don't think the same when in SL.

But, as said, this is philosophy, and not a valid contribute. My point only is that we should not ignore 3000 of history and political science.




I don't agree on several aspects...

1) If we are just "preparing the groundwork for a first election", why the effort in setting up the three branches, fully detailing one of them (the Guild), drafting some aspects of the Constitution, and even have the Provisional Government hold offices inside that structure - and then have a crippled system for one of the branches? (remember, it's supposed to be the most "democratic" branch of the three, since it's the only one with directly elected representatives)

It would be far easier to say: "let's elect 11 people out of the 35 and have them work together towards the definitive constitution. Each citizen has 1 vote to elect those 11 people. This Provisional Government decides with majority of votes on anything". And we could forget about all the rest - no parties, no 3 branches, no nothing. Let those 11 people decide if they want these things at all!

However, the "correct" approach (from an historical point of view) was precisely what was done - the Provisional Government establishes the groundwork for the Constitution and to elect the the first representatives. Those will start issuing bills of law. But there has to be a Constitution - that's the exactly task for the Provisional Government!

2) If we are just "inventing our own stuff from scratch" and trying crazy experiments without at least a base, why the effort in having a medieval setting in Neualtenburg, claiming we are a social democracy, and having parties and elections? All these are "stuff we bring from RL into SL". So, if we bring some concepts, we cannot just say "these stay, these go". It's like pretending we have only "selective" knowledge, use some things that we happen to like and forget about the rest, and see if we can reinvent the wheel. The answer is, sure, we can, since we can't pretend not to know what the wheel is.

I don't agree to the "invent stuff from scratch". What is the purpose? I would prefer to have something workable, do it the proper way, but having the freedom and creativity to tweak things so that they are more challenging and interesting.

3) The "numerology" was just an example to show that if you want at least to PRETEND we are a social democracy, there should be at least be a PRETENSE that the seats in the RA are a reflexion of the citizen's voting wishes. There are several systems to do that, some better than others. Your system unfortunately is not one of them. It doesn't reflect the citizens wishes at all. You can't even have a "majority" party (ie. the one winning the elections). So, if your proposal stays in place, I again propose the following:

Don't create parties, just let 11 people get elected. That's fairer and certainly democratic. Let the elected representatives fight for their own bills, and join together forces (or not), and "parties" will emerge naturally from the debate.

I haven't seen a good reason for Neualtenburg's government having a party-based representative assembly, except a wish to come closer to a "social democratic republic" where this is the standard. If you don't have parties, you don't have to worry about party compositions, and you don't have to worry about the Hondt method of assigning seats to the RA according to party votes. So things become so much easier!

I do not propose a "party-less" representative system. Only that, if the majority wants a party-based system (and I certainly want!), let's do it properly, and not mix systems. If there are going to be parties, I claim my right to form one, and to get elected, and make sure the seats I get in the RA are in proportion to the votes my party got! (btw, like Ulrika, I also think that the work at the Philosophical branch, which is exactly hammering out how the constiutution should work, is far more interesting )



I agree with all of the above. I just add that we should do it properly

I couldn't agree with this more. The whole project will be doomed if we design our organizational structure in haste.

I have a concern that while the intent of the Artisinal branch is to represent the cities labor, it only really represents those who sell products.

City workers and event hosts have a disadvantaged representation (only in the RA) while they remain just as important in keeping the city functional and exciting.

My initial solution is to have two ceremonial "Meister" positions in the Guild. One for a Representative of the city workers (elected by the city workers), and one for the Event hosts (elected by the event hosts).

I think those groups should be represented, especially if our tax policies in the future include taxing the income of these two groups. No one should be taxed without proper representation (sales tax excluded).

Any thoughts?

I agree. I would not limit the number of parties as you want to encourage diversity and participation but I would limit the number of seats and divey them up according to group size.


I agree again and think that a 10 member minimum is too latge cor a community this small. Start with say 5 member min and increase it as the community grows.


It is hard to argue with a popular vote but if one of the goals is to make it harder for the majority group to control everything then this may not be the way to go.

You could award seats to parties on the basis of their membership and have each of those parties nominate people to run for those seats. Then have a general election where everyone votes for the people they like among those choices. This gives the people some control and also guarantees the smaller parties representation.

This kind of replaces having districts. Each party would in a sense be it's own district.


I am in favor of anyone holding a seat being able to introduce a law. If it sux then it will be voted down quickly I am sure but we don’t want to limit the flow of ideas.

I think that would be great if it would work. I doubt that will happen though. If someone gets pissed off and wants to leave they will probably be gone right then and will not adhere to a 2-week notice.

Yes I also agree that all property should be the cities but if an unpopular event causes a party to split up, disband and or leave then I am not sure how we would stop them even if we wanted to which I don’t think I would. I am unsure how you could enforce it anyway.


I am interested in hearing more about this proposal.

Satchmo, you got me worried....



I always thought that the Guild represented the "basic creative types in SL", ie.:

1. Builders & Architects (ie. people putting prims together)
   
2. Texturizers
   
3. Scripters
   
4. Clothiers
   
5. Animators
   
6. Event Hosters
   

... since these types are the foundation of the SL (economic) society. You could argue that "Land Barons" should be added as well, but currently Anzere does not lead well to "land baroning"

Have I got this wrong? I would expect that at least one of each class should be represented in the Guild!

After finally wrapping my brain around it, I support The Hondt method.

The following link details a number of Electoral Systems, and take a look at "3. Proportional Representation"

http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/kingch/Electoral_Systems.htm

The Hondt method is a simple and proven way to elect a Proportional Representation. Don't be scared by all the scary math in this post, the link above simplifies the math greatly. I agree if someone has the mathamatical prowess to design and validate a voting system, then I'm all for throwing it into the debate. Again, I believe we are talking thesis research.

Let's make sound decisions based on science, instead of gut reactions based on preference.

Kendra, TY once again for the wonderful description of how a guild works. Now that I understand it better I like the idea. I do have one question left though and it was kind of my issue to begin with.

I just didn't think it was a good idea to have every member of the guild awarded a vote in the Artisanal branch. Are the Meisters the only ones who get to vote? If so I like it and fully support your guild as you have described it.

You forget that "Land Barons" are evil and the bane of existence in SL... hehe. Practically everything bad about SL should be attributed to them! (satire)

Yes --Only the Meisters vote. However --a nice Meister would probably take the votes of his/her apprentices and Journeymen into account in issuing his/her vote.

The Artisinal Branch supports ALL the arts. All meisters decalre one or more specialities --whether that's a "code" meister or an "event" meister makes no difference in the structure --the only problem I ned to work out is selection of the Burgermeister -- obviously too much weight to sales would tilt the selection in favor of a seller of wares.

Any suggestions?

I could be wrong. But it is my understanding that only the Meisters get to vote and Meister status is a function of sales. No sales for Event Hosts or city workers.

2 questions for the people then:

Is Meister status a function of sales?

Does the Apprentice,Journeyman, Meister sytem hold true for event hosts and city workers too?

Just to be clear, when I say "city workers" I think of people who maintain and enhance the infrastructure of the city though building,texturing,scripting,animating. Enhancing the city with work that would never be sold (like our vending machine).

Although I'm sure I'll fall into every category, I would rather focus on the cities infrastructure than products.

You have this exactly right

I have some fundamental, philosophical problems with "limiting the majority", if they are elected by popular vote! On my proposal a few posts before, there would still be a necessity of having 2/3 votes to change the constitution, and unanimous agreement (with the whole RA in session) to overrule vetos.

Vetos are exactly the way to go if the majority "steps out of bounds".

Of course, if a party gets all the seats, they will be in charge of everything. Can't be prevented, and it's very hard to "check". But we can only assume that this will only happen if averybody agrees totally with a particular party. That can't be so bad, can it?

So, I'm against any "majority limitations". However, I can agree on some things, say, the Philosophy branch having a veto on any Constitutional changes that can't be overruled. This would mean that if the term mandate is fixed at 4 months, and the all-dominant single party wants to change that, the Philosophy branch will not let them do it. And after 4 months we'll get a new government. So if they really, really want to get reelected, they have to be tremendously good during their mandate!

As to "award seats to parties on the basis of their membership" and then letting people vote for the list members, my first reaction was negative, since I hadn't read the link that Satchmo posted. It seems that there are actually "open party list" systems where people can vote for the order in which the seats are filled.

Example:

4 parties run for 9 seats.

Before the election, every party presents their list. Let's assume the following lists:

Party 1 - Abraham (Party Speaker), Thomas, Benjamin, George, Theodor
Party 2 - John (Party Speaker), James, Jane, Joe, Jack
Party 3 - Mary (Party Speaker), Anne, Gloria, Rosie, Blanche
Party 4 - Ulrika (Party Speaker), Kendra, Talen, Billy, Satchmo

After the election, we have the following seat distribution:

Party 1 - 4 seats
Party 2 - 2 seats
Party 3 - 2 seats
Party 4 - 1 seat

The RA composition will be:

Abraham, Thomas, Benjamin, George, John, James, Mary, Anne, Ulrika

This means that each party will present a list in an ordered fashion, and you will know, before the election takes place, who will fill the seats (closed system). There are also strategies in planning out the lists, and this is usually the job of the party, not of the voters. More than that, after a few elections, you may have a "feeling" on how people may vote, so you can change the order of your list if by some chance you want to "reward" one of your party members with a seat.

This also assures that there won't be any surprises, e.g., people switching places after the election. The only problem is if you run out of list members (ie. say, party 1 gets 6 seats!)

Added: under an open list system, I would retain at least the Party Speaker as the first choice, and eventually let the people vote on the rest of the list composition. For a small number of seats, I think it's doable (but I still prefer closed list systems).

there s no desire to hurry things up...dont presume to know that I have a problem,

See if you can comprehend this:

Being the provisional government we need to get the framework for the senate in place. We need to figure out how the party system works and how many seats. Elections will happen in January...we have a firm schedule and it must be kept. After we provide rte initial framework the elected senate witll then take over ..They will be responsible for assesing the peoples needs and working towards those needs..such as implementing more seats and determining due to populace how those seats get distributed.

While I generally agree with that (ie. let's move fast), I specifically disagree that we just throw up something without thinking about the consequences (ie. let's do it wrong and expect that it will sort out itself later).



Outside principals and ideas can and will be brought in to assist but we wont be adopting any outside government wholly in this project. Whether or not a system is successful or not they have never dealt with a virtual world.




I see you have a penchant for being condecending...this isnt a castle in the ait...outside realities will influence but we wont be adopting an outside system and imagine things we can do with it.


our job as a provisional government is to set up how the senate is initially run and elected.


There is no second provisional government.

.

again one provisional government....they set the foundation ...elections in january will set the senate to begin




I have no clue where you keep coming up with a second provisional government from...




we can draw bits and pieces from any and every outside model but you were talking about using just one outside model in its entirety ...that wont happen.



.

The three branches have been named....The Senate, Artisinal, and Philisophic. Obviously you dont like the senate so instead of just using another name...say you don't like it




Maybe you should just rewrite everything written so far as theres not much you really like is there...I mean to say its not what you want. You forget this isnt about you...




There will be permanent things in the constitution but no constitution is permenant...certain aspects such as seats and parties is going to be dictated by the amount of people...why have 11 parties for 35 people...or for that matter 20 seats. As the population grows that is taken into consideration and changed to suit the peoples needs


Well I'm sure you won't let it go wrong. again nothing was ever said about quick and dirty..the philisophical and artisinal branches are nearly completely in place we now need to turn to the senate to work through what is needed for the election ...what needs to be in place for the first elected officials to work. and no we shouldn't be making any laws ...thats for the elected senate and the people to decide.








getting tired of your condecending attitude ...but I'll deign to answer some more. no why bother I've answered these





I'm glad I said one thing that you can agree on




I really don't need to answer this as it would just be a waste of both of our times.





No one said ignore...you just like to think they did. we can adopt theories, ideas, and philosophys but we are tring to stay away from adopting any one method...





Have you read the project notes at all? I really think you should if you haven't...and if you have I suggest reading them again.




That should be fun to watch

I would think you could designate the seats ahead of time so you would not run out of members. Then have a minimum of 2 candidates per party seat selected from the designated party to choose from.

actually --The names are

The Guild (Artisinal)
The Academy (Philosophic)
The Senate (Representative)

obviously that will be changed to German.

I like these names and see no need to change them unless someone has a major objection.

I don't have a lot of time, so I'll be really quick.

Gwyneth, you keep mentioning that you don't want to try to incorporate novel ideas into the government. Given that we are a novel world where most of the reasons that people would need a government no longer exist, why should we not? We have no war, no social security system, no health care system, and we can fly. When they were creating the game of SL, were there discussions that novel ideas of locomotion such as flying and teleportation should be discarded for methods of locomotion more like RL? While there is a satisfaction and safety walking in the footsteps of other peoples achievements, we are also in a world where we can afford to take risks and be bold with attempts at self rule.

In our city we have a mandate to enrich the snow sims and make a compelling destination for all SLers. This is achieved through the planning of events, the creation of products, and the moderating of those events. Do we really want single giant government (1 in 4 or 25%) that exists only to make laws for the rest of the productive citizens trying to achieve that goal? Instead we should pull the government into the very groups that will be the most productive for the city and empower them (artisans, event planners, and moderators) to make decisions for the city.

~Ulrika~

As stated when they were introduced, we are free to change those names (Guild, Academy, and Senate), if we want. I will change the name "Academy", as soon as I think of something that embodies that which unites philosophy, law, science, and moderation with a university structure (what do you think about "the philawscimodersity".

Gwyneth mentioned we were misusing "Senate", however the U.S. has an elected representative body called the "Senate" and Webster seems to confirm with at least one of its subdefinitions that it applies to our type of body. Nonetheless, those who are in that branch should feel free to modify the name to suit them.

~Ulrika~

1) No. Meister status won't be awarded based on simply sales. Different rules will need to be set for those specializing in events. Meister status can perhaps be judged by dwell amounts in the case of event holders.

2) The structure for Apprentice-Journeyman and Meister holds for all specialties within the Guild.

3)Heh --that's what apprentices and journeymen are for! Obviously their work would need to approved by the Gildemeister before being released to the City...and yes Meisters are obligated to put in some time doing "city work" or at least their "workshop" is.

To be clear --Meister status is not given simply by sales figures. It is conferred by the Gildemeister and can be taken away by the Gildemeister. The decision is based on a combination of many things... Quality, Quantity, and seniority.

I'm going to create a new thread for The Guild --so we'll be moving Guild discussions over there

Please see "Die Gildehaus"