Bill 4-30: Sim Management Bill

Bill 4-30: Sim Management Bill

Sim owners and land managers, due to the intrinsic power provided by
the SL system of sim management should be chosen by members of the RA
from a pool of willing citizens. The selected owners and managers
will be members of the Guild and are not allowed to hold any other
elected or selected office in the government, including the SC, RA, or
Guild Master position. This limitation is to prevent a conflict of
interest and abuse of power. These individuals must be in good
standing with the city, recognize the city government, and be trusted
with public structures.

Philosophy

The philosophy behind this law is to seek a balance between the power
conveyed by the SL system of sim governance and the power conveyed by
the N'burg system of government. By reducing overlap, the possibility
of abuse is reduced and all officials have the same approximate
influence.

I was just talking to someone today about my failure to address SL-specific positions of authority in the government. Bah! Live and learn.

~Ulrika~

I find the noise of chirping crickets that seems to accompany this bill --very telling.

I didn't even see it until now. I think it addresses an obvious (and recently exercised) avenue for abuse of power in the city. Given that it rearranges power structures outside of the RA (in fact empowering the RA) it might have a chance.

~Ulrika~

I hope so. I think it solves some major issues that we should have all forseen but didn't.

This is actually a bill I can support. My only concern is at the practical level. We may not have enough manpower to have separate sim managers at this point. Seems we are even on the verge of having problems filling all the RA seats.

If this were proposed, say, when we have about 50 citizens or so, and when the new sim is online, I'd wholeheartedly support it. Right now, iunno.

I would rather have less RA members, and less SC members then --I personally don't see us growing to 50 residents under the present political problem created by having the Sim owner also have a Government position.

Could you elaborate? Is this a problem in principle or one where specific negative outcomes have arisen? If so, what are they?

I don't understand why there might be a conflict. If the person is trustworthy enough to hold the power of sim owner she should be trustworthy enough to hold office as well.

In fact, it's my contention a sim owner should be a high ranking official, not just an average citizen.

If we are concerned the sim owner might kick us all out we should go to LL with a petition to create a special way to hold the land secure from a rouge owner. I think maybe a special group function that would allow certain groups the ability to hold covenant land that can't be taken from a rightful buyer without the consent of the group.

We are experiencing the negative outcomes right now. This bill is an attempt to rectify a problem I honestly never thought I'd see crop up.

The potential for abuse of being a "Sim Owner" and Government Official absolutely trumps any of our carefully worked out checks and balances.

*shrug* we've grown to 30 residents under the current system. I've been long of the opinion that what is holding back further growth is the lack of desirable plots rather than anything going on in our government. 30 residents is in fact a much higher population density for 1 sim than a *lot* of other private sim projects, which indicates to me that people *do* think nburg is a desirable place to own land in.

So while constitutional reform, codifying practices, and building institutions are important, the most immediate practical step towards the survival of nburg is having the new sim go online. That, at least, seems to be proceeding apace.

I thought you were an advocate of taking pro-active and premptive measures against possible abuses of power. Why the change of stance on this issue?

I guess I don't see how you are drawing the line at 50. The Sim Owner could then perhaps stop selling lots at 49 citizens in order to never have to step down from their Government position.

If this bill is to work it can't have a minimum number to work under.

At 30 citizens and only 11 Government seats, why would it be hard for us to enough people?

I'm not really drawing a line at 50, just that 50 is roughly the number of citizens I'd expect us to have with 2 sims online. My point was that we may be too small to support additional government positions, and I'd be much more comfortable with this bill if we had significantly more citizens that we have at this point.

I don't know about you, having more than 33% of all citizens being in government bothers me a lot.

really? I wish we had 100% of all citizens in Government.

I agree there might be a concern, not today, but in the future. It is much better to deal with it before there is a crisis. But, unless there is some physical way to avoid a rouge sim owner, I see no value in keeping the sim owner out of office. It's not like they won't have an opinion or be biased just because they aren't an officer.

I'm saying a sim owner can take over regardless of officer status. And that sim owner trumps all officers combined.

That's why I see no conflict.

That's not to say I wouldn't like a way to secure individual rights to land purchased.

That is an issue only LL can resolve as far as I know.

If we had that we might as well do one of those evil direct democracies. Much simpler, that.

Really? You mean, like, uh, a direct democracy?

It's not about controlling the Sim Owner, Kevn.

It's about controlling the Branch of Government that the Sim Owner sits on.

God forbid.

No. We wouldn't at all. Where do you even get that??

I must be running slow today, but I don't see the point. Are you saying that if the sim owner is on the RA that sim owner will have some extra sway? I don't think other officers would be cow-tied by the fact the sim owner disagrees with them on a topic.

But could they? Is there potential here for abuse of power?

The only potential I see is if the sim owner took over and abused the rights or rightful land owners. That could happen at any time regardless of officer status though.

And the sim owner, even a sim owner who isn't an officer, might use the power of sim owner to intimidate officers of all branches if that's what they are inclined to do.

Currently there is no method at all for controlling the Sim Owner or the Branch of Government that the Sim Owner sits upon. A double dillemna!

Why are you against at least attempting some manner of control over a potentially disastrous occurence?

The answer that the Sim Owner already has great power only confirms to me that we shouldn't give them even more.