The Future of Government

[Trupiano]

40 minutes ago, Justitiae said:

Not allowing them to make one is pretty silly, how else would you expect people to find out information about their party? Think of it as a website or a poster if you will, every party has one.

The exact reason independent/minority parties SHOULDN'T have threads. It is incredibly difficult and some would say almost impossible for new parties to break into American politics. The server should reflect that and only allow faction threads for political parties that hold majority.

 

Every party does have websites and posters, There is also IC means to share that material through this group of subforums:

https://forum.gta.world/en/index.php?/forum/15-in-character/

 

Edited December 14, 2019 by Henning

[Pascal]

On 11/23/2019 at 7:16 AM, Midsummer Night's Dream said:

If they lack the time, why aren't they replaced by those who have the time and can be trusted? I'm sure the OP, if given the opportunity, would step up. 

On 12/10/2019 at 4:41 PM, Nervous said:

Because they're extremely competent and skilled individuals that have done a massive amount of work so far. They are actively recruiting so feel free to join them to help. 

I wanted to go into this some more and address misconceptions I've seen, both on this thread, other recents threads, and general things I've seen said by the community over the past year or so RE: Gov. Largely there's a belief the Government are simply inactive and don't have a desire to do much, but from experience working with @AVRO DANKASTER and the rest of Gov during Head of Property, not only is this not the case, they happen to be fairly busy working on various projects that both take large investment in time, and are organising things that need special knowledge/skills that not everyone has.

 

If you want a basic idea of their activity, you can check gov.gta.world and gov-forum.gta.world. Without fail, they're pushing things out on a monthly basis - a lot of the things they're pushing out require planning out in advance which take additional time. On top of this, they actively work on future projects or try to find people to fill for future projects. Whilst doing that, they have the responsibility to maintain and keep on top of the Government processes, such as the registration, licensing and grant systems. Besides doing that, they're roleplaying in-game as their characters, and meet daily to organise things ICly - there's someone in Gov who roleplay with our group and they're frequently pulled aside for Gov responsibilities, practically every evening.

 

People also need to consider the scale of what the Gov work with. There are a lot of large projects they have worked on in the past, many of these require specialist players who offer skills that few have, which are rare to come by, so take time to be able to setup. These do not always see the light of day due to lack of people and lack of interest, which lead the projects to fail.

 

A few examples include:

 

Duke Energy

A project to introduce roleplayed energy infrastructure to the server. This was a very exciting project initially, which saw an IRL Linesman assist in defining the energy grid of the state. The person behind it physically went around Los Santos and mapped the entirety of the energy grid, drafted and wrote up a ton of stuff necessary to make this project work. Gov needed to coordinate with Property Management to define special cases for the setup of Duke Energy Headquarters and the Palmer-Taylor Power Plant, which wouldn't fit well within our request/leasing system. Overall this project had quite a lot of overhead for the Gov to setup, and required them to coordinate with the player involved, Property Management and Legal Faction Management simultaneously. This project unfortunatetly fell through as the player responsible for it got somewhat "ambitious" and decided they also wanted to be a whacky crimelord on the side of running an energy company, whilst also running a car racing track as a property lease that they were told they only have access to for an event, but began to roleplay as if they owned the place. It was quickly shut down after this.

 

You can see the interactive map here.

 

 

Affordable Housing Project

Gov also coordinated efforts with Property Management to create IC housing. Gov had a two block apartment complex picked out in Alta, which they planned to allow players to apply for in order to live in. This was prior to the Multi-Interior/apartment system went live, and access to housing was rare. The intention was to enable people roleplaying fleshed out legal characters with jobs to have access to somewhere to live, as at the time the housing market was tight and no controls were put on job grinding, so those focused purely on roleplaying average characters didn't really have access to places to roleplay in. This took some joint planning between Gov and property, and required Gov to create roleplay through the old construction system, using companies to rennovate the entire apartment complex.

 

 

I wanted to be prepared to scale this up and easily roll out apartments once they were developed, so inspired by this project, I went to @Atiku with the early idea of expansion mapping, and by the end of the evening we came up with a completely new way to organise future property rollouts, which led to the 2,000+ properties you saw when apartments were introduced. This was also used for the Morningwood/Blaine County expansion AFAIK, and will likely be used in all future property expansions. Essentially, in part thanks to the Gov, they inspired us to think harder in how we approach property rollouts, which helped us push out thousands at once and keep future rollouts as organised as possible.

 

Emergency Vehicle Garage

EVG was a project to introduce a garage for emergency vehicles (LSPD, LSFD etc.), in order for legal factions to have a place to roleplay maintaining their vehicles and do check-ups etc. It was an interesting project with a lot of promise, and additionally led to things like the Department of Public Works being put into plans and established nearby. Unfortunately it fell through due to several reasons, such as lack of interest, lack of admin support (it needed a fair bit of sync between legal FM and property), which I'll take responsibility for personal failure as it was around the time my activity began to completely fall off a cliff, so I wasn't available to respond quickly enough to the Property Management related requests.

 

TL;DR

There's a lot more I could go into, however I've already waffled enough. Gov are actively working on things practically constantly, and have been organising projects that require specialist knowledge in the past.

 

Largely, I think the attitude that the Government is inactive is a perception problem. By hiring someone into a Public Relations role, and moving or cross-referencing their announcements onto the main forum.gta.world, players would feel far more engaged with the Government and get the impression they're active. They have been taking some steps to do this recently in fact, hiring a Curator of Culture, which helps the Government engage with the public by creating IC events around Los Santos' culture.

 

The Future of Government

In spirit of this thread, I'm concerned for the future of Government. I feel as if several of the new political parties were thrown together on a whim, in a reactionary effort to opportunistically jump on the train while the buzz of political RP is at its peak. Most of these parties need polish, presenting issues with portrayal, and I am not confident they are stacked with an active member base to fill the boots of the current Gov in terms of both numbers an skills required to deliver the responsibilites needed for Gov.

 

Not only this, following the recent faction management resignation wave, I do not think FM has the time or numbers to actively monitor all these political parties at once and ensure they follow a given standard. I am happy to be proven wrong on this, however, the previous batch of FM had a dedicated person assigned as the Government handler, whereas legal FM only currently has one person involved(?) (the leader), and while FM has other members involved, their focuses are elsewhere. Government required serious, dedicated collaboration between its members, Legal Faction Management and Property Management, with occasional need for Management approval. It's a major effort, and it functioned in the past as it did with having quite a lot of people involved. That does not really exist anymore, so "starting from scratch" would be a major challenge.

 

I think it would be far more realistic for now if those interested in political roleplay would tone down on the party angle, and instead involve themselves and fold into the Government itself. The Government need active members to help address the daily work they need to undertake. Additionally, these parties (and future prospects for mayor) need to gain understanding of how the Government processes work, otherwise future mayors will be functionally back to square one, and re-writing most of these systems again, or constantly PMing the old government to consult them on how they did things. It would make far more sense if these players started to fill out any of the available Government Careers, or worked their way into a major position, like running for district representation.

[Wallace05]

Hi everyone,

 

I’ve just registered on this forum because I’m very interested in the system of the Government and whole policy roleplay. At first, I can say that I’m really surprised with everything what you’ve done regarding LSGOV, it’s remarkable. In the next few days, I will finish my UCP Application and try to be involved in this type of roleplay. As I could see, City Council is inactive and probably I would try to change it, but before everything I must make a contact with the faction leader. The discussion is a good way to make things better, but this system of the government doesn’t exist anywhere, that’s a positive thing in the whole this discussion because there is no server that has the same structure of GOV like this one.

 

Please, I would like that faction leader try to contact me on this profile because I want to speak to him about my future plans.

Edited December 14, 2019 by Wallace05

[Flemwad]

I'm curious as to rather or not the legislature will be pursued through a State or City body?  I see there's forums for the City, but how will laws and acts created be applied throughout the State realistically? 

[Schmichael]

20 hours ago, Henning said:

The exact reason independent/minority parties SHOULDN'T have threads. It is incredibly difficult and some would say almost impossible for new parties to break into American politics. The server should reflect that and only allow faction threads for political parties that hold majority.

 

Every party does have websites and posters, There is also IC means to share that material through this group of subforums:

https://forum.gta.world/en/index.php?/forum/15-in-character/

 

However, the IG dem/rep parties are no more legitimate than any other party other than the fact they chose an existing name before anyone else could. If anything, it’d be better to not allow existing parties, imo

[Justitiae]

9 minutes ago, PapaBruh said:

However, the IG dem/rep parties are no more legitimate than any other party other than the fact they chose an existing name before anyone else could. If anything, it’d be better to not allow existing parties, imo

The issue here isn't a question of legitimacy, it's more a question of representation. San Andreas isn't entirely a true or realistic representation of California - this in fact, has been the topic of discussion on may roleplay severs out there (whether San Andreas should replace California, or if the two states exist together, etc.). Thus, we have the freedom to direct and engage in our own political and economic processes so that it's unique to the setting of the state, while of course taking inspiration from the American system. Disallowing the creation of political parties because you're misinformed or share concerns based on branding/labelling or on semantics rather than voicing issues with the actual policies of these parties is completely baseless and ridiculous.

[Flemwad]

1 hour ago, Justitiae said:

The issue here isn't a question of legitimacy, it's more a question of representation. San Andreas isn't entirely a true or realistic representation of California - this in fact, has been the topic of discussion on may roleplay severs out there (whether San Andreas should replace California, or if the two states exist together, etc.). Thus, we have the freedom to direct and engage in our own political and economic processes so that it's unique to the setting of the state, while of course taking inspiration from the American system. Disallowing the creation of political parties because you're misinformed or share concerns based on branding/labelling or on semantics rather than voicing issues with the actual policies of these parties is completely baseless and ridiculous.

 

PapaBruh makes a valid point.  There is a question of legitimacy if the name was simply scooped up without a fair process of creating the party leadership for this State.  For example, how were the current "Democrat" and "Republicans" formed?  Was there a vote within the party or was it simply formed by a group of people, placing themselves as party leadership? 

 

You can't simply say I'm making the Democratic Party and I'm party president.  There needs to be a formal and fair way of enacting it to include voting within the party.  I know it's a game and all these steps may not be practical, but I'm feeding off of PapaBruh. 

[UTOPIA]

11 minutes ago, Flemwad said:

 

PapaBruh makes a valid point.  There is a question of legitimacy if the name was simply scooped up without a fair process of creating the party leadership for this State.  For example, how were the current "Democrat" and "Republicans" formed?  Was there a vote within the party or was it simply formed by a group of people, placing themselves as party leadership? 

 

You can't simply say I'm making the Democratic Party and I'm party president.  There needs to be a formal and fair way of enacting it to include voting within the party.  I know it's a game and all these steps may not be practical, but I'm feeding off of PapaBruh. 

That's how it happened, I think it would have turned out better if they had waited until the city council was completely up & running, and the election cycle was in full swing. It's all a little rushed and out of scope, without elections, parties really don't have a purpose (other than being a voting block). I also don't think any of the parties really need threads (yet), unless they're going to showcase them calling everybody for donation money, registering people as members, etc. It's all a little weird and I personally don't understand the direction either threads are going in. I understand a lot of people see politics as what they see in the media, debates, having stances on issues, whatever; but realistically running a party is a lot of organization, acquiring funding, it's a lot of "uninteresting" roleplay to some, and it may even be considered something of a chore, but that's what it is in reality.

[Justitiae]

38 minutes ago, Flemwad said:

 

PapaBruh makes a valid point.  There is a question of legitimacy if the name was simply scooped up without a fair process of creating the party leadership for this State.  For example, how were the current "Democrat" and "Republicans" formed?  Was there a vote within the party or was it simply formed by a group of people, placing themselves as party leadership? 

 

You can't simply say I'm making the Democratic Party and I'm party president.  There needs to be a formal and fair way of enacting it to include voting within the party.  I know it's a game and all these steps may not be practical, but I'm feeding off of PapaBruh. 

Parties aren't created randomly when people feel like it and do things at their own discretion without approval, they go through vetting/process of approval by Faction Management. Parties right now are formed in the same way usual factions are, leadership votes/elections and general internal politics happens later on. The threads allowed up there somewhat contributes to the legitimacy of these parties/factions. Everything requires a beginning; someone needs to set the foundation before the rest fall into place. The Mayor was appointed to his post for the same reason, to establish precedence. Elections are not the only way to establish legitimacy, though it is perhaps the most preferred way.

Edited December 15, 2019 by Justitiae

[Trupiano]

2 hours ago, PapaBruh said:

However, the IG dem/rep parties are no more legitimate than any other party other than the fact they chose an existing name before anyone else could. If anything, it’d be better to not allow existing parties, imo

This is the case with any faction on the server.

 

so we’re supposed to have a realistic LSPD, a realistic Criminal underworld but a political system composed of a bunch of party’s that don’t understand how US politics ACTUALLY works.

 

Right now we’ve got 2 parties who are just basing their decisions on how many votes it will bring in with no concern of how realistic their portrayal might be and a 3rd party who has absolutely 0 idea of how politics in the US works.