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Swaziland, National Day

TipsForAssemblyMembers

This page is intended for members of the CommunityWikiAssembly. If you are not an AssemblyMember, feel free to read it if you want, but it probably won’t be very interesting.

Tips

How do we make or change recommendations or rules?

A change is first proposed on the page UnofficialLegislativeProposals. We discuss it there in the normal fashion, and if the proposal is liked, we decide upon formal wording. Then the final wording is moved to the page OfficialLegislativeProposals. This serves as notice to all that a proposal is open for voting.

Over the next two weeks, people cast their vote on the page OfficialLegislativeProposals. You vote “Yes” or “No”, or “Not Decided Yet” if you want to extend the voting time period so that you can think about it more.

After two weeks, the votes are counted. If very few people voted, or if more than a certain number of people voted “Not Decided Yet”, the voting period is extended. If the voting is not extended, and if there were more than 80% Yes votes, the proposal passes; otherwise, it fails. Here’s a picture:

CommunityWikiAssemblyProposalLifecyclePng

How do we add someone new to the assembly?

It’s exactly the same procedure as for making a new rule, except that the voting period is two months rather than two weeks, and there has to be 90% Yes votes rather than 80%.

FAQs

How to delegate your vote (LiquidDemocracy)

In your space on the CommunityWikiAssemblyMemberList, just describe to whom you want to delegate your vote. If you want, you can also describe restrictions and conditions for when/how your vote is delegated.

Can I delegate the vote to someone outside of the CommunityWikiAssembly?

I have just one question about the delegation: am I allowed to delegate the vote to someone outside of the CommunityWikiAssembly?

As the Bylaws are currently written, no. But we could change that.

A reason I can think of that we might not want to allow votes to be deleted to non-assembly members is that, when that happens, we have to teach the person who got the vote how to do the vote, i.e. which page to put it on, how to write it, etc. Also, when we see on RecentChanges that someone not in the assembly has edited the voting page, we’d have to check it to make sure that they were actually supposed to be voting, and that they are not just a newbie who didn’t understand that that page is for voting. Also, if we want to edit lock the voting pages and only give passwords to the assembly members, we’d have to figure out a way for other people to cast delegated votes.

But maybe these minor inconveniences are outweighed by the value of the freedom to delegate one’s vote as one sees fit. I’m not sure.

P.S. I’m hoping that we write a page TipsForAssemblyMembers which, amongst other things, lists FAQs like this.

How to make a proposal to change the recommendations or rules

Post your idea on the page UnofficialLegislativeProposals. This is an ordinary wiki page. Discuss the proposal informally with everyone; see if everyone likes the idea. If the idea is controversial, you probably won’t be able to get the votes necessary to pass it, so either convince the nay-sayers or give up.

Next, on the page UnofficialLegislativeProposals, decide upon the formal wording for the proposal. When there seems to be consensus, move the final wording to the page OfficialLegislativeProposals. At this point, the wording does not change anymore and the proposal is open for voting.

How to vote

Check the page OfficialLegislativeProposals periodically (RSS) to see if there is a new proposal open for voting. If so, there will be three lists below it, “Yes”, “No”, and “Not Decided Yet”. Sign your name in the relevant list. You can change your vote at any time until voting is done.

If someone has cast a proxy vote in your name, you can change that vote, too; it’s your vote.

Details

This flowchart gives the details of the formal procedure, including vote counting. Or, you can read CommunityWikiBylaws.

Details: quick reference

How many Yes votes are needed for what

Action Vote threshold
Make a new recommendation or rule 80%
Modify an existing new recommendation or rule 80%
Repeal an existing new recommendation or rule 51%
Add a new assembly member to the CommunityWikiAssemblyMemberList90%
Remove an assembly member from the CommunityWikiAssemblyMemberList90%
Amend the bylaws 90%

Minimum voting period lengths

Note: these minimum waiting times can be circumvented with a rush vote (see below)

Action Minimum time
Make a new recommendation or rule 2 weeks
Modify an existing new recommendation or rule 2 weeks
Repeal an existing new recommendation or rule 2 weeks
Add a new assembly member to the CommunityWikiAssemblyMemberList2 months
Remove an assembly member from the CommunityWikiAssemblyMemberList2 months
Amend the bylaws 2 months

Details: explanations of things

Why aren't we allowed to amend proposals after posting them to OfficialLegislativeProposals?

Why can’t you change the wording of a proposal after it gets to OfficialLegislativeProposals? Because then, to be fair, you’d have to give everyone whose voted on the proposal so far a chance to change their vote. The easiest way to do this is to erase all of the votes. And that’s tantamount to making a new proposal.

Another reason is that if amending proposals were allowed, we might need to develop procedural rules for voting on whether everyone is cool with amending the proposal, or whether most people would rather stick with the original proposal. Yuck, how complicated.

Why is it so much easier to repeal rules than to make new rules?

It only takes a 51% vote to repeal (delete) a rule or recommendation. So, although you can’t get a rule passed without near consensus, you can get rid of a rule over the objections of quite a few people. Why is this? Because we don’t like rules.

In addition, hopefully knowing that it is easy to repeal rules will make people more willing to delegate their vote. You don’t have to worry as much that your delegated vote will be used to create some rule that you don’t like while you away, because if you can get a majority of people to agree with you when you come back, the rule can be repealed.

Why is changing a rule different from repealing a rule?

Because a rule might be “changed” in such a way so as to essentially make a new rule.

Wasn't there a way to have a “rush vote” so that we don't have to wait 2 weeks?

Yes, the time limit is ignored if you can get 80% (or 90%, if you are voting on membership or bylaws) of all assembly members to vote Yes. Usually the 80% or 90% is taken out of just those people who turn up, which is why there is a minimum time period, but if everyone’s around, then there’s no need to wait.

For example, if there are 7 assembly members total, and 5 of them are around and all of those people vote “Yes”, that’s enough to pass the proposal (because, out of those who voted on this issue, 100% voted “Yes”), but not enough to rush it (because only 71% out of all assembly members voted “Yes”). If all 7 assembly members come by and vote “Yes”, though, then the proposal is rushed and voting ends immediately.

The rush vote situation isn’t included on the flowchart above.

What's the deal with “Not Decided Yet”?

Not Decided Yet votes prolong voting except when the will of the rest of the assembly is so strong that the Not Decided Yets would be overruled no matter what they decide.

To figure out if the Not Decided Yet votes are enough to prolong voting, first see if there are enough Yes votes to pass the proposal. If so, voting ends (the Not Decided Yets don’t matter, because no matter what they would decide, they wouldn’t change the outcome). If not, next see if there are enough No votes to reject the proposal. If so, voting ends (again, the Not Decided voters don’t matter, because no matter what they decide, the proposal would still lose). If neither of these things happens, then it means that the proposal could go either way (and that the Not Decided Yet voters could be decisive), in which case the voting is prolonged.

Discussion

Obviously the “tips” section is so far just my opinion.

EditNearLinks: MeatballWiki PatrickAnderson

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