*A Treatise on the Structure of Government Systems in Online Simulation Sports League

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*A Treatise on the Structure of Government Systems in Online Simulation Sports League - Jiggly_333 - 01-04-2021

What up? It's ya boi: Anime Karl Marx.

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Just kiddin. It's me, Jiggly. You're so gullible.

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Anyway, I need some money to carry me over until next season and I don't rally have the time to do another fun podcast transcript. But what I apparently do have time for is a pseudo-intellectual look at the way simulation sports leagues govern themselves, how that relates to real-world government, it's drawbacks, and maybe even a possible better system. I don't know, I just started writing and I'm not stopping until I make some sort of a point.

So, as a completely unscientific guess: I'm pretty sure most of the members of this league are American. I'm pretty sure that if you are American, you should've at least been taught in school how the American government is set up. Then again, we're talking about American Public Education, so there's still a good chance that they didn't teach you very well. All I'm trying to get to here is that the American system is usually seen as the basic system for the rest of the world (mostly due to the Americans forcing the system onto everyone else). Allow me to refresh everyone's memories on what that entails:

The US Government is made up of three branches: Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary. The Legislative branch is Congress, which is the Senate and House of Representatives who work in the same building, but different rooms. The Executive branch is the one where the President is in charge and has multiple buildings for... one person? And the Judiciary branch is clearly the sanest of them all as it's the Supreme Court, which is a small group of people who all work in one building together.

Now, I'll go into the whole thing about checks and balances later, but this is the traditional view of government: One bit makes the laws, one bit figures out how to apply them, and then another "executes" them. This is not something that exists in sim leagues. In fact, I think that this sort of structural integrity and definition of boundaries is something that the ISFL lacks.

The way that the ISFL appears to have it's own weird ecosystem that vaguely reminds me of something similar to English Parliament, the Soviet Union pre-Perestroika, and my limited knowledge of the municipal governments of a couple of major US cities. I'll explain the similarities later, but right now I need to give the definitions first.

Obviously in a marketplace where the economy is based on working for the company, there are a lot of jobs "available" to league members although general entropy and the growth of the league a lot of these jobs have become scarce. They've also been stratified. And it's honestly kinda hard to find vertical movement without "knowing someone" above you. In this stratification, it's pretty obvious whose jobs matter more in terms of political power. I promised myself I wouldn't go full Marx on this, but you can see that jobs like grading, updating, and mentoring aren't exactly high on the totem pole, despite having more meaningful implications to much of the population. On the other hand, as you go up the pole, you notice that the higher ups do deal with a lot more intense pressure. So despite the possible idea that they may not do as much grunt work as the proletariat, the bourgeoisie doesn't have it completely easy around here.

This is a list of jobs outside of HO that have any implication in the governing of the league itself: GMs, Appeals Team, and Simmers. Anyone not on this list has very little political power in the league. You may think banking would make this list, but consider the fact that in simulation sports: Money is imaginary and holds no real meaning. In real life, banking is necessary for printing money, managing interest rates, and working with inflation to maintain the spending integrity of that country's currency. In simulation leagues, it's just a spreadsheet that needs to be maintained so we know when someone's lying.

This is where Parliament comes in. Now the English government is set up in three "branches", but it's really just two: The Parliament and The Royalty. And while the Royalty is pretty much exactly what you think it is, Parliament is kind of a segmented mess (although it does all happen in one building so that's one thing). Parliament is the House of Commons, which is the elected side of Parliament, and the House of Lords, which is the hereditary/somehow religious side of Parliament. Until 2009 there was no Supreme Court in England and instead the Judicial duties were carried out by the House of Lords. The Prime Minister isn't a separate position, but actually a member of the House of Commons who is voted by their political party to run the country if the party wins a majority in Parliament.

The ISFL is kinda like Parliament in that there is one constantly changing side and one fairly un-moving side. That's the GMs on one side and HO itself on the other side. Both houses are appointed, not voted so that's important, but HO and GMs are essentially the Legislative area of the ISFL. The rules summit, while introduced by HO, is voted on by GMs. Reminder: These votes are done by appointed officials, not elected officials. So technically both could be consider the House of Lords, but at the very least, the GMs may ask their team about opinions. Or at least they should ask their team for opinions.

As for the Judicial system, that's the Appeals team.
And somehow also the Head Office.
Wow, this place is a mess.
But at the same time, if we look at the American government, it sort of works in line with that. If we're running on the idea that the commissioner would be the ISFL's Head of State and HO is its cabinet, the Department of Justice is not only appointed in the Executive Branch, but is appointed by the President. So HO is somehow the Legislative Branch, the Judiciary Branch, and the Executive Branch of the ISFL. And they are not elected, they are appointed. Let's move on to the Soviet Union.

Not the Soviet Yunyun, the glorious, but tumultuous period in which the Chicago Butchers were an autonomous collective, but the real life Soviet Union. Now if you also watched "Death of Stalin" you also saw a scene in which the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union had a meeting where while there was dissent in discussion, all members were forced to vote unanimously. There was a fear of being seen as "factionalist" and not truly believing in a unified Communist Party. Luckily, we don't seem to have this problem, but this connects on the side to the final bit: Cronyism.

Fun fact: Cronyism is listed on Wikipedia under an entire over-arching collection of the "Political Corruption" category. And the structure of how the ISFL works could very well be described as "cronyism". There's two possible origins for the word "crony", but my favorite is that it comes from the Irish term "Comh-Roghna", which just means "close pals". Cronyism is the act of essentially ignoring qualifications for a post and instead appointing individuals based on their relationship to the appointer.

What actual qualifications do you need to be in HO? Think about it for a second. Because I know pretty much every person whose been in HO and even commissioner up until about S17 or S18 where I finally gave up on understanding this league. There's really nothing outstanding about any of them. Not even "outstanding leadership" qualities. And in turn, what qualities does the commissioner actually look for in a member of HO? Seniority?

This is not an indictment of the current HO. As I said, I don't really know shit about how the league runs on the inside anymore and who's doing what. But I think that it's important to actually think about the consolidation of power around here.

Now, you can make the argument that the league is run as a corporation, a company. But we're not called "employees", we're considered "members". And even a corporate structure has some form of checks and balances on it. There's the board of shareholders that actually own everything in the company, but in the ISFL that would just be one person who is considered the owner. And even above the shareholders is the government itself, the FTC and all those laws about how to treat your workers and stuff. The ISFL isn't viewed as a company, but as a collective, a government.

When it comes to how governing structures are created, they start originally with a single "charismatic" leader. Someone who has something everyone wants and works to find a way to gather manpower to a point where they can do less work because there are others willing to do that work instead. That's what feudalism is, the original basis of government. And eventually, when the tree gets so tall, those on the bottom will wonder how those on the top even got there. That's called a peasant's uprising. People innately want a say in how they are treated. People like democracy in some way. And the ISFL has a designed lack of democracy.

So here's a worst case scenario for you:

Some new member joins who's really into Kill la Kill, they call themself "Lady Satsuki" because anime can even make fascism look sexy. They invite a couple of their friends into the league and they're all pretty damn active, not just in terms of TPE gaining, but in general NSFL Discord. People know them. Lady Satsuki decides to apply for HO Intern, then within a month they make it into the full HO. Bex likes them cause they're funny. She steps down another month later because she found something else better to do or she's just sick of all your shit. She says she wants Lady Satsuki to be the next commissioner. And that's when shit goes down.

Lady Satsuki and their friends begin filing into the ISFL HO. Satsuki appoints one friend, call em "Matoi", to be DSFL commissioner and Matoi picks their new HO members. Satsuki does the same by adding "Mako". There were only three of these people originally, but somehow they keep adding really new members. And eventually they implement a buy-in for GMs. In order to be GM, you need to pay real money to HO ("to help pay for the site"). This passes through HO unanimously.Some of the newer GMs are somehow also for the reform. People begin to leave the league because of this.

And eventually someone finds out that all of HO was just two people, all of the appeals team was just one person, and half the GMs in the league that had mysteriously gone missing after supporting the changes was also one of those three people. Lady Satsuki and their crew just destroyed the league and made a bit of a profit on the side.

Obviously: Worst case scenario. I don't like conspiracy theories about organizations that "secretly rule the world" because there's no purpose to world domination. But I do know a ton of people who join sim leagues are kinda assholes. We're sort of a magnet for the worst people. In order to find out about simulation sports leagues you need to be extremely online. And there's a strong portion of "extremely online people" who get corrupted by the internet, warped into a shitty person (or are just innately a shitty person anyway). And there can come a day that some asshole will decide to ruin things for everyone.

We have an entire article in League Rules about tampering, but there is nothing in there about checks and balances or even a line of succession. When Steelsound left Chicago, there was nothing in the rulebook about the way things should proceed. And even now, the precedence isn't exactly a sound one no matter which side you fall on in the initial situation. Should HO immediately fill the role or should the team's war room be allowed to prop up a interim GM so they can review candidates like a team would in a normal GM hiring? Honestly both sides still seem vaguely corrupt as it's based entirely on appointment.

Then again, democracy can only work so far as people know and understand issues. The reason why the electoral college exists and the original voting rights were only given to "white men who owned land" was because access to information was so limited in the late 1700s that that specific section of people were also the only people allowed to even know how things were governed. The only reason voting rights became important for each wave of suffrage is because a certain demographic was given access to information without the ability to affect it.

In the ISFL, what this information is is weird. Technically, there's really nothing to know? I already said earlier that there isn't really a list of "qualifications" to be HO other than having been in other jobs that have about as little necessary qualifications. Really, all the qualifications seem to be is "Do I like you?" and "Have you paid your dues?". And that's not meant to be an indictment of the current HO, it's just what the system looks like.

So in order to give a voice to the populous, there needs to be some sort of democratic system. On the other hand, there needs to be some limits to that democracy since too much voting and this place suddenly will find itself unable to function for long periods of time. I suggest giving the appeals committee slightly more power and have their appointments be voted on by the public. Like actual judges. On even numbered seasons, each member of appeals will be put up for a vote to keep or remove and any replacements will be appointed by HO with a subsequent special election to approve or reject the replacement. This gives all members of this community a say in the governance.

As for the expanded powers of the appeals committee, I believe that the committee was already created to protect the people. So I believe that the committee should essentially just be watchdogs for the league. It kinda sounds like my old "HR" idea, but simplified and already in place. While HO itself can provide punishment and prosecution for wrongdoing, the democratically selected appeals committee can review that decision as well as launch their own sanctioned investigation into accusations of HO and abuse of powers issues. And while there's no term "limit", all members of the appeals committee will be held accountable to the public every other seasons by a vote. If HO sucks and the appeals committee doesn't do anything about it, then the appeals committee will be cleaned out. Maybe setting up a minimum amount of seats on the committee would be helpful so that the HO always has that check in place and a mandatory time-frame for a new member to be nominated when a vacancy occurs so vacancies do not remain for long.

Basically, power is granted by the consent of the governed and without a democratic system in place, the "mandate of the people" just feels a tiny bit in the balance. So this is a way that provides a platform for the voice of the people without completely disrupting the mechanisms already in place. Instead of HO appointing everyone themselves, HO appoints GMs with the vote of the appeals committee who are voted on by the people. With a single season lasting the course of two months, having a vote every other season shouldn't be too disruptive (a poll open for 48 hours every 4 months isn't too hard to deal with).

So I guess I found the point of this article. I don't know how long this is, but I do know that it is very long. Hopefully HO considers the idea presented here (see? I have to appeal to them since I as a standard member have no real power over how I am governed).

Oh, shit. Forgot to mention. The Sim Team is a part of the Executive Branch of the ISFL. Anyway... I think I'm gonna rewatch Death of Stalin. That was a fun movie. It's got Steve Buschemi in it.

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RE: A Treatise on the Structure of Government Systems in Online Simulation Sports Leagues - timeconsumer - 01-04-2021

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RE: A Treatise on the Structure of Government Systems in Online Simulation Sports Leagues - Jiggly_333 - 01-04-2021

(01-04-2021, 07:50 PM)timeconsumer Wrote:

Still gettin paid

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RE: A Treatise on the Structure of Government Systems in Online Simulation Sports Leagues - timeconsumer - 01-04-2021

(01-04-2021, 07:52 PM)Jiggly_333 Wrote: Still gettin paid

Thats so capitalist of you

RE: A Treatise on the Structure of Government Systems in Online Simulation Sports Leagues - AdamS - 01-04-2021

reminder that Jiggly is 1-0 at picking gms

RE: A Treatise on the Structure of Government Systems in Online Simulation Sports Leagues - bex - 01-04-2021

Scenario Breakdown with Bex

Quote:So here's a worst case scenario for you:

Some new member joins who's really into Kill la Kill, they call themself "Lady Satsuki" because anime can even make fascism look sexy. They invite a couple of their friends into the league and they're all pretty damn active, not just in terms of TPE gaining, but in general NSFL Discord. People know them. Lady Satsuki decides to apply for HO Intern, then within a month they make it into the full HO.

So to start off with, while visibility is a big factor in things, you need to be doing more than just talking. You have to show an interest in and aptitude for leadership and league improvement. You need to have the majority of HO believe in that aptitude. You then have to apply that aptitude throughout the intern year and show that you have the skills, and frankly, the temperament, needed for the job.

Then there needs to be an opening. Generally, ISFL HO in its current iteration has up to 5 standing members. 4 regular HO, and the commissioner. There's no reason for us to add a sixth person, so unless one of the existing is stepping down, our Lady Satsuki is either going to have to wait for a spot by extending their internship, or returning to civilian life until a spot does become available. This is in addition, of course, to the DSFL HO, which currently has 4 members, 3 regular HO and the DSFL commissioner.

Quote:Bex likes them cause they're funny. She steps down another month later because she found something else better to do or she's just sick of all your shit. She says she wants Lady Satsuki to be the next commissioner. And that's when shit goes down.

Generally, I would not be making this decision on my own. With HO decisions, we work collectively to make staffing decisions. While my opinion is valuable, I would ever be naming someone as my replacement without support from the rest of my Head Office. And while yes, I took over after a short time frame, the league is in a healthier spot and it is exceptionally unlikely that it would happen again. I plan on remaining in Head Office as a regular member after my successor takes over to provide mentorship, because commissionering is fucking hard and going it alone sucks. If Satsuki is seeming like a problem early on, there are protocols for removing HO and commissioners.

Quote:Lady Satsuki and their friends begin filing into the ISFL HO. Satsuki appoints one friend, call em "Matoi", to be DSFL commissioner and Matoi picks their new HO members.

DSFL HO is a position hired by Head Office, not appointed by the commissioner. Satsuki would need to 1) have the existing DSFL Commissioner departing, and 2) have the entirety of Head Office approve the appointment of Matoi. Then the *entire* DSFL HO would need to depart in order for Matoi to select their own entire DSFL HO.

Quote:Satsuki does the same by adding "Mako". There were only three of these people originally, but somehow they keep adding really new members. And eventually they implement a buy-in for GMs. In order to be GM, you need to pay real money to HO ("to help pay for the site"). This passes through HO unanimously.Some of the newer GMs are somehow also for the reform. People begin to leave the league because of this.

You continue to need departing members in order to get more people in, still needing majority vote. You also have to face league criticism if you're not including the HO intern year for these friends. And trust me, the community will not be quiet about it. If the community is loud enough, here is where we might see the league owner step in, or the head of appeals. Both figures exist to help prevent corruption.

The GM buy-in will not happen so long as I'm the one paying for the site. (I'm not planning on going anywhere) So we're good there. Also the idea that GMs would simply let it happen is pretty insane. The league is free. We are all interested in it remaining free. Heck, we have trouble passing easier rules all the time. Look at the last few rule summits.

Quote:And eventually someone finds out that all of HO was just two people, all of the appeals team was just one person, and half the GMs in the league that had mysteriously gone missing after supporting the changes was also one of those three people. Lady Satsuki and their crew just destroyed the league and made a bit of a profit on the side.

How do we get to the point where appeals is all one person? HO has no say in appeals hirings at all. We are completely separate. So even in the event you somehow manage to take over HO, you'd still have no say on Appeal team hires.

Now, none of this is to say that our system is without problems. I'm just popping in to respond because as with most complaints about it, it wildly exaggerates the possibilities for exploiting the existing system.

RE: A Treatise on the Structure of Government Systems in Online Simulation Sports Leagues - Jiggly_333 - 01-04-2021

(01-04-2021, 08:36 PM)bex Wrote: Scenario Breakdown with Bex

Quote:So here's a worst case scenario for you:

Some new member joins who's really into Kill la Kill, they call themself "Lady Satsuki" because anime can even make fascism look sexy. They invite a couple of their friends into the league and they're all pretty damn active, not just in terms of TPE gaining, but in general NSFL Discord. People know them. Lady Satsuki decides to apply for HO Intern, then within a month they make it into the full HO.

So to start off with, while visibility is a big factor in things, you need to be doing more than just talking. You have to show an interest in and aptitude for leadership and league improvement. You need to have the majority of HO believe in that aptitude. You then have to apply that aptitude throughout the intern year and show that you have the skills, and frankly, the temperament, needed for the job.

Then there needs to be an opening. Generally, ISFL HO in its current iteration has up to 5 standing members. 4 regular HO, and the commissioner. There's no reason for us to add a sixth person, so unless one of the existing is stepping down, our Lady Satsuki is either going to have to wait for a spot by extending their internship, or returning to civilian life until a spot does become available. This is in addition, of course, to the DSFL HO, which currently has 4 members, 3 regular HO and the DSFL commissioner.

Quote:Bex likes them cause they're funny. She steps down another month later because she found something else better to do or she's just sick of all your shit. She says she wants Lady Satsuki to be the next commissioner. And that's when shit goes down.

Generally, I would not be making this decision on my own. With HO decisions, we work collectively to make staffing decisions. While my opinion is valuable, I would ever be naming someone as my replacement without support from the rest of my Head Office. And while yes, I took over after a short time frame, the league is in a healthier spot and it is exceptionally unlikely that it would happen again. I plan on remaining in Head Office as a regular member after my successor takes over to provide mentorship, because commissionering is fucking hard and going it alone sucks. If Satsuki is seeming like a problem early on, there are protocols for removing HO and commissioners.

Quote:Lady Satsuki and their friends begin filing into the ISFL HO. Satsuki appoints one friend, call em "Matoi", to be DSFL commissioner and Matoi picks their new HO members.

DSFL HO is a position hired by Head Office, not appointed by the commissioner. Satsuki would need to 1) have the existing DSFL Commissioner departing, and 2) have the entirety of Head Office approve the appointment of Matoi. Then the *entire* DSFL HO would need to depart in order for Matoi to select their own entire DSFL HO.

Quote:Satsuki does the same by adding "Mako". There were only three of these people originally, but somehow they keep adding really new members. And eventually they implement a buy-in for GMs. In order to be GM, you need to pay real money to HO ("to help pay for the site"). This passes through HO unanimously.Some of the newer GMs are somehow also for the reform. People begin to leave the league because of this.

You continue to need departing members in order to get more people in, still needing majority vote. You also have to face league criticism if you're not including the HO intern year for these friends. And trust me, the community will not be quiet about it. If the community is loud enough, here is where we might see the league owner step in, or the head of appeals. Both figures exist to help prevent corruption.

The GM buy-in will not happen so long as I'm the one paying for the site. (I'm not planning on going anywhere) So we're good there. Also the idea that GMs would simply let it happen is pretty insane. The league is free. We are all interested in it remaining free. Heck, we have trouble passing easier rules all the time. Look at the last few rule summits.

Quote:And eventually someone finds out that all of HO was just two people, all of the appeals team was just one person, and half the GMs in the league that had mysteriously gone missing after supporting the changes was also one of those three people. Lady Satsuki and their crew just destroyed the league and made a bit of a profit on the side.

How do we get to the point where appeals is all one person? HO has no say in appeals hirings at all. We are completely separate. So even in the event you somehow manage to take over HO, you'd still have no say on Appeal team hires.

Now, none of this is to say that our system is without problems. I'm just popping in to respond because as with most complaints about it, it wildly exaggerates the possibilities for exploiting the existing system.

Are these protocols and practices you mention actually written out in some sort of public charter or rule book that is available to everyone or is it just a "general understanding" among existing HO members? Cause the rule book says nothing about how HO functions and that's a big part of misunderstanding how HO works.

Also it's a "worst case scenario". But we've been seeing a lot of really weird "worst case scenarios" in the world recently so it's worth it to consider them.

RE: A Treatise on the Structure of Government Systems in Online Simulation Sports Leagues - bex - 01-04-2021

(01-04-2021, 08:48 PM)Jiggly_333 Wrote: Are these protocols and practices you mention actually written out in some sort of public charter or rule book that is available to everyone or is it just a "general understanding" among existing HO members? Cause the rule book says nothing about how HO functions and that's a big part of misunderstanding how HO works.

Short answer, sort of/almost/will be asap! We're in the process of reformatting the rulebook. It's been a project of mine for the last two-ish seasons. I'm waiting on some feedback from GMs regarding any other edits that need to be made for clarity. Once we get those and it's all formatted out, then it'll be on the site in place of the current rulebook, and the old rulebook with be archived. Anyone who has questions about these procedures before that point is welcome to message me or talk to their GMs who can connect with me on it.

RE: A Treatise on the Structure of Government Systems in Online Simulation Sports Leagues - Jiggly_333 - 01-04-2021

Also I spent somewhere around 4-5 hours talking out of my ass trying to figure out if I was trying to say anything.

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Really the most sincere part of this entire article is the last few paragraphs.

RE: A Treatise on the Structure of Government Systems in Online Simulation Sports Leagues - Jo3fish5 - 01-04-2021

poggers