Long Form Task, leggo
Okay so, for those of you who are not fortunate enough to have shared a server with me, let me preface this write up by pointing out that I am an anarcho-communist. This is important information because it perhaps explains a lot of my opposition to league authority. In fact, part of the reason I went off and built the wiki without any league mandate originally was because I thought it was a good idea, had some support from other members, and didn't want to wait around for league bureaucracy to decide whether we should do it or not. Several other incidents have arisen where I have taken a strong opposition to head office decisions because I felt they stripped agency away from users and so on, but that's all background really.
Now, let me stress that this doesn't mean I don't respect head office (and general managers for that matter) or appreciate the work they put in -- and I probably understand better than most, how much work it is -- but I do have a fundamental opposition to a lot of the decisions made in this league.
Why? Well... rules voting is done by head office, none of whom are selected by the user base at large, so we just have to trust that they represent the best interests of the league as a whole. I'm just about willing to accept that, because generally head office members have been the kinds of people who are most driven to improve the league. I'm not entirely comfortable with the notion that an unelected body is solely in charge of deciding who else joins that unelected body, but I can accept it. Head office members also control players, after all. My issue becomes unreconcilable, however, when we consider that general managers also vote on rules, and outnumber head office significantly.
This is problematic, in my opinion, because there are quite a lot of decisions made where I feel there is a direct conflict of interest if we allow general managers to vote without a counterbalance of player representation -- which I have already established is not really covered by head office.
I can already hear some people rolling their eyes at this. Yes, there are *some* checks and balances, and yes, a player's union was proposed before, and it fell flat -- chief among the reasons was that we didn't really have any need for one at the time; but I would argue that while one isn't *necessary*, it could be beneficial to implement some means for players to at least indirectly affect decision making.
So let me propose something here.
A player's union could be established. It would have to be an opt-in organisation, with some concrete rules governing who can and cannot be a member (for example, GMs would have to be excluded, and I'd argue that if head office are to retain their voting power as individuals they would also have to be excluded). The union could then elect a number of representatives who would vote in the interests of the player base at rules summits. This would also necessitate an activity-based requirement of some sort to make one eligible for election as union rep, probably.
My understanding of the rules summit is that twenty-one votes are cast (one representative from each ISFL team, five Head Office members, one simmer, and one league owner -- according to the rules summit results post), with a majority of two-thirds (fourteen) required to pass. Now, in an ideal world, player union votes would equal GM votes, but I know this is an unfeasible request that would never fly. So, as a compromise, I would argue that player union votes therefore only need to be enough to prevent a rule passing if GMs are unanimous in their support and one other agrees, while keeping the odd number of overall votes. At the moment, that would require only two votes decided by the players' union, as fifteen of twenty-three is 65% and falls short of the two-thirds mark.
Why union reps and not direct proportional voting from players? Well, this approach has two advantages in my view: firstly, it keeps the rules summit itself relatively simple, and does not require any input from GMs or head office to manage; secondly, it encourages open dialogue between members about the merits and disadvantages of various rules. At the moment, there is little real incentive for players to discuss rules proposals as the team representative (the GMs, basically) is not bound to follow what their players think. They don't even have to inform the players on their team what their decision was. I understand the desire for keeping the rules summit ballot secret outside of those making the decisions, and this method preserves that.
Instead, members of the players union would make their preference known, and the union itself could agree on how to split their votes (if at all). The union could decide amongst itself that if a majority support a decision, all of the union's votes should be used to support that decision. The union could also decide to split proportionally and say that the votes available to the union are split according to union-wide vote results. They could even decide to simply elect representatives and leave the representatives to make the decision as they see fit. The important part is that players in the union would have a more direct means of affecting rules voting, with a clear method of accountability (the union itself would obviously control who the reps are, and therefore could strip their reps of the power to vote if they felt their interests were not being represented).
Now this is a lot of words to say "let players have a say on rules voting" ... and there are a lot of things that would need to be hashed out in terms of how a players' union would actually operate, or how membership would be determined and so on. I bring it all up though because I think it's worth discussing. I'm not interested in overthrowing head office, or stripping general managers of their voting power or any radical idea like that, because I know these are unrealistic. But I do think there is some merit in exploring the idea of players having some sort of say in rules voting, even if only in rules that directly affect players (e.g. rules regarding agents, contracts, etc) and it's a discussion we should probably have. Even if it results in maintaining the status quo for now.
Okay so, for those of you who are not fortunate enough to have shared a server with me, let me preface this write up by pointing out that I am an anarcho-communist. This is important information because it perhaps explains a lot of my opposition to league authority. In fact, part of the reason I went off and built the wiki without any league mandate originally was because I thought it was a good idea, had some support from other members, and didn't want to wait around for league bureaucracy to decide whether we should do it or not. Several other incidents have arisen where I have taken a strong opposition to head office decisions because I felt they stripped agency away from users and so on, but that's all background really.
Now, let me stress that this doesn't mean I don't respect head office (and general managers for that matter) or appreciate the work they put in -- and I probably understand better than most, how much work it is -- but I do have a fundamental opposition to a lot of the decisions made in this league.
Why? Well... rules voting is done by head office, none of whom are selected by the user base at large, so we just have to trust that they represent the best interests of the league as a whole. I'm just about willing to accept that, because generally head office members have been the kinds of people who are most driven to improve the league. I'm not entirely comfortable with the notion that an unelected body is solely in charge of deciding who else joins that unelected body, but I can accept it. Head office members also control players, after all. My issue becomes unreconcilable, however, when we consider that general managers also vote on rules, and outnumber head office significantly.
This is problematic, in my opinion, because there are quite a lot of decisions made where I feel there is a direct conflict of interest if we allow general managers to vote without a counterbalance of player representation -- which I have already established is not really covered by head office.
I can already hear some people rolling their eyes at this. Yes, there are *some* checks and balances, and yes, a player's union was proposed before, and it fell flat -- chief among the reasons was that we didn't really have any need for one at the time; but I would argue that while one isn't *necessary*, it could be beneficial to implement some means for players to at least indirectly affect decision making.
So let me propose something here.
A player's union could be established. It would have to be an opt-in organisation, with some concrete rules governing who can and cannot be a member (for example, GMs would have to be excluded, and I'd argue that if head office are to retain their voting power as individuals they would also have to be excluded). The union could then elect a number of representatives who would vote in the interests of the player base at rules summits. This would also necessitate an activity-based requirement of some sort to make one eligible for election as union rep, probably.
My understanding of the rules summit is that twenty-one votes are cast (one representative from each ISFL team, five Head Office members, one simmer, and one league owner -- according to the rules summit results post), with a majority of two-thirds (fourteen) required to pass. Now, in an ideal world, player union votes would equal GM votes, but I know this is an unfeasible request that would never fly. So, as a compromise, I would argue that player union votes therefore only need to be enough to prevent a rule passing if GMs are unanimous in their support and one other agrees, while keeping the odd number of overall votes. At the moment, that would require only two votes decided by the players' union, as fifteen of twenty-three is 65% and falls short of the two-thirds mark.
Why union reps and not direct proportional voting from players? Well, this approach has two advantages in my view: firstly, it keeps the rules summit itself relatively simple, and does not require any input from GMs or head office to manage; secondly, it encourages open dialogue between members about the merits and disadvantages of various rules. At the moment, there is little real incentive for players to discuss rules proposals as the team representative (the GMs, basically) is not bound to follow what their players think. They don't even have to inform the players on their team what their decision was. I understand the desire for keeping the rules summit ballot secret outside of those making the decisions, and this method preserves that.
Instead, members of the players union would make their preference known, and the union itself could agree on how to split their votes (if at all). The union could decide amongst itself that if a majority support a decision, all of the union's votes should be used to support that decision. The union could also decide to split proportionally and say that the votes available to the union are split according to union-wide vote results. They could even decide to simply elect representatives and leave the representatives to make the decision as they see fit. The important part is that players in the union would have a more direct means of affecting rules voting, with a clear method of accountability (the union itself would obviously control who the reps are, and therefore could strip their reps of the power to vote if they felt their interests were not being represented).
Now this is a lot of words to say "let players have a say on rules voting" ... and there are a lot of things that would need to be hashed out in terms of how a players' union would actually operate, or how membership would be determined and so on. I bring it all up though because I think it's worth discussing. I'm not interested in overthrowing head office, or stripping general managers of their voting power or any radical idea like that, because I know these are unrealistic. But I do think there is some merit in exploring the idea of players having some sort of say in rules voting, even if only in rules that directly affect players (e.g. rules regarding agents, contracts, etc) and it's a discussion we should probably have. Even if it results in maintaining the status quo for now.
I impersonate a programmer for a living
Father of the League Wiki • Friendly Neighbourhood Angry Black Guy™ • NOT British
Originator of the Sim League Cinematic Universe (SLCU)
Super capitalists are parasites. Fite me.
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