Guild:Egyptian Union

Purpose

The Egyptian Union has been founded with the goal of providing decision-making services across faction boundaries. In no way as it intended to remove power from the factions themselves - rather it should be a supplemental tool for cooperation and conflict resolution.

Principles

Scoped

All decisions by the Egyptian Union should be of the proper scope. This is not a forum for laws that impact a specific faction or region - those should be left to bodies at a more appropriate level.

Inclusive

By their nature, decisions of this nature impact all citizens of Egypt. Thus, all included governing bodies should be able to expect fair representation in the Egyptian Union.

Consent and Consensus

Decision-making policies should include the concept of both consent and consensus. Through this we can help ensure the rights of member are not trampled by a majority.

Dynamic

No system, no matter how well intentioned, survives the test of time without modification. The Egyptian Union must have a way of modifying its own operating procedures.

Bylaws

This initial set of bylaws should be reviewed and modified as necessary once the Egyptian Union has been formed. It is intended to lay out a framework by which further decision-making can be achieved.

• Membership is open to all Egyptian factions.
• No Egypt-wide decision can be made unless all factions have proper representation in the Egyptian Union.
• Each member faction may appoint up to five representatives. These representatives shall be selected and (if necessary) replaced using a method determined by each member faction.
• The Egyptian Union may modify these bylaws using the petition process outlined in these bylaws.
• The Egyptian Union itself may eject specific members using the petition process outlined in these bylaws, but appointments remain the right of the member factions.
• Decision-making quorum requires the participation of at least 50% of the number of allowed representatives of each faction.
• Petitions require a simple majority affirmative vote of the current representative total (consensus) and at least one affirmative vote from each member faction (consent). Acceptable votes are:
  • Approve (counts positively toward the simple majority and consents for one's faction)
  • Disapprove (counts negatively toward the simple majority and does not consent for one's faction)
  • Consent (do not count toward the simple majority, but consents for one's faction)
  • Abstain (does not count toward the simple majority, and does not consent for one's faction)
• Petitions that are neither cross-factional, nor related to the operation of the Egyptian Union, should receive a "scope veto" from the reviewing developer.

Guidelines

By the time this Union is formed and active, it will be out of the hands of those of us who first envisioned it. This is for the best. If you will permit us, however, to leave our future leaders with a few guiding principles and suggestions:

• Be effective. It's easy to get defensive when a vote doesn't go your way. Holding a grudge is an easy way to get nothing done.
• You are there to represent the interests of your faction, true. Part of your job, however, is to keep the health of the entire game in mind when making decisions.
• Figure out what to do about non-faction individuals. Should they have some sort of representation? Are they out of luck?
• Keep the scope of your decision-making firmly in mind. Here are some examples as we see them (we are not necessarily advocating for any of these):
  • Proper scope:
    • A law that allows new players to change their faction within the first 24-hours of play.
    • Banishment of a non-faction individual from the game.
    • A tech-for-materials trade between multiple factions.
    • Changing the number of representatives allowed for each faction.
  • Improper scope:
    • A law that allows any player to change factions at any time (this undermines the authority of faction elders).
    • Banishment of a faction individual from the game (removal of a player from a faction is within the scope of that faction).
    • A law that disallows the construction of buildings by faction members in regions that their faction does not control (this should be implemented by the individual factions if they desire such a law).

Template: Petition for Membership in the Egyptian Union

The citizens recognize a need for leadership across factions.  In order to facilitate decision making for matters concerning all of Egypt collectively, our faction petitions for membership in the Egyptian Union, and consents to its bylaws, which can be found at https://wiki.desert-nomad.com/index.php?title=Egyptian_Union under the "Bylaws" heading (2018-03-27 version).

We agree that for matters that are Egypt-wide in scope we will be bound by the decisions of the Egyptian Union, and that we will supply representatives for that purpose.  Our faction retains its right to sovereign decision-making in all other matters.

<Faction-specific additions, such as the method used to select representatives, should go here>