Shard Council

[Admin Acacia]

  The Staff has been discussing this for some time and have decided to have a go with it.  We think this can be an exciting feature to the community life of the shard.

We have decided to institute a Shard Council.  In this post, you will find the foundation  plans for the Council.

**The Council will meet twice a month to discuss issues important to players and staff alike.  (day and time to be decided)

** The Council will consist of two staff members, an Administrator and 5 players who will be elected from the shard population, by the shard population.   The exception will be the first shard council which will be appointed by Staff.  These Council Members will be the shard's representatives and there to bring forth concerns, ideas, suggestions for the good of the shard.

* Requirements * The person must have been a member of Sylvan for 1 month prior to running for council.

*Term of Office* Council will be elected to serve a term of 3 months. If that term can not be completed, Staff will appoint a replacement.

*How to run for office* When it is nearing time for the next Shard Council to be installed, it will be posted on the forums, about 2 weeks before the new Council.  * Players will PM me, Acacia, on the forums with their intentions to run.  I will then post a list of candidates.

*Elections will be held 1 week before the new Council would be installed.  Players will put their ACCOUNT name in a book with the name of the player they wish to elect, and page staff to cast their vote.  There will be ONE vote per account.

*Winners will then be announced in the forums. We will have an installation cermony, and that 3 month term of office will begin.

REMEMBER this Shard Council is in its infancy and the details of it can and will change as it evolves.   Be sure to check the forums for any changes.

[Isalentia]

What a compelling idea.   

[todd0168]

This seems like a really great idea.  I for one am totally for it and hope to see it flourish.

[Flint]

Ye know your on a good shard when staff wants players opinions!  Great idea.

[Valius]

Excellent, I love this idea

[Felix]

Maybe the first council should be the leaders of all the guilds?

[Miri]

good idea... but don't we have more then 5 guilds?

[Forest Rithik]

I figured, 1 leader from OOC, 1 from DoE, 1 from CMV, Perhaps one from TCP and the last one put forward and decided by the collection of unfamiliar or small alliances that don't fit into one of the previously mentioned alliances.

Or you could run it as 1 crafter (chosen by all the crafters), 1 Hunter (chosen by the Hunters/ warrior), 1 caster (chosen by the mage community), 1 RP restricted/ heavy character (Chosen by the shard as a whole), the last could be a newish player that doesn't fit the previous categories or perhaps even a pure gatherer ?

[Valius]

I think a problem with that idea Rithik is a lot of people have one of each character type

I think we should it would work if people suggest a person (other then themselves) to stand. Then people either vote somoene else or second a candidate that's already been chosen (only 1 vote each) and the top 5 become the candidates.

Or perhaps for a little politics, we have a proper election with major parties, and then the over-all winner chooses a cabinet?

[todd0168]

While these are all great ideas, if you read Acacia's post the first cabinet will be picked by the admins and my guess is they already have some people in mind.  As for future elections, again per Acacia's post, anyone who wants to run will pm her here in the forums and then she will post all candidates in the forums and then we as the population vote for the cabinet ingame and then they post the winners once the votes are tallied.  So while some of these suggestions might influence their picks for the original cabinet, it seems pretty clear what will happen in the future.

[Forest Rithik]

Yes we have all read Acacia's starting post, yes the first and first only council will be chosen by the staffers, but after the first 3 months and after each 3 months there-after they will be player elected only. The only other time staff will chose someone to fill a place is if someone steps down mid-term, gets forcebly removed from the council or goes inactive. But without having some method of covering as many bases as possible some guild/ group or style community will loose out of a say or if the say is heard it probably will not be understood, nothing wrong in trying to get some notion of setting some criteria of what seats are available on a council since look at any council you have different people in the seats for different reasons (Finance, Mass-Transport/ Roads, Cultural, Authorities/ emergency service relay and so on)

Even if everyone had every type of character and put forward all their characters for what ever purpose, then it will be an ultimate deadlock and no seat in the council would be given to anyone, besides I would have assumed it already considered by anyone that running for all offices is well usually against the rules and land you an disqualification

[todd0168]

Yes, I see where you are going with this, and like I said these are all great ideas and might shape the way the council will look in the future.  But I don't think that anyone would try to run all their characters for all positions, it seems to me that you place your account, not your individual characters, into the running.  So if one player has multiple characters they enter once but may be able to fill any seat, and so forth.  I know that on normal councils in the real world you have different positions for different reasone, but here im not sure that would really be necessary.  There are a lot of players that have all types of characters and as such know the various aspects of the game that would be of interest for each type of player.

[Valius]

Just thought I'd suggest something that might actually provoke a little roleplay. There just isn't enough 

[ShadowStone]

I, for one, am looking forward to this immensely.  I know players have great ideas and it will be nice for them to share them with the administration and staff on a more regular basis.

~SS

[todd0168]

I couldn't agree more SS.