Talk:Stolen Rules Chart

From Ancient Ways

Current revision as of 16:30, 21 March 2007

Tweaks to the Roles in the Senate Table

See my notes below the table for some small but required tweaks. Admin 05:19, 24 February 2007 (EST)

Question re: Comitia and Senate roles

At present, any Sodalis may introduce a rogatio. Did you really want to remove this right from them and restrict it to the Tribune? If so, what would be the procedure for a Sodalis to get his brilliant rogatio idea from concept to completion?

Also: since the Aedilis is the tech guy, should he be able to introduce motions in the Senate relating to his area of expertise? (Or: D'ya really think the Consul/Censor/anybody else is going to say "Hey, let's transfer the site to a more stable server, shall we?")

More linamentum cerebris... >({|;-) -- MariPere' 09:15, 24 February 2007 (EST)

Re: Sodalis rogatio comitia intros - If you would like to add introduction of rogatio to normal sodales I am fine with that. I never included it for: 1) historical accuracy - not just anyone could get up on the Rostra and intro a rogatio or plebiscitum. A magistrate had to and usually the Tribune; and 2) to make the Tribune's role more important I left this very important function in their hands. I don't see too much difference anyway because if the Tribune is not behind it, he/she will just veto it anyway. So, if we leave it out...a sodalis just has to work with the Tribune (kinda like we're doing now...except this rogatio is actually yours, but still an example of collaboration). If we give them the ability then they still need to coordinate with the Tribune otherwise they'll just get vetoed.

Re: Aedilis motion intros in the Senate - I am absolutely fine with this and it makes good sense...but...as you can see, we have slowly been adding more and more powers to the ex officio magistrates in the Senate kinda contrary to your desire of elimintating/limiting current magistrates in the Senate. I am fine with it either way just want to make sure we are on a track that you are in agreement with. Admin 11:19, 24 February 2007 (EST)

Conflicted

I think my trouble with this section is that I'm not sure what I want. I had intended for the Senate not to include serving Magistrates; but the darn thing keeps pulling in the other direction. Clearly we don't want the Senate to be composed solely of the current Magistrates either. But where's the middle ground?

There are excellent reasons for having the Consul and (especially) the Censor sit ex officio. Bene, that's two Senate seats out of (effectively) seven. I can live with that, or even like it. But what I had told the Comitia was that every single active Sodalis would be eligible for the Senate. It's like my English professor said: "Everybody here starts with an A; it's up to you to keep it." A history of contribution, a recommendation by a respected Sodalis, and a nod by the Censores were to be sufficient. We're drifting away from that.

On a side-note, we are only talking about five-to-seven people. It might not be a great idea to make fine distinctions that would deprive some of them (the pedarii) of their vote.

Reply:

I really like the "starts with an A" principle. Here are some concepts to hopefully put your mind at ease. 1) I don't think I ever really highlighted this but I think the entire body of the initial formation of the senate should have full rights, all would be voting members. Only subsequent appointments of those you have never been Consuls would be pedarii. 2) This is how I justify the pedarii. The Senate/Censor chooses someone completely worthy of entering the Senate but has never served as a curule magistrate (I think it is fine to add Aedile to our initial curule magistrates if you like!). There should be a difference between this senator and one who has served as a magistrare because in the case of the latter, the people have elected him/her to represent/serve them whereas in the case of the former although most likely a well-respected member, they have never been elected by the people. Does that make any sense?

One of the reasons I think these issues seem so complex to me is that we are so small right now...more on this later

Check

Are we updating both the Stolen Rules and the Chart as our concept develops? ...I notice the Tribunes are still lined out, even though I'm pretty sure we've agreed to keep them, and I'd've fixed 'em myself (in keeping with the Wiki Ethic!), but I thought I'd better find out if there were any other mods similarly floating out there so I could nail 'em all at once. -- MariPere' 01:34, 26 February 2007 (EST)

Reply

I have not made any changes to the text based on changes in the chart yet, I will go line by line through it this morning and make sure it is up-to-date.

Latest Mod

To see my latest mod incorporating all the changes we have talked about here and some more, please check out the Rogatio Sandbox. This is a tool for playing before modding the actual "Stolen Rules". Explanations inside.

Admin 12:46, 26 February 2007 (EST)

v3.0 is Up!

That 'bout says it all, dunnit? -- >({|:-) 14:28, 1 March 2007 (EST)

Havin' It All?

All is not fine-and-dandy in the Land of Linament. Vital Question of the Day: How to reconcile our four Magistrates with the Regula Fundamentalis' seven Curatores?

• If we get four candidates, one for each Magistracy, we're golden and the thing works like it's supposed to.

• If we get less than four candidates, or not all candidates stand for a specific Magistracy, we have to figure out how to fill the hole...make those however-many bodies fill those four sets of responsibilities.

• If we get any successful candidates above and beyond our four Magistrates, what do we do with the extras?

Two wordings, an Idea, and a chart follow:

The Wordings

(These address how to get the RF's seven Curatores within the framework of the Rogatio. They were proposed before the Idea.)

First Position (to borrow a ballet term):

"The Magistrates of the Society shall be one (1) Consul, one (1) Censor, one (1) Aedilis, and one (1) Tribune. One (1) additional Consul, Censor, and Aedilis position may be created as approved by the Comitia so that no less than three and no more than seven officers may hold office at any one time."

Second Position:

"The number of Consuls, Censors, and Aediles may be increased to two each for a total number of seven magistrates if decided by the comitia."

The Idea (still awaiting feedback)

(The Five-to-Seven problem:) We'll have four Magistrates. Any leftover Electeds will be designated just-plain-Curatores, doing admin sorts of things like our apparitores do now, helping the Magistrates and stepping in for one if he has to be unavailable for some reason. Just-plain-Curatores would not sit in the Senate unless they're serving as Magistrates pro tempore. -- >({|:-) 16:07, 15 March 2007 (EST)

(The Three problem:) If any Magistracy remains vacant after the election, a qualified Curator (if available) will assume the missing position. If there is no Curator able to perform that specific set of duties (most notably those of the Aedilis), the Senate may approach a respected Sodalis and offer him the chance to serve in the missing capacity. Should no one accept, and the persistent vacancy is in either the Consulship or the Censorship, the holder of one will also take on the duties of the other.

Now: What if the persistent vacancy is in the Tribunate or the Aedileship...? ("Persistent" = No one elected to the spot, no Curator has the qualifications for it, and no other Sodalis agrees to serve.) -- MariPere' 13:53, 16 March 2007 (EST)

Severus' Feedback

I hope you saw my e-mail apologizing for the delay. I am stuck in OCD minutia-land.

Tu quoque, amice...? --I've been wrapping up the Census. By myself. [Insert three strong imprecations and one drastic measure here.] Hrr. >({|X-[

I'll begin with the easier of the two, the "Three Problem" I like it exactly as you propose (realizing we have to firm it up with rogatioesque language).

Ita...because the language it's in is about as "rogational" as Mari gets. But we still have to address how to tackle a "persistent vacancy" in either the Aedileship or the Tribunate.

Now, the "Five-to-Seven problem". I guess before I can tackle this I need to know if we are going to have declared candidacies or not. The reason I need to know is because I have a hard time envisioning a scenario where we would have "extra" electeds if we have declared candidacies.

Declared candidacies, natch; the thing just refuses to make sense without them. Or shall we have a bunch of generic Curatores squabbling over who ran for what, on top of everything else? For this reason, I am willing to sit very still while you tell me how declared candidacies could render "extras" an impossibility.

Declared Candidacies/Extra Magistrates Issue

Basically, with declared candidacies for specific offices should eliminate extras because for each race you have one winner (since your rogatio currently only provides for one position) and anyone else running for that office loses. Here is how I would see a typical election scenario played out with declared candidacies:

1) Elections are announced: 1 Consul, 1 Censor, 1 Aedilis, 1 Tribune; sodales are requested to apply to the censors to register their candidacies for the office they are running for. Each candidate can only run for one office at a time.

2) Candidates "throw their coronas in the ring" and delcare which magistracy they seek. Let us suppose the following:

• Candidates for Consul: Gaius Marius, Lucius Cassius Longinus, Gaius Flavius Fimbria
• Candidates for Censor: Marcus Porcius Cato, Publius Cornelius Scipio
• Candidates for Aedile: Marcus Licinius Crassus, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus
• Candidates for Tribune: Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, Marcus Livius Drusus

3) Candidates campaign and when the appointed time for elections arrive the sodales drop their tabellae in the cista.

4) Votes are counted and winners announced:

• Consul: Gaius Marius (of course!)
• Censor: Marcus Porcius Cato
• Aedile: Marcus Licinius Crassus
• Tribune: Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus

5) Final result: Four officers in four positions, no extras.

Do you see different scenario(s)? If we have enough interestes candidates should we "find" ( work i.e. curator) for them to do (in order to keep them engaged?)...I can fig this, but then will we have too much government (again).

But we still have to address how to tackle a "persistent vacancy" in either the Aedileship or
the Tribunate. 

If we have persistent vacancies in the aedileship or tribunate (personally I am more worried about the aedileship) I assume it is because no one is interested and therefore there isn't even anyone to elect (or I guess the Senate/Censor could decided that it is because there are no qualified candidates...). If this is the root cause of the vacancy then we have a core issue that needs to be addressed by the entire society...I understand your concern, this is a distinct possiblity considering interest levels over the last couple years...I'm not sure there is a solution for this that can be solved in a rogatio (well there is one solution, but I would prefer not discussing it here - and no, it is not subversive...that would be very un-Repubican of me)

The Chart

(Most Curators' duties need to be filled in)

We still need to fill in the Curatores' duties on this chart!