[Discussion]Ideal Size Of The Senate

[RedImperator]

I've been thinking about what you posted; I'll hopefully have some kind of coherent, useful reply by tomorrow (I was thinking about "NEEDS MOAR HAET STRAK ROFFLECAEKS", but the Senate is Serious Business). Short version: I've always believed the mods (save for Mike, who can do whatever he wants) should defer to the Senate except in extreme cases, but that point of view obviously hasn't won out.

[rhoenix]

Call me impetuous, but I saw Hotfoot's post in the Senate and felt like throwing some small change from the other side of the hall.

I actually have some honest questions I'd like some input on.

1. If the Senate were abolished tomorrow and replaced in function by the House of Commons, what would be lost? This applies to our individual losses as Senators and the loss to the board overall?

Discussions about banning or titling people would come up; as in, should such a thing be up to the House of Commons? In keeping with the spirit of the place before, which was (as I interpret it) the Senate being effectively the greater will of the forum populace, this might be problematic if left up to the HoC exclusively. In fact, I had this in mind when I proposed my greatly limited Senators idea in the previous page - it would still require Senators to vote and carry out the will of the people (being watched and heckled from the HoC, of course), though in a more streamlined fashion.

On the other hand, decisions such as that shouldn't be left up to the moderators only either, as that goes against the entire point of the Senate being here to begin with - which was that the people should have some say, even if by proxy, for what they would like.

Beyond that issue, I don't see much that would be lost. All forums now have quick-edit features after one posts now, and there aren't really any other perks except for having a private forum.

2. If we were to give the Senate ACTUAL power, what power would that be? What role should the Senate serve? Should we be mini-mods? Something less? Something more?

Well, the greater question I would have is - to what end? Why would giving the Senate more power solve any sort of issue?

I would agree that multiple solutions should be considered and weighed, but I don't really see the point of giving Senators more power. That would not solve the stagnancy of size issue, though increased power of any sort would be a perk for becoming a Senator, I suppose.

If the Senate is to gain actual power to do stuff, then the Senate should not be unwieldy in its use. If the Senate were to be shrunk down to having two representatives from each forum (with the specialty forums each sending only one representative), then granting them sub-moderator powers of splitting and moving posts perhaps be a good idea. However, with too many Senators, as they say, too many cooks in the kitchen causes confusion, not a good meal.

3. Given that the original point to the Senate was that it was supposed to be a reward, a playground with the possible promise of power, what perks should be given to Senators? What manner of privilege should we have?

I would say "none," given that membership itself was supposed to be a perk. However, if I run with my above idea of shrinking the Senate and giving them a bit more power, then perhaps splitting & moving posts, but not outright deleting posts, or banning users, except indirectly through a vote.

If this is done, then a rule could eventually be established that all moderators have to be former Senators in good standing, having proven they can handle the power and responsibility beforehand.

=-=-=-=

To add an aside, I think it would increase the quality of posting throughout the board if this idea were followed through, and that's simply because of the carrot at the end of the stick - if ordinary users see a few of their number elevated to the Senate for a short time, and retire regularly, it correctly gives the inference that anyone might become a Senator for a time, if they're a good enough quality of poster here. Instead of simply inspiring good behavior through punishment and retort, it inspires better behavior because it gives them the possibility of being good enough to represent the will and support of an entire forum here - if even for a short time, before handing the torch off to another. The impression that there is mobility within the ranks of power is the greatest thing, really - just the impression that becoming a Senator doesn't mean getting the Awesome 4 Life sticker from on high.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Care to elaborate? Not that any of this is on the table, but Scorched Earth is pretty extreme.

The Senate started as an "old boys' club" and added worthy members every now & then, most of the old boys seem to just show up to vote and don't seem to do dick all other than that. Frankly it's a lot like unionized government work, lots of members are just punching the clock without doing any real work, might as well shitcan them all and start from the beginning. Say, we need 30 senators to start, get the HoC to nominate a pool of candidates and figure out a voting procedure to vote them in.

If we're going to blow up the Senate, let's make it an annual event. Every year, the whole Senate comes up for reelection. Give Mike a veto so no fuckheads or joke nominees get in, but other than that, let the board decide. Frankly, I think the problem with the Senate is that the decision making has crept back up to the mod forum and the hollering and screaming has crept down to the HoC, but I don't know how to fix that.

As someone who is almost certain to lose his Senate membership in an annual re-vote (by virtue of being an almost completely unknown, low-volume contributor,) I actually think this is a good idea. The Senate started as a fun reward for distinguished posters whom the board couldn't elevate to mod-hood, and was given some actual teeth. Giving it actual teeth has tread upon the toes of the board staff, and gave the plebes something to bitch and moan about. So the House of Commons was created, real authority went back to the Star Chamber, and the Senate was left with little to do but bicker about how big it should be.

So, perhaps we should just have the House of Commons pick 30 current, non-moderator, Senators to start the new year with. Each Senator would stay for just twelve months, and be removed at the end of that time. If someone feels they deserve to be recognized again, then there wouldn't be anything to stop a former Senator from being re-nominated. The Senate could still vote to elevate the best, say, two or three from each month to be Senators, but each new Senator would only get to be on the Senate for a year. This new Senate of board honorees wouldn't have any more actual power than the House of Commons (though, perhaps, it could retain the ability to title idiots who aren't quite idiotic enough to get whacked by the Star Chamber,) and would eliminate the bitching about how the Senate is getting too big to be an efficient body of authority. The year-long terms would bring back the reward aspect of Senate membership, and eliminate this notion of it being a dusty "Old Boys Club."

[ray245]

In my opinion, abolishing the senate in favour of the HOC can be a pretty good thing. Having a senate is only necessary when you have a membership size that is several times larger than SD.net.

Restriction in places where people can discuss about board policy is only required when the forum becomes so large to the extend that it becomes almost unmanageable, like "somethingawful.co*" or "TWcenter.com."

[rhoenix]

In my opinion, abolishing the senate in favour of the HOC can be a pretty good thing. Having a senate is only necessary when you have a membership size that is several times larger than SD.net.

After further consideration, I'm inclined to agree. Unless the Senate's purpose and power changes, I think that it is redundant at best, given the House of Commons. The mods can and do take care of banning if a user is a problem, which was my main issue against disbanding the Senate previously.

[Starglider]

As I stated about eight months ago, when the previous bout of drama occurred, the senate is functionally useless, generating only bitching and spam (in the rest of the board... mostly), and should be discontinued. Hotfoot has pointed out quite clearly that it is irrelevant as a disciplinary body, and RedImperator has demonstrated that the arguments against enlarging or abolishing it are incoherent, worthless elitism. On its own that would be merely annoying, but I suspect that this saga is a significant factor in the recent scarcity of new, contributing members. It is not the only factor, but it's hard to address other issues of 'board culture' when a) the (largely absentee) senate are supposed to be in a privileged position to do that, and b) squabbling about what to do with the senate takes all the attention.

Since removing the senate was not a viable option at the time, I supported the next best thing, which would be adding every worthwhile poster (that's at least 3/4s of the board's active population) to the senate. This would work fine if you drop the 'quorum' requirement which frankly makes no sense anyway. That plan quickly became a farce due to the need to select candidates based on 'will they stir the nogalistia of the ASVS old-timers enough, such that guilt about rejecting them overcomes the desire to keep their club exclusive', rather than any kind of qualitative judgement (since most of the people voting on rational grounds would be fine with any reasonably good debater). Runoff voting did help a little in preventing candidate spam from freezing the process, but apparently not enough.

That said, it doesn't really matter now anyway, since this forum is working fine and the mods have stopped paying attention to the senate. Still, it would be nice to have three no votes in a row on record, as the senate's swan song before total irrelevance.

[Stark]

It is fascianting that a public forum full of poorly-thought out whining and tongue-wagging is actually more effective than the Senate at everything except that which the Senate has 'special powers' to do. There was no real reason for HoC nominations to be accepted, but they were; there was no real reason to accept pressure on testing, or any other issue moved from the HoC to action. Senators don't even vote on the actual changes that are happening or being discussed. When it was started - largely as part of the 'Senate is stupid' testing lol - I had no expectation anything discussed there would ever go anywhere. Look where we are now.

Frankly, when a totally open forum of every idiot on the board is more useful than the so-called 'elite', that's the biggest full stop you could put on Starglider's post. When people like Ray participate more than most Senators in discussing board issues, that highlights what people have been saying about Senate participation (no offence, Ray).

Actually Ray's a good example of the HoC. He posts a lot here, a lot of his ideas are stupid, but things are discussed and he's a part of all kinds of decisions. He'd never, ever be 'allowed' in the Senate.

EDIT - Shit, look what Hotfoot and Red and I are doing; we're posting HERE, because while we're Senators we're not head-up-ass about it. Where is the engine of change in the forum below the Mod level?

[Starglider]

Make Senators the commentators and judges of the Coliseum matches, and make the Senate the place.

A specific forum for commentating on another forum that has managed exactly two threads in the last 18 months, with little interest in doing any more... and membership of the first forum is to consist of people who 'won' a thread in the second forum? Despite the fact that if it was a worthwhile debate, there would be a general commentary thread anyway?

I'm all for it. I'm thrilled by the prospect of a Coffee vs Havok debate on whether a triple breasted hooker can offer superior customer satisfaction compared to a triple cunted whore, and of course I expect the immediate 'elevation' of the winner, just as soon as the senate has concluded its learned deliberation on which poster made the superior argument.

[Simplicius]

I didn't say "make the Senate the place for that and nothing else," but if the two are tied together by participation then it's not odd to have any commentary there. Or what the fuck ever; I just cribbed a little something from Schatten earlier in the thread and ran with it because it interested me. You'll note it's not the first time I've made a suggestion about livening up the Coliseum, either.

And who knows - maybe the Coliseum's abysmal post rate would improve if it wasn't so frigging formalized and hidebound to use, and there were some light rewards for a good show. You know, like the complaints some people have had about the decline of the Senate.

[Starglider]

Or what the fuck ever; I just cribbed a little something from Schatten earlier in the thread and ran with it because it interested me.

Ah, but he was posting in the HoC thread, where it is specifically authorised to make stupid and impractical suggestions.

And who knows - maybe the Coliseum's abysmal post rate would improve if it wasn't so frigging formalized and hidebound to use

You mean like having a senate thread about possible topics the plebes might be permitted to debate?

and there were some light rewards for a good show.

That is an argument for giving winners a 'Coliseum Victor' badge in the style of the old Senator badges. Which is a perfectly good, uncontroversial and easily implemented suggestion. It is not an argument for keeping the Senate as an active drama generator forum.

[ray245]

3. Given that the original point to the Senate was that it was supposed to be a reward, a playground with the possible promise of power, what perks should be given to Senators? What manner of privilege should we have?

I would say "none," given that membership itself was supposed to be a perk. However, if I run with my above idea of shrinking the Senate and giving them a bit more power, then perhaps splitting & moving posts, but not outright deleting posts, or banning users, except indirectly through a vote.

If this is done, then a rule could eventually be established that all moderators have to be former Senators in good standing, having proven they can handle the power and responsibility beforehand.

=-=-=-=

To add an aside, I think it would increase the quality of posting throughout the board if this idea were followed through, and that's simply because of the carrot at the end of the stick - if ordinary users see a few of their number elevated to the Senate for a short time, and retire regularly, it correctly gives the inference that anyone might become a Senator for a time, if they're a good enough quality of poster here. Instead of simply inspiring good behavior through punishment and retort, it inspires better behavior because it gives them the possibility of being good enough to represent the will and support of an entire forum here - if even for a short time, before handing the torch off to another. The impression that there is mobility within the ranks of power is the greatest thing, really - just the impression that becoming a Senator doesn't mean getting the Awesome 4 Life sticker from on high.

Why do we even need to call all the posters who has made excellent contribution senators to begin with? Why not give them titles like "Distinguished Member" instead?

Frankly, when a totally open forum of every idiot on the board is more useful than the so-called 'elite', that's the biggest full stop you could put on Starglider's post. When people like Ray participate more than most Senators in discussing board issues, that highlights what people have been saying about Senate participation (no offence, Ray).

None taken. I think that the Senate is only required in the early days of the forum, when the board is still filled with idiots like DarkStar for instance.

[Simplicius]

You mean like having a senate thread about possible topics the plebes might be permitted to debate?

Yes. I sincerely think that if the Coliseum were more free-swinging, it would be used more. I could well be wrong.

That is an argument for giving winners a 'Coliseum Victor' badge in the style of the old Senator badges. Which is a perfectly good, uncontroversial and easily implemented suggestion. It is not an argument for keeping the Senate as an active drama generator forum.

Maybe the strikethrough means "no serious questions," but I'm curious as to why the Senate would continue to generate drama if it's basically a country club for Coliseum winners, with no policy function and an open, transparent means of gaining entry.

(That such a country club is unneeded/unwanted/stupid is easily argued; let's pretend it was kept as a perk for now.)

[Starglider]

I'm curious as to why the Senate would continue to generate drama if it's basically a country club for Coliseum winners

So when you said

I didn't say "make the Senate the place for that and nothing else

you meant 'and people can talk about other random stuff if they want', not 'and the senate shall also maintain the pretense of being relevant to board administration'?

Why do we even need to call all the posters who has made excellent contribution senators to begin with? Why not give them titles like "Distinguished Member" instead?

Then we could give them their own forum, for discussing anything, but instead of having no posting standards like Testing it could have more, like 'no random insults' and 'don't dogpile'. Since the only admirable part of the Senate is the tone, and because it would be interesting experiment to see whether anyone would want to post under such restrictions, and because it would be a proper anti-Testing, see?

There, I have broken your monopoly on half-baked ideas.

[Simplicius]

So when you said

I didn't say "make the Senate the place for that and nothing else

you meant 'and people can talk about other random stuff if they want', not 'and the senate shall also maintain the pretense of being relevant to board administration'?

I don't see the point of maintaining that pretense when it's not doing anything but causing trouble. My half-baked vision has nothing in common with the Senate as it presently exists except the name; the whole apparatus would be to let people who wanted to have fun via unalloyed debate do so.

[Hotfoot]

I'm going to poke Simplicius here, because, well, damn it I need fresh air.

Turning the Senate into an echo chamber for the coliseum debates sounds like a possible idea, in which case the two forums should be linked, with the coliseum as the primary forum and the "Senate" as a subforum. Even then, commentary threads are...lackluster at best. It's an interesting idea, and definitely removing the pretense of mattering would help if it's just a forum where "good posters" can muck around and have a good time, but, well, I hardly see the point. It's not as if the current Senate is particularly funny or witty, save a few members like that dashing rogue Hotfoot and his foul-tempered sidekick Stark. Well, I suppose they are funny, but in that "Not so intentional Mystery Science Theater fodder" way.

Know what I mean?

[Simplicius]

I'm going to poke Simplicius here, because, well, damn it I need fresh air.

Turning the Senate into an echo chamber for the coliseum debates sounds like a possible idea, in which case the two forums should be linked, with the coliseum as the primary forum and the "Senate" as a subforum. Even then, commentary threads are...lackluster at best. It's an interesting idea, and definitely removing the pretense of mattering would help if it's just a forum where "good posters" can muck around and have a good time, but, well, I hardly see the point. It's not as if the current Senate is particularly funny or witty, save a few members like that dashing rogue Hotfoot and his foul-tempered sidekick Stark. Well, I suppose they are funny, but in that "Not so intentional Mystery Science Theater fodder" way.

Know what I mean?

I do, and I can't disagree. Put that with Starglider's earlier point about good debates generating general commentary threads, and I don't think making the Senate exclusive to Senators, even if a good number of people took up the challenge, would make it a very lively place.

On the other hand, if we're rewarding people for doing well in the Coliseum, I think some kind of participatory perk would be good to have. A badge of honor is good for recognition, but I don't know that it would feel as much of a reward as some privilege would.

How about this: lump the Coliseum and the Senate together as the board's debate club. In the Coliseum, anyone who wants to have a debate posts their topic and opening post; first person to reply gets to oppose them. No limit on concurrent debates. The Senate is two things: the gallery for debates and the place for people who are interested to post about debate.

In the Senate can go commentary threads for debates in the Coliseum or anywhere else; votes on Coliseum winners/people's choice/whatever; help threads, off-board debate transcripts, and any other discussion that revolves around debate itself, rather than a debate topic. Senators, being badge-wearing winners from the Coliseum, are debate club captains; Senate and Coliseum moderation can pass among them on a rotating basis as a reward.

It might not wind up being the most active part of the board, but it might be handy to have for whenever people want it. If newbies want to test themselves and earn a little board cred, if non-debators want to improve their skills, if probably newbies again anyone wants to rehash ST-v-SW debates that have been done to death elsewhere, there will be a place to do it where there aren't penalties for being a shitty debater, only rewards for being a good one. It might bring a small dividend to use of logic and reason elsewhere on the board, too.

[Starglider]

If the overall size of the Senate is indeed considered to be a problem, then what is the size that does not constitute a problem?

You're doing the same thing as Patrick; dodging the important question and then distracting us with a solution to something that's only relevant if you make a highly dubious assumption.

If that is believed to be an acceptable size, then the problem becomes how to keep it there.

'believed to be' is an obfuscation of 'lets try and placate Bean, Tevar etc without ever forcing them to actually justify themselves. While it's cute that the senate is mimicking an actual political body in this way, it's not something I like seeing on a supposed bastion of rational debate.

Restricting membership of the Senate serves three possible functions. It used to restrict who can discuss board issues. This was already dubious (to the point of serious discussion being forced to Testing) before the HoC was created, and it is completely worthless now. As various senators have recognised, discussion here works at least as well as in the Senate. There is no tidal wave of spam. I would appreciate a customary civility in the HoC equivalent to the usual tone in the Senate, but that is easily implemented. Having a Senate as well as a HoC just means we have duplicate discussion threads on important issues, which aside from being annoying and redundant must look really silly to people external to the board. Finally, if we make the HoC the only forum for board policy and discipline discussion, we can simply slap some very basic posting requirements on it (e.g. 100 posts, three months membership; trivial to code) to block one-shot trolls. Any established members who do troll it should probably be banned from the board, but if you really want, you can just disable their ability to post in the HoC.

So the first purpose is pointless. The second possible purpose is recognising good debaters. The Senate used to be ok for that with the badge and the editing and the regular additions. Now that there are no perks, no recognition and no new admissions, it is utterly worthless in this role. If we are going to do this, we should just have a 'legendary debater' badge that is awarded. Frankly I think we could cut out hassle of a vote thread for every single recipient. It would be better to design a handful of these, and pick someone to award each type at their discretion (e.g. Kuroneko could hand out the 'Master Logician' award, Thanas could hand out the 'Historian' award etc - and of course there would be a 'Colosieum Winner' badge). That way the awards actually say something about the board member (like Wikipedia barnstars, but less spammy). Again, this is trivial to add to the board, if Mike actually approves it.

The only remaining purpose is to restrict who can vote on punishment threads. This is currently irrelevant because the mods aren't paying attention to the Senate, and >95% of mod action occurs without a senate vote. However I agree that in principle having votes is a good idea, and that in principle we might want to limit who can vote rather more strictly than who can discuss.

The obvious solution is to use the Senate purely for vote threads, and do all the discussion here. That's a start, though you'll have to get the mods to actually give some sort of guarentee, or at least serious commitment, to paying attention to the results or it will be useless. However I'd note that technically, it's trivial to restrict who can vote in a forum separately from who can post in a forum. So actually we could just have one fourm, combined dicussion/vote threads (I see no point in splitting them, particularly since we can add poll options raised in discussion later), and only a subset of the people who can post able to vote.

So we come to the final question, if you have acknowledged that the only worthwhile restriction is on who can vote on punishment threads, and if you have got the mods to agree to wait for and respect the result of such threads (at least half of the time), then who should be allowed to vote? Despite hundreds of posts no one has yet explained why having lots of people able to vote is a problem. All I have seen is apologetic 'well if we give up trying to get a rationale out of Bean etc, and just treat their irrational notions as requirements...'. Quorum is a meaningless excuse; this isn't a real political body where pushing through votes when all the legislators are away is a problem. The whole concept of 'quorum' is inapplicable, a simple fixed minimum threshold (say, 20) is fine. Having more voters, and a more representative set of voters, can only improve the results by reducing individual bias and unpredictability.

So there is no rationale for a cap on voter numbers other than reducing 'admin paperwork', and frankly, why does that 'paperwork' even exist? Remove the cap on 'senate' size and the pointless 'quorum' requirement we stop having to care whether people go inactive, or whether they responded to a vote. I've already written code that lists all the people who actually voted, which can either be publicly visible or just visible to an admin person (e.g. Wilkins) - add that to the board and any possible rationale for 'admin paperwork' goes away.

Accepting that there is no sane reason to have a cap, one the legacy nonsense procedures are ditched, there is still the question of how to add people. Continuing to have monthly vote threads is acceptable but strikes me as kind of spammy. I'd suggest two solutions to this;

1) Just make the votes public, so that who voted for what can be plainly seen. Then you don't need to restrict who can vote, because the mods can look at the result and make a personal judgement on which votes are worth counting. That increases the chance of them actually paying attention to votes. Frankly this preference for 'secret votes' strikes me as cowardice anyway; it isn't an admin issue, since manual tallying is unnecessary. Real legislators have to live with their voting record being public knowledge, and rightly so.

However it that won't fly then 2) Use a simple trust scheme. Any three people in the trusted group can agree to add a new person. This works fine for Advogato and various other sites. Again, some simple code modifications can make this easy and transparent; no voting or drama required, but you can trivially check who's authorised and which three people authorised them. There's a small risk of jerks getting added, but who cares? If they do, they can't do any real harm, and their voting privileges can be trivially removed by a mod or a punishment vote.

This is not a country, or even a particularly large message board. There is no reason to be as exclusive as possible. Rather, we should be as inclusive as we can be without seriously compromising the quality of debate or the fairness of disciplinary proceedings. The mods are already an exclusive, closed group, appropriately scaled to the size of the board; having the Senate just mirror that with twice as many members, zero relevance and 1000% more drama is genuinely stupid.

[Simplicius]

I can't edit, so-

"No penalties for being a bad debator" might ring some alarm bells, so I'll try to clarify. If I make a post defending creationism in SLAM, or conservativism in N&P, I'm liable to get piled on first of all; and second of all, I stand to be flamed, HoSed, or titled if I persist in defending them against the weight of opponents. I think that this is because the main boards are topic-centric boards, where debates are driven by issues and the attempt to come to a conclusion about them. Thus, for creationism, ST > SW, or similar matters, someone can post "[Mountain of evidence] says you're wrong, kindly fuck off," and that settles the matter because the issue has been decided.. Argue against it badly, and you'll get slammed for Wall of Ignorance if nothing else.

In a pure debate board, the issue at hand doesn't really matter. If I take a factually wrong, unpopular, or illogical position in a pure debate, there should be no penalty for just "being wrong." If I defend my bad position with poor arguments, fallacies, and ignorance, I will: 1.) Lose the debate. 2.) Get my ass endlessly ridiculed in the comment thread. 3.) Carry a rep as a shitty debater around the board until people forget or I improve. However, I won't get administrative punishment just for sucking, because it's not interfering with a quest for fact, truth, or consensus as would occur elsewhere.

I hope I made sense there.

[Starglider]

In a pure debate board, the issue at hand doesn't really matter. If I take a factually wrong, unpopular, or illogical position in a pure debate, there should be no penalty for just "being wrong."

I know where you're coming from, but IMHO the problem is that the coliseum has both the requirement for approval (which utterly kills spontaneity) and an implicit quality bar set far too high to be useful as casual entertainment (which is, let's face it, why most people are here). Also the 1-on-1 setup means that if one person is busy/away, the debate stalls or fails. There's no reason not to have team debates here, you don't have moderation issues the way you do in real life.

So the solution is to just unlock the Coliseum and let people debate whatever they want, without any prior approval. Flaming and dogpiling will be banned, there will be low tolerance for thread hijacks, the forum rules will be that when someone starts or enters a thread they must clearly state a position on an issue, and in that forum it will be understood that the posters don't necessarily hold the positions they state. You can moderate it and kick out anyone who isn't treating it like a proper debate club. As previously noted, winners can get a neat badge. If you want that to be voted rather than by mod fiat, no problem, we can just let any debate thread participant start a corresponding vote thread, once the feel the discussion has run its course. Or the forum mod can do it, I doubt we'll have so many good debates they'll be overworked.

None of this has anything to do with the Senate, nor should it. 'It's too dangerous because oh noes, someone might troll/abuse it' is not a valid argument. It costs nothing to try, and if such a problem crops up, then we can talk about locking things down.

[Simplicius]

unlock the Coliseum and let people debate whatever they want, without any prior approval. Flaming and dogpiling will be banned, there will be low tolerance for thread hijacks, the forum rules will be that when someone starts or enters a thread they must clearly state a position on an issue, and in that forum it will be understood that the posters don't necessarily hold the positions they state. You can moderate it and kick out anyone who isn't treating it like a proper debate club. As previously noted, winners can get a neat badge.

It's as if you're reading my mind.

None of this has anything to do with the Senate, nor should it.

Since I'm taking the position that we shitcan the current senate and build a new one that is a component of the debate club and nothing more (keeping the name because of the Roman theme), I suspect we agree here too.

[Starglider]

Since I'm taking the position that we shitcan the current senate and build a new one that is a component of the debate club and nothing more (keeping the name because of the Roman theme), I suspect we agree here too.

Well there's no reason not to do that, since the existence of such a forum not likely to be a drama generator the way the current Senate is. I just don't expect it to be very popular or useful, compared to just having debate commentary threads everyone can post in. By all means go ahead if you disagree, practical experience will soon confirm which of us was correct.

I do wonder if the 'house of commons' name was chosen as a direct reference to UK history, where the a long campaign from the real HoC managed to errode and eventually destroy basically all of the House of Lord's powers, and then the very concept of hereditary peerage.

[Simplicius]

Well there's no reason not to do that, since the existence of such a forum not likely to be a drama generator the way the current Senate is. I just don't expect it to be very popular or useful, compared to just having debate commentary threads everyone can post in.

Between your posts and Hotfoot's I realized that was probably the case. My amended concept is to have the New Senate as an open little-sibling forum to the Coliseum with debate commentary and voting, and as a catchall for debate-centric posting (help threads, off-board transcripts, etc.) - basically OT: Debate Club Edition. The perk for New Senators could be rotating modship of the Senate and Coliseum instead.

[Starglider]

My amended concept is to have the New Senate as an open little-sibling forum to the Coliseum with debate commentary and voting, and as a catchall for debate-centric posting (help threads, off-board transcripts, etc.) - basically OT: Debate Club Edition.

Well ok, though it sounds like we could combine that with the existing 'debating help' subforum.

[Junghalli]

Restricting membership of the Senate serves three possible functions. It used to restrict who can discuss board issues. This was already dubious (to the point of serious discussion being forced to Testing) before the HoC was created, and it is completely worthless now. As various senators have recognised, discussion here works at least as well as in the Senate. There is no tidal wave of spam. I would appreciate a customary civility in the HoC equivalent to the usual tone in the Senate, but that is easily implemented. Having a Senate as well as a HoC just means we have duplicate discussion threads on important issues, which aside from being annoying and redundant must look really silly to people external to the board. Finally, if we make the HoC the only forum for board policy and discipline discussion, we can simply slap some very basic posting requirements on it (e.g. 100 posts, three months membership; trivial to code) to block one-shot trolls. Any established members who do troll it should probably be banned from the board, but if you really want, you can just disable their ability to post in the HoC.

So the first purpose is pointless. The second possible purpose is recognising good debaters. The Senate used to be ok for that with the badge and the editing and the regular additions. Now that there are no perks, no recognition and no new admissions, it is utterly worthless in this role. If we are going to do this, we should just have a 'legendary debater' badge that is awarded. Frankly I think we could cut out hassle of a vote thread for every single recipient. It would be better to design a handful of these, and pick someone to award each type at their discretion (e.g. Kuroneko could hand out the 'Master Logician' award, Thanas could hand out the 'Historian' award etc - and of course there would be a 'Colosieum Winner' badge). That way the awards actually say something about the board member (like Wikipedia barnstars, but less spammy). Again, this is trivial to add to the board, if Mike actually approves it.

These sound like good suggestions to me. Sorry, I can't really think of anything worthwhile to add to that statement at the moment.

[Big Phil]

Some Senators have had a reasonably cogent discussion over in the Senate, and it looks like they might be voting on whether or not to abolish the Senate as no longer needed. As they've largely made the argument in favor of Senatorial dissolution, I won't bother to recreate it here, but it was interesting to see that a number of Senators are asking the same questions and wondering the same things, without getting all butt hurt and defensive about their lolly being taken away. Should be interesting to see the results of the vote.