2 PC Rule - No Need to Amend Charter

[Castano]

It has come to my attention that some believe the charter needs to be amended to allow 2 PCs. I was also under this impression because I believed the old ALFA 4 Pillars were present in the charter, one of which has been said to be 1 PC only. So I decided in my free time to read our charter. (ALFA is the only club I am a member of that has an actual charter, I being too poor to join the local golf club).

The ALFA Charter does not specify the number of PCs ALFA may allow. I just read it and could not locate any of our pillars. This just shows that I should have paid attention to my college profs who said "read the material before arguing." Please correct me if I am wrong and ignore the below.

http://www.alandfaraway.org/charter

The community "pillars" people sometimes mention are not even present in the Charter, including the number of PCs

The number of PCs is however specified in the Rulebook in Chapter 2. The Rulebook's Chapter 2 may be amended by the Player Admin per rule 9.

http://www.alandfaraway.org/node/898

2.3 Multiple PCs
ALFA has a strict One Live-PC rule. Multiple Live PCs are not allowed - this includes cross-server. If, for whatever reason, a new PC should be played, all old PCs are considered to be retired and may not be played again.

http://www.alandfaraway.org/node/905

"Chapters 2 to 5 of the ALFA Rulebook may be changed by the Player Admin, Chapter 6 by the Infra Admin, and Chapter 8 by the DM Admin. Chapter 7 may be changed by a joint decision by the Infra Admin and the Player Admin. Chapters 1 and 9 may only be changed by a joint decision by the DM Admin, Infra Admin and Player Admin. The members should be notified immediately of any changes to the ALFA Rulebook."

Have you read our charter lately?

[Regas]

We're debating this right now in admin forums Cas. Here's where I am on the two PC rule change in terms of the admin discussion:

(Edit)... I'm not keen on one pc per server at this point though maybe someone could convince me. My first thought is rather than allow an 'alt' PC, we try expanding the Temp retirement policy as I outline here: http://www.alandfaraway.org/phpBB3/view ... 7&start=15, but if you argue that might be too little too late I would guess you may be right.

Changing the policy though is tricky. We as admin cannot go against the charter without amending it. It's not clear if the Pillars are part of the charter. Veilan interpreted them as such, but it doesn't mean we have to. If we do require the Pillars go through the same amendment process as the Charter then I think it's a non-starter; it will not pass and we will not see a change to the rules. ... (Edit)

My suggestion would be to view the Pillars as not requiring the amendment process, and also expanding the temp retirement policy. Should we allow Alts, I’m not sure we even need temp retirement.

Cheers,

Reg

And, later in the forum after developing the idea of an "alt" that could be switched back and forth with the main pc after a "cool down period" ....

We have two thirds of our members telling us they want multiple PCs. (Edit)...

I think we should consider a much shorter cool down period. I'd like to see something like 24 or 48 hours, such that a player could reasonably play in two campaigns a week. A [longer] period doesn't allow for a second "campaign" pc, something we've all ready done in ALFA1. I'd also suggest that these pcs be on separate servers. Lastly, I'd want to make it clear we'll be logging any sort of silly behavior like muling and that the consequences would be severe.

By having a cool down period, the player would still be playing only one pc at a time.

As I said before, to some of you, Veilan as Lead ruled that a pillar did require a charter amendment and he did put the amendment through it's paces but it failed to be ratified by the requisite two thirds of eligible voting members. In doing so I believe Veilan was making an honest effort to execute his role as Lead and act in the communities' interest as he saw it. As the lead can veto any action, the PA unilaterally changing the rule would have simply been vetoed by the LA, who is within his rights to do so as LA. We do have a new Lead however, so it is quiet possible this gets changed.

Anyway, this is where I am on the issue at present, I am actively reading everyone's input on forums and also welcome PMs if anyone prefers not to post. This is a big deal for ALFA and I'd like to get as much feedback as possible from members on the best path forward, I'd like to try and get this right, knowing full well that there's no way to please everyone in this situation.

Cheers,

Reg

[Castano]

Thanks, I just wanted to verify I read things right. I was a bit shocked to see the pillars not explicitly part of the Charter, but they are not. That makes them more aspirational and not hard and fast law.

[Ronan]

In a democracy, laws are supposedly empowered by the population who votes them into effect. If the voting process creates laws then these laws must be based on the people's understand of them at the time. To interpret them differently over time is to subvert the democratic process (note I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing). So when the charter was created, were the pillars attached to it? I seem to remember them being placed at the start of the charter back when I first joined in 2006 or whatever. Now the charter doesn't even seem to mention the pillars.

Of course ALFA is not a state, as everyone is here voluntarily. If the charter is a communal contract, then the interpretations of the people who voted for it are unimportant compared to our current understanding of it when we agreed to follow it. It was my assumption that the pillars were part of the charter.

My opinion is, lets not create any bad-blood over this. Do it right and pass an amendment. We have or nearly have the support for it; if the motion fails we can adjust it until it doesn't.

[Castano]

In a democracy, laws are supposedly empowered by the population who votes them into effect. If the voting process creates laws then these laws must be based on the people's understand of them at the time. To interpret them differently over time is to subvert the democratic process (note I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing). So when the charter was created, were the pillars attached to it? I seem to remember them being placed at the start of the charter back when I first joined in 2006 or whatever. Now the charter doesn't even seem to mention the pillars.

Of course ALFA is not a state, as everyone is here voluntarily. If the charter is a communal contract, then the interpretations of the people who voted for it are unimportant compared to our current understanding of it when we agreed to follow it. It was my assumption that the pillars were part of the charter.

My opinion is, lets not create any bad-blood over this. Do it right and pass an amendment. We have or nearly have the support for it; if the motion fails we can adjust it until it doesn't.

The answer to your question lies in how and when was the current charter adopted and why were the pillars left off. If the community at the inception of the new charter specifically excluded them then they did so for a reason.

We also now have members stating that they are in favor of reducing servers down to 1 - this violates the span FR pillar.

[Xanthea]

I think we should consider a much shorter cool down period. I'd like to see something like 24 or 48 hours, such that a player could reasonably play in two campaigns a week.

Doesn't that, uh, carry all the downsides of multiple PCs with few of the benefits? A large part of the appeal is being able to log into a different server where the people are playing currently so that you don't have ridiculous situations where the handful of people online are unable to play with each other for whatever reason. This is like saying "No we want to continue making it impossible for large chunks of the playerbase to interact with each other."

[Regas]

I think we should consider a much shorter cool down period. I'd like to see something like 24 or 48 hours, such that a player could reasonably play in two campaigns a week.

Doesn't that, uh, carry all the downsides of multiple PCs with few of the benefits? A large part of the appeal is being able to log into a different server where the people are playing currently so that you don't have ridiculous situations where the handful of people online are unable to play with each other for whatever reason. This is like saying "No we want to continue making it impossible for large chunks of the playerbase to interact with each other."

I hear you Xan,

This is offered as a compromise to a much longer cool-down period. No mater what we do, 30% to half of the members will be unhappy with the outcome (including if we do nothing). I'm hoping two PCs with a cool down period doesn't require a charter amendment, as I think that will be hard to pass. Everyone has an opinion on what the best policy is, the trick is getting everyone to some sort of middle ground. We'll probably be close when everyone is unhappy .

[kid]

What charter amenment are you talking about?

Where's the refreance in the charter to the pillars or to 1 PC?


(And no, please do not aspire to find a compromise that makes everyone unhappy)

[Stormbring3r]

What charter amenment are you talking about?

Where's the refreance in the charter to the pillars or to 1 PC?


(And no, please do not aspire to find a compromise that makes everyone unhappy)

ALFA CHARTER
2.5 Players
Player status is simply a membership classification applied to all those who are members of ALFA. This position is not mutually exclusive with any other position in ALFA. All Members are allowed to play a Player Character (PC) in ALFA.

Oversight of Players is the purview of the Player Administrator.


General / The Pillars of ALFA

The Pillars of ALFA:

5) One PC. Players in ALFA are only allowed one player character at a time.

Does that help?

[Ronan]

When I first joined ALFA back in the waining days of NWN1, I thought it was generally assumed the pillars were part of the charter. I believe they were in PDF form back then, so stuff may have been moved around in the transition to the Drupal wiki? I really don't know.

I'm relatively sure a charter amendment was passed in order to add pillar #9, Controlled Wealth (and maybe #8 along with it; can't remember).

[kid]

ty strom.

[Castano]

Please the 5 day cool down period is a non starter. It effectively means you won't be able to play in DM events w/o pre-planning your log ins and praying the DMs posted the event more than 5 days ago. Good luck. Whoever is pushing this cool down non-sense is torpedoing 2 PCs. It's also silly, and there is no rationale advanced for it. It's far better to restrict the PCs to not being on the same servers.

No idea why the pillars are not referenced in the charter, but they are not.

[Castano]

ty strom.

kid there are links to all three documents on the ALFA home page. The one PC rule is Rule 2.3 which can be changed by the player admin per Rule 9.

The one PC pillar is found in the document ALFA Pillars.

[Adanu]

NO fucking cool down periods. The people who want one PC can keep their one PC, and the rest of us can have two PCs. Cooldown crap effectively ruins one of the best draws to having two PCs; the ability to log in to another group if either PC is 'dead in the water'.

There is no need for anything resembling a compromise here. It's an option, not a mandatory thing.

[Stormbring3r]

ty strom.

kid there are links to all three documents on the ALFA home page. The one PC rule is Rule 2.3 which can be changed by the player admin per Rule 9.

The one PC pillar is found in the document ALFA Pillars.

2. In-Game Offenses
Submitted by zicada on Thu, 10/09/2008 - 13:13

2.3 Multiple PCs
ALFA has a strict One Live-PC rule. Multiple Live PCs are not allowed - this includes cross-server. If, for whatever reason, a new PC should be played, all old PCs are considered to be retired and may not be played again.

General / The Pillars of ALFA

The Pillars of ALFA:

5) One PC. Players in ALFA are only allowed one player character at a time.




If I read this right... It means if you Retire a toon then you can no longer play the retired toon????

I am totally confusseled now.. Who decided you can retire a toon and then start playing the retired toon again without changing the rulz????