Charter rewrite

thorondor
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i spent some thoughts on this. imo its still the one thing that should be done as soon as possible.

COE Charter

some nice words in the beginning, just like in the old one:
We, the members of the Middle Earth Card Game Player community, establish by this charter the Council of Elrond, an organisation whose purpose is to facilitate organized play and to ameliorate the playing environment.
The composition, scope and powers of this Council are delineated in the following manner:

Composition:
Most things in the old COE charter still make sense imo. So I copied it adding some comments:
The council shall be comprised of nine voting members.
The number of seats up for election each election shall be eight.
The Chair is not up for election.*
Only natural persons shall be eligible for election; and the term of office shall be twelve months.
Elections shall be held on the anniversary of the ratification of this charter.
(Lets appoint a period of time like for example each April.)
Method of election:
Each candidate must receive no less than one percent of the votes of the then current Membership of metw@silent-tower.org to be seated at the Council.
(would skip that)
Upon seating the newly elected Council, the first order of business of each session of the Council shall be the election of a Vice Chair from amongst their midst.
*The last order of business of a given session of the Council shall be the selection of next session's Chair.

Each active council recognized by the Council of Elrond will appoint a non voting spokesperson who shall take part in Council debates.
(would still make sense if there existed active councils any longer. Maybe lets change this and have chosen experts participate in said debates)

Powers&Tasks:

I would like to rewrite almost everything. The major points imo are:


- Homepage + Forum:
Provide basic information and material for the game like card lists, rules, formats of play, maps, sample decks, links, …
- Newsletter:
Like the one I am doing already. But under the banner of the COE and with the input of all the COE members.
- Players directory:
Rather the keeping the council system, which is an utopia. Lets have a player list, at least one contact person for as many nations as possible, provide a subforum if needed.
- Organized Play:
Organizing worlds annually. No need to ask for nations to apply for having worlds. The COE just decides.
Having Online Tournaments under the banner of the COE.
Taking care for some special COE prizes that are given out only at COE tournaments.
- Rules
Appointing a Team of Experts (3 would be a good number), that has all the powers to discuss and propose rules changes.
Answers to rules questions at least each 2 months.
Rules changes have to be confirmed by a 2/3 majority of the COE community (no minimum!) – info about voting will be up on the COE homepage, message goes out via the COE newsletter.
The COE appoints a registrar for all votings.

what have i forgotten? please add!!
and of course all of this needs proper wording! i am not capable of that.
thorondor
Ex Council Chairman
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i woiuld like to see all of this as a COE Charter 2.0. lets keep the old one in an archive.
marcos
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Location: Córdoba, Argentina

agree
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Bandobras Took
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Aye, Agree, Hooray, Yes; whatever else is needed. :)
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Vastor Peredhil
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First off I agree as well, but honestly I would keep the council in charge for a longer term, 2 years,

a) since, we are the ones doing most work anyhow

b) most stuff takes longer than we plan

c) allows us for longer development periods,

d) it could make us lethargic, but I doubt that . . . I have a good feel for this group, and we can always get in new advisers

Nicolai
marcos
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i been thinking about that as well and I agree with Vastor, mostly it seems that projects takes longer time, because people involved on them are bussy often with their own personal matters and as i see it, we have a lot of ideas but none of them is concluded and a year has gone already.
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Thorsten the Traveller
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and since only 25 people take the trouble to vote anyway
so some new system could be useful
I'll have a good looksie, now that I'm back from holidays
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thorondor
Ex Council Chairman
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agree on 2 years!
25 voters is indeed quite poor. but then, there is one voting per year for a bunch of people that are known almost not at all. also the COE is not very present in the public. so the best thing would be to get active, and the interest in the COE is likely to grow.
thorondor
Ex Council Chairman
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does anybody with better english skills than i have feel able to put all of this into one document? (ben? eric? anybody else???)
i really would like to have this finished as soon as possible. thx.
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Bandobras Took
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Well, now that I've finally got a stable internet connection again and I have finished my personal Rewrite project, here you go (let me know if I missed anything):

Council of Elrond Charter

We, the members of the Council of Elrond, re-charter the Council of Elrond, in order to better meet the needs of an evolving community in facilitating organized play and ameliorating the playing environment.

The composition, scope and powers of this Council are delineated in the following manner:

Composition:
• The council shall be comprised of nine voting members.
• The number of seats up for election each election shall be eight.
• The Chair is not up for election.*
• Only natural persons shall be eligible for election; and the term of office shall be twenty-four months.
• Elections shall be held beginning on April 1st; a candidate shall announce his candidacy no later than this date. Elections shall end on April 30th.

Method of election:
• All candidates will be listed on the Council of Elrond website, and the new Chair shall be responsible for maintaining this list and monitoring the votes.
• Each candidate must receive no less than one percent of the votes collected on the Council of Elrond website in order to be elected.
• If ten or more people run for election to the Council of Elrond, the size of the Council will remain nine. If nine or eight people run for election, the size of the Council will be decreased from nine members to seven members. If seven people or fewer run for election, the election will be postponed for two months. In that time the members of the previous session will discuss how to continue (which might include modifying the constitution or even dissolving the Council of Elrond). For that matter each representative of the active national councils will receive one vote, as will each member of the previous session.

Tasks:
• Upon seating the newly elected Council, the first order of business of each session of the Council shall be the election of a Vice Chair from amongst their midst. The last order of business of a given session of the Council shall be the selection of next session's Chair.
• The second order of business for a newly elected council -- after choosing a vice-chairman -- will be to send queries to the heads of any active recognized National Councils (if such there be) asking whether they are ready to elect their prequalified player. If they are not ready, or they do not respond within two weeks, an email will be sent to them listing all players preregistered from their country; they are to choose from that list. If there are no such players, an email will be sent to the main list asking if anyone from that country is planning to attend, and directing them to email their council representative. If after 6 weeks still no one has been assigned the prequalified slot for a given country, that country's representative may inform the Worlds organizer to use his or her discretion in awarding that country's slot to an appropriate player if one does attend Worlds. The representative may also decline to give such permission.
• Each active council recognized by the Council of Elrond may appoint a non voting spokesperson who shall take part in Council debates.
• The Council of Elrond may further appoint non-voting experts to participate in their debates.
• The Council shall maintain a web site and forum, including on such web site information on how to organize a council, how to gain recognition from this Council, a compendium of the rules (Universal Rules Document), help for beginners, et cetera.
• The Council will provide as needed hosting and a subforum for any recognized National Council that requests and has need of such.
• The Chair of the Council shall provide a bimonthly newsletter detailing important information regarding the Council as well as events of interest to the community in general. This newsletter will be a compilation of input from all members of the community.
• The Council shall maintain a player’s directory and a list of contacts for various nations in the absence of a National Council for the Nation.
• The Council shall authorize a World’s Tournament for the game once a year, and shall decide upon a suitable venue.
• The Council shall further authorize and encourage online tournaments.
• The Council shall encourage tournament participation by offering special prizes at Council-sanctioned events.
• The Council of Elrond shall not award any World-Qualifying slots to any Council which discriminates against its player(s) for any reason other than the player(s) intentional efforts to disrupt the fair and pleasurable gaming experience or community (such as through deliberate and persistent cheating or violent or malicious outbursts, either verbal or physical).
• The Council of Elrond shall consider the failure to stop discrimination rising from their members to be one and the same as discrimination from the council. Personal grudges and/or punishments will not be tolerated.
• For these purposes, the Council of Elrond shall consider "discrimination" to consist of (but not be limited to) any type of: 1) ban (from events or locations), 2) increased entry fees, 3) decreased prize support, 4) conspicuous effort to make a player feel unwelcome, or 5) any change in Council policy specifically directed to one or limited individual(s). Et cetera.
• Any Council found to discriminate against any of its players shall lose all World Qualifying slots until it remediates its actions, re-establishing a fair and tolerant environment.
• In the unlikely event that a Council discriminates against its player(s), the Council of Elrond shall: 1) First notify the Council in question to inform them of possible consequences, giving them two weeks to either repair its policies or to present an opposing case, 2) Take one week to weigh the evidence for and against the Council's actions and vote whether or not to withhold World Qualifying slots, 3) Notify the MECCG mailing list in the event of the withholding of any Qualifying slots.
• Conversely, if a Council seeks to repair its policies after Qualifying slots have been withheld: 1) It must notify the Council of Elrond of the changes to its policies, 2) The Council of Elrond shall weigh any contrasting information, and 3) The Council of Elrond shall vote whether or not to give back the Council's World Qualifying slots.
• The Council shall from time to time as it sees fit compose rules of order and make modifications to the same.

Powers:

• The Council shall issue errata or rules changes as needed. A team of three experts will be appointed to discuss all rules changes. Proposed errata from this team shall be placed for an open vote on the Council website, and shall be ratified by a two-thirds majority after a voting period of three weeks. The Chair shall be responsible for announcing, maintaining, and monitoring the vote. Rules so ratified shall be considered in force when announced in the next Newsletter from the Chair.
• The Council shall maintain at least one spokesperson during each session whose duties shall consist of clarifying rules, interpreting card texts, adjudicating rules disputes, clarifying gameplay questions posed to the Council, adjudicating conflicts between cards, updating the Universal Rules Document, and forwarding any appropriate issues to the Errata Team. The title of said office shall be NetRep. The NetRep shall publish a rulings digest bimonthly as well as update the Universal Rules Document. If no new rulings are to be made, the NetRep shall inform the Chair of such.



Ratification of this Charter shall become effective upon the affirmative vote of two thirds as collected on the Council Website after an announcement by the Chair and a voting period of three weeks.
The game is flawed, but this does not mean it cannot be loved.
Frodo
Ex Council Member
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Hello everyone! Have a good time at Lure!

Great job Ben. I would only add a few things, in addition to voicing my support for a 2-year term (not for me personally, but this was discussed beforehand and there were good reasons:

*I am not sure what "natural persons" means
*Right now the charter reads "votes collected on the COE site". I would just leave it vague and say "votes collected by the COE". This is because we got into trouble with the old charter when we limited ourselves to collecting votes from a defunct listserv. If the COE site ever becomes defunct, moved, or renamed, and we troubles again. So let's leave our powers broad... Palpatine-style.

Frodo
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Bandobras Took
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I agree. I believe the term "Natural Persons" was meant to put a stop to voting fraud. I left it in because it sounded neat, but that can easily be rewritten. I'll wait for some more feedback and then present a revised version.
The game is flawed, but this does not mean it cannot be loved.
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Shapeshifter
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• The second order of business for a newly elected council -- after choosing a vice-chairman -- will be to send queries to the heads of any active recognized National Councils (if such there be) asking whether they are ready to elect their prequalified player. If they are not ready, or they do not respond within two weeks, an email will be sent to them listing all players preregistered from their country; they are to choose from that list. If there are no such players, an email will be sent to the main list asking if anyone from that country is planning to attend, and directing them to email their council representative. If after 6 weeks still no one has been assigned the prequalified slot for a given country, that country's representative may inform the Worlds organizer to use his or her discretion in awarding that country's slot to an appropriate player if one does attend Worlds. The representative may also decline to give such permission.
Maybe there should be an addendum that according to the number of players at Worlds the qualifier may be skipped at all and that it doesn't matter in that case if one is prequalified or not.
• In the unlikely event that a Council discriminates against its player(s), the Council of Elrond shall: 1) First notify the Council in question to inform them of possible consequences, giving them two weeks to either repair its policies or to present an opposing case, 2) Take one week to weigh the evidence for and against the Council's actions and vote whether or not to withhold World Qualifying slots, 3) Notify the MECCG mailing list in the event of the withholding of any Qualifying slots.
In 3) we still find the MECCG mailing list mentioned. Well, this list exists but is not used anymore. I would suggest to either abolish 3) or to rephrase it in an appropriate way. Maybe use the upcoming bimonthly CoE newsletter instead?
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Bandobras Took
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Ooops. Teach me to copy and paste. :)
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Bandobras Took
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I hopefully I'll get to the next rewrite this afternoon.

And by the way, if nobody objects, I'll put the URD into a Google Doc and give Mikko full editing rights. :)
The game is flawed, but this does not mean it cannot be loved.
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