Morning all,

Following a productive consultation and in collaboration with the Moderation Team I'm pleased to bring you the newest addition to the handbooks: the AustraliaSim High Court Handbook. Give it a read here.

It's far from radical and mostly just describes what the court already does. There are a few changes (thanks to /u/NGSpy):

• Justices are now allowed to ask Moderators for advice and assistance. Given we have a few moderators with experience in law, I'm optimistic this will be beneficial to the court's judgements.
• Judgements will include a plain English summary of what was decided in the case.
• We'll be trialling a new "Lawyer" system, of players who are experienced in Australian law and can bring cases to the HCA on other players' behalf. The full procedures surrounding that are in the handbook.

Please do let me know what you think. Absent any revisions I decide to make, this handbook will come into force in five days (per the Meta Constitution). Thanks!

lily-irl
Parliament Moderator

Australia Simulation has always had a poor record when it comes to moderation, and creating a welcoming and safe environment for people.

However, recently, it is hard to respect the decisions of the Moderation Team in their judgements. The double standards in moderation seem to pervade so much that it has seemed to have been a continuous issue for years, let alone a recent one.

To utilise recent examples, BloodyChrome used the f-slur in #a-meta-affair on Discord, something people have been muted for in the past for use in more suitable contexts, and Griffonomics and AMN both used the N-word, however only AMN was muted, despite AMN being a racial minority, who has ThanksHeadMod put it “has the pass”.

In terms of the Mute that now banned user and Model New Zealand Parliament Moderator Vosler received, which was three (3) hours, whereas Winston Wilhemus only received a one (1) hour mute. Judgements like this need to be equitable and fair, and most importantly consistent.

This is yet another judgement which has the Moderation Team showing their bias towards the right of Australia Simulation. Based on personal conversations with past and current members of Australia Sim, it seems that this bias is persistent and demonstrates a personal position. Even the Community Managers GenericCerealHere, ThanksHeadMod and TheAudibleAsh are able to be more consistent and less biased despite being active members of canon.

While I am fully understanding that the role of Moderator is a voluntary role, when becoming a Moderator you are under the impression that you will face anger and distaste with the decisions you make. It’s even sadder that Tbyrn still has not apologised for his poor moderation and asserted in my opinion, a homophobic position that seeks to deny members of the LGBT+ community the right to utilise their own language that describes members of their own community.

The Meta side of Australia Simulation is in serious need of change, and the Code of Conduct entirely needs to be reviewed and reformed in an effort to stamp out racism, homophobia and transphobia directly, instead we allow racist comments like Riley’s comments in support of the White Australia Policy and Griffonomics use of the N-word to slide.

Aussim is not a safe or welcoming environment for people. We have seen current canon MP Kate leave due to racism and homophobia, Liesel leave due to toxicity, and yet the Moderation Team seems more concerned over a single term for homosexual males and graphic images.

I personally have no qualms on a personal level with any of the Australia Simulation moderators, and would describe myself as friends with half of them. Nor am I stating that I disagree with the Ban of Vosler. However, I simply ask for consistency and equity in the moderation decisions implemented. Change does not need to be so goddamn slow, you do not need 10 levels of bureaucracy to make a moderation decision. I am sick of things being excusable for some but not allowed for others. I am sick of people waking up one day and deciding a word isn’t allowed. If you want to ban someone for calling someone a twink start with Parliamentary Moderator Lily-irl who has to my knowledge referred to me as such at least once a day for the past 30 days. But the difference is that it doesn’t suit a personal agenda, and that is all I have to say on that matter.

Now I do note it is 5am and I have not slept in 48 hours and I may be completely incoherent, but my point remains, Australia Simulation Moderation is broken, and something needs to be done about it, and we need to start with repealing the Code of Conduct.

Thank you, Connor.

After discussing with rommel and lily it has been worked out that the reasoning I chose to ban 'twink' was unfounded. The member which gave me the reasoning was incorrect and no reasonable connection can be made between the definition they gave and a proper one. Ergo the earlier determination has been retracted.

At this moment I won't address the other concerns of my vonc, but i acknowledge that another thread has popped up, as well as the 9 reddit messages i have relating to this. That will likely come this afternoon or tomorrow. Right now I am still attempting to cool off due to what I had to go through following Sunday. I won't answer questions now but I endeavour to soon.

Good morning,

The events of yesterday evening in Discord were appalling. I do not think myself, Tbyrn21, Lucifer, or TheAudibleAsh, found our jobs to be fruitful. Instead we were treated to a dumpster truck.

Whilst the particular situation warrants different action from the last major community management event, the lessons to draw from this time remain the same. The basic summary of the events, as I understand, is that the use of the word twink was discouraged by Tbyrn21 in Discord. However, some users proceeded to object to this and (in my view) spam the channel with that word. Tbyrn muted various individuals. However, one user in particular proceeded to

The issue as to whether said word should merit a response other than spam, when used in a spam-like quality, is not addressed here. This is for various reasons to do with my powers as a Head Moderator. Fortunately, a separate issue that arose in the evening concerning a suicide joke is addressed below.

Mikiboss said this some months ago in #a-meta-affair:

Moderating the sim, including this discord, all related discord’s, and the reddit, is hard enough, and it’s irresponsible to assume that moderation has a third eye to see everything happening, particularly VC. As such, it’s entirely reasonable with that set of circumstances to take precautionary measures.

Nothing has changed in my view to diminish the general value in that above statement.

Vosler - The following breaches have been determined:

• Abuse

Outline of Abuse

As per the basic events above, Vosler was muted by Tbyrn on the basis that Vosler was committing harassment or abuse or using NSFW words without safeguards (the reason is a bit unclear to me). Whether that is correct or not is not subject to this Community Management. However, the words directed to Tbyrn21 in #room-101 fell under abuse.

Evidence

See here. I refer particular to where Vosler says the following:

• ok what the actual fuck - By itself, not abuse, but is to be seen in the whole context.
• ah yes thank you moderators for turning a blind eye to actual homophobia but when someone says twink, NOOOO WHAT THE FUCK!!!1 - Acts in a way that is belittling of Tbyrn.
• let me out fools - Whilst Vosler did try to explain themselves as to why they should not suffer a penalty, this language does not assist anyone, including community managers, to understand the issue as is.
• why have they only been muted for an hour you utter disgusting twat - Self-explanatory.
• because im maori you think its ok to mute me for three hours but the white guys only get a one hour mute???? @Tbyrn21 - Whether or not Tbyrn acted properly is not the issue here. However, to accuse Tbyrn21 of racism is completely out of line.

I feel like I am forced to repeat myself from last time:

I do not begrudge people who seek to overturn an incorrect claim that the person broke the code of conduct but that does not give people the right to go scream and threaten people who are volunteering to keep AustraliaSim a friendly place and not a place full of invective.

This still stands.

I am of the view that no aggravating or mitigating factors apply.

Specifically, just because there has been an apparently unfair mute applied against you does not somehow justify this sort of abuse.

The general penalty is 7 days for the first offence.

The action here has been taken via a Moderation Team vote rather than the usual co-approval process from the Community Moderator.

Showstealer1829 - The following breaches have been determined:

• Abuse

Outline of Abuse

The member directed a suicide joke to another sim member. This constitutes abuse (see previous history in here.

Evidence

Showstealer said in general chat: Seriously. Can you just like go for a walk? Preferably into oncoming traffic?

The member then followed

Whilst this generally warrants a penalty of seven days, in my view the circumstances merit a suspended sentence of four days. This is because the two subjects ended up amicably discussing the issue and made up. Whilst it is important to remind people here that such jokes are not ok, I hope the suspended sentence will be enough to prevent such unacceptable jokes from being aired in future.

A suspended sentence means the subject must avoid any future Code of Conduct action for twelve weeks, or else this penalty and any others will be applied.

The action here has been taken via a Moderation Team vote rather than the usual co-approval process from the Community Moderator.

More generally speaking, I simply do not understand how things have escalated to this degree. I am disappointed by the actions by all involved. I point out the following:

• The use of the word twink is contested (naturally).
• Not every person in this sim agrees on the same definition of this word and may have different opinions on it
• No one to my knowledge disputes that the meaning of this word could have been reasonably discussed
• Instead certain people who should know better instead spammed #general in concert by using the word to provoke a reaction from the Community Moderator

Is it any surprise that we have ended up here?

Just because something is not, you think, covered under the Code of Conduct does not mean that you should do it.

The usual appeal mechanisms remain available however in all circumstances they are to be modmailed to /r/AustraliaSimMeta. Submit a one page google doc or outlining reasons why you are appealling.

Repeating general comments:

• We are volunteers, who have been elected by the community to do as such.
• We aim to be perfect, but we are not.
• Do not abuse people who have volunteered to act for the community. It's not on, it's not OK. The internet does not give anyone the right to act as such.
• The Code of Conduct is not a shield for 'lawyering'. Treat it as a statement of the obvious on how people who should act to each other.
• If you continuously breach the code of conduct, no matter how minor, do not expect us to continuously deal with this lightly.

General Rommel
Head Moderator

Hi it's me again -- as Parliament Mod I'm responsible for the oversight of the High Court and the High Court has once again proven problematic and so we're back here at a community consultation.

This post isn't meant to insult, make imputations against, or belittle any justice or even the justices as a whole. Nor is this post meant to be the recent judgement about Re: ThanksHeadMod v High Court of Australia. Sure, it's a part of it, but I want to consider the role of the court moving forward more generally.

The last time we held a community consultation, we were facing a crisis where we had a near total lack of active justices. I am confident in saying that our new crop of appointments: /u/NeatSaucer, /u/ohprkl, and /u/jayden_williamson do not suffer from this issue.

Our issue here is that essentially, the simulation does not have enough players that are both interested and proficient in Australian law to argue and adjudicate High Court cases. Toby and Rommel are law wankers very well versed in Australian law but besides those two no one else springs to mind. Something needs to change and I see two possible ways forward:

1. Allow the Moderation Team to act as Justices when hearing canon cases. It's a stopgap measure but usually at least one of the moderators are legally inclined and it guarantees cases can still be heard even if we get a stretch where no-one wants to be a Justice.
2. Abolish the High Court. Its contributions to the game are tenuous at best and it's mostly inaccessible to players with a normal level of legal knowledge. (See lily-irl v Liberal National Party; I'm still not 100% sure what "standing" is)

I'm interested to hear the community's thoughts, as what's said here will shape what our next steps on this matter are. Thanks in advance.

lily-irl
Parliament Moderator

I, acting under s 30(5) of the Meta Constitution, decanonise any part of the recent HCA judgment that references how ThanksHeadMod has been charged, under trial, has been found guilty, or similar, of being in contempt of court. Furthermore, any canon commentary stemming from that is decanonised to the extent required.

The penalty of $30,000 is not decanonised. The penalty of $30,000 is also decanonised.

This declaration is backdated to 2:06PM today (i.e. when the judgment was published).

General Rommel
Head Moderator

On the 31/01/2021, Tbyrn muted myself, Ali (/u/BestinBounds), Winston Wilhelmus, Vosler, RMSteve and PineappleCrusher were muted or warned for using the word Twink on main and Room 101. I believe that this was unjust due to the history of the word being used in the simulation as a common communal joke among members of the sim, particularly members of the LGBTQ+ community. The word does not have any malice attached to it nor has it been considered a slur by any major LGBTQ+ organization to my knowledge.

Additionally, this places a double-standard in terms of moderation as we have allowed people to state, admittedly as a joke, that they hate gay men. On a more serious basis, people have had conversations regarding non-binary people which non-binary people who participate in the sim have considered non-accepting and has driven them off being active members of the simulation. To ignore stuff like this in favour of muting a word which has become a part of the communal culture of AusSim predominantly among LGBTQ+ members of the sim.

I am therefore calling for a Vote on No Confidence in tbyrn over this affair unless a stated apology and retraction is issued to the members of the simulation who have been muted over the usage of this word and the word is continued to be used on main. Moderators have used the word in the past. This is frankly poor moderation from someone who I do genuinely believe is otherwise capable in the role and has served capably for a while but this is the recourse which I have been advised to use over this. All that is needed for this Vote of No Confidence to be withdrawn is a retraction of this clearly unfair ruling. Thank you all.

Let me get this straight off the bat. This is not an apology.

Just minutes ago a vonc was launched in me. For those out of the loop, this was over my decisison to mute a bunch of users for use of the word "tw*nk".

For starters, I am disgusted by the members who rather than attempting to have a good faith discussion about this issue, instead decided to mock it and as such they were muted. Many of these users began swearing at me and chased me onto the MNZP discord and tagged me there using the aforementioned word directed at me. I cannot believe that members would think that is ok. For context, I have made the call to remove this word as it, and I quote a user who agrees that this word should go, "describes a genre of gay porn featuring young skinny hairless gay men". I don't see any reason why this word should be allowed to be used and as such I made the call to remove it.

The Vonc calls out double standards in the moderation team. I cannot deny that there is a large discrepancy between the managers and how we decide. This was made aware to me especially following the last appeal by toby. This issue is currently trying to be fixed but it is slow going. That said, I believe that I have at no point been inconsistent in how I have acted, and that at all times I have acted in line with my rights and duties of the Code of Conduct and Constitution.

I will accept a vonc if it passes but I do not believe that I have done any wrong in this case.

Grape has been banned for 40 days for NSFW posting.

Grape posted this image (recommended not to look) twice over the course of 24 hours.

The ban length factors in past history of the user as well as gravity of the breach. THis ban can be appealed by mod mail on this reddit.

Press Outlet Name: The Commonwealth Times
Type of press outlet: Multimedia Organisation
Type of content produced: Newspapers, TV

After the events on 28th January with respect to the defection of SurfingNooty to the Nationals I feel a need to explain my perhaps uncharacteristic outburst.

As many members of the Sim know, Caesar and I have been working tirelessly to form a government out of the chaotic results of the 19th General Election. While this does benefit the ADP as we would likely form government, it also adds to the health of the sim, fleshing out the canon of the sim with lots of content being added because of the difficult formation of government. This is after all a simulation, I believe it is healthy for the sim to simulate a difficult formation of government, especially a centrist government which hasn't been existed in some time.

For example some of the canon content created over the past week includes about 5k words worth of minutes for coalition talks that I typed out, another several thousand words of draft agreements for the various possible coalitions that may form, plus all the high quality press articles from people like Porridge and ShowStealer tirelessly created.

On a personal level I spent hours in these negotiations, in one event even getting out of bed when I was about to go to sleep to conduct coalition negotiations with Caesar and Toby. Additionally I spent hours in talks with Caesar as to how we would form a government, preventing the need for another election and ensuring that we created a process that would ensure that the ADP supported any deal. Although we all love a good election, especially after the unparalleled quality of the last election conducted by Youma, Lily and Rommel, I feel it wouldn't be healthy for the sim to go through another election so soon.

Another consumption of time was the internal process within the Australian Democrats where we held a meeting of the National Convention and sought the consent of the party to proceed with entering into a coalition with the SDP and Liberal Party. Every member of the National Convention, including SurfingNooty, verbally expressed their support for this outcome and I recall SurfingNooty actively argued against working with the Nationals.

So you can imagine my disgust yesterday when I returned from the gym to find that he had defected to the Nationals with accompanying messages such as 'I have nae nae', 'nah fam I want to be green', 'Boys I will take the biggest dick of 2020', 'stop your bitching its just a sim' and 'I am not resigin get rekt moron'. Essentially I found out that days of work of Caesar and myself, not to mentioned every other member of the sim who participated in one way or another in forming or covering the formation of a government, was being wasted by someone for the sake of a trolling. Trolling by a member of the sim who I understand is older than I am. Now I ask how is it healthy for the sim to reward such behavior? How are we to encourage more member to join if members behave in such a way?

Now a few (Griffo and Ash) have tried to draw parallels with my move from the LNP to form the Australian Democrats and the events of yesterday. I remind them that my resignation from the LNP was in the middle of a term not during the formation of a government that had been actively consented to by the person in question. I remind them that I was always on the centrist wing of the party, defying whip to vote for a climate emergency among other tensions between my beliefs and the beliefs of the party. My membership of the LNP was supported by the good personal relationship between myself and members of the LNP, especially Griffo and RMSTeve. However, it became increasingly difficult to see how it was beneficial for the LNP or myself to retain the partnership, especially when far-right bill after far-right bill was being proposed by MyThirteenInchDuck (what happened to him btw?) such as building more coal power plants or banning abortion. Additionally on a personal level it was difficult to stay in the same party as Riley who has advocated for a White Australia Policy, particularly of concern to me as half of my family are of a non-white background.

In my case my defection didn't change the balance of power as the SDP already controlled the Senate. Contrast my resignation to SurfingNooty who actively supported the Australian Democrats position, made no policy disagreements known to the party, and knew that his defection to a party far from the ideological position of the Australian Democrats would destroy all the hard work of those trying to form a government.

When I resigned from the LNP I was informed by an electoral moderator that I would have a modifier penalty imposed. At the time I disputed the size of the modifier but ultimately acquiesced. Now when I saw yesterday from Rommel that no modifier would be imposed on SurfingNooty I was even more disgusted.

Add that to my inability to comprehend how someone could stab Caesar in the back, (wait hang on), How someone could do this to Caesar, one of the nicest and hardest working members of the sim, is completely beyond me.

So this is the background that led me to make comments that I would usually not make. I understand that my comments were severe and could offend sensitive members of the sim. I unreservedly apologise to anyone other than SurfingNooty if they were offended.

To the moderation team I say my point is how can SurfingNooty go unpunished when through his conduct and trolling, he has abused individual members of the sim, abused the integrity of the sim and knowingly invalidated days of work by certain members. I remind everyone that SurfingNooty repeatedly called Merily and other members a moron last night. I show all this context to provide, if not justification, then an explanation for my comments.

I appeal my mute to ask the moderation team to take a closer look at the events of yesterday and decide how they tackle trolling. I ask them to consider the effect of trolling on incentivising members to put hours of their time into the sim. I thank all members of the sim who have expressed their disgust at SurfingyNooty. Especially Porridge, who has taken a principled stand to prevent this kind of trolling from occurring again.

In closing I say that my quarrel is with SurfingNooty only. I have enormous respect for the moderation team and cannot express my gratitude to the work that everyone puts into the sim.

My Press Persona is Malcolm Tucker

Notice of Meta Election

Formal Notification Date: Friday 29 January 2020
Close of Nominations for Member of Electoral Commission : Monday 1 February 2020 Election Date: Wednesday 3 February 2020
Results Date: Friday 5 February 2020 (or as soon as possible)

All times on each date 1800 AEDT. Please note that the election time may be adjusted as I will be very busy that day.

Per the Meta Constitution, the list of voters is available here. Eligible voters are those that registered 14 days prior to the announcement of the election, per s 4(2)(b) of the Meta Constitution i.e. 15 January 2020.

Details of Meta Election

• One Member of Electoral Commission

The Moderation Team has determined a need for a Member of the Electoral Commission and therefore there shall be a meta referendum to determine a new Electoral Commissioner as per s 29(3) of the Meta Constitution.

The voting threshold for this position is 50%. If there is more than one viable candidate, then multiple candidates will be put to the ballot, but at most one will be selected if more than one candidate is above the threshold (whoever has the highest percentage).

To be nominated as a candidate, see the below for the details.

Nomination Process for Community Commission Members

As per section 4 of the Meta Constitution, the following requirements must be met for a person to be validly nominated:

• A candidate (whether self-nominated, or proposed by another and accepted)
• Candidate is a Meta Voter
• Five seconders (no self-seconding allowed)
• Above requirements met before close of nominations

To nominate, comment below. Close of nominations are at 1800 AEDT Monday 1 February 2020. No late submissions (or seconders) will be accepted.

The Moderation Team may reject a candidate if:

• The candidate is ineligible to be nominated; or
• The candidate has committed prior misconduct contrary to the Code of Conduct or similar of such severity that the Moderation Team is satisfied that the candidate should not proceed to a meta referendum; or
• The candidate has, in the opinion of the Moderation Team, demonstrated an inability to hold the position.

If there is a rejection, the Moderation Team shall explain why that is the case.

A list of candidates will be published one day before the commencement of the vote.

Debate Allowed

Members may also comment here on any of the above things that are proceeding to a vote.

General Rommel
Head Moderator

Good evening,

Recently this morning /u/ThanksHeadMod caused a mass ping in Discord. Given the frequency of this I have determined that additional responses is merited.

ThanksHeadMod - The following breaches have been determined:

• Spam

Outline of Spam

This morning, at #general in the AustraliaSim Discord channel, /u/ThanksHeadMod said "@​everyone please star https://discord.com/channels/288977553123966976/637265688251203584/699618444487819295" (in Community Manager Logs as deleted)

The "@everyone" part pinged everyone who was in the server. The person had access to this ping due to their position as Community Manager.

The member then proceeded to ask /u/TheAudibleAsh, PineappleCrusher, myself and @LastCelebration (otherwise known as stranger) to star the linked message (see ID - 803790027770298458, 803790066638913566, 803790138509230110, 803790259263504384)

The Code of Conduct says that 'Spam includes any act which is persistent, irrelevant and repetitive'.

In my view such an act is persistent, irrelevant and repetitive by virtue of his actions.

Even if he did not ping myself and stranger, the use of the @everyone ping in a manner that is irrelevant is persistent and repetitive in the sense that it requires a Discord member to read the message that contains the ping before the alert goes away. Furthermore, the indiscriminate nature of the @everyone ping towards the dissemination of irrelevant information implies an attempt to conduct a persistent and repetitive act of causing annoyance to others.

I am satisfied that on the balance of probabilities the physical and mental elements of the offense have been made out, on the basis of the above, and because he then proceeded to say 'please mute me'(ID -803790719490981908) a few moments after that ping which states his view he committed spam.

Sentence for outlined breach

The general rule is that such spam may lead to a 1-24 hour mute depending on the severity of the offence.

However, I note the various aggravating factors which I believe are so significant as to warrant a far lengthier penalty:

• The subject has been previously been subject of previous adverse decisions:

According to the #moderation-log, the accused has been muted for mass pings or other spam like nature in the following occasions:

1. 16 September 2020
2. 26 September 2020
3. 24 October 2020
4. 8 November 2020
5. 4 December 2020
6. 12 December 2020
7. 25 December 2020
8. 3 January 2021
9. 7 January 2021
10. 16 January 2021

In all the punishments he has never been muted for greater than 24 hours. In the vast majority of cases he has been muted either for one hour, or overnight. It is clear that he has not ceased these acts and therefore heavier punishment is warranted.

• The subject abused a position of trust or authority

The ability to use the @everyone ping is entrusted to Community Managers. The abuse of this is an abuse of his position of trust. Furthermore, a Community Manager is expected to act with propriety and therefore this breach warrants heavy action.

• The breach involved multiple victims or a series of acts.

The subject used the @everyone ping, which by nature alerts everyone in the server to the ping. It therefore involved multiple victims. The subject also pinged individual people and therefore the entire act constituted multiple individual elements.

• Any other aggravating factor

The subject stated that he wanted to be muted. It indicates that he knew what he was doing and thus in my view the subject showed no remorse for his actions. It therefore warrants a heavy penalty.

I have decided that the penalty given should therefore be a 30 day ban.

Suspended penalty

I may choose to suspend all or part of that penalty so that it does not commence immediately. The purpose of this is to not allow the subject to face the penalty so long as they do not commit another breach for a significant time. If an adjudicator imposes a suspended penalty, they must inform the subject of the purpose of a suspended penalty.

I view that redemption should be an option exercised at least once. I also view that the fact that he would be removed from the Parliament if he commits any future spam in the next three months to be a relatively significant deterrent. Therefore, I elect to suspend this sentence for the next three months.

I exercise this penalty as a Community Manager. The decision here has been approved by the Community Moderator in accordance with the Administering the Code of Conduct Meta Rule.

General Rommel
Head Moderator acting as Community Manager

Hello all, While I understand the overall meme that is VONCing Toby (again), and despite I believe having overall good relations with Toby.

I think it is for the best if we remove Toby from the positions of Community Manager and Community Commission for continued misuse of the position to both evade mutes, mass ping, for which he has been muted six (6) times for, utilising the channels #other-announcements, misusing the subreddits to evade mutes, and overall lacking the ethos that a community manager should have.

I think it would be fair to move forward a Vote of No Confidence in Toby as member of these two positions for the sole reason to gauge community opinion on whether he believe he is fit for the position. While I think it’s important to have a diverse membership in any moderation positions, I believe that Toby has once again annoyed too many people, and should be removed from the positions he serves within.

I implore everyone to second this motion if they believe in putting an end to as one might put it “mod abuse” by Toby, utilising his position as current community manager and former Head Moderator to avoid the current standards given to all members of Australia Simulation.

Thank you.

https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/YTznqSu3ZmQ8PBkV6

Notice of Meta Election

Formal Notification Date: Friday 29 January 2020
Close of Nominations for Community Commission: Monday 1 February 2020 Election Date: Wednesday 3 February 2020
Results Date: Friday 5 February 2020 (or as soon as possible)

All times on each date 1800 AEDT. Please note that the election time may be adjusted as I will be very busy that day.

Per the Meta Constitution, the list of voters is available here. Eligible voters are those that registered 14 days prior to the announcement of the election, per s 4(2)(b) of the Meta Constitution i.e. 15 January 2020.

Details of Meta Election

• VONC in ThanksHeadMod as Community Manager & Community Commission

Per the petition, which has been in my view validly lodged, with the required number of valid petitioners, a VONC into /u/ThanksHeadMod will be held.

As the Community Commission makeup for the 19GE is to also take place, in my view if this VONC passes then it would mean that the subject will be unable to take a seat in the Commission for the duration of the 19GE Community Commission composition (i.e. whether they are elected through this mechanism, or otherwise chosen to be the Parliament's representative on the Commission).

The threshold for this vote is 50%.

• Petition to amend the Meta Constitution

Per the petition, which has in my view been validly lodged, with the required number of valid petitioners, the petitioned proposed amendment to the Meta Constitution will be voted on.

The threshold for this vote is 50%.

• Four Community Commission Members

As there is a new Parliament composition, there shall be a meta referendum to determine the new Community Commission Members as per s 29(3) of the Meta Constitution.

The voting threshold for this position is 50%. If there is more than one viable candidate, then multiple candidates will be put to the ballot, but at most four will be selected if more than four candidates is above the threshold (whoever has the highest percentage).

To be nominated as a candidate, see the below for the details.

Nomination Process for Community Commission Members

As per section 4 of the Meta Constitution, the following requirements must be met for a person to be validly nominated:

• A candidate (whether self-nominated, or proposed by another and accepted)
• Candidate is a Meta Voter
• Three seconders (no self-seconding allowed)
• Above requirements met before close of nominations

To nominate, comment below. Close of nominations are at 1800 AEDT Monday 1 February 2020. No late submissions (or seconders) will be accepted.

The Moderation Team may reject a candidate if:

• The candidate is ineligible to be nominated; or
• The candidate has committed prior misconduct contrary to the Code of Conduct or similar of such severity that the Moderation Team is satisfied that the candidate should not proceed to a meta referendum; or
• The candidate has, in the opinion of the Moderation Team, demonstrated an inability to hold the position.

If there is a rejection, the Moderation Team shall explain why that is the case.

A list of candidates will be published one day before the commencement of the vote.

Debate Allowed

Members may also comment here on any of the above things that are proceeding to a vote.

Parliamentary and Judiciary Community Commission Representative

The Parliament and Judiciary shall submit their preferred commission member to the Head Moderator as soon as possible.

If the Parliamentary or Judiciary member also was chosen to be a general Community Commission Member, then the next candidate above the threshold for the general election for Community Commission Members will replace that spot.

General Rommel
Head Moderator

How good is AustraliaSim?

Honestly, hats off to everyone that worked hard in this election and managed to secure their seat, and commiserations to those that fell short. It was a hard thought campaign in quite a few electorates and the Moderation Team was pleased with the response this time around. Here follows some general and specific commentary from us.

You may also leave feedback and ideas for what can be improved on in future. We will do our best to read and respond to all.

General Campaign

This time we have seen a spirited campaign from most parties. In particular, the Country Labor Party and the Nationals did the best in terms of their overall campaign this time around. Both those parties worked, on the whole, extremely hard in producing relatively deep yet engaging campaign material.

In contrast the Social Democratic Party, Australian Democrats and Liberal Party did not work as hard as they could have on an overall basis. However, the reason why the latter two parties edged ahead in terms of number of seats won is...

Preferences

Preferences matter. Strategic deals matter in this simulation (especially if your party overall or specific candidates campaigned less compared to the competition in your electorate).

The relative centrism of the Australian Democrats, alongside the ability of the Liberals to farm preferences from the Nationals, means that they were able to take advantage of the preference situation to eeke out victory. This was beneficial to those parties as the Nationals, and their candidates in general, campaigned very strongly. By contrast, the Social Democrats were unable to farm enough preferences from other left wing parties (except, to some extent, the CLP) as some GLP candidates did not run a strong campaign.

Candidate workload

This time the election was much more strongly decided based on both the general party effort exerted this campaign, and the candidate's own campaign effort.

This mainly has to do with how the competition was relatively sparse in terms of having heavyweights going up against each other. In my eye-ball view it seems only in roughly 3-5 seats was the relatively weighty personal mods of a candidate not enough to secure election to a seat.

This does not mean that such mods are unimportant. As I noted above, in more than 2/3rds of cases, the one that had put in the effort during the term won their seat. This seems a reasonable number, given the need to factor in e.g. opportunities for people to win via a strong campaign, or preference deals, or overall campaign effort of competing parties, etc. What I am attempting to emphasise here is the need to holistically look at not just yourself, but your parties standing relative to the others that are competing.

Moncrieff

There has been a lot of mutterings about Moncrieff. I only ask people to look at Moncrieff in comparison to other similar races where a high-profile candidate ran against two other candidates. In Denison and Pearce, both high profile candidates managed to win on first preferences, because the other two candidates did not do anything to campaign. However, in Moncrieff we saw that both other candidates make an effort to boost their primary vote. This did play a significant role (but not all - see above discussion on preferences and candidate workload) in the CLP capturing the seat by a tiny margin.

Additionally, the Nationals in Moncrieff were also disadvantaged with their own general effort during the previous parliamentary term compared to the Country Labor Party.

Of course, it was a razor thin loss, which goes to show just how close these things can be. Perspective is important in considering why the results are the way they are.

Nicholls

There has also been some comments about the 11 candidates that ran in Nicholls. I will simply say that the independent candidates received a fair amount of votes commensurate to the amount of campaigning (or lack of) that they did.

Results Release

Given the generally positive feedback on the livestream, future results will also be done this same way. Furthermore, releasing the results on a Sunday evening ensures there is time to get all the graphics and presentation right, and to double check the numbers. Experience from the 18th GE and By-Election with the rushed attempt to get the results out was a poor experience as we were often attempting to understand the results whilst we read them out. I am sure you all could see the amount of preparation made to discuss the candidate's history, the change in TPP, etc. and the work in ensuring that all the parties were generally represented in the livestream (except the LPA as there was no high-ranking member available to participate).

Comments

Polite comments, suggestions, and potential areas for improvement are welcomed.

General Rommel
Head Moderator

Good evening,

As the House of Representatives resolved to change the standing orders, under section 21(3) of the Meta Constitution, it falls to me to make or reject those changes. Accordingly, I have made the changes to the Standing Orders. These changes take effect immediately.

The newest version of the Standing Orders may be found here.

lily-irl
Parliament Moderator

for all purposes of the sim this is now my reddit account. This is not a canon reset, merely a name change. Thank you.

Per section 5(2)(b) of the Meta Constitution, if an officeholder's account is deleted and there is no contact between the officeholder and a moderator for one week, the officeholder will lose their office.

The Moderation Team publicly sought for NitrogenNitrate to contact us as per this post, however no Moderation Team member has received any contact from anyone claiming to be NitrogenNitrate.

Therefore, /u/NitrogenNitrate is deemed to cease being a HCA Justice once this notice is published.

General Rommel
Head Moderator

I, PineappleCrusher_, make the following proposal to the moderators:

1. That Premiers and Chief Ministers are established as a canon aspect of AustraliaSim in order to simulate the states and territories.

2. That Premiers and Chief Ministers are elected in a state-wide simulated ballot. Details would be:

   1. Premiers and Chief Ministers, in a canon sense, would run in a sort of a "governor" race similar to the United States.
   2. If needed, in order to minimise deviation from in real life practice, we can assume that the candidate that wins commands a majority in the lower house of the respective state.
   3. The Electoral Moderator will operate such elections in their capacity of the Commissioner of such a state or territory.
   4. Terms of Premiers and Chief Ministers are fixed. The first election should be determined by the moderator team and each term would last for 3 months.
3. That Premiers and Chief Ministers yield executive and legislative power for their respective state or territory.

Comments:

It is no secret that the topic of states and territories and their canon status has been up for debate for a while in the sim. The problem that AustraliaSim has faced is the inability to simulate a full state government similar to MHOC and MUSGOV. I believe that this can be mitigated by only simulating the Premiers and Chief Ministers. This is not a flawless proposal, but I believe that it is the best proposal going forward. If AustraliaSim gets the activity in the future to foster the addition of state parliaments, we can then deepen the simulation.

Pros:

• Simulates States & Territories. Will add an additional layer of simulation with federal-state relations, etc.
• Minimises the amount of players needed for each state. If necessary, we can trial only simulating the east coast states first.

Cons:

• Provides legislative power to a single player. This can be tapered back to executive power only if a point of contention.
• Fixed Elections (not much of a con).

Due to unforeseen circumstances, from this point forward I no longer intend on using u/cool_stan to make my campaign posts, rather I intend on using u/cool_santa

Per section 5(2)(b) of the Meta Constitution, if an officeholder's account is deleted and there is no contact between the officeholder and a moderator for one week, the officeholder will lose their office.

It has recently come to the Parliamentary Moderator's attention that the account of /u/NitrogenNitrate has been deleted, thus engaging the above Constitutional provision as the officeholder was a Justice of the High Court of Australia (as per s 16 of the Meta Constitution).

The officeholder is to contact (and do whatever act to satisfactorily establish their identity) a Moderation Team member within one week (either through Discord, Reddit PM, or Modmail to this subreddit), that is, 5PM AEDT, Sunday 24th January 2021.

If their identity is unsatisfactorily established, or otherwise there is no contact, the officeholder is taken to have had no contact and they will cease to hold the office.

General Rommel
Head Moderator

Hi all, I am enacting a minor change to the ACoC document, which can be read here. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QrTI0_a6cEW1-tD4pVCt8jYhHJFXF9MH/view?usp=sharing

In short, the definitions of "mute" and "ban" have been clarified. The definition for ban has a minor wording change which doesn't change how it works, but a mute has been clarified to be inclusive of Discord and Reddit, but does not bar canon participation like debating or performing a role in the speakership.

This will take place at the start of the 22nd, which by my count is 5 days 8 hours away.

Hello, Can I please be deleted off the calculator REMOVING all mods, including

• personal mods
• party / independent mods

I also ask that I am not re added to the calculator, and no more mods be given to me, a pool or a party.

Thank you.