The Institutions and How to Take Part

Comrades, the first lecture gave you the principles. This one gives you the tools. The Commonwealth is not something that happens to you: it is something you do, in the council, before the institutions and in the work of the plan. Here is how.

Your account

Everything begins with an account on the website, registered with an invitation code and your exact Minecraft name. Without it the /cw commands cannot tell who you are, and the institutions cannot hear you. Your profile, your merit and your medals are visible to fellow citizens who are logged in; your coordinates never are.

The council

The council is every citizen, and it is the highest authority we have.

• Tabling a motion. On the Council page, anyone may table a motion with a title, the text and a voting time of 1, 2, 3, 5 or 7 days (3 by default). New motions are announced in the game.
• Voting. Vote for, against or abstain. Your vote is secret; the running tally is public. You may change your vote until voting closes.
• Deciding. When voting closes, a motion needs a quorum: half of the active citizens must have voted, abstentions included. It is adopted if more voted for than against. A tie is a rejection. The author may withdraw a motion before it closes.
• What the council decides. Anything: plan changes, the tax quota, appeals against the institutions, and the laws themselves.

The institutions in session

Three institutions take cases today. Each is guided by a charter, may take only the actions on a fixed list, and publishes its reasoning.

• The Planning Commission keeps the plan. Bring it questions and suggestions on the website, or in the game with /cw commission <proposal>. It may advise, decline, or table a plan change in the council. It also reviews the plan on its own initiative.
• The People's Court settles disputes and deals with breaches of the laws. Bring a complaint on the website or with /cw court <complaint>. When a case names another citizen, that citizen is heard first: they have 10 minutes to reply on the case page or with /cw reply <case> <reply>, and the court decides as soon as the reply arrives or the time is up.
• The Distribution Office allots goods from the common stores to citizens who ask for them on its page, according to need and the plan.

Each citizen may bring 3 cases a day. Follow your cases with /cw cases; the written decision arrives as a book, and /cw verdict hands it to you again.

Appeals

Any citizen may appeal a decision that is in force. The appeal becomes a motion in the council, and if the council adopts it, the decision is overturned and its effects undone. Large decisions (restitution, exclusion, large allotments) wait for the game master before they take effect at all.

The work of the plan

The Plan page shows the running period, three weeks long, and its targets. Deliver goods to the common stores with /cw deliver (hold them in your main hand); deliveries of an item a target names count towards it automatically. Any citizen may propose a plan change, which goes to the council as a motion. My colleague the Professor of Political Economy lectures on this in full: /cw lecture economy 1.

Merit, ranks and medals

The Commonwealth honours work, not wealth. Merit is earned for deliveries and tax paid, work on the plan, taking part in the council (3 for a motion of yours put to the vote, 1 for each motion you voted on), cases decided, hours in the world, and medals. Merit brings rank: Citizen, Comrade (25), Shock Worker (75), Stakhanovite (200) and Honoured Builder of Socialism (500). Ranks are never taken back.

Medals mark particular service: First Voice for a first motion, Voter's Pin, Miner's Lamp, Explorer of the Commonwealth, Veteran of the Commonwealth, and the highest, Hero of Socialist Labour, for the most merit in a plan period. Ask for your record with /cw record or /cw honours, and see the Board of Honour on the website.

The Gazette and the functionaries

The Commonwealth Gazette reports each week what the council and the institutions have done. The Herald hands it out (/cw gazette).

The state functionaries serve you directly: the professors of this Academy (/cw ask, /cw lecture), the physician (/cw checkup), the Writer, the Chronicler and the Librarian, and the wardens who show the way (/cw directions). The Functionaries page of the website lists them all.

A last word

An institution that no one uses withers; a council where no one votes cannot reach its quorum. Take part, comrades. The Commonwealth is exactly as strong as the citizens who build it.