Bill: Vote Bedrock Inclusivity Act

[.CaldironJa1]

A
BILL
To​

Amend the Constitution

The people of the Commonwealth of Redmont, through their elected Representatives in the Congress and the force of law ordained to that Congress by the people through the constitution, do hereby enact the following provisions into law:

1 - Short Title and Enactment

(1) This Act shall be cited as the “Bedrock Inclusivity Act.”
(2) This Act shall take effect immediately upon its signage and ratification as an amendment to the Constitution.
(3) This Act has been authored by: Representative CaldironJa1
(4) This Act has been co-sponsored by Senator 1950minecrafter and Representative Smami


2 - Reasons

(1) Many citizens of the Commonwealth access the world through limited platforms, such as Bedrock Edition, which may restrict their ability to interact, work, vote, or participate equally in public life.
(2) Inclusion and belonging are essential to the democratic, social, and economic fabric of Redmont, and no citizen should be disadvantaged because of their method of access.
(3) The Commonwealth shall affirm its commitment to universal accessibility, platform parity, and equal civic participation, ensuring that all residents can enjoy their full rights, benefits, and duties as citizens.
(4) The Government shall actively promote and maintain inclusive policies, features, and opportunities that ensure equal participation of all players, and shall strive to reduce or remove accessibility barriers through affirmative measures, outreach programs, and platform-friendly adaptations alternatives.
(5) Transparency and awareness are vital to accessibility; therefore, all accessibility measures, adaptations, and alternatives shall be publicly communicated through clear notices, signage, or official channels to ensure citizens are informed of available assistance and accommodations.


3 - Amendment

(1) §32 of the Constitution shall be amended to include a new subsection as follows:

(18) All citizens shall enjoy access to core public services, participation, and representation, without discrimination against them due to the supported edition of the game through which they access the Commonwealth. When technical limitations may impair the ability of the Commonwealth to provide equal treatment for individuals using different editions of Minecraft regarding these core items, the Commonwealth shall provide reasonable accommodations or alternative means to guarantee such access. These accomondations or alternative means must be communicated through clear and accessible channels.

 

[Smami]

Aye, for a couple reasons:

1. Bedrock players are often treated as an afterthought by departments. Systems are designed pretty much entirely for our java player base with few alternatives for bedrock players to interact with those same systems. While it can certainly be said that it's mostly a staff/technical issue that these systems don't work for some players, there is no reason that departments shouldn't be expected to provide functional alternatives that work for all players.

2. Some issues I've heard revolving around this bill are concerns that we "wouldn't be able to have x feature" if this were passed, and while I understand the concern, this is not an issue that would be presented. There is nothing in the bill that states that *all systems* have to work for *all players*. The wording of this amendment is specifically so that all that must be required is that everyone is able to interact with and obtain public services. This can include simply offering alternative ways to interact with things, such as having an alternative out-of-game way to fill our forms and surveys from the DoE and DoS.

Overall I believe this is necessary and important to ensure inclusion of all of our players on all platforms.

 

[Franciscus]

Nay.

Two main issues:

1. Section 18’s “version of the game” and “any other technical limitation” is extremely broad. Is it a technical limitation if one’s device is so old that it cannot actually run server-supported Minecraft versions? Do we need to really accommodate Minecraft Pocket Edition (yes, it can connect to the server)? Are custom music discs and custom items that render weirdly in Bedrock—or any item that renders weirdly in a version other than the earliest game version that the staff team wishes to support—now unconstitutional?
2. Section 19 provides a wide and sweeping obligation on the Commonwealth to make everything clear and easy-to-access. This is good, as a principle, but as a constitutional clause it opens up tremendous litigation risk every time someone finds something unclear or non-trivial to access.

The principles and intent behind this act are good. If we have a server that allows people from both Bedrock and Java to play, we should strive for parity of user experience. But technical limitations will exist — it is much, much easier to do custom server-side things in Java. This does not make compliance impossible—we could just remove all these items—but I don’t want the only viable means of compliance here to be that we have to remove a ton of custom items related to plugins that for technical reasons can’t work in bedrock.

If we could get more specificity, I could move from Nay to Aye. Things like the voting interface have caused problems and we definitely come short on feature parity in ways that technical solutions could fix. I regrettably don’t have as much time as I would like to get an amendment up on this swiftly, but I would encourage the House to amend this bill to reflect a more narrowed and measured approach.

 

[Smami]

Nay.

Two main issues:

1. Section 18’s “version of the game” and “any other technical limitation” is extremely broad. Is it a technical limitation if one’s device is so old that it cannot actually run server-supported Minecraft versions? Do we need to really accommodate Minecraft Pocket Edition (yes, it can connect to the server)? Are custom music discs and custom items that render weirdly in Bedrock—or any item that renders weirdly in a version other than the earliest game version that the staff team wishes to support—now unconstitutional?
2. Section 19 provides a wide and sweeping obligation on the Commonwealth to make everything clear and easy-to-access. This is good, as a principle, but as a constitutional clause it opens up tremendous litigation risk every time someone finds something unclear or non-trivial to access.

The principles and intent behind this act are good. If we have a server that allows people from both Bedrock and Java to play, we should strive for parity of user experience. But technical limitations will exist — it is much, much easier to do custom server-side things in Java. This does not make compliance impossible—we could just remove all these items—but I don’t want the only viable means of compliance here to be that we have to remove a ton of custom items related to plugins that for technical reasons can’t work in bedrock.

If we could get more specificity, I could move from Nay to Aye. Things like the voting interface have caused problems and we definitely come short on feature parity in ways that technical solutions could fix. I regrettably don’t have as much time as I would like to get an amendment up on this swiftly, but I would encourage the House to amend this bill to reflect a more narrowed and measured approach.

Respectfully, this is quite an uncharitable explanation of this bill and misunderstands what it says. As stated above, this bill is only writing about public services and would in no way affect things such as custom blocks (which are obviously not a public service.)

I also don't think anybody would ever interpret this to mean that versions that *aren't supported by the server* must be accommodated for. That is both outside the scope of government and comes across as intentionally misreading the words on the bill.

 

[girlfailcoded]

To respond to @Franciscus' concerns, the amendment explicitly only applies to "public services, participation and representation". The effects this will have on departments will likely take the form of requiring alternative forms of participation that work for bedrock players.

 

[Imza]

Vote records prior to the revote.

 

[Franciscus]

I am happy with the amendments that are made here. The bill has become much more tailored to the issues it was seeking out to solve, and the undesirable knock-on effects are removed in this version. I therefore vote Aye.