I suppose I should ask for a ministerial badge for our new Ministry.

The Let's Make This Official As Well Bill

WHEREAS the Kingdom recognizes the importance of celebrating important dates and events in Talossan history, and

WHEREAS the Republican schism of June 1 2004, as the act of defiance that sparked the movement leading to the abdication of a tyrannical King and the restoration of democracy in the Kingdom, was an incredibly important moment in the history of Talossa; and

WHEREAS parity of esteem for the Republican tradition in Talossa requires that this day deserves equal honour to the day of Reunision, and an acknowledgement that the history of the Talossan Republic should a matter of pride for all Talossans;


Therefore be it resolved that a new subsection is placed at El Lexhatx F 2.4, with any necessary renumbering of following subsections, to read:

Quote1 June. Democracy Day. Commemorating the foundation of the Talossan Republic as a day to honour democracy and the popular will, for both Republican and Monarchist traditions.

an official announcement from the Ministry of STUFF

Talossan ID cards, based on the designs below, are now available for all citizens who can pass a 20-question Civics Test on Talossan history, culture and other law. All the answers to this question can be found no more than 1 click away from the front page of TalossaWiki.




To take the Civics Test:

Here's how it works:
1) volunteers send to the Minister of STUFF (i.e. me) an email address by PM (or via Facebook if you know me there);
2) I "enrol" you on the quizglobal.com website;
3) you go to quizglobal.com, log in, and you should be taken right to the test.

Once you pass the test (defined as 16/20 correct answers), the Deputy Minister of STUFF will contact you to get all the details needed to print your ID card.

In the run-up to the 57th Cosa Budget, MinTech has been looking at the domain names we currently hold, apart from of course talossa.com:

kingdomoftalossa.com
kingdomoftalossa.org
kingdomoftalossa.net
talossa.net
talossan.com

The first three redirect straight back to the main website. The Government has already signalled our interest in closing down the barely-used talossa.net social networking site. The last domain name leads to an out-of-date website on the national language which confuses a lot of people - does anyone remember who actually runs it? I have a sinking feeling it might be former citizen Sevastáin Pinátsch.

The Cabinet's draft decision is that these domain names are no longer worth holding onto, in light of the above - but it seems good to get public consultation on the issue.

In accordance with the Government's manifesto commitment to "simplify Talossan statute law as much as possible, repealing obsolete provisions", please post your suggestions to parts of El Lexhatx that we don't need in this thread. Suggestions for "parts we do need, but could stand to be simplified" are also accepted.

The hopefully-incoming Coalition Government has listed as one of this priorities "organising a campaign to bring TalossaWiki up to date".

I am happy to announce that our old friend @Lüc da Schir - in his previous Talossan existence, one of the leading TalossaWiki contributors - has agreed to produce a report on what needs to be done in this regard. I'm calling on volunteers at this point for an informal "Wiki Team" under Lüc's guidance and with official sanction to do the necessary editing work. Who's up for it?

Quote from: Antonio Montagnha, Ed. D. on April 24, 2022, 10:49:08 AM
Or calling someone stupid, or going after their mental health therapy...

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on April 23, 2022, 04:46:14 PM
I'm pretty sure that there's no way to make "being a jerk" or "acting in bad faith" or "accusing people of being bullies for calling you out for being a jerk" illegal, nor should it be in a free society. I don't want to live in a society where everything that's legal is considered socially acceptable, though.

Indeed. The question then becomes: how do we pull Talossans back in line when they go over the edge of civil discourse?

The whole problem is similar to that that pertains in the United States: one side will excuse any bad behaviour if it's done by their political allies. This means that moderation of Wittenberg is totally politicised. Both sides will support the Wittenberg death penalty for the least snarky comment from their opponent ("JUST STOP BULLYING ME!!!", they'll shriek), whereas any pushback on their own slander and personal abuse will be met with pearl-clutching about freedom of speech.

My own "Thunderdome" proposal - not deleting angry and nasty posts, but moving them to a separate forum where they could be engaged with or ignored - was trialled, but failed because people refused to respect the moderator's decisions in that regard. The problem in Talossa is there are no effective sanctions on bad behaviour that both political sides will endorse - or even an agreed definition of what "bad behaviour" is.

I wonder if that can be fixed, or whether we're in a situation of "our miéida doesn't stink" - i.e. one side will never admit to going too far in their political invective, or will always argue that whatever they do is justified. And we can't have impartial moderation because there's no "referee" whom both sides will respect and trust and whose decisions they will abide by.

I wish more of you old Republicans were still around and active.  :(

The four sitting CpI judges are Senior Judge Cjantscheir, Judge V. Marcianüs, Judge I. Perþonest, and Judge O. Edwards. I think someone's forgetting the last one on that list, or getting confused and thinking T. dal Nordselva is still on the bench.

Okay-dokey, skips! The Talossan Civics Test is now set up on the quizglobal.com platform. And we need playtesters before we make it an official part of the "getting an ID card" scheme.

Here's how it works:
1) volunteers send me an email address by PM (or via Facebook if you know me there);
2) I "enrol" you on the quizglobal.com website;
3) you go to quizglobal.com, log in, and you should be taken right to the test.

Clear as mud? Go for it. I think if we get 10 users of the test and no-one finds any problems, we're good to go?

WHEREAS 56RZ10, The Small OrgLaw Amendment (Dignity of the Túischac'h) Act copy-pasted (with a few amendments) the current El Lexhatx H.17 into the OrganicLaw as IV.12;

AND WHEREAS this bill was also meant to subsequently delete H.17 from El Lexhatx as superfluous;

AND WHEREAS through a catastrophic failure by both the bill's author and the CRL, it instead deleted H.21, a completely unrelated section concerning Living Cosas;

1. El Lexhatx H.17 is hereby deleted in its entirety.
2. El Lexhatx H.21 is hereby restored in its entirety as the following text:

Quote21. The Cosa may hold living Cosas during subsequent Clarks by a vote of the Cosa naming the specific month in which the event is to take place. The exact date and location of the Living Cosâ shall be set by the Seneschál after consultation with all relevant parties. All members must receive two weeks notice of the date of the Living Cosâ. The Seneschál may, if events warrant, issue a PD authorizing a Living Cosâ in the following calendar month. Such a PD may be vetoed (in addition to normal means) by a formal protest to the Secretary of State by Members of the Cosâ comprising one-third or greater the number of elected seats in the Cosâ.
   
21.1 Members who cannot attend will not be denied the right to vote on that month's Clark. They may send their votes to the Secretary of State by any means feasible, so that they can be announced at the Living Cosâ. A member may, in writing, delegate his authority to vote (temporarily transfer his seats) to another person who can attend the Living Cosâ, but no individual may hold more than thirty seats, counting both proxy and permanently assigned seats, for purposes of the Living Cosâ. The Ziu may provide by law, without needing to go through committee, for quorum requirements, and for attendance via telephone, videoconference, or other remote means.
   
21.2 Votes presented to the Secretary of State after the Living Cosâ will not be counted in the final tally. The final tally of votes on all bills is taken at the end of the Living Cosâ.

21.3 New bills, or amendments, may not be presented at the Living Cosâ. No bill not published in the Clark may be debated. Clarks will be published on schedule as usual.
   
21.4 Senators shall be permitted to participate in Living Cosâ debates on the same terms as MCs, but may not delegate or exercise proxy votes.

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on January 25, 2022, 02:10:08 PM
I mean, the way the rules are written is that the CRL only has to look at a bill once, no matter how many times it's amended after that. Do people think we should change things so that they have to sign off on the final to-be-Clarked bill?

Imagine being a Ukranian Talossan and finding out this is the logo of the Royal Bodyguard:



Of course, we had it first, but the association with war crimes is worse than embarrassing right now.

There is a recurring pattern in Talossa - increasingly so in recent years as we have become a bigger and more technologically sophisticated nation. I name it Infrastructure Abandonment, though surely there's a better name for it than that.

The cycle goes like this:

• A Talossan, let's call them Txec Bloggescù, with certain technical or specialist skills takes on a project, and sets up an "infrastructure" for this purpose. This might be a tech set up, a particular legal framework, or an "aesthetic theme". The crucial thing is that it takes particular skills which are not universally shared to maintain this infrastructure.
• Txec Bloggescù runs out of energy, loses interests, has better things to do in their life, and has to leave the project behind.
• The problem happens where there is no successor with the same skills, who can operate the infrastructure, to keep the project going. If it's a personal vanity project, nothing is lost. But if it's - for example - now a vital piece of Talossan life, the whole nation is in trouble.
  

This happens again and again. Current examples:

• The National Database. This is the big one at the moment. MPF set it up; only MPF can really operate it. MPF still cares about Talossa but has many better things to do with his life right now. You have seen the Secretary of State complaining about how unflexible and hard to "steer" the Database is, and is considering just abandoning it for the upcoming Seneschal election.
• The National Webspace. One of the big achievements of the "FreeDem" era of government was to nationalise all our websites under our own administration. Which assumes we have someone to administer it - someone who can find their way around a cPanel setup, for example. My problem right now, as incoming (temporary, I hope) Minister of STUFF and Technology is that my predecessor, Eðo, filled the talossa.com Wordpress backend with all manner of plugins and additional features which I neither understand the use of nor no how to operate. I think talossa.com is drastically "over-specced", hard to maintain properly, and needs to be downsized. But I really hope that I can get advice from tech-nerds on how to do that.
• Any number of legal provisions in El Lexhatx which sit idle because no-one wants to do anything with them, or don't have the grasp of "legalese" required to fix them.
• A couple of examples from the Fiovan Provincial Chancery. My predecessor in the Fiova SoS role, Üc Tärfa, set up a fancy scheme in Wiki markup to track bills and decisions of the Fiovan General Assembly. It is a good thing that the GA has been very quiet over the last few years, because I can't make head or tail of that coding and I don't know how to update it properly! But conversely: I realised that, when I step aside from the role, I had better hope my successor understands the provisions for Single Transferable Vote elections to the Prasidïeu that I wrote. They're pretty clear for electoral-politics nerds, but might as well be Klingon to anyone who doesn't know what a Droop quota is.

Do others get what I'm talking about in this vein? We have to set a standard that Talossan infrastructure should never be so complex that rank amateurs can't take over, if necessary.

Our current system, which works great in its own terms IMHO, is that the Seneschal is elected only by a special Clark at the beginning of each new Cosa.

What if the Seneschal disappears or is run over by a Ukrainian tractor towing a Russian tank in the meantime? Then the Distáin takes the role. But what if the Distáin were to disappear too? Or no Distáin were appointed due to a screw-up?

The obvious answer would be: a No vote on the VoC leading to an early election. And a possible Government vacuum for more than two months?

A possible solution: "if the Seneschalsqab becomes vacant and the Distain does take the role (or there is no Distain), a Seneschal Suffect may be nominated by petition of 2/3 of the Cosa seats to the Secretary of State and confirmed by the King, to act on behalf of the Seneschal for the remainder of the term. This appointment shall take effect two weeks after receipt of the petition unless the Seneschal reappears."

Comment? I put 2/3 in there to make it more of an emergency situation than just bringing down the Govt on the VoC.

All the FreeDem efforts to reform the monarchy in the last several Cosas have run aground on the Royal Veto.

It needs 3/4 of the Cosa to override a Royal Veto on the Organic Law.

The Free Democrats and the Talossan National Congress between them have 154 seats in the Cosa; more than 3/4.

Therefore, any monarchy reform that the FreeDems and TNC agree on will pass, no matter what the King thinks.

The TNC has rudely dismissed both the Compromise proposals raised by the FreeDems - for no reason that has been explained, apart from personal attacks on Miestra Schiva.

Therefore, perhaps best if a successful proposal does not come from Miestra Schiva?

The challenge is this: if the TNC raises a bill for some kind of monarchy reform in the 57th Cosa, the FreeDems will look seriously at it and hope to be able to support it.

Monarchy reform is possible if the TNC and FreeDems agree on one. The ball is therefore now in the TNC court.

It should be abundantly clear what I expect to happen from here: that no proposal will come, because the TNC is almost entirely composed of conservative monarchists who will never support any monarchy reform ever ever ever, and the TNC's 50 word statement was disingenuous. But I allow for the possibility of pleasant surprise.

Quote from: Glüc da Dhi S.H. on April 02, 2022, 07:44:10 AM
I actually thought the final compromise bill was a solid proposal in the end, so Im slightly disappointed it is now declared dead.

Well, the Free Democrats will repropose it on the first Clark. The TNC and Dien will almost undoubtedly vote against it, but that's their look-out. We still have a majority in the Cosa for reform; but under our existing system that's not enough. I don't have the energy to fight for a compromise any more myself.

Total turnout: 14
Quota needed for election: 14/4 + 0.01 = 3.51

First Preference votes:

@Miestra Schiva: 9
@Gödafrieu Valcádac'h: 4
Bradley Higgs: 1

Miestra Schiva and Gödafrieu Valcádac'h elected on first count. Further counts to follow via software.

La C'hronica Martă XLIII / March 2022

COSA ELECTION IN FULL SWING
Campaigning heats up on Wittenberg, on social media and via direct mail with one week to go in the election for the 57th Cosa. Cast your vote at https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?topic=857.0

THE TALOSSAN RENAISSANCE?
Talossa always becomes more active culturally around election time, and this year is no exception. Check out the following:

• New Talossan media venture "Fora Talossa": https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?topic=1168.0
• TNC leader discusses making the Haxh to the GTA: https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?topic=1125.0
• Talossan Football Association "fictional league" season opens: https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?topic=1176.0
• Would you buy tickets in the Talossan National Lottery? https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?topic=1259.0
• Check out new developments in the Royal Society (https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?board=19.0) and the College of Arms (https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?board=20.0), if you're interested in that sort of thing

MODERATION IS SERIOUS BUSINESS
Free Democrat Açafat dal Vál takes TNC leader Brenéir Tzaracomprada to court over deleting some of his posts. WARNING: this first Cort case in Talossa for years makes for heavy reading in parts. https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?topic=1231.0

EIGHT IS ENOUGH? OR TOO MANY
Debate rages over whether Talossa's provinces should merge. Here's a thread of thoughtful debate: https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?topic=161.0

SLAVA UKRAINI, HEROIAM SLAVA
The Government of Talossa made a donation to the Ukrainian Red Cross: https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?topic=1165.0

IMMIGRATION NEWS
Caleb Frenibuerg became a Talossan citizen (https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?topic=1156.30), celebrating in the traditional manner by becoming a Cosa candidate..

The prodigals return! Former Seneschal Lüc da Schir reclaims his Talossan citizenship after a nearly two-year absence (https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?topic=1252.0), as does Antonio Montagnha, former citizen of the Talossan Republic (https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?topic=1253.0)

Other new applications for Talossan citizenship are Cameron Koehler, John Seals, Shrayan Bose, Tomas Cussa, Cenk Lüleci, and Holly Fabian
(https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?board=2.0)
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La C'hronica is the monthly news summary provided by the Ministry of Stuff, for the enlightenment and interest of Talossan citizens and all other interested parties.

I check Witt using the "recent posts" feature. This shows 10 pages, no more, of the most recent posts. Today is, I believe, the first time ever that these 10 pages have not been sufficient to catch me up on everything that happened in the 16 hours or so since I last checked.

And it's all down to the superb (?) efforts of one FreeDem from Florencia :o