New Citizens Information Packet

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

It has been my opinion since ages ago that new Talossan citizens no longer know exactly how to "be Talossan" when they immigrate. When I became Talossan way back when, you actually had to buy at least one hard-copy book on Talossan history and culture (written by KRI and full of lies, but with basic facts in there as well) and pass a test on it to make sure you knew what you were doing.

So I would like to open this question for public input. What should be in a Packet given to all new immigrants explaining in as basic terms as possible how Talossa works and how they can contribute?

I would especially like input from @Tric'hard Lenxheir, who I believe was the last person to actually become a citizen. But older citizens might want to think back in time about how they were helped to become Talossan.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

It has been my opinion since ages ago that new Talossan citizens no longer know exactly how to "be Talossan" when they immigrate. When I became Talossan way back when, you actually had to buy at least one hard-copy book on Talossan history and culture (written by KRI and full of lies, but with basic facts in there as well) and pass a test on it to make sure you knew what you were doing.

So I would like to open this question for public input. What should be in a Packet given to all new immigrants explaining in as basic terms as possible how Talossa works and how they can contribute?

I would especially like input from @Tric'hard Lenxheir, who I believe was the last person to actually become a citizen. But older citizens might want to think back in time about how they were helped to become Talossan.

The New Citizen's Guide on the wiki is probably a good place to start. http://wiki.talossa.com/TalossaWiki:New_Citizen%27s_Guide

[Tric'hard Lenxheir]

I personally believe new immigrants should be given basic instruction on how the government works on both the national and provincial levels. At times I think I understand and then something happens that leaves me totally confused. I was encouraged to become involved as a way of understanding but that seems to have backfired a bit for me (maybe i'm just not smart enough). I also think it needs to be made clear that while having fun is important there are also times when one should be more serious. Some people seem to think this nation is just a joke (even a few of the older citizens). As an example I was placed into a province that as near as I can tell has a population of 3, after participating in my first national election we were allowed to claim a seat in the provincial government which i proudly did, and almost immediately I was placed into a position of leadership as Premier, I know nothing of what I am supposed to do in this position, I read the provincial constitution and still don't really understand. This makes me believe my fellow provincial citizens think of the position as a joke as I was told I am overthinking things. The other thing I find difficult and really feel it is probably my own stupidity is the language...I honestly don't even know how to pronounce my own name LOL This probably isn't much help but I typed a lot so it probably looks good...right???

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

I honestly don't even know how to pronounce my own name LOL

tree-KHARD len-JAIR

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

I was placed into a province that as near as I can tell has a population of 3, after participating in my first national election we were allowed to claim a seat in the provincial government which i proudly did, and almost immediately I was placed into a position of leadership as Premier, I know nothing of what I am supposed to do in this position, I read the provincial constitution and still don't really understand. This makes me believe my fellow provincial citizens think of the position as a joke as I was told I am overthinking things.

Okay, I've read the threads on the Vuode forum, and there seems to have been something of an miscommunication.

Your provincial co-citizens, V and Eðo, were encouraging you to take on leadership, but what it looked like is that you were worried about getting it wrong somehow. They were trying to reassure you that provincial politics are very low stakes in Talossa, so it didn't really matter what you did. But you took the opposite way, it seems - if it doesn't matter what you do, why should you do anything?

I think what V and Eðo were trying to encourage you to do is to use your initiative, to do exactly whatever you felt like doing as Premier of Vuode. The idea is that any activity - especially from newcomers - is good and to be applauded. But I see how the reassurance that "it doesn't matter what you do" could, conversely, discourage you from doing anything.

The one thing you actually did - proposing a Provincial Bird - was precisely the kind of thing that we encourage people to do. I think perhaps the message should be broadcast to newcomers: any activity is better than none. However, it's worth all of us considering that perhaps Talossa's "open world" feature doesn't provide "quests" for people who immigrate without a strong agenda of what they wanted to do. In the past, people have suggested a set "course of activities" for new citizens which would earn them some kind of decoration or junior knighthood at the end. Would that have been preferable?

Can I turn the question around, though? What did you expect from Talossa when you applied to be a citizen?

[Tric'hard Lenxheir]

I thought it would be a combination of having fun and also being fairly serious. I thought there would be a learning curve of some sort. I guess my biggest concern is my lack of language skills (I'm referring to English not necessarily Talossan) as it was suggested that i write up the "Provincial bird" as a bill and I lack the legal language skills to do so and I have read many bills proposed in the Hopper and they all seem fairly serious and are worded in "legalese" I keep thinking of trying to write something up and it all comes out sounding stupid. As I said before maybe I am just not smart enough. 

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

Part of the issue with Talossan law is that we actually have several citizens who are lawyers in a "real" jurisdiction, or otherwise have some legal training. What you call "legalese", but they would call "precise language" or something like that, became necessary once Talossan lawyers became skilled at finding ambiguities and mistakes in laws written by just average schmoes having fun. In turn, this feeds into our continuous political strife - when people from X party find out that they can wreck the Y party's activities because the law authorising them was written by an amateur, of course they do so.

So the bills proposed in the Hopper tend to be as legalese as we can make them just to stop high-powered lawyers out there knocking holes in them. But, as V and Eðo were I think trying to tell them, the stakes are far, far lower at Provincial law. I mean, if you want a learning curve, there it is - the only way to learn how to write law is to start doing it, at Provincial level where the shark-lawyers aren't circling.

Let's hope the day never comes when you actually have to be smart to be a Talossan!

[GV]

It has been my opinion since ages ago that new Talossan citizens no longer know exactly how to "be Talossan" when they immigrate...

I would especially like input from @Tric'hard Lenxheir, who I believe was the last person to actually become a citizen. But older citizens might want to think back in time about how they were helped to become Talossan.

We can start by putting a link at the top of Witt to this page: http://wiki.talossa.com/TalossaWiki:New_Citizen%27s_Guide - I've made a few judicious edits.

Note I'm completely reorganizing and updating www.libraryoftalossa.com - uploading the Wiki backup files to that gmail drive is a laborious process.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

It has been my opinion since ages ago that new Talossan citizens no longer know exactly how to "be Talossan" when they immigrate...

I would especially like input from @Tric'hard Lenxheir, who I believe was the last person to actually become a citizen. But older citizens might want to think back in time about how they were helped to become Talossan.

We can start by putting a link at the top of Witt to this page: http://wiki.talossa.com/TalossaWiki:New_Citizen%27s_Guide - I've made a few judicious edits.

Note I'm completely reorganizing and updating www.libraryoftalossa.com - uploading the Wiki backup files to that gmail drive is a laborious process.

I kept going with your edits.  I fixed the bullet points so they're now real bullet points (not sure when they broke), and moved your bit about history down to the "what to do" section and condensed it into one bullet point.  I also pointed your links to the history page, at least for now, and I pointed the library link at the wiki library.  Your Drive archive of documents is great, after all, but it's also pretty much completely opaque to someone not already knowledgeable about Talossa.  Hope that's all okay.

It's a good idea to put a link at the top of Witt, but we should also be showing this to all new immigrants as a matter of course, and Miestra also has a good idea about a PDF to directly send to them -- it wouldn't be hard at all to turn this into a PDF if that's what we want, and I'm happy to do it.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

This page is great. It would be greater if we were still regularly updating the "What's going on in Talossa thread"; La C'hronica is supposed to fill that gap, but there have been problems. (Side note: I intend to restart regular service once my predecessor gives me the drafts of the missing November and December issues.)

The big thing that I still think we're missing is a brief outline of the essential points of Talossan history; and, as Tric'hard requested, a concise summary of how our State works (monarchy, executive, legislature, judiciary, Chancery, civil service, provincial/federal system). I want this guide to have all the necessary, basic information so I can implement my idea of "pass a multi-choice test to get your ID card".

If other people collate the info for Wiki/online use, I can probably knock together a PDF version given a month or two.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

I mean, I hate to give the old narcissist tyrant props, but check out the front page of talossa.com from 2001. KR1 explains the basics very clearly, although not-very-subtly demonising his political opponents.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

I can help with that, I think.

[GV]

I mean, I hate to give the old narcissist tyrant props, but check out the front page of talossa.com from 2001. KR1 explains the basics very clearly, although not-very-subtly demonising his political opponents.

How about this for a start:

The Kingdom of Talossa is an independent, sovereign nation in North America which seceded peacefully from the United States in 1979.

Talossa has sometimes been classified as an imaginary country or "micronation," but according to a statement approved in a 1993 referendum, "The Kingdom of Talossa is a community of persons having fun by doing things which are reasonably similar to what other ('real') countries do, whether for reasons of tourist nostalgia, out of a lust for power, in pursuit of parody, or -- yes -- as nationbuilding."

Talossa is not a computer game or a role-playing world. It is an ongoing political adventure, and foreigners are invited to become Talossan citizens and participate. If you are in Talossa, you are a major figure in Talossan politics. There are no "winners" or "losers" except from election to election, and from bill to bill in the legislature. Talossa is real life politics, only smaller and more accessible. This home page is your invitation to come and participate!

Since Talossa erupted onto the Internet in 1995 the country's population has ballooned from about 20 to more than 150. There are many webpages world-wide which feature a link to this page, and Talossan citizens have used the Internet to provide a variety of news, political, and other services to the population. Many of the links in this page are to the work of many people, who all share a common dream of making Talossa a fun place to be in.

[Original by R. Ben Madison, adapted for 2022 by GV]

[GV]

I can help with that, I think.

Talossa.com front page imho is missing photos of actual citizens.  You will probably remember the Kingdom having a 'Mugshots' page, started in 1996.  It may be time for such a thing to make a return?

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

You will probably remember the Kingdom having a 'Mugshots' page, started in 1996.  It may be time for such a thing to make a return?

Yipes no, don't you value your privacy?