Wittenberg

For a lot of Talossans, it's too hard to figure out government policies, government offices, and contact information.  They don't know where to look for this information -- in fact, they may not even know that these things exist.  They end up messaging someone and asking, "Hey, how do I reach the person in charge of this?"  Sometimes they look around on the wiki.  Or sometimes they don't even bother doing those things... they just give up.

Highly active Talossans don't have this problem, of course.  They quickly learn about the different offices and past policies, or they have a friend they can ask without fear of embarrassment.  There's nothing wrong with this advantage, and it's earned through attention and effort. But it is an advantage, and it is a barrier to entry for the inactive or new.

Today, however, we're officially unveiling a new version of the Seneschal's List -- now known as El List del Seneschal.  The people deserve to know what's going on with their government, and El List will help make that easier.



Longtime Talossans might already be aware of El List, the legally-required page which makes available all government offices and their office-holders.  Recent observers have probably also noticed how our new government policy of full public disclosure (https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?topic=4838.0) of all policies has also began using the page.  But the new version is a completely revamped approach.

Obviously, the page is no longer a complicated nesting of headers.  Instead, concise and consistent tables are used to present the list of office-holders.  Icons are used, as well, to make things easier to find.

But the actual information is the real treat.  Major government policies are now included on the page with expandable labels.  This serves as not only public disclosure and accountability, but also a way to familiarize viewers with the duties of a given office.  We're also including contact information here for all government officials that have an email address, so that no one will have to go hunting for that.  Information should be accessible and accurate.  The people deserve nothing less.

Another new feature is that, in a show of our commitment to el glheþ, we're providing the Talossan-language names for offices.  Being familiar with basic patterns like how del/dal work will build a greater sense of cognitive ease around these concepts for Talossans, so we want broad exposure to them.  We want el glheþ to feel normal, not exceptional.  (And in the future, we want to shift over to a glheþ-first approach!)

In the future, we'd like to make further improvements:

• There are several offices which need iconography.
• Some offices still need translation.
• It would be even better to have this as part of Infotecă, the information portal on our website.
• Both El List and Infotecă need to be made more visually appealing, using modern ideas on wayfinding to make navigation through the information more intuitive.

In the near future, we will be sending out a public service announcement to all Talossans to make them aware of this new version of El List, under the authority of Lexh.C.1.2.2.5.  Please also ask any questions here, and please feel free to suggest improvements.

Glheþ-first, and then, perhaps, el Glheþ solămint, Vossençiă?

Päçen per bäbätsilor.