Quote from: Sir Alexandreu Davinescu on November 02, 2020, 11:30:22 AM
I have inquired of the A-X on this matter.  Thank you very much for your excellent reply.  I won't venture an opinion about IDs, but I do think it will harm our shared Talossan community if this trend increases.  I understand that you can't speak to whether or not any of those understandable reasons are at hand here, but I will just urge you to do everything you can to just nudge people to their real names.  I appreciate you are just trying to manage a difficult situation, though.

Just FYI, in the future, I don't think it's wise to change a casual question to a formal legislative inquiry that has the force of law.  I have a philosophical objection to anyone adjusting conversations like that in general, but this seems particularly an area that we should be careful about.

My apologies.  I didn't put any thought into how rigid the Terp system actually is. I wrote the thread title without really thinking about it.  Feel free to remove the Terp tag and rename the thread to something more casual if you prefer.

I take issue, though, with your comment that the conversation has been adjusted.  It hasn't.  Your question was moved to a more appropriate venue and is still displayed exactly as originally posted and my reply was given as it was always going to be given regardless of it being a "terp" or not (in fact, my reply was originally posted in the immigration thread and moved along with the question).  The contents of this thread, sans discussion over terps, is exactly as it always was and would have been regardless of venue or thread title.  Again, apologies for naming it a Terp, though.

Yes, I kind of figured your question was more casual than not.  I just felt the discussion didn't belong in an active immigration thread. Then when I was moving it a Terp made most sense in the moment.

I agree, by the way.  The policy isn't ideal.  I would rather prospectives were required to be open books (I believe most of us do), but, as I mentioned, this policy was put in place hot on the heels of the UC's ruling that fake names given during immigration didn't constitute fraud.  I could have went severe and strict following the passage of the Townsend Act.  I didn't feel wholly comfortable at that time putting in place a system that required immigrants to provide official ID.  I'm still not wholly comfortable with that, but the longer I do this job the more my appetite for it grows. 

Also, the Seneschal voiced opinion (which I agree with) that she didn't see a major issue with people using a deed poll name, so long as they still tell us their real name in the background.

I tried to reach a sensible balance with it all.  I think that balance is working okay for now seeing as it hasn't caused a load of controversy.

To answer your question about the Pinatsch case; I don't actually know the status of that.  I've not been keeping tabs.

STUFF

i) The figure for web hosting is a necessary expense. The bill is not actually due until next summer, but shall fall payable prior to the formation of the next government (ie: when this current government goes into caretaker status during the next election period).  The bill covers 12 months of web hosting from summer 2021 to summer 2022 and also the domain renewal for Talossa.com for that same time period.

ii) the request of $30 for a social media budget is intended to be used to "boost" selected posts on Facebook as posted on the Kingdom's official Facebook page.  The intention is to spend this sum once per month for 6 months at around $5 per spend (6*5=30).  The posts being "boosted" will be for citizenship drives (ie: 'join talossa' posts), of which we will do x4, and also for coin/stamps sales drives, of which we will do x2.  These sales drive posts may help pay for the project and my goal would be that $30 of sales be achieved by those 2 drives to pay for the social media budget. The purpose of "boosting" posts is to increase exposure of those posts to a greater audience (that is that Facebook will display those posts to more people based on how much you spend, similar to Facebook Ads).

iii) The Ministry is available to answer any questions on these budget requests.

iv) It is the intention of the Ministry of STUFF to carry out a redesign of the coin/stamps page on the website to make them appear more appealing (I think we need some nicer and more higher res images and some text tweaking to include more calls to action). Meanwhile, it is the intention of the Ministry of the Interior to start sending all prospective citizens some 'point of sale' literature (which shall be made by MinSTUFF) (basically a JPEG version of the website sales page) in an attempt to increase sales of these items.  At some stage during this Cosa session, we may also send out a mass mailer to all citizens with the sales literature as a sales drive.

Quote from: Sir Alexandreu Davinescu on October 31, 2020, 08:47:01 PM
May I ask how many citizens have a availed themselves of this pseudonym service? I wasn't aware that was a thing we were doing.

This practice came in as a result of the Sebastian Penache case.  The courts final ruling on that was very weird, as you probably remember.  So, rather than allow that to ever happen again and to happen without us knowing about it, Interior allows the practice, but now demands (under Pete Townsend) that an applicant provide a method for us to verify their legal name.  This allows folk to continue their 'incognito' statuses for whatever reason, but ensures that we still know who they are.

This is the middle ground compromise.  We either have it be completely open with little to no protection on things like electoral fraud or from sock puppets and Guy Incognitos or we go whole hog in the other direction and have a strict 'real name only' rule, but to truly enforce that we would need a strict ID card requirement.  I think this compromise works better than those two extremes.

To your question, without checking (but I can go and double check this if you need) no citizens have naturalised under this practice as far as I can remember.  However, a number of applicants have applied under assumed names, but what we find is that those that do this don't actually go on to become full citizens.  To this date, the only person going around in Talossa using a pseudonym is Sebastian Penache, I believe.

By the way, this isn't just about internet privacy and incognito pseudonyms.  There are various legit reasons that someone may wish to become Talossan using a name other than the name printed on their macronational identification, such as divorced surnames or transgender name changes.  So, to prevent those legitimate cases ever ending up a cause for fraud charges, we permit them to use a different name as long as they have been truthful and open to begin with during immigration.

In case you are wondering, and in anticipation of follow up questions on this, in almost all cases we now ask the applicant to provide at least one link to a social media account in their true and legal name.  We have a look at that profile, ensure it is in the legal name of the applicant and just generally check for any signs that the account is legit (age of account, etc).  Interestingly, in the past week or so the Immigration Secretary has actually forwarded me two cases where the applicant was unwilling or unable to provide details for a social media verification check.  One of those cases went to an 'immigration interview' with myself where the applicant did go on to provide me with adequate evidence (although that person wasn't actually applying using a 'deed poll' name; they just don't use social media).  The second case was where they applied using just a forename and no links to social media.  Upon further communication that applicant provided a surname, but still refused to provide any links to a social media profile.  This application was rejected.

I'm going to leave this running an extra day and close it on Monday.  I'll have time on Monday to put the results together. 

Last chance to take part!

Quote from: Txosuè Éiric Rôibeardescù on October 31, 2020, 01:20:19 PM

Quote from: Eðo Grischun on October 31, 2020, 04:50:32 AM
Pardon the intrusion.

When does the province anticipate this election to conclude? I'm just wondering whether to wait re: council of governors.

(Another option would be that I appoint Gluc to sit on the council as an interim member, who can then be replaced by whomever becomes Seneschal later)

our governor is Sir Christi I believe, Seneschal is different no?

Sir Cresti is Governor, but as in Cunstaval, aye?

The bit of law covering this says the CoG is "comprised of each provincial executive, whether he or she is called "Governor" or not".

The Head of Executive in Cezembre would be your Seneschal. 

"Council of Governors" is actually named pretty badly.  It should probably just get called the Council of Executives, but it's name doesn't matter that much since the law defines its composition anyway.

Pardon the intrusion.

When does the province anticipate this election to conclude? I'm just wondering whether to wait re: council of governors.

(Another option would be that I appoint Gluc to sit on the council as an interim member, who can then be replaced by whomever becomes Seneschal later)

A few more days left to get your opinions sent in before we close the survey.

47 responses so far!!  50!!!

Please may I Clark the following;

In my capacity as Minister of STUFF:
The Tidy up your STUFF Act
https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?topic=502.0

In my capacity as Minister of the Interior:
The Tidying up the Interior Act
https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?topic=545.0

and as a member's Bill in my capacity as a Senator:
The Shark Tank Act
https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?topic=350.0



(I have 2 other Bills in the Hopper just now, but so not to make the Clark terribly massive and so not to cause the SoS too many headaches, I will Clark those next time around)

WHEREAS The Kingdom of Talossa's Monarchy is no longer hereditary, thus LEX.L.10 is now pointless, so

THEREFORE be it enacted by the Ziu assembled that Article L Section 10 of El Lexhatx, which currently reads:

QuoteThe Heir to the Throne shall be styled Prince (or, if female, Princess) of Prospect.

is hereby stricken from law.

Quote from: Txosuè Éiric Rôibeardescù on October 25, 2020, 07:48:31 PM
Order order,

Although the honarable members are discussed this as a possibility to be enacted if required, I fear that conversation on this bill has moved a little too towards the realm of fantasy and I would like to remind members to continue to discuss the bill as currently writen. This is not to impede or to stamp out discussion on this line of thinking, but more to return the focus to the bill and not purely personal opinion and speculation.
A spear without a point is just a stick.

Does the Túischac'h have authority over the Hopper? It's a public discussion sub-board after all, not strictly a Cosa/Ziu board.  I'm not sure the Túischac'h can call for order on either Senators or members of the public outside of the Cosa chamber.

@Dr. Txec Róibeard dal Nordselvă, Esq., O.SPM, SMM

Tagging the SoS as Witt's admin.

Quote from: Adam Grigoriu on October 25, 2020, 03:06:30 AM
It's broken for me on a fork of Chrome mobile also, though it works fine on the most recent build of Chrome desktop.

I'm also guessing it's an issue with the embed though the Discord API itself is quite temperamental and has an irritating tendency to just stop working, so it could possibly be on thier end.

Personally I've never used the shoutbox as a basically have Discord running 24/7, so I'll see it whether it's working or not.

If you know about how Discord and it's API works, could I leave this with you to look into further?  (or as far as we can without SMF dash access, at least)?

After you mentioned this to me last week, I "shouted" a test message and got a reply from Tafial.  And then tonight, the shoutbox has a convo in it with Luc, Josh and Adam talking about music stuff. 

I just had a quick check and loaded up Witt on Microsoft Edge and it doesn't work on that.  It seems to work on Chrome fine though.  I'm nearly sure that you use Firefox, Miestra?  So, it's possibly a browser related issue.

Thing is, the discord embed is highly temperamental.  I have seen it go down and bug out from time to time. 

Although, with Witt being Chancery controlled I don't actually have access to the right dashboards to investigate the probs. 

(If it were up to me, I would just remove the Discord embed from Witt and install a regular shoutbox plugin specific to SMF.  SMFPacks Shoutbox or similar appears to be what would work for us there.  The Discord thing is a really nice idea, but it has never really integrated with Witt properly for everybody.  I wouldn't bin the Discord completely though; I would have the Discord embedded on a regular webpage on Talossa.com instead, just not on the forums - easier to fix and maintain).

In all honesty, I truly think John Woolley should be Talossa's last "King". 

I just cannot think of a single Talossan that I would (or even could) swear fealty to after KJI, and when I think about it, I'm not even sure why I swear allegiance to the House of Woolley in the first place.  I think I only do so because I want to be Talossan, but really my allegiance is to the nation and it's people.  It always has been.  All my years of service and all the work I have done has never really been for the King nor do I see it as having been for the benefit of the King.  No, rather, all my service given and work carried out has always been for my fellow citizens.  I view the 'tree of importance' as nation and people first, law second and the Monarchy third.  So, yeah, I don't think I could ever swear allegiance to another King after the current one and actually mean it.  I'd rather we pledged allegiance to symbols of the nation and for what they stand.

Although, I still recognise the worth of all the trappings and pomp of monarchy.  We can still have all that without having a "King" though.  We can be a kingless Kingdom with a Head of State whose functions and purpose can be similar to a 'your highness', but who acts as a kind of a national steward and who also swears a similar oath to the rest of us; an oath to the symbols of Talossa and for what the stand and to protect and defend the nation, its peoples and its laws. 

A Head of State who is head OF STATE, but not head of others.  A common citizen, like the rest of us, elevated (and ideally elected) to shepherd the nation with a temporary authority granted to them by their fellow citizens.  It can be that way while keeping thrones and crowns and fancy titles.

I can also understand Miestra balking at the idea of becoming King.  I think each and every Talossan should recoil at the thought of themselves ever becoming King or Queen.  You know, way back when it first happened, John Woolley probably hated the thought of it happening to him too.

I don't know what my point is.  Just some thoughts I felt like sharing, I guess.