Under El Lexhatx D.2.9.3, the Ministry of Technology appoints a Talossan Web Registrant to act as registrant for our national web hosting and domain names - i.e. be the name of the "owner" as far as our hosting service is concerned. For the last few years this office has held by the Burgermeister of Internal Revenue, to simplify the process of making payments to maintain our web hosting. I'm convinced that this is a good tradition and we should keep it up.

Therefore, given that the handover of the office of Burgermeister has just been completed, I have just made the arrangements to also transfer the office of Talossan Web Registrant to @Dr T. dal Nordselva. As some of you will remember, Dr Nordselva's appointment as Burgermeister is only a short-term one, and when we (or a future government) find a permanent occupant for this role, then the question of whether they should be Web Registrant as well will be re-opened.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on August 24, 2022, 08:54:22 PM
The "All About Talossa" menu just has a glossary page and nothing else on purpose?

No, you click on "All About Talossa" and it takes you to a basic fact sheet with links to the Wiki. Although I can see that that the way I had them set up might be misleading. A new format is now live.

Information about Talossa is useless if not up to date. The hundreds (literally) of pages on talossa.com were the responsibility of MinSTUFF to keep up to date. I don't have the time or energy to do that. Eðo's technological solution stopped working. So, I decided - after consultation with Cabinet - to replace it all with a basic fact sheet and links to the Wiki. A future MinSTUFF might, if they want, revert my decision. But the decision is mine (in consultation with the Government) to make.

I'm happy to announce the crisis seems to be over. We found the automated backups and it seems to be back to normal now. Thanks with all my heart to Deputy MinSTUFF Brad Higgs, and to Eðo Grischün, who thankfully was available to help as well.

As to the menus: that was a deliberate choice by myself as Minister of STUFF. My predecessor Eðo Grischün had put some fancy technology (I think he said "iframes") in there that was supposed to automatically mirror content from talossawiki. It broke, and I had no idea how to fix it. So, I deleted the menu links to almost all that information (the pages are still there if a future MinSTUFF feels like restoring them) just because it was confusing, out of date, and the simplest way to get back into the present tense.

But this returns me to my issue of Infrastructure Decay. Talossa.com's backup file (which I just restored from) was 17 Gigabytes. And so much of that is obsolete or unused stuff. Before he retired from active services, Eðo wanted to move away from WordPress altogether, but never got the chance to do so - and I certainly wouldn't know how. I've wanted to "start again from the beginning" with talossa.com, but was loath to even try - and today I got a taste of how, when I tried to delete the 6000+ (!!!) spam users who had signed up to the old Jobs Centre (so I could actually find out which actual Talossan citizens had real access) and it borked the national webspace. Such is the rewards for trying to do something. LOL.

A plugin which I uploaded on talossa.com to attempt to delete the thousands of spam users who signed up to the now-defunct Talossan Job Centre appears to have malfunctioned and deleted a portion of our websites' content.

I've got Deputy MinTech Brad Higgs working on it, and I would like to appeal to ALL Talossans who know anything about Wordpress setups, cPanel, or in particular whether we have any backups of our data, to help.

I'd like the Minister of Finance's feedback on this issue in particular

WHEREAS El Lexhatx D.2.9.2 currently reads:

QuoteTalossa.com and Kingdomoftalossa.net are the property of the government and shall be operated by the Ministry of Technology.

AND WHEREAS it is currently the interpretation of the Ministry of Justice that this requires the Government to own both of those domain names;

AND WHEREAS spending on domain names came under scrutiny in the last budget round;

AND WHEREAS we don't necessarily need to jettison kot.net, but we should value Ministerial discretion over legislative micromanaging;

BE IT ENACTED by the King, Cosa and Senäts in Ziu assembled that El Lexhatx D.2.9.2. be amended to read as follows:

QuoteThe Government shall own the domain name talossa.com, and may purchase and maintain any other Talossa-related domain names as they see fit, following normal budgetary procedures. These domain names and their associated webhosting shall be administered by the Ministry of Technology.

Since I'm getting no pushback on this, I shall continue.

I just thought of a very simple reform that would avoid the near-crisis we got into recently re: our webhosting bills. The current law provides for the Talossan Web Registrar to pay out of their own pocket for our webhosting, if necessary, and get paid back later. But what if... we enabled the Burgermeister to pay any vital web bills to come due, even if there's no budget or PD authorisation? For the last little while the Burgermeister and the TWR have been the same person, for ease of admin, and I see no reason for this not to continue.

So, new section D.2.8.4.1.

QuoteThe Burgermeister of Internal Revenue may authorise spending from the Royal Treasury to prevent any interruption to the Kingdom's online services. If such spending has not been provided for in the Budget, other legislation or Prime Dictate, the Burgermeister shall provide a full report on such spending to the Ziu within 7 days of such spending. Subsequent to this, if the spending is not authorised in retrospect via legislation or Prime Dictate, the Burgermeister shall be liable for a crime against state property under El Lexhatx A.7.2.6.1.

The other substantive change I think is necessary is to delete a couple of sections which IMHO blatantly contradict other sections.

D.2.8.2.8:

QuoteEconomic Policy and Investment of Royal Funds. The Royal Bank & Post is responsible for determining and enacting economic policy of the Kingdom of Talossa. Funds kept in the Royal Treasury shall be made available by the Burgermeister of Inland Revenue to the Royal Bank & Post for the purpose of making foreign investments calculated to wisely augment the value of the said Treasury. The Minister of Finance shall be responsible to the Prime Minister and the nation for the policies implemented.

This contradicts 2.8.1.1, which gives responsibility over economic policy to the Minister of Finance directly; and also states that it is the Burgermeister who invests Royal Treasury funds, under direction from the Minister of Finance.

D.2.8.2.10:

QuoteExcept when forbidden or restricted by legislation, the government of the day is empowered to requisition funds from the Royal Treasury to provide for the operation of the Royal Bank & Post, the other Cabinet Ministries, and the Prime Ministry. The amount requisitioned for the operation of each such ministry shall not in any way or for any reason increase during such time as the sitting government continues in office following having lost the confidence of the Cosâ, except it be by royal fiat and to provide for the necessary defence and preservation of the realm.

This seems completely redundant, simply repeating the authority given to Finance in D.2.8.3 to budget for State expenses.

Also D.2.8.2.9, on the Burgermeister's auditing powers, should be in the section on the Burgermeister, not Finance Ministry.

Wokay, I've got a preliminary version of the bit on dual signatures. Add El Lexhatx C.1.5.5:

Quote1.5.5. All accounts and other monies held by the Royal Treasury shall be held in the name of both the King and the Burgermeister, in such a way that the King shall be able to perform the functions of the Burgermeister in case of the Burgermeister's absence, on his own initiative or upon request of the Minister of Finance. The Burgermeister shall not, after 60 days after enactment of this provision into law, hold any funds of the Royal Treasury in an account to which the King does not have access, on penalty of the offence of theft.

I want to put a transition period there but with a firm end date so we don't drag out the transfer indefinitely, but make it clear that it has to happen.

As I've mentioned before, the "two week waiting period" is NOWHERE specified in Organic or Statute Law! It's just something we started doing in the 50th Cosa Budget, and we seem to have just copy-pasted that provision in subsequent budgets. There's no reason it has to be included in future budgets.

If there are no further contributions, I hope to have a draft by end of month.

Quote from: Lüc on August 22, 2022, 04:07:01 AM
You and Nouacastra were very happy to do jack during your MRPT membership, but equally happy to insist you'd run for leader and PM - one of the two got his wish, we know how that went, and it baffles me that the FreeDems didn't see it coming.

When Eðo Grischün had to suddenly quit as FreeDems President, Txoteu put his hand up. He seemed keen. The Free Democrats had no other offers, as you say, but also no reason to doubt that he would do what he said he would.

Quote(I know, Miestră, you would take a permanent holiday from the levers of power if you could, sipping your drink of choice and stroking your (fake) retirement beard. Been there done that, except I actually did, while you care too much to let it all go to mieida.)

Eh, I'm probably out after this term, precisely because I'm tired of being responsible with no reward.

Republican Witt has been offline almost as long as the Republic has. I think Dieter has the archives.

Well, I caused myself, and the Free Democrats, quite a lot of political damage last term by accepting excuses from Ministers who weren't doing their jobs (whether those excuses were reasonable or not) and covering them. The incumbent Seneschal has decided to take a different approach; we'll see if it works out better for all of us. If we're too busy to have Cabinet jobs and to do the stuff we promised to do, best we not have that Cabinet job and thereby lead an easier life. Nevertheless, I do hope you'll be able to continue to contribute to Defence initiatives as well as to the Free Democrats.

Quote from: Þon Txoteu É. Davinescu, O.SPM on August 21, 2022, 06:39:06 PM
I had many plans that I had already started developing, time completely wasted now... on the Honors System and formal structuring...

I mean, not necessarily? We're all friends here, you can share your plans with the incoming Minister and still participate in helping bring them about. I think one of the reasons the Seneschal lost his patience and acceded to Opposition pressure for a replacement is that we in Cabinet kept hearing that these plans were coming but never seeing them.

This is reminding me more and more of the breakdown in communication which led to the TNC quitting the 56th Cosa Government.

Quote from: King John on August 20, 2022, 03:41:27 PM
I would like to become involved once more in Talossa's legal community.  At one time I had a solid command of our laws, a command that stood us in good stead when it came to battling my authoritarian predecessor and enshrining in the Organic Law many provisions to make misbehaviour like his impossible in the future.  Now, I would like to offer my services as a Community Jurist and use some of my knowledge of Talossa to assist with hearing cases.

As Attorney-General, I'm very happy to hear of your interest in this role; do you think it would be best to wait maybe a month or two, for you to "bone up" on recent developments in statute and case law, and for you to them let the Justice Ministry know when you feel confident enough to get a CJ appointment?