As I understand it, these are the current entries, right?

Short-Form
Dama Miestra's poem
Zilect's poem

Long-Form
My post-apocalyptic short story

You are doing a good job, Your Majesty.

Yeah, fair enough. Definitely at a certain point, things would have gone too far and just become plain sexual harassment, which merits action. There's definitely a line that can be crossed, regardless of free speech concerns.

Fortunately, he seems to have taken another route out of this, shifting to less problematic language and choosing other targets.

No one is mystified about what you're doing.  We are very capable of understanding your thinking: you screwed up and got really creepy, and so you're being creepy to a bunch of other people as quickly as possible.  It's like when a small child gets caught breaking the rule, so they pretend not to understand the rule.

We just don't understand why you'd do this, unless the prospect of just admitting you screwed up is so painful you'd rather shoot yourself in the foot a bunch of times again.

Like, do you think there's a legion of creepy old uncles lurking on Wittenberg who will come flying to your rescue, saying, "No, Breneir is right! I should be able to say whatever I want to my little niece, unless she specifically tells me to stop!  I should be able to smell her, too!  Give me her socks unless she said no, in writing and in triplicate and under sworn oath!"

Also: please don't talk about my appearance or flirt with me.  It's creepy, since we're not friendly.

You have repeatedly complimented the personal appearance of a young person. These compliments were not solicited or reciprocated.

Several people have told you that this flirting is inappropriate and unwelcome, including some of the target's friends.  It is making other people uncomfortable.

Is there something wrong with you that you think this behavior is still okay?

Seriously: Do not double down and make a big deal about how it's somehow really important that you get to say creepy shit to a young person.  He doesn't deserve that, and no one will tolerate it.

"Remember, class, if the target of harassment doesn't personally make a plea for you to stop, you should ignore everyone and keep on complimenting their appearance.  Don't stop and ask yourself whether or not your behavior is welcome, or whether or not you are making others uncomfortable.  The most important thing is how you feel."

I do not support legal action, since I dislike the precedent set by someone having their speech suppressed for being gross and unpleasant to a member of an opposing political party.

However, the last person to act in this specific way was Iusti Canun, who would sometimes write me to tell me that he thought I was handsome. It was creepy.  As we all know, that sort of behavior didn't bode well.  I hope Breneir reconsiders this course of action upon reflection.  It's possible to make a comeback after almost anything in Talossa, but no one has ever continued in the country after openly establishing themselves as a sex pest.

Breneir, obviously you'll never just think about your behavior, realize that even "playful" sexual harassment is wrong, and apologize.  So I would encourage you to just do the same thing you did with your grudge against Txec: seize on some plausible shred of principle that's involved, and loudly pretend you were trying to make a point about that principle.  If you do a good job, it might even seem real.  Do not double down and make a big deal about how it's somehow really important that you get to say creepy shit to a young person.  He doesn't deserve that, and no one will tolerate it.

Maybe this is really about freedom of speech, for example?  You just want to be able to speak your mind without Government censorship, perhaps.

Quote from: Breneir Tzaracomprada on November 30, 2024, 05:16:02 PMsauve and debonair Sir Lüc

A month ago, you called Sir Luc "cute" and "handsome." Now you're calling him "suave and debonair." This isn't criminal behavior, but it is inappropriate (and creepy).

I accept these offices and trusts with gratitude.  I doubt not that Your Majesty will have a peaceful reign that stretches far into the future.

¡Qe vivadra'l Regeu!

Certainly, your Majesty.  An SVG and a PNG are attached.

-Dean

Estimat Tuischac'h,

For months, there were zero immigrants and zero immigration applications.  When asked about this, the Most Honourable Seneschal gave the verbal equivalent of a shrug.

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on November 03, 2024, 02:13:41 PMOne suggestion I keep raising is for a Landing Pier on Wittenberg, open to "interested parties" (on pain of ruthless moderation) who might not be ready for citizenship yet - the technical people in the back room have got it on their to-do list down the line.

... The best means towards that is our social media outreach, which has unfortunately been hampered due to the respective Minister's extra-Talossan commitments.

So, with no exaggeration, we were facing a failure that threatens the future of the country.  The Government didn't know why, and they had very few solutions to offer... but they weren't even trying them!  Maybe a visitor's forum would help in some way, "down the line."  Social media outreach, the "best means" to address the problem in the Seneschal's opinion, also wasn't happening.

Why doesn't the Government seem to care about this?  People who care, try!

It wasn't until I began demanding answers in an emphatic fashion that she bothered to check if there was a technical problem with the system.  A half an hour later, she reported back that she'd identified the issue.  What if I didn't open up Infoteca to check on the latest numbers?  What if she'd brushed me off -- I have a grand total of 5 seats, what am I going to do if the Government stonewalls me?

My concern is not the specifics of the problem.  They're interesting, but the Seneschal is ultimately responsible for caring about how things are going, and acting if there's a serious problem, and communicating with the citizens without needing someone to drag it out of her.

So I suppose I'd suggest that the Seneschal first apologize for this failure, give concise information about it without hamfisted excuses, and then discuss her plans to restore the immigration rate.

Estimat Tuischac'h,

I am grateful for the explanation offered by the Seneschal.  I'm not sure what the "WordPress backend" might be, aside from just having access to post and update it.  I believe I was probably the one who did most of that, since that was a task from the Seneschal that I volunteered to take on when doing the redesign of the site.  I know that the Government must have the same access, since that's how basic updates and posting of La C'hronică happens.

But while the technical explanation is interesting, whatever it may be it doesn't seem to address the main point.

For months, there were zero immigrants.  For months, there were zero immigration applications.  And the Government simply doesn't seem to care. 

I mean, okay, no one made a WordPress account for a member of the Cabinet.  That's not great, and you guys should do better.  And okay, there was a technical problem with the immigration form.  Also not ideal, but it's not the end of the world, and we can probably get it fixed.  I'm happy to volunteer to help, in fact.

But why doesn't the Government seem to care that immigration has flatlined?

It shouldn't take members of the opposition to notice and nag about this.  This is one of the most fundamental functions of our government... why is there so little interest that no one bothered to spend the few minutes it took to discover the solution?  The first response was so casually disinterested... "Oh, we want to open a new subforum called the Landing Pier maybe, and also we'll do some social media but we're not doing that stuff right now."

And now, when the Seneschal is asked when she will inform the people of this serious problem, almost the entire answer seems to be an attempt to pass on the blame.  But whatever the technical problem, the Minister of Immigration and Seneschal should have noticed and cared that immigration was at zero.

So I will repeat my question, since it was not answered: I ask when the Seneschal will be addressing the nation with regards to the recent catastrophe with immigration.

Estimat Tuischac'h:

I write to ask when the Seneschal will be addressing the nation with regards to the recent catastrophe with immigration.

For months, there have been zero immigrants and zero applicants.  This is obviously an existential crisis for the country.  Fewer people means no new interest, no new word-of-mouth spread or new ideas, and no new energy.

This fact still doesn't seem to bother the Government.  They were aware of this, with the Seneschal saying that she knew that "immigration pipeline has closed off altogether," but it seems that our elected leaders simply don't care very much about the problem.  When asked to prioritize this problem like the crisis that it is, the Seneschal snarked only that she couldn't, since she'd be criticized for doing so.  This is bizarre.

After I spoke up and demanded answers, the Government finally deigned to look into the problem, and the Seneschal discovered that the immigration form had simply stopped forwarding applications completely.  It's been a couple of days, and we haven't heard anything further.  It is unclear if this has been fixed.  It is unclear why the Seneschal failed so completely on this essential component of governance.  It is unclear if the Government even cares about any of this at all, unless someone is making them care with terpelaziuns.

Why did it take sharp prodding to get the Government to spend a few minutes investigating this problem?  Why wasn't this treated like the all-hands-on-deck crisis that it is?

This Government has failed the people through its negligence.  The citizens of the Kingdom of Talossa deserve to know why they have failed, and how they will fix the situation.

Now things are able to proceed with more alacrity.  I think that we will want to display this on a cream field, since elephants, badgers, and unicorns are all remarkably monochrome. It ends up being fairly striking, with the escutcheon itself standing out from the rest of the achievement.



-Dean