The references to the Interior Ministry have been fixed.

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on January 16, 2022, 11:45:24 PM
I've given a technical response in the CRL, but would you also argue that the remaining duties of Interior are useless?

Quoteact as the liaison between the national government and the provincial governments; ...  provide governmental assistance to all citizens making the Haxh; provide counsel to the Seneschal and other ministers in ever maintaining the connection and bond of Talossans worldwide to their homeland; and shall, generally, be responsible for the order and well-being of the homeland and its environs.

I mean, as the incumbent all that stuff is so far down my priorities list it's fallen off the bottom. But traditionalist Talossans might chafe at utterly, legislatively, removing the Government's responsibilities towards the GTA.

I can add it back if you think it's important, but I have never seen any Interior Minister do any of that stuff.

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on January 16, 2022, 11:43:30 PM
Here's a quick answer: you haven't changed anywhere else the Interior Ministry appears in El Lexh, including the entire of Title E ("Immigration").

Right, I'll fix that

PER on both

Please review the "It's the Immigration, Stupid" Act

WHEREAS Immigration is important, and

WHEREAS that importance should be reflected in the composition of the Cabinet, and

WHEREAS Interior is pointless because we have not hosted a Living Cosa or TalossaFest for at least the past seven years and we do not appear likely to any time soon

THEREFORE Lex.2.3, which currently reads:

Quote2.3 The Interior Minister, who shall: oversee immigration policy and head the Bureau of Immigration; act as the liaison between the national government and the provincial governments; assist in the organisation of Living Cosâs; provide governmental assistance to the organisers of TalossaFest celebrations; provide governmental assistance to all citizens making the Haxh; provide counsel to the Seneschal and other ministers in ever maintaining the connection and bond of Talossans worldwide to their homeland; and shall, generally, be responsible for the order and well-being of the homeland and its environs.

2.3.1. El Büreu dàl Înmigraziun (the Bureau of Immigration), which shall be responsible for the execution of the nation's laws appertaining to immigration of new citizens into the realm and shall work to attempt to increase quality and quantity of immigration applications. This bureau shall be responsible for the integration of new citizens into their new Talossan lives and shall work to find ways to most effectively involve new citizens in Talossan affairs. This Bureau shall work closely with the Chancery and its Bureau of the Census to ensure that all incoming citizens are properly processed through immigration as provided by law.

shall be amended to read:

Quote2.3 The Immigration Minister, who shall oversee the immigrant and new citizen experience. This includes the following responsibilities:
2.3.1 Administering the immigration process in cooperation with the Chancery as described by law
2.3.2 Working with the Ministry of STUFF to increase immigration
2.3.3 Integrating new citizens into their new Talossan lives and working to find ways to most effectively involve new citizens in Talossan affairs.

FURTHERMORE Lex.D.2.7.1 (which is currently blank) is amended to read:

Quote2.7.1. The Bureau of Home Affairs, which shall assist in the organisation of Living Cosâs; provide governmental assistance to the organisers of TalossaFest celebrations; provide governmental assistance to all citizens making the Haxh; provide counsel to the Seneschal and other ministers in ever maintaining the connection and bond of Talossans worldwide to their homeland; and shall, generally, be responsible for the order and well-being of the homeland and its environs.

FURTHERMORE Lex.D.2.9 is renumbered as Lex.2.8.10.

FURTHERMORE a new Lex.D.2.9 is added, which reads:

Quote2.9    The Ministry of Technology, headed by the Technology Minister.
    2.9.1 The Ministry of Technology shall be responsible for the administration of the publicly-readable Internet presence of the Kingdom, excluding those websites under explicit jurisdiction of other entities of the Kingdom as described in El Lexhátx A.20 or elsewhere in El Lexhátx.
    2.9.2. Talossa.com and Kingdomoftalossa.net are the property of the government and shall be operated by the Ministry of Technology.
    2.9.3. There shall exist within the Ministry of Technology an officer to be known as The Talossan Web Registrant who shall act as the domain name registrant for the domains stated in D.2.9.2 and any other government operated domains as required. The Talossan Web Registrant shall be appointed and dismissed by the Minister of Technology. The Talossan Web Registrant shall inform the government of any payments due or made towards domain registration and hosting of any government operated websites and domains and shall be reimbursed for any payments made as soon as is practicably possible and in accordance with all law relating to the governmental budget.
    2.9.4. The Minister of Technology shall ensure that access details for all official internet accounts are held in a secure and central location and shall ensure the continuity and smooth handover of these details between changes of government.

FURTHERMORE D.2.10 is amended to read:

Quote2.10.  The Minister of STUFF, heading the Ministry of STUFF (Ministrà del Sanavar da Talossa al Ultra-Fiôvân Folâs), which shall be responsible for the internal and external promotion of the Kingdom, all events therein and all things Talossan through public relations, and shall dutifully ensure that the Kingdom and its events are regularly publicised and may use any means and media available to them to achieve this.
    2.10.1  The Minister of STUFF shall be directly responsible for the content of one or more websites and/or social media accounts named as the 'official' website(s) and social media account(s) of the Kingdom.
    2.10.2. The Ministry of STUFF shall be in charge of TalossaWare, that is, the production of "physical embodiments of Talossanity", whether for distribution to citizens, to publicise the Kingdom to outsiders, or to sell for profit.
    2.10.3 The Ministry of STUFF shall be responsible for ensuring the availability, for all Talossans, of the following: a) the records of the Scribery as described in C.1.2; b) up-to-date information on the personnel of all Government, Royal Household, Civil Service and Chancery office-holders.

FURTHERMORE, the word "Interior" in the following provisions of el Lexhatx shall be changed to "Immigration":
A.9.4
A.9.8
A.16.1
C.2
E.1
E.2
E.3
E.4
E.5
E.6
E.7
E.11 and E.11.1-11.3
F.11.17

Ureu q'estadra sa:
Ian Plätschisch (Sen-MM)

Elections currently run from the 15th through the 1st of the next month.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on January 06, 2022, 07:45:10 PM

Quote from: Ian Plätschisch on January 06, 2022, 07:33:18 PM

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on January 06, 2022, 06:05:50 PM

Quote from: Mic'haglh Autófil on January 06, 2022, 05:53:12 PM

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on January 06, 2022, 05:50:07 PM

Quote from: Mic'haglh Autófil on January 06, 2022, 05:41:22 PM

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on January 06, 2022, 04:24:23 PM

Quote from: Mic'haglh Autófil on January 06, 2022, 03:58:55 PM

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on January 06, 2022, 03:34:50 PM

Quote from: Mic'haglh Autófil on January 06, 2022, 02:40:16 PM
How exactly do seats get divvied up in the Cosa? Like...I see people with multiple seats, and that just doesn't compute (though I have been following legislative discussions and that's one reason I'm a fan of the Direct Cosa, lol)

Okay: the Cosa is a strict proportional representation system, right? So, 200 seats, party X wins 15 percent of the vote, they get 30 seats.

After that, within a few special rules, parties can give any number of seats to whomever they like with a few restrictions:

- they can't give more than 1/3 of their seats to people who weren't on their list of candidates;
- there's a maximum number of seats any individual is allowed to hold which depends on total turnout (right now I believe that maximum is 28).

I should point out that these restrictions are relatively recent. In the 1980s, a party leader who won an absolute majority of seats could hold all those seats himself and basically thus be the Cosa all by himself. And when that person was the King, it meant rule by decree. I'm serious, if you'll read the old histories, King Robert I would "convene the Cosa" by himself in his bedroom and announce new laws to the masses in his next newsletter.

After that change, it was a struggle to implement party lists. Before those were implemented, parties could give seats to whomever; meaning not only did the voters have zero control over who got a vote in the Cosa, but there was a tradition whereby the ruling party recruited new citizens "fresh off the boat" by giving them Cosa seats. Talk about a self-perpetuating oligarchy.

This whole system is one of those botch-job compromises which only exist because of a stalemate between reformists and traditionalists. Any other questions?

I knew it was PR, the rest of the info was more what I was looking for. Thank you!

Other questions...I see there's been discussion on the monarchy and activity and whatnot. Would you say Talossa has a fairly notable republican current?

Miestra herself is one of the longtime proponents of a republic, and there actually was a Republic of Talossa for many years. It formed when something like half of all active citizens grew outraged over the behavior of the then-king, Robert I. For a long time, there were two Talossas. Eventually, however, the two countries merged back together again. In recognition of their longtime cultural identity and contributions, a new province was created from voluntary cessions of existing provinces to make Fiova, and this process was considered to be a merger of equals. In the years since, some of these citizens and other new ones have continued the pursuit of a new Republic. There has actually been considerable effort just recently along those lines, with a proposal for a regularly elected president (The office would still be called "king," though, and would still have the same powers for now, so proponents of the change argue that this means it would basically be the same monarchy. I disagree, but it's a live argument and their perspective will be different.)

It remains to be seen what's going to happen in the future! If you immigrate, you can be a part of helping decide our future!

I did know of the Republic's existence — I've actually been trying to figure out for a week now how I think "Reunision" is properly pronounced, haha

Not that I'm a citizen yet, of course — and bearing in mind I would stand to benefit from such a change — but I think the idea of some Cosa seats for new citizens is a good one.

As far as the executive goes, I'll admit I've long thought of a directory as a good form of republic, but that's just my opinion.

Like so many things, Reunision started off as a typo. But it's one of the quirks of our country that people will often joyfully seize on small mistakes like that and turn them into traditions!

What do you mean when you speak about a directorate? Do you mean like the thing they had in revolutionary France? I don't know enough about political science to be sure I'm getting the reference.

That is actually where they get the name! A good current example is Switzerland. Their seven-member Federal Council serves as a collective Head of State and a Cabinet.

The Republic of Talossa had more of a French model, maybe. They had a parliamentary government with a president. I think that's what they have in France, anyway.

Some of our provinces effectively operate the way you're suggesting, though, with every interested citizen effectively comprising both an executive and legislative body. I don't think that there are any with a fixed number of members, though.

Can we change the settings so that the number of quoted messages is limited by default, like it was on ProBoards? This is getting out of hand.

What's getting out of hand?  Oh, the number of nested quotes?

Maybe there is a limit and we just haven't hit it yet.

Perhaps.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on January 06, 2022, 06:05:50 PM

Quote from: Mic'haglh Autófil on January 06, 2022, 05:53:12 PM

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on January 06, 2022, 05:50:07 PM

Quote from: Mic'haglh Autófil on January 06, 2022, 05:41:22 PM

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on January 06, 2022, 04:24:23 PM

Quote from: Mic'haglh Autófil on January 06, 2022, 03:58:55 PM

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on January 06, 2022, 03:34:50 PM

Quote from: Mic'haglh Autófil on January 06, 2022, 02:40:16 PM
How exactly do seats get divvied up in the Cosa? Like...I see people with multiple seats, and that just doesn't compute (though I have been following legislative discussions and that's one reason I'm a fan of the Direct Cosa, lol)

Okay: the Cosa is a strict proportional representation system, right? So, 200 seats, party X wins 15 percent of the vote, they get 30 seats.

After that, within a few special rules, parties can give any number of seats to whomever they like with a few restrictions:

- they can't give more than 1/3 of their seats to people who weren't on their list of candidates;
- there's a maximum number of seats any individual is allowed to hold which depends on total turnout (right now I believe that maximum is 28).

I should point out that these restrictions are relatively recent. In the 1980s, a party leader who won an absolute majority of seats could hold all those seats himself and basically thus be the Cosa all by himself. And when that person was the King, it meant rule by decree. I'm serious, if you'll read the old histories, King Robert I would "convene the Cosa" by himself in his bedroom and announce new laws to the masses in his next newsletter.

After that change, it was a struggle to implement party lists. Before those were implemented, parties could give seats to whomever; meaning not only did the voters have zero control over who got a vote in the Cosa, but there was a tradition whereby the ruling party recruited new citizens "fresh off the boat" by giving them Cosa seats. Talk about a self-perpetuating oligarchy.

This whole system is one of those botch-job compromises which only exist because of a stalemate between reformists and traditionalists. Any other questions?

I knew it was PR, the rest of the info was more what I was looking for. Thank you!

Other questions...I see there's been discussion on the monarchy and activity and whatnot. Would you say Talossa has a fairly notable republican current?

Miestra herself is one of the longtime proponents of a republic, and there actually was a Republic of Talossa for many years. It formed when something like half of all active citizens grew outraged over the behavior of the then-king, Robert I. For a long time, there were two Talossas. Eventually, however, the two countries merged back together again. In recognition of their longtime cultural identity and contributions, a new province was created from voluntary cessions of existing provinces to make Fiova, and this process was considered to be a merger of equals. In the years since, some of these citizens and other new ones have continued the pursuit of a new Republic. There has actually been considerable effort just recently along those lines, with a proposal for a regularly elected president (The office would still be called "king," though, and would still have the same powers for now, so proponents of the change argue that this means it would basically be the same monarchy. I disagree, but it's a live argument and their perspective will be different.)

It remains to be seen what's going to happen in the future! If you immigrate, you can be a part of helping decide our future!

I did know of the Republic's existence — I've actually been trying to figure out for a week now how I think "Reunision" is properly pronounced, haha

Not that I'm a citizen yet, of course — and bearing in mind I would stand to benefit from such a change — but I think the idea of some Cosa seats for new citizens is a good one.

As far as the executive goes, I'll admit I've long thought of a directory as a good form of republic, but that's just my opinion.

Like so many things, Reunision started off as a typo. But it's one of the quirks of our country that people will often joyfully seize on small mistakes like that and turn them into traditions!

What do you mean when you speak about a directorate? Do you mean like the thing they had in revolutionary France? I don't know enough about political science to be sure I'm getting the reference.

That is actually where they get the name! A good current example is Switzerland. Their seven-member Federal Council serves as a collective Head of State and a Cabinet.

The Republic of Talossa had more of a French model, maybe. They had a parliamentary government with a president. I think that's what they have in France, anyway.

Some of our provinces effectively operate the way you're suggesting, though, with every interested citizen effectively comprising both an executive and legislative body. I don't think that there are any with a fixed number of members, though.

Can we change the settings so that the number of quoted messages is limited by default, like it was on ProBoards? This is getting out of hand.

Hopper submissions and debates are already open to all.

Just kicked in $10 and celebrated with a peanut butter and nutella sandwich with banana and honey.

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on December 05, 2021, 09:55:07 PM
I wonder if you would be interested in suggesting amendments to the "Cutting Red and Green Tape" section of the FreeDems programme in line with the musing above.

I think it's good as-is. Adding specific proposals would probably just bloat it.

Unfortunately I am not as passionate a Lex-editor as I was in my prime. If I can get around to it I certainly will propose some bills along the lines above.

Honestly, perhaps the tape can be cut without actually repealing anything. If everyone active just agrees to ignore it...

Of course, I guess all those things are things the "passive supermajority" might block, but have they even been tried? All of them are more logistical in nature and have little to do with ideology, meaning no "systemic change" would be needed.

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on December 05, 2021, 09:39:26 PM
I think we should listen to the Túischac'h - who is as close to properly agnostic on the constitutional question as anyone - when he says he's just been ground down by the ability of a passive supermajority to stop anything fun happening. The only reason that we managed to complete the project of unifying the spelling of the Talossan language is that the "passive supermajority" just collapsed the institutions themselves and we started new institutions. Can't do that with the Organic Law, or at least we shouldn't.

Not to keep tooting my own horn here, but this article I wrote for La S'chinteia in 2019 might offer some ideas on this front.

QuoteTalossa needs to take a long, hard look at the rules governing many of our institutions.

There has been much complaining recently about the ability of some people to effectively "veto" new initiatives simply by not engaging with them. Of course, such lack of engagement need not be intentional (there are plenty of reasons why a Talossan may need to take a leave of absence), but the fact remains that there are several areas of Talossan life that are subject to the oversight of a person or body that either is no longer interested or capable of providing that oversight or never served anything but an overly bureaucratic role in the first place.

From this description, it may appear that anarchy is the best way to operate our civil institutions. After all, if any citizen could act unilaterally, no one would ever need someone else's approval and we would all be free to use the avenues of Talossan culture how we saw fit. However, besides turning Talossa into a "bathtubbia" subject to radical reformulations on a weekly basis, this policy would have another subtle but no less important drawback. Any time a group of citizens might seek consensus to ensure a proposed change became widely accepted, there would be no indication of when, or if, that consensus was obtained. This would cause either progressively worse fracturing of our organizations, and a loss of unity and consistency in our nation, as change-makers went ahead without a way to make their new policies official, or a permanent stasis if no one was willing to move forward on anything without the express consent of all imaginable stakeholders, some of whom may not even be contactable. Unfortunately, examples of this kind of governance are not rare in Talossa.

Therefore, both too many and too few organizational procedures can be quite detrimental. To illustrate these concepts, I present a few case studies.

Provincial Governments
For almost two years between 2017 – 2019, Florencia floundered in a catch-22 that prevented it from seating either a Governor or the Nimlet (provincial assembly). In early 2017, the existing Governor failed to apportion the seats in the upcoming Nimlet, which, according to the Florencian Constitution, necessitated the appointment of a new Governor. However, no new Governor could be appointed since the Governor is Constitutionally required to be a member of the Nimlet, which could not assemble because only the new Governor could apportion the seats. It took months of complaining and multiple legal consultations for the province to finally decide that the situation was dumb and that following the strict letter of the law was not tenable.

Too few regulations can also spell doom for a provincial government. When the Maricopan Cabana assembled for the 51st Cosa, it made no progress on the election of the Premier between January 6th and April 4th, 2018, as there was no designated time frame for the election nor was it clear who had the authority to conduct it. On April 4th, one of the candidates, who had not heard anything from the other candidate during this time, declared himself the winner, at which point the other candidate suddenly reappeared and objected that no one had yet proposed a deadline for submitting nominations to the post. The two agreed to hold an election; alas, they were the only two voters and at the end of the agreed-upon voting period there was a 1-1 tie. The result was the same after an extension, and the sitting Premier (who was one of the candidates) then declared he intended to stay in office indefinitely, and only agreed to further deadline extensions after a citizen from a different province criticized his decision. The deadlock continued for the rest of the term.

The Arvitieir Prima of Benito, supposed to function as a provincial Secretary of State, serves in practice only to officially open and close votes on bills before the Assembly. The delay between a request by an Assemblyperson for the Arvitieir Prima to put a bill up for a vote and the Arvitieir Prima acting on that request is typically fairly short but has recently been up to a month. Assuming the proper regulations were put in place outlining how a bill may be put up for a vote, there is nothing the Arvitieir Prima does that could not be done by an individual Assemblyperson. Therefore, there is no reason for this extra link in the chain that does not add any value and can only introduce delays.   

Talossan Language
The CUG is the traditional governing body of the Talossan language. However, almost none of its members are involved anymore, and if there ever were regulations regarding a quorum, they certainly have not been met in a long time. Unfortunately for the language, there are many questions of orthography that must be dealt with, and every time a group of speakers try to hammer things out, they ultimately can never get anywhere because they have no authority to make decisions. Of course, they could just decide to adopt their proposals themselves, but they have been understandably reluctant to do so given the schism it would cause.

Faced with the dormancy of the CUG, some citizens created a new language organization called SIGN with the encouragement of the Minister of Culture. However, a member of the CUG warned that its creation might divide the language community. The two groups held talks on how to integrate or cooperate, but with no mechanism to decide how to ultimately proceed, SIGN withered and the CUG returned to the hibernation from which it had arisen.

Uppermost Cort
El Lexhatx puts the Clerk of Corts in charge of administering the Cort. This might work well if the Clerk were consistently active, but Clerks have generally not been active for most of the position's history. If the law were followed, this would make it very difficult to conduct any legal business. However, for the past several years, parties to cases and Justices alike have essentially agreed to pretend the position of Clerk does not exist and handle all administration themselves. This has allowed the Cort to function, although it does so in a make-it-up-as-we-go manner that no one quite understands and is ripe for future controversy.

College of Arms
Both the Squirrel Viceroy of Arms and the Dean of the College of Arms must approve a prospective armiger before a fellow of the College can start designing the arms. The process has gotten significantly faster now that the Viceroy, Dean, and most active fellow are all the same person, but there is still little reason for all these hoops when the King already has the authority to halt a request for arms any time he desires.
***
We have to learn from these observations how to build lasting organizational structures that both describe exactly how business may be conducted and that do not rely too much on a single person or group. Additionally, we must eliminate as many purely bureaucratic roles as possible and devolve the corresponding responsibilities and privileges to everyone involved.
Luckily, these strategies have been implemented in some places, and they can serve as guides for future reform:
•   In the Assembly of Maritiimi-Maxhestic, any member can call and end a vote on a matter so long as they do so in accordance with the relevant law detailing the appropriate voting period and venue.
•   Current efforts to streamline the Judiciary by introducing Justices of the Peace to handle small disputes will eliminate much of the judicial bureaucracy and codify what remains.
•   Until its repeal earlier this term, the section of el Lexhatx describing Naval regulations was one of the least-used and most unnecessary portions of Talossan law. It elicited a mild chuckle out of its readers, but in effect gave the Ziu control over every minute detail of the Navy. Therefore, the citizens who were interested in the Navy felt as though they could not take initiatives without the approval of the Ziu, but most the of the Ziu could not have cared less about the Navy. By repealing almost all of that section and replacing it with a code of regulations promulgated by those most involved with the Navy, we devolved power to those who are most capable and most motivated to use it to advance Talossan interests and culture.

Implementing these suggestions may not seem like a very important step in combatting the Kingdom's activity problem, given that there is nothing so common in Talossa as restructuring proposals that do nothing to increase participation in whatever is being restructured. Still, we depend on the robust operation of our institutions to engage in everything else that attracts people to Talossa. A failure here will, and has already started to, decrease confidence and enthusiasm in the rest of our society, so it's time to give the gears the attention they deserve.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

A thread from Old Witt from four years ago talking about the same issue, for your reading pleasure:
https://talossa.proboards.com/thread/12322/ailing-talossa

(You may have to log in to see it because it's in the Chat Room)

This is probably my best contribution from that thread:

QuoteA catch-22: the only way to attract new manpower to run cultural activities is to already have cultural activities.