I think that even people who are angry with him or that he treated badly still respect him, broadly speaking. It takes a special kind of something to found a nation in your bedroom and then keep it up, adding on language and culture, all the way through to middle age.

I think you are unlikely to get the votes to restore his citizenship without some kind of process happening first. Maybe a good first step would be to pass a bill to establish a truth and reconciliation commission, and invite him to it, so that we can talk it out as a nation and as a founder. Would you be interested in something like that, or reaching out to him privately first, or something similar? I have his email address.

I think probably a first step would be re-opening a conversation with the former king, and asking if this is something he's still interested in.  When he broached the subject a couple of years ago, people were mostly only open to his return if he was willing to take some accountability for his behavior.  But he might be ready to do that to some degree, and re-enter our community as a citizen.  He's 60 years old and still alive, so he's already defied the prophecy that said he would die at 59.  Maybe that's when he'll be ready to talk about it.

Over the years, a lot of people have accepted responsibility for their role in past events.  For example, His Grace, Duke John, made a speech about how the Kingdom should have reached out more to the Republic in the time of schism and worked to close that breach earlier, and apologizing on behalf of the country for how former King Robert treated them while they were citizens.  And Marti-Pair and Ieremiah apologized for taking control of the Talossan webspaces when founding the Republic.  The Seneschal has publicly apologized for her attitude and treatment of others prior to her election as senator.  I have apologized for my treatment of a former citizen.

Former King Robert did everything possible to try to usurp control from the people when they started to drift away from him.  When he lost, he tried to bring Talossa to the ground.  Maybe he's ready to talk about that.

1.  First the election has to be certified.

2.  Then the Secretary of State will issue a call for parties to assign their seats to Members of Cosa to represent those seats.  Party leaders will assign their seats.

3.  Then a majority of Members might present a letter of majority to His Majesty, choosing a Seneschal and thereby forming a Government.

4.  Then the Secretary of State will issue a call for bills for the first Clark, which he will then assemble for voting if they've been properly submitted and vetted through the Hopper and CRL.

5.  Then voting will start on the Clark, including any bills that have been submitted, and including a Ranked Choice Vote for Seneschal if there was no majority before now.  The allotted time to vote runs until the twenty-first, at which point the results are published (including who the Seneschal will be, if that was in the Clark), and the second Clark opens for submissions.

I sent in the Progressive Party's fee, plus my own.

I agree -- Tafi, I think you're good.

I'd be fine with a direct democracy of sorts.  The original idea was to allow people to designate others as their proxies, but I don't think that's ever happened in the ten years or whatever we've had these rules.  The only thing I want to avoid is a scenario where people only suddenly become members of the Assembly when there's something they want to vote on.  I think the Assembly should be constituted at the start of the term.  At the very least, though, we should simplify the rules.

That's a cool idea, but we can't give an AI a Witt account for technical reasons and privacy reasons, I'd think.  And I think Tafi is right about the quality of their writing... it hallucinates, and it usually ends up sounding like the same slop.

But I do think it might be interesting to try pointing an instance of Claude at the wiki and directing it to browse and look for things that seem like they should be updated.  It shouldn't do the updating itself, but such a list would be useful.  (Assuming it can actually competently do this, which... I don't know.)

I was actually thinking about this last night, and I think, whoever the next Seneschal is, they should reinstitute the bounty system offered by Sir Ian, years ago.  Improve the wiki a certain amount and you get to request a day of observance with photo/video proof of the Seneschal celebrating it.

This is a list of things that need doing.  Please feel free to add to it with your own suggestions. Some of these are just for people in charge of various things, and others anyone can do. If you feel like you want to contribute, please do so!

---

* Update the wiki Citizen's Portal, which hasn't been edited or updated for more than a decade.
* Update the wiki Manual of Style, which is also more than a decade old.
* Get TalossaWare available again by updating Printify vendors.  (Do we want a new service, or keep the easy one?)
* Update the main menu and government templates, since the government's been rearranged a bit.
* Post a reminder on the wiki and on the website interface about how it's illegal to delete any item public record, but also figure out if that law needs to be updated since it seems crazy.
* Figure out what to do about l'Chronica -- what versions get read and how much?
* Get a report on social media use... do we still need Twitter even now?  How can we simplify?
* Create a policy for the wiki about political campaigning.
* New citizen's guide shouldn't be a PDF at this point.
* Specific site problems:
    * ID Cards link is broken
    * Coins & Stamps are not being issued currently.
    * Contacts Page is outdated.
    * Blog posts widget is broken
    * Replace graphics
    * Replace photo
    * Redesign with one sidebar.
* Specific wiki problems:
    * Add padding to nav menus like The Court
    * For that matter, no one ever refers to The Court in any context ever, so why is this a category?
    * Organic Law history page
    * Organic Law description page
    * Statutory Law page
    * No one has touched Uc's projects in two years - current Scribe should address
    * Also highlighting on orglaw needs to be useful or eliminated (or just in a mirrored copy)
    * Census page
    * Senators pages.
    * We need a "what to update" page for new admins as part of transition packages.
    * Luc's Tripolarism page and similar need to be incorporated into the History page and maybe linked with a "party systems" navbar.
    * History needs to be made into a prose page based on the timeline.

Quote from: King Txec on December 03, 2025, 10:47:06 AMPardon my intrusion Baron into your party forum. As I was watching the election unfold it was apparent that some voters who voted on Witt copy/pasted and might have spoiled at least a portion of their ballots. I wonder if in the future we could work with Sir Luc on some way to avoid this while still making sure anyone who wishes can vote publicly on Witt. I'd hate for voters to be disenfranchised. I'm not sure how this could be worked out, but we have time until the next GE. What do you think?

-Txec R

I think that's a good idea!  And it's smart to start thinking about it now.  I will consult with Sir Luc and see what we can do... maybe including a "sample Wittenberg vote" template for people to use in the initial post, or as a follow-up post to which we can link directly?  We don't want to do anything that will target a legal practice in order to affect the outcome, but it's also really unfortunate when ballots get spoiled.

Thank you for the thought, Your Majesty!

I know a lot of my campaigning included a link to the voting thread to encourage people to pop in and vote, and I don't think the URL campaign materials did.  Also a lot of long-term citizens have been voting publicly for their entire time in Talossa, and people tend to keep doing the same thing.

Personally, I think there's nothing wrong at all with either approach -- the secret ballot is everyone's right and we certainly would never say anything against it, even if I tend to vote the same way I always have.

I remember when we introduced the secret ballot back in the day, when I spent quite a while arguing with Sir Cresti about it.  He was skeptical we had the technology to implement it, as I recall.  Thankfully, we're in a different era now.

"C.1. Elections to the Provincial Assembly of Maritiimi-Maxhestic shall be conducted using the Maritiimi-Maxhestic Assembly Call.

C.1.1. The Assembly Call is publicly issued by the Maximally Magnificent Majordomo during every national election. The Call shall be issued no earlier than ten days before, and no later than, the national Balloting Day, and is closed at the same time as the national elections on the Election Deadline. If the Maximally Magnificent Majordomo does not issue the Assembly Call by the national Balloting Day, any citizen of Maritiimi-Maxhestic may issue it.

C.1.2. Responding to the "Maritiimi-Maxhestic Assembly Call' is simple, and amounts to giving public notice to Maritiimi-Maxhestians that the respondent wishes to claim a seat in the Assembly for themselves or designate their seat to another person.

C.1.2.1. If a respondent designates their seat to another person, the designee must be named by the respondent and must be eligible to hold seats in the Assembly under Article III.C of the Constitution of Maritiimi-Maxhestic.

C.1.3. After the Call closes, seats in the Assembly shall be distributed according to the responses to the Call. The number of seats in the Assembly shall be equal to the number of responses to the Call."

@Sir Ian Plätschisch , what do you think?  It feels odd to say Tafi's ballot claim wouldn't count.

There's a lot of accumulated errors in the law, and I thought it might be a good idea to just take a minute and fix them.  This bill strikes all the empty sections and directs them to be renumbered, and confirms the existing text where it is in doubt.  I think I got them all, but I'll still need to go through and check to make sure no references are being broken.

(I had a snow day today.)

THEREFORE, the section Lexh.A.9 shall be struck from the law, and all subsequent sections and subsections renumbered sequentially.

FURTHERMORE, the text of Lexh.A.16, which currently reads:

QuoteExcept as provided in A.17, whoever does any of the following is guilty of a crime subject to punishment by banishment, revocation of citizenship, any combination of civil disabilities and any other authorized punishments:

shall be replaced by

QuoteWhoever does any of the following is guilty of a crime subject to punishment by banishment, revocation of citizenship, any combination of civil disabilities and any other authorized punishments:

FURTHERMORE, the section Lexh.A.17 shall be struck from the law, and all subsequent sections and subsections renumbered sequentially.

FURTHERMORE, the subsubsubsection Lexh.D.2.6.5 shall be struck from the law, and all subsequent sections and subsections renumbered sequentially.

FURTHERMORE, the subsubsubsubsections Lexh.D.2.8.2.8-10 shall be struck from the law, and all subsequent sections and subsections renumbered sequentially.

FURTHERMORE, the section Lexh.D.5 shall be struck from the law, and all subsequent sections and subsections renumbered sequentially.

FURTHERMORE, the subsections Lexh.D.8.5-8 shall be struck from the law, and all subsequent sections and subsections renumbered sequentially.

FURTHERMORE, Lexh.F.2 shall be confirmed to read as follows:

Quote2. The list of public holidays recognised and observed by the government is as follows:

2.1. Feb 28-Mar 1: Ziuas dal Anavatan - Combines Landmark, Culture, and Cestour Days into a multi-day festival leading into Berber Heritage Month. It is a celebration of all things Talossan, with a special emphasis on the special relationship all Talossans have to the Greater Talossan Area. On leap years, Feb 29th should be marked by the staging (digital or otherwise) of a Talossan Opera.
2.2. April 20: Reunision Day - Celebrates the healing of the great National Schism, and the history of the Talossan Republic of 2004-2012.
2.3. May 1: Flag Day - recalls the theft of the national flag in 1984. In true Talossan fashion, this day should be spent NOT displaying the flag, to encourage meditation on national symbols and Talossanity in general.
2.4. 20 April. Reunision Day. Commemorating the royal proclamation of Reunision and the end of the National Schism.
2.5. 1 June. Republic Day. Commemorating the foundation of the Talossan Republic as a day to honour democracy and the popular will, for both Republican and Monarchist traditions.
2.6. 1st Monday in September: Monarchy Day - celebrates the institution of the Talossan monarchy and marks the resumption of the monarchy with the coronation of King Florence in 1988.
2.7. November 25: Victory Day - celebrates our victory in the Cone Wars.
2.8. December 26: Independence Day - celebrates our independence from the Big Neighbor.

FURTHERMORE, Lexh.F.5 is confirmed to read as follows:

Quote5. The government of the Kingdom shall recognise and observe as a public holiday the day of, or the day before, the birthday of the current Sovereign.

5.2. The list of Days of Observance recognised and observed by the government is as follows:
5.2.1. January 1. Flip Molinar Day. This Holiday honors the contributions and enduring legacy of S:reu Flip Molinar as proclaimed by King Txec.
5.2.2. the month of March: Berber Heritage Month. All citizens are encouraged to express themselves in whatever medium is appropriate, on the question of Talossa's real or imagined Berbercentric prehistory.
5.2.3. March 21: James "Jimmy" Letherer Memorial Civil Rights Day, or "Civil Rights Day" for short.
5.2.4. 7 April: Cjovani Day. This holiday honors a trailblazing example of Talossan subcultural development, the Cjovani Belacostans, and serves as a day for Talossans to consider the potential for future subcultures in their own provinces
5.2.5. June 24: Immigration Day
5.2.6. September 28: Democracy Day
5.2.7. October 16: Publicity Day
5.2.8. December 12: Llimbaziua (Language Day).
5.3. The Minister of Culture may declare additional one-time Days of Observance upon petition by Talossan citizens. Permanent Days of Observance must be approved by the Ziu.
5.3.13. 10 December. Human Rights Day. A suggested method to celebrate Human Rights Day is reviewing Article XI of The Organic Law and/or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

FURTHERMORE, the sections Lexh.F.32-34 and Lexh.F.39 shall be struck from the law, and all subsequent sections and subsections renumbered sequentially.

FURTHERMORE, the subsection Lexh.G.1.1 shall be struck from the law, and all subsequent sections and subsections renumbered sequentially.

FURTHERMORE, the section Lexh.L.10 shall be struck from the law, and all subsequent sections and subsections renumbered sequentially.

Oh, I don't know! It seems like they should.

I think this is the right number.  Do we have a GGS right now?  Do we have a GSU?

Okay, looks like it's just the two of us.

I want to say thank you to everyone who voted for me.  I last served as your senator in 2009, and it is an honour that you have trusted me once more.  I pledge to represent the interests of our province with the reverence and fervency that she so richly deserves.  If you need anything to do with anything, please make sure you ask me.  I might not be able to help you myself, but I'll probably know who can.

Progressives, there is a vote that will soon start.  Make suggestions on the proposal tonight on our private board, before it goes to a vote this week!

Wow, what an election!  With 41 votes, the Progressive Alliance will end up with an astonishing 87 seats in the Cosa, the largest party by a decent margin.  More than that, candidates affiliated with the Progressive Alliance won Senäts seats in every single contested election: Florencia, Maricopa, and Maritiimi-Maxhestic!  I think it's fair to say that the voters wanted to send a message!

We want to thank the citizens of Talossa for their confidence, and we promise we will vigorously represent our voters.  More than that, we promise we will try to advocate for all Talossans to "do Talossa" how they want to do it.

We will soon be entering into discussions with our members about how to assign seats, with other parties about the best way to form a Government, and with anyone interested in telling us what excites them about Talossa and how we can help them do it.

It's crazy how much of a difference firing a few people and hiring some goalkeepers made!

I have updated the wiki with the new honours.  Congratulations to the new additions to l'Urderi per la Naziun.  There are now eighteen active citizens who have been elevated in recognition of extraordinary service to the Talossan nation or culture.

Welcome back!