It does, but in a clunky and kind of temporary way. The old method of a web form that fires off an email was easily broken, as we know because it broke last year. It required server-side dependencies that made it hard to manage since one person was operating each side of the system. And the way it would output a chunk of text that would then have to be manually edited in a bunch of places in order to post was also clunky. It all worked for a years, but it also caused problems and limited our options.

This ministry has the most sizable workload of any, as you well know. Making it more manageable is going to save us hours and days of time in the years to come.

In my capacity as Minister of Immigration, I have begun to rework the immigration process to improve it from top to bottom.  The first step was the immigration form.  Unfortunately, the software for our website and the associated plugins were all out of date and starting to break -- it had become impossible to edit the form at all without causing problems.

To address this, the entire form has been rebuilt with a different software.  The resulting new system will now automatically keep records of all applications, it looks more modern and nicer, it's much easier to edit and improve, and it works better for the user.  It will also make it a heck of a lot easier to post immigration applications, although that's really only something that benefits me and my successors.

Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions!

I wish to modify my choice to Béneditsch Ardpresteir.

Certainly. A few zips on her machine and it'll be hemmed and the ends will be joined.

This is nowhere near a finished piece of legislation... it's a broad proposal asking for feedback.  The main feedback from the URL is that they're very opposed to the basic concept.  They like things the way they are.  I think my plan is a good idea for reform, though, and I'll work to convince our conservative friends across the aisle to support this step towards progress.

Right now, we have eleven ministries of various size and scope.  This means we always need to stack multiple jobs on a handful of people, since it's the best way to handle that situation (as we promised in our campaign).  But that system wasn't handed down from on high... the government should serve the people's needs!

Accordingly, my proposal would maintain just a few statutory ministers.  These would basically operate as before.  Otherwise, the list of necessary tasks would be divided up by government as needed among these few ministers or however many new ministers might be needed or wanted, and then publicly posted.

This has a lot of advantages.  For one, it would make it a little more likely to have specific people given just one or two tasks, increasing accountability when compared to the current system of general deputies.  This allows people with specific expertise but not much time, or who want to just do one bit of something, to contribute without a significant commitment.

Additionally, it means people are less likely to need to round out the Government with less active people, just for the look of it, and we won't need to have people with five Cabinet job titles all at the same time.

Now, this reform isn't do-or-die -- since it seems like we don't have the numbers for this right now, we can just keep doing things the traditional way.  But I do think it would improve things and better reflect the real needs of the government.  I hope to be able to change some minds on this in the future.

Oh, of course!  I would never never change it without authorization of the Ziu.

OKAY whew.  After like an hour of negotiating, there's a deal.  @Béneditsch Ardpresteir for Mencei and Tafial for Tuischach.

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC on December 21, 2025, 01:42:00 PMThe "usual tradition" is for both Chambers to be led by non-government members.

I made this suggestion in Discord: that a URL member lead the Cosa, and a Progressive who's not in Government leads the Senate.  D:na Miestra seems to have rejected that offer out of hand, in what she once called "political aggression," but the offer stands.

Yes; this would atomize those responsibilities to allow them to be more fluidly assigned according to the needs of the moment.  I think it would better reflect actual practice.

There was a Member of Cosa who mentioned this last time:

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC on April 25, 2025, 04:51:28 PMHmmm. I am distressed to see that the Progressive Alliance are attempting to take the leadership of both houses of the Ziu. I was leaning towards the Baron on the grounds that he's proved his competence to work in the CRL, but the best response to this kind of political aggression is to vote for Dien.

I'm not familiar with any provision transferring administration of the wiki to the Chancery.  I'm fairly sure that it's a Propaganda or Technology issue, unless I missed a significant legal change.

Actually, this reduces the statutory ministries down to 3.  You should read the outline -- I think it's a pretty good new approach.

For sure.

Okay, all dates are fixed and in the standard format.  I found one other date in the wrong format and fixed that, too.

@Breneir Tzaracomprada , do you still have the chain?  I'd like to have it for the Living Cosa and official oath.

I have attempted to address this issue in the interim by proposing some changes to our manual of style: https://wiki.talossa.com/TalossaWiki_talk:Manual_of_style

Just for reference, this came up during the campaign when a party leader added a footnote with "claimed" to the values list of another party, implying that this claim was in doubt.  They also added in a promo for their party to a main namespace article.  Neither of these things was a huge deal, and the matter was addressed pretty quickly with a return to the status quo.  It might have been an innocent mistake, really.  We deliberately chose not to make a fuss and publicize the matter.  But it does look like we need some way to handle this, and our guidelines should be clear and set well in advance of the next election.

Possible outline of a change:

2. The Cabinet shall consist of the officers listed below:

2.1. The Seneschal, heading the Prüma Ministrà, who is responsible for the overall operation and performance of the government.

2.1.1.  The Seneschal shall perform all duties assigned to his office by Organic Law. All other Cabinet officers are appointed by the Seneschal, serve at his pleasure, are responsible to him, and derive their powers from him. The Seneschal may perform any official act on behalf of his ministers.

2.1.2.  The Seneschal may at any time designate a deputy minister to be Acting Minister, until the Seneschal or the Minister for whom they are acting publicly declare otherwise, or the Minister for whom they are acting is dismissed.

2.1.3.  The Seneschal may issue executive orders, collectively known as Prüms Dideux.

2.1.3.1. A Prüm Diktat, as provided by Org.VI.4., requires the King's countersignature to become enforceable and has the force of law. It's used to enact or amend statutes, to authorise emergency spending, to remove the Clerk of the Court,or in all situations where the Legeu Orgänic or el Lexhatx explicitly require for it or for the King's countersignature.  The Seneschal should issue Prüm Diktats with caution and respect, and leave legislation solely for democratic consideration by the whole Ziu, except when is deemed necessary an urgent action.

2.1.3.2. A Prüm Dirixhaziun is used to declare a month of recess, to issue memorials, congratulatory notices, internal Government organisation decisions and policy statements, executive policy clarifications, and other appropriate and limited governmental matters, and in all situations where the law provides for the Seneschal to act alone without the King's assent.

2.1.4. The Seneschal may appoint a Distain, who shall serve in the Prime Ministry as deputy to the Seneschal, and shall perform such duties as are delegated to him by the Seneschal. All acts thus delegated and performed shall have the same effect as if performed by the Seneschal himself.

2.2.  The Immigration Minister, who will oversee the immigration experience.

2.3. The Avocat-Xheneral, who will oversee the justice system.

2.3.1. Supervises Scribe and Archivist

2.4. The Chancellor, who will oversee foreign affairs and defense.

2.4.1.  Supervises Zuavs and Burgermeister

3.  The Seneschal will also be responsible for managing other obligations, either within the Prüma Ministrà, or by assigning them to members of the Cabinet, or by elevating additional officers to administer them.

3.1.  New Citizen Outreach
3.2.  National Promotion
3.3.  Propaganda (including L'Chronica)
3.4.  Infrastructure (Websites)
3.5.  Cultural Institutions (Language, supervising Poet Laureate and Royal Society)
3.6.  Home Affairs
3.7.  Budget
3.8.  Merchandise (including TalossaWare)
3.9.  Public Records (including Infoteca)

So cut down the number of ministries from eleven to four or so, and then have either the additional portfolios assigned among them or to other ministers?  That makes sense.  That also solves the problem of who's supervising folks.

So I went back through the records, and it looks like it's been a very long time since we were in a position to have ten or eleven people active in ministries.  Instead, it looks like two to four active people, plus a couple of people on the margins.  We also get a lot of variation in terms of the available talent, which also affects how important a job ends up being.

However, the whole system is set up in imitation of bigger countries: here's a set of jobs, here's the people reporting to them, here's their duties.  And so we have always been stacking jobs and assigning deputies to try to juggle stuff among people who can do it.

I was thinking it might make sense to shift to what we might call a different style, where the different portfolios are split up and assigned as needed, with traditional groupings in the same manner as we have now.  You'll notice that this wouldn't end up being a dramatic change, but I thought this would take into account the concerns D:na Miestra mentioned while also addressing the reality of the situation.

Immigration
New Citizen Outreach
National Promotion
Propaganda
Infrastructure
Foreign Outreach
Language Affairs
Home Affairs
Budget
Collectibles
Merchandise
Public Records
Defense

We'd want to retain some specific roles that come with a title:
Avocat-Xheneral
Distain

So in this case, someone who's very good at technology might get Infrastructure and Merchandise, instead of those being split among MinTech and MinProp right now, while also getting Language Affairs if the plan was to build out a new online Treisour database or something.  It would be a more flexible system where we wouldn't need to constantly make exceptions.

I don't know how you would decide on overall job titles, but we could keep some of the traditional ones by attaching titles to each portfolio, and letting people pick which one to use.

I'm not set on this plan, but I thought it was worth bringing up.  I know people might be attached to some of the traditional roles, but it's more important that we're serving the people in a way that makes sense and works better for our limited energies.  Sometimes good government reform means changing things.

One thing I'm stuck on: permanent secretary and civil service oversight.  How would that be assigned?  Does it make sense to have just one supervisor portfolio?  Probably not, so maybe they should be put into categories of Title C and Title D.

Okay, I believe I have addressed everything here.  I fixed the weird legal problem where text was never updated and then the old text was amended again, and so it's unclear what's the right thing.  I eliminated all the blank spaces and instructed sequential renumbering.  And I fixed all the resulting cross-references.  Whew!

Quote from: Antaglha Xhenerös Somelieir on December 18, 2025, 11:27:52 AMI would like to nominate @GV for Mençéi

Currently, Tafi is the only nominee in the Cosa.  It seems to me we probably want to keep to the usual choice of having different parties in different chambers.