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

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on November 18, 2024, 02:58:57 PM

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on November 18, 2024, 09:15:01 AMWould you guys please drop everything else

No, we won't do that, if only because there's a list of at least 20 things that the Open Society party will scream about if we stop doing them.

Please prioritize important things and emergency problems, even if you get criticized for it.

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on November 18, 2024, 03:36:49 PMThe Immigration Ministry has the grim task of provisionally confirming that the talossa.com immigration form seems to have simply not forwarded any emails to anyone since August 2 this year. Looking in the files, there appear to be something like forty (40) immigration applications which have been stuck in the "bit bucket" for most of my Government's term.

This is a failure of the STUFF/Backend part of the Government which I am chasing up with urgent haste. However, I am pleased to note that this is not a failure of the Immigration part of the Government.

I have emailed every single one of these applicants personally and invited them to renew their applications.

This is a surprising level of negligence.

If immigration drops to zero for three months, that should be a warning alarm.  If immigration applications drop to zero for three months, that should be the most important thing to the Government.

The Government has seriously failed the country.

Jumping on this thread:

It looks like immigration has fallen off a cliff.  Last time this was brought up, I thought it was too early to draw any conclusions, but at this point it's been three months, and in that time there has been one single immigration application and zero naturalizations.  We had a pretty steady three-month rolling average of slightly over one immigrant a month for a long time, and now the average is zero.

It seems to me like this should be the number-one, absolutely top priority of the Government.  But currently the only solution the Government is proposing is social media outreach, and even that isn't currently happening.

Would you guys please drop everything else and immediately switch to focusing on this issue above all others, tell us what exactly you plan to do, and let us know when those things are happening?

Here's the progress so far.



-Dean

As to RZ17, I vote per.
As to RZ18, I vote contra.

I vote non on the VoC.

I recommend to the SKA, then, that he appoint the Long Fellow as the new Prevuost of the Royal Academy of Vexillology, and task him first with recommending an appropriate glheþ name for the Academy, probably selecting from among those suggested.

-Dean

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on November 02, 2024, 02:43:12 PM"We can't abolish the Senäts because it removes constraints on the Government"
> lists a whole lot of things that the Senäts didn't constrain

That doesn't make any sense.

We're going 70 miles per hour on the highway, and someone is proposing speeding up to 100 mph.  It's not crazy to say, "We're already going pretty fast!"

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on November 02, 2024, 02:43:12 PMA "check on Government power" which operates only in one political direction is not good.

There's nothing inherent to the Senats that magically makes it an FDT stronghold.  There was a time when it was a RUMP stronghold -- ten years ago or so.  That's the whole point of the institution... it requires multiple sustained elections to build power there, and it resists rapid change.

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on November 02, 2024, 02:43:12 PMThe appropriate checks on Government power are:
a) free and fair elections;
b) a non-partisan Chancery and civil service;
c) the entrenched Organic Law and Bill of Rights.

Elections are not magically free or fair.  The civil service is not magically non-partisan.  The Organic Law does not magically remain entrenched.  These things must all be a part of a system that balances competing interests and prevents the victor of the moment from changing the rules that impede their momentary success.  You can't just trust that victors will always be virtuous.

At some point in the future, someone with whom you vehemently disagree will attain power in Talossa.  This happens in every country.  Giorgia Meloni won an election.  Donald Trump won an election.  Javier Milei won an election.

There should be checks to deter such people from immediately changing election laws so that they're no longer free and fair, to deter them from making the Chancery and civil service into a partisan force, and to deter them from altering or subverting the Organic Law and Covenants.

Quote from: Mic'haglh Autófil, SMC EiP on October 28, 2024, 11:31:21 PM

• Unicameralism: The Senäts is abolished with the general election following ratification of the relevant Organic amendment.

We already have barely any checks in our system to curtail a Government.  They have steadily vanished over the years.  The removal of the Senats would eliminate yet another.  That is a serious problem.

It is quite easy to pass major legislation changing our country's constitutional or statutory laws.  It happens with great frequency.  We're only five years out from a sweeping set of amendments to nearly every part of the Organic Law.  In that time, we've also seen these other major changes to the laws:

• A complete reworking of the justice system, both civil and criminal.
• A reworking of the operations of the legislature.
• Multiple changes in how our chief executive is chosen.
• A reworking of the finance law.
• A reworking of the laws governing the two most important cabinet ministries, STUFF and Interior.
• The addition of an entirely new method of representation in the legislature, awarding seats to new citizens without an election.
• The elimination of the hereditary monarchy and creation of a new method of succession.
• The nationalization and new governing procedures for the main method of our country's communication, official business, and casual interactions: Wittenberg.
• Several different major changes to the immigration laws.
• The reworking of the entire honours system.
• The creation of new laws and procedures for government transparency and official record-keeping.

And that's an incomplete list.  There are almost no checks on rapid changes to our country and its governance, since the royal veto is almost never used -- you're proposing to eliminate one of the last real checks on Government power when we're already passing laws and making changes at a breakneck pace.

Quote from: Mic'haglh Autófil, SMC EiP on October 28, 2024, 11:31:21 PM

• The ability of MCs to petition the Chancery for official recognition / "parliamentary status" for a new party in the middle of a Cosa term is retained in this proposal, along with the same limitations on doing so.

It seems as though the Chancery can already do this, should they choose to.  As far as I'm aware, it's just Chancery policy, not the law.  Maybe I'm missing something?

It has never really existed, as best I can remember -- when we came up with the achievements for the different ministries and whatnot, it was just the Coletx at large, I think?  I would suspect it was one of those "this should exist" offices that have floated around since time immemorial and seldom been utilized (like the Chancery's office of the census or MinDef's primary intelligence group).

I would support your appointment as head of this academy, but we need proper glheþ instead of English and we need an appropriate title for the head of the academy.  What would you like to be called?  Lead Academician?  Lord Marshall?

-Dean

I have already done the translation, although I'm going to check with Tafi about it.

For the supporters, I have commissioned art through Fiverr, since I couldn't find anything I liked.

-Dean

Perhaps since you're asking for someone to do a series of small tasks for you, you could make it easier on them by directly linking to the files for them?

I support the elimination of the CRL and the doubling of required Hopper time.