Quote from: Ian Plätschisch on December 19, 2022, 07:17:54 PMThe budget is easily accessible to everyone. It is a single thread in the Hopper.

Any extraordinary expenditure must be authorized by a Prime Dictate, which are always quickly added to the Digest of Laws if you happen to miss one.

The only thing that it might be hard to find out about is if there is budgeted money that isn't spent. Surely this situation is much less nefarious than non-budgeted money that is spent. Anyhow, if there is a lot of money not being spent, surely anyone who was interested would find out about via the overall lack of government initiatives happening.

This is just more mostly pointless reporting. If the TNC forms a government and wants to publish all this, more power to them, but I do wonder how long they could keep this tedium up.

Yes, a handful of people who are aware of the government process for budgeting can figure out most of what they need to know, usually.  But it's insane that there's no single place where we're keeping track of this stuff publicly.  I know for a fact that the Government isn't trying to hide anything about the budget or expenditures, but it's just bizarre to insist that it's pointless to make basic statistics and spending data available.

How much has our budget increased, year-over-year, on average?  If we were keeping this information in one place, that question could be answered by anyone in only a few seconds.  To answer it now would require manually browsing through each budget act and supplementary spending bill.  What percentage of our budget was actually spent each term?  Even more tedious to figure out.

It is trivially easy -- it would take a few seconds -- for the Government to publish this data in one place and make it easy for everyone to see how their money is being spent and the status of the treasury.  It is practically the best-use case of government time: solving a coordination problem to benefit everyone and possibly spur more activity.

The Government thinks it's a waste of time.  Okay.  I disagree.  I think it's textbook good governance to keep track of important things so we can make better decisions about them.  We're not doing that, and we should.

Vote TNC!

Now Bran just makes a lukewarm cup of instant, adding three Splendas and a big pour of hazelnut creamer.

Quote from: Breneir TzaracompradaIstuporat!

👍

Nice! And awesome personal generosity, too!

I will especially celebrate this morning!

What kind of magic is it? Like is it a setting where magic is everywhere, or very rare?

My entire family made it through the worst of the pandemic without a single person getting it, only for us all to catch it a few months ago.  We were even wondering, "Hey, maybe we're part of that group that can't really get it," and then BAM!

Sympathies -- you okay?  All vaxxed up?

The FDT has been in office for a very long time.  They've held power for five years straight, and they're exhausted.  In 2017, when they started their streak in governance, their platform had seventeen ideas.  In 2019, they had twelve ideas.  By the time we reached the last election, they had four ideas.  Now it's been five years, and they're tired, and they only have one idea.

Their criticism is simply mistaken.  I mean, one of their complaints is that the TNC leader was chosen as the regent.  They don't have any complaints about how the regent performed, just vague suggestions of partisanship. Yet I was the one chosen as regent, not TNC leader Breneir -- and I wasn't a member of the then-inactive TNC at the time!  Whoops!

Similarly, they're unhappy that the king doesn't engage enough.  Okay: in the last five months, His Majesty has posted only 17 times.  That's not great, and I wish he would be more active.  I'm glad when I see him engaging on Witt and discussing stuff, and it's great when he works off of Witt with the Seneschal or the Sabor to get things done, but he should be doing more.  Still, the leader of the FDT, Antaglha Somelieir, has posted only 20 times.  And I don't think anyone should be demanding that Antaglha hang her head in shame for inactivity.

Let's face the facts: the Free Democrats would like to remove the king because they would like another try at a Republic of Talossa, despite the fact the people really just don't want that.  They opposed any TNC proposal before it was even announced.  They don't want solutions.  They're content to reign over the ashes.

Maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe they have their own candidate that they want to install as king or queen, I don't know.  But I do know that they're spoiling for negative campaigning and drawn-out arguments, since they don't have anything else to campaign on going into a sixth year in office.  C'e oviös!

Sorry, I just don't think the TNC is interested in negative campaigning.  We're bringing a positive message, new ideas, and new energy to Talossa.  We're working on solutions to improve Talossa, not endless chaos and the Same Old Fight.  Maybe Breneir or xpb or someone will feel differently, but I'm just going to keep presenting ideas and boosting them, and I hope that the people will feel like it's time for a change after so many years.

The TNC thinks it's time to start publishing important statistics about our country somewhere that people can easily find them and analyze them, since the citizens of Talossa deserve to know how Talossa is doing.

We think it's time to start using our language regularly.  Las aziuns parlent pü inaltmint q'els mocts: government announcements and templates should incorporate the language where possible, and we should try to use some phrases here and there to increase exposure.

We think it's time to create a list of useful skills that our citizens have via the census, voluntarily, to create a Citizen Service Corps -- not as part of some giant new technical thing that you needs its own login or access, but just a list somewhere -- so that people can collaborate on stuff and invite others to participate in things in which they're interested.

And much more.

We think it's time for a change after five years of FDT leadership.  Vote TNC and let's do it!  Qe noi en façadrent!

The guy leading that studio, Peter Berg, has a remarkable pedigree.  Friday Night Lights!  Not a huge fan of this, though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Berg#Caitlyn_Jenner_controversy  Although I guess he isn't involved, as far as we know.

It's cool that the company made Good Night, Oppy!  That's on my to-watch list.

I created a wiki page for you guys just a few days ago, so this is great stuff to add to it!  Awesome!

https://wiki.talossa.com/Cjovani

CONGRATULATIONS!

And thank you for the excellent paper!  I look forward to reading it :)

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on December 12, 2022, 04:12:01 PMThere's a word for a political movement which only feels comfortable if it can totally protect the "information space" around its members and prevent any outside voices getting through.

For most people, there's some room between "totally protected information space with no outside voices" and "open to trolling at will."

The last time you posted on our board, it was to call us liars and argue about how we were wrong.  It's nice for there to be a public space for us to post notices, announcements, work on projects with others, and build community -- without being subject to arguments or name-calling.  You like to do that on private boards closed to non-members or on your blog -- that's fine!  Can you let us do stuff our own way?

No one's saying all outside voices should be banned.  But maybe just exercise some self-restraint and give us some space?

We would actually appreciate having our own space. Not every conversation on Witt needs to be subject to trolling. It's a public space dedicated to our party, where we have conversations, post stuff we're working on, or put up messages. It's nice and helps build a sense of community for us, which is one of the main reasons why we started this trend in the first place.

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on December 12, 2022, 01:44:35 PMWhat is the procedure for responding to things put on opponent parties' boards? ... But I'm not just going to barge into the TNC's house and start throwing things.

You previously visited our party forum to call us liars and argue with us about the legislative blockade.  I guess it's good you changed your mind about whether or not that's appropriate, though -- can we keep it that way?

Congrats to the medalists and the three (!) new knights!