We are pleased to announce that, due to the sterling and very timely work of @Baron Alexandreu Davinescu, we appear to have restored functioning on the Immigration form.

The even better news is that at least one of the "lost" immigration applications has confirmed that they still want their application to continue.

The Government of Talossa sincerely apologises to the nation for this technical disaster. I will work with the Minister of Technology and other interested parties to produce a full report of why this happened, and the steps we are taking to make sure it never happens again.

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.

In accordance with El Lexhatx C.3.1, I give notice that when the resignation of Sir Txec becomes effective, I will be advising the King to appoint @Sir Lüc as Secretary of State.

This will mean, as provided in El Lexh C.5, that Sir Lüc will resign his seats in the Cosa and - at his own request - from Cabinet.

I thank the member for his question.

I did notice, and I did care, that immigration applications had ceased. It was something of a relief to finally discover that it was due to a technical SNAFU, because Cabinet discussions on the subject had found us stumped as to what we might be doing wrong. But perhaps it was because of the presumption - shared, it seems by the Opposition - that it was due to bad government policy that no-one thought to check whether the website was b0rked until two days ago.

I confess myself puzzled as how the member expects me to "address the nation", and what he feels the content of such an address should be. I feel that my replies to various Terpelaziuns have been full and frank.

RZ17 - Per
RZ18 - Con

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.

I thank the member for his question.

The staff of the Ministry of Technology are poking around in the backend of the Wordpress setup that controls talossa.com to try to find out why it stopped sending out emails sometime in early August. Until we find that out, the Ministry of Immigration is manually checking the "innards" of the Immigration form every so often to look for new applications. We know that it's not a problem with email per se: "immigration@talossa.com" is perfectly functioning for receiving and sending emails.

The wider issue here seems to have been a problem with the handover from the previous Government. The previous Minister of Technology - who became the new Permanent Secretary of Backend Admin - informs us that he was never in charge of the Wordpress backend, and he knows nothing about it. Apparently other members of the previous Government were dealing with the Wordpress backend on an "informal basis" - something which was improper given the authorising legislation, and which led to a disastrous "dropping of the ball" when the Government changed. We implore anyone associated with the previous Government who can straighten this out to contact us ASAP.

For that reason also, the new Minister of Technology was never given access to the Wordpress backend. The only way we found out about any of this is that I, personally, still had valid credentials, and checked the backend based purely on a "hunch" two days ago. ¡Dïeulaudas! that my old credential still worked.

As previously announced, I have personally written to all the 40 or so applications who were caught in this SNAFU, offering my apologies and begging them to renew their applications.

Quote from: Sir Txec dal Nordselvă, UrB on Yesterday at 11:56:17 AMThis is awesome! Being of Scottish descent, it means tons to me. With your permission, I'd like to also adopt it as the official tartan of my Royal House, being that I am also a proud Maricopan!

Of course you can, I would be incredibly honoured!

This is awesome! Being of Scottish descent, it means tons to me. With your permission, I'd like to also adopt it as the official tartan of my Royal House, being that I am also a proud Maricopan!

My Fellow Maricopans,

It is with great pleasure that I am able to provide you, for the first time in history, as far as I am aware, an official Scottish tartan for use in Talossa!
It only seems fitting that such a historical event coincides with and commemorates another: the impending coronation of one of our very own, @Sir Txec dal Nordselvă, UrB !

This tartan was designed using the red and green of the Bicoloreu as well as the white, orange, and lime green of Maricopa's provincial flag. After some back-and-forth with Register officials, I was able to register the tartan with the official Scottish Register of Tartans as my own personal tartan. This means that I can use it for, and give permission to anyone else to use it as I see fit.

With that being said, I, Carlüs Éovart Vilaçafat, current Premieir of Maricopa, hereby authorize all current and future citizens of The Sovereign Province of Maricopa, the use of my personal tartan as they see fit.
Additionally, I authorize all future Premieirs, while actively in office, the ability to extend the use of my tartan to other, non-Maricopan, Talossan citizens as they deem appropriate.

Link to the entry in the Register:
https://www.tartanregister.gov.uk/tartanDetails?ref=14552

Colors:
R=RED;
PG=#29C415#PALE GREEN;
G=GREEN;
W=WHITE;
LO=#FC9002#LIGHT ORANGE;

Thread Count: PG/20 W2 LO20 W20 R50 G50