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#11
Wittenberg / Re: Cosă size reduction timer
Last post by Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP - Today at 05:16:28 PMQuote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on Today at 05:11:14 PMYour interpretation is spot-on, but that doesn't really have any bearing on what I'm saying. I'm saying that this was a change to the party seats that has been set by law, and that change happened with the passage of the statutory change earlier in the term. The Organic Law says that "such change" takes effect after a certain amount of time. That limit was just affirmed by the Ziu again.
What I'm saying is that the Ziu has actually affirmed a change of the baseline during the last Clark by passing the Democracy Act and Amendment, independent of any statutory changes that will enter into effect as per the relevant proviso sometime next year. After all, should the amendment pass its referendum, Org.IV.2.1.1 will say "The party seats shall total 20, [...]", with the rest being equal.
#12
Progressive Alliance / Re: Progressing Forward: Embas...
Last post by Baron Alexandreu Davinescu - Today at 05:14:00 PMQuote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC on Today at 05:01:01 PMQuote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on Today at 04:59:58 PMThanks! I got it stuck in my head the other way for some reason, and now I keep making that mistake.
You know who originally used to spell it that way? The guy who was its original editor, ESB
Do you think that's where I got it from? Maybe. Sometimes when you see a word for the first time, it sticks that way.
I was hanging out with a friend the other night, and she told me that equaniminous isn't a word. It's "equanimity" but "equanimous," without the extra syllable. But I can't get my head around it.
#13
Wittenberg / Re: Cosă size reduction timer
Last post by Baron Alexandreu Davinescu - Today at 05:11:14 PMQuote from: Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP on Today at 04:59:03 PMThis has nothing to do with annoyance. Just to be clear, here is the sentence in question:QuoteThe party seats shall total 200, or another number which may be set by law, with the provisos that any such change will not take effect until the next election following the passage of a calendar year; and that this number may never be less than twice the number of Senators minus one.
The way that IV.2.1.1 is phrased currently, the word "such" in the subordinate clause listing the provisos refers back to the directly preceding subordinate clause, not the whole sentence. Choosing to interpret that sentence in such a way that these provisos apply to all changes to the size of the Cosă instead of merely "such" change such as "another number which may be set by law" would risk rendering it ungrammatical to me. Amending this part of the OrgLaw is not merely setting "another number" "by law", but a direct modification of the baseline, and the provisos still would only apply to statutory law overriding that baseline.
Then again, maybe I'm not as good as English as I thought...!
Your interpretation is spot-on, but that doesn't really have any bearing on what I'm saying. I'm saying that this was a change to the party seats that has been set by law, and that change happened with the passage of the statutory change earlier in the term. The Organic Law says that "such change" takes effect after a certain amount of time. That limit was just affirmed by the Ziu again.
#14
Progressive Alliance / Re: Progressing Forward: Embas...
Last post by Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC - Today at 05:01:01 PMQuote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on Today at 04:59:58 PMThanks! I got it stuck in my head the other way for some reason, and now I keep making that mistake.
You know who originally used to spell it that way? The guy who was its original editor, ESB
#15
Wittenberg / Re: Cosă size reduction timer
Last post by Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC - Today at 05:00:23 PMI am of the opinion that if we read the amendment in any way other than that the 62nd Cosa will be seated under 62nd Cosa rules, we are in for a world of hurt
#16
Progressive Alliance / Re: Progressing Forward: Embas...
Last post by Baron Alexandreu Davinescu - Today at 04:59:58 PMThanks! I got it stuck in my head the other way for some reason, and now I keep making that mistake.
#17
Progressive Alliance / Re: Progressing Forward: Embas...
Last post by Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC - Today at 04:59:14 PMQuote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on Today at 04:19:57 PML'Chronica
La C'hronică
#18
Wittenberg / Re: Cosă size reduction timer
Last post by Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP - Today at 04:59:03 PMThis has nothing to do with annoyance. Just to be clear, here is the sentence in question:
The way that IV.2.1.1 is phrased currently, the word "such" in the subordinate clause listing the provisos refers back to the directly preceding subordinate clause, not the whole sentence. Choosing to interpret that sentence in such a way that these provisos apply to all changes to the size of the Cosă instead of merely "such" change such as "another number which may be set by law" would risk rendering it ungrammatical to me. Amending this part of the OrgLaw is not merely setting "another number" "by law", but a direct modification of the baseline, and the provisos still would only apply to statutory law overriding that baseline.
Then again, maybe I'm not as good at speaking English as I thought...!
QuoteThe party seats shall total 200, or another number which may be set by law, with the provisos that any such change will not take effect until the next election following the passage of a calendar year; and that this number may never be less than twice the number of Senators minus one.
The way that IV.2.1.1 is phrased currently, the word "such" in the subordinate clause listing the provisos refers back to the directly preceding subordinate clause, not the whole sentence. Choosing to interpret that sentence in such a way that these provisos apply to all changes to the size of the Cosă instead of merely "such" change such as "another number which may be set by law" would risk rendering it ungrammatical to me. Amending this part of the OrgLaw is not merely setting "another number" "by law", but a direct modification of the baseline, and the provisos still would only apply to statutory law overriding that baseline.
Then again, maybe I'm not as good at speaking English as I thought...!
#19
Progressive Alliance / Progressing Forward: Embassies...
Last post by Baron Alexandreu Davinescu - Today at 04:19:57 PM
Keep Moving Forward:
Embassies on the Ground!
As part of our "try a lot of new things" initiative, we want to try to create real enclaves of Talossa. By the end of next term, we want three real Talossan embassies in three countries. We're talking flags, signed commissions from His Majesty on display, and a placard with more information. Give people something real to make Talossa feel more real, and we'll get people with more earnest interest. If we record audio versions of La C'hronica, we can even have a soundtrack!
Think about what it means when someone walks into a coffee shop in Zürich or a pub in Melbourne and there's a Talossan flag on the wall with a royal commission next to it. That's not a website. That's not a forum post. That's a real thing in a real place, and it makes people stop and ask questions. Every single one of those conversations is worth more than a hundred Reddit ads, because the person asking is already curious!
The audio La C'hronica angle is also bigger than just ambiance for an embassy, too. Right now our newspaper is a text document that maybe forty people read. An audio version turns it into something you can listen to on a commute, something you can share with a friend who would never click a forum link but might listen to a five-minute podcast-style recording. It's another surface area for contact with people who don't know we exist yet. And if we're already recording audio, we can clip highlights for social media, for the embassy playlist, or for whatever else we come up with.
#20
Progressive Alliance / Progressing Forward: A New Fac...
Last post by Baron Alexandreu Davinescu - Today at 04:19:52 PMKeep Moving Forward:
A New Face for Talossa!
Forum-based communities have been declining across the internet for twenty years. Wittenberg is the heart of Talossan civic life, but the forum format has real limitations for attracting and retaining new members. New citizens face a wall of historical context, inside references, and ongoing debates into which they have no point of entry. The official unofficial Discord has been a fun side community -- we should look into how we can integrate it (or an equivalent) into our civic life. It turns out that saying "hi" on Discord is a first step some people like more than a forum post.
The data backs this up. We know that Wittenberg activity correlates with immigration applications, and we know that ghosting during the naturalization window is our biggest bottleneck. People drop off because they lose momentum, and momentum is easier to maintain when you can just pop into a Discord channel and see people talking than when you have to navigate a forum thread with six months of context you missed. Discord isn't a replacement for Wittenberg -- the Cosa isn't going to debate legislation in a chat room. But Discord can be where someone wanders in, says "hey, what's Talossa," and gets a human response in ten minutes.
We also need to be honest about what the forum format costs us in terms of the kind of citizen we attract. Right now, we self-select for people who are already comfortable with forums -- and that's an increasingly narrow slice of the internet-literate population. Plenty of people who would make great Talossans, who would write laws and learn the language and run for office, never get past the first look at Wittenberg because the format itself feels like homework. Let's broaden our horizons a little!