Getting involved

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Everyone gets busy from time to time, and certainly someone who has been in active presence in our country for so long deserves a little leeway now and then! I wasn't trying to make a dig at you, man, I was just trying to run down the list of stuff that an enthusiastic new citizen might be able to participate in. I really do think that there's kind of a short window to get people actively involved in civic life. Like our website famously says, Talossa can be habit forming... But you have to get started in something before it can become a habit!

I'm with you on this completely.  And it would be nice if there was a nonpartisan route to habit-forming.

That was a lot of the reasoning behind the Zuavs -- a way to harness a lot of what is cool about Talossa as incentive for getting things done, with the hope that it would be a virtuous cycle.  I wish I still had the time to do it, and don't begrudge anyone who doesn't feel like they can take it on -- kudos to you for the attempt, in fact!  I wish I could get back to it, but I have two toddlers and a four-year-old and a full-time teaching job mid-pandemic and I'm also rather in the middle of a good run in American politics, so I just can't take on any additional position of responsibility.  I hope there's someone else with the gumption and the time, but times are tough all 'round!

[Glüc]

Also, we're looking for one more person to make a 10+ question kahoot for our quiznight (+tmt20 broadcast) saturday!

https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?topic=466.0

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Also, we're looking for one more person to make a 10+ question kahoot for our quiznight (+tmt20 broadcast) next saturday!

I'm excited for this!  I have mine mostly done -- trying to find a glheþ question that isn't dependent on knowledge level.

[GV]

More than any other political party in the past five-to-ten years, the Free Democrats are actually doing something.  We have revolutionized governance and put into action an agenda for the future.  For more information: https://freedemstalossa.wordpress.com/

That's mostly just empty phrasing. Last ten years? I doubt it. A lot of things happened 5-10 years ago, the creation of the wiki, creation of Talossa.com codifying of our law. More recently? Probably true, but then there many large or active parties left these days.

True, a lot of energy has been spent on legislation and institutional reforms, but how much of that has translated into actual activity? (Other than the efforts made to implement it all, often by people outside the FreeDems, and to fix the various holes and problems already arising from flawed bills that were passed with not enough discussion).

Fair enough, actually, especially as my period of real inactivity was...2009 to sometime in 2011.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

Honestly no idea why you're picking a fight here or even what this fight is about. I'm trying to list things that a new citizen can get involved with immediately

And you just happen to be doing so while whispering things in the new citizens' ear that happen to be your political hobby horses. In this case in particular, being oh-so-sad that new citizens have to win an election to get a legislative seat, meaning that clever political leaders can't "farm" newbies into their political party, a practice which kept your old party in power for 9 straight terms.

It leaves the rest of us with a pretty sad choice. Either we ignore you, and your politically tendentious whisperings become established as "truth" for new citizens, or we turn the thread into a political debate, which may just scare off the new citizen. How about we avoid that, and when listing things for new citizens, you don't push your extremely minority political positions. Imagine if US immigration staff were allowed to promote Scientology.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

More importantly, the following is in the Coalition Agreement for the incoming government:

Using the New Citizens' Information Packet being developed by STUFF, and other online resources such as the New Talossan History Project, to make sure prospective and new citizens have all the information they need to fully participate in Talossan life.
Use all other means to engage new citizens and inactive citizens returning to Talossan life, including the New Citizens' Council (if this continues) and using the Job Centre to find appropriate tasks for enthusiastic new citizens.
Examine naming a new Permanent Secretary of Immigration.

[Eðo Grischun]

More importantly, the following is in the Coalition Agreement for the incoming government:

Using the New Citizens' Information Packet being developed by STUFF, and other online resources such as the New Talossan History Project, to make sure prospective and new citizens have all the information they need to fully participate in Talossan life.
Use all other means to engage new citizens and inactive citizens returning to Talossan life, including the New Citizens' Council (if this continues) and using the Job Centre to find appropriate tasks for enthusiastic new citizens.
Examine naming a new Permanent Secretary of Immigration.

Thanks. All of which will be live by the start of the new Cosa in just a couple of weeks.  (Except the history project.  I'm not involved in that, so don't know it's timescales).

The job site is ready and awaiting population by the incoming ministers when the new Cabinet forms and the info packet is in in the final stage of editing (A couple of preview snippets have already been take from it and put in a "read here" thread in the immigration sub-forum).


Just to add to the list of things to do for new citizens... the most recent reforms to the civil service allow for the creation of any perm-sec for any niche area of interest on an ad-hoc basis.

[Adam Grigoriu]

I was wondering what the job board was for, honestly. I guess now I get to wait and see what gets posted.

One of the things I've noticed that I'd be interested in is updating the wiki. It might sound boring, but research (legal and otherwise) is something I enjoy. I've been doing some reading, and there's some things I probably could work on but I'm not 100% sure what can and can't be edited and all that, or even who I should contact.

I gotta say, at the very least, Talossan legal documents are infinitely more interesting than US ones. The US has depressingly few laws that refer to a squirrel space program or holidays about penguins.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Honestly no idea why you're picking a fight here or even what this fight is about. I'm trying to list things that a new citizen can get involved with immediately

And you just happen to be doing so while whispering things in the new citizens' ear that happen to be your political hobby horses. In this case in particular, being oh-so-sad that new citizens have to win an election to get a legislative seat, meaning that clever political leaders can't "farm" newbies into their political party, a practice which kept your old party in power for 9 straight terms.

It leaves the rest of us with a pretty sad choice. Either we ignore you, and your politically tendentious whisperings become established as "truth" for new citizens, or we turn the thread into a political debate, which may just scare off the new citizen. How about we avoid that, and when listing things for new citizens, you don't push your extremely minority political positions. Imagine if US immigration staff were allowed to promote Scientology.

Not even sure what to do with this.  Intellectually, I know that you must think this is reasonable.  I know that.  But it's hard to understand.  Literally started and deleted a reply three times because I know you think you're on the level but it's just so weird.

You are the sitting Seneschal, in the post for years.  You and your senior Ministreu are explicitly promoting your party to someone interested in finding something to do, including mentioning the jobs on offer in your Government.  But you are also upset that I just mentioned one of my opinions -- unpopular they may be, o perish the thought for I am weak and cannot stand alone -- to Adam?  What sort of strange soft-cheese brain would be corrupted to holding an unpopular opinion by an offhand mention by a stranger, yet unaffected by the country's leader personally recruiting them and mentioning open positions in Government?  And you're doing this while also expressing your outrage that a former Government used to recruit new citizens?

I can understand thinking it's fine to go hard on recruiting like that.  I can understanding thinking it's better to let someone find their feet first.  But I cannot understand the most powerful person in the country simultaneously pitching someone on the benefits of their party while also scolding a private citizen for mentioning an unpopular political opinion.  Just does not compute.

Adam, I'm sorry.  You can honestly just mostly tune this stuff out as the noise that it is.  Hopefully you have found some good suggestions about things you can do to get involved: get arms, get involved with political governance, join a national political party, learn the language, and so on.  I'm sorry this whole thing derailed -- I felt bad seeing that no one had bothered to answer you after a whole day, but I'm not sure how helpful this has been!  Definitely get involved with the wiki and the law if that interests you!

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

I was wondering what the job board was for, honestly. I guess now I get to wait and see what gets posted.

One of the things I've noticed that I'd be interested in is updating the wiki. It might sound boring, but research (legal and otherwise) is something I enjoy. I've been doing some reading, and there's some things I probably could work on but I'm not 100% sure what can and can't be edited and all that, or even who I should contact.

I gotta say, at the very least, Talossan legal documents are infinitely more interesting than US ones. The US has depressingly few laws that refer to a squirrel space program or holidays about penguins.

Etho (posted in this thread above) or Miestra (also posted) can both approve your account on the wiki if you make one.  Almost all pages can be edited and most can be improved.  Do you have a lot of experience on wikis?

[King Txec]

Woo, I'm a citizen again!

Now that I can again claim citizenship in our glorious country, is there anything I can do to help out?

I was at a virtual officers retreat for my teachers union most of the day and then slept a little to recharge So I didn't get the chance to respond.

I do have some thoughts on how you can get involved in non-political work but I need a little time to formulate my thoughts more fully after a particularly long day. Don't get discouraged. I'll get back to this topic shortly.

[Adam Grigoriu]

Not wiki experience like Wikipedia, per se, though I'm very familiar with Markup and the like.

I've been a fairly seriously IT hobbyist for a long time, and in the open source world a lot of the relevant documentation and such is hosted via MediaWiki, so I've been absorbing it all for a while, and like I said I enjoy boring research (you haven't lived until you've read through the kernel.org mailing lists to get that last ounce of performance out of a Gentoo install, but I digress), so there you go

As to the other conversation happening concurrent in this thread, I'll admit I'm too lost to understand exactly what the arguments are, but it appears a lot has happened in the last decade or so. I'm sure I'll form my own opinions as time goes on.

[Adam Grigoriu]

Woo, I'm a citizen again!

Now that I can again claim citizenship in our glorious country, is there anything I can do to help out?

I was at a virtual officers retreat for my teachers union most of the day and then slept a little to recharge So I didn't get the chance to respond.

I do have some thoughts on how you can get involved in non-political work but I need a little time to formulate my thoughts more fully after a particularly long day. Don't get discouraged. I'll get back to this topic shortly.

It's much appreciated, and there's no rush.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Not wiki experience like Wikipedia, per se, though I'm very familiar with Markup and the like.

I've been a fairly seriously IT hobbyist for a long time, and in the open source world a lot of the relevant documentation and such is hosted via MediaWiki, so I've been absorbing it all for a while, and like I said I enjoy boring research (you haven't lived until you've read through the kernel.org mailing lists to get that last ounce of performance out of a Gentoo install, but I digress), so there you go

As to the other conversation happening concurrent in this thread, I'll admit I'm too lost to understand exactly what the arguments are, but it appears a lot has happened in the last decade or so. I'm sure I'll form my own opinions as time goes on.

The wiki is here: http://wiki.talossa.com/ and you can register a new account immediately.  You are entitled to be a Citizen on there with full edit rights.  Feel free to edit any normal page, although until you get more wiki experience it might be best to stay away from editing most template pages.  Any changes or mistakes you make can just be rolled back if necessary, so go nuts.  You might find my course helpful as a refresher: http://wiki.talossa.com/Class  The Citizen's Portal might also be helpful, although it's been a while since it was updated: http://wiki.talossa.com/TalossaWiki:Citizens_portal

If you have any questions about anything and want to ask someone with a lot of info, a good memory, a level head, and no partisan affiliations, I recommend Gluc da Dhi, who posted earlier.  He's pretty universally respected and just stepped down from arguably the most important job in the country (Secretary of State).

[Glüc]

If you have any questions about anything and want to ask someone with a lot of info, a good memory, a level head, and no partisan affiliations, I recommend Gluc da Dhi, who posted earlier.  He's pretty universally respected and just stepped down from arguably the most important job in the country (Secretary of State).

Eeh, thanks, but I'm not without political biases myself, even if I'm not affiliated with any party. These probably will show more too, now that I'm no longer SoS.

(Not trying to discourage anyone from asking questions obviously, just a disclaimer...)