View Topic

Posting some relevant #citizens-platform discussion for archival/discussion purposes:

Spoiler

December 30, 2019
[3:31 PM] Laurentus Valeria: I'm oddly against the citizenship-via-donation idea. I can't immediately identify why I feel uncomfortable with it, but generally speaking, as soon as actual money gets involved, communities tend to split.
[3:32 PM] Laurentus Valeria: Trust me, as the closest thing to a capitalist around here, no one is more surprised by my discomfort with this than me.
[5:14 PM] ShadowX4life: I say that you're not capitalistic enough!
[6:44 PM] Impostermoot: Counterargument: this is socialism in action, those with the excess capacity to do so helping to subsidize public goods used by the entire community, and in exchange we give the astonishingly small consideration of 'you get a pass on citizenship checks'
[6:45 PM] Impostermoot: Because realistically anyone who's donating in the first place is likely to be involved enough that they would qualify by other metrics
[6:45 PM] Chanku: Counter-counterargument: Then why enact it?
[6:45 PM] Chanku: If it would change nothing, then why implement it?
[6:47 PM] Impostermoot: I mean, I was the guy who suggested that people should be able to bank these for the future
[6:49 PM] Chanku: I would also note I am wholey and entirely against the "Citizenship Tiers" Idea.
[6:49 PM] Chanku: And I will also note that it would entirely keep me from donating in any capacity if the law exists.
[6:51 PM] Impostermoot: Wait, there's TIERS of citizenship being discussed now?
[6:51 PM] Chanku: Yes
[6:51 PM] Chanku: By Pengu
[6:51 PM] Impostermoot: I am provisionally opposed until I've read this
[6:51 PM] Chanku: Aspiring/Inactive Citizens for those that dont make 5 posts a month or pay $5. You can't participate or be a part of the government at all
[6:52 PM] Chanku: And also Pengu has generally suggested (from what I understand) locking government areas behind this as well.
[6:52 PM] Chanku: If you have an an NS Nation you becoming an Aspiring/Inactive Citizen until you meet those requirements for the next check or w/e.
[6:52 PM] Chanku: Basically pay the fuck up or grind to be able to even vote or run for office(edited)
[7:10 PM] tatte: Tiers sound fun, but what's this talk about p2w?
[9:07 PM] Impostermoot: hard disagree on citizenship tiers, even the most basic 'aspiring citizen' one. that 5 post requirement is either fairly daunting for people who only want to weigh in when they're meaningfully contributing, or just incentivizes posting in the spam grounds...or spamming outside of them. none of those seems like a particularly valuable decision.
[9:08 PM] Chanku: Also @Impostermoot we have had a 5 post requirement to just GET citizenship, and we repealed that and considered it largely a failure. This would be that, but monthly.
[9:10 PM] taulover: It would also be an unnecessary administrative burden, I think
[9:12 PM] Impostermoot: i totally remember that, and remember thinking it was a daunting burden at the time
[9:17 PM] Chanku: Yeah
[9:17 PM] Chanku: And the reasoning was later changed as Wintermoot even automated that part to an extent, and even he said something that was to the effect of: This was probably the proper solution rather than the limit.
[9:21 PM] Chanku: Also @Impostermoot you would actually lose your Jarlship, as Jarls are required to be Citizens in accordance with the current Decrees on that
[11:28 PM] taulover: I also disagree with the tiers system idea but that is a mischaracterization of Pengu's proposal
[11:29 PM] taulover: It seems to me that Pengu is suggesting that Inactive Citizens would still be Citizens except they would be disqualified from running for office
[11:30 PM] taulover: Any complications that arise from that can be handwaved by the fact that this would be a fundamental overhaul of the citizenship system, with the statutory and (if necessary) constitutional reforms that would imply
[11:56 PM] Chanku: Running for or holding Government office
December 31, 2019
[12:00 AM] taulover: It is fairly clear from everything Pengu has said that he is proposing that Inactive Citizens can continue holding government offices which they are already in
[12:00 AM] Chanku: I disagree
[12:01 AM] Chanku: Apparently I did misread, so my apologies
[12:01 AM] taulover: He literally says "Current Skrifa, Jarls, and Thanes wouldn't be affected because they're already in office.  All this would affect would be people running in the next elections."
[12:02 AM] Chanku: I also hadn't seen that post
[12:02 AM] Chanku: However, I still fundamentally dislike it because now it creates a two-tier system
[12:03 AM] Chanku: "Oh you can participate in the part of the government that does things if you are already there, but you can't be a Thane beyond that nor can you do much more"
[12:04 AM] Chanku: I would definitely leave over such a system
[12:04 AM] Chanku: "Fuck this bullshit" and just up and leave.
[12:10 AM] taulover: Realistically, I don't see a real two-tiered system developing, everyone would just need to make at least 5 posts whenever they want to run for office
[12:10 AM] Chanku: Fundamentally I am honestly disgusted with any such system
[12:10 AM] taulover: What I do think is a major issue is the unnecessary complexities and inconveniences which this would create
[12:11 AM] Chanku: Especially with money involved.
[12:11 AM] taulover: Both for citizens and Monarchy (as overseer of elections) / Administration (as forum masker)
[7:09 AM] Melehan: Under Pengu's proposed tier requirements, I'd be classified as an Inactive Citizen and thus barred from running for any offices
[7:10 AM] Melehan: I just happen to reserve my forum posts for substantial responses, and so I don't typically meet the 5 post requirement unless there's a WW game running
[7:11 AM] Melehan: I had a hard time meeting the 5 posts to qualify as a citizen back when I first joined because I had a hard time finding topics to reply to in a meaningful way
[7:13 AM] Melehan: (and I'm pretty sure I wound up meeting that requirement by pointing out how hard it was for me to find topics to participate meaningfully in in the discussion about the 5 post minimum requirement for citizenship)
[7:14 AM] Melehan: If you avoid the spam forums and aren't part of the government, meeting the 5 post requirement is a lot more daunting than it appears
[8:35 AM] Impostermoot: ^ all that

But posts vary from person to person.  In my opinion, it's actually quite easy to make 5 posts in a single month that are still contributory.  There's plenty of choices in the Discussions section, as well as the Amalyan Quarter.  And if you're not in office, you can still post in the Citizen's Platform with ideas.  Asking a member to post once every 6 days isn't asking a whole lot.

I think Melehan's whole point here is that posts vary from person to person. Because of how much more the Discord has come to dominate the Wintreath community, it is now completely valid for someone to be an active citizen, yet not post very much if at all on the forums.

especially as there are already additional requirements to running for office

At the moment, there are no actual requirements.  Once you apply for citizenship and are approved, you're automatically eligible to run for government and vote.  Campaign threads, for example are by the highest recommendation if you want to be looked at seriously, but they're definitely not required (See past elections where nobody put up a thread).  The only exception to this is Thane Elections, since it is required to answer the questions to be considered.  But again, once you join you're automatically eligible to give it a shot. Outside of that, there's no additional base requirements for either type of election.

This is true, and it might be that some may confuse the additional voter requirements (which do exist) with additional position requirements (of which there are none).

However, it is also important to note that the Monarch and Jarl have final say on who can run for Thaneships. When she was Jarl of FA, Chanku said she (and possibly also Wintermoot?) considered the voter requirements as necessary qualifications for the positions as well. This is something I would oppose, considering that I had not worked on the Orendi much before taking on my current position (for instance), but it is something that the Jarls can do and which might further contribute to the confusion about whether people feel they are fit to run for Thaneships.

Just for clarification, I'm only going off of the current requirements that we have for maintaining citizenship here.  Right now, our current requirements are 5 posts within the month, or maintaining your NS nation.

But in all honesty, I wouldn't be opposed to mixing activity in Discord into this at all.  Hell, I wouldn't be opposed to mixing NS RMB activity into it either.  The only thing I'm suggesting is just refining it for people who aren't contributing.  If you have a nation here and you're active in one or more of those 3 areas (forums, RMB, Discord), great! I think personally that should count toward being considered an Active Citizen.  If you're a normally active member and wasn't active in any of the 3 to where you failed the citizenship check (the one I'm proposing) from that entire month, then there shouldn't be an issue barring you from running in the next elections unless you become active again (which can simply be overcome by meeting the post requirement for the month in either/all of the 3 areas).

And likewise, if you're a new member, I never really saw the issue of a 5 post requirement to become full fledged.  Whether or not we have it, we still and always will get a swathe of new members that post maybe twice and then disappear.  All this would do aside from bringing that requirement back would be to require 5 starting posts to be able to vote in elections, let alone view them.  New members would still have almost the entire forums to view, they would just have to post around a bit to be able to gain access to the Elections and government areas.  And again, Discord and the RMB could extend to this as well, as I'm perfectly okay with those being incorporated into the Citizenship check requirements, even the starting post requirements.

This brings us to something which I've brought up several times on #citizens-platform but not here. The fact that this would add so many more unnecessary post checks and unmaskings to citizenship checks, followed by reapplications and remaskings, is already enough to make me dislike the idea. This unnecessarily complicates the administrative burden for both Wintermoot (as both Monarch/election overseer and forum admin) and for citizens looking to get more involved in government.

I mean, not entirely complicated.

If you fail your citizenship check now, be it because you didn't maintain your NS nation or failed to post 5 times within the month, you're masked as a former citizen.  With NS nations, it takes more time because your nation doesn't CTE for quite a while.  If you're someone who discarded NS and went strictly with just posting in the forums, you're more in danger because if you don't post within the month with the already established 5, you can lose your citizenship.  So for forum-only goers, it's already a strict 5 post per month requirement with Discord not counting toward it.

All this would do is add a layer to where:

A) If you have a currently living nation in Wintreath on NS but aren't currently active (ideally in the forums/discord/RMB as a mixture), then you can't run for office until you become active.  You can become active again by meeting the post requirement for the month that you pop back on.

B) If you don't have a currently living nation or it's currently not in Wintreath, and you aren't currently active in Wintreath(ideally in the same mixture as A), then you're barred from even viewing the government/election forums as well as voting in them.  You can regain access by meeting the post requirement and reviving/moving your nation back to Wintreath.

It'd basically just alter the Former Citizen masking to be more of a push to people to keep both their nations and themselves active, as well as add an Inactive Citizen masking that would completely mimic the Active Citizen mask, but it would be known that they can't run in elections (possibly part of the mask excluding creating topics in the campaign forum) until they meet the requirement to regain active status.

At this point it seems to me that we need to hear from @Emotionius and @ogunbiyi6422 to see if it's viable to move forward with legislation.

@Emoticonius, sorry. v_v

Well, my first inclination echoes Katie's first post. It does sound very "Pay-to-Win". Now I know that it could go a long way towards supporting the site and I have no issue with that. I really don't like the idea of Wintreath leaving NS though. It would make the government, in its entirety, pointless. No regions to have diplomatic ties with. No need for a legislature. Sure a few positions would still be viable, RP and gaming focused ones specifically but even Moot's position as monarch would lose purpose. Like it or not Wintreath still has a crucial foundation in NS.

I think that donators should be allowed to maintain citizenship, as they are still somewhat "actively" contributing to the community as a whole. I understand the opposing viewpoints and the "paid to win" argument, but I still think that if 5 posts are not done, active donators should still be citizens. That's all I have to say.

Well, this has become controversial. I know you said you'd drop it if it did get controversial, but I'm not so sure that's necessary. I understand the need for consensus, especially right now, but there will never be consensus. At the end of the day, looking at this practically, I think its a good idea. But maybe it can be tweaked. Instead of giving citizens the option to maintain citizenship by paying, instead do what so many communities that run through patreon do and set up a detailed list of expenses, while also showcasing some projects you're working on that you'd like to invest more in to contribute to the community. At that point, I'm sure extending said people's citizenship would just be seen as a small token of appreciation for the help they provide. The slippery slope is there, but I'd take your word for it that it will never lead to P2W stuff. If it does, I'm sure a clause can be written in to grant the monarchy the power to overturn the decision later down the road.

Instead of giving citizens the option to maintain citizenship by paying, instead do what so many communities that run through patreon do and set up a detailed list of expenses, while also showcasing some projects you're working on that you'd like to invest more in to contribute to the community.

I think this exists already for Wintreath? I don't know where it is right now though.

I think this exists already for Wintreath? I don't know where it is right now though.

Newly updated to include December and January: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10P72zlS2SZ4gjgfZGOzgZGDFpCxrbCzMbduViDvfrj4/edit?usp=sharing

I'm already pretty open with what I'm working on. I haven't updated the Pateron page in awhile because all of our donators are on the forums or Discord. In any case, the way I see it it looks like 2 Skrifa support the idea, 1 opposes the idea, and 2 are on the fence, so I'll go ahead and draft legislation soon (if not tonight) and we'll see where it goes.