View Topic

Title
1. This act shall be titled the Guild Freedom Act.

Act
2. The Storting hereby grants the guilds the freedom to operate freely under the ministries to which they belong.

3. The ministries themselves shall fall under the authority of the monarchy.

4. This act shall only affect the guilds.

Concerns, suggestions, comments... post them below.

This is the result of a Riksråd discussion on some concerns with the legality of the way the RP Guild has been running.

@BraveSirRobin
@Aragonn
@Crushita Telcontar
@HannahB
@Reon

Would "ministries" be the Riksråd or Guildmasters?

It looks good, as long as Riksråd or Guildmasters are substituted for "ministries," or if ministries are defined as Riksråd/Guildmaster entities. 

Not a tremendous fan of this, but that's personal opinion, technically the act seems fine so I wouldn't have a problem with any Skrifa moving it to a discussion in the Underhusen...

The ministries are headed by the Jarls, thus operating under them would necessarily mean operating under the specific Jarl of the Ministry, and that Jarl (or Acting Jarl, or Thane, or Acting Jarl + Jarl +Thane) would then have complete freedom, subject to oversight from the monarchy, over the way each guild functions. Thus they would determine whether they even need or want a guildmaster.

EDIT: Try putting that mouthful into an act. That's why I went with the one I posted here.

I'm a little surprised that nobody has caught the issues with this Act:

2. The Storting hereby grants the guilds the freedom to operate freely under the ministries to which they belong.

Besides the fact that guilds already have the freedom to operate under the ministries, as offices of those ministries, the structure and authorities of subordinate Executive offices rests with the Monarchy under Article II Section 2 of the Fundamental Laws. Therefore, I submit that this provision is unconstitutional, even if it only reaffirms existing legal policy.

3. The ministries themselves shall fall under the authority of the monarchy.

Same here.

4. This act shall only affect the guilds.

Same here. As a subordinate office of the Monarchy, the Storing doesn't have standing to determine ministry or guild policy.

Ironically, this provision doesn't even give Laurentus what he really wants, which is a decision that Citizens have to join the RP guild before they can participate in any regional RPs, an authority that the Monarchy simply does not have. That authority rests with the Storting as part of the authority to define rules and regulations over regional culture (insofar that the Monarchy doesn't have the authority). If this is something that the Storting agrees with, the best course of action would probably be an Act that directly states that requirement. When Laurentus indicated that he was going to draft an Act in the Cabinet discussion he mentioned, I assumed that would be its purpose.

I think there are quite a few misunderstandings here then.

I thought what was preventing me from doing so (although your use of the term "citizen" is incorrect, since I've made it plain that I would want people from other regions to join regardless of citizenship status) was that the guild, and by extension the cabinet and monarchy, didn't have the power to dictate such terms for RP, which has become synonomous with the RP guild itself, since there wouldn't even be any RPs now were it not for the guild, and the RP currently running in the RPers Gathering originated within the Guild. It is, as such, inseparable from the Guild...

The Cabinet discussion on allowing non-Citizens in guilds was inconclusive, and my understanding was that we would make them Citizen-only for the pilot program and revisit the discussion later. So actually my use of the term Citizen is correct at the moment.

When we were discussing this in the Cabinet a few hours ago, you denied that you felt the RP guild should have jurisdiction over RPs, yet it seems that now you're saying they should because 'there wouldn't even be any RPs now were it not for the guild'. I find that idea to be troubling...that a group could seize ownership in a way of a portion of regional culture, to the exclusion of people that don't want to or can't join that group, and I can't help but find the tone behind the sentiment to be self-entitled. I don't deny that the guild has been wildly successful in organizing and launching RPs, which is what the purpose of the guild was after all, and I think the guild should be commended for that...but I don't think that makes the guild entitled to authority over regional roleplaying in general.

I don't see why you can't just request the Storting to enact such a requirement, although I have to admit, reading your reply has made me lean against the idea required membership. I don't care for the sentiment expressed behind it at all.

As I've already pointed out in the discussion in the Riksråd, that requirement is not there for ownership over RP. It is there to gain some level of commitment to the specific RP with which a person becomes involved with. I stated exactly as much in the discussion...

I went on to state that creative control would still be with the one who began an RP in the first place.

I'll be honest. I take offence at the suggestion that this is some form of entitlement to RPs themselves. Quite grave offence actually. I've spent hours and hours working on the guild and with the RPs themselves. I am no more or less entitled to it than every RPer is. My only reason for making guild membership a thing, was that RPs can and do fall flat when people who aren't committed to them disappear.

This was something you then said was a good-intentioned idea, but potentially illegal.

I'll be honest, I am quite upset at this suggestion. The prudent course of action now, is to take this to PM.

The requirement to join the guild is a violation of a citizen's rights under Article V Section 6 of the Fundamental Laws, which says:

Citizens shall not be required to join the World Assembly or to participate in any inter or extra-regional bodies.

Since it seems that in order to participate in the RP's would be to be apart of the guild it could be constructed as a violation of a citizen's rights, and thus can not be mandated except for an amendment to the Fundamental Laws. It should be noted that this does not apply to things like FA (Although FA is weird due to how it works). It also does not apply to defense because of the SV and because if you are a citizen and want to participate during update you can be on IRC and you can participate without being a military member, which Andromedian did.

The only way to get around this is to allow non-guild RP's to exist, and to make the guild area a forum area that one would have to manually join. Further the guild might also have to be considered outside of the region and merely hosted on the forum. Thus it would be an administrative body, in that sense, and not apart of the actual region.

The requirement to join the guild is a violation of a citizen's rights under Article V Section 6 of the Fundamental Laws, which says:

Citizens shall not be required to join the World Assembly or to participate in any inter or extra-regional bodies.

Since it seems that in order to participate in the RP's would be to be apart of the guild it could be constructed as a violation of a citizen's rights, and thus can not be mandated except for an amendment to the Fundamental Laws. It should be noted that this does not apply to things like FA (Although FA is weird due to how it works). It also does not apply to defense because of the SV and because if you are a citizen and want to participate during update you can be on IRC and you can participate without being a military member, which Andromedian did.

The only way to get around this is to allow non-guild RP's to exist, and to make the guild area a forum area that one would have to manually join. Further the guild might also have to be considered outside of the region and merely hosted on the forum. Thus it would be an administrative body, in that sense, and not apart of the actual region.

I can live with that, as long as RPs can continue thriving. Thanks for the suggestion.

Note that my suggestion may not also work. The only true loophole being the Administrative Action. The only way to completely make sure you don't violate it is to allow people to participate in any RP even if they are not apart of the guilds. Although it is ultimately up the Monarch as the guild is under the Monarch

As I've already pointed out in the discussion in the Riksråd, that requirement is not there for ownership over RP. It is there to gain some level of commitment to the specific RP with which a person becomes involved with. I stated exactly as much in the discussion...

I went on to state that creative control would still be with the one who began an RP in the first place.
I'll be honest. I take offence at the suggestion that this is some form of entitlement to RPs themselves. Quite grave offence actually. I've spent hours and hours working on the guild and with the RPs themselves. I am no more or less entitled to it than every RPer is. My only reason for making guild membership a thing, was that RPs can and do fall flat when people who aren't committed to them disappear.

This was something you then said was a good-intentioned idea, but potentially illegal.

I'll be honest, I am quite upset at this suggestion. The prudent course of action now, is to take this to PM.

I'm sorry that I offended you...the self-entitled comment was a bit out of line. I hope you understand what led me to feel that way after the PM that I sent you, and agree that it's best discussed over PM, but I thought that I should apologize publicly as well.

That being said, everything you wrote is correct...so I don't understand how we went from needing the Storting to create a membership requirement to this Act.

The requirement to join the guild is a violation of a citizen's rights under Article V Section 6 of the Fundamental Laws, which says:

Citizens shall not be required to join the World Assembly or to participate in any inter or extra-regional bodies.

Since it seems that in order to participate in the RP's would be to be apart of the guild it could be constructed as a violation of a citizen's rights, and thus can not be mandated except for an amendment to the Fundamental Laws. It should be noted that this does not apply to things like FA (Although FA is weird due to how it works). It also does not apply to defense because of the SV and because if you are a citizen and want to participate during update you can be on IRC and you can participate without being a military member, which Andromedian did.

The only way to get around this is to allow non-guild RP's to exist, and to make the guild area a forum area that one would have to manually join. Further the guild might also have to be considered outside of the region and merely hosted on the forum. Thus it would be an administrative body, in that sense, and not apart of the actual region.

That's an interesting interpretation...the provision was originally meant to prevent Citizens from being coerced to participate in multi-region alliances, after the drama that ensued in Spiritus over potential FRA membership. I'm not sure how the RPers guild is an interregional or extraregional body, though.

I viewed this act as fixing the root problem. I wasn't aware that it would rub you the way it did, but thanks to our PM discussion, I've gained a better idea of the circumstances that led to this stand-off.

I'm still not sure exactly what went wrong, and that distresses me, because I can't fix something I can't understand. The problem could well be with me, however unintentional it may have been, and the fact that I can't understand it means I can't see where to improve or adjust my behaviour.

I will say that I have been busy with the guild, and so my replies in other areas may have been short, and sounded... I can't recall the English word for "mislik" right now. I'll search for it and update this post.

EDIT: Rude, that's the word. But upon researching the Afrikaans word, that's not even it's original meaning.