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This is an edit of Laurentus' version of the act, which I quite liked.

A slightly edited alternative.

Title
1. This Act will be titled the Revocation of Govindia's Citizenship.

Terms
2. The Storting recognizes the Citizen Govindia's harmful, however unintentional, habit of harassing other Citizens. To the point that several long-lasting actions have been taken against him. The Storting regrets that the community cannot help Citizen Govindia, as it understands him to be a good-natured citizen who doesn't always realize the harm he does.

3. With this in mind the Storting shall hereby revoke the Citizenship of Govindia.

4. The Storting notes that it affirms the right to appeal this Act through all the lawful channels in which this may be done.

I changed the wording in a few places slightly and removed the "act" part of the title... because I don't believe it's legally defined as necessary; half the acts have it and it just sounds silly most of the time

Deleted a few of the redundant sections and (in my mind) neatened it up a tad. I kept the last section even though it's super clunky because I think it's important to reiterate here especially; even though it's obvious/stated elsewhere.

Is there any reason 2 and 3 shouldn't be combined? Otherwise, it does look cleaner than mine.

So before we continue, does anyone have a reason why we should not proceed? Does anyone have an objection to what we are doing?

So before we continue, does anyone have a reason why we should not proceed? Does anyone have an objection to what we are doing?

Do you?  Not to sound confrontational, but you've been very concerned about the pacing of this process, and you've been put into the unfortunate position of being the public face of this attempt, which I understand can create a lot of stress. 

I'd like to hear your thoughts, North

So before we continue, does anyone have a reason why we should not proceed? Does anyone have an objection to what we are doing?

Do you?  Not to sound confrontational, but you've been very concerned about the pacing of this process, and you've been put into the unfortunate position of being the public face of this attempt, which I understand can create a lot of stress. 

I'd like to hear your thoughts, North

I wish it hadn't come to this. But it has, so we must act. No matter my personal feelings.

I think we should, and you know that you have the support of at least most of us in this for the revocation, and we'll be standing behind you and supporting you when the going gets tough.

I just really hope you're prepared for any of the backlash you're going to get since you've chosen to be, as PB stated the public face.

I think we should, and you know that you have the support of at least most of us in this for the revocation, and we'll be standing behind you and supporting you when the going gets tough.

I just really hope you're prepared for any of the backlash you're going to get since you've chosen to be, as PB stated the public face.

I know, Pengu. And thank you. It means a lot to me. I'll be the first to admit that this whole thing is taking its toll. But I'll press on.

As I've said elsewhere, this isn't something to "rush through" because it's uncomfortable to think about. There's no reason to try and hurry these proceedings along - if we're going to take the serious measure of revoking someone's citizenship (not often done before, IIRC) then we need to be sure it's done properly. The Act needs to be exhaustive and unchallengeable; if we're doing this, we don't want to find out we did it for the wrong or incorrect reasons and have it overturned at a later date, with all the issues that would entail both for Gov (wrongly or incorrectly revoked citizenship) and us (getting it wrong in the first place).

I also get the faint impression that people just want it over and done with. Whilst I understand the sentiment, this isn't some bad smell you deal with quickly, this is a problem that's been around for two years and it is also a human being on the other end of that Govindia handle. Others have mentioned that Gov must draw some level of entertainment and satisfaction from being a part of this community, and I'd hate for us to destroy that because we acted rashly and without fully considering the implications of what we're doing.

No matter what the substance of the Act, I will be abstaining. I understand the reasons we're going down this path, but I am as I always have been in favour of finding alternatives to revocation.

Weiss, no one wants to rush the Act, least of all me.

Weiss, no one wants to rush the Act, least of all me.

... Aye, is that so? I don't mean to point any fingers but this isn't the attitude I noted in the Citizen's Platform thread, from you in particular.

I don't want to draw this out.

Let's not rush this. We'll draw it out as long as we need to in order to reach the best-evidenced and best-constructed position we can on a topic as serious as this is. Again, I'm not being rude, just remarking on the kind of attitudes I personally gathered from what I've seen on the forums.

We will not rush through this act, because doing so will create a poorly-crafted bill that will not receive as much support and may even upset the rest of the citizens for how we are going about the bill.

It is not dragging the bill out if there is healthy debate the entire time. Some measures simply take longer to address. A "get it over and done with" attitude led us to rush through the Storting Reformation Amendment Act at one point, and we are all aware of how that turned out.

Weiss, no one wants to rush the Act, least of all me.

... Aye, is that so? I don't mean to point any fingers but this isn't the attitude I noted in the Citizen's Platform thread, from you in particular.

I don't want to draw this out.

Let's not rush this. We'll draw it out as long as we need to in order to reach the best-evidenced and best-constructed position we can on a topic as serious as this is. Again, I'm not being rude, just remarking on the kind of attitudes I personally gathered from what I've seen on the forums.

There's a difference between "let's get this out the door now and revoke Gov's citizenship" and "I want this to be debated in the UH soon and not turn a thread into the "everyone pile on Govindia" fan thread" but I see your point.

Any way, Barnes, what is your personal view on the act?

Also, for this I think it's probably a good idea to invite Gov to speak.

So I'm curious about how long we're going to keep the thread open if Gov doesn't come back to this:

Again, I am asking for time to speak to my counsel so I can prepare a statement in response to what has been recently said.

Also,  once we can agree to a bill, we can make it available in the Citizen's Platform.

Allowing the process to run its absolute course is all well and good, but then we actually need to debate the bill, which is what the topic is for.

EDIT: Also, Weissreich, you have mentioned that you would instead wish for some other action to be taken that's less extreme than a Revocation. It would be unwise to proceed if we don't explore this avenue properly. I'm afraid I'm out of ideas on the subject, so do you have any ideas of how this may be done?

EDIT: Also, Weissreich, you have mentioned that you would instead wish for some other action to be taken that's less extreme than a Revocation. It would be unwise to proceed if we don't explore this avenue properly. I'm afraid I'm out of ideas on the subject, so do you have any ideas of how this may be done?

I'll readily admit that it's hard to decide on a more suitable punishment that retains the severity and gravitas of a Revocation in terms of its impact (hopefully) on Gov's behaviour without removing him from the community entirely. I was considering the idea of forum or thread-specific bans, but if we go about removing Gov from areas of the site where he's active we're really not giving him much reason to stay and nor are we really doing much less than revoking his access to those areas.

The idea I hit upon that holds most water in my eyes is, again, a probation. In some ways, I think Wintreath was somewhat unprepared for dealing with people who cause issues for other members of the community - we've got all the rules in place, but aside from IRC probation/temp-ban/ban and then citizenship revocation followed by PnG, we've not really got much in the way of stages of punishment.

What Gov's done is by no means any less severe in my mind for wanting something slightly less drastic in terms of consequences for his actions, but I think we should also look at this as a chance to tighten up our punishment procedures for any future misdoings by members of the community.

A forum probation of a certain duration, during which Gov is restricted from posting in certain areas or from posting more than X posts in certain areas per day (something along these lines) and is otherwise on his final warning before his citizenship is revoked may work better than a straight up "Right get out, but we're leaving the door open so you know what you're now missing out on" approach.

As I said, it's tough because Gov's got away with much in the past, and progressively heavier punishment hasn't been seen to work, but I feel taking this intermediary step before a revocation will provide the ultimate last chance - if he cocks it up, he loses his citizenship and any chance at regaining it, because he'll have broken the final iotas of trust this community has in him. I doubt I'd push for such measures in any other scenario, but I do feel we need to take into consideration Gov's (admitted or otherwise) issues when deciding punishment. It's not right to remove a person from a community they enjoy for behaviour they aren't 100% in control of.

That said, we'd need a confirmation and assurance from Gov that he'd actually stick to it. That's why I'm so in favour of an exhaustive Act either way - less chance for him to argue against it should it ever eventually come to pass.

Hmm, one problem with that is that we don't really have any clear legislation for something like that.

Correct me if I'm wrong, @Wintermoot, but the IRC probation wasn't just on IRC? It had to do with the forum as well?

I believe it's also currently illegal to dictate which areas of the forum people have access to.

Further than that, just looking at the reaction we've received, quite a few people were already disappointed that PnG wasn't being considered by the Storting.

Realistically, I think a pure revocation is already the least extreme option the some of the citizenry are grudgingly accepting.

It's a difficult situation all around.

That said, some more consideration has to be put into this.