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Because there has been so much debate about potentially changing the name of Citizen to Freeholder, I've decided to open a nomination contest to name the title. I've included both my proposal and the current title, and welcome others to make their own proposals as well. When posting a proposal, please include your reasoning for why you think it would be a good fit for Wintreath. I will try to close nominations and have a vote on the 24th, and based on the results I'll consider whether there's enough support to write a constitutional amendment or not and go from there.

Current Nominations
Citizen (Current Title)
Freeholder (Proposed by Wintermoot)
Shimin (Proposed by Hapi)
Baronet (Proposed by Doc)
Wintrean (Proposed by Sapphiron)
Samryn (Proposed by Emoticonius)
Saman (Proposed by Emoticonius)

Of course, I am proposing that we change the title to Freeholder, as discussed here.

First, Citizenship. The name is pretty generic...it’s basically what most regions call the group of members that can participate in government to some extent. It’s also in conflict with the RP side of NationStates...there, you’re a leader of a group (nation), but here as a Citizen you’re an individual. What if we renamed Citizens to Freeholders (or something creative and unique to us) instead?

Not only would it be more unique than Citizens, but it would also tie into lore that’s more harmonious with NS, since we could say that the person is pledging their land as part of the Frozen Realm. We could even allow Freeholders to name their land (maybe as a town or village in the realm). We could also allow them to pledge to one of the noble families, so that they’re associated with a family without actually being part of it (and hopefully ending this thing where families just take on anybody to grow). It could even tie into an open assembly Underhusen if that’s the route we go. I think there’s a lot we can do with this.

Citizen is pretty generic, but Freeholder is kind of unnecessarily confusing. As an example, imagine if someone on the RMB asked how they could get more involved and we told them “join the forums and apply to become a Freeholder” they’d wonder what we were talking about. Then we’d have to explain “oh it’s just citizenship” or initally we could say “...and apply to become a freeholder(citizen)”. I’m not against a name change, but it’s mostly newer members dealing with citizenship, so it adds a layer of complexity that I don’t think needs to be there.

Now if you gave people new titles based on years of residency (similar to our ambassadors), that’s something I can get behind.

It makes sense RP-wise, not so much Integration-wise. (In my head at least)

Citizen is pretty generic, but Freeholder is kind of unnecessarily confusing. As an example, imagine if someone on the RMB asked how they could get more involved and we told them “join the forums and apply to become a Freeholder” they’d wonder what we were talking about. Then we’d have to explain “oh it’s just citizenship” or initally we could say “...and apply to become a freeholder(citizen)”. I’m not against a name change, but it’s mostly newer members dealing with citizenship, so it adds a layer of complexity that I don’t think needs to be there.

Now if you gave people new titles based on years of residency (similar to our ambassadors), that’s something I can get behind.

In fairness, we have to explain what Citizenship is to people who are entirely new to NS. It's only intuitive for people coming to Wintreath from other regions that also use Citizenship.

That’s a fair point.

I vote for Shimin which is just Japanese for citizen but it sounds cooler lol 

As I mentioned and explained elsewhere - Baronet.

I am going to once again propose that we stick to Citizen, for reasons described in the previous thread.

I'm seconding Freeholder, as I think it's better than Citizen (generic) and Baronet (implies nobility).

I think we should just keep it the same. Anything else is unnecessarily confusing.

I will nominate Wintrean because we already use it as a demonym and it directly denotes members of Wintreath (hence capturing the essence of citizenship)

I actually second Sapph's suggestion.  It's simple, yet actually a nice name choice that fits the irl tradition of how citizens of a country are usually referred to as some form of the country's name.

The issue as I see it with Wintrean is that simply being in the region on NS entitles one to be considered a Wintrean, no? Those who are likely to be primarily NS-based will see themselves as already having ascertained that title by merit of having a nation in the region.

This is where I think Freeholder perhaps has an advantage, and why I am seconding it's nomination. It's an interesting title, and obviously distinct from merely being a citizen or a member of the NS region. I think it could serve as to entice some of our RMB-only members over to the forums out of a desire to 'see what this Freeholder stuff is about'. It has connotations of having more in and getting more out of the region.

I mean, when it comes down to it, I think Freeholder is a good name too. It's distinctive (although it's also sort of DA-reminiscent, since the Banns (and presumably Arls and Teyrns, but especially the Banns) have Freeholders who pay allegiance to them in exchange for protection; although it's also reminiscent of High Valyria, since it was ruled by the Lords Freeholder), which is a big plus for a 'hmm what's this, sounds neat' effect.

That said, I don't really see how the implication of nobility Baronet conveys is necessarily a bad thing. So what if we pretend that everyone in the region is ennobled when they apply for citizenship? Does that somehow degrade the fact that the present nobility would still be higher ranking in the orders of precedence anyway?
It doesn't make the present Counts or Dukes look worse to be looking out on a sea of Baronets instead of a bunch of Freeholders or Citizens, and I'd argue it makes them look better - since if you're just a citizen or a freeholder, you can assert that you're outside the system, but if you're yourself a noble, you're implicitly within the system and therefore sort of obligated to respect those higher up the ladder than yourself in order to maintain that aristocratic self-image in the first place.