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I do have to agree with Marz.  We're a region of currently 405 members.  At most we have maybe what, 25 active folks?  That's concerning for a region of our size.  We should be shooting for at the absolute least 100 active folks, at least...and not including puppet nations.  But even the new folks we get don't stay active for insanely long, and usually stay dormant in the NS region and either stick to answering issues or they leave for another region.

We should be making it so folks want to stay here and stay active.  We don't want to be a stale region that only a handful really keep alive.

I'm not sure such a goal for a UCR is entirely realistic, and I would find it extremely unlikely that a UCR of similar size and focus as ours would actually have 100 active people. either that or I'm a bit pessimistic with activity expectations.

Edit: also, I'll be entirely honest. I enjoy Wintreath BECAUSE it's relatively small. If we had a lot (read like 100) of active people, I wouldn't be here because I don't think I could exist in such a space.

I do have to agree with Marz.  We're a region of currently 405 members.  At most we have maybe what, 25 active folks?  That's concerning for a region of our size.  We should be shooting for at the absolute least 100 active folks, at least...and not including puppet nations.  But even the new folks we get don't stay active for insanely long, and usually stay dormant in the NS region and either stick to answering issues or they leave for another region.

We should be making it so folks want to stay here and stay active.  We don't want to be a stale region that only a handful really keep alive.

I'm not sure such a goal for a UCR is entirely realistic, and I would find it extremely unlikely that a UCR of similar size and focus as ours would actually have 100 active people. either that or I'm a bit pessimistic with activity expectations.

Edit: also, I'll be entirely honest. I enjoy Wintreath BECAUSE it's relatively small. If we had a lot (read like 100) of active people, I wouldn't be here because I don't think I could exist in such a space.

I get what you're saying, but the point of having a region with that many folks is that we have the hustle and bustle of that many folks versus the pow wow of fewer in such a vast region.

Asking for more folks to be active isn't a tall order, but saying that you're fine with it purely because you don't know how you'd function with many active people in a region with hundreds of region isn't really a thing though.  I get feeling comfortable around only smaller groups of folks...but saying you couldn't exist in a space when you're literally in a region with quadruple that in nations doesn't really mesh together well.

I do have to agree with Marz.  We're a region of currently 405 members.  At most we have maybe what, 25 active folks?  That's concerning for a region of our size.  We should be shooting for at the absolute least 100 active folks, at least...and not including puppet nations.  But even the new folks we get don't stay active for insanely long, and usually stay dormant in the NS region and either stick to answering issues or they leave for another region.

We should be making it so folks want to stay here and stay active.  We don't want to be a stale region that only a handful really keep alive.

I'm not sure such a goal for a UCR is entirely realistic, and I would find it extremely unlikely that a UCR of similar size and focus as ours would actually have 100 active people. either that or I'm a bit pessimistic with activity expectations.

Edit: also, I'll be entirely honest. I enjoy Wintreath BECAUSE it's relatively small. If we had a lot (read like 100) of active people, I wouldn't be here because I don't think I could exist in such a space.

I get what you're saying, but the point of having a region with that many folks is that we have the hustle and bustle of that many folks versus the pow wow of fewer in such a vast region.

Asking for more folks to be active isn't a tall order, but saying that you're fine with it purely because you don't know how you'd function with many active people in a region with hundreds of region isn't really a thing though.  I get feeling comfortable around only smaller groups of folks...but saying you couldn't exist in a space when you're literally in a region with quadruple that in nations doesn't really mesh together well.

The more active people there are, the more activity there is. Unfortunately, for certain people -- such as myself -- at a certain point of activity, I can't participate because I don't know how too. That's why I don't participate on the RMB, it's too active for me to keep up and actually participate.

But back onto the whole thing of making citizenship more exclusive, again I just don't see any particular reason to make Wintreath harder to be a part of. Yes, I know Citizenship means you can just vote and doesn't effect much, but it does make it harder for new people to join and disincentivizes people from joining. The last time we tried an activity requirement, it had the opposite effect and kept people from joining the region.

I made a mistake in my last post. Excluding Paragons, it should have been 13/66 Citizens who haven't made a Discord or forum post in the last three months, or 19.7%. Sorry about that.

The last few posts highlight why I believe we should be focusing on these reforms and with mentoring/integration over recruitment. What is success for Wintreath? For most groups and organizations it's to grow bigger, but I don't think that is the case for Wintreath. If we were to have 1,000 active members, we would lose the personable and close-knit community that makes Wintreath special. That doesn't mean there isn't room for growth, because there certainly is, but it means our goal isn't to become a huge website or community like many others out there. But I believe our focus should be on improving the quality of our community...that involves better mentoring new members so it's easier to get involved with the region, reaching out to people who have gone inactive to see what we can do about it, and better informing people of how they can get involved in things going on in Wintreath (which is why I started The Frosty Bugle).

But it also involves recognizing that we have zombie members who we can't reach out to and aren't likely ever to return.

It's hard to nail down what a good activity percentage is. We have active Citizens who aren't on NS and don't factor in a comparison with our nation count, and we have active members who aren't Citizens, especially with our Werewolf players. But Citizens is a decent place to look because in the process of joining the forums and applying for Citizenship, they implicitly stated that they wanted to be more involved in Wintreath...something that isn't happening if they haven't made any sort of post in the last three months. Again, when possible we would reach out to those people first and understand where things went wrong, but that isn't always going to resolve the situation.

This isn't really relevant to this particular conversation, but I'll mention it since activity in general has come up. One of the Citizen stats that I put together each month that doesn't end up in Wintreath in Statistics is the activity score. It started as a way to determine if somebody met the activity requirements for the former NSFW area, and is calculated by forum posts + (Discord posts/8 ) for the last 3 months. An activity score of 100 meant that the person was sufficiently active to merit discussion for an invitation to join (of course there were other requirements as well). But it's also a good gauge of a person's overall activity, and that's why I've continued to compile it. I've put together a histogram of those scores for June thru August.

Citizen Activity, June to August 2022

*I accidentally excluded 2 Paragons from the data, the 0-25 bar should be 39 Citizens instead of 37.

On one end, we have 39 Citizens with a score lower than 25 (including all 5 Paragons in fairness). On the other, there are five outliers above 275: Neon (687.50), myself (769.25), TGN (776.00), Michi (836.25), and Marzipan (1032.50). By this measure at least, the 5 of us counted for 2/3 of activity in Wintreath during this period, another reason that I believe we should focus on mentoring and integration rather than recruitment. It's not that we don't have enough people, and it's not even that we don't have enough people who are around, it that most people aren't that involved with the community, and it shows in everything from uncompetitive elections to our struggles to get enough sign-ups for games (even though ironically we have more than enough people wanting to run them). Across 3 months, I think an activity score of 100 is a healthy level, and we do have 16 people who met that threshold.

If we are discussing only forum activity, I'd like to point out that the main reason I am not more active on the forums is the Rolespectra. I'm sure the intentions of the people creating it were good ones. However, in practice, the test is just too hard to pass (in order to pass it I'd need to study a long and complex text and memorize it by heart, not an easy feat at my age). I just don't have the time necessary to study for this test. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

If we are discussing only forum activity, I'd like to point out that the main reason I am not more active on the forums is the Rolespectra. I'm sure the intentions of the people creating it were good ones. However, in practice, the test is just too hard to pass (in order to pass it I'd need to study a long and complex text and memorize it by heart, not an easy feat at my age). I just don't have the time necessary to study for this test. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

That would be something to take up with Rollspelkra and the Thane of Roleplay- that has nothing to do with Citizenship or the law. That’s just ministry policy. 

@W Amadeus: Fortunately, we've discussed having a RMB option for maintaining Citizenship, so it may be that the reforms are actually beneficial to people like you who are mostly active on the RMB.

I do think your concerns should be addressed...I'll admit, most of our Citizens are in their 20s and 30s, and I'm not sure we thought of what the experience would be like for older members when the process was designed. At the same time, I know of one person who passed the test and was rejected due to their prior poor behaviour in RPs. Perhaps it's time to examine whether the test is serving the purpose it was meant to. I agree with Mars that this isn't the topic for it, but I'll mention @Svipjoth so she can consider what you're saying.

I wrote up a legislative outline for a potential Citizenship Reform Act and I wanted your opinions, what do y'all think? Its a rough outline and some of the limits and things can be changed, its just an outline of what I think a reform act could look like.

1. Title
  1.1 This act shall be cited as the Citizenship Reform Act of 2022.

2. Citizenship Act Reform
  Section 2 of The Citizenship Act shall be amended to read as follows:
  2.1 Any individual wishing to obtain citizenship must either have a WA nation within the region endorsing the delegate, make twenty-five (25) non-spam posts on the Wintreath forums, make twenty-five (25) non-spam posts on the Wintreath NationStates RMB, or make one hundred (100) non-spam posts on the Wintreath Discord server in order to qualify for citizenship.
  2.2 Citizens may maintain their citizenship through the following means:
    2.2.1 Keeping the WA nation that is associated with their citizenship within the region. Should a citizen wish to designate a new nation as their citizenship nation, they must inform the person (or government agency) empowered to accept or reject citizenship applications in accordance with relevant law of a change in citizenship nation.
    2.2.2 Making twenty (20) non-spam posts on the Wintreath forums during the previous calendar month.
    2.2.3 Making seventy (70) non-spam posts on the Wintreath Discord server during the previous calendar month.
    2.2.4 Making twenty (20) non-spam posts on the Wintreath NationStates RMB during the previous calendar month.
    2.2.5 Making a financial contribution to The Winter Nomad of at least $5 (USD) during the previous calendar month.
  2.3. The Landsraad, through the Chancellor, reserves the right to exempt any Citizen from the provisions of section 2.1 of this Act due to an extended leave of absence from Wintreath under extenuating circumstances for up to six (6) months.
    2.3.1. Circumstances can include, but are not limited to: natural disasters, severe illness, extended hospital care, military training or deployment, extended stay in a remote rural area, or loss of a main source of income.
    2.3.2. A Citizen must hold Citizenship for at least thirty (30) days and declare intent to return to Wintreath in order to qualify for an exemption under this section. Compliance with these requirements is determined by the Landsraad, through the Chancellor.
    2.3.3. Exemptions may last no longer than six (6) months from the initial date of absence, as determined by the Landsraad, through the Chancellor.
    2.3.4. Any Citizen with an exemption under this section must return to compliance with section 2.1 of this Act within seven (7) days of their return to Wintreath.
  2.4 The Monarch of Wintreath reserves the right to exempt any Citizen from the provisions of section 2.1 of this Act due to an extended leave of absence from Wintreath under extenuating circumstances, as laid out in section 2.3.1 of this act, for periods of time greater than six (6) months at their discretion.
  2.5 The Monarch of Wintreath shall have the authority to revoke citizenship from any person, so long as the Monarch makes a public announcement explaining the reasons for doing so.
  2.6 The Landsraad shall have the authority to revoke Citizenship from any person by a two-thirds supermajority vote, so long as the legislation revoking the Citizenship contains the reasons for doing so. Persons whose Citizenship has been revoked by the Landsraad may appeal the decision to the Monarch, who can restore Citizenship by decree.
  2.7 The Monarch, or any subordinate official appointed by the Monarch, shall have the authority to grant or deny citizenship to any person who applies.

I wrote up a legislative outline for a potential Citizenship Reform Act and I wanted your opinions, what do y'all think? Its a rough outline and some of the limits and things can be changed, its just an outline of what I think a reform act could look like.

1. Title
  1.1 This act shall be cited as the Citizenship Reform Act of 2022.

2. Citizenship Act Reform
  Section 2 of The Citizenship Act shall be amended to read as follows:
  2.1 Any individual wishing to obtain citizenship must either have a WA nation within the region endorsing the delegate, make twenty-five (25) non-spam posts on the Wintreath forums, make twenty-five (25) non-spam posts on the Wintreath NationStates RMB, or make one hundred (100) non-spam posts on the Wintreath Discord server in order to qualify for citizenship.
  2.2 Citizens may maintain their citizenship through the following means:
    2.2.1 Keeping the WA nation that is associated with their citizenship within the region. Should a citizen wish to designate a new nation as their citizenship nation, they must inform the person (or government agency) empowered to accept or reject citizenship applications in accordance with relevant law of a change in citizenship nation.
    2.2.2 Making twenty (20) non-spam posts on the Wintreath forums during the previous calendar month.
    2.2.3 Making seventy (70) non-spam posts on the Wintreath Discord server during the previous calendar month.
    2.2.4 Making twenty (20) non-spam posts on the Wintreath NationStates RMB during the previous calendar month.
    2.2.5 Making a financial contribution to The Winter Nomad of at least $5 (USD) during the previous calendar month.
  2.3. The Landsraad, through the Chancellor, reserves the right to exempt any Citizen from the provisions of section 2.1 of this Act due to an extended leave of absence from Wintreath under extenuating circumstances for up to six (6) months.
    2.3.1. Circumstances can include, but are not limited to: natural disasters, severe illness, extended hospital care, military training or deployment, extended stay in a remote rural area, or loss of a main source of income.
    2.3.2. A Citizen must hold Citizenship for at least thirty (30) days and declare intent to return to Wintreath in order to qualify for an exemption under this section. Compliance with these requirements is determined by the Landsraad, through the Chancellor.
    2.3.3. Exemptions may last no longer than six (6) months from the initial date of absence, as determined by the Landsraad, through the Chancellor.
    2.3.4. Any Citizen with an exemption under this section must return to compliance with section 2.1 of this Act within seven (7) days of their return to Wintreath.
  2.4 The Monarch of Wintreath reserves the right to exempt any Citizen from the provisions of section 2.1 of this Act due to an extended leave of absence from Wintreath under extenuating circumstances, as laid out in section 2.3.1 of this act, for periods of time greater than six (6) months at their discretion.
  2.5 The Monarch of Wintreath shall have the authority to revoke citizenship from any person, so long as the Monarch makes a public announcement explaining the reasons for doing so.
  2.6 The Landsraad shall have the authority to revoke Citizenship from any person by a two-thirds supermajority vote, so long as the legislation revoking the Citizenship contains the reasons for doing so. Persons whose Citizenship has been revoked by the Landsraad may appeal the decision to the Monarch, who can restore Citizenship by decree.
  2.7 The Monarch, or any subordinate official appointed by the Monarch, shall have the authority to grant or deny citizenship to any person who applies.

Re: Clause 2.2.4, May I suggest that "posts" on the RMB be counted according to content rather than the technical amount of posts? I think it's unfair to have a person replying to multiple posts in the same RMB post to avoid violating the rules, counted as only a single post, just like someone posting a one-liner.

I'm not sure legislative change would actually benefit us in this respect. I would rather we, at least, try to work on integration first, since it seems that most of our issue comes down to retention. Additionally I am entirely opposed to making it harder to obtain citizenship and am opposed to the removal of having a nation as a means to get citizenship, as I had mentioned in the multiple prior discussions we've had on this matter before.

Also if we are to have activity as a method to getting Citizenship then I would consider lowering the number of discord posts to obtain citizenship from 100 to something around 50. Because that will likely be seen as rather daunting for someone that is new.

Re: Clause 2.2.4, May I suggest that "posts" on the RMB be counted according to content rather than the technical amount of posts? I think it's unfair to have a person replying to multiple posts in the same RMB post to avoid violating the rules, counted as only a single post, just like someone posting a one-liner.

I think it might be a bit difficult to do, administratively. Would it be workable to formulate the requirement like that, Moot?

Just like to state that I'm against increasing forum post requirements for both applying for or maintaining citizenship, especially to such a high number and especially with discord posts being increased at a much lower rate. I'm also against decreasing the amount of time that an exemption can take place for. I like that rmb activity is added as an option, and I don't have an opinion on NS nations needing to be WA in order to count

Formatting-wise, I believe sections 2.3, 2.3.4, and 2.4 are meant to be referencing section 2.2 not 2.1. And just out of personal taste, I'd make section 2.1 look more like 2.2 for consistency, but that's just me.

Just like to state that I'm against increasing forum post requirements for both applying for or maintaining citizenship, especially to such a high number and especially with discord posts being increased at a much lower rate. I'm also against decreasing the amount of time that an exemption can take place for. I like that rmb activity is added as an option, and I don't have an opinion on NS nations needing to be WA in order to count

Formatting-wise, I believe sections 2.3, 2.3.4, and 2.4 are meant to be referencing section 2.2 not 2.1. And just out of personal taste, I'd make section 2.1 look more like 2.2 for consistency, but that's just me.

Well, with regards to the exemption time, its not really been limited, its just been reformatted. Leave of more than 6 months would be in the hands of the Monarch. I'm a little apprehensive of having 12 month exemptions in the hands of an elected position that would change hands throughout that time period.

I mean Laurentus was Chancellor for well over 12 months, and we've only ever had two Chancellor elections. At least to my knowledge.

I mean Laurentus was Chancellor for well over 12 months, and we've only ever had two Chancellor elections. At least to my knowledge.

Lau's term was only supposed to be 3 months, by law. He stayed on 12 months not because it was his legally ascribed term length, or because he had a mandate too, but because, for whatever reason, elections were not held for 9 months. I don't think we can count on that moving forward.