Hosting update: KoT.net, New Witt, etc.

[Lüc da Schir]

Azul everyone, as indicated by Miestrâ in the other thread I am more or less taking over the "backend" duties of STUFF (this will probably become another PermSec). I'd like to take advantage of this thread to update you on what has been going on behind the scenes.

More to come in the following posts.

[Lüc da Schir]

1) Most of what was hosted on KoT.net has been turned over to the Royal Archivist.

This includes personal folders (managed by individuals), Coats of Arms (read below), political party folders...

Some files have not been turned over as they were essentially useless non-Talossa related pictures of dubious value, duplicates, etc.

Edit: as far as I know the plan is obviously to make the Archived data available; I personally plan on uploading the full unaltered 1.5 GB archive sometimes in the future.

1b) VERY IMPORTANT note to all who had their CoA hosted on KoT.net (most of you?): when KoT.net goes offline, you won't be able to use the CoA that you hosted there anymore as an avatar.

Fear not: you can visit heraldry.talossa.com to retrieve it. Simply look (CTRL+F) for your CoA and get the new link to your CoA. For example, this is Sir AD's CoA on the new talossa.com: heraldry.talossa.com/DavisArms.gif

[Lüc da Schir]

2) L'Oversteir is more complicated. PHP I can do, but I've never used Perl, so moving it over is not going to be particularly straightforward.

My preference would have been to work on a more modern open source, Github hosted "Noveursteir", written in PHP and using databases instead of a text based Treisour; I've discussed it in private and the aim would be to progressively add more features onto it (eg. correctly detecting and translating plurals, verb tenses, etc.). Obviously that's not going to be done in the short term.

If anyone knows how to move over a Perl script based thingy without me having to look for it, you're welcome to help me getting "Oldversteir" up and running on Talossa.com. Otherwise, the process will be considerably slower.

[Lüc da Schir]

3) New Wittenberg (Witt XIV?) is up and running. (If you had previously noticed my signature, it was intended to be a little teaser.) The challenges now are:

- Deciding on moderation policies;

- Choosing an administration scheme and the actual administration team;

- Deciding on the board layout;

- Finalizing the switchover (when? what happens to this Witt?).

In the meantime, you can visit wittenberg.talossa.com to get a feel of the first version of New Wittenberg. Please post your feedback below. I'm particularly interested in your opinions about the board layout (remember, the one you see is very much a proposal!) and the theme (I do expect to make at least a light version of the theme, and I also expect to have some sort of submission process for custom themes. SMF does also allow for custom subboard themes, so it would be nice to see a Grischun flag Glheþ theme for the language subboard for example).

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

Fantastic work!!!

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

I'd suggest that the Civil Service could just have one board. There just isn't enough volume from those different parts to justify different boards. This new arrangement would also eliminate the Ziu as its own board, which means no more pseudo-speeches to the united body. Not sure if that's the way we want to go, but I just thought it was worth noting. Probably speeches to the Cosa would have the same effect. Are there hidden boards that only registered users can see?

[Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN]

Sept 28, 2019 17:47:46 GMT -6 Sir Alexandreu Davinescu said:

I'd suggest that the Civil Service could just have one board.

I'm happy with that format

[Danihel Txechescu]

Sept 28, 2019 12:22:37 GMT -6 Lüc da Schir said:

2) L'Oversteir is more complicated. PHP I can do, but I've never used Perl, so moving it over is not going to be particularly straightforward.

[...]

If anyone knows how to move over a Perl script based thingy without me having to look for it, you're welcome to help me getting "Oldversteir" up and running on Talossa.com. Otherwise, the process will be considerably slower.

Maybe I can help.

[Eðo Grischun]

Looks good. I really like the globe logo and RT-Wittenberg branding.

I like the board categories. It makes sense to have dedicated space for the Archivist and Burgermeister to post their announcements so they don't end up lost in the shuffles of general conversations.

I think the Chancery having it's own board is also very useful. I imagine this new Chancery board is where the Clark and Clark results are posted in future? Then it's up to both houses to open and close their own Clark voting sessions (preferably with an increased role of the speakers?) If so, I really like that. It delineates the Chancery from the Ziu, and might help get both Ziu houses acting more parliamentary in future.

I also think NOT having a Ziu board is better. The two chambers of parliament are separate entities and it makes sense to treat them as such. I understand AD's concern about speeches made across both houses, but it shouldn't really be happening. MCs should address their own chamber, Senators theirs.

Now, the Ziu board does get used for Terpelaziuns, but the new 'government' board can be used for this. There is actually no requirement for ministers to be MZs. I don't think it's happened recently, but there could come a time where a minister exists that isn't an MZ and can't actually answer TERPs as they are unauthorised to speak in the Ziu. MZs asking questions to the executive should be happening outside of the parliament "by letter", and a separate government board is ideal for this.


Anyway, I like it as you have built it. I don't really mind how the final live version will look and operate and won't be staging any arguments or protests one way or the other. I'll offer my opinions only. I'll just be happy to see this project finally complete in any shape or form.


Major applause to Luc for getting these things in place.

[Lüc da Schir]

Sept 28, 2019 17:47:46 GMT -6 Sir Alexandreu Davinescu said:

I'd suggest that the Civil Service could just have one board. There just isn't enough volume from those different parts to justify different boards.

and

Sept 28, 2019 22:02:47 GMT -6 Eðo Grischun said:

I like the board categories. It makes sense to have dedicated space for the Archivist and Burgermeister to post their announcements so they don't end up lost in the shuffles of general conversations.

I indeed wanted officials to be able to get their posts out in an easy to search space. What would you merge, Alex? "Chancery" with "Scribery, Archives and Treasury"?

Are there hidden boards that only registered users can see?

Not right now, but the Chatroom and the Immigration board will definitely have the same restriction as today (non-registered can't access), and the Cabinet board will only be accessible to the current Cabinet.

[Lüc da Schir]

I wanted to quote all the individual bits about the new Ziu configuration, but it was getting a bit messy, so I'll just comment on those here.

The idea would indeed be to use the boards as follows:

=== The Ziu ===
The Hopper: same as today
The Cosa: Cosa debates and votes, plus Cosa-only business (Appointment of Tuischac'h, appointing MCs, etc)
The Senate: Senate debates and votes, plus Senate-only motions (Resolutions, Mençei elections, etc)
=== The Government and the Judiciary ===
The Government: Terpelaziuns, announcements, appointments...
[...]
=== The Royal Civil Service ===
The Chancery: Clarks, vote results, GE results, other Chancery announcements (citizenship grants?)

I do realise that we would lose the cross-House speeches and the Clark would be published relatively far away.

A potential alternative is to have a fourth board in the Ziu that combines "The Government", the Ziu business part of "The Chancery" and is also intended for cross-House speeches and opposition business. On the spot, I wouldn't know how to name it. (something like "The Central Lobby"? "The Rotunda"? A Talossan version of those?)

Further feedback on that is appreciated.

[Glüc da Dhi]

Not sure a separate chancery board will be needed. Ziu business might be conducted in the fourth ziu board. Not sure what the general board will be used for, but if that's the one everyone reads I imagine thats where election rules/results and such will be posted.

I also think maybe citizen petitions can in the future be posted somewhere in the immigration section (also because new citizens havent got the chance to ask for a Talossan name yet. The Talossan names board is also secret I think)

That just leaves organisatorial chancery matters. These could well fit with the other civil service offices.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

It does seem like a single Civil Service board would be the best way. The combined volume of all of those different boards would still be on the order of a post a day, if that. I mean, there are official Chancery posts maybe three times a month? Consolidating the civil service stuff together will encourage people to see a few things they might miss. Plus, we need to think in terms of administration. If there's just one board, then it can easily be monitored by one duly-appointed person. But the law will obligate the Dean of the College of Arms to moderate or appoint someone for moderating their board -- just one more thing on the plate of someone who already has too much to do with too little thanks. And I guess the Treasurer, Archivist, and Scribe would need to decide who was in charge of their board (or vote on someone to be)?

I don't feel super-strongly about any of this, just trying to work through it with an eye for the future.

My only warning re the Ziu board is that the Cosa board will become the de facto Ziu board under this arrangement, I'd imagine. If everyone is fine with that, it's fine with me. But that's probably going to be what happens. Oh, and we should also prepare for the fact that we're going to need to make adjustments for lower numbers of active citizens in the Ziu as time goes by, if current trends continue. If there is a separate Cosa board, it will probably be pretty dead, since the Cosa already doesn't have its act together on its internal procedures (which is probably to be expected, given our institutional realities).

Side note: Terps are by definition requests to come answer questions, so they constitute permission to post on the Ziu board even if you're not an MZ. There's specific precedent on that.

[Lüc da Schir]

Sept 28, 2019 20:20:49 GMT -6 Danihel Txechescu said:

Sept 28, 2019 12:22:37 GMT -6 Lüc da Schir said:

2) L'Oversteir is more complicated. PHP I can do, but I've never used Perl, so moving it over is not going to be particularly straightforward.

[...]

If anyone knows how to move over a Perl script based thingy without me having to look for it, you're welcome to help me getting "Oldversteir" up and running on Talossa.com. Otherwise, the process will be considerably slower.

Maybe I can help.

Thank you for the offer, Danihel! In the meantime Bradley Higgs had gotten in touch through Miestrâ, so we'll see if we can figure this out ourselves, but I'll remember it if anything else of the sort comes up.

[Lüc da Schir]

Sept 29, 2019 8:48:36 GMT -6 Sir Alexandreu Davinescu said:

It does seem like a single Civil Service board would be the best way. The combined volume of all of those different boards would still be on the order of a post a day, if that. I mean, there are official Chancery posts maybe three times a month? Consolidating the civil service stuff together will encourage people to see a few things they might miss. Plus, we need to think in terms of administration. If there's just one board, then it can easily be monitored by one duly-appointed person. But the law will obligate the Dean of the College of Arms to moderate or appoint someone for moderating their board -- just one more thing on the plate of someone who already has too much to do with too little thanks. And I guess the Treasurer, Archivist, and Scribe would need to decide who was in charge of their board (or vote on someone to be)?

I tend to agree with you on that. Only, I would mantain the CoA as a separate board, if only because it has always been that way.

My only warning re the Ziu board is that the Cosa board will become the de facto Ziu board under this arrangement, I'd imagine. If everyone is fine with that, it's fine with me. But that's probably going to be what happens. Oh, and we should also prepare for the fact that we're going to need to make adjustments for lower numbers of active citizens in the Ziu as time goes by, if current trends continue. If there is a separate Cosa board, it will probably be pretty dead, since the Cosa already doesn't have its act together on its internal procedures (which is probably to be expected, given our institutional realities).

I'll be honest, if we do get the extra "Lobby" board we should be fine. We can use that for terps, announcements, Clark results, etc; and each house can vote and debate on their own boards (and obviously other stuff such as MC appointments).

I'm editing the structure to reflect these latest proposals.