[Royal Society] All-Party Debate

[Magniloqueu Épiqeu da Lhiun]

Jan 20, 2016 4:38:30 GMT -6 Marti-Pair Furxheir S.H. said:

Jan 19, 2016 19:11:38 GMT -6 Magniloqueu Épiqeu da Lhiun said:

Marti-Pair Furxheir S.H. ... I don't even... how do you pronounce your Talossan name? Because I'm hearing “Furcënah”, after having listened to it about 7 times.

Also, Martì-Paír should rhyme with French « mardi haïr ». And no, I am not saying that « mardi haïr » should make any sense!

Ben had told me it was supposed to be something like Furghaïr... and I messed up in the video.

Am I wrong?

Well, I don't know whether your name just has a very, very, very weird orthography; but if I were to go from the orthography, and assume that there are no irregularities, it would be:

English approximately: Foor-DJEYR
French approximately: Fourdjêr (“ê” more like colloquial Québécois “tête”)

[Marti-Pair Furxheir S.H.]

Jan 20, 2016 9:29:35 GMT -6 Magniloqueu Épiqeu da Lhiun said:

Jan 20, 2016 4:38:30 GMT -6 Marti-Pair Furxheir S.H. said:

Ben had told me it was supposed to be something like Furghaïr... and I messed up in the video.

Am I wrong?

Well, I don't know whether your name just has a very, very, very weird orthography; but if I were to go from the orthography, and assume that there are no irregularities, it would be:

English approximately: Foor-DJEYR
French approximately: Fourdjêr (“ê” more like colloquial Québécois “tête”)

There you go! That was it! Thanks!

[Inxheneu Crova]

Will the moderators choose 5 questions each, or 5 questions in total?

Also, is the absolute deadline for participating 25 Jan, or will parties that register after this date but beforexthe end of the debate still be included?

Thanks!

[Dr. Txec dal Nordselvă]

Well, the 25th came and the 25th went. Mr. Moderator (Marti-Pair Furxheir S.H. )? Are you ready to begin?

[Marti-Pair Furxheir S.H.]

Perfect, here is the first question, after the rules.

The order of answering is:

- Talossan National Congress, Moderate Radicals, Free Democrats, RUMP

each party has 12 hours to answer (so that the debate can move along, it means up to 48 hours per question, or 10 days to make the debate), but the first deadline is tomorrow at noon TST. That means that the TNC has until tomorrow at noon to provide an answer. If they fail to do so, they forfeit the right to answer the question and we move on.

As soon as the TNC will have answered, the MRPT will get 12 hours to answer on their own, unless the answer comes after 20h30 TST, in which case they have until noon the next day (but if the TNC answers now, the MRPT still has until tomorrow at noon, since it's the first question and parties might not be watching for the debate).

As soon as the MRPT has answered, or once their time out expires, it will be the Free Democrats, and then, the RUMP.

Once the RUMP as answered, I will post the 2nd Question.

Here is the first Question:

If your party were to win a majority, which clear steps would you take, if any, to increase active participation into the Kingdom of Talossa, either from currently inactive citizens or with new citizens?

Please focus on steps YOU would take and not on attacking previous governments or other parties.

It's your chance to make your platform shine, make it count!

Can someone tag the leader of the TNC? I am not sure how to do that, do I just link to him like this: Breneir Itravilatx

[Marti-Pair Furxheir S.H.]

Jan 21, 2016 0:04:27 GMT -6 Inxheneu Crova said:

Will the moderators choose 5 questions each, or 5 questions in total?

Also, is the absolute deadline for participating 25 Jan, or will parties that register after this date but beforexthe end of the debate still be included?

Thanks!

The way I see it, if another party wants to participate, they can join in at any time and be added in the last position of the order of answering, and then, the schedule will be adjusted.

[Breneir Itravilatx]

First, thank you to both Marti-Pair and Ian for moderating this debate and to Dr. Nordselva for helping organize this debate as Royal Society President. And thank you, dear Citizen, for taking the time to follow this debate and participate in the political process.

The TNC platform focuses greatly on improvement to government oversight and accountability but with respect to restoring activity levels we believe it is through cultural programming that we will reactivate our silent citizenry and attract new citizens. As far as the problem plaguing Talossa the RUMP leader, Sir Davinescu, has lamented the decrease in active citizenry and the FreeDem leader, Dama Schiva, has decried the increasing coarseness of social discourse in Talossa. We have also heard the familiar refrain “Talossa is not Wittenberg and Wittenberg is not Talossa.” All are spot on. We have many pontificators and axe-grinders but we need artists in order to nurture a multifaceted society. And it will take a pragmatic coalition of diverse perspectives and interests to fix these issues.

Our dormant compatriots will awaken when the cultural richness that is our inheritance as Talossans is honored by our Government with sustained cultivation. We propose social and cultural programs to meet the interests of not just we the politicians but Talossans of all stripes. Our party will work with any combination of parties at least committed to this issue as us.

TalossaWARE? Well, let the bakers and cooks come together to create a book of historical and contemporary Talossan recipes that dandelions will cherish someday. Let us finally get the coins manufactured. Let us set forth on a project of historical standardization. Let us encourage the continued growth of both the political and cultural press. Let us revive the office of the Poet Laureate, encourage inter-Talossan cultural exchange befitting our heterogeneous nature through a Festival of Culture. How have we not fully shared what is best of us from Murmansk to Auckland, from India to the Philippines? We will also continue our ongoing work to open routes of political association and cultural exchange between Talossa and other nations as we believe, in combination with Social Ambassadors, this will attract new citizens.

Finally, I will say as an individual I believe we are all a multiplicity of identities. I am gay, agnostic, black American, gender-fluid, humanitarian, cosmopolitan, neo-soul, deep green, social democratic and the list goes on. But, you see—and this is what I love about this country—even this collection of eccentricities can be welcomed and flourish in Talossa.

If we are to see Talossa fully realized then we as political leaders should take the lead and share more of ourselves and be willing to better empathize with others. If we are to see a Talossa worth our dandelion's inheriting then we should come together in collaborating to nurture our common heritage as Talossans.

[Marti-Pair Furxheir S.H.]

Thank you Breneir,

The MRPT now has until noon TST to answer...

[Lüc da Schir]

Good day, everyone! Before answering, let me thank the moderators for agreeing to host this debate.

Now, it's our opinion that, right now, the overall atmosphere on Witt is poisonous. Personal attacks are too frequent and Witt is not an attractive place for new Talossans while all this mudslinging is taking place. There should be more focus on content and ideas, and the Moderate Radicals are the party of cooperation and bridge-building in a time of confrontation and bullying.

Then, there's a whole bunch of things we would like to make happen as far as immigration and (in general) the activeness of the citizenry are concerned. The NCC should be more active in its endeavors, the immigration portal on talossa.com has to be implemented and informative material should be produced, sure, but this only covers the influx of new immigrants. To get people involved without being overly political, an active Civil Service is needed and the MRPT pledges to put its most active members in the civil service committee to ensure that its proceedings be smooth. Similarly, the government has to support cultural initiatives, but it should be careful not to politicise everything it touches.

Talossa needs to be attractive again for new citizens to stick around after their citizenship has been granted. The government might want to stimulate the formation of clubs, groups of people with common interests, but our point is that the government should not be the one in charge of that, or else we're politicising the Kingdom's daily life. Let Talossans feel Talossans, let them buy stamps and coins and mugs (and I welcome the appointment of a MinStuff who will actually get around to do that), but let's not force them into a politics-regulated environment if they don't want to. We're much more than that.

[Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN]

Estimadâs és estimats cüncitaxhiêns, oðreux cefeus da parti:

I am beginning to think that many of the answers to these questions will be repetitive. I think there's reasonably broad consensus on what needs to be done in Talossa, as shown by the generally positive reactions to my video speech on the issue.

Building non-political Talossa has to be our top priority. Which is why the Free Democrats promote our Civil Service, Civil Society plank. We want to beef up the non-political Civil Service and Chancery, to allow people to work to build Talossa without going near the maddening sphere of electoral politics. And we want to encourage the growth of non-governmental organisations (as well as the provincial governments) to help organise non-political Talossanity.

Obviously the task of the Government in this regard will have to be led by a scrupulously politically neutral Culture Minister, steeped in Talossanity and trusted by all shades of political opinion. And I would like to make the hot scoop announcement that the Free Democrats are close to naming our preferred Shadow Culture Minister. Hell, if s/he confirms before the RUMP leader replies to this statement, maybe I'll be able to tell you right now!

As to inactive citizens, I return to my old idea of having an "official newsletter" which the Chancery would put out once a month, which would go out to all Talossan citizens, and would enable them to have sufficient background knowledge to jump right into participation. Not a politicised journal of the kind we're used to, but a "just the facts, D:nâ" round-up of events.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

Jan 26, 2016 7:46:31 GMT -6 Marti-Pair Furxheir S.H. said:

If your party were to win a majority, which clear steps would you take, if any, to increase active participation into the Kingdom of Talossa, either from currently inactive citizens or with new citizens?

Thank you, MPF, and thank you to all the other participants here. So how can we increase participation? This is an important issue... over the past year, our population has gone up even as our active population has gone down! How can we improve the situation?

I respectfully disagree that everyone has the same plan. Here's the RUMP plan.

Survey

Honestly, we first need to admit that we just don't know much about why people become active or stay active. We have lots of speculation. Some of the reasons we heard tonight are that people are driven away by a toxic atmosphere on Wittenberg, by an inability to escape politics, or by a lack of opportunity. These are all great hypotheses. But we mostly hear from such a small group, and we have such a narrow perspective, that we just don't know. We shouldn't pretend to know.

So the first clear step I would take would be to administer a survey. The Government would do its level best to reach everyone with this survey, including former citizens, as privacy preferences allow, and we would ask them what sparked their initial interest in Talossa, how long they were active, what they did while they were active, what opportunities they wished existed or wished existed in a better form, and other pertinent questions.

We need be careful about proposing solutions before we know the nature of the problem.

Interim Measures

While this survey was going on, though, there are certainly some things we can do in the meanwhile.

Telecomuna - It is really important we get Telecomuna up and running, and separate out the public and private message boards. This is important for ideological reasons, but also practical ones... the government shouldn't be policing speech and private individuals shouldn't be policing government affairs. The next Seneschal should work with the Secretary of State and make sure this gets done.

Communication - The Seneschal should be visible and in public, making remarks to the people and working personally to get people involved. Show current and prospective visitors that we have an active and vigorous government, and it will improve our image and people's engagement.

Culture Messages - The Minister of Culture doesn't have a lot of regular duties. One of the things they should be doing is explaining and promoting different aspects of Talossan culture and history. Who were the Berbers? What was the Cone War? The Minister of Culture shouldn't be invisible... they should be out there, y'know, promoting our culture! At least one enlightening discussion per month would be a reasonable goal.

Promotion of Assets - Who knows how many potential Talossans lie within the ranks of stamp collectors or conlangers? We should visit and engage with these communities. We already have the assets -- let's use them and open ourselves up to whole new groups of curious new Talossans-to-be! We should promote our stamps on stamp collecting boards and sites and promote the new language materials on conlang message boards and sites.

Civil Service, TalossaWare, and Coins - Others seem to agree on this, so no need to rehash it.

New Approaches

Once the results of the survey are in, and after we have analyzed them, a longer-range plan can be formed... even if it's something rather more ambitious than our short little six months.

For example, if it is found that people's disinterest in politics is the overwhelming problem, then banning political discussions on the general chatting boards might be the way to go. Politics talk could take place on the floor of the Ziu, party boards, and in specially sanctioned threads. Obviously I'm not endorsing that now, but it's an option we could consider if political toxicity turns out to be running folks out of town.

Likewise, if the problem is a lack of opportunities to socialize, the Government could take a hand in helping to organize more social stuff. There have been fantasy football and chess tournaments, but I bet there's a lot more out there. We might find some Talossan gamers in World of Warcraft, and we could sanction a Talossan WoW Guild (or League of Legends group, or whatever). We could take the Chancery's list of people available to meet in public and work out where there are close gatherings of Talossans, geographically speaking, and take steps to bring them together socially offline, too.

We could even Kickstart a protracting advertising campaign. For relatively small amounts, you can put ads on Google for people searching on certain subjects or in certain places. We could harness that power and beat the problem by sheer dint of numbers, if it turns out there's no particular reason why people are inactive.


Together, we can get this solved and done, and get back a thriving and bustling country. These are our concrete plans and our concrete steps to do so. Thank you.

[Marti-Pair Furxheir S.H.]

Thank you all parties for your participation!

Here is the second question. The order for it is:

Moderate Radicals, Free Democrats, RUMP, Talossan National Congress

The MRPT has until 7PM TST tonight to answer. The FreeDemocrat will have until 7AM TST, until the MRPT answers in the next 2 hours, in which which case deadline fo the Free Democrat will be 9PM TST. The RUMP will most like have to answer before NOON tomorrow, unless the MRPT and the FreeDemocrat answer really fast...

In short, it's up to 12 hours since the last answer, the if the 12 hours is between 9PM and 7AM, the deadline is 7AM, if the last answer is between 9PM and 7AM, then the deadline is noon.

Here is the 2nd question:

Prelude: Provinces are an important part of our system. They notably elect our senators. But let's be honest, provinces are mostly a failure, most do not have any significant provincial activity and in one case, two citizens from the same city are in different (non-Fiova) provinces.

Question: Do you have a plan on what to do with provinces? If so, what is it? Should provinces be more vitalized or are they just census blocks for Senate elections. Should citizen assignment be tweaked or be completely scrapped and changed to something completely different? Should people be sorted into provinces according to interests, such as civil service guys in Atatûrk (where the Capital is), language minded people in another, etc...?

Yeah, it's a tought provoking question. no need to follow me down my thought hole...

[Lüc da Schir]

A very good question. The Moderate Radicals have historically been a very active party when provinces are concerned, both at federal level with legislation addressing the provinces' current state of inactivity and at provincial level with high levels of activity wherever Moderate Radical are involved.

Half of the provinces (Atatürk, Benito, Cézembre and Maritiimi-Maxhestic) have 60% of their last 10 threads created by members of our parties. Wherever the MRPT holds office in the provinces, the MRPT gets things done. And this has been true at federal level as well. The Open Sesame Act was Hoppered and Clarked by the MRPT's Party Whip Ian Plätschisch . The Move Like Jagger Act was Hoppered and Clarked by the MRPT's former Senator for Cézembre Glüc da Dhi . The Catchment Area Reform Act was Hoppered by myself (but unfortunately parked without being Clarked due to the talks of merger between MM and Vuode). Our record is clear: we are the party that is committed to provinces that actually work as something more than Senatorial constituencies.

Our view is that the sorting of people into provinces should be made with geography and geography alone in mind. Having people from the same area be in the same province encourages meetings both virtual and perhaps even face-to-face, and we're strongly committed to making that happen. It's not much of an issue if a province ends up having twice as many citizens as the smallest one, as long as there are provisions to keep a province's government running if no one is up for the job. Ultimately, having fewer provinces could help making them more active, but that is a move that should be done with each province's consent. We would also support moves to introduce weighted voting in the Senate.

In conclusion, we are strongly against transforming provinces into clubs of interests. In my opinion, no provinces at all would be better than such an arrangement. What we have always aimed to do is binding provincial catchment with geography even more closely instead. If the Wargaming club doesn't get turned into a province, why should its members count less than the CUG's (language) province or the Talossan Football's (sports) province, when it comes to having political power in the Senate? Plus, provinces could start competing for new immigrants that way. Wouldn't it lead immigrants to choose the "in"-province, the one that can promote itself the most, en-masse? It's good for every province to have its own peculiar culture, but unique doesn't have to be mean homogeneous.

TL;DR:
1 - We are arguably the party that has cared the most about provinces in the last few years, and we are committed to keep doing so.
2 - We are constantly delivering both at federal and provincial level basically everywhere we hold seats.
3 - We want catchment areas to follow geographic boundaries. Similar languages, similar cultures go in the same province if possible.
4 - We support weighted voting in the Senate to give bigger provinces more voting powers.
5 - Fewer provinces could positively affect levels of activity in each province. 
6 - Provinces should not be clubs of interests. That's just... bad. Outright bad.

[Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN]

I would like to say that the FreeDems 100% endorse this paragraph from the ModRad leader:

Our view is that the sorting of people into provinces should be made with geography and geography alone in mind. Having people from the same area be in the same province encourages meetings both virtual and perhaps even face-to-face, and we're strongly committed to making that happen. It's not much of an issue if a province ends up having twice as many citizens as the smallest one, as long as there are provisions to keep a province's government running if no one is up for the job. Ultimately, having fewer provinces could help making them more active, but that is a move that should be done with each province's consent. We would also support moves to introduce weighted voting in the Senate.

However, you have to take history into account. The provinces have never, ever been powerhouses of activity - except when an opposition party has taken over a provincial government and used it to troll the King/national government. So I am quite relaxed about provinces being only marginally active, frankly. The "club of interests" idea is completely rejected by me.

Nevertheless, provincial governments will hopefully be among the organisations to which the Ministry of Culture in a FreeDems government will reach out, as part of our Civil Service & Civil Society plank, as spheres for Talossanity outside the bearpit of national politics. As a liberal/democratic party we are also in favour of maximum decentralisation - a long-term plank of our programme has to revive the Council of Governors as a forum for the provincial governments to hobnob.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

Jan 28, 2016 5:03:12 GMT -6 Marti-Pair Furxheir S.H. said:

Prelude: Provinces are an important part of our system. They notably elect our senators. But let's be honest, provinces are mostly a failure, most do not have any significant provincial activity and in one case, two citizens from the same city are in different (non-Fiova) provinces.

Question: Do you have a plan on what to do with provinces? If so, what is it? Should provinces be more vitalized or are they just census blocks for Senate elections. Should citizen assignment be tweaked or be completely scrapped and changed to something completely different? Should people be sorted into provinces according to interests, such as civil service guys in Atatûrk (where the Capital is), language minded people in another, etc...?

First of all, I strongly disagree that provinces have been a "failure." In Maritiimi-Maxhestic, you can see an amazing province with a rich tradition of radical democracy -- a province proud of its genuine heritages. Maritiimi-Maxhestic is known as one of the more active provinces, a radically democratic province, and a province particularly proud of the ability of its citizens to work with each other across party lines. And it's not the only province so blessed -- Fiova has become one of the lights of Talossa, keeping the spirit of the Republic of Talossa alive into the present day, and Cezembre has been a fiercely independent and proud province for many years, and Florencia is as close-knit a community of friends as one could wish. And I know that the people in Vuode, Maricopa, Benito, and Ataturk are also proud of their own provinces.

That said, it's a game of numbers. Talossa has, what, 270 citizens (wow, by the way!). Of that number, perhaps 10% are active on Wittenberg, our Internet message board. Is it any surprise that ~27 people, divided eight ways, don't amount to eight bustling communities on Witt?

Talossa needs a change, so we can get dynamic new ideas working in the country. I've listed just some of my ideas here already, and the RUMP has many more -- not to mention a government activity plan to make sure the national government actually gets things done in the next term. That will attract new active citizens and revive the old.