The Nationalisation of a Peculiar Wittenberg Act

[Sevastáin Pinátsch]

By that logic, I would already own everything already hosted on talossan.ca

You might want to ask Dien whether I own United for Péngöpäts, or have asked anything from him since it went online on June 25, 2015. If he wants to shutter the site but have me export the data, or export it himself, he's able to do so at any time. It's been done before. When El Tamlalt Talossan withered away and no-one answered the public calls on Witt to keep it going, it went offline but wasn't deleted. I have all the data just sitting here in a folder. It could go back online tomorrow if someone wanted to run it.

The same can't be said for what you and I are writing here.

John doesn't own Witt. None of us can easily leave with any of what we've exchanged -- not unless someone copies it manually with cut and paste (because web scraping with a robot violates the Proboards TOS).

If you don't want Telecomuna, fine. I agree it's taken too long. I can't believe it doesn't already exist...  But then Talossa.com didn't exist either until I was put in charge (it was empty behind the "Coming Soon" page)...

...which is why I created the two alternatives above. I had an hour. I playtested the top rated forums, I installed and configured the one I really liked, and then cloned it. Anyone could have done this, and in probably less time if they were familiar with the software.

These installations are not mine.  Use them or don't use them.  They belong to the citizens of Talossa and will be managed by the elected government of the day. If there's a decision to move, the data goes with the citizens.

The same can't be said for this thread, which will be stranded here forever unless GV makes a copy of it.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

If I am not mistaken, don't you have explicit language talking about how the items hosted on your archive are the property of their original owners? That is pretty much what I am suggesting here.

I am not saying that the current situation is great, nor am I suggesting that you are planning to own anything that isn't yours or have any designs on such. All I'm saying is that it seems like the first step to this proposed process should probably be a formal agreement about ownership. If Talossa as a country is going to own Wittenberg again, via a new board, then the first step should be an agreement that establishes that Talossa as a country owns this new Wittenberg.

We have had a whole bunch of different Wittenbergs over the years, so switching as it makes sense seems smart to me. I wish that proboards made it easier and were not jerks about a lot of this.

[Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN]

Can I just make a brief note at this point that a lot of this discussion may be pre-empted by whatever the incoming Government decides to do about Wittenberg/Telecomuna. It may involve some or all of the various draft legislative proposals currently being aired, or it may not.

[Sevastáin Pinátsch]

Apr 6, 2019 13:04:33 GMT -6 Sir Alexandreu Davinescu said:

All I'm saying is that it seems like the first step to this proposed process should probably be a formal agreement about ownership.

OK.

Apr 6, 2019 8:14:14 GMT -6 Sir Alexandreu Davinescu said:

formal agreement where you turn over ownership of talossan.ca to the government

No. You own the data. You don't own the domain it's parked at.

If the agreement specifies the subdomain talossa.talossan.ca, fine, but it doesn't confer any right of ownership over the domain or any of the other properties also hosted there (e.g. UfP).

But as Miestrâ says, this could all be moot.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

Apr 7, 2019 9:05:18 GMT -6 Sevastáin Pinátsch said:

Apr 6, 2019 13:04:33 GMT -6 Sir Alexandreu Davinescu said:

All I'm saying is that it seems like the first step to this proposed process should probably be a formal agreement about ownership.

OK.

Apr 6, 2019 8:14:14 GMT -6 Sir Alexandreu Davinescu said:

formal agreement where you turn over ownership of talossan.ca to the government

No. You own the data. You don't own the domain it's parked at.

If the agreement specifies the subdomain talossa.talossan.ca, fine, but it doesn't confer any right of ownership over the domain or any of the other properties also hosted there (e.g. UfP).

But as Miestrâ says, this could all be moot.

Of course, it makes sense that not everything on your website will be transferred over. But yeah, something to do with the subdomain I guess? The exact details are immediately apparent to me... Maybe a formal agreement where you agree to provide the hosting and software for Wittenberg for as long as it is possible and convenient for you? This is a little bit outside of my experience, so maybe someone has better suggestions for how to implement this. It just seems to make sense that we not move from one privately owned forum to another privately owned forum without fixing some of the problems that are prompting the move. No reflection on your generosity or initiative in helping make this happen.

Right now, the thing that would make the most sense to me would be a move over to the new Wittenberg, combined with an agreement about how it should be administrated, combined with repealing the Telecomuna provisions. Solving this problem seems fraud with risks about partisan splintering of our community, even more so than we're already facing, so I just think we should think it through ahead of time of it.

[Ian Plätschisch]

Err, totally leaving Wittenberg may not be the best idea. I get the reasons to do it, but could we actually manage to get everyone to the new forum? I fear we might lose many citizens who aren’t around very much if we move and they don’t realize it.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

Oh, we'll definitely lose a bunch of people. Putting up an obstacle to people who have been gone for a while to easily return is a big reason why. I think probably the best thing to do is just change the way we regulate Wittenburg and not move at all. But if we are going to move, we should try to do so in the most useful and thoughtful manner. and a wholesale move is probably better than splitting across multiple boards.

[Ian Plätschisch]

Apr 7, 2019 10:47:28 GMT -6 Sir Alexandreu Davinescu said:

 a wholesale move is probably better than splitting across multiple boards.

I don't think so. If we have multiples boards, returning citizens will at least know to come to this one and from here can be directed to a new supplementary board (like what we have now with the Chatzy and Discord).

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

I'm not saying that this place should be deleted or anything. If nothing else, it should be kept as an archive for the future and a backup. We don't want what happened to Witt X to happen here. That board only exists as an archive file in the possession of a few citizens. But we could put a warning on every board and on the titles of the boards saying how we moved to a new board.

[Viteu Marcianüs]

Feb 28, 2019 13:26:12 GMT -6 King John said:

I'm certainly willing to consider whether and how such a plan might work, and (if I'm persuaded it's for the good of Talossa) to help implement it. There are problems, though, practical and Constitutional, that should be discussed.

For instance, do we want to establish a precedent that a particular piece of valuable property, belonging to one citizen, may be "nationalised" by action of the Ziu? Would such action violate the Covenant requiring that all citizens enjoy "equal protection of the laws"? Or the Covenant forbidding Bills of Attainder? Such a law would (probably) be found un-Constitutional in the United States, and Talossa's Covenants use the same language on these points as the American Constitution.

Another consideration is this. Given that we need a Witt Admin who can act quickly in emergencies, which scheme protects best against partisan use of the Witt Admin powers (or the *appearance* of partisan use)? A non-partisan magistrate who needn't face re-election and thus needn't try to assuage popular opinion; or a politically appointed/elected magistrate?

My opinions on these things aren't sharply formed. But we've barely discussed them.

— John R

John, you and I both know the language you reference replicates the 14th Amendment of the US Constition, and that following that as guidance, the State has eminant domain power, provided it does so with due process of law. 

This is not a bill of attainder. Nobody is targetting you specifically,  and certainly nobody is cauing your "legal death" (i.e. attainting you). 

I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt in not thinking you're intentionally misleading Talossans with your use of buzzwords. So please, stop misrepresenting equal protection, due process, attainder, and eminent domain. 

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

Apr 6, 2019 14:40:57 GMT -6 Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN said:

Can I just make a brief note at this point that a lot of this discussion may be pre-empted by whatever the incoming Government decides to do about Wittenberg/Telecomuna. It may involve some or all of the various draft legislative proposals currently being aired, or it may not.

Since it seems things are in motion on this front and that decisions have been made, could we get an update?

[Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN]

Apr 10, 2019 16:05:43 GMT -6 Sir Alexandreu Davinescu said:

Since it seems things are in motion on this front and that decisions have been made, could we get an update?

Pretty much everything that has been decided has now been made public. The Acting Minister of STUFF was keen to implement Title J of El Lexhátx ASAP; on consultation with the Secretary of State it was decided to only do this after a period of public consultation, which has just opened.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

All right, thank you.