Townhall - Curial Commentary and Chat

[Hader]

This is a glorious day for the Curia. Common sense finally prevailed.



Quite the opposite. This has increased the value of your badge because it is now what it was always meant to be, a reward, instead of a burden or obligation.

I don't think it affects citizenship much one way or the other honestly, but more so is a way of getting more value out of the curia as a whole. Some see it as doing so (potentially) at the cost of devaluing personal citizenship, I don't see it devaluing any individual's citizenship, but also not really increasing it in any way either.

[Iskar]

Thanks for considering me worthy of the Phalera. Receiving it from the hands of such distinguished people makes it all the more meaningful.

[Hader]

PSA: Forum movements are mostly happening around now, if you're browsing anything in the Curia, Proth, Q&S, and any other forum affected by moves from the proposal, some funky stuff may happen while the moves occur and some viewing permissions may take time to update. Let me know if any permissions/viewing issues persist for more than ~10 minutes.

[♔atthias♔]

congrats to iskar for getting the phalera

and a belated welcome for non binary person as a citizen (I will have to get used to a different name)

[StealthFox]

Please have a look at this thread. I'm trying to implement the changes laid out in the Curial overhaul, but there were some things that were not specified completely. Some things I'm adding it I think are within the spirit of the amendment, but there are other things I'm not sure about that might require an additional amendment be voted on.

[Iskar]

Thanks for diligently doing this crapload of work entailed by such a major change, Stealthfox. You have my confidence that you will act with good measure in filling in any gaps that may have been left by the amendment. Minor and logical changes may be enough to be informally acclaimed here though (instead of a formal vote), if you still feel something goes beyond your remit.

[StealthFox]

Thanks Iskar.

I just finished Section III. That should be most of the changes to the Constitution other than a few odd questions on things that might require additional amendment.

Now that the Constitution is updated to reflect the changes, including the new offices, I plan to work on the Prefect elections tomorrow.

[Commissar Caligula_]

How are we gonna handle the Praefect elections? Just elect 2 people, and then they decide between themselves whether 1 of them will stay in office for 3 months and the other 6 months so that we elect a new one every 3 months?

[Gaius Baltar]

On another note, Curial Information and Announcements has not been updated recently. Perhaps this type of recording keeping has passed it prime?

[Sir Adrian]

How are we gonna handle the Praefect elections? Just elect 2 people, and then they decide between themselves whether 1 of them will stay in office for 3 months and the other 6 months so that we elect a new one every 3 months?

Elect two people. The one with the most votes stays 6 months, the other one stays 3. After 3 months we elect a new one for a full term.

[PikeStance]

What about the Wiki? The focus on mods here contra the official forum? What about the numerous things offered by Staff here? The many publications, the Screenshot competitions, the writing competitions, the art support bit, everything Content Staff does really,, Gaming Staff RPG and Hotseats, the Curia is still special. The activity, friendliness and proffesionalism shown by the site runners too, and how much they care about the site and not the bling, from friendly, amazing feedback to what people write to providing emotional and personal support on tough matters.

I do not mean to come across as a suck-up. This forum has, in my opinion plenty to offer to make itself stand out, and I love TWC and the members in here too for it.

The vote is the most important thing. Whats more important, a minor country being in the UN or one of the Big Five's veto powers? Citizens still have the final say over what gets added to the site, and to appease your perspective, without us nothing can be done.

Letting non-citizens in means there is MORE for us to do, and what we do will hopefully be of a higher quality because we will have more insights and points of view to help shape the proposals/changes that are passed by the Curia.

There are, at most, 30 members of the Curia who actually engage in Curial stuff. These 30 people are the only things that hold together this entire site? Sorry but no, just no. There is much more that makes up TWC than the Curia and we should all be working to broaden those areas rather than focusing so much on 1 body which is barely active, and which the great majority of people who use TWCenter are incapable of even being involved in since they're not Citizens.

Caligula and KA,

First, let's be blunt. An interest of the site has always been for the Mods. Unless we get mods back on the site there is little chance of any recovery. You could argue that multiplayer gaming is also an attraction. However, we all know there are competing for both. The lack of interest in the site on the part of citizens speaks to the issue. Openig the Prothalomos will not in any way promote interest.
As I have stated many times the best way to promote the site is to actively seek out members who have invested their time and contributed to the site. Unfortunately, the standards for citizenship rose from its humble beginnings. Perhaps a more disturbing trend is the lack of patrons. This speaks to a greater issue of a lack of value for citizenship. The notion that citizenship is "elitist" stems from both factors, patrons are the gate and the standards are guards at the gate. My patron once remarked that in order to qualify for a large award one does not have to shoot lightning bolts out of their butts. Citizenship is similar. You do not have to create a boatload of content in order to qualify. I have attempted to demonstrate this. Zoner16 is one good example. I have sadly seen members participate, contributing to the site, and then after 6 or so months, disappear. After waiting to see if anyone would bring the person forward, I would approach only to find to my disappointment that this member is no longer active. One has to wonder if we had if this person would still be here providing insight.

Keep in mind, one does not have to be a skilled modder to be an Artifex, they just have to produce content. One does not have to be a brilliant writer, just produce content. One does not have to be a brilliant debater, just participating in creating content. If we were to set a high standard, then maybe behavior. However, not even there are standards high. a warning in the past 6 months. That is all that is required. For the most part, you can receive warnings has a citizen and you will be able to receive them for a while before a more serious action may be taken. I am not advocating letting in the 'devil," but we do not need to only consider those who may qualify for sainthood either.

Specifically, we can look at gaming. It has been a while since we passed the award for non-staff members. I do not know if anyone has been awarded, but I find it hard to believe that anyone worthy of such an award is not worthy of citizenship either. Thus far, the award has only gone to "staff." Citizenship operates on a "pay it forward" principle. Someone takes notice of you and patronize you. You then "pay it forward, and patronize someone else and so goes the system. Patronizing has always been more intrinsic than extrinsic in nature. The selling point was a slightly more important voice on the site. Now that voice is muffled. How does one seel the notion of citizenship to anyone now? If the drive wasn't there before, it is not going to magically appear.

It has been since 2014 since we have more than 30 applications. In 2017, there were only 12 applications. Gone are the days of 4+ a month.

Sad thing is that this proposal "solved" a nonexistent problem while leaving the one problem untouched and it devalued the one means to help the site recover.

[Iskar]

Keep it in perspective, there are no more than thirty of us for whom the Curia constitutes an important part of citizenship and an 80% majority of those obviously did not consider the opening of the Proth as a devaluation of it. Maybe it devalued your personal citizenship in your personal perspective, which is sad, but certainly not ciitzenship in general where the majority opinion is concerned.

[Leonardo]

Openig the Prothalomos will not in any way promote interest.

Then you need to present a solid argument why you think that open up the Prothalamos will not promote interst.

So far I haven't read anything from you about why "open up the Prothalamos" does not have the result the member who made such a proposal stated.

[PikeStance]

Keep it in perspective, there are no more than thirty of us for whom the Curia constitutes an important part of citizenship and an 80% majority of those obviously did not consider the opening of the Proth as a devaluation of it. Maybe it devalued your personal citizenship in your personal perspective, which is sad, but certainly not ciitzenship in general where the majority opinion is concerned.

Then you need to present a solid argument why you think that open up the Prothalamos will not promote interst.

So far I haven't read anything from you about why "open up the Prothalamos" does not have the result the member who made such a proposal stated.

You are either just being argumentative or you really not getting it. Since when is the majority is always right a valid argument.
There were 20 votes on the proposal. That's it.

We are ignoring or evading it. Rather than deal with it, we just choose to ignore it completely. There is little to no sense of efficacy on the site. There isn't going to be a sudden interest by simply opening things up. There is a reason why "citizens" the more active members of the site are not bothering. I wonder how long we can all ignore the White Elephant in the room.

I supposed we all will see it. The question is; is it too late already? I do not know if the site has the ability to suddenly become proactive.

[Leonardo]

You are either just being argumentative or you really not getting it. Since when is the majority is always right a valid argument.

I do get it. Anyone who is arguing about something has always presented an argument to speak for ones cause. And that's what I meant, nothing else.

There were 20 votes on the proposal. That's it.

So what... What has that to do with Hader's proposal.

We are ignoring or evading it. Rather than deal with it, we just choose to ignore it completely. There is little to no sense of efficacy on the site. There isn't going to be a sudden interest by simply opening things up. There is a reason why "citizens" the more active members of the site are not bothering. I wonder how long we can all ignore the White Elephant in the room.

I supposed we all will see it. The question is; is it too late already? I do not know if the site has the ability to suddenly become proactive.

You have repeated the same thing over and over again without presenting a good argument of why you're right and other who disagree with you are wrong.

[Elfdude]

You are either just being argumentative or you really not getting it. Since when is the majority is always right a valid argument.
There were 20 votes on the proposal. That's it.

Valuation is a populist argument i.e. the value of the object or service is determined by the agreed upon value of the people who use or have use of it. The affirmative vote people weren't concerned that the vote devalues their citizenship or at least think the rest of the proposal is more valuable than that loss. If 80% of them made that calculation then it's a safe bet that your main thesis about valuation has nothing to do with why others made their choice. The reality here is that you've never presented a solid argument as to why anyone else should view citizenship the way you do, this disconnect is why your complaints and protest mean little. You've stated in many different ways that this devalues citizenship, and every time someone has responded you've declared it not what your getting at then restated the same thing. At this point I have no idea what the basis for your opinion is and I simply am finding your arguments tedious because it feels like we're going in circles.

[Mhaedros]

Haven't read all the proposal threads etc, but I wonder why I don't have rights to post in the curial commentary thread? At first I assumed it was closed completely, but I can see others who are "only" citizens can post in it. Something I've missed perhaps?

[Elfdude]

One can have their rights to post there specifically suspended, did you get suspended in the past? Shoot an admin a PM.

[StealthFox]

I have seen a few others say they cannot post in Questions and Suggestions or the Infraction and Appeals forum. I don't know if it's already been reported to Hex but I did so just now.

[Sir Adrian]

I can't post there either after the move. Given that Elf and Aexed can post while former important people like me maisie cannot I would venture to say it has something to do with content or general staff permissions.