[Amendment] Citizen Ranks Clarification

[Justinian]

Proposer: Justinian
Supporters:

Rationale
In a recent discussion, the issue of interchangeability between "Citizen", "Civitate" and "Artifex" came up:

"The forum is to be given to one Civitates, who will be chosen nomination and election to start a group with permissions in the forum, dedicated to salvaging and documenting as much of TWC’s history as possible."

I dont understand the underlined bit at all - and I can only assume the intention was to say Citizen rather than Civitate, but as it stands this decision excludes anyone displaying any badge but the civitate one (ie citizen, artifex etc).

As it was not intended for the ranks to be separated in anything but badge, and to remove confusion, I propose the following change to Section III, Article I:
[fieldset]

Article I. Ranks

Peregrinus
The Rank of Peregrinus is conferred automatically with registration to the TWC Forums. It confers posting rights in the General Fora. Any Peregrinus has the right to ask questions and suggest changes in the "Questions and Suggestions" Forum.

Citizens

Citizens

Contributing members of TWC have the opportunity to become a Citizen of the Forum as per Article 2 II below. Once a member becomes a Citizen, they can then choose between 3 different badges: Artifex, designed for those who are modders, Civitate, designed for those who have contributed to the debating side of the Site, whether in TW or CC, and Citizen, for those who associate with both. To qualify for Citizen, a member must have at least fifty posts, been a registered member for two months, and have no warnings. If a member has been warned, the member must have gone six consecutive months without a further warning.

All Citizens have the rights associated with Peregrinus, but in addition may post within the Curia, subject to the procedures in Section II; may post within the Symposium; and may patronise other members as per Article II. Citizens can choose to display one of three badges: Artifex, Civitate, or Citizen. The Artifex badge is designed for those who are modders, the Civitate badge is designed for those who have contributed to the community side of the site, and the Citizen badge is for those who associate with both. These badges are considered interchangeable, and all members who hold them are first and foremost Citizens.

[Viking Prince]

Too many words. (Think of Harry.)

Support.

[Justinian]

I tried very hard to curtail my verbosity

You know, VP, I think this is the first thing I have ever proposed that you have supported

[Viking Prince]

I tried very hard to curtail my verbosity

You know, VP, I think this is the first thing I have ever proposed that you have supported

You only need be reasonable and ....

[Spiff]

This is trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist. The only problem is in the text of the decision which started this debate, it should be amended to read Citizen instead of Civitate - if you do that then any dilemma over the ranks completely evaporates.

The decision itself is attempting to create an artificial separation between the three theoretical "ranks" - a unintentionally nonsensical separation since the constitution already clearly states you can wear any of the badges at any time. Whether there are even three ranks to begin with is doubtful since the only "rank" mentioned is "Citizen". In that regard Civitate and Artifex are just badges with no additional meaning in themselves, it is simply a cosmetic change which does not need to be clarified in any way.

Unless of course someone drafts a decision like the one we're talking about, which clearly suggests that Civitate is a meaningful distinction, by accident.

In short, just fix the decision and kill two birds with one vote - it has various other problems too aside from causing this issue with the citizen rank, the least of which is a missing word that renders the decision grammatically wrong.

[Justinian]

This is trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist. The only problem is in the text of the decision which started this debate, it should be amended to read Citizen instead of Civitate - if you do that then any dilemma over the ranks completely evaporates.

The decision itself is attempting to create an artificial separation between the three theoretical "ranks" - a unintentionally nonsensical separation since the constitution already clearly states you can wear any of the badges at any time. Whether there are even three ranks to begin with is doubtful since the only "rank" mentioned is "Citizen". In that regard Civitate and Artifex are just badges with no additional meaning in themselves, it is simply a cosmetic change which does not need to be clarified in any way.

Unless of course someone drafts a decision like the one we're talking about, which clearly suggests that Civitate is a meaningful distinction, by accident.

In short, just fix the decision and kill two birds with one vote - it has various other problems too aside from causing this issue with the citizen rank, the least of which is a missing word that renders the decision grammatically wrong.

Apparently there is a problem if anyone would look at a Decision that says "Civitate" and assume that it logically meant you had to have a Civitate badge on to qualify; everyone knows (I should hope) that Civitate, Citizen and Artifex all mean the same thing, but if there's a spot of confusion about that why should it not be clarified?

Why would we create confusion in a document and then say that it's up to the members not to confuse themselves and misspeak instead of rectifying the confusion?

[Spiff]

Apparently there is a problem if anyone would look at a Decision that says "Civitate" and assume that it logically meant you had to have a Civitate badge on to qualify; everyone knows (I should hope) that Civitate, Citizen and Artifex all mean the same thing, but if there's a spot of confusion about that why should it not be clarified?

Why would we create confusion in a document and then say that it's up to the members not to confuse themselves and misspeak instead of rectifying the confusion?

Yes there is a problem, it is in the decision which passed and is currently not being implemented because i presume the curator knows it is unimplementable in its current form. So instead of fixing the decision which has problems you want to add an extra line to the constitution which does nothing to clarify the decision that has multiple issues aside from what "civitate" means?

The rank is called "Citizen". There is no such rank as "civitate", yet the decision specifically referred to this constitutionally non-existent or otherwise obsolete rank, causing this debate of interpretation.

The decision mistakenly referred to a badge instead of a rank, that is all that is wrong here. If you think the constitution needs another sign post to stop this happening again then fair enough, but it wont make the decision any more decipherable.

[aja5191]

Support.

[Louis Lux]

Support
I remember being a bit unsure about that part when I first read it, nothing a bit of common sense can't figure it out but it's nice to have it stated more clearly.

[Nazgûl Killer]

Support.

[Squid]

Why not do it this way which is simpler cleaner. This way the badges are put in the paragraph which specifies the rights and privileges of the rank, which is rightfully where the badge should be listed.

Citizens

Contributing members of TWC have the opportunity to become a Citizen of the Forum as per Article 2 II below. Once a member becomes a Citizen, they can then choose between 3 different badges: Artifex, designed for those who are modders, Civitate, designed for those who have contributed to the debating side of the Site, whether in TW or CC, and Citizen, for those who associate with both.

To qualify for Citizen, a member must have at least fifty posts, been a registered member for two months, and have no warnings. If a member has been warned, the member must have gone six consecutive months without a further warning.

All Citizens have the rights associated with Peregrinus, but in addition may post within the Curia, subject to the procedures in Section II; may post with the Symposium and may patronise other members as per Article II. Citizens can choose to display one of three badges, Artifex, Civitate or Citizen. The Artifex badge is designed for those who are modders, the Civitate badge is designed for those who have contributed to the community side of the site, and the Citizen badge for those who associate with both.

In fact doing it this way the second paragraph could even added to the end of the first which will look even cleaner. Like the following:

Citizens

Contributing members of TWC have the opportunity to become a Citizen of the Forum as per Article 2 II below. Once a member becomes a Citizen, they can then choose between 3 different badges: Artifex, designed for those who are modders, Civitate, designed for those who have contributed to the debating side of the Site, whether in TW or CC, and Citizen, for those who associate with both. To qualify for Citizen, a member must have at least fifty posts, been a registered member for two months, and have no warnings. If a member has been warned, the member must have gone six consecutive months without a further warning.

All Citizens have the rights associated with Peregrinus, but in addition may post within the Curia, subject to the procedures in Section II; may post with the Symposium and may patronise other members as per Article II. Citizens can choose to display one of three badges, Artifex, Civitate or Citizen. The Artifex badge is designed for those who are modders, the Civitate badge is designed for those who have contributed to the community side of the site, and the Citizen badge for those who associate with both.

[Justinian]

I agree with your thinking on the location, but I would still want to have something specifically stating that the ranks are interchangeable so people aren't confused. So it would look like this (God, as I'm writing this I find all kinds of grammatical errors ):

Citizens

Contributing members of TWC have the opportunity to become a Citizen of the Forum as per Article 2 II below. Once a member becomes a Citizen, they can then choose between 3 different badges: Artifex, designed for those who are modders, Civitate, designed for those who have contributed to the debating side of the Site, whether in TW or CC, and Citizen, for those who associate with both. To qualify for Citizen, a member must have at least fifty posts, been a registered member for two months, and have no warnings. If a member has been warned, the member must have gone six consecutive months without a further warning.

All Citizens have the rights associated with Peregrinus, but in addition may post within the Curia, subject to the procedures in Section II; may post within the Symposium; and may patronise other members as per Article II. Citizens can choose to display one of three badges: Artifex, Civitate, or Citizen. The Artifex badge is designed for those who are modders, the Civitate badge is designed for those who have contributed to the community side of the site, and the Citizen badge is for those who associate with both. These badges are considered interchangeable, and all members who hold them are first and foremost Citizens.

[Justinian]

This isn't aimed at that decision, it's aimed at preventing such confusion in the future. What's stopping anyone from saying that you have to be wearing a Citizen badge to join the CdeC (thus barring moderators, Artifex, Civitates, current CdeC members) besides the pure power of logic which failed in this case and could fail again?

[Spiff]

Because the constitution already says:

Regardless of the Rank listed next to his name, he retains all the rights and privileges associated with all his ranks.

The trouble of course being that Civitate isnt a rank, while Citizen is. A reference to a civitate being eligible for something therefore makes no sense whatsoever.

However, if we assume the curia wouldnt vote to pass a decision which makes no sense whatsoever then we have to assume that Civitate (as in the badge) is intended by virtue of the decision to be a meaningful distinction in some way.

My argument is that this distinction is not intended and needs to be amended in the text of the decision, making this amendment unnecessary.

[Viking Prince]

This has been a bit of confusion for new members since the introduction of the two badges. I myself have a really bad habit of referring to citizen applicants as nontraditional if they are neither modders nor debators. This is a bad habit that I need to break. If this proposal can help others to not make the confusion worse -- why not add a sentence or two to the constitution.

[Harry Lime]

The only reason this came up recently is because Bel (being an OAP ) kept referring to the Citizen body as a whole as Civitates. I corrected him on this about another proposal. The Curator (whoever that is at the time) should be notifying the proposer to correct any similar grammatical cock-ups. As the constitution already states that Citizens can choose between the 3 badges, aside from the most pedantic of reasons, I see no need to change it.

[Tzar]

Support.

[Justinian]

I have changed the first post to be in line with Squid's proposal.

[the Black Prince]

I'm with Spiff... the problem doesn't exist. The constitution is very clear, you're a citizen, the distinction is cosmetic only. The problem lies with whoever wrote the offending decision, the supporters who agreed with it, and the Curator for not picking it up...

this is irrelevant. you don't need to waste time legislating to fix a problem that doesn't exist.

[Louis Lux]

have contributed to the community side of the site

I would prefer if this part was reverted back to what it was. debating side of the site seams clearer than the community side of the site, community can refer to anything even modding community.

Maybe a whole different phrasing could better describe civitates.