Valuation of Citizenship

[Muizer]

I am at a lost on why you are attributing this quote to me. I'm on record as saying that mechanism has been dead for at least 10 if not more. "Proposals for the betterment" was only result of increasing the membership stake in the site by making them a citizen. It was and still shouldn't be the primary purpose. It is their standard of conduct and quality of post that mattered from day one (or so it should be). We more or less agree.

Perhaps I misunderstood what you meant by "opinion"?

I would also restore the Prothalomos back to the Curia as an benefit of citizenship again. Having admin has part of the process would suggest citizens are valued on the site and their opinion matters.

[Muizer]

@ Muizer, thanks for posting your proposal mate, but since it got dragged away in the discussion I'll move on.

I'm dropping this here; it's not mine, but I'm curious to see what you people think of something drastic like this

The apple is that this (new) citizenship that we award is the minimum requirement for any staff position.

For most members for whom the citizenship was designed, i.e. those contributing on the site in their own chosen way, that's a not a very tasty apple. It will just leave citizenship as is now: a one-off award marking the end of engagement with the citizen system. It solves nothing. If anything it could trend towards a coalescing of citizenship and staff in a "we only award those who work for us" kind of way.

[PikeStance]

Perhaps I misunderstood what you meant by "opinion"?

I see what you mean. I was referring to the function of the Curia, not the so much the purpose of citizenship.

Just to illustrate here is the current Constitution requirements
Minimum Requirements: At least fifty posts; been registered for at least two months, and; not received a Moderation Warning or Curial Warning within the past six months.
It used to be 75 posts reduce to help Artifex who rarely post to meet the minimal requirements.

Anyway, when I first inquire, one of the comments were that it was rare for anyone to be considered with less than 500 posts. You may recall that 500 posts used to be the requirements to be the "old patrician."
The bar was way too high for a "rank" that was supposed to be accessible and inclusive. The Prothalomos shouldn't have to be open to all members. If you have 75+ post and have been on the site for at least two months, then you should be a citizen unless you act like a jerk and post a lot of spam. On another note, I was told simply being helpful and active in one area of the forum wasn't good enough. I needed to spread myself around the forum and/or be a part of staff. That is too much. The standard we should focus on his behavior and attitude. If you create a mod, that's a plus. If you join staff, that's a plus, but that should never be a "hidden" criteria. if you post well, you should be in. So, basically, the door is "wide open" if you are well behave and post well. The Curia is, as we say in New Orleans, Lagniappe.

@ Muizer, thanks for posting your proposal mate, but since it got dragged away in the discussion I'll move on.

I'm dropping this here; it's not mine, but I'm curious to see what you people think of something drastic like this

Staff awards Citizenship. (there could be also a vetting of existing citizens)
Citizens get a forum (1-one) to play with. They get a badge.
The apple is that this (new) citizenship that we award is the minimum requirement for any staff position. Any.
The stick is that we take it back whenever we like by a simple in staff vote.
Staff (being citizens) uses this forum as well for discussion of policy. [the purpose]
[insert whatever] Everything else will be incremental. For example, are the Citizens behaving? If yes, give them a Tribune of the plebs (the right to take part in the vote -with staff- for one of the judges)
Etc

Staff /admin that is how it was done in the beginning. A vetting of certain citizens who otherwise or not part of staff would work well. If it functions more actively, than passively as i suggested that would be beneficial.
It used to be a requirement for moderators and it was a big mistake removing it. However, given how high the bar went, i can see how that would be frustrating for Mod overseer to recruit new moderators. In essence, if moderation have enough posts to determine the suitability of a member, the should be patronized. back in the day, I thought it was odd that the site would accept my application for a staff position and not for citizenship.
What I lik about the proposal is the integration of citizenship with the administration of the site. I thin we should consider going back to having a dedicated admin/ hex for citizenship.

[Dismounted Feudal Knight]

What comes to mind so far is a court for neither king nor kingdom.

[Belisarius]

To be frank, in your days too, the Curia was only a vehicle for a select few (like yourself) to exert any influence. The wider citizenship didn't have any notable say in anything. The Curia as parliament has always been a masquerade.

In any case, it is true that the old Curia did better at giving the appearance real influence was at stake.

In the old days it was for members to contribute in their own chosen way, and it was for the administration to award a stake in site management in return (or an rpg giving the appearance). If anything the Curia was a service of the administration to its members. A service to stimulate member creativity, generate engagement and entertainment.

After Imb bought the site, some individuals better left unnamed IMHO persuaded management to reverse this, by introducing an ethos of Curial service, in a 'do our work in exchange for influence' way.

IMHO that choice was like inducing a Coma, if not an outright death sentence. It soon and entirely predictably proved a failure.

Administration radically expanded staff for its workforce instead, but the Curia from that time on has been stuck with this perverse service ethos, even after the promise of influence was taken off the table.

Internally, with many Curial initiatives striving to direct its member's time and energy towards work for the administration.

Externally with the administration coming to look upon the Curia as a body consistently failing to deliver.

You can see the imprint in this thread: "citizenship is about serving"? As long as that's the mentality, the Curia will continue to languish. It's like trying to sell tickets to a labour camp.

Nice to see you here on TWC Muizer, I cant disagree with what you say about some people using it to exert influence. The fact that it gave the opportunity for people to build influence was enough of a carrot for some to contribute and that built a community within a community.

As for the influence the Curia had on TWC, formally it had very little but informally the members of the institution exerted a great amount of influence on staff policy. The idea of service was not one I subscribed too as something mandatory but the fact that the Curia pushed people into administration was present well before that individual who we do not name tried to take the site.

I think today, the site being where it is does present an opportunity for a degree of experimentation which was what the Curia originally was, it was the experiment of Borispavlovgrozny and Siblesz.

I think Flinn is on to something.

[antaeus]

For most members for whom the citizenship was designed, i.e. those contributing on the site in their own chosen way, that's a not a very tasty apple. It will just leave citizenship as is now: a one-off award marking the end of engagement with the citizen system. It solves nothing. If anything it could trend towards a coalescing of citizenship and staff in a "we only award those who work for us" kind of way.

I don't like the idea of an ongoing popularity framework amongst staff over citizens. To me citizenship is a passive representation of a deeper relationship with the forum. Once you have it, you have it, and it should be particularly hard to lose. I like that I had a patron once, and that there is forum history in there.

If I was to make suggestions, I'd open it up to anyone who wants to apply (with some sort of reputational vouching-for by existing citizens), and reward with site-wide privileges of a successful application - like being able to vote at all, anywhere (for example, we could brainstorm other site wide privileges), and have recourse to justice if and when behavioural issues come up. Which to me, is the crux of citizenship - enfranchisement, and justice.

Just spit-balling in a sand pit there obvously... but if we want change to the system, we might as well change the system.

[Muizer]

As for the influence the Curia had on TWC, formally it had very little but informally the members of the institution exerted a great amount of influence on staff policy. The idea of service was not one I subscribed too as something mandatory but the fact that the Curia pushed people into administration was present well before that individual who we do not name tried to take the site.

Well you know, if we consider the olden days, then the 'pipeline' to rope people into staff was something like

member > citizen > curia participant > moderator

The problem I keep highlighting is that there is no logical progression here. As a selection process it's like organizing an origami competition to find a suitable plumber. I suppose it only worked because the turnover of citizens active in the Curia was much higher than it is today.

One thing I agree with about the suggestion Flinn posted is that it would align these steps in a more logical way, and likely have less of the above mentioned redundant turnover.

However, the system would have to be highly managed by a few individuals in staff. This is not unlike the situation we find ourselves in in the Curia, because only very few from the citizenry are engaged in the system. So, the suggestion Flinn posted isn't so much a solution as it is a formalization of the problems.

With citizenship becoming the requirement for staff membership and staff in all likelihood finding it just as difficult to find new citizens, this is going to devolve into "let's just patronize who is a likely prospect for staff membership".

I think that would be a bloody shame, but I'm not invested in it as much as I once was (until recently, I've not been a citizen for over a decade).

Above all though, I think it is important that if this is the chosen path, that choice is made in the full realization of these implications: this will be the end of the wider membership's engagement in the Citizen system. Citizenship will cease to be a way of making members who are active on but not on behalf of the site stakeholders in its future.

[Belisarius]

Well you know, if we consider the olden days, then the 'pipeline' to rope people into staff was something like

member > citizen > curia participant > moderator

The problem I keep highlighting is that there is no logical progression here. As a selection process it's like organizing an origami competition to find a suitable plumber. I suppose it only worked because the turnover of citizens active in the Curia was much higher than it is today.

One thing I agree with about the suggestion Flinn posted is that it would align these steps in a more logical way, and likely have less of the above mentioned redundant turnover.

However, the system would have to be highly managed by a few individuals in staff. This is not unlike the situation we find ourselves in in the Curia, because only very few from the citizenry are engaged in the system. So, the suggestion Flinn posted isn't so much a solution as it is a formalization of the problems.

With citizenship becoming the requirement for staff membership and staff in all likelihood finding it just as difficult to find new citizens, this is going to devolve into "let's just patronize who is a likely prospect for staff membership".

I think that would be a bloody shame, but I'm not invested in it as much as I once was (until recently, I've not been a citizen for over a decade).

Above all though, I think it is important that if this is the chosen path, that choice is made in the full realization of these implications: this will be the end of the wider membership's engagement in the Citizen system. Citizenship will cease to be a way of making members who are active on but not on behalf of the site stakeholders in its future.

As far as I remember Citizen was a requirement to become staff in my day, but there was one area where this was no the case and that was content. In content we poached good writers and offered them citizenship as a carrot. I suppose the logic for citizens being a requirement for moderation was because it meant they had behaved reasonably well and had already made some positive contributions.

One thing I will say as an observation. The worst moderators we had were Crandar and he who shall not be named, the worst admins we had were Spartan and he who shall not be named. In all instances our worst staff members came from staff appointments, on the other hand of those elected none as far as I know were detrimental to TWC. Our only elected admin, a 15 year old Justinian ended up serving a long time and was a good admin. Does this mean that the Curia should have a mandate to elect all mods? That is a difficult one, the Curia as it is today, definitely not. I think the risk of bad staff being put into positions of authority is equal, the risks of someone playing a similar game to the one we played but doing it for their own benefit (like the "hacker attack" where we had admins from TWC building a new site in the background) can be used as a convincing argument against democracy in general. Democracy is a flawed system which lives in fear of the stupid choices the electorate might make.

However, the system would have to be highly managed by a few individuals in staff.

Yes, I would worry less about how people are elected and worry more about having systems in place to keep them in check and remove them if necessary. We had a ripcord in my day called "The Hexagon".

"let's just patronize who is a likely prospect for staff membership"

I must say this is likely in any scenario and I actively did it many times.

Above all though, I think it is important that if this is the chosen path, that choice is made in the full realization of these implications: this will be the end of the wider membership's engagement in the Citizen system. Citizenship will cease to be a way of making members who are active on but not on behalf of the site stakeholders in its future.

Yes this is a risk, and should be considered when a Proposal is made. I think a system can be created to flip this on its head.

[z3n]

Belisarius makes a number of salient points, interestingly enough we do have a significant amount of will to give powers back to the curia in the form of elected moderators. While I have reservations about that sort of thing, its left as an exercise for the reader to draw a comparison between the old system and the new system we currently have in place. Perhaps the genius of the curia experiment is that we can observe human behaviour over the long run condensed and sped up by the slow decline of democracy into an autocracy. I digress.

I have no strong opinion on the matter and would rather state that I am satisfied every curial participant cared about the site in some way. I can't think of a single one which did not at some point contribute to some extraordinary degree over their tenure as a citizen; we have seen falls from grace, as perfection can only be sought after and never achieved. But I am satisfied with every citizens contribution. We will never have a perfect curia, but we can clearly see with the vision hindsight gives us that taking powers away from the curia like it were a naughty child is not the approach that works. Maybe it's time to give some real powers back to the curia.

[PikeStance]

BTW, that was not Flinn's idea, he was just sharing it with the "class."

I am not sure if I stated in this thread or the CCT, one of the things I thought was odd when I had inquire about citizenship was the insistence that I do staff work first. At the same time I inquired about citizenship, I inquired about being a Librarian. I fully expected to be told I needed to be a citizen first (proof of my posting record). It was odd to me that I was expected to do things the other way around.

On another side note, I was one of those that voted to remove the requirement for moderators to be citizen. I regret this decision to this day. However, the requirements expectations for citizenship became so bloated and unnecessarily high, it was a hindrance.

It is a bit odd that content was the exception. I mean if they demonstrated good writing skills, they most likely did enough for consideration as well.

Just briefly going back to standards of citizenship. Once the standards became high to acquire it, then the standard of conduct warped into a higher toleration for citizens than for applicants for citizenship. If however, the standard was primarily based on behavior and attitude, then removal became more clear and less of a hindrance. Currently it is viewed as an award, rather than a status. As long as their view is maintained, it will very difficult to enforce any sort of standard of behavior consistently. This is the problem with the different 'types" of citizens. It reinforces the notion of an award and it puts the focus on the "types" of contribution (modding, content) rather than on behavior and good posting. By refocusing the approach (award to status) a committee of citizenship approval and behavior would function better. It is hard to develop a detrimental elitist attitude while at the same time judging behavior. The proverbial star is penciled in, rather than tattooed.

[Belisarius]

Civitates should not be hard to achieve, I never liked the Cdec and the system where we had to plead cases as if the person was on trial. I used to notice good people who were nice and PM them, we had houses and used to make family trees and joke around about it with tBP and my house often teasing each other. There was a sense of familiarity and community even when we argued. Civitates should be easy to get, regular members who post reasonably well and do not break the rules. If we move away from the image Muizer outlined where there is a need to "serve" and move towards creating an active and friendly community with more of an emphasis on rewarding those who just exist within that community for the sake of it maybe then you would be able to increase activity. If then there are issues with who gets to vote on certain things you can bring back Patrician as Citizens who are active, well behaved and who contribute to policy discussions, or call them senators.

I would have opposed removing the Citizen requirement for moderators because being recognized on the forums as a good poster should be a requirement.

[Sir Adrian]

The issue is that for anything involving staff to work you'd need Hex and the current Hex are not interested/unwilling/unable to do anything beyond keeping their badges.

[ggggtotalwarrior]

Yeah unfortunately about half of current Hex just kind of don’t exist publicly on the forum anymore, and those same Hex members are those with more site access and technical skills. 4/8 Hex members have the following presence on the forum:

GED/the owner: 20 posts in 2 1/2 years
Squid: 1 post in 2 years and 40 in the last ~5
Pan: 0 posts in nearly 3 years
Tango: 40 posts in the past year

I understand there is more to running the site than actively posting/there are more things going on behind the scenes but it is also no surprise the place is dying when it’s own administration is mostly absentee publicly and those who are left aren’t really willing (which is understandable) to make any waves without express support of those who aren’t really around. It’s a sad situation and I get why it’s happening but it is disappointing

[Muizer]

Just a thought, but would a small step in the right direction be to separate the various responsibilities evaluating citizen applications?

Basically:
- let the patron decide whether their prospective client's contributions are enough
- let staff determine whether the prospective client has a sufficiently clean moderation record
- let the citizens decide on standards of behaviour

With the final step only concerning behaviour, I would suggest applications will pass unless objected to. For instance, to object, a citizen would have to
make their case or second an existing one and request a vote. If 3 or more citizens request a vote, the procedure continues more or less as it is now, except the Consul will see to it that the discussion is limited to 'behaviour'.

I suspect this will lower barriers to patronizations, with the vast majority passing by default. In the rare cases where a vote is requested, this may at least serve to establish the elusive 'standards of behaviour'.

[PikeStance]

This is just spit balling what have been suggested

Senatus Class

Comprise of (qualification)

• current and Former Staff members
• (Former Staff member shall be vetted by current staff members for inclusion.
• This group will be led by an admin (Special position - Princeps Senatus

Responsibility

• This group awards Citizenship
• This group can remove citizenship by a simple vote.
• The Senate may vote members out for misconduct

Purpose
The Senate is used for discussion of policy.

• Citizenship that we award is the minimum requirement for any staff position.
• To be consistent, any Senator who nominates a member to citizenship shall be considered the patron of that person should they be granted citizenship,
• All other citizens may patronize as they do now.
• The Curia functions as it does now.

Centuriate Class

A new class of citizen (again, I know). A citizenship+
The rank is temporary (e.g. a year) and the number is small (e.g. 20); It would be an honorary function.

Comprise of (Qualification)

• Nominations are accumulated over a period of 3 months by members of staff (Senate).
• Staff (Senatus) members are not eligible.
• They are voted on one occasion by the existing body.
• Candidates must have been a citizen for at least 6 months.
• The criteria for nomination are similar to those of the citizenship in that they focus on their contributions as TWC members in various categories other than staff.

Responsibilities

• This body can make proposals, but HEX can veto as with Curial Decisions.
• This body in turn can veto Curial decisions.
• Propose Amendments if passed my simple majority, the Curia as a whole votes (2/3 rule)
• Members of this body are not expected to carry out any further tasks.
• Normally, they'll just meet once every 3 months to vote on their successors.
• Only other obligation would be to take a poll every 3 months or so to regulate turnover.

Purpose

• To stop the incessant tinkering with the Constitution
• To encourage and reward those that continue to contribute in a meaningful way

Other Changes

• Curia is a place to make suggestions for the betterment of the site or general discussions.
• Prothalomos is placed back into the Curia.
• The Artifex and Civitate badges are converted to medium awards.

Thus, the Four badges

1. Citizen
2. Senatus
3. Centuriate
4. Patrician

[Sir Adrian]

That's just a CdeC with needless pomposity.

Just a thought, but would a small step in the right direction be to separate the various responsibilities evaluating citizen applications?

Basically:
- let the patron decide whether their prospective client's contributions are enough
- let staff determine whether the prospective client has a sufficiently clean moderation record
- let the citizens decide on standards of behaviour

With the final step only concerning behaviour, I would suggest applications will pass unless objected to. For instance, to object, a citizen would have to
make their case or second an existing one and request a vote. If 3 or more citizens request a vote, the procedure continues more or less as it is now, except the Consul will see to it that the discussion is limited to 'behaviour'.

I suspect this will lower barriers to patronizations, with the vast majority passing by default. In the rare cases where a vote is requested, this may at least serve to establish the elusive 'standards of behaviour'.

Isn't that the system we currently have though? It's implicit that when you patronize someone you think his contributions are enough. Staff are the only ones with access to moderation history so we have to take their word. Other citizens vote mostly on behavior and minimal research beyond what the patron already pointed out.

[Muizer]

Isn't that the system we currently have though? It's implicit that when you patronize someone you think his contributions are enough. Staff are the only ones with access to moderation history so we have to take their word. Other citizens vote mostly on behavior and minimal research beyond what the patron already pointed out.

It is indeed very close to established practice, but it's not formalized.
As it is, citizens can base their vote on an assessment of a candidate's contributions. Nowhere does it say they should only consider behaviour. The history of the CdeC demonstrates that the Curia in fact has considered it its job to look at contributions. It would be a change to formalize for the first time that that is exclusively the purview of the patron.

Default acceptance unless objections are raised just recognize the redundancy of votes that are not based on any personal experience with or research into a candidate's behaviour. If I'm going to take someone else's word for their good behaviour, then WTF is my vote good for?

[PikeStance]

That's just a CdeC with needless pomposity.

As I pointed out, the problem wasn't with the CdeC. The CdeC just reflected the attitudes of the prevalent opinion of citizens. The CdeC represented about 40- 50% of the active participants in the Curia at the time of removal. (12 members). it is a bit of a hard sell to claim that their attitude was much different than rank and file citizenry at the time.

Citizenship at the time was a "we have stars and you don't. It was an award for contribution. The notion that it was design to increase members stake int he site and thus a promotion of the site was lost not just on the CdeC but most citizens. Even as recent as the past two years, the idea that citizenship is an award is pervasive and it is just plain wrong.
The CdeC was a symptom of a mindset, not the cause of it.

[ggggtotalwarrior]

I have little to add but I always do find it pretty hilarious that Pike seemingly has nostalgia for an era of TWC in which he himself was not yet even a member.

[Sir Adrian]

As I pointed out, the problem wasn't with the CdeC. The CdeC just reflected the attitudes of the prevalent opinion of citizens. The CdeC represented about 40- 50% of the active participants in the Curia at the time of removal. (12 members). it is a bit of a hard sell to claim that their attitude was much different than rank and file citizenry at the time.

Citizenship at the time was a "we have stars and you don't. It was an award for contribution. The notion that it was design to increase members stake int he site and thus a promotion of the site was lost not just on the CdeC but most citizens. Even as recent as the past two years, the idea that citizenship is an award is pervasive and it is just plain wrong.
The CdeC was a symptom of a mindset, not the cause of it.

No, the problem was the CdeC itself as a structure. It started out with decent intentions but it devolved into a race to the bottom where every member had to be tougher and tougher and tougher in an attempt to get elected. I contacted the CdeC in december 2013, after I had just completed a 40+ hour project in the Scriptorium, and aside for Pasan and 2 others I was told straight up that "it's not enough" and to come back a year or two later. I applied in April 2014 immediately after the CdeC was dismantled, I was the second applicant of the new system, and I passed with a unanimous vote if my memory serves.