A wondrous tale about labels

[Gigantus]

Apologies for the lengthy text, unfortunately it is necessary as otherwise the final paragraph wouldn't make much sense. So let's get it over with:

Some will remember, or even have participated in, the amendment proposal I recently presented in the Prothalamos. It's intend was to assure that the curial officers are obliged to follow ND obligations like any other staff, especially in light of numerous claims by the consul that the officers were not bound by any obligation. The pivotal point for that justification apparently being that it was commonly called 'SND' or 'Staff Non Disclosure' eg curial officers being elected unlike 'staff' that is being appointed.
Rather then the actual situation that there simply is nothing by way of instruction, constitutional or otherwise for curial officers with regards to ND - the very point the proposal addressed.

Fast forward nearly two weeks since the start of the proposal and that's where I request to regard the amendment as abandoned because of the ToS amendment proposal. The reason for abandoning was rather simple: the proposed text addresses the issue raised by my amendment once it comes into effect in about 30 days, depending on changes. Never mind that I pointed out earlier myself that a ToS amendment addressing this would render my proposal obsolete:

Should the ToS be amended at a later stage to do the same for the general membership (see challenge to the wording by the consul) then this amendment will be obsolete and can be removed as such.

The amendment proposal was moved into the archive shortly afterward as I noticed when I went back. So far so good.

It was however labeled INVALID. And this is were things get interesting:

Right at the start of the proposal the consul claimed that the proposal was invalid:

The Curia is not part of TWC Staff and thus this amendment is invalid and not applicable.

An argument that held no water - as at no point in the proposed change any reference was made to that. The sole mentioning of staff in the introduction was "...commonly referred to as SND." which I removed to stop further confusion.

The consul then went on to prove that while material covered by ND obligations of every other department were not permissible in ostrakon procedure the curial officers themselves were not obliged by any ND regulation whatsoever. The very point the proposed amendment addressed.

The consul did not re-iterate his stance re validity of the proposal after that nor at any point during the remaining 2 weeks the proposal continued to be active. Which means that one could reasonable assume that the question of validity was resolved. After all the proposal would have been archived there and then if the concern of the consul was well founded, would it not?

Fast forward 2 weeks when the proposed change to the ToS was published. It was clear that the proposed change in the ToS addressed the issue raised in the proposed amendment and thus would render it obsolete - once the ToS was actually implemented and binding, which would take at least 30 days as per the normal procedure of public review, possible changes as suggested by the public and finally the binding implementation afterward.
Which theoretically (if you ignore my quote from earlier) left me with three options:

1. Do nothing - which would render the proposal abandoned by default roughly 20 days later
2. Go ahead, secure the last support required to go to the poll. Which would either end up as 'failed' or would pass and the proposed change would get implemented.
3. Acknowledge that 1. is simply lazy and 2. pointless and counter productive as the change would get rendered obsolete just a few days later by the implementation of the ToS changes and thus would require another procedure to remove it again. And in conclusion officially abandon the proposal.

Which raised the question why the proposed amendment was labeled INVALID after I requested that it be considered abandoned. While the consul did leave no indication of any reasoning in the proposal when archiving it he obliged me and responded to my query:

Your amendment is invalid due to over reach (the Constitution does not have any authority over what happens off site) as well as similar language being found in the ToS as such it is invalid.

While stating the obvious regarding authority off site, the argument itself is moot as the isussue isn't being addressed by the proposal other then by disallowing ND information gained off site to be published on TWC:
"Non public information regarding a member or forum department obtained through .../... and from external sources (twitter, other forums etc) are not to be released without the consent of the concerned member\department."I think it's safe to claim that TWC has the authority to enforce that.
The 'similar language' reason is not applicable either as the consul ably demonstrated himself (second quote here). In this case I can only assume that he jumped the gun otherwise: after all the proposed change in the ToS will actually address the issue - once the change is implemented in approximately 28 days
After all the consul demonstrated himself that the current definition of the harassment rule in his opinion only encompasses private information like birthday and e-mail addresses. That's a small fraction of what ND covers and it presents a bit of a catch 22 situation for the consul's argument: either the current rule definition covers ND (see 'covered by similar language') and thus the curial officers, or it doesn't - in which case the consul's objection is mute. Or there is another constitutional passage that I am not aware off that actually covers curial ND obligations beyond mere e-mail and birthdays.

Now let me top this off a bit and bring it to an end:

• The wording of the original proposed amendment has only changed in small details, the points that the consul objects to however have not. Letting the proposal continue and at the conclusion labeling it 'invalid' does raise a question about selective, inconsistent and rather unorthodox application of the consul's power.
• So, can I please get the 'abandoned' label for the proposal or alternately a valid explanation why it is invalid (wordplay for the win) and subsequently why it wasn't closed down on day one?