[quote="TOPGenosse":11stnzas] Sudane, can you tell us what currently withholds you from exactly executing this law as it is written?
If I understand the current situation correctly, and please correct me if I'm wrong, anyone could just invite extra members to his land owning group (1 per 128 sqm.) for *whatever* reason, with *whatever* intent, and they would become citizens, without the new people having to take the initiative on their own. Does the RA realize that this loophole, in a hypothetical 'evil landowner' situation, allows our current largest landholder (10400+ sqm.) to invite 80 "fun" or "fake" citizens. Yes you heard that right 80, 80: We currently have 71 citizens. I'm not not accusing anyone of bad intent, but my emotions certainly get heated when law professionals allow such a loophole, from here to the moon, to exist! I would like to write this in bold, italic, red and blinking, but I'm not going to. Let's see if we get a timely reaction to this from our '1 hour regents'.[/quote:11stnzas]
What is a "1 hour regent"?
TOP, please... I do indeed understand that you are upset about this matter, as am I. But it has been substantially identified that the issue at the core of this problem is our definition of citizenship. That topic was a significant part of the discussion accompanying the passage of the Election Roll Bill.
You say:
[quote:11stnzas] anyone could just invite extra members to his land owning group (1 per 128 sqm.) for *whatever* reason, with *whatever* intent, and they would become citizens, without the new people having to take the initiative on their own. [/quote:11stnzas]
Well, the current requirement for citizenship is that a person own land in one of our sims... "for *whatever* reason, with *whatever* intent". There is no requirement to my knowledge that the new citizen be queried regarding their "reason" or "intent". Only that they own land. And the Group Land Ownership Act perhaps confusingly codified into law the concept that people could own land as members of a group.
We have previously pleaded for contributions to address this problem. In this thread: [url:11stnzas]http://forums.neufreistadt.info/viewtopic.php?t=990[/url:11stnzas] I made the following post on March 17:
[quote="Sudane Erato":11stnzas][quote="Patroklus Murakami":11stnzas] My understanding is the same, but with one crucial additional condition - no-one can [b:11stnzas]become[/b:11stnzas] a CDS citizen simply by joining a group which owns land in the CDS. Group ownership of land is for citizens who want to form partnerships or groups which will own land in common but they must be citizens in their own right [b:11stnzas]before[/b:11stnzas] they contribute land to a group or merge their holdings with another citizen.
The law [url=http://www.aliasi.us/nburgwiki/tiki-ind ... 9:11stnzas](NL 5-9 Group Land Ownership Act)[/url:11stnzas] was drafted this way to prevent the situation where someone would be able to effectively buy votes by buying up lots of land in the CDS and then inviting their friends and supporters into the CDS through group membership.
[quote="Group Land Ownership Act":11stnzas]1. Plots of land in Neufreistadt may be owned by couples or groups of citizens. All members must be citizens before joining the group. [/quote:11stnzas][/quote:11stnzas]
Yes, I see that that is indeed the way it is worded. And, through oversight, I have not enforced that.
TOP pointed this out to me a week or so ago, and I realized then that this clause presents a significant problem. While the purpose of it is not only admirable, it is also essential. However, it presents problems in administration, and, clearly my brain must have consigned this clause to "filed away" status, and ignored it completely.
To understand the problem, let's go back to "before", before citizens could buy parcels on private sims. At that time, *everyone* wishing to join NFS was required to form a group and purchase the land by having it transferred to their group. So, at that time, the *only* way you could join our community was as a member of a group; thus, the law was exactly the opposite of the designated clause.
Of course, it was made very clear to every new member that the group procedure was *only* in place because of the LL restriction... we in the community paid no attention to the groups, and considered you an individual. Every individual had to have a group which owned land. It was considered personal ownership... the *fact* of the group was ignored.
Almost at the beginning, the issue came up of two people in one group. Satchmo Prototype was one of the very first citizen landowners in NFS. Shortly after he joined, by buying a parcel, his wife Digi Vox also bought a parcel, using the same group. It was administratively confusing, but perfectly legit, since they each had a parcel.
Jump ahead now to last year. LL changed the rules, opening up parcel ownership on private sims to individuals. Obviously, we began immediately selling parcels to individuals, so that perhaps now half of all parcels in the 2 sims have individual owners.
So, many of us have never owned a parcel in our own name. We were here before the change, and never had a reason to transfer to personal ownership. But, lets look at some actual, post-LL-rule-change transactions. Some months ago, Jeremy Utarid and Rose Springvale approached me to purchase a parcel in CN. They have a law firm in RL, and wanted to establish one in SL. This made more than perfect sense. Even if I had remembered the rule, it would have seemed utterly foolish to require them to buy separate lots, then sell one of them, in order to establish their office in CN.
So, that problem is simple inconvenience. A second case illustrates a more significant problem.
There is a bug in the SL software which can prevent a qualified citizen from purchasing a parcel: http://forums.neufreistadt.info/viewtopic.php?t=993. As indicated in that post, ThePrincess Parisi was prevented from buying a parcel on CN because of her financial status with LL, which is a known bug. The only way that she could buy the land was via group transfer.
Everyone, to my knowledge, who has bought land in NFS and CN as a group has been sincerely interested in participating in our community. Surely, their interest is no different than any other sampling of citizens buying land. While this is *NO* excuse for not administering the law in this matter, it might call into question whether we are accomplishing out intended purpose with the clause as it stands.
Sudane.....[/quote:11stnzas]
TOP, you point out a significant problem in our definition of citizenship as it now stands, and the qualifying mechanism by which one becomes a citizen. May I ask that we set aside the "emotions" [quote:11stnzas]I'm not not accusing anyone of bad intent, but my emotions certainly get heated when law professionals allow such a loophole, from here to the moon, to exist! I would like to write this in bold, italic, red and blinking, but I'm not going to. Let's see if we get a timely reaction to this from our '1 hour regents'.[/quote:11stnzas] cease blaming this on the "law professionals" and the "1 hour regents" (whatever they are) and get down to some serious proposals on how the qualifications and procedures for citizenship might be more suitably configured.
Sudane.....
After consultation with the EO as to the correct name, the peasant has fixed it.
