Discussion thread for proposed amendment to NL 5-9

[Claude Desmoulins]

Note that a parallel thread exists in Legislative Discussion.

Expanding off what I posted there:

I think there's general agreement that ownership of land in common is not an issue. The MoCA seems to work fine as a collectively "owned" parcel because, AFAIK, no citizen depends on that parcel for his or her citizenship.

Even groups with one citizen deriving his/her citizenship from a parcel aren't difficult. Back in the day, before you could deed land to individuals on an island, we had to have groups. You would make one, often with alts, but Sudane knew who "the citizen" associated with each parcel was.

So, the entire issue is about allowing multiple citizens to base their citizenship on one parcel.

Option 1: Don't allow this

This would in essence be a return to how we used to do things. Every time a parcel was transferred, the buyer(s) indicate to the EO whether or not an avatar derives his/her citizenship from it, and if so, which avatar.

Option 2: Allow multiple citizenships per parcel.

If we do this, then we get into questions such as:

Who is responsible for paying land fee?
If some of the citizens belonging to a parcel don't pay fees, what happens?

Pat has proposed that each individual is reponsible for his or her own fees and that revocation of citizenship for non-payment also be individual. He also suggests that other members of the group would somehow be responsible for their non-paying peers. I'm unclear how this would work. If only the non-payer was at risk of losing citizenship, what reason would the other group members have to do anything if one of their group didn't pay?

[Justice Soothsayer]

[quote="Claude Desmoulins":1qupk1v5]Who is responsible for paying land fee?
If some of the citizens belonging to a parcel don't pay fees, what happens?

Pat has proposed that each individual is reponsible for his or her own fees and that revocation of citizenship for non-payment also be individual. He also suggests that other members of the group would somehow be responsible for their non-paying peers. I'm unclear how this would work. If only the non-payer was at risk of losing citizenship, what reason would the other group members have to do anything if one of their group didn't pay?[/quote:1qupk1v5]

Why not require that payment come from the group, and if the group defaults, the group loses its land and citizenship(s) derived from land ownership --- just like any other citizen. It would be a powerful incentive for the group to stay current in its fees, and as far as CDS finances are concerned, it doesn't matter who in the group pays the fees, only that they are paid.

[Patroklus Murakami]

[quote="Justice Soothsayer":lrs4uen7]Why not require that payment come from the group, and if the group defaults, the group loses its land and citizenship(s) derived from land ownership --- just like any other citizen. It would be a powerful incentive for the group to stay current in its fees, and as far as CDS finances are concerned, it doesn't matter who in the group pays the fees, only that they are paid.[/quote:lrs4uen7]Justice, the problem with requiring payment to come from the group, rather than making each individual responsible for paying their share, is that it lowers the barrier for election fraud. An individual with deep pockets only needs to purchase as much land as they can get away with within the CDS, bus in as many supporters/ friends/ alts as their land holdings will support, and swing an election. The advantage of our current system is that we attract citizens who have made an active commitment to participate in, and pay a contribution to maintaining, our democratic experiment. If citizenship simply becomes a matter of pressing 'Join L$0' and then letting some kind benefactor pay the rent then we will have handed over the CDS to whoever can manipulate the land ownership rules the best.

[Patroklus Murakami]

[quote="Claude Desmoulins":22ik0287]Pat has proposed that each individual is reponsible for his or her own fees and that revocation of citizenship for non-payment also be individual. He also suggests that other members of the group would somehow be responsible for their non-paying peers. I'm unclear how this would work. If only the non-payer was at risk of losing citizenship, what reason would the other group members have to do anything if one of their group didn't pay?[/quote:22ik0287]I propose that we make each individual in a group responsible for paying their share of the land fees where they claim citizenship in the CDS through group ownership of that plot of land. If an individual defaults (consistently, not just on one occasion) then they lose their citizenship and the remainder of the group are responsible for making up the shortfall. If the group fails to make up the land fees they risk losing the plot of land (and any of them who claim citizenship through the plot of land risk losing their citizenship also).

This mix of rights and responsibilities is there to encourage:
*individuals to 'pay their way' and demonstrate a commitment to the CDS (logging in to pay a central rent collection box at least once a month)
*groups to recruit people who won't let them down

and allow couples and groups to own land in common in the CDS.

Just to be clear though, I still disagree fundamentally with the proposal that we should allow existing citizenship groups to recruit new citizens directly rather than require them, as we do at the moment, to become citizens in their own right first through purchase of a vacant plot of land in one of our sims. No one has yet made a case for this proposal, either here or in the original legislative discussion thread (beyond the statement that 'Sudane is concerned about a high barrier to entry' - a claim which I've yet to see substantiated). What is wrong with our current requirements? They seem to have served us well and have not been a restraint on expansion. Why do we need to change them?

[Claude Desmoulins]

I was referring to the second half of

http://forums.neufreistadt.info/viewtop ... ight=#6254

[Claude Desmoulins]

Pat,

Thanks for the clarification.

Let me point out that there is no requirement as to how long an individual must hold a single parcel before shifting to a group land. If you add a time limit, we become very unfriendly to couples and business partnerships.

If you really want to prevent mass electoral manipulation while not becoming anti immigrant, a group size limit would better achieve that.

[Patroklus Murakami]

[quote="Claude Desmoulins":3nk3lcd9]Let me point out that there is no requirement as to how long an individual must hold a single parcel before shifting to a group land. If you add a time limit, we become very unfriendly to couples and business partnerships.[/quote:3nk3lcd9]I'm not sure what you mean Claude. Do you mean a time limit between becoming a CDS citizen and then merging land with another citizen in a group? I think there was a suggestion that land owning groups should have been in existence for at least sixty days. Is that what you meant? I could never really see the point of that myself either but perhaps others could say what it was intended for?

[quote:3nk3lcd9]If you really want to prevent mass electoral manipulation while not becoming anti immigrant, a group size limit would better achieve that.[/quote:3nk3lcd9]I'm not sure it is. A group size limit is easily circumvented - just split your holdings into more groups. It's also somewhat arbitrary. If we set the limit at five that prevents larger organisations (say a religious or language-based cultural group) from banding together and using the contributions from a larger number of citizens to create a large-scale build.

[Claude Desmoulins]

[quote="Patroklus Murakami":1eqxo8jy][quote="Claude Desmoulins":1eqxo8jy]Let me point out that there is no requirement as to how long an individual must hold a single parcel before shifting to a group land. If you add a time limit, we become very unfriendly to couples and business partnerships.[/quote:1eqxo8jy]I'm not sure what you mean Claude. Do you mean a time limit between becoming a CDS citizen and then merging land with another citizen in a group? I think there was a suggestion that land owning groups should have been in existence for at least sixty days. Is that what you meant? I could never really see the point of that myself either but perhaps others could say what it was intended for?[/quote:1eqxo8jy]

Yes. The sixty day provision is in my proposal. Currently, two individuals could buy individual lots , then as soon as they were citizens, buy a group lot and put the single lots for sale.

[quote= "Pat"][quote="I":1eqxo8jy]If you really want to prevent mass electoral manipulation while not becoming anti immigrant, a group size limit would better achieve that.[/quote:1eqxo8jy]I'm not sure it is. A group size limit is easily circumvented - just split your holdings into more groups. It's also somewhat arbitrary. If we set the limit at five that prevents larger organisations (say a religious or language-based cultural group) from banding together and using the contributions from a larger number of citizens to create a large-scale build.[/quote]

These larger organizations would have to have their individual members own individual lots before forming the group. Unless these lots were adjacent, the group couldn't do the large build on thos lots and would have to buy other land.

[Patroklus Murakami]

I have posted an alternative proposal [url=http://forums.neufreistadt.info/viewtop ... 7:10hs88em]here[/url:10hs88em].

[Justice Soothsayer]

Perhaps it would be helpful to separate the issues here.

As I understand it, the original group citizenship bill was proposed to allow citizens who are married/parteners/etc to hold their land holdings in common. The bill allowed people who are already citizens to join together to own just one plot and retain their individual citizenship.

I agree that it makes sense to continue to require that citizens (either individually or in common with others) own land and thereby have at least a minimal commitment to the CDS. It also makes sense to allow citizens to hold land together with others --- but because of the possibility of undue electoral influence, to not always to be able to gain (retain?) citizenship through such ownership in common.

We could consider limiting (1) the number of citizenships any one group could derive through common ownership; (2) the % of citizens who can hold land-based citizenship through group ownership; and/or (3) the # of groups which may own land. Such limits would reduce the possibility of undue electoral influence of large landowners but still accomplish the original idea of allowing citizens to own land in common while preserving the notion that land=citizenship.

[Claude Desmoulins]

If we are going to require everyone to have an individual lot before joining a group, we might as well simplify things and not let a group owned lot be used as the basis of citizenship.

[Patroklus Murakami]

Claude, we already require everyone to have an individual lot before joining a group. That's what NL 5-9 says. Are you suggesting that we repeal it in order to simplify things?