Citizenship Discussion (Forum Part of Commission)

[Dnate Mars]

I am not really against the idea of landless residents. I am just bring up points that need to be thought about. I would say that the best way to do it is to limit non-owners to owners to about 10% of the total land owners. So if we have 100 land owners, we can allow 10 non-owners. Or even have a temp non owner that has to have owned land in the CDS within 3 months of being a citizen. Maybe use the monthly fee in part to act as a payment installment for a small plot of land?

[Bromo Ivory]

[quote="Dnate Mars":hx1aqglm]The reason for using the term "Neufreistadt' may be because the CDS term wasn't in wide use at the time, if at all. I am pretty sure when that was passed, it was for all of what is now called the CDS.[/quote:hx1aqglm]

I figured that must be the case - though the pedantic side of me was curious!

[Bromo Ivory]

[quote="Dnate Mars":35rxniys] ... Maybe use the monthly fee in part to act as a payment installment for a small plot of land? ... [/quote:35rxniys]

Oh! I like that as a possibility - can you elaborate?

[michelmanen]

The Citizenship Act is the cornerstone of our political system of governance and the key variable determining our future growth as a community. Its fundamental reform is the first priority on CARE's Governmental Reform Agenda. CARE's draft proposal, currently discusssed by our mebmers, and which will form the basis for our submission to the Citzenship Commission, is presented below.

Our aims in reviewing our current citizenship rules are:

1. expanding our citizens' base;
2. encouraging active citizens' participation in the life of our community;
3. attracting skilled and creative individuals to our community;
4. streamlining citizenship acquisition in the CDS;
5. giiving all citizens a substantive stake in our commuity;
6. aportioning more evenly the financial burdens of our community to all citizens;
7. finding new, equitable means to finance the aquisition and maintenance of new sims.

I suggest that we keep CDS Citizenship as open as possible to anyone who wishes to actively participate in the life of our community -welcoming newcomers who wish to contribute in any way to CDS. Citizenship could be acquired in 3 ways:

1. By paying the monthly Citizenship fee;
2. By buying a parcel of land in a CDS sim; or
3. By being sponsored by a CDS Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) because of substantial contributions to CDS (the NGO would pay the new citizen's monthly Citizenship fee).

This debate began in earnest a few months ago, when an atempt was made in the RA to pass a new Citizenship Act. I fundametally disagreed both on the substantive content of the Bill as drafted and on the procedure chosen to draft it. Since as the lone RA member holding this view i could do little to avoid its eventual adoption, I chose to resign and mount an active opposition to the Bill from outside the RA. I proposed a Citizenship Commission, a watered-down version of which was adopted by the RA and headed by another CARE member, Mizou Vavoom.

As part of the genuine discussions and debated engendered by me outside the RA, Gwyneth Llewelyn, one of the founders of CDS and its most senior and experienced public official, who has been an SL member almost from the beginning and knows this platform better than most, recently made the following proposal:

[quote:3jmo90nc]
Take a look at how Linden Lab runs their Premium service. You pay a monthly fee, and are entitled to hold land for 512 m2 without paying additional land use fees (but you have still to buy it first). You can hold more land if you wish — by paying additional land use fees — but you're a Premium account, no matter how much land you own. Also, the first 512 m2 you own are "free" of any fees; you only pay those if you own more than 512 m2.

Citizenship in the CDS could be handled that very same way. You'd pay a "citizens' tax" that allows you to hold up to 128 m2 of land free of additional fees, but you'll pay it every month, no matter if you actually own land or not. You get all citizens' rights while you're paying your citizens' tax every month. If you want to buy a plot of 128 m2 (or if finally one becomes available), you won't pay any additional fees for that, only for everything you hold over those initial 128 m2.

Group land ownership becomes a moot point related to citizenship that way. You can hold land in a 100 different groups, so far as your land, all added up together, doesn't go over the 4096 m2 limit. To calculate how much group-owned land you actually own, all groups used for holding land in the CDS would be required to publish all members, and the total amount of land held by the group would be divided by the number of citizens listed there. Ideally, of course, only citizens would be part of the group; enforcing that bit of potential legislation will always be tricky, though.

This method works rather well for LL's definition of "Premium" accounts, so it should work for us to define citizenship.

The issue of landowners vs. landless citizens is better addressed by having the landowners voluntarily congregate towards a "pressure group" — an association of landowning citizens — that would make their demands heard to the RA (or to the parties running for election), much in the same way the Traders' Association tries to protect existing merchants and lobbies for more resources for them.
[/quote:3jmo90nc]

In light of this commentary, let us briefly examine each of the 3 ways proposed above to acquire citizenship in CDS:

1. The simplest and most straightforward way of acquiring CDS citizenship would be to acquire a lot of land in a CDS sim (minimum landholding: 128 m2; maximum landholding: none).

2. Those not interested to purchase land, or unable to purchase any of the lots then up for sale in CDSS, or wishing to become CDS citizens despite the unavailabilty of land in CDS at that moment, could pay a monthly citizenship fee of -for example- US$ 1.00 per week (L$ 275) or US$ 52.00 per year (L$14,300). Paying such a fee would entitle a citizen to:

a. have all the rights and duties of a CDS citizen, including th right to vote and stand for elected or unelected public office;
b. hold a lot of 128 m2 without paying any additional fees. If the fee-paying citizen would acquire a 128 m2 lot or if one became available, the citizen would pay the purchase prince but no additional fees for that lot; if the lot is bigger than 128 m2, then the citizen would pay both the purchase price and monthly fee -the latter of which only for the land above and beyond the minimum 128 m2 lot to which all citizenship fee-paying CDS citizens are entitled;
c. have priority over any non-citizen in purchasing available land lots in any CDS sim.

3. Those who do not have any financial resources but actively participate in the life of our community in one way or another, could become members of one of our NGO's and be sponsored by that NGO to become a citizen. The NGO would bring an application before a CDS Citizenship Commission, including evidence of the potential citizen's activities and contributions to the CDS over a certain period of time (say three months), and confirm its willingness to pay the individual's citizenship fees. If the Citizenship Commission approves the NGO's application, the person becomes a CDS citizen and remains so during the time the NGO is willing to pay that individual's monthly citizenship fee.

The advantages of this system of acquiring CDS Citizenship are as follows:

1. It allows our community to pay the costs associated with out current and future sims fee in a consistent and predictable manner;
2. It allows our community to have a more solid budget budget for its current (paying builders, organising events, contributing to NGO activities, advertising CDS both in SL an beyond, paying for the CDS web site system) and future (new sims purchase and maintenance fees, construction of new buildings) commitments;
3. It recognises the importance of land ownership in SL by:
a. allowng all individuals who buy a lot in the CDS to become citizens immediately; and
b. giving each citizenship fee-paying citizen the right to own a parcel of land of 128 m2 without paying any additional fees.
4. It recognises that citizenship must be open to those who do not possess the financial resources required to pay such fees but who are willing to substantially contribute to the life of our community by allowing CDS NGOs to sponsor such individuals to become citizens and pay their monthly citizenship fees.
5. It allows all individuals involved in the life of our community in one way or another to hold all the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, including voting and standing for public elected or unelected office; and
6. It provides an enforcement mechanism for our future justice system.

In addition to CDS Citizens, I suggest we should also have a category of CDS residents -being those individuals who would like to take part in the life and activities of our community, but for one reason or another cannot or do not want to become citizens -as well as those who do want to become citizens and contribute to our community, but cannot yet be sponsored by a CDS NGO because they have not yet met the time requirement (suggested : 3 months). This would allow us a maximum of openness and flaxibility in attracting people to our community and maximizing their skills, experience, ideas and enhthusiasm, while at the same time accomodating those who cannot for now become citizens. Of course, many residents may want eventually to become citizens after living and having fun in our community, so that would be an added advantage of having a pool of CDS residents.

[Dnate Mars]

There are basically 3 types of people that could be citizens in the future. You have:
1) People that pay for and own land in one of our sims.
2) People that pay but do not own land in the sims.
3) People that don't pay or own land in the sims.

Number 1 is an easy one, that is what we were founded on.

Number 2, they will still have economic ties, but not a direct tie to the sims. Should they be citizens of the "CDS"? It really depends on the question that has still not be completely answered, what is the CDS? If we answer that question first, this should be a no brainer.

Number 3, see number 2.

[michelmanen]

[quote:2nichypg]Are you proposing a fee above and beyond a person's tier for land they own? Would a person just one such fee? Or a fee for each sim they posssess land in plus the tier? How much $L are you talking about? A nominal fee?[/quote:2nichypg]

The suggestion is that each citizen pay a fixed monthly citizenship fee - let's say $4.00US per month. This would cover tier fees for the minimum designated lot (128 m2, or 256m2, or 512m2, depending on what is decided). So a landless citizen would eventually be able to buy a minimum designated lot and pay no tier fees in addition to the citizenship fees now payable.

Those who own land would be able to deduct such a fee from their regular tier, so that the land-owner would only pay the tier fee above and beyond this minimum. For example, someone currently paying $3.00 per month for a 512 m2 lot would see their tier rise to $4.00US. Those paying $8.00 US for 1024m2 would see their citizenship fee deducted from their total, and the size of the minimum designated lot subtracted from their landholdings; then the amount payable in tier fees recalculated on the basis of their land holdings over and above the minimum designated lot.

This will result in a floor of $4 US per month below which no citizen (landed or landless) will fall, which then will be deducted from any higher tier fees due by that person.

The critical items to determine are:

1. The monthly citizenship fee - what should the floor be below which no citizen, landed or landless, should fall?
2. The minimum designated lot - how much land should one be entitled to for paying the monthly citizenship fee?
3. The tier fees payable for various size lots - what are the tier fees for lots larger than the minimum designated lot?

Once these items are agreed upon, the system is rather simple to work out.

[michelmanen]

[quote:1eu9r1pe]1) Why would someone want to be a citizen of the CDS if they did not virtually live in it?[/quote:1eu9r1pe]

A lot of people have their main personal or business residences outside of CDS, but wish to take part in our community. Their only choice is to own land here, even if they don't actually wish to live here or use the land productively. Citizenship fees would allow them to become citizens withought owning land, and liberate the land for more productive use by others.

Also, CDS may run out of available land, for a time. Individuals should be able to become citizens anyway, and be givien prioirty to acquire land when more becomes available thus expanding our citizenship base.

[quote:1eu9r1pe]2) Can anyone rent living space within the CDS?[/quote:1eu9r1pe]

Not at this time. It is, however, a very pertinent question. Should renting be allowed? By whom? In what circumstances? With what consequences in terms of citizenshp status?

In brief, my initial feeling is:

1. Should renting be allowed? Yes.

2. By whom? Individuals owning at least twice the minimum alloted land.

3. In what circumstances? Only the area over and above the minimum alloted land (so all citizens will continue to be personally responsible for citizenship fees). Either in private residences or in renting residences approved by the Chancellor.

4. With what consequences in terms of citizenshp status? All renters become CDS residents, with no voting rights. Residency should be a plus should such a citizen be sponsored for citizenship by an NGO. Landless citizens should be able to rent privately, but their rent fees would be in addition to citizenship fees.

[Pelanor Eldrich]

[b:xqth1eig]Dnate[/b:xqth1eig]: You bring up an excellent point that Claude also mentioned several months ago. [i:xqth1eig]What does a landless citizen get for the monthly tax?[/i:xqth1eig] In my mind they become part of the community. One gets full access to the vote, to run for office, to work in the civil service and to reap the full benefit of the services that the gov't (that means your team Dnate ) provides. They also get the ability to purchase CDS land and to take full part in NGOs and other CDS groups that might have a citizenship requirement. Would many want to take advantage of this? Hard to say.

[b:xqth1eig]The Alt problem: [/b:xqth1eig] I understand your alt concerns. It's a vexing general problem and needs to be looked at. Options include verified accounts, open ID, RL disclosure, or perhaps new Linden tools to help us with this. This is vital to electoral reform in order to minimize the possibility of election fraud. I don't think a landless citizenship initiative would open the floodgates for government takeover any more than buying 1-2 sims would (due to the resulting availability of new land). I echo you in thinking that we should proceed cautiously. This is big stuff.

[b:xqth1eig]Michel:[/b:xqth1eig] I think the citizenship tax should be the monthly cost of the cheapest 128m2 in the CDS. I agree with your NGO sponsorship of citizens. There may be concern that we don't have any "judicial teeth" in dealing with a sponsored citizen. While forfeiture of land wouldn't be an option we must realize we can invoke any penalty with the threat of ban if a convict is non-compliant with the sentence. For someone who earned sponsorship through community service, such a ban would be a harsher sentence than for the absentee landholder.
(Yes I differ with Ashcroft on that point).

[b:xqth1eig]Renting:[/b:xqth1eig] I agree in principle with it, but we may be pushing the cultural comfort zone a little too much for this right now. If tlandless citizenship gets support, let's wait and see how hard this might be for the executive/EO to implement. We also avoid the resident vs. citizen class distinction for the time being. The group scenarios Gwyn mentions can make the existing proposals complicated. Perhaps we can try out the lesser reform first and if successful then look at renting.

I'd almost want to simplify citizenship by defining it as:

[b:xqth1eig]A Citizen of the CDS is:[/b:xqth1eig]
-An avatar that pays citizenship tax.
-An avatar whose sponsor pays citizenship tax.

[b:xqth1eig]Restrictions:[/b:xqth1eig]
-There is a limit of one CDS citizen avatar per person
-Taxes must be paid to the treasurer within approved* timeframe so that accounts are in good standing.
-A chartered NGO may sponsor a limited number of citizens*
-The avatar has not been stripped of citizenship as the result of due legal process by the SC.

[size=75:xqth1eig]*Subject to legislation passed by the RA[/size:xqth1eig]

I wonder if we did the above, we could remove the group citizenship legislation (and complexity) while keeping all of its beneficial properties.

Definition of the CDS: At the risk of double posting my own plagiarized quote..."

[quote:xqth1eig]What is the CDS? We're making progress on that. I think key points are:
-[b:xqth1eig]We are[/b:xqth1eig] a democratic community of people living in many different countries represented by individual citizen avatars in SL.
-We follow and uphold the UDHR, the LL EULA & TOS and CDS Constitution, Codes and local bylaws (in that order of precedence, but that's perhaps debatable).

[b:xqth1eig]We have the following resources:[/b:xqth1eig]
-The community of citizens and friends (first and foremost)
-Server space leased from Linden Lab in the form of virtual land
-License to IP created both by CDS citizens and non-citizens in the form of public virtual property (e.g. builds/objects/scripts etc). [/quote:xqth1eig]

[Gxeremio Dimsum]

I think having NGO "sponsors" pay the fees for people is a bad idea. It is almost certain to lead to vote-rigging and nepotism. If someone doesn't have financial resources, they should find work to pay their own citizenship fees.

In addition, NGO's are not subject to any rules and shouldn't become more politically powerful than our democratic institutions.

Let me give you an example with a group that I like - Esperanto speakers. Let's say the Esperanistoj de Neufreistadt sponsor all 200+ members of the Esperanto group in SL as citizens (or even just half of them). Most of them only come to the CDS when (if) there is an Esperanto meeting going on, and none other than me take part in politics. But if my group is paying their fees, and I am the only person they interact with much who is involved in the CDS, who do you think they're going to vote for?

NGO sponsorship seems to me to be a potential way to buy elections, and I think we should avoid that.

As far as being overwhelmed or overrun with non-landowners, maybe we could have a cap on "immigration" for each month so we don't get swamped with new folks during election season.

[Patroklus Murakami]

I have a couple of questions for those advocating the expansion of citizenship by means of a Citizenship Tax and NGO-sponsorhip:

1. How do you prevent electoral fraud? If we set the Citizenship Fee at the equivalent of owning 128m2 of land, then a vote 'costs' about US$1. We currently have no reliable way of checking whether all our citizens are distinct human beings or alts. With these new citizenship rules, an automated payment system and alts being three clicks away, packing the electoral rolls before an election becomes childsplay. What would be our defence against that?

2. Why would we need 'NGO sponsorship' to expand citizenship? Everyone in SL can afford a relatively high end computer and broadband subscription. Is it likely that there's anyone in SL so poor that they couldn't afford to pay their Citizenship Fee themselves? Gxeremio makes a good point about the potential for abuse of this system too.

3. Is expanding our citizenship in this way likely to lead to more active citizens? What kind of involvement do we want to encourage in any case? About 50 out of our 76 citizens voted in the last election. Estimates of our 'active' citizenry run at between 25 and 35. Are we content with that or do we want our citizens to be more involved in the life of the community? If you own no land in the CDS it could be said that you have a less of a stake in the community. Wouldn't that mean less active citizens? Then we could have 100s on the books but never see them from one election to the other.

[Fernando Book]

I think we should have an approach similar of that of the RL countries:

a) There's a simple way to be a citizen: the birth, in a place (jus soli) or in a family (jus sanguinis). In our case, the mere ownership replaces birth.

b) Those wanting to be citizens of the CDS have to deserve the citizenship, and we must decide what they have to do to earn it.

c) As it is a decision that should be made in a case-by-case basis it should be in the area of the Executive o, if we want more control on the process, the Chancellor could forward a proposal to the RA with the rationale for approving or denying the citizenship and then let the RA make the final decision.

[Jon Seattle]

[quote="Dnate Mars":35olcjd5]The reason for using the term "Neufreistadt' may be because the CDS term wasn't in wide use at the time, if at all. I am pretty sure when that was passed, it was for all of what is now called the CDS.[/quote:35olcjd5]Yes, at the time Colonia Nova was not yet in existence.

[Jon Seattle]

What do we see as the main purpose of the CDS?

1. The CDS is an online debate club on law and government that happens to own some server space in Second Life. Many of our debates are about Second Life, but use of the features that make Second Life different from other online communities are not critical.

2. A provider of SL space that happens to be democratically run. Private island real estate with votes. The main point in this case is to provide themed land at a reasonable price. The debate functions, even the cooperative projects, should be kept to a minimum.

3. A volunteer organization that brings us together to work on cooperative projects involving the development and use of Second Life space.

I have a definite preference for #3. As an designer, a two strong reasons I have for being in Second Life are to use it as a medium for collaborative design projects, and to cooperate in communities that see design and learning about design as central to their mission. I do understand, of course, that the CDS attracts many people who are more interested in government and law per se.

From my perspective the idea that citizenship might be purchased for a small monthly fee makes no sense. If you do not own land you have no prim allocation in the CDS, are unlikely to get involved in collaborative projects. In other words, you might as well do without SL. You end up with a situation where people with no land are making decisions about what people with land may build or do with that space.

If, however, your vision of the CDS is option #1, this is the perfect proposal. Ashcroft's vision of the CDS community of law professionals and people interested in debating law in virtual space fits this approach. But it ends up being a radical turn in what the CDS is for.

One alternative to the small monthly fee, (I think Beathan proposed something along these lines) is to have a type of citizenship that is landless but involves substantial work on in-world CDS projects. This has the good consequence of making sure that such citizens are direct participants in the life of our community -- that they take part in the CDS for Second Life and not just to debate about Second Life. And we all would gain by their contributions to our community.

[Gxeremio Dimsum]

[quote="Jon Seattle":2wdjitzv]What do we see as the main purpose of the CDS?

1. The CDS is an online debate club on law and government that happens to own some server space in Second Life. Many of our debates are about Second Life, but use of the features that make Second Life different from other online communities are not critical.

2. A provider of SL space that happens to be democratically run. Private island real estate with votes. The main point in this case is to provide themed land at a reasonable price. The debate functions, even the cooperative projects, should be kept to a minimum.

3. A volunteer organization that brings us together to work on cooperative projects involving the development and use of Second Life space.[/quote:2wdjitzv]

I like number 3 too, BUT I would add that the WAY we carry out cooperative projects (democratically and with a view for human rights) is the key difference.

[quote:2wdjitzv]From my perspective the idea that citizenship might be purchased for a small monthly fee makes no sense. If you do not own land you have no prim allocation in the CDS, are unlikely to get involved in collaborative projects. In other words, you might as well do without SL. You end up with a situation where people with no land are making decisions about what people with land may build or do with that space.[/quote:2wdjitzv]

I own land, but my land has never been used for a collaborative project that was subject to the RA. Rather, many of our community projects happen in shared space - and what stops us from sharing that space with a larger group? If people are concerned about the unwashed masses telling them what to do with their land, perhaps the zoning functions of the RA could be replaced by a kind of POA.

[quote:2wdjitzv]One alternative to the small monthly fee, (I think Beathan proposed something along these lines) is to have a type of citizenship that is landless but involves substantial work on in-world CDS projects. This has the good consequence of making sure that such citizens are direct participants in the life of our community -- that they take part in the CDS for Second Life and not just to debate about Second Life. And we all would gain by their contributions to our community.[/quote:2wdjitzv]

I like the spirit of this proposal, which has been put forward before. However, making citizenship subjective rather than objective can lead to a lot of problems. Some that come to mind immediately:
Who says how much participation is enough to earn citizenship?
What about people who are active for a season and then no longer active, or who are only sporadically active in the CDS? On-again, off-again citizenship?

To get at the spirit of this situation, perhaps people could simply be paid for their work and then choose to spend it on citizenship or not.

BTW, like it or not, debate about the nature of governance in virtual worlds is what draws some people to the CDS, and while it can be taxing they also are contributing to the community in their own way.

[Bromo Ivory]

This is an interesting debate, and I am beginning to detect a tinge of an "immigration" issue as anything else. But will have to hear additional comments before I form an opinion on that hypothesis (hope I am wrong).

To summarize what I see:

I think there seem to be 2 camps:

Camp 1: The CDS is and should remain essentially a housing Co-Op

Camp 2: The CDS should be more than a housing Co-Op

My opinion thus far:

I fall firmly in Camp #2 in that while the aspects of managing the land is important and one of the central duties of CDS, I believe also that we need to foster a democratic community and to help figure out what it means to be a democracy in SL. We also could use the additional revenue from this to help plan growth a bit faster as we are able to "capture" interested parties earlier.

I am pretty sure we can figure out a way to prevent "gaming" the system - though I do think that from the arguments I have heard, that there is more concern with expanding the ranks of citizens *in general* and the possible changes to the electorate because of that.