Moderator: SC Moderators
Sleazy,
The quote you provided has nothing to do with CDS. It is taken from the website of a different project I am involved in, where people actually want to know details about the real background of the individuals who participate and what they are involved in both iRL and in-world. If that's the best you could find to trow at me, I can sleep easy.
Michel
Flyingroc Chung wrote:I am only briefly back. and already I wish I weren't.
Happy holidays!
Aw, FR, don't let the usual forum namecalling keep you away. I hope the next compilation of statistics will be:
Flyingroc Chung yes yes yes yes yes.
To all my fellow CDS itizens who took the time to comment on my intial post in this thread:
If you all are happy with a "democracy" of 30-odd long-term citizens and no educational, entertainment or commercial life - that's perfectly fine. It's your right to do so. I happen to believe that such a "vision" and approach betrays the vision of CDS as a true democracy whose aim is to become a model of governance for SL. If you want a quiet gated community where only the founding residents make decisions and do their outmost to keep everyone else out who doesn't conform to their idea of what their walled-in little place should be then call it that - just stop calling in SL's only democratic community. Right now, it's nothing more than a gated community run by a small clique of friends too scared to allow others to join because of the fear they would lose control over the place they built and see CDS move into a different direction -focused on openness, dynamism, and growth.
So, by keeping new citizens to a minimum, every time new people join they are eventually ran out of CDS and replaced by a new batch, which in turn is ran out and replaced as well - expect for a few who conform and comply with the dictates of the founding clique. This is how CDS has been run for 3 years; this explains the low number of citizens and the high yearly turnover; and this explains why you all see me as such a threat - because I have worked openly to challenge this way of running the CDS, and make it more more welcoming to others, more fun to be in, more growth-oriented, more respectful of the democratic vision it purports to endorse.
As far as I am concerned, the issue is simple and clear: do we want the CDS to be a gated community dominated by its founding clique for another 3 years - or do we want to move resolutely towards living up to our name as SL's only democratic community, welcome as many new members as possible with open arms, become an educational, commercial and economic hub of SL and finally begin to take full advantage of the opportunities offered by this new medium of communication, education and commerce.
From what you all write, there is no doubt where you stand; nor is there any doubt that you are ready to use any and all means, including manipulation of citizenship rules, electoral systems and personal attacks and invectives to maintain the status quo.
There also is no doubt where I stand: I consider that in doing so, you all diminish into insignificance the name and promise of the CDS and transform it into a small, closed, in-ward looking, cliquish little community - no better than a gated community whose landowners keep doing their outmost to keep out all the riff-raff looking in. I will continue to fight this dystopian vision of the CDS and its future and show it for what it is: an exclusionary, narrow, limited vision lacking any creativity, any capacity to innovate, any willingness to accept diversity and difference - in one word, any soul.
It is a contemptible little vision of a narrow-minded little group and sooner or later it will be defeated - as all such exclusionary, cliquish, selfish societies eventually have no choices other than to change - or die.
Until then, feel free to throw insults, invectives and personal attacks at your favorite scare-crow. I don't shirk this role; I welcome it.
Michel Manen
Michel
You pitch up spitting venom (you've made personal attacks on three people in this thread alone) and then you complain that people are throwing insults at you. The hypocrisy is breath-taking. But then again, you're a consistent exponent of The Big Lie and this latest forum post is just another example of The Big Lie. Repeating it loudly and often hasn't really got you anywhere though and I don't think it will do this time because our citizens can see right through you.
Your attacks on the community are unwarranted and unfounded. This is an open, welcoming democratic community with a diverse group of creative, talented citizens; to compare us with 'a gated community of landowners' is an insult. Our sims are open to virtually everyone (we have a few exclusions for griefers) so how you twist that into a clique is beyond comprehension.
What you're really complaining about is our failure to agree with you on redefining citizenship to allow anyone in Second Life to join the CDS by paying a monthly fee. We've been over that issue comprehensively; your perspective is shared by a tiny minority of CDS citizens. I've posted my analysis of the findings of the Citizenship Commission based on evidence here and no one has challenged my analysis. You really need to get over the fact that, once again, you didn't get your own way. I understand that your 'Al Andalus' project will have precisely the kind of open-ended, free-for-all citizenship that you have proposed for the CDS as well. Under the circumstances, it makes a lot more sense for us to wait and see how you get on with that before making any similar arrangements here.
I can't work out whether it's worse if you actually believe what you write or if you just cynically write what you think will be the most damaging to the CDS in the hope that it will boost the electoral fortunes of your faction. If it's the former then it's no wonder you hate so many of us; you must really believe that we are monsters. If it's the latter, you have no shame. I'm amazed that you think anyone in the CDS wants to keep the number of new citizens to a minimum and that we run people out of town. In my experience the CDS is welcoming to new people - just look at the membership of the CSDF, we're a mixture of established and newer residents as are most of the factions to my knowledge. People come and go, in this project as in others. Where are the mobs with pitchforks and torches?
If anyone has tried to run people out of town it's you - with your lies and distortions and your concerted attacks on individuals within the CDS. You've exploited every opportunity open to you to harrass, intimidate and bully me - you even tried to blackmail me when I was a member of the Scientific Council (yes, happy to provide chapter and verse on that one). You've gone after Jon too with cheap personal insults despite the enormous amount of work he's done for the CDS. Fortunately, we're pretty thick-skinned but you lower the tone of debate in the CDS and it puts off good people from standing for office (Why invite Michel's acid tongue? Who needs that kind of abuse?) In this election the CSDF will be standing on our record of achievement and we are proud of what we have achieved. We will also be putting forward a positive vision for the future of the CDS and, more importantly, a programme to make things better. I recommend that you do the same Michel, focus on the positive instead of throwing brickbats - it will probably get you more votes (it would be difficult for you to get any fewer!) and it will make the CDS a nicer place to be in the next few weeks.
Mmm... I *very* much don't want to step into this discussion save in a positive way.
A minor correction however, Caledon isn't 38 regions, it's 33 at the moment - 38 is where I plan to stop according to our master plan, and demand willing we'll take a decidedly relaxed several more months to add the last five regions. Or slower. I'm exhausted. 
You may see more growth in the sense of our linking up to allied micronation neighbours. I like Caledon (obviously!) but we are more involved in making an interesting world by linking up to other regions lately - we just connected to the micronation of Winterfell on the 13th. This might be a fun possibility for the CDS as well someday, linking up with a group of comparable nations to make a 'world'.
I may do a bit of forums-sparring with all of you from time to time, but I consider everyone friends - makes me sad when you all get into it on such a serious tone.
So in that regard, *hugs* all around and huzzah for the CDS - and happy holidays to all.
Warmly,
Des
On second thought, who really needs this?! Y'all have fun! Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and best of luck with your project.
Salzie Sachertorte wrote:Thank you Justice -my sentiments as well
My question - are DPU and Simplicity in this election?
Salzie
DPU is in. I of course can't speak for SP.
Yawn. SSDD.
You know what prevents us from growing? Lack of land. How many people have been turned away because it took us 8 months to actually get AM up and running? For basically the entire year we have been sitting with just 2 sims. That is a fixed amount of land. Now with AM there, there will be some shifting. People will move out of NFS and CN to AM, but that means we will have more land in both those sims to sell. The more land there is for sale, the more of a chance we have of bring in new people. Fundamentally, I really don't see anything that the CDSF did wrong that would drive people away.
Honestly, outside of a select core, how many people even pay attention to the RA?
Having just studied a bit of Second Life history for my blog post about "Second Life Loudmouths," and seeing Michel in action, I observe that Michel is a typical SL "loudmouth," something of a Prokofy Neva, only limited to the scale of CDS. However, as a new member of CDSF, I must say I'm also a bit surprised by the harshness of the replies from Patroklus and Jon. There must be a long history of conflict which has led to this degree of polarization. One might argue that Michel is only operating in the manner of, say, the English House of Commons, where the debates can be very rough. Personally I would prefer a CDS where individual members have a generally high level of committment to the community, but Michel's vision of much wider and looser democratic structure is an interesting alternative. Does his aggressive manner of debating really constitute "bullying"? The challenge for any democracy is to be able to tolerate vigorous debate without the community tearing itself apart. I'm tempted to suggest that both sides should try to soften the tone in order to avoid irremedial bad feelings.
Danton Sideways wrote:Personally I would prefer a CDS where individual members have a generally high level of committment to the community, but Michel's vision of much wider and looser democratic structure is an interesting alternative.
Michel has always backed a looser set of institutions under a single powerful leader. If you go back to the last election, he consistently backed making the chancellor a far more powerful position and at the same time weakening other institutions. If you want to get a good idea of where he stands, I suggest carefully reading the thread here:
http://www.al-andalus-sl.com/forum/index.php?topic=33.0
As he implements in Al Andalus many of his proposals for the CDS. History has shown again and again that the only challenge to a single powerful leader are smaller democratic institutions. Making them smaller, breaking them up by function, and making them diffuse, makes it much easier for a central authority to hold on to go unchallenged.
If Michel limited himself to voicing his opinions forcibly, I would have to problem at all with him. He has a long history of far far worse things. Frankly some of the nastiest political maneuvers, using defamation, scandal, and whispers I have seen. And believe me, I am in most circumstances a very very tolerant person.
Danton Sideways wrote:The challenge for any democracy is to be able to tolerate vigorous debate without the community tearing itself apart. I'm tempted to suggest that both sides should try to soften the tone in order to avoid irremedial bad feelings.
Good advice, Danton. You have a very interesting post on your blog about "SL loudmouths", a title that some view as a badge of honor. I heartily recommend it to one and all.
DPU is in. I of course can't speak for SP.
FWIW, The Simplicity Party will be represented in the upcoming election - I just posted a short statement in the Simplicity Party subforum here: http://forums.slcds.info/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1524.
Important note: When making this post earlier, I inadvertently combined the response to the quote with my own unrelated personal thoughts. For the sake of clarity, I have moved these comments into a second post, as they are my own personal opinions and not an official statement from the Simplicity Party. Sorry for any miscommunication or inconvenience. For the sake of reference, a URL for the second post is: http://forums.slcds.info/viewtopic.php? ... t=30#p9471 --BL
Brian Livingston wrote:Regarding the original topic and resulting responses, I can only say that I am disappointed. We are a community of passionate, creative individuals, and understandably disagreements will come up. However, the level of hostility that I saw was reminiscent of past times that I had hoped we had risen from.
I should mention that I am not running for office, and will never run again for any office in the CDS. It would be incorrect to as that I am speaking for any party. I am out of CDS politics and speaking as a lone citizen.
Last time around I volunteered to serve on the RA just because my faction desperately needed someone to be a candidate. As a result, I was attacked and accused of all kinds of awful things, (mental instability, violence, stealing, etc.) both behind my back and otherwise. This group went out to canvass my personal friends and associates with these accusations. I was made to leave an organization (the New Guild) that I has spent months building, because according to one tiny group it was immoral to speak out if one was in a Guild position and a conflict of interest to be a member of an NGO and the RA at the same time.
Because the CDS is a democratic organization, it will naturally attract both the supporters of democratic institutions and the enemies of such institutions. But I think people have a choice, when the time comes. They can stand up for democracy or let it go by the wayside. I have no doubt that the CDS will survive, but I really doubt it will survive as a democracy if no one is willing to stand up for it.
You can stand back, Brian, and just say oh well, stop objecting to that kind of politics. But yes, I really do think it is necessary to object, being pleasant does not always come before defending our basic rights. Sometimes you have to stand up and tell the truth.
Note: I have split my previous post into two separate posts for the sake of clarity. In retrospect, my personal thoughts, which I had inadvertently combined with a response to a question, may be seen as an official SP comment, which wasn't my intention. In any case, I do apologize for any miscommunication in that regards and have posted the second half of my post her. For the sake of reference, a URL for my prior post is:http://forums.slcds.info/viewtopic.php? ... t=30#p9468 --BL
Regarding the original topic and resulting responses, I can only say that I am disappointed. We are a community of passionate, creative individuals, and understandably disagreements will come up. However, the level of hostility that I saw was reminiscent of past times that I had hoped we had risen from. I sincerely believe that we all want to see the CDS succeed, although what constitutes success often seems to be the crux of the debate. As for the apparent stagnation in population, I agree with Dnate and am confident that in time, our population will continue to grow as we gain new residents.
Here's to a happy new year which brings health and continued success for the CDS and all of its citizens!
Best Regards,
Brian Livingston
As a CDS citizen, not as someone associated with a specific political grouping, I'd like to say that
I support Jon in regards to the following:
Jon Seattle wrote:Because the CDS is a democratic organization,
it will naturally attract both the supporters of democratic institutions and the enemies of such institutions. (...)
They can stand up for democracy or let it go by the wayside.
I am convinced that democracy-undermining methods indeed have been used in CDS politics.
Sorry, no positive line at the end.
Sincerely,
Sleazy Writer.