Peripatetic

[symokurka]

I thank all citizens who voted SP and me personally. It's a big challenge for a newbie like me, and I'll try to do my best.

Until the end of February I'll be walking around Colonia Nova Forum every Friday 10:00 PM to 11:00 PM to listen to citizens' wishes, dreams, feelings and to chat with them, give advices and get advices.
This very ancient peripatetic philosophical approach to SL is a test to see if it still works after 2500 years. I do not promise I'll keep on doin that. And it is open to all good willing RA members, ofcourse.

Best wishes to all.
S.

[Justice Soothsayer]

Congratulations to Symo and the other newly elected members of the RA. Keep on walkin!

[Arria Perreault]

In case I don't meet you in your peripatetic walks, I will tell you in this forum what are my expectations regarding your position.

First I expect that you deeply change CDS and make the realization of projects possible. Now every project is blocked and cannot be achieved. Every enthousiast person sees barriers on her/his path. The problem of the CDS is a terrible neutralization of actions. I was told that my projects are interesting, but that they don't fit our laws! Too bad! I think that the mesopotamian king who wrote the first codex of laws on a stone has done it to make life easier. In CDS, it's a kind of role play: try to do what is possible with our laws! I hope that you will be able to make a clever agenda and to resist to people who try to block everything.
Second I expect that you really encourage educational and cultural activities. The CDS activities cannot be restricted to land management and citizen entertainment. We need a cultural life. We need to encourage the creativity of people, citizen or not. When I say culture, I don't mean consommation of culture (like going to a concert), but creation. CDS would have been a perfect place for artists and designers, if they had good conditions for working.
Third I expect that you let the GMP discussion in the hand of the Guild. When I have proposed the Monastery sim project, the Chancellor has asked me to recuse myself, because I was in the same time in the Guild and in the RA. My advice is that you let someone else to manage GMP in the Guild, despite the fact that you have worked a lot on it, in order to avoid any blocking in this very important matter. I am ready to take this charge if the Guild agrees, as I have time. I am not anymore in the RA and I will not run again for the position of chair of the Faculty. When I have proposed the prims based fees (another thing that you will have to achieve or close), I have also deeply study all datas about our sims and I know the different projects of development.
Fourth I expect that you achieve the Monastery sim. The RA has voted it and the project is not dead. I am going to work on it again. My last experimentations has shown that the Monastery needs its own sim. The project is more than having a building and an exhibition from time to time. The Monastery needs a sand box and some plots for artists and designers. It needs also place around. It needs also more prims. A homestead would be perfect. But without a strong will, it will never be achieved. I wait since a long time to develop this activity which is also part of the visiting card of the CDS. Now I am studying all possibilities including moving outside of CDS, in an other community where I can get a homestead. There is no taboo and I will not wait too long. I am not threatening CDS to leave, but I have to set priorities. If the CDS will not help the Monastery to develop, the Monastery must find its own way.
Fifth I expect that you reverse the evolution of CDS which is slowly turning now in a real estate organization. The last laws that I have voted in the RA were about land management. We have losed the vision of our founders and I hope that you will contribute to renew this vision.
Sixth I expect that you are very prudent with any project of joint-venture with other communities. As CDS resident of the second generation, I believe that it is not politically possible to merge with an other community without losing a lot of what makes (made) our community. I can only imagine that we accept people who ask to join us and who are ready to accept our constitution. I will observe the project AA, because this is a sign for me that we are evolving in a real estate organization. One year ago this project would have been considered as inthinkable, because of all political issues. But now that the vision is becoming very pragmactic and mostly based on land management and citizen entertainment, it seems logic to do it. I am against it mostly because it shows clearly what CDS is now.
Seventh I expect that you put in the agenda of the RA a bill to encourage NGO activities. As it is not possible to develop official CDS projects, NGO are the only living blood of the community. But they need some support to exist.
Eighth I expect that you enlarge the number of the people who can participate to decisions in the community. We need to take in account inputs of people and also why people are leaving or don't engage themselves in the community. I don't think that we can say that CDS is a happy community where everyone can find her/his way. CDS is mainly a frustrating organization. I hope that you will not only listen to people, but also hear them with your heart.

[Timo Gufler]

Third I expect that you let the GMP discussion in the hand of the Guild. When I have proposed the Monastery sim project, the Chancellor has asked me to recuse myself, because I was in the same time in the Guild and in the RA. My advice is that you let someone else to manage GMP in the Guild, despite the fact that you have worked a lot on it, in order to avoid any blocking in this very important matter. I am ready to take this charge if the Guild agrees, as I have time.

I have been also thinking about the setting but been yet unsure how to express my worries without hurting feelings of someone. Without the recommendation Arria made or having a substitute LRA during the meetings when the GMP is discussed the whole process of the GMP, starting from the workgroups and the New Guild board meetings and ending in the Representative Assembly meetings, would be lead by two active New Guild members. That, IMHO, conflicts with the advisory role of the New Guild (NL 6-2) and even conflict of interests principle referred by our constitution (Article I, Section 8 ). That kind of setting can open doors for accusations about elitism or even fixing decisions. Maybe that is not what we want...

After saying this, I would like to emphasize I have nothing against Symo since he is a talented and nice person and have contributed the community a lot that I appreciate. Thanks for you, Symo, for the work you have done with the GMP by this far and congratulations for your new position!

[symokurka]

On point three, which involves my personal past and future activity.

Is there a "conflict of interest" ? Well, frankly i DO NOT agree on this point. My job in GMP has always been totally volunteer, there's no money running anywhere in my CDS "interests".

This said I also think:
1) it's not up to me to decide whether there is or not a conflict of interest.
2) I hate anyway the idea of starting my term in an atmosphere of suspicion.
3) I therefore resign from GMP technical job and give back the GMP responsibility to Moon Adamant.

As LRA I do not hesitate to anticipate that GMP's political approval will be one of this term's priorities for RA. I therefore invite the Guild to have this in mind in work schedule.

[Timo Gufler]

Symo, it seems I hurted your feelings as I feared. I am sorry for that since hurting wasn't my intention.

About the conflict of interest. It's true that you are totally a volunteer and there is no money involved in that. probably most of people participating CDS are here not for money but for experience of virtual life. Still the concept of interest can be seen from a different perspective. There are probably many visions among our population how we would like to see the CDS in the future and to solve that problem we use democracy. Even if the issues are handled with help of democracy but still all the discussions are prepared and lead by a very small group of people they either intentionally or unintentionally influence the outcome of the democratic decisions. My personal observation in both RL and SL is that the role of the chairman is significant from view point of the outcome. I was once in a position of a substitute for the chairman where we made a decision which involved a lot of strong feelings about the vision and must say I failed to keep myself absolutely neutral.

My intention is not to create an atmosphere of suspicion but to help creating an atmosphere of openness. I believe we all agree with that.

[symokurka]

Symo, it seems I hurted your feelings as I feared.

No, not at all Timo. I just meant there's some difference in conflict of interest between Monastery management and GMP management.
But I'm ok with withdrawing, really, np.

[Jon Seattle]

I have seen people in the CDS, quite often, yell "conflict of interest". Symo's party won the election - and I take that to mean that the community voted to support his vision of where we should go. And frankly, even though I belong to another faction, I am very very impressed with all the work he has done to help the CDS.

Since we generally all volunteers there is no conflict of interest in the usual sense. No one earns extra lindens by being in the RA or by being a leader in the Guild. To the contrary, you get to work hard on a basically thankless job. So what is being said by "conflict of interest" must mean something very different.

Perhaps conflict of interest means "I want my turn!" I want to be an official next and someone else has the spot. But there is an old-fashioned term for someone who works for the community: "public servant". As a citizen and non-official (I volunteer on request for election work, each election, under the direction of the SC, but have no official role.) I most want CDS officials who will work hard for us and do their best to listen.

If other citizens want to get ahead in government, I am all for that. I think we should do our best to try to find a role and position for everyone who wants to contribute. But I also do not want the people who have worked hard and shown that they can do a job not have the chance to win elections. When someone is forced from office because of arbitrary limits, when the competition is removed from the process, all of us have to put up with a government that does not work as well as it should or where there is no reward for listening or working hard for the community.

Fortunately, in this case, Moon Adamant is truly amazing. One of the people I trust most in the universe, and incredibly contentious. Symo will do a wonderful job with the RA and Moon will do as well with the GMP. But I wanted to say this before the old conflict of interest talk started up again. As a citizen I want officials who will be willing to work for all of us. As an official you should be a public servant first and foremost. You can best get there by building trust, working hard, and winning open elections.

[Timo Gufler]

First, about the opinion about the elections... Jon, you wrote that Symo's party won the elections and that should be interpreted that our community supports his vision. Was GMP mentioned in the platform of Simplicity Party? Was there a public promise that if you vote Symo his visions will be made official by the party? Has SP become GMP or NG party? No, no and no. The party carried the candidate to the RA, not vice versa.

If someone thinks I would like to belong to the inner-circle of the New Guild, I can say that is not my motivation, anymore than to dictate how GMP should look. What I am worried is that you hear people, in our democratic state, talking they would like to have things different but feel their wishes are ignored, they are not been asked about anything, they don't know how to influence decisions or they see bringing their ideas like fighting against windmills. I would like to point my original post above. If something unexpected won't happen we will soon see one of our major plans, called GMP, will be looked after by the two persons who, according to my understanding, were also behind the original GMP and who will probably soon be on the head of all levels of decision making related to it. Does this look more like an open democracy or ... something else?

For me conflict of interests means here much more than only money. What you see in CDS and all over Second Life grid is that people have different motivations being here. Some like to earn money, some like to create content and some like to use power. In non-democratic land business all those three can be managed by a single person but in case of a democracy they should be shared by the people participating the democracy and kept as separate as possible. Is this really true in Confederation of Democratic Simulators?

Of course, it's understandable that after you have contributed a lot and are well-known and famous and have even streets named after you and founded organizations it may not be easy to admit you are not the ruler but live in democracy where decisions and plans should be made together. You can read about Ulrika, one of the founders. Somehow I understand her feelings. She created a lot and contributed a lot but then collided with the fact that she was not the only one on the wheel of the democratic nation. She burned the bridges behind her (both literally and symbolically) and left. Are content planning and political power as separate in our times as in hers?

I have lived in the CDS about three months now and one of those things that have been most difficult for me to understand is the role of New Guild. It has a great goal to be a center of innovation and creativity and it seems to have been successful in that and indeed has a lot of talent and motivation behind it. It has some level of democracy (called elsewhere "ad-hoc" democracy and "adhocracy") and has very central role in the content creation of the CDS. Still if you look around our area you see a lot of beautiful creations the non-NG residents have build only for joy of creation and many of those creators are still active among us. Have there been any attempts to get these people participating planning and content creation in the New Guild? Would the number of people leaving us quietly be smaller if we could help them to use their skills for benefit of the community?

Once again, I would like to make it clear I appreciate all the time and energy spent for benefit of CDS by all the New Guild volunteers, including Symo, Moon and Jon, and others outside of the New Guild. My home was once a good-looking prefab house build by Moon and I like the idea of GMP by Symo. I also appreciate Jon's effort for designing the New Guild.

[Jon Seattle]

I have little time and have to answer quickly, so I am just going to respond to one issue:

I have lived in the CDS about three months now and one of those things that have been most difficult for me to understand is the role of New Guild. It has a great goal to be a center of innovation and creativity and it seems to have been successful in that and indeed has a lot of talent and motivation behind it. It has some level of democracy (called elsewhere "ad-hoc" democracy and "adhocracy") and has very central role in the content creation of the CDS. Still if you look around our area you see a lot of beautiful creations the non-NG residents have build only for joy of creation and many of those creators are still active among us. Have there been any attempts to get these people participating planning and content creation in the New Guild? Would the number of people leaving us quietly be smaller if we could help them to use their skills for benefit of the community?

The New Guild is very explicitly not a part of the government. It was started as an independent organization, an NGO. It is a chartered organization, (thus its organizational document must be okayed by the RA) but it is regulated only to the extent that it carries out work for the CDS government. The New Guild charter does require the New Guild to offer the CDS services, but the CDS is not required to accept, and in fact may hire other builders or planners if it wishes. And the New Guild has had and if free to do non-governmental projects.

The New Guild is also privately funded from donations and pays for its own space in the CDS. If offers its services at no charge to the CDS government, though at times builders have been offered token payments in exchange for IP rights. (As far as I know all CDS builders have turned down that offer.)

And yes! The New Guild always does try to involve people, but of course there will always be excellent builders who choose not to join. It is open to all citizens and welcomes everyone. In-world meetings can be rather long and some builders will be more interested spending that time building. (I quite understand that!)

There are a few roles in the guild that might conflict with government responsibilities -- specifically the committee of the NG that advises the executive branch on covenant issues. Thanks to Moon's work there is a well designed organizational wall between that specific group and the rest of the NG. But the rest NG functions more like an open professional association.

All of the CDS planning that has been done by the NG has been done on an advisory basis as a service to the community. The NG has no power to make decisions. All of the plans, at the level of a sim or the grand plan Symo put together with many others are offered to the RA and the executive branch to approve or disapprove or to ask for changes (as they have indeed done from time to time).

[Arria Perreault]

In a small community, ideally we would work together for the benefit of all. Infortunately there are many different opinions about what is good for a community. As there are few people and as these people are involved in different organizations (governmental or not), it is hard to avoid what is called conflict of interest in biggest organizations. It is a kind of paradox: we have to accept that people are involved in different organizations, but as soon that people disagree about solutions, conflicts of interest become a theme. That is the main lesson I had learned in the project of the Monastery sim. Now I am free of every link: in few days, I will not be RA member anymore and I will not have any position in the other branches. I will not be chair of Faculty anymore (this position has de facto the responsibility of the BAC) soon. So now I can work again on this project. That's exactly what I will do.
In the case of GMP, there are many expectations from the citizen and many different expectations. Some will a greek cluster, other will high mountains. Some will roman cities, other alpine landscape. Some consider that we have to build what is easy to sell, other will consolidate themes that are maybe harder to sell, but more challenging to build and to animate. Some will high density, other low density. Some will a low ration of public space, other think that a community needs public places. How can we reconciliate the wishes of all the community? There are some conditions to answer this question. First the wishes of the citizen must be known. There was a survey about GMP. You can read the results there:

http://masterplan.slcds.info/

1/3 of the CDS population has answered this survey. Some answers are really interesting:

How much more RL involvement in CDS sims would you like to have? People had to choice a value between 1 to 5. The proposition which got the highest value was: "rl-artists" (3,43). The second rank was "Non-profit organizations" (3,21).
CN residents are the less satisfied with their sim.
What would you like to get more in CDS sims? Here are all the results:

Make friends: 4,29
Have fun: 4,25
Participate in democracy: 3,82
Learn: 3,79
Art exhibitions: 3,57
Concerts: 3,57
Building: 3,32
Shopping: 2,21
Make money: 1,93

We see here that SL or CDS is seen first as social network and an entertainment place. The increase of the participation in democratic processes is also expected. Culture and education are also well placed in citizen's expectations. People would like also to have more opportunities to build. Expectations in economic activities are low.

This kind of datas give the direction. The next step is the design of policies in order to fill people's expectations. If I look at these data, I see that there is a place for more cultural activities in CDS. People expect to have more artists in CDS. How can we attract them? How can we give to people the opportunity to build and to be creative? How can we welcome people volunteering? I think that we are far from that.

To be frank, I hate to critize the New Guild. I am a member since a long time. When I enter the New Guild, I was supposed to have worked 10 hours to building projects. I had always the wish to learn and I learned a lot, with Moon and Jon, the spirit of the New Guild. But I was also disappointed. I had always wished to work on the building of new sims. I was especially wishing to learn the process of the "birth" of the sim: relief, terraformation. Twice I have discovered the already terraformed sim. In AM, I had only the possibility to build a small bridge. It was not possible to collaborate on roads. In LA, all the harbour area was already done. I would like to participate to the building of the next one since the beginning. I consider also that other NGO (or even indivuduals) should have the possibility to build sims. It is important to share knowledge, ALL knowledge. When I work in a team, I don't appreciate when a large part of the job is already done by experienced people, only because it's quicker. Sharing knowledge is accepting to work slow with people. Sharing knowledge is important in order to make the community sustainable. What happen when skilled people leave? I am not telling that skilled people will retain the information. I consider that they try to make things efficient. Doing so, they forget that people are here to learn and that they become frustrated when they don't get interesting missions. Having tried to organized courses in SL, I know that it is hard. I believe that people love to learn by doing and the building of a new sim is a great opportunity for that. GMP too.