A New Community in the CDS

[Sonja Strom]

Today I saw some unusual activity on the SL map in Al Andalus Sacromonte. I went to see what it was, and to my surprise there is a large church building being built there by a new community in the CDS, the Coptic Orthodox Christian Church of Egypt. It is located here:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Al%20Andalu ... 84/147/33/
They own the whole sim.

I said hello to the people there and welcomed them, and we met. To my further surprise they knew nothing of the CDS - its principles, government or community. We talked a little bit, and now they have some informational notecards and a sense of this area. Pip came along, and now they have also met at least us two members of the Representative Assembly.

First I am posting this to let the residents of the CDS know about this development, and to welcome this new community. At the same time I also want to say I find it frustrating having heard nothing at all about this Second Life community joining us. I want to do a good job as an RA member, but cannot really do that if I don't know what is happening.

[Rose Springvale]

I've deleted my reply to this nonsense post out of sheer frustration. It contains so many errors and intentional misdirection that I am simply considering resignation.

[Sonja Strom]

What errors and intentional misdirection are in my post? I have not said nothing more than what my experience was, and what it still is.

[Rose Springvale]

As always, i am more than happy to chat with you in world.

[Delia Lake]

I also went over to meet my new neighbors and watched them building their church. They seemed very nice and glad to have a home for their Coptic Christian group. It is my understanding that this will be a working church and they intend to hold services there. The men I spoke with most were pleased I'd stopped by are interested in our community and looking forward to meeting others here.

[Lilith Ivory]

I confess myself guilty. It might have been me who brought those people to the CDS. A few month ago I was exploring the german Sims "Apfelland" and there I saw a coptic church and two people who were going to have a meeting there. We had a very nice chat and I told them a little about Al Andalus and the vision of different religions living together there peacefully. I gave them a landmark and invited them to visit our community but in my opinion it was too soon to spam them with notecards . Even more as we all were in a hurry. I thought our Sims might be able to speak for themselves - and it looks like as if Ive been right

[Rose Springvale]

Thanks Lilith. Actually, the person who introduced me to amgadsef Anton, the leader of the group was RA member Wasp Thor. She and i both had several conversations with them about CDS and Al Andalus, over a period of several weeks, so they most certainly were aware of details of the project. The main limitation is that the leader speaks only german and arabic. Our friend and builder of many of the structures in Al Andalus, Marino Nuvolari(who actually transferred the land to amgad via private sale) has been working with me, as he is fluent in German, and he feels that perhaps amgad's fluency there isn't great either, as he's had trouble understanding things Marino has told him. We continue to work with him as we try to assist this community, and it would be very helpful if people who have concerns about the structures or other issues bring those concerns to Jamie and I, preferably via notecard, rather than try to correct them yourself. We have processes for reasons.. one to assure quality, but two, to protect people from harrassment. The Al Andalus covenants apply to this sim, and they have been provided to people in the Coptic group who can understand them.

As for the people, they are delightful. They have the support of the rl Coptic clergy, including Pope Shenouda. I do not expect a homestead sim to be sufficient for them for long, as the agent limit is 20, and many of their services have exceeded that number in the past. We provided an emergency "escape" from mainland for them, where they were experiencing many problems. Please join me in welcoming them to our community... and i'll warn you, if you join their group, their notices are in Arabic. It is a good lesson for us... as we have been requested many times to provide translations of our notices in spanish and german. Perhaps the RA would like to appoint an official position for this.

[Ranma Tardis]

They seem like nice people, not sure about their english. My german just stinks and can not read or write but can speak a little. My father forbid the speaking of German/Japanese in the home. When I spoke some german to him learned from my grandmother he gave me a black eye. You understand how attracted to doorknobs
Well if a non english speaker/writer gets elected to the RA it would be interesting *grins*
Good luck and I see the experiment is still in progress *grins*

[Jamie Palisades]

Hi Ranma. We have for *years* had RA members for who English is a second or weaker language. In fact ... I am not sure the CDS RA ever has been composed solely of native English speakers. As a global community, it's something we can be proud of.
Regards Jamie

[Jamie Palisades]

Sonja, I'm disappointed by the accusatory, finger-pointing tone of your initial post. No one seeks to hide anything in CDS. But as a community of volunteers, none of us spend full time providing daily updates to you, either.

As you know by now, the leaders of the new Coptic Christian community on our Al-Andalus Sacramonte sim are new citizens, with who we've just closed a land purchase. This like all such deals is publicly visible ... and will be announced in summary form ... along with OTHER new tenants ... in the usual course, within one or two RA meetings. Voluntarily, because there is no law requiring it.

Nor should there be. Please carefully consider how much work and immediate reporting you expect, or think you should demand, from your mostly-unpaid volunteer government. Yes, we try to inform all new citizens about CDS and integrate them. I welcome your help; it's great that you visited and met them. But to attack my volunteers in public, for not completing orientation by the third day of their tenancy, is fractious. (The lag is nothing new. People have been buying land in CDS for years, by "yellow map" sale, with the government only finding and orienting them later.)

Please do not cripple our efforts to keep volunteers, by starting out with public attacks on their diligence that assume the worst, before seeking any data. Most of us, including me, want people like Lilith, Sudane and Rose to keep working for us, and keep recruiting new citizens ... not to give up because they feel that their every move will be treated with suspicion and public complaint. That was the way CDS felt a few years ago, when the government mostly spent its time arguing amongst itself and ousting people. Let's not go back there, but instead, be constructive and mutually supportive.

Regards Jamie

[Ranma Tardis]

Hi Ranma. We have for *years* had RA members for who English is a second or weaker language. In fact ... I am not sure the CDS RA ever has been composed solely of native English speakers. As a global community, it's something we can be proud of.
Regards Jamie

They can still understand English, what happens when they speak NO English. Who is going to translate from English to a mutually understandable language and how would it be assured to be correct? Right now the meetings are in English, what will you do if there is a German only, Arabic only or something else member? No one is going to be 100 percent happy and this calls in question the meaning of the bills.

[Timo Gufler]

Good points, Ranma. In RL European Union has 23 official languages and there are almost two thousand translators employed for translating meetings held and papers produced by the commission. Should the CDS goverment have also a similar arrangement?

[Cindy Ecksol]

Good points, Ranma. In RL European Union has 23 official languages and there are almost two thousand translators employed for translating meetings held and papers produced by the commission. Should the CDS goverment have also a similar arrangement?

Oh, it's not really that difficult! I for one have been extremely grateful to Rose during RA meetings since the start of this term. When she's present, she alerts me in IM when some of our non-English speakers are having a difficult time following the discussion, often inserts translation of mysterious acronyms or shorthand phrases into chat as they flash by, and generally acts as the "go to" person for anyone who needs a little extra help keeping up with our rather intense and often fast-paced meetings. We have several residents who are fluent in German and English, and I can imagine one or more of them volunteering to assist those who speak little or no English.

Translator HUDs help too -- they're not perfect, but I've found that I can generally get an English translation that allows me to follow along in a conversation in just about any language, and if I know even a little of that language, communication goes pretty smoothly.

So I think I'm with Jamie on this one: we ARE an international community, and as we become more international, we'll figure out how to deal with that diversity. What a great challenge to have, eh?

Cindy

[Sonja Strom]

Sonja, I'm disappointed by the accusatory, finger-pointing tone of your initial post. No one seeks to hide anything in CDS. But as a community of volunteers, none of us spend full time providing daily updates to you, either.

As you know by now, the leaders of the new Coptic Christian community on our Al-Andalus Sacramonte sim are new citizens, with who we've just closed a land purchase. This like all such deals is publicly visible ... and will be announced in summary form ... along with OTHER new tenants ... in the usual course, within one or two RA meetings. Voluntarily, because there is no law requiring it.

Nor should there be. Please carefully consider how much work and immediate reporting you expect, or think you should demand, from your mostly-unpaid volunteer government. Yes, we try to inform all new citizens about CDS and integrate them. I welcome your help; it's great that you visited and met them. But to attack my volunteers in public, for not completing orientation by the third day of their tenancy, is fractious. (The lag is nothing new. People have been buying land in CDS for years, by "yellow map" sale, with the government only finding and orienting them later.)

Please do not cripple our efforts to keep volunteers, by starting out with public attacks on their diligence that assume the worst, before seeking any data. Most of us, including me, want people like Lilith, Sudane and Rose to keep working for us, and keep recruiting new citizens ... not to give up because they feel that their every move will be treated with suspicion and public complaint. That was the way CDS felt a few years ago, when the government mostly spent its time arguing amongst itself and ousting people. Let's not go back there, but instead, be constructive and mutually supportive.

Regards Jamie

I apologize if anybody feels like I pointed my finger at them, attacked them, and/or crippled their efforts. That was definitely not my intention. I don't even see how I did it, so if the people who feel hurt by me would please let me know how I have hurt them and what I could do to make them feel better, I will do whatever I can for them.

The suggestion I was trying to make is, I think if we are in communication about what is going on things can work better for everybody. This includes existing citizens, new citizens, and those participating in the government. As an elected Representative in the Assembly, I count myself among those volunteering in the government.

[Timo Gufler]

Oh, it's not really that difficult! I for one have been extremely grateful to Rose during RA meetings since the start of this term. When she's present, she alerts me in IM when some of our non-English speakers are having a difficult time following the discussion, often inserts translation of mysterious acronyms or shorthand phrases into chat as they flash by, and generally acts as the "go to" person for anyone who needs a little extra help keeping up with our rather intense and often fast-paced meetings. We have several residents who are fluent in German and English, and I can imagine one or more of them volunteering to assist those who speak little or no English.

You're right, Cindy, it's not difficult, when you have two languages and at least someone, who is able to translate between the "master" and "guest" language. The situation would get more challenging, if the population of the CDS represented more international set of languages. For example, if there were four equally big groups of English, German, Japanese and Italian speakers, and they didn't like to (or couldn't) use English as an auxiliary language (that would be quite probable), we would need six translators (English-German, English-Japanese, English-Italian, German-Japanese, German-Italian and Japanese-Italian). That would be exciting!

Anyway, it's wonderful, that the CDS is becoming more international. Let's hope that trend will continue to strengthen, although operating in one language is naturally simpler.