Proposed Microplot Termination Bill

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Jon Seattle
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Proposed Microplot Termination Bill

Post by Jon Seattle »

Part of the purpose in establishing the tiny plot called microplots was to allow participation in the Neufreistadt community by mainland businesses. In this function they have had little success. An important aspect of Neufreistadt citizenship is establishing a home or business and micropolots are too small for any practical building.

1. Microplots should no longer be sold by Neufreistadt or by citizens.

2. The city will offer to buy back all microplots at the purchase
price and will retake possession of all microplots as they become
vacant

3. In future, the CDS will sell no plot less than 128 m 2 in size.

4. This bill supersedes the prior Microplot authorization bill.

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Re: Proposed Microplot Termination Bill

Post by Sudane Erato »

[quote="Jon Seattle":zs5ynu8n]Part of the purpose in establishing the tiny plot called microplots was to allow participation in the Neufreistadt community by mainland businesses. In this function they have had little success. An important aspect of Neufreistadt citizenship is establishing a home or business and micropolots are too small for any practical building.[/quote:zs5ynu8n]
While is surely has evolved to be *a* purpose of the microplots to allow relationship of mainland businesses, and while I would personally agree that this has not been successful and should be discountinued, I would strongly disagree that that was the intent in establishing microplots in the first place.

Microplots are tools with which to accomodate the broad range of ways in which citizens may join our community. Over a year ago, extensive discussion and debate, much of it centering around whether a renter might become a citizen, resulted in the action establishing land ownership as the uncompromisable basis of citizenship.

That presented problems. What if two partners wished to become citizens? They would buy a parcel, build a house, and find that only one could be a citizen. Unless, of course, they bought a second parcel, and that to be owned by the other person separately. They would have no prim advantage, cause of the separate ownership, so they were wasting their money.

Another example. A person hears about us, is utterly intrigued and entranced, but is already happily living at another location. Would love to become a participating citizen, but has no need of a house. Do we need to turn that person away?

Third example. A person with no money, but lots of time and a strong willingness to work, wishes to join. (There are many people in SL, in fact, who are on disability, for whom this is exactly their situation. One original member of the first RA could not follow us to the new sim because we were requiring land ownership and had not yet devised the concept of the microplot). Must we turn them away?

The microplot addresses all these situations. I agree with the problem of businesses... those folks who have purchased plots do not relate particularly to the NFS community. But on the more fundamental level, the definition of citizenship as land based, microplots play an essential role.

I would suggest that any move to abolish microplots be tabled until such time as the community can establish a new, fundamental basis of citizenship.

Sudane.....

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Post by Jon Seattle »

Right now we have Pel's admission in for forums that he used microplots to help swing an election. I personally feel we cannot afford to allow our democratic institutions to be subverted this way.

This bill, in effect, suspends microplots until we can figure out what we are doing instead. The other option, to allow these to be used for political purposes, seems to me to be a serious problem.

Do you have another suggestion on how to avoid this misuse?

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Post by Claude Desmoulins »

Whoa Jon.

1. Pel was aware, through his commercial contacts of other business persons who were interested in the legal and dispute resolution systems CDS makes available and the possibility of having access to those systems on their mainland commercial parcels. He encouraged them to become citizens. Since they already had land elsewhere, they weren't interested in large plots.

Running up to the election, there was one faction proposing a mechanism to apply CDS law to mainland parcels. As a member of that faction, Pel, I assume, pointed this out to them.

I guess the question I have about your statement is, "Where is the line between encouraging like minded people to join the community and electoral manipulation?" (BTW, all the microplot citizens Pel recruited are still citizens)

2. Why is 128 m2 - $0.96 US/month, the magic threshhold above which the system is sufficiently difficult to game? Is it because of land shortages? Or will a lack of smaller lots make the de facto threshhold considerably higher?

2.

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Yes, that basically summarizes it.

Post by Pelanor Eldrich »

I'm still in informal talks with Manus Financial (Midas Commons), Ponzi Corrleone (new citizen and mortgager), Zeus Zeitkin of Job Finder Inc (you can hear him on Phillip's townhall podcast), and Rak, the owner of the Democrat. You don't see these guys around much because they are running full time businesses elsewhere. It'd be great to have them own large CDS HQs but barring that, the franchulate bill may serve them.

These are all citizens or soon to be citizens who want something beyond the "trust me" business model. They value (highly) a working dispute resolution system. That was the thinking behind my failed commercial license bill. They hesistate, not because the microplot bill was unsuccessful as written, but more because the Judiciary has not proven itself yet (one case only).

By the way I don't feel I either violated the spirit nor letter of the law nor did I act in any way unethically. I represent business interest constituents in the NFS.

Down to the mechanics of "gaming the system":

So as far as electoral manipulation goes, what's the magic number? Ranma, I believe wanted 128m2. If we go with the equivalent minimum, USD that's something like:

$4.29 to become a citizen + $1.11 a month to stay a citizen

[list:3htiaoe3]Now you can still buy votes, it's just more expensive. It's not a matter of recruiting people because in theory these could be alts.

You can also do "no new citizen voting rights 30 days prior to election" to avoid last minute "bussing in" as it were.

The last thing I can think of is to also require verified accounts for citizens.

RL identity disclosure may solve this but then opens up the RL anonymity can of worms. I'd like to avoid that.[/list:u:3htiaoe3]

Keep in mind, the higher you raise the bar, the fewer somewhat apathetic and uncommitted citizens you get. Maybe that's a good thing, as it'd screen out those who don't have strong ties to the CDS. Just don't make it financially out of reach. I'd like to see something like this to make it difficult to rig elections.

Apparently I've set off a bit of a controversy. Well, I guess we'll have to leave bribing the Judiciary and other goodies until later. :)

Last edited by Pelanor Eldrich on Fri Sep 29, 2006 9:35 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by Patroklus Murakami »

In response to some of the earlier posts:

There are many ways the microplots [i:h52smujp]could [/i:h52smujp]have been used and Sudane gives some excellent reasons why we might have wanted the flexibility they afford.

But Pel's admission in response to Ranma:

[quote="Ranma Tardis":h52smujp]The current system of land ownership to be a citizen is best for our citizens. If Second Life Residents could become citizens without land it could be abusive. It could be used to influence elections. Also a group of outsiders could come into Neufreistadt and win a election and then use the power of the goverment to take the land from the landowners through the power of the goverment.
This is not a good ideal and should be rejected outright.[/quote:h52smujp]

[quote="Pelanor Eldrich":h52smujp]Actually this is a very good point Ranma. I used this tactic a bit in the last election. Several of my constituents are microplotters who don't spend a great deal of time in NFS. [/quote:h52smujp]

tells us [i:h52smujp]how [/i:h52smujp]it has been used.

For this reason the microplots need to go. They lowered the bar to such an extent that swinging an election by bringing in fairly uncommitted people became entirely possible.

I've contacted all the microplot owners in the last week to discuss this matter with them. I've encountered varying degrees of support for the concept from 'they're brilliant' to 'I like having one' to 'I don't care if you abolish them and kick people out'. The CSDF proposal is entirely fair to the existing microplot owners though, it doesn't affect their citizenship in any way but means that this tactic cannot be used to swing an election in future.

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Re: Yes, that basically summarizes it.

Post by Moon Adamant »

[quote="Pelanor Eldrich":114b3r7j]I

So as far as electoral manipulation goes, what's the magic number? Ranma, I believe wanted 128m2. [/quote:114b3r7j]

The 128 m2 is the handy power of 2 just below the 144 m2 that is a very common area for fachwerks inside the city. This has advantages too for future terraforming and parcelling in the territory.

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Post by Aliasi Stonebender »

As the original author of the microplot proposal, I can say with [i:10y8mzt5]utter certainty[/i:10y8mzt5] that Sudane has the right of it. Business was [b:10y8mzt5]a[/b:10y8mzt5] goal, not the primary one. I actually had the concept of partners much more in mind - is it right that a couple, who share land, should have to buy two houses merely to participate?

I find the "but 128 is more expensive" argument to be an unconvincing one, to be honest. I used to own the massive plot outside the walls Dnate currently does. In fact, it used to be two plots - I joined them together. If I really wanted to game the vote, it would have been a trivial thing for me to use that same money to buy multiple houses. The problem is, I would not be able to pool those prims without giving the scheme away - but [i:10y8mzt5]price[/i:10y8mzt5] was never a barrier. Land is not that pricey, and while notables such as Anshe Chung have said that the only way to be sure is to weight votes according to how much land someone owns, and I feel it is an entirely valid way to go in SL... I think the core of [i:10y8mzt5]our[/i:10y8mzt5] values is "one person, one vote". I do not think "you must be willing to commit THIS much money to ride" is.

I would far prefer something be done about the real problem of alts - there are several practical tests that can be done, such as demanding both avatars be somewhere at the same time and perform some complex series of actions that cannot be done while 'dual boxing'. There are ways to cheat even these, but then, I could be everyone but you. ;)

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Post by Jon Seattle »

I note that your argument is not against this bill but in support of some new definition of citizenship. I do agree that we need to talk though our concept of citizenship. I am glad to see that discussion going on.

However, there is a need for this bill in the meantime. In particular the idea that our electoral system can and perhaps has been undermined is deeply troubling. We claim to be a democracy. We need to close this hole now while we work on the next best thing.

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Post by Claude Desmoulins »

First of all, we do not know how any individual citizen voted.

Second, I am reasonably certain that the number of microplot citizens as of the last election was less than the vote margin. Therefore the electoral result was not in fact altered.

Third, if you believe Mr. Eldrich acted inappropriately, please be very clear as to where you believe he transgressed:

Did he err by recruiting citizens?

Did he err by recruiting those who shared some of his policy goals?

Did he err by enouraging citizens to join a particular faction or vote for one?

Your insinuations might have credence if the citizens in question had joined, voted, and then left. They didn't. As to their lack of participation, they were attracted by the possibilities of franchulates and the legal system. Both of these are still being developed.

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Post by Jon Seattle »

Of course we do not know how the microplot holders voted. As I understand it:

1. The DPU proposed a bill that made is very easy and very very inexpensive for people to become citizens. That bill was passed.

2. At least one DPU representative recruited non-citizens to buy microplots before an election with the intention that they vote for the DPU and with full knowledge that these new citizens would have limited participation.

Am I right in understanding that this approach is perfectly fine for you? Does your party intend to use this strategy again in the next election?

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Post by Patroklus Murakami »

[quote="Claude Desmoulins":xyituhie]First of all, we do not know how any individual citizen voted.

Second, I am reasonably certain that the number of microplot citizens as of the last election was less than the vote margin. Therefore the electoral result was not in fact altered.

Third, if you believe Mr. Eldrich acted inappropriately, please be very clear as to where you believe he transgressed:

Did he err by recruiting citizens?

Did he err by recruiting those who shared some of his policy goals?

Did he err by enouraging citizens to join a particular faction or vote for one?

Your insinuations might have credence if the citizens in question had joined, voted, and then left. They didn't. As to their lack of participation, they were attracted by the possibilities of franchulates and the legal system. Both of these are still being developed.[/quote:xyituhie]

Claude, you're in a fairly sticky situation here. I don't think you're really in a position to play the 'what exactly are you insinuating?' card in an attempt to gain the moral high ground.

Read Pel's response to Ranma, quoted in my post earlier in this thread and ask yourself:

Am I really 100% A-OK with this?

Can I really support the continued existence of microplots?

I think you're an honourable man so I really doubt the answer you'll reach on both of these questions is 'yes'.

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Post by Sudane Erato »

[quote="Patroklus Murakami":1zjw05v6]
Am I really 100% A-OK with this?

Can I really support the continued existence of microplots?

I think you're an honourable man so I really doubt the answer you'll reach on both of these questions is 'yes'. [/quote:1zjw05v6]
Pat, I know you're asking your question of Claude. But I'll tell you my anwers. They are "Yes" and "Yes". Sadly, I had to answer the same questions before... a year ago before... when the exact same issue came up. Ulrika caused an horrific firestorm of negativity by claiming that one citizen had voted twice in the election, and that therefore one must be an alt of the other. The insuations of fraud were horrible... totally damaging to the community... and utterly unfounded. She continued to attack me particularly regarding my stand on this issue, and I've certainly not changed it here. The fact turned out to be that two citizens shared the same IP address... in fact, they were RL husband and wife... not a huge surprise.

If LL cannot fully and definitely determine who is an alt and who is not, we certainly cannot. I maintain that this is simply a risk that we must take... we cannot in any way legislate away the problem. If one citizen is revealed to be an alt of another, they should be immediately banned for violating the essence and trust of our community. But there is no way that tests for "alt-ness" can be built into our legal system.

Because, indeed, it will lead to just the kind of accusations being leveled against Pel right now. Sure, these are not alts. But his relationships with the people who have purchased microplots have been utterly legitimate and unconnected to politics. If he urged them to vote a certain way... thats his right. I've already said, I don't feel that the use of microplots to legitimize an SL buisness under NFS law necessarily works very well, and should probably be ended. But to accuse Pel of manipulating the election thru microplot owners, and, thus, proposing to abolish microplots throws a brick at the computer in order to fix it. And... it does so based on a judgment of Pel's behavior which is highly debatable.

Sudane.....

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Post by Claude Desmoulins »

[quote="Patroklus Murakami":2r2fx6q4][
Read Pel's response to Ranma, quoted in my post earlier in this thread and ask yourself:

Am I really 100% A-OK with this?
[/quote:2r2fx6q4]

No I don't feel entirely comfortable with it, but where is the line to be drawn? Shall it be illegal for faction members to recruit new citizens? Shall it be forbidden for faction members to electioneer those who have been citizens less than x weeks/months? Until someone at the very least makes clear to me the precise point at which they believe Pel "crossed the line", it's difficult for me to condemn what happened.

The RL analogy I see here is the voter registration drive. In the US, you must complete a voter registration process a certain number of days before participating in an election . Often, political parties hold voter registration events where they encourage people to register to vote. Often the location of such an event means in fact that a majority of those registered will have common political interests with the party doing the registering.

[quote:2r2fx6q4]
Can I really support the continued existence of microplots?
[/quote:2r2fx6q4]

I can, given that raising the lower limit to 128 just makes the microplots slightly less micro. I may well vote for the bill we're discussing, but I do not do so under any illusion that passing it will make our system less susceptible to manipulation in any meaningful way.

There are at least half a dozen citizens who hold non micro plots, yet are not what one would call especially civically active. Are they OK because they pay more?

[quote:2r2fx6q4]
I think you're an honourable man so I really doubt the answer you'll reach on both of these questions is 'yes'.[/quote:2r2fx6q4]

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Post by Jon Seattle »

Sudane:

1. This bill, and the problem I have with microplot situation has nothing to do with alts. I am not at all sure how alts figure into this.

2. I get the impression that you have not read what Pel wrote and the surrounding thread. No one is accusing him of anything other than what he admitted in that thread.

I would like to make an additional point. This bill it not about accusations or punishing anyone. It is meant to close the door on possible abuse until we can figure out a better way to address the problem. IF we can recognize that this is a problem.

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