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[Ashcroft Burnham]

[quote="Beathan":20wtpyz5]I don't think anyone is proposing anything like Colonia Nova separatism...[/quote:20wtpyz5]

Actually, somebody did once - look back at the old thread on the proposed "CDS Constituiton Act".

[Dianne]

[quote="Ashcroft Burnham":13dflwlf]... I wait in eager anticipation for the completion of the rewalling, which, so far, is looking good.....[/quote:13dflwlf]Sorry about that.

I guess in truth I have been feeling kind of hard done by lately about those walls. As I said in another post, pretty much 100% of the time that I now have available to play SL, I am online in N'Stadt fixing bloody walls or making Bavarian junk. It's hard to keep my spirits up.

It's just starting to feel like I am the last person left working in the store while the rest of the staff have gone to the toga party down the street.

I know that is not the case, I am just trying to illustrate my mood.

[Beathan]

Ashcroft wrote [quote:31hhf7p2]Actually, somebody did once - look back at the old thread on the proposed "CDS Constituiton Act".[/quote:31hhf7p2]

Tense is important here. As with most things, it all depends on what your meaning of "is" is.

Beathan

[Ashcroft Burnham]

[quote="Dianne":3kfvc8ec]Sorry about that.

I guess in truth I have been feeling kind of hard done by lately about those walls. As I said in another post, pretty much 100% of the time that I now have available to play SL, I am online in N'Stadt fixing bloody walls or making Bavarian junk. It's hard to keep my spirits up.

It's just starting to feel like I am the last person left working in the store while the rest of the staff have gone to the toga party down the street.

I know that is not the case, I am just trying to illustrate my mood.[/quote:3kfvc8ec]

I, for one, very much appreciate your walls and "Bavarian junk"

Are you interested in getting involved in the preparations for Christmas in Neufreistadt? I have been snowing some trees, and have commissioned from our resident scripter, Adam Hawthorne, a Christmas present scripted object that Adam has decided, no doubt in the spirit of the festive season (albeit somewhat prematurely, not that anybody is complaining) to give away for free. I notice that Sudane has put a Christmas tree in the picknick area, and I am hoping that Gwyn will be able to get together some sort of carol thing in the church.

[Gxeremio Dimsum]

[quote="Ashcroft Burnham":25wxi702][quote="Beathan":25wxi702]I don't think anyone is proposing anything like Colonia Nova separatism...[/quote:25wxi702]

Actually, somebody did once - look back at the old thread on the proposed "CDS Constituiton Act".[/quote:25wxi702]

That was NOT separatism. As I explained many times then, and will do again now, there are clear benefits to being associated and under an umbrella government. There are additional benefits to be had by allowing large degrees of local control and experimentation.
This whole issue of developing workable systems is especially interesting in light of Philip Linden's recent statement that he'd like to see users taking more control of defining rules and punishing rulebreakers. You can read more about that on http://slnn.com (shameless plug).

[Beathan]

I have reread the proposed CDS Constitution -- and it does not seem lke Separatism to me at all. Rather, it seems like a proper recognition that detailed government is more properly left to local government within general unity, provided by general rules and structures.

At present, with 2 Sims, the entire CDS is so small that the local/federal distinction does not have much force. However, if the CDS is successful, I think DimSum's CDS Constitution would be a more workable unified structure of central government. That said, I am willing to wait and see if the current system is too restrictive of local action -- although I do think it will prove to be so. Further, if it does become apparent that greater generality and simplicity is called for on the level of the CDS Constitution, I would propose to handle it by amendment of the existing Constitution, rather than by creation of multiple Sim and CDS Constitutions, unless the CDS grows so large that multi-sim regions come into existence.

However, even within the existing Constitution, I think we need local institutions and local control of some things -- both because those things are appropriately controlled locally and because local institutions are inherently desirable. We can and should start with land use and aesthetic considerations -- although we probably should also expand local jurisdiction to include local control of behavior standards and speech.

I have heard the concern that there might not be enough people left to fill local institutions because of our size and the number of offices available that need to be filled at the Federal level. I am not sure how this concern will play out as our population increases. However, if we create local institutions, as I think we should, we will probably want to ensure that they are staffed by either limiting the expectd growth of the Federal Govt (do we really need to add two new members to the RA as planned) or by staffing the new Fed offices with local officials through plurality of office (let the next two RA members have local office as well -- executive of local Sim and voting member of RA).

Beathan

[Ashcroft Burnham]

[quote="Beathan":8d32s6gm]I have reread the proposed CDS Constitution -- and it does not seem lke Separatism to me at all. Rather, it seems like a proper recognition that detailed government is more properly left to local government within general unity, provided by general rules and structures.[/quote:8d32s6gm]

The main reason that that proposal was separatist was that he proposed that each local sim government have its own local estate owner, which would effectively mean that the federal CDS would have to rely on the goodwill of the local authorities to enforce its rules: whatever the government structure purported to be, the localities would have, in practice, have absolute power.

[Gxeremio Dimsum]

[quote="Ashcroft Burnham":rh6ok77r]
The main reason that that proposal was separatist was that he proposed that each local sim government have its own local estate owner, which would effectively mean that the federal CDS would have to rely on the goodwill of the local authorities to enforce its rules: whatever the government structure purported to be, the localities would have, in practice, have absolute power.[/quote:rh6ok77r]

And the situation today relies on the goodwill of Sudane. How is this different?

[Ashcroft Burnham]

[quote="Gxeremio Dimsum":1me7ewq0]And the situation today relies on the goodwill of Sudane. How is this different?[/quote:1me7ewq0]

Because Sudane is not politically invested in the same way that local estate owners would be; she does not have the incentives to ignore the decisions of central government that locally-minded estate owners would have. See my earlier post "on enforcability" for details.

[Beathan]

I have been greatly impressed by Sudane, but I am concerned by the centralization of ownership in a single person. What if Sudane is replaced by a person without goodwill? What if something happens to Sudane, or to her account?

Dispersion of Ownership might make good sense, potentially preserving some or most of CDS space from disasters. Additionally, allowing such dispersion could give us recruitment benefits -- allowing us to recruit existing Sims into the CDS without requiring that Sim owners sacrifice the effort they put into their Sims before joining the CDS.

Beathan

[Claude Desmoulins]

The question regarding one vs. many estate owners comes down to this:
Do you want to trust one person or many people? If you trust one, that one person could sink the whole ship. If you trust many, there's a greater likelihood that one of them won't live up to that trust, but the damage of that breach is proportionately less. Do we wish to concentrate our risk, or spread it?

[Ashcroft Burnham]

[quote="Beathan":1hhfjbhr]I have been greatly impressed by Sudane, but I am concerned by the centralization of ownership in a single person. What if Sudane is replaced by a person without goodwill? What if something happens to Sudane, or to her account?

Dispersion of Ownership might make good sense, potentially preserving some or most of CDS space from disasters. Additionally, allowing such dispersion could give us recruitment benefits -- allowing us to recruit existing Sims into the CDS without requiring that Sim owners sacrifice the effort they put into their Sims before joining the CDS.

Beathan[/quote:1hhfjbhr]

Look at my posts "on enforcement" and "on stability" for an explanation of why relying on goodwill for co-operation in resolving potential conflicts between local and national government is dangerously flawed.

Pelanor has some far more sophisticated ideas about how to deal with the estate owner issue that prevent de facto seperatism without us needing to have an infinite supply of Sudanes.

[Desmond Shang]

[quote="Ashcroft Burnham":w7alymqx][quote="Gxeremio Dimsum":w7alymqx]And the situation today relies on the goodwill of Sudane. How is this different?[/quote:w7alymqx]

Because Sudane is not politically invested in the same way that local estate owners would be; she does not have the incentives to ignore the decisions of central government that locally-minded estate owners would have. See my earlier post "on enforcability" for details.[/quote:w7alymqx]

Just a side comment here, which might be... interesting.

I have a variety of landholders in Caledon; very roughly:

- On the order of ten people that are deeply involved (enough to temporarily disrupt the profitability of at least one sim if they left) and,

- On the order of 100 people (actually more) that are very lightly involved, but combined, I'd be in deeper, longer term trouble if they all one day left.

Note that I said people, not avatars - sometimes it's not easy to know who has what unless you know the 'alts'. I usually know who these are, but not always.

Now, back to the point. I see a lot of differences not as regional per se (Neufreistadt/Colonia Nova), but largely in terms of how deeply someone is involved financially. These two groups often (naturally?) have very different sets of interests.

You can imagine where many of the well-to-do content creators are in such a scenario, and where new people are in contrast. Issues like sim price hikes, copybot &c (or even *knowing* of such issues!) make for some very different interests and needs.

While most people think I have a relatively free hand in my own sims, consider this: it *feels* to me like I'm constantly trying to strike a rational balance between a House of Lords and a House of Commons with every decision I make.

I'm sure there is some legislation or something to water this down in your CDS, but I suspect the wealth/investment issue will eventually loom larger than any regional differences you may have.