(06-28-2020, 07:06 PM)Somyrion Wrote: My one concern is ensuring that Ministers don’t lose any of the control they have right now. I’m quite optimistic that we can make that work with the use of bots and category-based permissions, so I’m still strongly in favour of merging. I just don’t want to get into the mode of deciding for ministers what they really need and what they don’t while we’re combining servers. We should be making it as easy as possible for ministers to choose what they want and need, as opposed to saying “now that we’re remaking ministry channels, let’s limit you down to three channels because that’s all you need”.

I suppose technically there will inherently be some loss of control, but I don't think it'd be a deal breaker in any way. Changes usually happen just once a term during the transition period, and as I mentioned in OP, most changes are now window dressing rather than substantive things, and I see that across all three ministries - there should be a great deal of continuity as-is. Masking people can easily be facilitated with bot commands - in fact, it's the same thing as the !legislate command, which checks if the person has a mask and if so applies another mask to another person. Same deal, different mask.

Regarding channel limits, I know I've mentioned that in a backchannel previously but I've come to the light, so to speak - I don't see why a ministry couldn't have 6, 10, or even 15 channels for itself if they're all sensible and gated through selective visibility. I would still encourage ministries to take the opportunity to think a bit about what channels are actually needed, but if it's 15 ... then it's 15. For the most part, administrative comfort is less important than the comfort of the general user base.

(06-28-2020, 09:42 PM)Amerion Wrote: At risk of jumping the gun, this is being discussed in Cabinet and there is broad support from the executive branch to move forward with a unified server. The Prime Minister will have more to say about this in the near future.

Exciting! I'd love to hear Cabinet's input on this, particularly as this affects them most.