It seems like his main point is that a law shouldn't be allowed to dictate whether a political party is disbanded. Which is 100% correct in any modern democracy. Low activity means the party is inactive. It's not the government's place to say that the party is dissolved because of that inactivity though.

A political party can be inactive but still exist: indeed though, its subforum shouldn't necessarily be kept live in that event. The party can exist without a subforum. Unless I'm mistaken, you're saying that you want to know what we should do about inactive political party subforums. Subforums should be archived if a quantifiable activity quota isn't meant.

Thank you. And, ideally, the forums would be archived.

My response remains that such a reading of the proposal is a clear misunderstanding of what I've been proposing and the intention of the law. I'm happy to rework the law, but let's dispense with this idea that this law is intended to outlaw something.

-tsunamy
[forum admin]

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Like I said before Tsu, I think the wording isn't really reflecting what you're wanting to propose. The language does say that parties will be dissolved, rather than that parties will just lose lose their subforum privileges.

And some here seem to advocating for that, so it's a bit worrying.


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Like I said before Tsu, I think the wording isn't really reflecting what you're wanting to propose. The language does say that parties will be dissolved, rather than that parties will just lose lose their subforum privileges.

And some here seem to advocating for that, so it's a bit worrying.


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Would the rewording above help that? 

Or maybe "political parties will be rendered inactive ..."?

-tsunamy
[forum admin]

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I'm not sure how prohibiting people from creating their own, alternative "TSP" forums is a contravention of either free assembly or free speech. I'm also surprised at your change of mind, considering how you responded to other people creating their own forum for TSP in the past.

First, you would have to be consistent and then also claim this same restriction for shared Google Drive folders, Discord servers like the MoRA server or the SPSF server, or even temporary IRC channels to collaborate on a piece of legislation. That's obviously silly. Or, you would have to be able to justify why forums are so much different than all those other media that they must be banned while others are not, and I'm certain you can't make a case for that.

Second, banning the use of other communication media to talk about TSP issues is not just unenforcable, it's also outside of the jurisdiction of TSP.

Third, if you made the implication I think you made, then ... that's disingenuous and you know it <3  

Fourth, while banning other forums is outside of the jurisdiction, their use can be discouraged by sensible legislation. The legislation that Tsu has proposed isn't perfect yet (which is why we're all debating it), but as proposed a good step in that direction. Extant and emerging parties won't need a separate forum or such, because our region provides them the appropriate tool for that kind of collaboration in-house (and, in fact, in a more convenient matter). Trying to add a section to ban something that can't be banned to legislation that already sensibly discourages that same thing makes no sense.

Fifth, the APC has wanted their own sub-forum for months, and TIL has already agreed to move. The two extant parties are on board as is, so ... what's the problem?

(The reason TIL has a forum in the first place is because we wanted a place for collaboration, just like the APC does, and Glen likes playing with forum software, so ... we had a forum. Why that's so conspiratorial is beyond me.)

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Fifth, the APC has wanted their own sub-forum for months, and TIL has already agreed to move. The two extant parties are on board as is, so ... what's the problem?

(The reason TIL has a forum in the first place is because we wanted a place for collaboration, just like the APC does, and Glen likes playing with forum software, so ... we had a forum. Why that's so conspiratorial is beyond me.)

I'm going to strongly encourage us NOT to go down this road. Lets just discuss the proposal at hand rather than pick at divisions.

-tsunamy
[forum admin]

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@Tsu: I would do something along the lines of framing all these clauses as prerequisites for subforums:

"Parties must have X members and be electorally active (tho I disagree on that) to qualify for a subforum. If a party fails to maintain these requirements for X amount of time, their subforum will be archived."

Edit: Also, just to provide some historical context here, because some are being very unfair to TIL and our private forums... We created our own forums because TSP administration decided not to create subforums for political parties. TSP's admins decided that because 1) parties were given the boogeyman treatment by a decent amount of influential players and 2) we didn't have any idea of how to create a set of standards without being accused of political bias.

As Roavin states, TIL has agreed to use a subforum here. We aren't some secret cabal meeting in hidden rooms-- our forum was created because we needed a place to organize, and we couldn't do it here without sacrificing common sense privacy.


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(This post was last modified: 10-22-2016, 12:20 PM by sandaoguo.)

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@Tsu: I would do something along the lines of framing all these clauses as prerequisites for subforums:

"Parties must have X members and be electorally active (tho I disagree on that) to qualify for a subforum. If a party fails to maintain these requirements for X amount of time, their subforum will be archived."

Edit: Also, just to provide some historical context here, because some are being very unfair to TIL and our private forums... We created our own forums because TSP administration decided not to create subforums for political parties. TSP's admins decided that because 1) parties were given the boogeyman treatment by a decent amount of influential players and 2) we didn't have any idea of how to create a set of standards without being accused of political bias.

As Roavin states, TIL has agreed to use a subforum here. We aren't some secret cabal meeting in hidden rooms-- our forum was created because we needed a place to organize, and we couldn't do it here without sacrificing common sense privacy.


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Can you make those changes within my proposal? I'm not exactly sure what type of reworking you're envisioning ...

I can verfiy that, as Glen said, it was an admin decision -- something I've suggested overturning in an effort to raise activity. While I can see the suspicion, the fact that the TIL is willing to move onto forums really shows no ill will or intention, so I think we can put that thought to rest.

-tsunamy
[forum admin]

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Here's how I would write this law:

Political Parties Act

An act outlining political parties and their benefits.

1. Defining Political Parties

(1) A political party is any group of people in The South Pacific, counting at least as many members as senior Cabinet officials, who organize together in an official association for political or electoral purposes.

(2) Associations for purposes other than politics, including satirical, social, or casual groups, do not qualify as political parties under this Act.

2. Rights of Political Parties

(1) Political parties have the right to exist without undue government interference, per the freedom of assembly guaranteed in Article III of the Charter.

(2) Political parties have the right to engage in coordinated legislative and electoral efforts, without fear of reprisal from any government official.

(3) Political parties have the right to conduct business in private, without the arbitrary interference of the government or arbitrarily being compelled to publish private communications.

3. Benefits to Active Political Parties

(1) Political parties that maintain an accurate public membership roster, and field at least one member for public office in an election per year, qualify for a dedicated public and private subforum.

(2) Political parties may petition the Chair of the Assembly for approval for a subforum. The Chair of the Assembly will verify the qualifications of the party, and if the party meets those qualifications, notify the Forum Administration to create the party's dedication subforum.

(3) Dedicated party subforums will consist of two parts--
(a) a public top-level subforum, where the party must post its membership roster;
(b) a password-protected subforum, which will have the necessary permissions to ensure non-members cannot read threads without authorization.

4. Archival of Inactive Subforums

(1) The Forum Administration will non-destructively archive political party subforums if the requirements listed in Article 3 are no longer met.

(2) Inactive political parties may petition the Chair of the Assembly for revival of their archived subforums, under the same process outlined in Article 3.

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This makes it clearer and I'm generally supportive, but I would really prefer we have a minimual number of people because, as written now, we could have a one-person party.

I don't think four people is too much to ask, is it?

-tsunamy
[forum admin]

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I think that still is perhaps restrictive, and might also be more so for freshly started parties. I'd say even three people could reasonably be a party. We could probably easily go full "Heap problem" trying to how many people constitute a party and never agree on answer.

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