TRRMC Amendment - Take 4

[Guy]

Now that people are actually debating the issues (albeit on Discord, and albeit only after a vote was opened!) I think I have a better understanding of the issue and why we see it differently. People don't want to be allow non-cits to run, but want non-cits to be able to be "staff members".

And so, I present... take 4. Note especially new section 8.

1. The Rejected Realms Media Corporation (the Corporation) is the organization constituted by The Rejected Realms for the purpose of exercising editorial independence established.

2. The Rejected Realms Media Corporation is permitted to utilize the platforms of The Rejected Realms to carry out its operations.

2. The purpose of the Corporation is to publish media, with a focus on news and commentary, that is relevant to the Rejected Realms and NationStates broadly, through the Rejected Realms' regional platforms.

3. The Corporation enjoys editorial independence.

4. The Editor-in-Chief is the head of the Corporation. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for ensuring the Corporation achieves its purpose maintaining the Corporation's editorial independence and maintaining the authoritative record of Members of the Corporation, in regards to which they may add or remove any current Citizen with their consent, or unilaterally remove any non-Citizen.

5. Any citizen may apply for membership in the Corporation. The Editor-in-Chief must accept the application unless there are good reasons not to do so. If the Editor-in-Chief denies or does not accept an application within 14 days, the applicant may appeal to the Assembly. Membership is terminated upon resignation or loss of citizenship.

6. The Delegate of The Rejected Realms must appoint an Editor-in-Chief when the position is vacant.

6. Members of the Corporation may challenge for the position of the Editor-in-Chief in the manner prescribed for an Officer of the Rejected Realms.

7. The Assembly of The Rejected Realms may vacate the Editor-in-Chief by a majority vote.

8. The Editor-in-Chief may determine the basis on which non-Members may participate in the Corporation's activities, subject to the appropriate administrative processes.

[Gorundu]

I present Take 5:

1. The Rejected Realms Media Corporation (the Corporation) is the organization constituted by The Rejected Realms for the purpose of exercising editorial independence established.

2. The Rejected Realms Media Corporation is permitted to utilize the platforms of The Rejected Realms to carry out its operations.

2. The purpose of the Corporation is to publish media, with a focus on news and commentary, that is relevant to the Rejected Realms and NationStates broadly, through the Rejected Realms' regional platforms.

3. The Corporation enjoys editorial independence.

4. The Editor-in-Chief is the head of the Corporation. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for ensuring the Corporation achieves its purpose maintaining the Corporation's editorial independence and maintaining the authoritative record of Members of the Corporation, in regards to which they may add or remove any current Citizen with their consent, or unilaterally remove any non-Citizen.

5. The Delegate of The Rejected Realms must appoint an Editor-in-Chief when the position is vacant.

5. Members of the Corporation Citizens may challenge for the position of the Editor-in-Chief in the manner prescribed for an Officer of the Rejected Realms.

6. The Assembly of The Rejected Realms may vacate the Editor-in-Chief by a majority vote.

This is essentially an alternate option. Since we've already established that the staff list is meaningless except determining who can run for EiC and most of us don't seem to mind letting any citizen run for the position, it's better just to cut all the bureaucracy.

[Guy]

Alternative 2

This alternative does away with the concept of Membership, instead letting any citizen challenge for EiC. In return, the EiC has pretty much free rein over the Corporation's activities.

Given the degree of change, this is a "clean" draft, with changes not marked.

1. The Rejected Realms Media Corporation (the Corporation) is established.

2. The purpose of the Corporation is to publish media, with a focus on news and commentary, that is relevant to the Rejected Realms and NationStates broadly, through the Rejected Realms' regional platforms.

3. The Corporation enjoys editorial independence.

4. The Editor-in-Chief is the head of the Corporation. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for ensuring the Corporation achieves its purpose and managing the Corporation.

5. A citizen may challenge for the position of Editor-in-Chief in the manner prescribed for an Officer of the Rejected Realms.

[The Grim Reaper]

second Alternative 2, motion to vote

[BowShot118]

Seconded the Motion to Vote

[Minskiev]

Could the Assembly no longer vacate the EiC in Alternative 2? I understand that a challenge would effectively do that, however, while unlikely now, I don't think it's unreasonable to say that there might not be any good EiC choices at some point, and the best EiC choices may not want to run.

Additionally, I think that we should establish who can be staff. Thus, Alternative 2 Alternative 1 (or just Alternative 3 ):

1. The Rejected Realms Media Corporation (the Corporation) is established.

2. The purpose of the Corporation is to publish media, with a focus on news and commentary, that is relevant to the Rejected Realms and NationStates broadly, through the Rejected Realms' regional platforms.

3. The Corporation enjoys editorial independence.

4. The Editor-in-Chief is the head of the Corporation. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for ensuring the Corporation achieves its purpose and managing the Corporation.

5. Any resident may apply for membership in the Corporation. The Editor-in-Chief must accept the application unless there are good reasons not to do so, including security reasons, problematic behavior, spammy behavior, or otherwise general unpleasantness¹. If the Editor-in-Chief denies or does not accept an application within 14 days, the applicant may appeal to the Assembly. Membership is terminated upon resignation, loss of citizenship, or for non-citizen staff, loss of residency.

6. A citizen may challenge for the position of Editor-in-Chief in the manner prescribed for an Officer of the Rejected Realms.

7. The Assembly of The Rejected Realms may vacate the Editor-in-Chief by a majority vote.

¹ More suggestions for this appreciated! I felt that using "good reasons" was too vague.

[BowShot118]

Could the Assembly no longer vacate the EiC in Alternative 2? I understand that a challenge would effectively do that, however, while unlikely now, I don't think it's unreasonable to say that there might not be any good EiC choices at some point, and the best EiC choices may not want to run.

Additionally, I think that we should establish who can be staff. Thus, Alternative 2 Alternative 1 (or just Alternative 3 ):

1. The Rejected Realms Media Corporation (the Corporation) is established.

2. The purpose of the Corporation is to publish media, with a focus on news and commentary, that is relevant to the Rejected Realms and NationStates broadly, through the Rejected Realms' regional platforms.

3. The Corporation enjoys editorial independence.

4. The Editor-in-Chief is the head of the Corporation. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for ensuring the Corporation achieves its purpose and managing the Corporation.

5. Any resident may apply for membership in the Corporation. The Editor-in-Chief must accept the application unless there are good reasons not to do so, including security reasons, problematic behavior, spammy behavior, or otherwise general unpleasantness¹. If the Editor-in-Chief denies or does not accept an application within 14 days, the applicant may appeal to the Assembly. Membership is terminated upon resignation, loss of citizenship, or for non-citizen staff, loss of residency.

6. A citizen may challenge for the position of Editor-in-Chief in the manner prescribed for an Officer of the Rejected Realms.

7. The Assembly of The Rejected Realms may vacate the Editor-in-Chief by a majority vote.

¹ More suggestions for this appreciated! I felt that using "good reasons" was too vague.

"Good reasons" isn't too vague tbh, listing every yes and no circumstance would make this very bloated.


Leaving it all up the EiC works fine imo, and gives them greater control over the organisation beyond publishing issues.

I also don't see why the Assembly should vacate outside of a challenge - I don't see any possible situation where the Assembly chooses to vacate the position and simply never fill it. With Alternative 2 any citizen can run for election, so it's not even like you have to convince a TRTer to challenge a shit EiC, anyone can.

[thechurchofsatan]

The one in the OP is fine with me mostly, but if the non-cit applicants were to be required to undergo the same security check that people go through when applying for citizenship, I would no longer have any issues here (pending any new issues someone here makes with new changes.)

So maybe having section 8 say something along the lines of "pending a security check by the Citizenship Council" would be perfectly adequate.

Because the biggest issue in all this is that making non-citizens staff members means we have no assurances whatsoever that new writers are who they say are aside from "bro, trust me." And that's simply not enough.

[Gorundu]

To clarify for those who missed our discussion on Discord at the time:

What we established was that establishing a TRT staff had no legal meaning except to limit who can run for EiC. In other words, accepting someone as staff doesn't compel the EiC to add the accepted staff to the staff group on the forum or the Discord channel, and it certainly doesn't mean that the EiC has to allow said staff member to write articles. So since most of us felt that any Citizen should be allowed to run for EiC, we amended the proposal as such and decided to remove any mentions of staff as it no longer serves any purpose.

The removal of the Assembly's power to recall an EiC is also because of this change. The original reason for this clause is in case the EiC is extraordinarily bad and TRT has dwindled to the point that there is no one qualified to challenge them, so that making the office vacant is preferred to having the extraordinarily bad EiC. Since we now want to allow all Citizens to run for EiC, removing this power is in line with all the other elected positions in the region, where a challenge is the only way to force the officeholder from the office.

[Guy]

Additionally, I think that we should establish who can be staff. Thus, Alternative 2 Alternative 1 (or just Alternative 3 ):

The issue is that your text doesn't establish a staff - it just established "membership in the Corporation". No rights attaches to membership, and nothing stops the EiC from giving non-members the same right as members. So having it in law is a bit pointless.

We could try regulating access to the secure TRRMC areas by statute, but that will just be a lot of legislative text with very little benefit, imo.

Basically, I'd rather just go with my Alternative 2, and allow the EiC to determine how they run their staff (with the caveat that forum/Discord access can be yanked by admins in rare cases, of course). This is similar to how currently Officers run their departments.