Constitutional Amendment needed - citizenship applications

[sedge]

As you may have realised, both myself and CG are stepping back from day to day involvement in the region. We'll both continue to do whatever admin work is required, but we don't want to have further duties. For that reason, we'd like Article 2 of the Constitution amended, so that we are no longer responsible for making the decision on citizenship status. It currently reads:

Article 2: Citizenship

• A: Citizenship may be granted to any person who has both a nation within The Rejected Realms and an account on TRR's forums.
• B: All citizenship applications are subject to a security check by forum administrators. Citizenship applications are automatically approved if no security concerns are found.
• C: Citizenship may be denied or retracted by forum administrators for reasons of regional security. This decision may be appealed to the Assembly as set out in Article 3.

I don't really mind what you choose to replace it with - whether you task a specific individual with responsibility, a position (eg Speaker), revive the Council of 3, or do something entirely different. It's up to you.

[Guy]

I don't think a Constitutional Amendment is needed.

The Administrators could appoint people to do the security checks for them, report back, and the Administrators to make the final decision. If that works for you.

[frattastan]

That would still significantly slow down the approval process.
Also, they would like to see the Constitution amended. It would be unpolite denying their request

EDIT: Typo.

[Guy]

Maybe Amend the Constitution then to authorise Administrators to delegate this responsibility to another body. This seems like the optimal solution.

No existing position really is suitable for this position -- Delegate and Speaker are both political roles which should not be mixed with Administrative stuff.

[sedge]

Neither of us want to be responsible for making any kind of decisions on citizenship status or deciding on who is responsible

[Spartan Termopylae]

Things will still take a while, as we will likeky need to wait till sedge or cg log on in order to update masking. Or are you lpoking at changing that, too?

[sedge]

There's no plans to add more admins - I'll likely be on every day to update masking when requested, I just don't want to be involved in making the decisions on it.

[Guy]

Neither of us want to be responsible for making any kind of decisions on citizenship status or deciding on who is responsible

Fine

Then I see two options.

(1) Create a whole new body for it. How its members would be chosen is still to be answered.

(2) Make a new body composed of existing office-holders.

[frattastan]

I don't see a way to create a new body and avoid to make it 'political' at the same time.
Unless its members are chosen by:
a) seniority (that would essentially be a revival of the Council of Three ... without two members);
b) sortition.

[Christian Democrats]

Why not make the citizenship approval body the regional cabinet (Delegate + Officers)?

[Guy]

No.

Citizenship approvals are an administrative duty, not a political one.

[tupelope]

Why don't we just approve everyone who isn't sketchy and if the sketchiness of someone is in question some can just make a thread here and we can discuss it?

[Thought Transference]

Don't we need to keep sight of the issue of security checks? Even I can recall when someone tried to join using a proxy. Without Admin involvement of some kind, any number of games can be played to "load" the citizenship with puppets and thereby tilt election results.

[Christian Democrats]

Sedge or Crazy Girl can provide people the ability to view IP addresses; however, a new group would need to be created.

[Thought Transference]

Sure, they can. I was asking in the light of Sedge's post, "There's no plans to add more admins..." (post #7). I took that to include creating a new group with a subset of admin powers that would allow things like IP scanning and such.

[CrazyGirl]

Suggestion: could do it in merit-style, just a little lighter

[Harmoneia]

^I'd like that.

[Evil Wolf]

Well, being the only member that I know of who has had their initial application rejected and was then able to successfully appeal, I think the "reasons of regional security" should be openly given and stated to the rejected. It seems a tab bit overbearing that those who are appealing their rejection should be deprived of a reasoning and that others are allowed to discuss what may very well be outright slander and lies about them behind closed doors. Applications rejected for "reasons of regional security" seem to be equivalent to a permanent exile from the government as only one member, myself, has ever been able to appeal successfully.

[Christian Democrats]

Do we really need a constitutional amendment? Couldn't we, the Assembly, just by regular law create an ad hoc committee to do security checks and provide recommendations to the forum administrators?

To avoid contradicting the constitution, these recommendations technically would be "non-binding." In practice, the forum administrators always would adhere to the recommendations.

[Guy]

The Admins have already said they want nothing to do in the process.

[r3naissanc3r]

Suggestion: could do it in merit-style, just a little lighter

I was actually typing that in Fast Reply, having read only the first page of the thread. Then decided to read the full thing and saw CG's post.

I think a Merit-like system of admission to the Assembly (and thus granting of citizenship) would be well suited to TRR. It also complies with the admins' request, that they not be involved in the decision-making portion of the process (they would just need to mask approved applicants).

[Spartan Termopylae]

I dont get it...

[Goobergunchia]

Merit-style admission seems like a fairly large change from our current practice of admitting most residents that apply. If we're going to move to a system with a greater Assembly presence, I'd prefer to default to acceptance unless there's stated objections within a given timeframe. (From a security perspective, I'm also concerned about no IP review prior to admission.)

I also agree with Wolf to some extent that reasons should be given for the denial of admission. I'm all for keeping sources and methods classified, but it's hard to ask people to appeal without knowing what's being appealed from.

In the alternative, I wouldn't be necessarily opposed to changing what it means to be a TRR citizen so as to be an especially elite group and using a more selective process (ala the old Merit) that way. But I think that would be a large enough change that we should recognize it as such and not just as a minor change to the old system.

[Christian Democrats]

The Admins have already said they want nothing to do in the process.

So they're going to hand over the power to move nations from one group to another???

[sedge]

Nope. Will have to confirm with CG first, but it'd really depend how the process worked. If there was a Merit-style system, we would probably only comment to say if the IP matched an existing one on the forum, or was a proxy, and if the email address was from a throwaway account. (EDIT: Because zetaboards have limits on sharing personal details - it can only be done with a limited number of people, and we have far too many citizens to be able to share it with all.) If there were a Council of Three type body, we would likely share the IP/email address of each applicant with the members of that body, if requested.