Hamlet, Ulrika, and Neualtenburg

I don't know much about Neualtenburg... my only experience with it was at Hamlet's event, reading some of the forum uproar over the Anti-Bush protest sponsored by the city and reading some of the background stuff at Ulrika's webpage. At the event a bunch of Neualtenberg "officers" were there with their name tags on, surreptitiously handing out Anti-Bush buttons and were asking snarky questions trying to get a rise out of the "Red Staters".

My personal impression - left of lefty!

Individually the few officers I've met seemed really nice, and even though I was told that they "hated" my politics, I don't feel nearly the same way about theirs - I already walked a mile in thoose pumps! ^_-

If you don't want your city to be seen as a leftist project I think you need to work on your PR and the way your leaders represent themselves. That's true for anybody in authority, their attitudes and ideas will always be seen as representing the group!

You can't have it both ways, you need to decide if it's more important for you to champion the city and diverse and inclusive - and tone down your public expression, or to be active in promoting your personal specific politics.

After all, this is why Bush causes the rest of the world to hate all Americans right?

Since I am no good with politics, I'll tackle this issue as an SL builder:

- Enable 'Select Only My Objects'
- Go into Object Edit mode.
- Drag a box around all of Neualtenburg.
- Click the 'Rotate' radio button.
- Rotate city 180 degrees to face the opposite direction.
- Voila! Neualtenburg is now RIGHT-leaning!

That wasn't so hard now, was it? Gives ya a real warm and fuzzy feelin, being all helpful and schtuff. ^_^

great post, Aestival! Thanks for your input You should think about working on this project -- if nothing else we need some quality builders!

I have to disagree ...Ulrika has bent on quite a few occasions and I've been more a thorn than ayone else on quite a few matters..I've even argued myself into compromise. You give up too easy and you need to be flexible as well. Leaving the project will not effect change...staying will

Uhm, Kendra, since when was Marx a right winger..?

That protest actually spurred quite a bit of discussion within the project Aestival. While SL issues will be the focus of the project, any types of events will be allowed in the city. Yes even ones that may deal with RW politics. Though I doubt there will be many of those as there are many many other types of events that we have planned and will plan.

I popped into the protest myself for a while. Even though it is not something I supported. What I saw was more a debate than anything else. There were visitors from both sides there hashing out issues.

I did not see the Neaultenburg title being worn, though some may have. We have since decided that even though we will allow a variety of events to happen in the city, when it is a controversial event, it may be best for those *hosting* the event to not wear the Neaultenburg title. Just because we do not want people to be confused.

No one person alone can represent the views of the project. We are all individuals within an experimental community. Mistakes and bad judgements will of course be made along the way. But we will learn from them and continue to move forward. =)

Ohh I forgot to add that besides being an Up-ist (Perhaps I should say that I value the rights of the individual to do what they like over everything else as long as it doesn't infringe upon anothers' right to do the same, and with as little intervention of the government as possible), I am also a Fiscal and Economic Conservative. I'll be joining the group tonight officially

Is that conservative enough for you? LOL

Arti

Edited fur Grammer

Uhm he never was --that was my point --it's more Ayn Rand --not Marxist at all.

Thanks Kendra! What I didn't say (but should have) is that though I was totally put off at first by those 3 first impressions, meeting and talking to folks like you convinced me I should make time to visit at some point...





... and yeah, I'm still fiddling with how to make good Meowth arms! (^_^);;

What I'm trying to say is that it's only human nature to make generalizations about the group from it's leaders. Especially if there's a few strong willed vocal and active leaders. It may not be fair, but it's gonna happen! If you don't want to be seen as "left leaning" you might keep that in mind...

You make a very vaild point Aestival. This is actually a topic I plan to bring up at our project meeting this Saturday.

Yes. This is causing me a great deal of trouble as well. To fix our PR problem, I think we have two problems to contend with, the first problem is my fame (or infamy as the case may be) and the other is libel in the forums from dissatisfied citizens.

To solve the first problem, I feel it would be in our best interest if I ceased all discussions of the city in the forums. This will require one or more people to continue to promote the city and its accomplishments in my absence. The next big announcement should be the ratification of our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Finally, we need to formalize immediately how to handle libel concerning the group and members of the group within the forums. Recently, I have been very unhappy with how our group has been misrepresented and smeared publicly by its own citizens without first seeking resolution through official channels in the city. I would like some proposals on how to handle this, so we don't continue to shoot ourselves in our foot. In the future will we simply file a libel suit? How do we deal with false claims in the meantime?

~Ulrika~

I volunteer to be the knee-breaking goon to stop the libel.

Great post Ulrika! These are exactly the topics under this issue that I had planned to see brought up at our meeting on Saturday. No reason we can't discuss it before hand, but I would also like input on how to handle similar situations in world. And perhaps those of our members who don't use the forums as often could lend some insight as well.

As a largely disinterested person, I think that refraining from accusing your "citizens" of libel and threatening to sue them might aid solidarity and improve your public image. But that's just a guess, I could be wrong...

I would like to discuss as much of this as possible in the forum, as I find in-world meetings are significantly less productive and the logs are painful to read. C'mon, you all know they're tough to read.

Also, I'm going to start deleting posts from noncitizens that are confrontational or accusatory in nature. I don't want our forum turning into another "General" forum.

~Ulrika~

If you recall I brought this up to you in the now closed Neualtinburg Constitution thread post #34:



Your response left allot to be desired, post #35:



Funny how now you see it my way but saw only to criticize me when I suggested another face on public communications. I still say that new threads should be reviewed by the group and appropriate changes made as to present the message in a clear, non-confrontational way. My suggestion that the originator of the thread to be someone other than you was right on the money.

This is exactly the kind of thing I have issue with you about. Instead of objectively looking at what I had to say you went into attack mode rejecting everything I had to say. Nice going!

I clarified what I meant in post #46 as follows:



Predictably you did not even bother to respond.



I can only assume you are talking about me. You have to take some personal responsibility in this. All you had to do was respond to my questions and issues regarding your post and I would have no reason or desire to publicly call you out. Once again you stood by your prejudice and bias views leaving me no choice. Is it really THAT hard to say “I may have been wrong and apologize”?

To be honest I am still surprised by your post. To be so closed minded about the sharing of information is sad and to say that “concessions” should not be made if someone disagrees with you is pathetic. You totally misunderstand what I am saying anyway. Somehow you think my view of Christianity is not inclusive in the sense that everyone is welcome. Anyway, I will leave it up to you once again. If you will respond to the issues I have I will leave open the possibility of me remaining involved, if not, I will not support the projekt.

You just don’t get it. Decisions like this need to be discussed and made as a group. To matter of factly say you are going to delete posts without involving others who are vested in this is of poor judgment.

I would have thought you would have learned something in the way everyone reacted to your deleting Ace’s thread. The best way to confront issues is rarely to cover them up, delete them or ignore them. Your lack of support for freedom of speech continues to amaze me.

I actually find meetings in world more productive at times. hehe.. But, since this meeting is supposed to be a "touch base" meeting, you are right that we should hash this issue out in the forums, and pass the word along at the meeting. I propose we start a new thread for this discussion though.



My honest opinion is that you should not do this. At least not for the time being. It was the deleting of a thread that started the Freedom of Speech thread by Talen. I think how posts like these should be handled is something we can discuss along with our PR problem. As I think this issue ties right in. Again, we should start another thread for this entire issue as a whole I think.

no post should ever be deleted for any reason. At best anyone acting like an ass will be seen for that ...at worst outside people watching will condemn us for censorship.

The latest:

I undeleted the post that I deleted. Sorry about that. I'm making errors.

Listen, I've reached my threshold. I don't know if it's Hamlet blog-o'-bias, the nonstop barrage of angry posts and ultimatums, or the late nights on the Constitution but I need to take a break from the project for a while, specifically the forums. I'll be gone for a couple of weeks. This happened a few months ago in the General forum as well. I was much happier for it. In the interim I trust you all to continue to move the project forward -- no need to check in. (Keep an eye on Talen and the Artisanal branch for me.)

I'm going to focus on finishing some structures for the city and a big old animation for Kendra's secret project over on my own land in solitude. Tschau!

/me hangs a gone fishing sign on her door and splits.

~Ulrika~

*Hugs* Ulrika! If anyone deserves a break it is you! You and Kendra have set a good enough foundation that I think we can hold down the fort for you to get some R&R. I do hope to see you in world some. I'll send you logs from any meetings too. You don't have to read them till you are ready though. Have some fun and hope to see you in the city pub for a drink soon!

Very nice... when the going gets tough... the tough... um... run away.

Talen, I tried and gave it one more shot but as you can see Ulrika has no interest in anything but herself. I gave her yet another chance to address my issues and again the answer was silence. Nice leadership qualities there Ulrika. Good luck to you all once again but until my concerns are acknowledged and/or addressed I cannot in good conscious continue to be involved.

BTW, I would take this opportunity to let someone level headed and less controversial like Pendare take the lead for good if you are to have any chance of pulling this together.

well I for one think this sucks. This project is your child Ulrika...and ours ...and even though our poor lil retarded child is being abused by the outside we can't let the conspiracy theorists and asshats bring it down. I know you are trying to do whats best for the project and its not easy when you're taking the largest hits over the project plus putting up with all the government arguements. I understand if you need a break ...but it be nice to keep you up to date and get your opinions...possibly via e mail.

People are going to throw all they have at this project no matter if you have a break or not and when you come back they'll still be throwing...just remember were here to take the hits too.