News at Eleven: Neualtenburg Government Grinding to a Halt

Now that I got your attention here is my rambling for today...

As you have probably noticed, RA attendance is low, and the posts on new ideas/suggestions/bills to be passed/etc. have slowly faded to zero.

Worse than that, we seem to face a very serious dilemma right now. We need "authorisation" to get lucrative activities into Neualtenburg - the building of the casino, the rental of the houses, getting a definitive answer on non-themed items to be sold in Neualtenburg, the handling of the new sim, etc.

These issues are a mixed responsability of both the Guild and the Representative Assembly. However, I've been told that Kendra is also "away", meaning that we cannot count on her being as available as before - thus stopping any interactions with the Guild. At least for a while.

On the other hand, to propose things related to the City's economy and vote upon them, the RA needs to meet, discuss, and vote. Voting has been a major problem - the last meeting agreed upon having the voting done by an in-world object tied into a Web page for full transparency and the ability for RA members to vote even if they cannot attend the meetings - meaning that the in-world "RA voting booth" also needs to dispense notecards with the meeting minutes. This is a major project, and we haven't a "volunteer" scripter to design it. This also means that the RA cannot decide anything for the moment.

Lack of decision ability also means frustration for RA members. The last meeting of the RA had exactly one member attending (since my own RL issues prevented me to attend as well ). We could argue that we should meet on another day. However, no other date was proposed/discussed, either on the public forums, or by in-world IMs...

So, the lack of decision ability also means a lack of activity. Except for Ulrika's buildings (the museum), and Catfart's scripting lessons (and my Tuesday Thinker's meetings...), there is no "activity" in Neualtenburg. Even "outside projects" - like the newspaper - have been postponed/abandoned.

However, the overall (external) interest in Neualtenburg has not really died! For instance, a new in-world game was recently presented to the SL community, and originally there was an understanding that it should be "shown off" in Neualtenburg. Since the organisation couldn't get a reply from us in due time, they contacted another group with their own sim, and used that instead. This is not really the first time something similar happens. Several people have contacted me to ask if they could do something in Neualtenburg. The lack of "proper channels" which ensure a democratic reply with transparency have prevented to tell them "sure, go ahead". My answer is almost always "I'll try to get in touch with the rest of the Government and let you know". Alas, I wish it were that simple...

Last but not least. The recent discussions on what we should do with Neualtenburg after May, 22th - Talen's suggestion being the best one so far, and the one gathering the more support - also have shown the fragility of our economy, and I seriously think that this has "scared off" some people. Meaning that we currently are going in circles. To get a strong economy, we need to allow certain things to be done. To allow them, we need to vote upon them. To vote upon them, we need both to meet and have a "workable" voting system which everybody agrees upon. To meet, we need enough people to be encouraged and motivated enough to attend and be willing to sacrifice their time - SL and RL - to come and participate. To encourage and motivate a large group, we need a strong economy with incentives for participating!

So far, I think we have managed to do all that we have done because of the following:

1) We had strong leadership by Ulrika.
2) We had a sim with generous people donating tier, which was enough for others to do the building/discussing without worrying too much about economics.
3) While the group has 60 or so people, and perhaps 15-20 "commited" individuals, the truth is, all the work has been done mostly by Ulrika & Kendra, with some notable exceptions (say, the church).

Currently we have:

1) No strong leadership since Ulrika has other pressing duties to attend in RL as well as wanting to "step back" for a while. And Kendra, as said, is "almost missing".
2) The "next step" for Neualtenburg is (probably) to move to a private sim, and while we have a pretty good proposal for dealing with that, the truth is, we need US$ for that, and probably a regular influx of US$ for a while, until Neualtenburg is economically viable.
3) The group has shrunk to a much smaller number - worse than that, the people currently still commited to the project, also have lots of other things to do, both in SL and RL. So, instead of trying to spread out the work among a larger group - each one contributing work & time in small amounts - it was concentrated on a much smaller group, which simply don't have the time/resources/skills/abilities that the "original team" with Ulrika & Kendra.

So, after thinking about this a while, I tend to agree with some concerned citizens that we need some sort of revolution

First, we definitely need to fix the "decision" system, and that must be done very, very quickly. We cannot deal with Neualtenburg if we need one month just to agree on one single bill or on how we should vote in a transparent way. What we need is an ultimatum-based system, with very strong "decision limit deadlines" - you either meet those deadlines, or you're out of the process. Some examples:

- the next RA meeting will decide with no matter how many people are present. If people do not like the way the decisions are made, complain publicly, slander us in the forums, overthrow the Government, but at least react
- since we cannot do a "transparent voting system" in a quick way, we'll use a temporary system until we get a scripter to volunteer time for doing a "perfect" system. Until then, we'll use the easiest way: a RA group and the in-world voting tools on proposals. This will mean RA members would be able to submit bills and have them be voted upon outside the RA meetings during a short period - say, 72 hours. Almost all decisions are done with simple majority, so either you vote during that short time, or you missed it. Tough luck, try next time, or resubmit a changed bill. The citizens will have to trust the RA to post the results for the voting on the public forum. If the citizens don't trust the RA on that, it's simple - overthrow the Government, get new elections, put a new group in charge. Democracy rules
- starting the next RA meeting, we will nominate "commitees" to delegate some work/decisions. Since we are so few, this will most likely be one-person commitees. They'll have full decision power to do whatever the RA asks them to do. If they misbehave or abuse their power, the RA will deal with that. If the RA delegates un-Constitutional tasks to citizens, the SC (Ulrika) will veto us out. Simple as that. If globally the Government is acting weirdly, the citizens can "move in for a kill" and throw us all out.

Some examples:

- Talen/Ulrika: dealing with the Casino - building it, setting it up, running it
- Sudane: probably dealing with the Museum, after it's built
- Appointment of an Assistant Guildemeister to replace Kendra when she isn't available. We definitely need an interface with the Guild, since all finantial/economic matters have always to be checked with the Guild. Also, we need an "Event Meister" - someone who is empowered by both the Guild and the RA to check with volunteers wanting to host events in Neualtenburg, set the timetable, etc. Again, the RA will only deal with this issue directly after we get too many "sexy avatar" contests or people turning the Church into a fashionable dance club for vampires. I'd like Pendari for that position, since she is very experienced in dealing with events (and is probably highly capabale of attracting more event hosters) but it seems that she's busy in RL as well. The alternatives would probably be Catfart (if he's willing) or myself
- Appointment of someone to deal with rentals - setting rental scripts, promoting the rentals, checking if people are doing things properly, etc. I feel that this has to be a "paid" job (it's really tough), and this also means that we need to get in touch with the City Treasury to sponsor that position. I would be able to "sponsor" L$ 500 a week for that job if we can't get an agreement with the City Treasury (since, once more, this is dependent on the Guild being able to consider that proposal)
- Finally, we have to deal with the issue of the private sim. My feelings are that Talen is currently the more prepared among us to do so. However, as Talen pointed out, if this is the "way to go", we have some time to prepare the "move" - it's pointless to do it too early.

Is this a "takeover"? A change of the way Neualtenburg worked until now? Well, please understand the purpose of my post:

- it's a "challenge". If people are afraid that this will subvert some of the transparency of the process, well, the answer is simple: voice your opinion or even overthrow the current Government! If we get 5 or 6 people "angry" enough to shout "no, you're doing everything wrong, we should handle it like we originally thought/planned, everything else is a travesty of what Neualtenburg really is" - I'll be doing somersaults of joy! This would mean more participation, and quite likely an influx of "new blood" of citizens willing to get the Projekt going again at full speed.
- it's also a "solution". If this post doesn't re-awaken the original spirit of Neualtenburg - a willingness to do wonderful stuff - at least it will allow the Projekt to go through the current very difficult phase. Our success or failure will be judged by the citizens later - but "inactivity" is always a failure, and a pretext for postponing decisions.

So. That was a big post. Sorry for writing so much Comments are not only encouraged and welcome, they're required

Bravo, Gwyn! You have my complete support for these measures.

These are urgent issues if the vision which created Neualtenburg is to survive. Yes, some might be drastic. But we must have the dedicated participation of at least a few committed individuals, week in and week out, or Neualtenburg is history.

A further refinement of the financial issue perhaps. (Sorry, if I keep coming back to this.) Since finances are so obviously central to the survival of an economic enterprise, I propose that a representative of the RA liaison with whoever is the Guild person assuming budget-proposing responsibility. And, please forgive me for my "chutzpah", I volunteer for that role.

Sudane

Gwyn,

Thanks for putting the time into the post. I agree with your concerns and proposals.

Regretably, a voting system is beyond my capabilities, There is no way I could improve on the group voting tools provided by LL. When a tool already exists that does 90% of what you want, sometimes you have to ask does the business benefit justify the cost to produce a completely new tool just to get that additional 10% of functonality. My view is that in this case, it doesnt.

I'd be honoured to take on the role of event Meister if Pendari is not available. Can the RA put together some terms and conditions?


In some ways we have the same problem as real 'old' towns. We have to find new ways to use old buildings designed for other purposes. A Vampire club in the church may not be desirable in its orginal context, but if it earned regular income? Its a similar situation with the restriction on the type of goods to be sold, can we afford to maintain that policy? I notice that the current land profile says come to Neualtenburg for the best in cothes and animations. Are we actually selling any of these? OK, I'll conceed the chicken hat is an item of clothing, but how is it related to Neualtenburg?

Sudane, are you voluntering to be the RA rep or the guild rep?

Would it be possible to publish the date for the next RA meeting on the forum?

Two relevant sections of the constituion help clarify things:

1) The RA sets taxation rate and the city budget.

2) The leader of the AC may veto a revenue bill or resubmit a modified revenue bill for vote.

Since it's clear that the RA and the AC should work together on matters of finance, I felt it would be good to have an RA person form a sort of working group with an AC (Guild) person, for the purpose of having a real consensus on Neualt finances, especially in this difficult transition. So, being a member of the RA, that's what I was thinking I'd volunteer to do.

Terms and conditions we can certainly come up with

Thanks much!

Sudane

At first, the heavy door screamed in protest as it was pushed open. Then it remembered its true purpose and flung itself wide with a boom that reverborated throughout the building. King Rat stood firm, one foot on the moldy crust as his subjects fled for cover. The dust riddled sunlight didnt bother him, and he was confident that his teeth would keep away whoever was invading his kingdom.

Sudane: The Representative Assemby demands the presence of an authorised Meister of the Guild.
Catfart: Err.... Their all out. I'm just clearing up these broken prims.
Sudane: In that case, you are the guild representative and your presence is required at the next meeting of the said RA.
Catfart: Errr.... Ok I suppose, can I clear up these prims first?

King rat and the intruder looked at the pile of plywood cubes. The draft from the open door lifted the physics enabled ones into a lazy spiral.
Sudane: No
Catfart: Err... can I finish my lunch?

Catfart and Sudane looked at the crust in front of King rat. King rat bared his teeth.
Sudane: No, we need you alive
Catfart: Err.. OK, can I put some trousers on?

Sudane and King rat looked at Catfart. With a squeak of terror, King rat ran from the table and into the darkness.
Sudane: Yes, that would probably be best, there may be pregnant women at the meeting.


Sudane, in the absence of Kendra, and anyone else in the guild, I'll take that role if the RA agrees.

As a complete outsider to Neualternberg, and therefore talking out of my butt:

Decision Making

> First, we definitely need to fix the "decision" system, and that must be done very, very quickly. We cannot deal with Neualtenburg if we need one month just to agree on one single bill or on how we should vote in a transparent way.

- this is a really important point; it's what caused the demise of a very "pure" democracy during the French Revolution years, leading to the Jacobean's seizing power and putting in place the Terror

Voting Systems

- as far as voting systems go; the best system is probably the simplest one. A system with lots of automatic stats and so on is probably invalid since noone except one person - its creator - is really in a position to verify that what it is producing is valid. It's unrealistic to try to suppress alts statistically "by magic".

If you want to handle alts, you could do one of the following:

- assume that people with more alts are more dedicated to SecondLife, in terms of time and financial resources; and allow alts to be used

- put in place some other form of control to limit alts; eg weight votes according to some kindof reputation system, or references, or L$, or something else

Having built my own system of voting recently, I can say that I opted for the former direction. Its much simpler; and simplicity is probably good. In the final analysis, if someone buys 1,000,000 alts to vote in Neualternberg, they're pretty motivated (thats 10 million dollars...). Chances are that if you found some way of limiting the use of alts, they could find other ways of using that money to influence the vote.

Azelda

Amen, sister! Now you know what the past four months have been like for me.

Here are some important things I've learned:

1. Building and running a virtual city is like writing open source code. Only a very few have the ability and the desire to write the code, a slightly larger number understand the process enough to provide insight into its development, and the vast majority are just end users that you never hear from. I think this project is a smashing success in that we've put together the first two groups but we are still lacking a broad base of users.
   
2. People will flow in and out of projects like water through a stream. As old members fade away, new members must be selected to take their places. This is why one of my bills is for recruitment.
   
3. Cheap publicity stunts and parties work. If you feel people aren't paying attention, schedule an anti-Bush rally or a German-themed dance-a-thon. That'll wake your members up.
   

I recommend not coding a new voting system. My voting system was just a bear to implement and I'd hate to have to wrestle with something like it every week. Instead, I would either just vote in person on bills where it's recorded in the transcript or use the forum polls for discussion and then a vote. Personally, I'd have discussions in forum, followed by a short discussion and vote in world.

I agree.

I was thinking that the city as it currently exists was an excellent experiment. What I would do is restart it, keeping those concepts that work very well (the constitution and government, planned city layout) and redo elements to attract more participants (larger, multiple themes, opportunities for work). For instance let's say that the project morphs into something called "The City" (as we often refer to Neualtenburg). The city could be a single private sim that is laid out ahead of time into several different themed areas (the center being elements from Neualtenburg). We then recruit members for the new project with the goal from the beginning being commerce, leasing, and attractions.

We could even invite members of Darkwood to help create a Darkwood quarter or members of the Neverland team to make a Neverland quarter. There could be a lot of interest in reinventing the project using multiple themes. I know Kendra always wanted a Viking theme while toiling away on our Bavarian theme.

This is the best way to do it. Do things your way until you ruffle feathers, then people will show up for a vote.


I think you are defining the role of President for the city. Once we find something that works, we'll codify it!

Also, I wanted to mention that I believe Pendari may have left SL, perhaps permanently. If the MPP can confirm that, they can promote Talen to party lead and bring in a new member to hold a seat.

~Ulrika~

Catfart, I'm still LOL'ling on the ground!

Sudane

Sorry I've been absent so much ::::blush::::: I'm in looooooooooooove.

I'd like to appoint Catfart as acting Guildemeister till the next vote -- with me serving as an advisor if that's okay? Maybe the RA can determine the validity of such a move?

I knew Lecktor offered to have a beer with you but damn....didn't think it would turn to love so fast I didn't evene realize he was a lesbian either....just kinda assumed it

I think that using an RA group for voting is an excellent idea. It seems to me that the biggest problem facing governance of Neualtenburg is the highly distributed availability of its governing citizens. SL is something we all do in our spare time, and we don't all live on the same side of the planet; between working around real life and dealing with time zones, it might not be realistic to get the entire RA together in-world for weekly meetings.

I feel its a good idea, too. Although a lot of sentiment was expressed that "face to face" meetings are really important. But, if everything grinds to a halt because of these problems, then using the forums for discussion and the group for voting may really be the best.

Now that I've seen 2 votes happen through group voting, I do see one problem. There's not much space to present the bill that's being voted on. So we'll need some structure on the bill-presenting thread for how the bill is presented, and a clear way to tie that to the vote.

Also, the group vote doesn't appear to identify who voted what. And if I recall, it was felt strongly that this should be public. We need an idea for that.

Unless there's a last minute groundswell of opposition, looks like we'll have the beginning of a Neualtenburg casino this weekend.

Sudane

Yes, my preference would definitely be for face-to-face meetings, but my schedule has been prohibitive in that regard. We make do with what we have, I suppose.



Which is why I went to the forums to look up the full text of the bills before actually voting. I think we ought to formally number bills (RA Resolution #n) so there's no mistaking what you're voting on, but other than that, it seems workable to just provide a synopsis in the group vote in-world.



That is a bit problematic, yes. We might need some kind of voting booth, after all. I'll think about how that might work, and see if I can find some time to script something. It wouldn't be as nasty to code as a general-populace voting system, because it could simply restrict voting to the avatar keys of the members of the RA.



Viva Neualtenvegas!

ROFL on Catfart - should we nominate you for the position of Neualtenburger Kaspar (a clown that appears on German folk tales and marionette theater)??

Thanks for all the input, Ulrika.

As said, there is now an "RA Group" and the members of the RA have been invited to join it. BTW, oficially, all "RA Members" are now called "Abgeordneter" (after the name for the Bundetag's members) until someone comes with a better name for them

I fully agree with Catfart on this - the in-world voting system does 90% of what we want. The remaining 10% are mostly transparency - you don't get to know who voted on which issues, only the total results. We'll have to manage that until we can get a better system operational. As soon as all RA members have joined the group (please do so!) I'll roll out the bills proposed on this thread. There will be a large number of them for voting, and I'm planning only to give 72 hours for them to be available for voting. Discussion is still open at the forums, as proposed.

Ulrika, I generally agree upon most of your ideas, but I have some doubts on the "thematic expansion" of Neualtenburg. I'd suggest to postpone that until we can at least make sure that we can manage the "core" of Neualtenburg. Even on a private sim, there won't be so much "space left", unless we want a highly dense city - but I'll leave that for the next government to decide

I was really to sorry to hear about Pendari leaving SL That's terrible news, and not only for Neualtenburg, but for SL at large. Ah well...

As Catfart pointed out, the "group voting" system solves 90% of our problems, but has a few disadvantages:

- no transparency, ie. people cannot see how the RA members voted (not even the SC and AC, who should be able to veto the bills if they feel the RA has overstepped its authority)
- the space for presenting the bill is very limited
- discussion is not easy

The last two issues are easily solved. Bills shall continue to be presented here on the "Bill thread" created by Ulrika. And discussion should continue to be done mostly on the forums (where everybody is able to throw in ideas/comments) but the RA will meet every Sunday at 10 AM PST in the Senate, for a faster exchange of ideas/opinions. If there is a quorum, we'll do "instantaneous voting" in-world; if not, the RA members who are present will discuss the bills proposed, and launch another in-world voting proposal through the group mechanisms.

The first issue will have to rely upon the credibility of the RA members and a trust that they'll be announcing their intentions publicly or privately, but really, this mechanism is not "good enough" to allow for full transparency as voiced by some RA members (Talen and Roberta, if I'm not mistaken). It should be considered a "temporary measure" until we can find something more appropriate.

In any case, I think that at least we have now a mechanism who prevents us from a standstill! Bills have been proposed, reviewed, and voted upon; the least we'll have is a casino this upcoming weekend, and probably start the propriety rental mechanism very soon. Both are very important issues for the finantial survival of Neualtenburg. A third item - the way we deal with sales in Neualtenburg sales - needs much more discussion, and I would like to ask some of the Guild members who aren't currently at the RA to participate on the upcoming RA meeting next Sunday (Feb 20th) to give us some thoughts on the sales, as well as to propose/suggest/discuss ideas on the forums.

The biggest issues we need to discuss are:

- what sales mechanisms shall be allow beyond the official vendor? Currently, the Neualtenburg project is based upon the idea of discreet vendors who do the taxation automatically. Ulrika is working on an open source version of web-based SL-commerce like SL Exchange, SL Boutique or SecondServer. Should we have more mechanisms for increasing the offerings?
- we have too little Neualtenburg-themed items (but most are of extremely high quality). The success of the Chicken Hat was mostly due to its "official presentation" at the Oktoberfest. So perhaps we need a few more "outstanding items" and organize a large-scale event to promote them! Or should we allow
- should we "reserve" some of the proprieties to allow for shops in Neualtenburg, not tied to the "official" vendors? An example: make the houses around the Marktplatz "commercial areas" where people can set up shop.

I think I'll have suggestions for those ideas on the "bills" thread...

Time?

Sudane, you have mail.

I'm sorry, I've been INSANELY busy in my first life recently.. I've had only time to make like.. a post once every few days on the forums.. But hopefully it should be a little better soon, if not now.