Last Month of Wittenberg: April-May 2015

On April 16th, Txosuè Éiric Rôibeardescù created a civil service thread reminding people that there is a post in the Royal Household section of Witt.

On April 19th, like almost every other Sunday, Beric’th Talossan was published, this time Issue 26. The next morning, Secretary of State Marti-Pair Furxheir, after reading an article which highlighted errors in the Clark calculations frantically posted 4 consecutive messages first expressing confusion on the matter, then 8 minutes later showing he had understood the error, and 5 mire minutes  later, that the technical issue was fixed. 6 more minutes later, he completed rejected culpability over the error, instead blaiming the author of those parts of the organic law:

So I guess the author of Section 11 of Article V should have intervened to warn me that my form was wrong, or perhaps he should have written that section better. It’s his fault, NOT MINE. I reject ALL responsibility on this error and blames the author of that Section. It’s all HIS fault.

Oh, but then again, that was so many years ago, so perhaps that author isn’t a citizen anymore… Let’s check… (looks up the database).

Oh… shit. Sorry, let’s move along, DO NOT go check who the author of that part of the Organic Law is. He is an asshole anyway, no need to mention anything.

In summary, once again, Marti-Pair Furxheir, in 2013-2015, had badly interpreted a law he had himself authored back in 2001-2004.

On April 23th, Owen Edwards posted an exciting thread announcing that the coin project would soon have an important announcement, and asking if citizens prefered 0.8″ or 1″ coins. The unanimous decision was to go for 1 inch. There is still no update however on an indiegogo campaign.

On April 25th, C. Carlüs Xheraltescù posted the Manisfesto of the Free Democrats, a new alliance between the ZRT and the Liberals.

Also in April 25th, Françal Ian Lux asked if there was an interest in starting a new Historian’s Guild, since the previous one had failed. 5 Citizens or prospectives expressed interest in joining. In chronological order they are Marti-Pair Furxheir, Daniel Candee (a prospective),  Galen Zavala-Sherby, Riley Miller and Ian Plätschisch.

On April 26th, the Talossan Periodic Table of Element thread from March picked up steam when Ceváglh Scurznicol suggested:

If you want to be esoteric, instead of transliterating the scientific names into Talossan, you could translate the Chinese names of the elements into Talossan, based on the meaning of the Chinese character used to symbolise the element. Maybe you could call it the Talossan periodico-alchemic table.

Which led, on May 2nd the question, from Ian Plätschisch as to the signification of the Ben symbol and if we had a connection with China like with the Berbers.

In Summary, as Lüc da Schir and C. M. Siervicül both later explained in the thread: There is a character in Chinese for “Ben”, which is also the name of our founder, so he adopted it as a symbol of Talossa.

On April 30th, Roibeardet dal Riesta posted a very interesting summary of the presence of Talossa in Wikipedia, offering a table of the 3 main articles which may be found: on the Kingdom itself, on the Talossan Language and on the Comità per l’Útzil del Glheþ, in each of the main languages.

On May 3rd, the Fourth MRPT Congress announcement thread got a revival when Miestra Schiva, Leader of ZRT, urged the MRPT “to exclude the possibility that they will allow the RUMP into government next time.”.

Both Glüc da Dhi, former leader of the MRPT and Lüc da Schir, current leader of the MRPT and Seneschal pretty much replied that a vote for the MRPT is simply a vote for Lüc da Schir as Seneschal until the results of the elections are known which prompted Miestra Schivâ to reply in no uncertain terms:

So you’re both saying that you might go into government with the RUMP next time. Well, hope you let all the voters know this.

If I have any say in the matter, and I do, the Free Democrats will definitely not do so. I ideally want a repeat of the current Coalition in the next Cosâ, and I’m shocked and appalled that one of our partner parties wants to cut loose to see if the A. Davinescù Ego Gratification Party will offer them a better deal.

This raised an interesting point from C. M. Siervicül regarding Miestrâ Schivâ’sa attitude:

You see, alternance in government was only an important political principle when the ZRT was out of government. Now that the ZRT is in government, the new important political principle is keeping those treacherous oppositionists as far away from power as possible.

Which, of course, once again derailed the conversation in a typical Republican VS Monarchist point of view. PZ gives it a rating of only 1 scoop of popcorn, because Miestrâ quickly returned to the main topic of whether the MRPT would or not form a coalition with the RUMP.

In the End, Lüc brought back the spotlight on the newly formed FreeDem alliance of Miestâ and C. Carlüs.:

we can start talking about serious issues for example, whether a FDA voter is voting for liberals or socialists; a monarchist, republican or agnostic stance on the head of state; a strong dirigist state or a weak liberal state. The FDA looks increasingly like the umpteenth Talossan pot-pie-blob running on loose platforms and attacking potential coalition partners at every whim of its party leaders.

C. Carlüs replied to only part of that question in those words:

The Free Democrats are actually very clear on the issues we stand on: reform of our current laws in order to increase transparency, openness and accountability. We are in favour of political competition, civil and political liberties, slimming down government and the Royal Household. These are things held in common between the Liberals and the Republicans and those are the things we’ll campaign on. A pot-pie blob we are not.

On May 3rd, a discussion started earlier in April between Alexandreu Davinescu, as publisher of Beric’ht Talossan and Sevastáin Pinátsch, as publisher of the Talossan Media Aggregator resumed. The core of the issue is that Alexandreu feels that articles in the TMA are reprinted without enough credit to the original publications.

In short, Alexandreu’s point of view is that the TMA, instead of just listing the various RSS feeds with links to the orignal articles, actually republishes the original article:

the archive just grabs stories from an RSS feed, takes all the content and metadata, and makes a copy for itself – which the authors have lost control over – with no clickthrough or attribution to source.

Sevastáin Pinátsch replied as follows:

With any decent CMS software (i.e., not Blogger), the account used to post a story is the same as the author account. The same quality software (i.e., not Blogger) can also be used by the admin to post stories but still attribute authorship to the actual writer, without having to use the article title kludge that BT does.

The terms of service promises attribution to the original author, provided that the source material is correctly attributed. That’s what it does.

Owing to the frequent complaints, BT has been removed from the aggregate per the terms of service. Old material has been deleted and new material will not be polled by the software. Should other author wish their material removed, I’m happy to comply.

Sadly, that’s pretty much where that story goes. PZ will update you if it picks up in the future, perhaps when PZ will be added to the TMA.

On May 5th, Ian Plätschisch asked a few interesting questions about citizenship petitions:

With a new round of applicants approaching a fortnight of activity, I wanted to ask a few questions about how petitioning works

1. Being a new citizen, should I wait until I have been around longer myself before petitioning for someone?

Assuming the answer to question 1 is no…

2.  Are there general guidelines for whether or not a prospective is ready, or is it all personal judgment?

3.  I don’t know Talossan, and petitions are issued in both Talossan and English.  Should I just use L’oversteir?

which were promptly (less than 25 minutes later) replied by the Senator of Cézembre. Glüc da Dhi:

1. No. If you feel like someone deserves Talossan citizenship, go ahead.
2. Not really. I mean obviously its preferable if the prospective has recently been active, but there arent any official rules for judging that.
3. Not all petitions are in Talossan, so you can just use English. I used to petition for citizens as well a while ago and Ive always just used English. If you think its nice to add Talossan, you could try to translate it all yourself, or you could ask Sir Iusti or Sir Cresti or someone else to translate the petition for you. My guess is that most of the time, there will be someone willing to help.

And now, we all know!

On May 8th, 17 days since the end of the 6th Clark, Dr. Txec Róibeard dal Nordselvă, who was the target of 47RZ41 – The Bouncing Txec Act which sought to bring him back to the Magistrate Court had to resort to Wittenberg to get the King to confirm his appointment.  Fortunately, a little more than 5 hours later, the King complied.

On May 12th, Alexandreu Davinescu, leader of the RUMP registered his party for the election. The RUMP’s 50 word statement began the words:

There’s only one party that stands firm on protecting the monarchy: the RUMP

And finished with the words:

It’s time to end the politics of hatred: vote for the RUMP.

Which triggered an avalanche of criticism! It began just 58 minutes later when Glüc da Dhi, Senator for Cézembre and former leader of the MRPT replied to the first part:

This is not true. There are three. I suggest you change this. Otherwise you’d be deliberately proclaiming things you know are not true in your 50 word statement.

and this, to the last part:

How would a vote for the RUMP end the politics of hatred? What are you talking about?

Alexandrey, 10 minutes later, invited Glüc to open a new thread as follows:

Actually, I think it’s pretty clearly true. The RUMP has been by far the most firm, since the MRPT just recently approved a manifesto which says they are “committed to taking measures to make the Monarchy more acceptable to the Republican segment of the population if a compromise can be reached with broad support. These measures may on the long term include reducing the political powers of the Monarch and making it easier to remove a Monarch in a democratic way.” Saying you want to reduce the political powers of the monarch and make it easier to dethrone the monarch is not a very strong defense… it’s not any sort of defense at all. You do want to move away from monarchy somewhat less than quickly than other parties, that’s true!

But really, this isn’t the time or place for such a discussion. This is a pre-registration thread for the Chancery, and it would be a bad idea to clutter it up with any sort of debate on whether reducing the monarchy’s power makes you a defender of the monarchy.

If you want to discuss it, maybe open a new thread, and I’d love to chat about it.

A mere 13 minutes later, or only 23 minutes after his initial rseponse, Glüc followed suit and created the thread “Dishonest RUMP statement.”, which triggered 40 replies so far, from people accross the party ranks, including, in addition to our initial 2 debaters:

• Owen Edward, leader of the Progressive Party, who reminds that not only is Alex dishonest, but that his party is lead by an ACTUAL macronational monarchist
• Lüc da Schir, leader of the MRPT and current Seneschal, who reminds us that “His cartoonist harrassed Miestra and the government for months, she reacted, and he cried wolf. He perhaps means that he’s going to end the politics of hate, because he started it in the first place.”
• Txec dal Nordselvă, of the Progressive Party (and previous RUMP leader), asks specifically what “defending the Monarchy looks like”, asking notably the question “Allowing the monarch to be absent from Talossa and step in only when repeatedly asked to by loyal subjects? “
• C. Carlüs Xheraltescù, leader of the FreeDem sarcastically rephrases the RUMP’s statement to “There’s one party that stands for changing absolutely nothing to do with the monarchy: the RUMP”
• Ian Plätschisch, MRPT member asks “whether we are loyal to the monarch as a person or to the monarchy as a concept” in a very calm argument
• Miestrâ Schivâ, leader of the ZRT, simply posted an animated gif of Stephen Colbert eating popcorn…
• Vitxalmour Conductour, reminded us wisely that “Sometimes supporting something does include finding compromises that might make it less of a target.”
• Eiric S. Bornatfiglheu reminds us of our own history, pointing out that King Robert II and King Florence were ” both placed on the throne as opposed to merely inheriting it from their predecessor. Indeed, our current king was chosen as well.” and that “They also seem to conflate supporting the current monarch with supporting the monarchy.”

Of course, both Glüc and Alexandreu had multiple exchanges which are indeed rather popcorn worthy and which cannot be easily surmised.

On May 13th, Sevastáin Pinátsch posted the call for the Talossan Press Association Awards of 2015.