I don’t think dissent should be ignored. I think it should be listened to. And I think if you listen to it, and your mind isn’t changed, and you make your arguments, and their mind isn’t changed, it doesn’t help anyone to keep repeating and rephrasing yourself, or to disparage others. You can allow people to read your points and make their decisions, knowing that you and them have made yours.
And if someone else comes along and speaks, the process repeats. The only reason to keep going after you’ve both made your points clear is if either or both of you are open to changing your mind. Here, I don’t think you are, and I’m not. So we vote our conscience and don’t clutter the thread with useless back and forth that only serves, let’s be honest, to strain our professional relationship.
Honestly it IS an age-old question as to why so many people find forums hard to use. I can’t tell you why - but I can also tell you that I’ve been using the forums for 7 years, so it isn’t exactly easy for me to understand those who struggle with it.
What I can tell you is that there ARE people, for one reason or another, who don’t want to use the forums. I think from there, it’s mostly a value judgement and principles more than anything. I can understand the idea that we shouldn’t cater to those who don’t want to engage via voting on forums.
However, I do agree with Aivintis, in that we do have a duty to make voting easier. Said “duty” just stems from the fact we’re a democracy operating to serve a population who we should strive to represent as much as possible, whilst not falling into impracticality or wasted effort. In my opinion, telegrams votes are a reasonable way for the government to gain the voice of more people.
I will add that I’ve seen this argument employed also by Libertanny and others when such topics have arose in the past - this idea that “if we’re doing RMB-based vote stuff, why not Discord votes? or tiktok or etc. etc.” Well, my main problem is that we haven’t heard a peep from our TikTok community about wanting to have a bigger voice in TEP or feeling ignored by the government or what have you.
But we have repeatedly and extensively heard such from the RMB. So to me - whether they want to use the forums or not is irrelevant. TEP only benefits if the elected Delegate represents the region better, including the section of the population who avoid our forums. And telegram votes would not be a major burden to running an election.
Also, you jest that RMB votes are a possible implied ridiculuous idea to further extend this concept - but I did almost pass a bill that did just that, but it failed at a tie haha
And a final point - if we ever did start hearing a steady complaint from a TikTok or facebook or Discord-only population that they were feeling unrepresented or ignored by our government, I would definetly support reworking our voting system to make it more accessible to them , too. (Although perhaps running elections via 3 mediums stops being practical, but voting options like an online site like Refugia uses would be more plausible in such a scenario).
Okay well telegrams are an easily manageable on-site mechanics. Facebook messages have never once been used for any gameplay purpose and are completely unrelated to NS. House visits require not just that one doxx themselves but that our Viceroys spend real human money and time traveling to people’s IRL locations. Those are the differences I see between what I’m talking about and what you’re talking about.
Again, I’m happy to answer questions. But I’m just not going to bother restating my points when I’ve made them clear. I do think you know exactly what my stance is, that it’s important to include RMBers and it’s the government’s duty to do so. That telegrams are an efficient and easy way to increase outreach, with a low energy/time commitment that yields a great benefit. You just disagree. Which is fine. I’m not silencing your disagreement. I’m just saying that I feel silly repeating myself, and I’m surprised you don’t.
The point wasn’t the examples (which were ridiculous, stop responding to those as if they make sense or as if you really think I think they make sense).
The point was that calling it a “duty” to make voting “as easy as possible” is quite the statement, and that’s what I wanted to debate. But one really has to insist to get some actual debate here, it seems.
And now you’ve changed that to “It’s important to include RMB’ers” (why?) and “it’s the duty of the government to do so” (why?).
That’s also totally different kind of duty than the previous one you threw out here.
I’m not asking you to repeat talking points. I’m asking you to explain your thinking on these, because so far in this thread, nobody has actually explained WHY this would be a good idea, let alone why it would be a DUTY.
This whole thread only deals with superficial questions about the how, without anyone actually debating the “why” (except now Zuk in one post, finally).
What further annoys me to no end is that you’re thanking a Magister here for a private discussion on this very proposal that nobody else now can see or read, while it sounds like it was actually very relevant to this topic and everybody following it. That’s a great way to debate in a legislature, somewhere off in a corner so nobody else can follow what people are actually thinking.
I’m not even that dead set against this proposal. What I do firmly dislike is doing a change like this on a non-reason like supposedly some random players in TEP thinking the forum is too difficult.
Otherwise, all I did was fill him in on the Maham Pact bans, the Vussul ban, the rise of Cordone and proscription thereof, and the backlash from the RMB with all that. You are already familiar with these subjects, so I will not rehash them with you at great costs to your time and mine.
Well, I believe all residents should be considered and involved in government, and extended all the rights that everyone else has, on a matter of principle. I believe that it is fundamentally undemocratic to specifically exclude an innocent subset of residents from the institutions that govern them. However, if you don’t care about that, I have a more ruthless answer for you: We want power. Therefore, we need endorsements. Endorsements come from greater numbers of players. The RMB draws in players and keeps them. A happier RMB means more endorsements for us. The RMB is also a source of flexing power – the government is currently working on RMB C/Cs. Finally, the RMB is a source of activity. If you care about community health and power, you care about the RMB. If you care about the RMB, you want to include them, to make sure that we’re maximizing their impact on community health and power.
Why is it the duty of government to include RMBers?
Again, there’s my idealistic answer – because inclusion is always the right thing to do, and because empowering people is democratic and democracy is good. And then the ruthless answer – it’s our duty to include them because we need them for our power and health, and we need to appease them to keep them.
I don’t care if you don’t care about my ideals. But even if you don’t, there’s an equation here that makes sense. More people in the region generating activity and endorsements for the region is good for the region. Ergo, we want to empower whatever subsets of TEP bring more people into the region, generating activity and endorsements in the process.
Following the passage of [A-2025-55] A Different Amendment to the Delegate Elections Act, this discussion topic has been closed. If further discussions are wanted to this topic, please contact a member of the Office of the Provost to unlock this topic.
