As there have been a few issues related to Citizenship recently, including the issues raised earlier today, I would like to propose the following amendments to the Citizenship Act.
Since I remain supportive of a suspension-model of Citizenship (and doubly believe that such a model would’ve easily prevented the current fiasco), this generally has my support.
However, I think it’s a little complex on the basal level. I think the prior system was probably better as it was more legally clear (Auditor does audit, posts in Thread notifying anyone who at-time-of-audit doesn’t meet Citizenship requirements, waits 48 hours, then citizenship removed if not fixed in some way). I don’t think the 12 hour window is necessary nor do I think 72 hours upon notification is necessary - 48 hours in total from time of notification has proven enough to allow people to keep citizenship upon notification, if they care.
That being said, the additional touches like conclave challenges or automatic removal or the Auditor stating their sources are good additions.
Thank you for your feedback!
Do you think your feedback is adequately addressed if I change the proposed amendment to the following?
We literally just got rid of something like this, except this is worse than ever. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: We don’t want to make the Citizenship Office a more difficult job and there’s only so far we can bend over backwards to protect people who don’t bother maintaining very simple requirements. Even if the citizenship of those soldiers had been removed, all they would have had to do is reapply and they’d get back in. If there’s no ongoing referendums or elections the effect is literally zero.
I do appreciate, however, that you understand that the “issues” people have are with the law, not with me or any choices I can make.
I remind you these are not new. As Lucklife has zealously demonstrated, Conclave is already a valid legal recourse, and automatic removal was the norm under the old system.
“Stating their sources” is odd to me. The “evidence” is publicly, easily, accessibly available. Linking it or sending a screenshot doesn’t make it easier to refute false claims, it just makes the Citizenship Officer jump over more hurdles. If I say someone CTE’d and they didn’t, it’s just as easy to prove I’m wrong whether or not this requirement is in place, since we’re assuming that it’s intentional corruption (it’s very difficult to accidentally think that).
I also dislike the classification of verifiable, undeniable truth as an “assumption” by this law, or going through a bunch of extra steps as more “due diligence” than what is already done – checking to see if the requirements are maintained. Who would you talk to about someone CTEing or someone leaving the region or WA? This clearly only applies to EPSA, even though it’s not explicitly acknowledged (which only adds confusion) and there’s already extra work to verify EPSA citizenship so I don’t see what adding more can do.
There is a chilling trend of villainizing the act of marking down that someone is no longer a citizen (not a removal of citizenship, a simple acknowledgement of willful or ignorant forfeiture of citizenship which the Auditor has no agency in) and making it as difficult as possible to perform. The end result seems to be making less people want to do this vital task, and making it more and more difficult for false citizenships to be noticed and removed, in turn making voter fraud more easy. Note how I, as an Official, was discouraged and disparaged for doing my job – people called for a trial, people spread outrage in the discord server, and on top of that people hyped each other into NOT simply talking to me. Is this the way we want citizenship to be run? No longer a merely thankless job but a job that earns you the ire of your peers? When no one wants to do this job anymore, what will happen then?
That’s all I have to say and all I will say. Even in my absence, I was tempted into doing one nice thing for this region by boredom and it blew up in my face. I won’t forget that.
As Lucklife has zealously demonstrated, Conclave is already a valid legal recourse, and automatic removal was the norm under the old system.
That’s a fair point, but my thinking was that the idea of automatically suspending the Citizenship action while an audit is being challenged wasn’tnecessarily a bad idea. AFAIK, rn the only way for that to occur is by a Conclave order.
Buuuut now that I think about it, it’s very possible someone could use this in a high tense security situation to game the system i.e. keep citizenship for longer, So now I’ll oppose the automatic protection of Citizenship. Conclave order being an extra step is a good balance, probably.
As for automatic removal, you’re right but I mean automatic removal in the sense that the time of record simply is whenever the time limit expires rather than the exact time of official notation in the thread (which I may be totally wrong but that’s how I read 5.3). It makes things cleaner and simpler. Not even sure why we had it so the time of removal had to be noted as a physically separate post and I think I was the one who wrote that in via the Voter Registration Act heh.
“Stating their sources” is odd to me. The “evidence” is publicly, easily, accessibly available. Linking it or sending a screenshot doesn’t make it easier to refute false claims, it just makes the Citizenship Officer jump over more hurdles.
True, I don’t think I considered the bill fully in my first read through, completely my fault on that. I do agree that it’s too much to expect Cit officers to provide detailed evidence for every Cit or something, or to post due diligence procedures. When I read it I just thought it was saying “the Auditor will state why they removed Citizenship” [which as you know, is already done] + the new thing of shifting responsibility of confirming EPSA ops from the EPSA to the CitOffice (which I think isn’t a bad idea)
@Ladona Based on my thoughts now that Aiv’s posted I think Aiv raises good points I agree with. I still strongly believe in suspension-esque citizenship with a 48h time window, but I don’t think a cit removal process should be an investigation nor do I think a Conclave challenge to a Cit audit should automatically protect Citizenship (the Conclave should be able to decide if there is merit to the case and if citizenship must be protected it can release a Conclave order at its discretion). I do think having the Auditor contact EPSA before removing EPSA soldiers may be a good idea, but I also agree with Aiv’s broader point that being a Cit Officer is difficult/thankless and any restriction we place on the office must keep that idea in mind. Also, IG EPSA-discussion isn’t nessecary if the forum notification is duly given, anyways.
To show my thoughts here’s a counter-proposal ig:
I’m responding to this because the things you’re saying are not wholly representative of the situation.
There is a chilling trend of villainizing the act of marking down that someone is no longer a citizen (not a removal of citizenship, a simple acknowledgement of willful or ignorant forfeiture of citizenship which the Auditor has no agency in) and making it as difficult as possible to perform.
A valid point is raised here in that Cit Officials shouldn’t be villainized for doing their jobs.
Note how I, as an Official, was discouraged and disparaged for doing my job – people called for a trial, people spread outrage in the discord server, and on top of that people hyped each other into NOT simply talking to me.
I do think that the general situation has caused some to view your actions as being in bad faith. I will note I heavily do not believe you are acting in bad faith. However, I also disagree with your implication that people are villainizing you for an unspecified reason (though I do disagree with them villainizing you).
The core issue here is a) who has the obligation to ensure EPSA soldiers are being compliant with the Act and b) what Citizenship removal represents.
A) In your eyes, the EPSA legally has the responsibility to notify the CitOffice about any operation that may otherwise jeopardize EPSA soldiers’ citizenship. If the EPSA doesn’t say anything, it isn’t the job of the CitOffice to chase EPSA for that information. So you did your job and cleaned the Cit list, as you should. In the eyes of others, however, if the CitOffice wants to verify an operation, then it should absolutely approach EPSA before taking any action if EPSA hasn’t stated anything yet.
These are two distinct legal opinions one may hold, and which one one holds does change the legal validity of the audit you preformed.
B) In your eyes, Citizenship is a government political status that one can easily re-gain if one looses it. Of course, it is very true that Citizenship is pretty easy to regain once lost.
In the eyes of others, however, Citizenship isn’t just a status to certain rights/privileges. Whatever it means to them, it means something deeply enough that they view any questionable removal of their Citizenship as a deep injustice - NOT as a simple mistake that can (in truth) be pretty easily fixed. Combine this opinion with the legal opinion that the Citoffice must reach out to EPSA if EPSA doesn’t reach out first before removing any EPSA soldier Citizenship, and you can understand where some people are coming from.
Of course, this doesn’t excuse actions (again, the civil trial = bad move) but I do hope it goes to show that neither side is approaching this in bad faith and that any villainizing/discouragment/disparagement was only done from a space of wanting to do good by the region the same as you do - just different ways of executing the same love for TEP which unfortunately lead to a head-on legal tussle.
I’m going to be blunt and say that while you did meant well and always have for TEP, your execution of things in this matter also wasn’t picture perfect. You posted an audit out of the blue removing Citizenship of 5 EPSA soldiers without thinking to check with EPSA first (the law is a minimum standard - it did not prohibit you from probing EPSA even if it may have not been your legal responsibility to do so. Admittedly it’s been a while since I was a Cit officer but removing 5 EPSA soldiers could have warranted a check-in w/ EPSA first, given the abnormally large number). When Shadow eventually responded with threat of a civil suit (which makes sense if you place Shadow in the camp of “CitOffice legally should’ve talkie with EPSA” and “Cit removal is a grave injustice if done wrongly”). In the same response wherein you did admittedly give some grace and a way out of the situation (which I applaud you for), you nonetheless implied the EPSA was law breakers and they themselves should be put to trial alongside implying them as being hypocrites. Shadow understandably escalated, and understandably you did so as well in turn. It was only Dremaur’s good sense to take your olive branch that stopped the affair from growing into something much worse.
Point being: both sides had faults here. Yes, a lot of people jumped the gun and acted pretty inappropriately. But you had your own role to play in making the situation worse. This was not a one-sided affair.
and on top of that people hyped each other into NOT simply talking to me.
As a quick note from this, assuming this is referencing #gov-plaza. While this is true in a technical sense, my reading of the situation was very less “let’s ostracize aiv by not talking to him” and more “let’s not talk with aiv without thinking, lest we make the entire situation worse inadvertently”.
Thanks for the feedback, and apologies for the delay in getting back to you.
What are your thoughts on the following?
I hear you that Conclave challenges shouldn’t automatically protect Citizenship. I would like to retain mention of the Conclave challenge being an option within the body of the Act though as this possibility isn’t immediately obvious. I’ve removed the automatic protection and have instead specified that the Conclave needs to issue an order to protect Citizenship for Citizenship to be protected.
Understanding that being a Citizenship Officer can be difficult, I am also strongly of the belief that these audits are only as difficult as the Auditor choses to make them, especially since the process to identify a Nation that is non-compliant can be largely automated. What I originally wrote are the same standards which I would expect myself to follow if I were in the Citizenship Office, so I can’t see where they would be particularly burdensome during an audit; since the only two people to respond in this topic have said they are though, I will keep that in mind.
I think the due diligence clause is important to keep as I couldn’t see where in the Citizenship Act or in the EPSA Act it was required that the Overseeing Officer was required to keep records of deployments on the forums; only that those records be kept for the Citizenship Office to review for enforcement of the clause. As a result, the single source of truth for deployment information is the Overseeing Officer. Maintaining an off-site Google Doc and then sending the link to an Auditor during an audit would be compliant, for example.
Because the Overseeing Officer is the single source of truth, and because each Overseeing Officer may have their own way of maintaining records, I think that it’s important to either include the due diligence clause, or to update Section III of the Citizenship Act or to update the relevant section of the EPSA Act (likely Section III) to specify a single source of truth beyond the Overseeing Officer; though I am now concerned that this too would be an additional burden on the Overseeing Officer.