Forest

Republic of Honk wrote:

It’s time for geese

Honk.

The Most Serene Republicans wrote:

To change the subject, we haven't talked about music in a few months... What kind of stuff have you been listening to? Anything new?

I'm currently going through another Led Zeppelin phase, so I almost constantly have their songs playing in the background. I also listen to a lot of music by Muse, though their style of progressive/space rock is a bit niche.

Lofia wrote:

By the way, congratulations to The Forest of Aeneas for their passed GA resolution #611 "End Collective Punishment"!

Thanks :D

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On another note, I'd urge a vote against the at-vote GA proposal. It's rushed, needs more work, and also partially plagiarised. I'd support a proposal like this in principle, but as I said on the forum: Firstly, 1.a mandates 'the right to be tested for serious illnesses the crime victim may have been exposed to during the act of the crime'. However, the exposure during that crime may have had nothing to do with the crime. For example, if someone tries to shoot someone at a mall but fails, and a bypasser happens to have a serious transmittible illness, the crime victim is likely to have been exposed to that serious illness during that crime, even to a bypasser having a serious transmittible illness had nothing to do with that murder attempt. Moreover, I am concerned by the use of the word 'may'. I may have been exposed to Transmittible Serious Illness 69420 because there is the off chance that my neighbour has it. That is unlikely, but I still 'may' have, and it is certainly within the realm of probability. This is impractical and cries for the moon.

1.c is also a meaningless requirement. While the accused cannot 'directly' contact the crime victim, they may do so 'indirectly'. For example, they may hire someone to pass a message to the accused, while this resolution stands in blissful ignorance. Moreover, I'm confused as to why the definition excludes those who are charged with 'another crime that occurred as a result from the same occurrence or incident'. In nations where self-defence is illegal, for example, a member state can exclude crime victims from their mandates if they make even the smallest effort at self-defence.

After years of clawing my way through the mud, I mean after years of doing hard manual labor in a coal mine, I mean, after months of answering issues (there it is!), I have finally muscled my way back to No. 1 in Forest for Civil Rights! In the meantime, I've also been at No. 1 in Forest for Political Freedoms. So yeah, my imaginary country is doing pretty well. The real world? Well.... *glances outside* But life in Ruinenlust is just great.

I hope that everyone is doing well! I haven't been as active lately, because the end of the school year (and the beginning of the growing season in terms of gardening) always coincide now to take away virtually all of my time, but hopefully within a week or so I'll be more involved again. I do monitor things on a daily basis, though, so no worries. :-)

Hi everyone! Sorry to bug everyone, but I just wanted to go over a couple things with everyone.

So, about a week ago I asked about lowering the percentage thresholds for booting FKs out of office and proposing constitution amendments (see: page=rmb/postid=47548820). I'm hoping to soon move forward with a draft for us to discuss (when time is kind to me or if someone else feels like drafting it ;p) before calling it to vote, so it'll be a fairly involved process, but thus far the feedback I've gotten so far has mostly been positive for amendments but more cautionary for recall elections - which I can definitely see, given foreign invasions/coups and the like.

Now before we even get anything drafted, I just wanted to remind everyone of it and see if I could get more feedback. Aside from not wanting to tamper with recall elections too much (and as such, if I even do see to lowering it even slightly, it'll be its own, separate proposal), combined with something else I'll mention at the end of this post, I'd like to primarily focus on the constitutional amendment percentage.

I haven't seen too much argument against having it at around 10% (which I personally think is still high, but understandable) with measures for if we become a very small region again (like a minimum of 3 counted as well as 10% of all WA nations). That said, I did want to highlight Uan's post: page=rmb/postid=47567440.

I personally really this this looser, more informal option, as it basically allows for more flexibility on the government's part as well as the potential proposer's side, since "considerable interest" is probably a lower number than a strict percentage, as could probably be better discerned whether such interest is legitimate or just puppet spam. I actually personally would prefer this option, but since the draft would either be something similar to this or something similar to the above, I wanted everyone's input on which they preferred before anything else happens. Or maybe you prefer neither and would either like to see no change or some other alternative - let me know!

I'd also point out that this could theoretically work as a solution for FK recall election, although in fairness I feel like that gives a bit too much discretion to the party whose eligibility is thrown into question. i.e. Just wanted to throw it out there despite my personally finding that to be a not-great idea. xD

Speaking of, as promised, I'd also like to make a quick mention of the recall election % decrease. Personally, I'd be in favor of lowering it to even as low as 25%, but I also have seen a general consensus that folks don't really want to tamper with it. I understand being weary myself, especially in the instance of a potential coup of some kind or as a way of wreaking unnecessary havoc on the region (see: military gameplay). With only a 6-month term to deal with the FK to begin with, that might just not be a worthwhile tradeoff. As such, I probably will put that idea in my "not for now" bin, unless anyone would like to express their interest in such a change. (Sidenote: I'd also note I originally said "10%", so if you guys like this "25%" figure better - as I do ;p - let me know lol)

I think that's all I wanted to cover for now. Again, lots of other ideas "down the road" should anyone be interested, and you're free to poke around in { https://forest.freeflarum.com/d/229-ultimate-requests-thread } if you want to look at other ideas and voice your opinions, but not wanting to overload anyone (myself included) I myself will leave that up to you.

Oh and speaking of, if you have any ideas yourself, feel free to mention them anywhere I can see it and I can add it there. ;)