I fully support this proposal, I will not lie. Better to keep people who are active on board than inflate numbers with people who log in once then never again. And in cases as necessary, leaves of absences exist.
I have to agree with @Ray and @Griffindor, as both of them said, leaves of absences exist. The problem is, I don’t fully know if citizens can use the existing LoA topic though, so we may need to make a new LoA topic for citizens not able to vote.
If the proposal is approved, the current channel used for LoA would remain the same.
So how will citizens give LoAs? Do they just use the one that the legislators use? or something else?
The same place citizens have been able to make Leave of Absence requests for the past year
I do however still believe we should have a unified LoA for citizens and legislators
Oh, I never actually noticed that, but I have to agree with you, as it’s confusing to find the citizen LoA topic.
Leniency best serves those who hold a position that requires citizenship/legislatorship (like the CRS) and has an unforeseeable emergency that prevents them from fulfilling the voting requirement which they would otherwise do. No one else really needs or should have leniency. People who are just citizens or legislators can just as easily reapply for both. People who have events that will stop them from voting in the future can file LoAs. It’s only when an emergency can’t reasonably have a LoA filed for it and the person holds a position which requires greater bureaucracy to be appointed to that leniency is something that is reasonable.
I think that leniency should be replaced with a grace period for such positions to reapply for citizenship before being booted from their seat.
Well they could just reapply for citizenship and then reapply for the position, no?
I guess it’s true that an assembly vote wouldn’t take any longer than a citizenship/legislator application.
I move the following amendment to vote.
I second
We are now at a vote!
For the people that voted against this proposal, could you (if you haven’t already) explain your vote against?
For me, I think that leniency shouldn’t be completely abolished, it could be abolished partially, but only reserve it for unforeseen events. (aka death of a loved one, natural disaster evacuation, etc.)
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I voted against because I don’t have a problem with leniency. I’m happy with it being a decision that is made at discretion of CitComm.
That being said, I’m aware I’m in the minority seemingly, as I’m also a proponent of making it easier to remain a citizen. I frankly don’t understand why we need to revoke citizenship if a citizen misses a few votes. I’d rather have a few too many uninvolved and inactive citizens than increase the joyless quotient of this region by forcing people to apply for citizenship again and again when they miss votes and put the burden on the citizen to “maintain status”. Again, I’m aware I’m probably in the minority here. I simply don’t understand why it’s so bad to have non-active citizens. If it were up to me (which it certainly is not!), I’d only boot citizens if they left the region entirely or perhaps didn’t vote at all during a calendar year.
But I’m aware that our current stance is more along the lines of “citizenship is a privilege, not a right”.
Another problem with citizenship applications, is that they take a long time to process, one of my friends joined earlier this month, but didn’t get accepted until yesterday.
I mean, afaik at this point it’s the vast majority of citizens who are uninvolved and inactive, so I’d say we need to do something to solve it. And if the burden’s not on the citizen to maintain citizenship status, who is it on? We’re here to have fun, yes, but also participate in a government, and I don’t know that it’s too restrictive to say you need to be active if you want to take greater advantage of that
I do get that stance. And I’m aware that’s the current zeitgeist of this region’s government. But I’d prefer that we use the carrot approach here in regards to citizenship. Let’s promote it - have “citizen days”, publish the citizen rolls in dispatches, do gameside pings for votes and for citizen events, make it fun and jazzy to be a citizen and to be involved. Yes, that probably comes across as cringe and try-hard to some, but in my mind, better to be a bit extra than to be super dour and foreboding.
I’d rather we were too inclusive rather than too exclusive. We keep talking about needing to put the burden on the citizen. Very welcoming language!
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I still disagree with pinging for votes. I believe that would lead to more uninformed voting, and unreliable statistics of who’s actually active. If we really want to do a ping, I maintain that it’ll be better at the declarations stage, where people can see who’s running, what they’re running on, and that elections will be comming up soon.
Additionally, if we really want to do a carrot-and-stick approach, I disagree that pinging votes and being extra-lenient will help that. We need to make people want to vote to maintain their citizenship, not be told to. I agree that citizen events would be a good idea, it provides actual incentive to be a citizen and makes it more fun. However, if we’re extra-lenient, someone could just never vote and constantly get leniency to participate in the events, making them less incentivized to participate in the full duties of a citizen. I feel a good solution would be a minor repercussions system. The first time you miss the election, there’s no real consequences, but if you miss three in a row? Maybe your leniency is granted after a big post-election event we hold for citizens, making you more motivated to vote. We could also hold check ins with them to see why they’re missing so many elections and offer advice on how to make the next one.
I do love the idea of “citizen days”
Perhaps we could have a “citizen day” that is a fun lil expo of everything going on, how to get involved, etc. showcasing different parts of TSP community and TSP gov? Bc while not every part requires citizenship, knowing and promoting these parts can help people be more enthusiastic about TSP as a whole and may lead to more people wanting to be an active citizen. That’s my thought at least.
Like a hypothetical week even, one day the RMB community can talk about why they like the things, the next day SPSF, the day after RP, legislators. Little blurbs from people in TSP that are involved in different areas. Doesn’t have to be big and elaborate, maybe someone from the community talks about why they like it.
While I do agree with removing leniency, I do also agree with the complaints. Long wait time to become a citizen, maybe not the most beginner-friendly attitude, maybe people have some confusion.
When I was chair way, way back in the day when I tried a mentorship approach for new legislators, while that idea was… not the most effective in terms of execution, perhaps it’s something to think about, resources to new people, specifically, human resources. We definitely don’t need that sort of approach to things for sure. Nothing structured, what we do isn’t rocket science. But maybe the “citizen days” idea is like a little bit of a bridge there, where it’s more of a showcase. Could even work out like a “why I became a citizen” spotlight.
Idk maybe I’m thinking too corporate 
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