Shireroth

Your Niftiness,
With the start of Your (hopefully brilliant) reign, I have to try to get Your attention for a matter of certain importance: the idea of a merger between Shireroth, Nelaga and Gralus (and it seems that Natopia wants to join too).
I think that it's time that we debate this in public and with the participation of everyone (or at least the most important Shirerithians). As Kaiser, it's probably best that You participate in this matter, or at least say 'something' to get things rolling.

For those who don't know it: the 'Merger' is not a real merger. It's not a real confederation, nor a federation. Some could call it a EU-construction, but I don't feel that it's like that. It's a lot looser then the EU (and less bureaucratic), so I understand why Andreas still talks about a 'League'.
As I understood it, it's quite simple: we combine our power by all joining one forum (to make e.g. participation in other nations easier) and perhaps having one foreign affairs office (with still some freedom for the countries to do their own foreign stuff).
I don't know how to call it. I'm not even sure that there will be a 'head of state'. So, very loose. I hope it's not too loose...

It seems to be sort of like the Holy Roman Empire of old.

CJ Miller wrote:It seems to be sort of like the Holy Roman Empire of old.

The Holy Roman Empire didn't share one forum... err... ah yes... I get what you mean.

Seriously, I would like to call it a Holy Empire but I think that this League is even more decentralised: for example, I haven't heard anything about a Head of State or Emperor or something like that. Not that I would be against something like that, to symbolise unity.
We could adopt a kind of Swiss system if it comes so far: every head of state is for a certain period Head of State of the League. That could give him a certain (symbolic!) power over foreign affairs (e.g. nominating diplomats and signing the treaties).

Jonas wrote:I don't know how to call it. I'm not even sure that there will be a 'head of state'.

There won't. That's all there is to say on that matter.

I have made my statement on the merger. Someone shout at me when it needs to be addressed again.

Ari Rahikkala wrote:

Jonas wrote:I don't know how to call it. I'm not even sure that there will be a 'head of state'.

There won't. That's all there is to say on that matter.

The Head of Foreign Affairs then?

The joint foreign affairs I don't see as any sort of "Head of Foreign Affairs" type thing. I see it as a practical "Hey, you're going to those guys as a diplomat? Want to post stuff for us too? Thanks "

Andreas the Wise wrote:The joint foreign affairs I don't see as any sort of "Head of Foreign Affairs" type thing. I see it as a practical "Hey, you're going to those guys as a diplomat? Want to post stuff for us too? Thanks "

Err... and what about a Conductor of Foreign Affairs?

"joining all into one forum"

ITS A TRAP

...unless the one forum is Shireroth's forums and the rest are subforums of our forums.

I think their goal is an entirely new forum, not subject to any one nations past or authority.

Erik Mortis wrote:I think their goal is an entirely new forum, not subject to any one nations past or authority.

Indeed, that's what I thought too.

For reference, and has no surprise to anyone. I'm not the keenest on this.

Well, I will say you are nothing if not consistant.

Alrighty folks, I want people to go to that thread and voice their concerns about this project. I want to give this a chance, and if we're gonna go through with it, I want everyone's voice heard so we can all be as comfortable as possible.

So.. I know this is a weird concern... well.. more.. not sure what it is....
..I was driving home from work last night and for some reason the merger idea popped into my head, and the thought of admin. For All of Shireroth history.. I've had admin. Even when I wasn't around. One of those Things about Shireroth. I've always had admin, that couldn't be revoked. It was one of our ultimate security measures. No matter what we knew I could restore, repair, maintain.. whatever. Even if the Kaiser went nuts, people could come to me to fix things. Umm... would such a "tradition" continue?

Short answer: the suggestion was that me, Ari, you and Harvey would have admin.
Slightly longer answer: that sort of practical stuff ("What will the forum look like?" "Who will be admin?") were discussed on the first page between Ari and I, and little objection has been raised since to the general framework we discussed. But you can look back at the first page to see that bit.

Antica would be interested in discussions for this idea as well.

AryezturMejorkhor wrote:Antica would be interested in discussions for this idea as well.

Do you trust a Shirerithian in charge of the forum administration of Antica?

Jonas wrote:Do you trust a Shirerithian in charge of the forum administration of Antica?

Most Anticans are former Shirerithians.


And I am not that keen on this idea either. I remember all too well the Grand Commonwealth and the fiasco that ensued because of it.

Ryan wrote:

Jonas wrote:Do you trust a Shirerithian in charge of the forum administration of Antica?

Most Anticans are former Shirerithians.

That doesn't mean that they trust Shirerithians.

Seriously, any such merger would have to have forum administration placed in the hands of a totally non-aligned party. Ideally you would have two people, a Chief Administrator and a Vice Administrator (the latter in case the former disappears, which happens quite often in this hobby). But both should willingly sacrifice their micronational citizenships to attain said neutral state and therefore remain aloof of the biases that can otherwise taint opinion when it's not needed to perform the role they are tasked with. Ari and Spangle come to mind (they're already unaligned for the most part) with regards to this - although whether they have either the time or willingness to dedicate such an inordinate amount of effort to this is another matter.

I don't like the idea of just two Admins for a forum which consists probably four nations. Work would go to slow and the danger of both admins being inactive is too big in comparison to the size of the forum. It's a lot of work and I trust Harvey, Ari, Andreas and Erik enough to do the job. All four have proved themselves and I don't think there will be a lot of distrust.

No need to bring in so-called neutral admins.

Erik Mortis wrote:So.. I know this is a weird concern... well.. more.. not sure what it is....
..I was driving home from work last night and for some reason the merger idea popped into my head, and the thought of admin. For All of Shireroth history.. I've had admin. Even when I wasn't around. One of those Things about Shireroth. I've always had admin, that couldn't be revoked. It was one of our ultimate security measures. No matter what we knew I could restore, repair, maintain.. whatever. Even if the Kaiser went nuts, people could come to me to fix things. Umm... would such a "tradition" continue?

What Andreas said. Right now, you have admin over the board, but the one controlling the hosting account is me. In the union, you would have admin over the board, but the one controlling the hosting account would be me.

I intend to find a source of anti-procrastinatory power from the deepest depths of my mind and spend some time tomorrow setting up a board with the styles and features of each of Nelaga's, Gralus's and Shireroth's boards. Maybe even put up a minimal set of forums, see what people think of them. That's probably the only way to really bring this forward anyway.

I'm curious if this will work.

The only two incidents of admin abuse I can think of were !@#$ (a known evil) during Tymaria and Bill (a known Bill) during Menelmacar, and both of those were over 5 years ago. I take my admining duties seriously and I know Erik, Ari, and Andreas do too. So it's pretty moot to me.

And Ari, as usual, your technical abilities and persistence are a blessing upon us all.

Don't forget Ardy with Elwynn.

I really don't think individual micronations have the activity levels or sense of community to justify complete seperateness. So its not a matter of trust or not with ANtica and Shireroth. Out of pure pragmatism, we should adapt some form of this idea.

Ari Rahikkala wrote:

Erik Mortis wrote:So.. I know this is a weird concern... well.. more.. not sure what it is....
..I was driving home from work last night and for some reason the merger idea popped into my head, and the thought of admin. For All of Shireroth history.. I've had admin. Even when I wasn't around. One of those Things about Shireroth. I've always had admin, that couldn't be revoked. It was one of our ultimate security measures. No matter what we knew I could restore, repair, maintain.. whatever. Even if the Kaiser went nuts, people could come to me to fix things. Umm... would such a "tradition" continue?

What Andreas said. Right now, you have admin over the board, but the one controlling the hosting account is me. In the union, you would have admin over the board, but the one controlling the hosting account would be me.

I intend to find a source of anti-procrastinatory power from the deepest depths of my mind and spend some time tomorrow setting up a board with the styles and features of each of Nelaga's, Gralus's and Shireroth's boards. Maybe even put up a minimal set of forums, see what people think of them. That's probably the only way to really bring this forward anyway.

I shall send you the core Gralan board styles, as that will be far easier for you than trying to track them down and then add in announcement box yourself.

I MIGHT support a shared forum. But at this time that is the extent of my support.

That's pretty much all it is as far as I can tell