My take on the Acknowledgement law...

[Ari Rahikkala]

(yes, I am still stubbornly refusing to speak in the Landsraad itself. But don't worry, it's only a couple of weeks before I return officially - although it seems that I've been more active than many people in less closely-knit communities - and try to return to a status of nobility... although... I do intend to get people to sort the whole Shirlan thing out first. Perhaps even take the responsibility for it... anyway, in the interests of keeping this discussion remotely coherent: It seems that the two other places where it has taken place are pub9.ezboard.com/fshirero...=157.topic and pub9.ezboard.com/fshirero...D=70.topic )Harvey has a couple of valid points on the law, and IMO, being that the law is a block of text and Harvey is a person, it's going to be easier to fix the law than to fix Harvey. In its current form, the law puts too much responsibility and - in fact - too much work on the shoulders of the Minister of Immigration. There's a lot of fiefdoms in Shireroth, and while some of them are culturally mature (Goldshire, Elwynn, Hyperborea) or unique (Kitanus Fields, Straylight, and -again- Hyperborea) enough to be clearly differentiated from the others, there are also some which are... not really so interesting. If a newbie were to ask, say, what makes Brookshire special (except for it being the seat of government), the only thing MiniIm could describe would basically be Brookshire's fictional history (the one in the blurb of Scott's GBTSUFO project, that is). This means that not only would he have to remember the damn thing (and as I said, there's a lot of fiefdoms in Shireroth, and each has a unique history), but he would also have to find some way to make it sound interesting. This is basically impossible... without the help of the nobles of those fiefdoms.If all nobles of Shireroth were to write up newbie-friendly, general descriptions of their fiefdoms, the MiniIm would - at worst - only have to do some editing to make them presentable to new people. True, it would basically be a "here's a large amount of text for you to read, wake me up when you're done" system - exactly the sort of thing that Erik tried to get rid of with his law AFAICS... but would it be that bad? I mean, the difference between "here, we wrote this thing two months ago not as a message from one experienced Shirerithian to another, but to you as a newbie. Wake me up when you're done" and "here, I wrote this thing five minutes ago for you. Wake me up when you're done" is not that big. We already have nobles advertising their fiefdoms in the Ministry of Immigration; if each noble were to add their own helpful description of their own fiefdom, the MiniIm would have to do a lot less. In case a newbie would become interested about a fiefdom that the MiniIm doesn't know a lot about, he could just say "I don't really know $fiefdom that well. Contact $noble and ask him/her about it" with impunity.A good base for this document to be shown to newbies could be my draft of one which was written exactly for this purpose... heck, this way I could convince people that when half of a text is questions to people in parantheses, perhaps I'm expecting people to give me a little help by answering some of those questions. Ahem. Anyway, IMO that's the direction that part of the law should be changed to to make it feasible...As for the duke-buddy system, it's nothing to worry about... I'd expect that the only thing it will change is the receptiveness of newbies to the nation: That is, having someone say "Hiya, I'm Duke Fred Bloggs, the ruling noble of the fiefdom you chose to live in, so if you have anything at all to ask, just contact me. Now, the MiniIm told me that you were interested in florgazzobbing, and my duchy's culture is built around exactly that..." would definitely make *me* feel easier about... everything. In the case the newbie doesn't need guidance, he/she will probably have enough experience and thus visibility anyway so the noble will know whether he/she can be trusted....* Civ3, anyone (people being impressed by advanced cultures and choosing allegiances accordingly)? Perhaps we should count how many culture points each fiefdom produces ;). In order to find his equal, an Irishman is forced to talk to a Finn.

[UEC]

Exactly!... That's what I meant!.. I think... I like that. E. Metzler (UEC)Duke of Brookshire"Never use a BOO/\/\ist as a diplomat" -- GSClicky Clicky..., Tiss for your own good ya know.