Here's the first reason. Right now, three quarters of the population of Shireroth are potentially, and in many cases actually, ruling nobles. A Duchy's got to have four people. Two of them are Barons and one of the non-Barons is the Duke. That leaves us with one Duke, two Barons, and one commoner. More of a feudal rhombus than a feudal pyramid. While people don't seem to be doing anything quite this bad yet, Antica's got a noble to commoner ratio of 3:2, and I think just about everywhere's at 1:1 or above. Having the vast majority of the country be nobles cheapens the whole idea of nobility.
Here's the second reason. The relationship between Barons and Dukes has gotten really awkward. In a few cases, the Duke is both below the Baron and above zir - ie, the Duke is a citizen of one of zir own baronies, which puts both people higher than one another and gives each the right to order the other around. As we know, too many contradictions cause the Universe to explode in a puff of logic. You don't want that to happen.
Even the cases where Dukes aren't in a barony are awkward. In some cases, they seem to just kind of be floating around, not in any Barony at all. In others, they are a baron of zir own Barony, making zir the head of two fiefdoms at the same time, one of which encompasses the other. It may be historically accurate, but it's legally atrocious.
Here's the third reason:
That's the algorithm used to calculate votes for one of our Duchies. It is pretty much a nightmare. One of the problems with the Landsraad right now is no one quite knows how many votes they should get and they all end out being odd numbers. There have been three or four proposals put before the Landsraad to amend the system, which right now is extremely skewed in favor of a certain type of feudal structure, but very few people understand it enough to care and I believe the proposals have all died off.Duchy of Naudia'Diva
Barony of Northern Brookshire (3 Counties)
Barony of the Holy Lands of Shireroth (2 Counties)
County of Straylight
Vote Calculations
#counties (C): 6
#baronies (B): 2 (neither of which is the Duke's)
being a duchy: 2
Barony of Northern Brookshire
Counties: 3
votes = 4
Barony of the Holy Lands of Shireroth
Counties: 2
votes = 3
Total votes: 6 + 2 + 2 + (4) + (3) = 17
10 votes held by Duke Fax Celestis of Naudia'Diva (Steward Shyriath)
4 votes held by Baron Shyriath Bukolos of Northern Brookshire (Steward Darth Miho)
3 votes held by Baron Angel-Guardian of the Holy Lands
If we were to get rid of Baronies, we could have a wonderfully simple "four people, one Duke" system that keeps the nobility firmly capped at 25% of the population. We could have a "one person, one vote" system that would let the Dukes know exactly how many votes they had and circumvent tedious calculation and manipulation of the feudal structure. We could avoid the problem with rank names (everywhere except Shireroth, a Count is higher than a Baron). And since the derecognition of the rank of Baron would only be on the national level, individual Dukes could do whatever they wanted within their Duchy, including maintain the old feudal structure and give their Baronies subforums.
Of course, this would disenfranchise a lot of people who probably want Landsraad votes and would need to get them via some other means. It's sure been a long time since I last suggested this, hasn't it?
PS: Discussion of an important political issue in the general forum! It's almost as if discussing national policy was a major purpose of Shireroth's existence or something!
