CDS News – the 20th RA Part 2

The first full meeting of the 20th Representative Assembly of CDS took place on 3 December 2012. (See the CDS forum for the proposed agenda, the transcript and the minutes .)

RA meeting of 3 December 2012

Rosie Gray suggested that approval or amendment of the previous meeting’s minutes be added as an item on every agenda. Gwyneth seconded Rosie’s suggestion, and Cleopatra Xigalia and Shep Titian joined them in voting “aye.” The minutes of the last meeting were then approved.

Bagheera Kristan gave the Chancellor’s report, mostly presenting ideas about how to remodel Locus Amoenus, which he said should be possible without requiring easements on existing parcels.

Then came a discussion of the Grievance Committee mechanism that had been proposed by Cadence Theas, with suggested amendments by Lam Erin. The RA decided to create a Committee to study this proposal and to work it into a final document for the RA to approve. The Committee was to be chaired by Tor Karlsvalt, and to present a final proposal to the last RA session in January.

Next on the agenda were two questions requested by Cleopatra: “1. What is an emergency RA meeting? 2. Who has the authority to ban citizens or visitors of CDS?” It seems that Shep, who is Leader of the RA (LRA), had wanted to call an emergency RA meeting to ban Josjoha Resident. As told in the previous installment of this narrative, Jos had provoked an outcry on the CDS forum by stating his opinion that “gayness and transgenderism is an affliction.”

Cleopatra asked who has the legal power to ban someone from CDS. Any citizen can ban intruders and griefers from their own properties, but banning someone from the community is quite another matter. With respect to the related question of meeting procedures, Callipygian Christensen pointed out that the CDS portal gives the RA operating procedures (to make them visible you have to click on the link near the bottom of the page). Gwyneth pointed out that the Executive can place a temporary ban on someone for whatever reason, but that the banned person has the right to be heard by the SC within 48 hours. However, the RA has no jurisdiction either to ban or to revert a ban. As for the forums, they are the province of the SC, which can ban people from the forums.

Lan Erin stated that since there are no written CDS laws about banning, no CDS body has the power to ban someone. Tor Karlsvalt, who was Chancellor at the time, noted that he had punished Gaius Mistwalker by removing his privileges of rezzing on public land (the incident is described in the previous installment). Gwyneth emphasized that the RA cannot override SC decisions: it can only change the laws. The meeting had run over two hours by this point, so the decision was made to adjourn.

More from Jos on “free speech”

Jos had made his controversial statement in the course of a discussion about “free speech” organized by Cleopatra Xigalia at her coffee house in Locus Amoenus. They appear to have planned the event as a sort of “test case” for freedom of speech in CDS. Since Jos’ right to make such a statement had been contested by some of the citizens, Jos now on 4 December posted a proposed free speech law for CDS. This text begins: “Everyone has the freedom to express any opinion that they want, without violating the right of other residents to enjoy the peace of their home, and be free to enjoy the peace of public order without being cursed at in open chat." Patroklus Murakami replied in a comment that such a law was unnecessary since free speech is protected by the CDS Constitution.

In-world events

Bagheera announced that a Breakfast Jazz Jam with Pancakes would be held on 10 December at the Rhenus Docks, "inspired by the real life Breakfast Blues Jam that begins at 4am in a club in San Francisco." The 20 Term Inaugural Ball was held on Sunday 8 December, though I couldn’t find any links to pictures.

RA Meetings of 14 December and 17 December 2013

The RA meetings of 14 December and 17 December are considered to be a single RA meeting, adjourned and reconvened another day. The chat log is missing for the first part of the meeting of December 14 (but here are the agenda, partial transcript, and minutes.)

The incomplete chat log begins with Gwyneth in the middle of counting votes concerning insertion of Bagheera’s proposal as a bill – but it is unclear what proposal this was, since Bagheera presented her proposal later in the same meeting. After discussion of the meeting minutes, the first main point on the agenda was the need for an archivist. Since Trebor Warcliff has previously agreed to this role, he was formally voted in (although not present at the meeting).

Cleopatra asked questions about parcels in arrears, and Sudane Erato tried to provide answers. Then Chancellor Bagheera Kristan presented her recommendations for the remodeling of Locus Amoenus. She suggested that the Guild’s proposed covenants, which had been posted by Shep the day before, could be merged with hers simply by adding the word “patio” to the list of items for the 20% of countryside parcels. (I think this means that the Guild’s sentence would then read: “20% of the plot of land will be open space, forested, pond, garden, agriculture or patios”.) For more details of Bagheera’s presentation, it seems you have to read meeting transcripts, as I haven’t found it posted anywhere else.

The session was then adjourned, and carried over to the RA meeting of 17 December (here are the agenda, Transcript Part I, Transcript Part 2 and minutes).

After discussion as usual concerning meeting minutes, Bagheera again gave her presentation about the remodeling of Locus Amoenus, but adding more details this time. Rosie Gray then gave her own presentation of the proposal the Guild had developed under the previous RA, which was a modification of Callipygian Christensen’s original plans.

Cleopatra again brought up the concerns about sim residents who would be affected by the changes. Rosie acting as LRA told Cleopatra to “shut up” since did not have floor, and when Cleo objected to those words, Guillaume (or Gaius) typed: “/me throws a rock at CLEO’s mouth”. (This was to lead to a formal request from Ceasar Xigalia to the SC asking them to ban Guillaume, as told below.) Shep suggested that Rosie and Lam for the Guild should meet with Bagheera to bring together the two proposals.

Lam Erin, who is a member of the Guild, then presented the revision of the covenants for the remodeled Locus Amoenus. Lam noted that disturbance to current occupants could be minimal, as almost half of the land of LA is currently controlled by CDS, expressed his concern that such projects should be designed and executed by consensus. He also linked to the Tuscany reference images posted here.

After some discussion, Gwyneth Llewelyn initiated a motion, which in its final form was: “to approve the covenants as proposed by Lam in public chat, subject to Lam’s considerations that there should be no zone changes, even if we don’t have the final plan yet,” with the following additional words attached: ‘plan will identify [current ]use, current owners may be grandfathered if they request it, and use reverts to the plan when the parcel is sold.’” This motion was approved. Apparently the only place you will find Lam's specific proposals is in the transcripts of the 17 December meeting (see above).

Just before the meeting adjourned, Tor Karlsvalt gave a brief update on the Grievance Commission, explaining that Lam and Cadence had been working on a plan, and would hold public meetings to discuss it.

The last days of 2013 in CDS

After the RA meeting of 17 December, later the same day, the Scientific Committee examined a petition received from Ceasar Xigalia, asking that Guillaume Mistwalker be sanctioned for having written in chat that he was throwing a rock at Cleopatra. But the SC ruled that such petitions should come from the injured party, and since Ceasar was a third party petitioner, the petition would not be heard.

On 20 December Cleopatra posted a call for safe forums, stating that “there are citizens who read the forums but are afraid to post here because they might be attacked if they do” (perhaps refering to Jos?), and suggesting that the Scientific Council was failing to protect citizens on the forums. This plea only succeeded in producing angry reactions from other citizens who accused Cleo herself of disrupting the community.

On 21 December a Christmas Skating Party was held on Monastery Lake. And on 24 December Callipygian posted a greeting card that showed Alpine Meadow at night in the snow. And so the year 2013 came to a – momentarily – tranquil end in CDS READ MORE...

CDS News – the 20th RA Part 1

On 25 September 2013 Callipygian Christensen, acting as Dean of the Scientific Council, posted the official dates for the election of the Representative Assembly (RA) and Chancellor of CDS. Since this RA will be in office from 1 December 2013 to 31 May 2014, the electoral process began in October 2013 and the election was held in November 2013.

Determining candidates and voters

A first census of active CDS citizens (landowners who are up-to-date with their tier) was generated on 1 October by Sudane Erato, to identify those qualified to run for office. On 7 October Callipygian posted the call for candidates, noting that the 20th RA would have 5 seats and that the position of Chancellor was also on the ballot. The deadline for declarations of candidacy was the 1st of November at 12 noon SLT. Declarations were to be sent by in-world by notecard to Callipygian - although most candidates seem to have posted their declaration on the forum.

The second census of active CDS citizens was generated on 11 October by Sudane, to determine who was eligible to vote in the upcoming election. Sudane’s list included 75 citizens qualified to vote.

At the expiration of the deadline for declarations to run, on the 1st of November, Callipygian posted the official list of candidates. The 11 candidates for the 5 seats on the 20th RA were (in order of first names): Cadence Theas, Ceasar Xigalia, Cleopatra Xigalia, Gwyneth Llewelyn, Kaz Loordes, Moonrise Azalee, Rosie Gray, Shep Titian, Stephen Xootfly, Tor Karlsvalt and Ranma Tardis. The two candidates for Chancellor were Bagheera Kristan and Jamie Palisades.

Meanwhile back at the ranch...

During the month of October 2013, while the candidates and voters were being identified, life went on as tumultuously as usual in CDS. Since this post is about the 20th RA, only passing mention will be made of some of these events during the final months of the 19th RA.

On 16 October Josjoha Resident posted a report about a recent abnormal rezzing spree in CDS. The items rezzed in public areas in Neufreistadt and Colonia Nova, some on and against private homes not owned by the attacker, included a poster of a nude women with the word 'pornography' over it, and a fire with a sign in it reading 'CLEO'. The rezzing seems to have been the work of Guillaume Mistwalker, to protest about complaints from certain citizens who had found the "pagan” posters he had put on his properties to be “pornographic,” which obliged him to remove them.

The final RA Meeting of the 19th RA was held on 26 October (the transcript is here). The main item of new business was“Redevelopment of LA.” Evidence of turbulence at that meeting was posted the next day by Ranma Tardis, indicating that Alexia Carnell had left the community following the vote to redevelop Locus Amoenus in a way which was against her desires (and she took with her “Time Machine” – whatever that is).

On a more positive note, a Halloween Party was held on 31 October on Schloss Keller.

The electoral campaign and the vote

On 01 November Callipygian posted Rules and Guidelines for Campaigning, and on 4 November the campaign officially began. Callipygian also announced the creation of a new section of the on-line forum, about the Campaign for Chancellor and the 20th RA, Nov 2013.

In early November a series of in-world candidates’ debates were organized. The debates among RA members were held on 03 November, 06 November and 07 November. Gwyneth Llewelyn held her own informal debate on 06 November. The Chancellor Debate, with Bagheera Kristan and Jamie Palisades, was held on 04 November. (I haven’t read these debate transcripts to see what the candidates said - but I've read the subsequent RA meeting transcripts to see what those elected have done. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.)

As announced by Callipygian, the polls opened at 12 noon SLT on 9 November for a period of one week. In the middle of the voting period, on 13 November, Jamie Palisades withdrew his candidacy for Chancellor, explaining that unexpected commitments were going to prevent his being able to spend significant time in-world for a few months (and that he had put forward his candidacy before realizing that Bagheera was also ready to serve in that role).

The polls closed at 12 noon SLT on 16 November. Later that same day, Callipygian as Dean of the SC officially announced the names of the new RA members. (However, I don’t find evidence that this was done at an in-world election results party, as is often the case.) The new RA members were (again in order of first names): Cleopatra Xigalia, Gwyneth Llewelyn, Rosie Gray, Shep Titian and Tor Karlsvalt. The new Chancellor was Bagheera Kristan (which was a foregone conclusion, as Jamie had withdrawn from the race).

The Inaugural RA Meeting on 23 November 2013

The 20th RA officially began on the 1st of December 2013. But an Inaugural Meeting had to be held before that date, to swear in the new RA members so that they could elect the Leader of the Representative Assembly (LRA). Under the old faction system, in force until early 2010, the main vote-getter of the leading faction automatically became LRA, but ever since then a special-meeting has been necessary.

The first meeting of the 20th RA was thus held on 23 November 2013. (Here are: the transcript part 1, the transcript part 2, and the Minutes.)

Callipygian as member of the SC chaired the meeting until the LRA could be elected and take the gavel. The new Chancellor and RA members were sworn in. Cleopatra nominated Gwyneth Llewelyn as LRA, but Gwyneth declined due to other heavy commitments. Tor Karlsvalt nominated Shep Titian, seconded by Rosie Gray, and as there were no further nominations, the vote for Shep was unanimous.

Rosie Gray then made a motion that formal Minutes should be prepared for each RA meeting. After some discussion Rosie’s motion was amended as follows: “Motion to have regular formal Minutes of meetings posted of the RA meetings, and to include a separate posting of the chat as well. All to be posted onto the CDS forum. The Minutes will be approved or amended at the following RA meeting.” This motion carried, and the meeting was adjourned.

More conflicts and a proposed grievance committee

Between the swearing in of the new RA, and the first full RA meeting on 3 December, CDS residents produced a few more instances of the habitual drama. Full of enthusiasm, the new Chancellor Bagheera Kristan stated on 25 November her intention to push energetically the planned transformation of the Locus Amoenus sim from a Greek theme to a Tuscan theme. While the basic thrust of this post was to request the RA to provide a solid set of covenants to go with the already-decided Tuscan theme, Bagheera in her excitement wrote: “I, as Chancellor, determine the use to which any and all land in CDS shall be put, which I interpret as it being incumbent on me to make the final decisions about the layout and divisions of parcels in Locus Amoenus."

This irritated Cadence Theas, who quickly posted a reply telling Bagheera: “you seem to forget that you were NOT voted in. On the ballot, the option to not vote for you did not appear, so this means that although you have a constitutional mandate, you have yet to earn your legitimacy and personal authority in the eyes of the citizens of CDS….”

Both of these posts generated a long string of replies. Happliy, much of this discussion seems to be a constructive exchange of ideas about Locus Amoenus and the covenants.

The other conflict that broke out on the same day was more polarizing. On 25 November Victor Mornington wrote: "I refuse to be part of ANY community which allows homophobic hate speech like Jos was sprouting in Cleo's little meeting.... I'm not gay, im not transgendered, im an everyday bloke, but i was sickened that the ‘Government’ allows this kind of crap to go on WITHIN their own regions, let alone in these forums."

In a comment further down in this thread, Cleopatra revealed that the day before she had held one of her usual discussion groups at the Higher Ground Coffee House in Locus Amoenus, with “Freedom of Speech” among the discussion points. Since only a few people arrived she put a message in CDS chat inviting people to her personal event held on private land in CDS, and several came. However, on the forum Cleo insisted that no one in the room gave anyone permission to share the local chat, noting that shared chat can violate privacy and is subject to fraud.

However, still further down in this thread, Jos himself posted a copy of part of the chat log. One of those who came to the meeting was Guillaume Mistwalker, and Jos accused him of having overstepped the bounds of free speech by rezzing posters over other people’s homes, which Jos felt should be punished. Then returning to what seems to have been a prior discussion with Victor, Jos said: “as a matter of fact i do belief that gayness and transgenderism is an affliction -- however out of generosity i also added ‘choice’ for the over-sensibility of some people here. Question: can i express that opinion, or is there no such freedom?”

Patroklus Murakami reacted by opening a separate thread called Homophobia in the CDS. Pat deplored that CDS had “at least one intolerant homophobic bigot making ill-informed and offensive comments about LGBT people,” but emphasizing that he saw this “as an opportunity to educate the ignorant rather than drive out people who hold such stupid views." Shep went further on her own thread called To ban or not to ban?, stating outright: “I think he should be banned.” But it is unclear whether any member of the community has ever actually been banned from CDS.

This seems to have been the latest emergence of deep-lying conflicts which had already provoked a search for mediation. On 27 November Cadence Theas posted a Preliminary proposal for a grievance committee. During the election process, she had made a sort of campaign promise regarding a proposal for a grievance committee, so she now lay out a preliminary vision of how it might work.

The proposed grievance committee would have a purely advisory relationship to government. Since scheduling is difficult in CDS, the committee could adopt the method of the circulating document. Affected parties would present their case before a majority of members, who would create the base document, accompanied by documented evidence. The document would then circulate through the committee, with comments and addenda, and within a few weeks, a majority of the committee would convene with the different parties to offer its suggestions and recommendations. The parties would then either reach an agreement that would be formalized before the committee, or they would agree to have the case reviewed by the SC, where the decision would be binding.

The first full meeting of the 20th RA took place a few days after these developments, on 3 December 2013. But this first post has already covered enough ground, so the RA meeting of 3 December will be left for the next installment.

READ MORE...

CDS History - the 13th RA Part 1

The following account covers the first part of the 13th Representative Assembly of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators (CDS), from April to July 2010. During these few months, I was still active in CDS. It is thus fairly easy for me to reconstitute the main events.

The May 2010 elections

On 22 April 2010 Delia Lake, acting in the name of the CDS Scientific Council (the Judiciary Branch), declared that the deadline for announcing candidacy for the next RA elections was 30 April 2010.

The atmosphere in CDS at that time was particularly tense. The conflict between one group of long-time CDS members and another group of long-time Al Andalus members was heating to the boiling point. I think I first realized that the merger might fall apart when I read the 30 April forum post “We need to talk” by Patroklus Murakami, in which he compared the merger to a failed love affair. Part of the divergence was in different approaches to democratic discussion. CDS has always operated as a very formal democracy with its Representative Assembly, where only the elected representative can vote, and which names various Commissions to discuss current issues. Al Andalus preferred informal consensus decision making, where all interested citizens were invited to discuss the issues at “Town Hall Meetings.” It is instructive to scroll down this list of meeting transcripts from 2010 posted to the CDS forum in the first half of 2010, in which there are nearly as many Town Hall Meetings as RA meetings. The last Town Hall Meeting on this list is dated 2 May 2010 – and I can’t find evidence that there were any others after that.

On 01 May Sonja Strom called for the traditional Candidates Debate for the May Elections. She noted that up until then CDS elections were held on a party system, where voters chose a party or “faction,” rather than individual candidates. Each party named one of its candidates to represent the faction, and the debates were held between the faction representatives. But the electoral law had just been changed, and for the first time citizens would vote for individual candidates rather than for parties. The 15 candidates were listed here. The “debate” seems finally to have been organized as a Meet the Candidates Pajama Party on 16 May 2010 – although I was unable to find any transcript of it.

The last meeting of the 12th RA seems to have been that of 9 May 2010 (the transcript was posted in three in three parts, which can all be found here).

On 10 May Delia Lake, as member of the Scientific Council, flagged the referendum question concerning the merger, which the RA had decided on 9 May 2010 to put on the ballot. The referendum question was: "Do you want the merger between the CDS and Al Andalus to become permanent?" (A member of the SC may flag legislation by posting a notice to the effect that an SC review is desired, with a brief justification.) The SC apparently reviewed the question and decided that it could indeed go on the ballot.

On 11 May Delia Lake posted the New Rules for Election Campaigning. I can’t find on the forums the announcement of when the polls would open and close, but on 23 May 23 Delia posted the Election Results. The winners were: Arria Perrault, Cindy Eksol, Gwynneth Llewelyn, Kasiedo Quandry, Lilith Ivory, Muhammedyussif Wikinger, Patrolkus Murikami, Pip Torok, Rose Springvale, Solomon Mosely, Stuichicanne Darkstone, Timo Gufler and Tor Karlsvalt. The results for the referendum question were: 23 votes for, 17 votes against, and 16 unanswered. Thus according to the referendum, the merger was to be permanent.

From the Election Result Announcement to the first meeting of the 13th RA

A few hours after the election results were announced, Cindy Ecksol summarized a question (which had already been raised by Arria Perreault), concerning the procedure for selection of the Leader of the Representative Assembly (LRA). In the past, the top vote-getter in the winning “faction” was automatically named LRA. This meant that the LRA was appointed before the first RA meeting was held (and the other new representative sworn), and could begin immediately get to work setting the date of the RA meeting, preparing the agenda, and soliciting candidates for Chancellor. But under the new voting system, there was no LRA until the new representative could meet to select one. Could the new RA “meet” informally before being sworn for the purpose of organizing itself? This question (an example of the type of arcane topic that can be endlessly discussed on the CDS forums) was apparently resolved by holding the first RA on 01 June, which date was pre-set by the legislation (but which fell on a weekday, which was inconvenient for some new representatives).

On May 31, the day before the first RA meeting of the new term, Cindy Ecksol announced her candidacy for the role of Chancellor, joining Sonja Strom who had apparently already announced her own candidacy for Chancellor.

From the first meeting of the 13th RA to the breakup of the merger

The first RA meeting of the 13th RA was held on 01 June 2010, as per the official schedule. Since there was no LRA yet, the meeting was opened by Delia Lake, who proceeded to the swearing in of the new RA members. Once this was done, the discussion turned to the selection of the LRA. The RA members nominated two candidates: Arria Perreault and Rose Springvale. The assembly immediately split into two groups, which could be called the anti-merger group supporting Arria, and the pro-merger group supporting Rose. Or rather, one group contested the neutrality of Rose, as Estate Owner for Al Andalus and the founder of the non-profit corporation VDI which owns the AA sims, and the other group contested the neutrality of Arria, who had campaigned on a platform specifically opposing the merger. The underlying conflict seems to have been about whether CDS could be converted into a non-profit organization in order to take over the AA sims, which benefitted from lower tier as belonging to a non-profit. The tone got so aggressive that a vote was taken to stop discussing and vote for LRA. Arria received 6 votes and Rose received 7.

On 01 June 2010, the same day as the first RA meeting, Kaseido Quandry submitted a Request to the SC to investigate the election. The issue raised by Kaseido was that Sonia Strom, in her role as Chancellor, had given certain candidates the power to send official group announcements concerning their candidacies. This issue was reviewed by the Scientific Council at its 9 June Meeting. The SC decided that Sonia as Chancellor had the right to give new candidates access to the group announcements, since candidates who were already members of the RA already had this access – and in a couple of cases had posted messages concerning their own candidacies. At this meeting the SC also nominated Callipygian Christensen as a new member of the SC.

The next few weeks were deceptively calm. The new RA set to work on practical matters, seeming almost to forget the conflict about the merger. At the the RA meeting of 12 June (see the Summary of Actions posted here) Callipygian Christensen was given the RA vote of confidence to serve on the SC. A Communications Commission was created to explore communications options and recommend legislation, and a Finance Commission was created to explore financial needs of the sims and recommend legislation. The vote for Chancellor was inconclusive: Sonja Strom and Cindy Ecksol both received 4 votes, with several “7 day votes” (requested by RA members who could not make the meeting). When the 7-day votes were counted later, Cindy and Sonja both had 6 votes (with 1 abstention), so there was still no Chancellor.

At the RA meeting of 17 June (see the Summary of Actions posted here another attempt was made to elect the Chancellor: Sonja and Cindy were again tied at 4 votes each, with several 7-day votes outstanding. Several more Commissions were created: an Election Commission to clarify procedures, a Commerce Commission to address issues of businesses in CDS sims, and a Citizenship Commission to review the rules of citizenship and make recommendations. Jamie Palisades volunteered to write a proposal for a Covenant Review Committee (no motion at this time), and steps were taken towards the creation of a Committee on Ethics and Conflicts of Interest. Jamie Palisades initiated a discussion regarding an operating agreement for the Al Andalus sims, which ended with a suggestion to have three representatives from CDS meet with the VDI board.

This last suggestion led to the Special Meeting of RA and Board of VDIheld on 21 June 2010 (the transcript is here. At this meeting Rose Springvale, Delia Lake and Micael Khander, the three members of the Board of the non-profit organization VDI, tried to explain the formal mechanisms underlying the merger. Linden Lab recognizes only two kinds of sim owners: the first is a single avatar who owns a private sim, which is the case for the 5 original CDS sims, owned by Sudane Erato. The second is a real-world nonprofit corporation, which is the case for Al Andalus, owner by VDI. According to LL, the Estate Owner (EO) of a private sim is an avatar who has the right to sell the sim, but the owner of a non-profit sim is the non-profit organization, and no individual avatar has the right to sell it. Arria Perreault pointed out that CDS law fails to recognize the second type of Estate Owner (EO), and Rose replied that the SC was reviewing whether the CDS Estate Owner law could be changed. Rose explained that Sudane could keep owning the five original sims while VDI owned the 6 AA sims, with a contract between the legal representative of CDS (the Chancellor) and the Executive Director of VDI - unless CDS created its own non-profit. (The initial merger agreement in fact foresaw that a new non-profit would be created to own all the sims.) Arria replied that many people are opposed to having VDI play the role of EO for the whole of CDS. Others present at the meeting worried what would happen if VDI broke the contract, or suggested that a non-profit would mean a loss of control, with suspicion of Rose’s motives. But if one reads to the end of this transcript, one gets the impression that Rose wanted Al Andalus to be integrated into CDS as the only way to save the 6 AA sims. And perhaps all the various objections of the CDS core group were basically a rejection of this additional responsibility. (Al Andalus finally closed on 6 June 2012).

Business as usual went on. At the RA Meeting of 11 July 2010 (see the Summary of Actions posted here) Sonya continued to act as Chancellor, since a new Chancellor had still not been elected. Sonya therefore gave the Chancellor’s report, announcing that Anna Toussaint had been named the new Public Information Officer (it is unclear how this happened), and presenting the budget. The various Commissions reported on their status. The Elections, Commerce, Citizenship and Finance Commissions were all at various stages of progress, but only the Communications Commission had come up with a specific proposal. This was a new Public Information Act, which the RA passed into law. (See Arria’s earlier post on CDS Communication for background. However, I’m still looking for a link to the law as passed.)

And then came the surprise. On 22 July 2010 Micael Khandr posted on the forum an Announcement of Decision to Separate AA from CDS. Micael reported that the Al Andalus community had held two separate meetings on 21 July 2010, attended by approximately 30 individuals from both AA and CDS. The majority had decided to separate the sims. VDI as owner of Al Andalus therefore officially notified the government of CDS that it had elected to separate from CDS, and that AA would work with CDS to assure a smooth transition.

So that was it: the merger had failed. Looking back now on that one-year period of the attempted merger, I am struck by how rich it was in innovations for CDS.

Life in CDS went on. But I personally was stunned, and my participation dwindled. A few months later I expressed my disillusionment in a post on The Limits of Virtual Democracy. I stopped participating in CDS. For the past few years I have come in-world once a month, just long enough to pay my CDS tier. But the wheel turns, and I’m back. READ MORE...

Picking up the Thread

Now that I’ve decided to come back into Second Life a bit, I should catch up on events in the Confederation of Democratic Simulators (CDS), which has been my SL home ever since my avatar moved there in late 2007. To know more about what has happened in CDS during the past few years, I plan to take up again my project of writing the CDS Chronicles.

There are several difficulties. What method can I use to accomplish this task quickly? And what moment in the past should I go back to in order to pick up the thread? In this post I will briefly present my solution to these two problems, and then discuss the wider implications of this writing project.

The Method

It would be easy to catch up on CDS if I had unlimited time. A vast amount of information is available on the CDS forums: meeting minutes, event announcements, official acts, discussions, disputes, rants…. But it would take very, very long to read through it all. My attempted series of posts reporting on RA meetings fell further and further behind, because it takes hours just to read the lengthy transcripts (which are just SL logs of everything said at each meeting) - let alone write up summaries of them. But the problem is that often you have to read the entire RA meetings to know what was decided at them - it was rare than anyone posted a summary of the decisions. (I see that recently there has been an effort to post short minutes of each RA meeting, which is a big step forward.)

Knowing by experience how long it takes to read the old RA transcripts and to digest the information on the forums, I am going to try a differen method. Rather than study forum posts in depth, I will just glance at the beginning of what seem to be the most important threads, to get a rough idea of what they are about. It should thus be possible to piece together a sketchy outline of the principle events and issues during past RA semesters.

I plan to write one article (or at most two) for each RA semester, giving an outline of the main events. I will post the rough draft, leaving possibility to fill in gaps later as comments and in-world discussions improve my understanding of what occurred. I hope that some of those who were active will provide feedback with which I can fill out the posts in the future.

Another lesson from my past experience is that I should report on current events in CDS in parallel with catching up on the past history. I therefore hope to provide posts about “CDS News,” as well as posts about “CDS History,” in order to avoid falling further and further behind as I did on prior attempts.

Where to pick up the thread?

My last post before becoming inactive was in May 2011. But my last account of a Representative Assembly (RA) meeting covered the RA of 23 August 2009, since I had fallen more than a year behind in my reporting. That meeting was the first RA meeting after the merger of CDS with-Al Andalus, which fell apart in July 2010, only a year later.

The failure of the merger was one of the reasons I lost interest in CDS. At the time I was disappointed with the CDS leadership for their role in breaking up the merger. But with hindsight I see that they may have had a point: the conflict between two different conceptions of how to run a community may have been impossible to resolve in any other way.

So where do pick up the thread? From August 2009, the time of the last RA meeting that I reported on? Or from July 2010, when the merger failed? Or from May 2011, when I wrote my last post before becoming inactive?

I was participating in CDS in July 2010 when the merger fell apart. I thus know pretty well what happened up to that point, and can easily pick up the thread from there. But since the rhythm of CDS life follows the RA semesters, I should back up a bit further, to start with the elections for the 13th RA in May 2010. I can then cover the entire 13th RA, from the swearing in of the new representatives on June 1st 2010, to the elections for the 14th RA, in November 2010.

The wider implications of this project

The main reason I want to write these summaries is to learn myself what has been happening in CDS. But there are also wider implications of this project of writing up CDS history and news.

A fundamental part of any democracy is the free circulation of information. Citizens must have the freedom to produce, distribute and consume information as they want. However, freedom of information is an empty formula if the information fails to circulate in a such way that citizens can have effective access to it.

The information concerning the life of CDS is available to anyone on the publicly-accessible forums. But this information is in fact difficult to access, because it takes too much time to dig it out of all of the scattered and lengthy posts and comments. Making the news about CDS more readily accessible could thus be a significant contribution to the democratic process.

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Less is More

I think I might get a bit involved in Second Life again.

Internet engagement tends to be cyclic, as I already observed back in 2008 in a post entitled Boom and Bust. It now appears that one’s level of participation can go through both short cycles and long cycles.

My first long cycle of engagement in Second Life lasted, with a few minor interruptions, from my avatar’s birth in late 2007 to the time of my last prior post in May 2011. Since then I have been “away” from Second Life for several years, doing other things.

During that first period of engagement I had great plans for my Second Life. I was going to learn to build and create content, to write scripts, perhaps to start an in-world business. But my goals were overly-ambitious, and out of phase with my real level of in-world knowledge. I failed to master even the most rudimentary tasks, such as shopping and improving my appearance. I put on some new clothes once in 2008, and have never changed them since! And I never put on any skin different from the one I was born with. (In fact, I am rather proud of Danton’s old-style avatar, because it shows how long he’s been around.)

So I should face the facts. I will probably never take the time to learn how to use Second Life well - let alone write a Second Life User Guide! (Actually I had a lot of fun capturing images of the in-world interface to use as illustrations for that User Guide website – until a new version of the viewer rendered them all obsolete.)

This time around my plans will be more modest. My main goal will be just to maintain some sort of Second Life presence. Maybe I could start by learning how to buy a new set of clothes.

In general, it seems that the higher you plan to fly on the upswing (the “boom”), the flatter you fall on the downswing (the “bust”). Thus the first principle of sustainability: less is more. READ MORE...

The Limits of Virtual Democracy

I joined the Confederation of Democratic Simulators (CDS) in December 2007, when my Avatar was just a few weeks old. I participated actively in CDS until the failure of the merger with Al Andalus in the summer of 2010. At that point I pretty much dropped out of any involvement in CDS, though it took me a while to announce officially my withdrawal from certain functions. In August 2010 I quit CSDF, the political party (or “faction”) within CDS which I had belonged to. But I only resigned from my position on the Scientific Council (the CDS equivalent of a Supreme Court) in April 2011. However, I’m still a voting member of CDS, and my Second Life home is still on the Colonia Nova sim.

The time has come for me to assess my experience of virtual democracy in CDS. As explained above, I’m totally out of touch with what has happened there in the past 8 months. I would however be surprised if anything has drastically changed in that time.

The democratic apparatus of CDS

First, the positive points. The democratic apparatus constructed by CDS seems to me to be essentially authentic. There is clear identification of which avatars are citizens of CDS, based on the verifiable criteria of land ownership. (The only requirement for being a voting citizen is that you must own land in CDS. This is clear in principle, but in practice it can be hard to verify land ownership, as will be explained below.) Every 6 months the citizens vote for elected representatives, via an electronic voting system, on the basis of one vote per citizen. The elected Representative Assembly (RA) then meets regularly (generally every two weeks) in sessions that are open to the public. The RA discusses and votes on legislative measures, including possible constitutional amendments, in a disciplined manner and following clearly established procedures.

The elected representatives generally belong to one of the several political parties (“factions”) within CDS (although they are no longer strictly required to have any party affiliation). CDS thus functions as a true multi-party system with authentic government alternation (the process by which one party ousts another, for example in the U.S. when a Republican president replaces a democratic one, or vice-versa).

During my participation in CDS politics I’ve witnessed several government alternations. While the dominate political party has generally been CSDF, some notable overthrows were when the governmental majority passed over to NuCare in early 2008 (due it is true to the resignation of several CSDF members in protest over the behavior of their opponents) and the electoral victory of Rose Springvale’s group (which nonetheless refused to recognize itself as a "faction") in the Summer of 2009.

The power elite

Thus the democratic apparatus of CDS would seem to make it truly democratic. But I feel that there are serious short-comings in the way this community actually implements democracy. Before I go on I might observe that something similar can be said of any democratic system: democracy is an ideal which is only approximately approached in any real life situation. The question is whether a given community comes close enough to the democratic ideal to satisfy its members. In the last resort this is an individual judgement.

A common defect of supposedly democratic systems is the formation of a Power Elite. This term (coined by sociologist C.Wright Mills in his 1956 book of the same name) refers to a small group of people who control a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, or access to decision-making.

The Power Elite within CDS is made up of avatars who have more time to devote than others. It is said that time is money, but within communities time is above all power, because influence is exercised by maintaining an active presence. Thus an "inner core" (borrowing the term from Prokofy Neva) has gradually formed over time in CDS. This is a relatively small group of avatars who have intimate knowledge of Second Life, of CDS and of each other, and who generally manage to steer the community in the direction that they want.

One could argue that this hidden exercise of power provides CDS with needed stability. CDS is an ungated community, since any avatar in Second Life can become a citizen simply by purchasing land there. As such CDS is susceptible to being taken over by a concerted influx of new residents, which was a fear that I expressed in this post. At the time I was puzzled at how certain pillars of CDS could remain calm when the Representative Assembly fell into the hands of their worrisome enemies the NuCare group. But I gradually realized that NuCare could wreak all the havok they liked in the CDS legislation without ever really putting CDS in danger, because the power elite would always find ways to bring things back under their own control.

While it provides a form of stability, however, the unchecked sway of a power elite generally means neglect of the less active members. This is a rule that applies across all social formations. Participation by the rank-and-file never "just happens": it must be actively promoted by providing encouragement, occasions and information. The slow building of a culture of inclusion requires deliberate, focused efforts in this direction over the long run. This perspective is missing in CDS.

The opaque citizen

Another major shortcoming of CDS democracy is the weak control of citizen identity.

A basic principle in democracy is that each citizen gets one vote. In CDS one avatar gets one vote, but in virtual worlds one real-life person can create several avatars. Each Second Life resident generally has a main identity and then one or more alts. Short of implementing strict identity control, this problem will remain inherent to virtual worlds. However, there are ways to limit the extent of abuse.

The main way CDS limits the proliferation of alts is by requiring each citizen to own land in CDS. While the monthly cost of a minimal plot is low, it is a real cost, both in terms of Linden Dollars, and in terms of the effort that must be made to come inworld and visit the payment box once a month. Unfortunately, CDS allows land ownership by informal groups, and then recognizes any member of such a group as a valid citizen. Thus there is no way to directly establish the list of citizens by looking at the list of landowners: one must also contact the representatives of land-owning groups to ask which avatars they count as paying land-owners. This renders the citizen groups opaque and makes it easier to commit voter fraud.

In search of participatory democracy

The democratic system in CDS thus suffers from definite short-comings. But as I implied above, any real democratic system is going to deviate from the unattainable ideal. It is up to each individual to decide how much democracy they require. I personally have been willing to compromise up until now, in order to participate in an at least partially democratic system.

But today I’m becoming more bold in my pursuit of the ideal of participatory democracy. I’ll have to devote a separate post to explaining what I mean by participatory democracy, but I might just say here that it involves taking deliberate steps to help all members of the community to participate more fully, taking into account their personal constraints. The primary constraint holding members back is of course time. If one has unlimited time it is easy to participate in any system. With enough time one’s avatar could serve on the CDS Representative Assembly, participate in the planning and building activities of New Guild, and contribute extensively to the forum and website. But the average citizen who has time constraints finds it difficult just to keep up with CDS news. This was why I tried to offer short summaries of the RA meetings, to help less-active members keep abreast of RA decisions. But of course that project succumbed to my own personal time constraints.

I see several possible courses of action for my own pursuit of a more participatory virtual democracy. I could try to push for reform within CDS. That might mean creating a reform party and trying to convince CDS members to support better information sharing and greater participation by all members, rather than just by those who have the most available time. The reform efforts could likewise extend to improvements in the verification of citizen identity.

Or I could to try find, or help start, another virtual democracy that would function in a more truly participatory manner. (Wider sharing of power would probably be easier within a community that is at least partially gated, such as by limiting entry to candidates using some sort of reputation system.) But I doubt that I would find the time or energy for such a project. So the most feasible solution for me will probably just be to keep going on as before - now that I’ve had my say.

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Danton's Real Life User Guide

It seems that I've given up on my series of posts about the meetings of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators. My disappointment at the failure of the merger of CDS with Al Andalus obviously has something to do with it. For the moment I've turned my attention to another project: Danton's Real Life User Guide.

In fact, Danton's Real Life User Guide has been online for a while - but until recently it contained only a single article. Before that, I used that same website, with its bizarre URL "vwiki.ouvaton.org," for various experimental projects, which I subsequently moved to other Mediawiki websites with more appropriate URLs. At the moment I'm too buzy to make another site with a better URL, so Danton's Real Life User Guide will stay at http://vwiki.ouvaton.org.

One of the previous projects developed at that URL and then moved elsewhere was Danton's Second Life User Guide. I had lots of fun fleshing out that site, but that Second Life User Guide was overly ambitious, and I stopped working on it when it was less than half-baked.

A mental toolkit

With "vwiki.ouvaton.org" standing empty, I came up with a new experiment for it. For years I've been turning over the idea of developing some sort of mental toolkit for popular consumption. As I explain on the website: "A mental toolkit is a collection of conceptual schemes which, by reflecting how the world works, help the person carry out individual and collective projects." The mental toolkit project is closely related to my interest in convivial tools - but it would take us off the track if I tried to explain that now.

The political dimension

The mental toolkit includes pages containing various practical tips on subjects that seem to me to be particularly important or useful. But it quickly became evident that there is a political dimension to this project. The very idea of disseminating a mental toolkit is rooted in a larger project of trying to distribute personal power more equally to all members of society.

So this website has also become the place where Danton explains his politics. Danton, who was more radical in his youth, now espouses moderate socialism, meaning: "limited socialism under a democratic political regime with a free market economy." This is explained in more detail on the website.

I find it a relief to be able to set out my political position, for the record. I've always been a bit of an anarchist, but at the same time some sort of socialist. In the years since the fall of communism (which I refer to as the "failure of Marxist governments"), the principal form of socialism has become social democracy. This just means a certain dose of distributive socialism within a democratic regime: all developed nations are in fact already social-democratic, including Western Europe of course, but also including the United States itself (progressive income tax, social security and welfare are "socialist" mechanisms).

This explanation of my view of socialism might also serve as a reply to John Carter McNight, who in a comment on his own blog, described "social democracy, Marxism and the US Democratic Party, all … as being sides in a war long over, products of a world that hasn’t existed since the fall of Reagan, Thatcher and the Berlin Wall." I understand his preference for a "techno-libertarian/anarcho-capitalist" viewpoint, but I think he's wrong to consider that social-democracy is a thing of the past. I would say instead that moderate socialism is the most favorable framework for the development of a techno-libertarian and anarcho-capitalist lifestyle. READ MORE...

Demerging

I'm going to take a break from my series of posts about the Representative Assembly of CDS to comment on the demerging of CDS and Al Andalus.

I'm still a full year behind in writing my summaries of CDS Representative Assembly meetings. My post-before-last was about the very first meeting of the merged entity. And before I could even recapitulate that year of merger, this experiment in inter-community cooperation has ended – in failure.

How I Learned the news

The way I learned the news about the demerger was odd. It had been announced on the CDS forum, but I missed it. I was on vacation at the time. When I checked in on the forum, the announcement had already dropped too far down in the list to catch my eye.

So I only realized that something had happened when I read the Transcript of the July 24 RA Meeting. A few minutes into the meeting there was the following exchange:

[9:07] Ranma Tardis: so now what? AA has left the CDS
[9:07] Rose Springvale: smiles
[9:08] Rose Springvale: we move forward Ranma. and that's what the RA will be addressing this term, how CDS will move forward. I hope you'll stick around to see

A bit later in that meeting, Rose Springvale explained that Al Andalus had announced its withdrawal from the merger on the previous Thursday. What had happened?

There had been little warning of the possibility of such an outcome at the previous RA meeting on July 11. Consider for example this Summary of Actions posted after the July 11 RA Meeting. There is not so much as a mention of the upcoming decisions concerning the merger.

And if one digs into the detailed discussion at the July 11 RA Meeting, one gets the impression that opposition to the merger was coming mostly from the CDS side. There was notably the following exchange between Patroklus Murakami and Rose Springvale:

[9:10] Patroklus Murakami: has the RA meeting to consider the merger been set yet?
[9:10] Rose Springvale: it isn't on the agenda, but the time for it is between july 22 and july 29

When asked why he brought this up, Pat explained: "it may well be a foregone conclusion but.... we still need to hold the vote." The period indicated by Rose marked the one year anniversary of the merger, at which time either party could decide to pull out, according the merger agreement (see point 8).

Thus Patroklus, who appeared as the informal head of the CDS group opposed to the merger, was sceptical as to whether the merger could be overturned. Pat seems unaware that there was a strong possibility that Al Andalus might themselves decide to pull out. But that is what they did.

Aftermath

A few days after I learned the news, I read Rose's blog post dated July 27, entitled Sometimes, it is just time to move on. Apparently Rose herself had come to the decision to demerge, even before the Al Andalus community meetings which were held on July 21.

After I had read Rose's post I discovered that a CDS forum thread I started had become "colonized" (as Jamie Palisades put it) by a discussion of the demerger. So I took advantage of that opportunity to express my own reaction to this sad development, calling it a "fiasco."

And then I came across a post by Kaseido Quandry about The CDS as Modernist Bastion . I replied to Kaseido with a comment in which I argued that the blame is to be shared on both sides. I concluded: "there was a failure of the collective leadership of the merged entity."

So what now? Rose Springvale seems to think both entities can continue to carry on their separate business as usual. The CDS stalwarts seem to have quickly adapted to the new situation, promptly erasing all traces of Al Andalus from the CDS portal.

But what about those of us who were counting on the success of the merger? I for one went out on a limb, seeing that CDS was in the process of opening up and changing. For example, I had written this comment on an earlier post by Kaseido, in which I refer to "covert control by a self-perpetuating elite." My dreams were that CDS would initiate a whole new group of members to structured democratic process (which I prefer to the Al Andalus ad hoc consensus process), and that this new group would in turn help CDS to evolve. Now both of these dreams have simultaneously collapsed. A great opportunity has been missed. Perhaps there will be others.
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RA Register Part 2

I'll try to stick to the new short format in the following summaries of the Representative Assembly (RA) meetings of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators (CDS). The short format aims to present just a bare register of topics discussed and decisions taken at each meeting. I will allow myself to digress if I find it necessary to add explanations or comments, but the goal is to keep everything as short as possible, in order to try to catch up to the present. (I'm still a year behind.)

The first Representative Assembly meeting of the Fall semester of 2009 was held on 2 August 2009, as told in my previous post. This had also been the first RA meeting following the merger of CDS with Al Andalus (AA), and thus the first one with representatives from AA.

Representative Assembly meeting of 16 August 2009

The agenda for the Representative Assembly meeting of 16 August 2009 was posted here, and the transcript can be found here. During the opening discussion of administrative items, the Leader of the Representative Assembly (LRA) Cindy Ecksol noted that there was not a quorum of members present, so no binding decisions could be made. Naftali Torok, who had been absent at the previous meeting, was sworn in as member of the RA.

Jamie Palisades gave a brief Chancellor's report. He mentioned that he had posted the term's civil service appointments on the forum, and reminded everyone that he planned to implement decentralized events programming, as proposed in a previous Chancellor's report. Then Joaquin Gustav, who had arrived late, was also sworn in as RA member. Carolyn Saarinen was not there to report on the in-world status board, nor was Claude Desmoulins there to present outstanding items from the Scientific Council. Some discussion of the CDS census followed (about gathering more information than just the name), and preparations for the Oktoberfest were mentioned, and the meeting adjourned.

Representative Assembly meeting of 23 August 2009

The agenda for the 23 August 2009 RA meeting was posted here and the transcript can be found here. The transcript begins with a link to a Google Docs attendance poll posted by LRA Cindy Ecksol.

The first item of business was the swearing in of RA member StuiChicanne Darkstone. (This marks the beginning of the era of Stui, who set a distinctive new tone for the RA meetings.) Then Jamie Palisades asked if a Deputy LRA had been named. Cindy Ecksol nominated her fellow faction-member Soro Dagostino as Deputy LRA (who directs the meetings when the LRA is absent). The nomination was voted on and passed unanimously. Carolyn Saarinen reported on her investigations concerning a status board to show when RA members are in-world. An off-the-shelf system could be had for L$1000. The purchase was voted on and approved.

The next item was a presentation by Jamie Palisades of the Chancellor's plans for regional event expenditures. During the previous term the events spending was well below the budget, so Jamie had proposed to set aside portions of an expanded events budget for four citizen-led volunteer panels, as follows: a cultural and arts commission (CDS-wide), an Alpine region commission (for the Neufriestadt and Alpine Meadows sims), and Andalusian region commission, and a Roman region commission (for the Colonia Nova and Locus Amoenus sims – though this latter is supposed to be Greek). The Chancellor would however require that commission members who are seeking funding abstain from any vote on their own proposals. Debate about this item went over the time allotted for it, and Jamie suggested the topic should be posted for discussion on the forums. A motion to postpone the item was presented and passed.

Naftali Torok presented a bill to change election dates, since the existing election schedule put campaigning into the middle of highly distracting periods of the year (Christmas season and summer vacations). Her simple proposal was to amend Article I, Section 2 of the CDS Constitution to read: "New RAs shall take office on 1 June and 1 December." Sonja Strom linked to a poll and discussion of this topic on the CDS forum. Discussion dragged on, and it was voted to defer this item also to the next meeting.

Under "concerns of RA members," Naftali Torok brought up the subject of new building and terraforming in the sims, mentioning that builders should keep in mind the landscape themes. Carolyn Saarinen asked about education classes (building courses organized by the Guild). Rose Springvale made a few announcements related to events, notably about the one-year anniversary of the Locus Amoenus ceremony, and floats for the Oktoberfest parade. The meeting was adjourned. (LRA Cindy Ecksol posted a summary of the 23 August meeting here.)

Representative Assembly meeting of 6 September 2009

The agenda for the 6 September 2009 RA does not seem to have been posted on the forum, but the transcript can be found here. Soro Dagostino, who served as Deputy LRA in the pre-announced absence of LRA Cindy Ecksol, began with adjustments to the agenda. He then had the modified agenda voted upon, in his usual procedural manner, and passed the floor to Jamie Palisades for the Chancellor's report.

Jamie mentioned subjects such as bringing more parcels in CN online as commercial properties, possible rent reductions, ongoing terraforming on the Monastery sim and in the joining sims between Al Andalus and Colonia Nova, the hard-to-use portal website, and a study of public buildings in CDS. Pip Torok mentioned that the 79AD exhibit by Symo Kurka in Locus Amoenus, which was intended to aid the sale of LA plots, had served its purpose and could be dismantled. Pip was also concerned about out-of-theme buildings appearing in the Roman sim. Jamie then discussed the regional cultural commissions, which he was hoping would take over event programming in the regions. Micael Khandr asked if the neighborhoods could also decide building issues (to keep buildings in-theme). StuiChicanne Darkstone observed that in AA there was no effective lower level authority to decide a building plan. Jamie replied that land covenant compliance was generally a responsibility of the Chancellor, who would attempt mediation in case of a complaint, rather than threaten land confiscation. He thought there might be an opportunity to develop more local responsibility in this process.

The next item was the change of election dates, which had been proposed by Naftali Torok at the previous RA meeting. Sonja Strom suggested holding a referendum on the subject. As this referendum proposal was in fact a new item to consider, there was a motion to defer it to the next meeting, which passed. Carolyn Saarinen made two announcements, one about an upcoming course in building, and another on her initial contacts with the maker of the online indicator system. The meeting was adjourned.
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RA Register Part 1

I'll have to try a new formula. I've been trying to bring up-to-date my summaries of meetings of the Representative Assembly of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators. But instead of a "fast forward" I'm stuck as far behind as ever. I'm still reporting on what happened in CDS one year ago! Henceforth I'm only going to present a bare register of topics discussed and decisions taken.

The Representative Assembly (RA) meeting held on 28 June 2009 had been mostly devoted to discussion of the latest version of a proposed constitutional amendment concerning merger procedures, presented by Patroklus Murakami. This amendment received four "yes" votes out of the five RA members present, but two RA members had requested 7-day votes. It turns out that those two RA members voted no, and the proposal therefore failed, since a constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds majority.

Representative Assembly Meeting of 12 July 2009

The July 12 meeting was the last RA of the Spring semester of 2009. The agenda was ambitious. Soro Dagostino, the Leader of the Representative Assembly (LRA) arrived an hour late, and on the forums the transcript is in two parts. The first part was recorded by Brian Livingston and runs up until he left the meeting, while the second part starts from when Soro arrived and runs to the end of the meeting.

The Chancellor's report was tabled, since Jamie Palisades was absent. Discussion moved to the next item, the General Master Plan (GMP). Sonja Strom reported on a workgroup formed a few months before, which had put a lot of work into making various maps. But the GMP had not yet been revised accordingly. Brian Livinston noted that the last forum thread on this topic mentioned work still to be completed regarding terrain. There followed discussion of the incorporation of Al Andalus into the GMP process. Sonja noted that AA had indicated in their merger offer acceptance letter that they chose option 2 for the position of AA, which joined the AA sim with the libraries on it to the north side of Colonia Nova. Brian moved to consult with the New Guild regarding the status of the GMP and the position of AA in the final plan, and this was approved by a vote.

Next on the agenda was CDS Economic Development, but time was running late, so the RA moved to an item which was not on the agenda, but which normally would have come under the time allotted to the Chancellor. Sonja Strom introduced Zaphod Enoch, a member of Munich in SL, who liked Neufriestadt, and who proposed that CDS and Munich-SL have a consulate exchange. The RA members were interested in this idea, but expected the Chancellor to carry it forward, and since he was absent it was tabled.

There then should have been discussion of proposals from the Scientific Council (SC), but no SC members were present, so this too was tabled. The final item was interviews with two candidates to the Scientific Council, Delia Lake and Danton Sideways. Candidates are traditionally proposed by the SC and then interviewed by the RA, who must approve them (though if the RA takes no action within a month the candidates automatically become SC members). The RA inhabitually decided to approve the two candidates without interviewing them, and the meeting was adjourned.

Elections for the Fall 2009 Representative Assembly

Thus the Spring semester of the CDS Representative Assembly came to an end, and the election period began for the Fall semester. This was a rather special election, since the pre-merger CDS voted for representatives according to its traditional procedure, while Al Andalus selected its representatives using its own procedure.

The election calendar was posted by Rose Springvale on 25 May 2009 (long before the end of the Spring RA session). Rose stated that the polls would open at noon (Second Life Time) on July 11 and close at noon on July 25, and that the new representatives would take office on August 1. Claude Desmoulins added a correction later in the thread stating that the polls would in fact close at noon on July 18. (And the first meeting of the Fall semester was in fact held on Sunday August 1.)

On June 27 Claude Desmoulins acting as Dean of Scientific Council posted the official candidate list. On July 8 Rose announced that the candidate's debate would be held on July 11. After the debate, the debate transcript was posted on the forum.

The CDS elections were held as planned from July 11 to July 18. On July 20 the Scientific Committee held a meeting to validate the election results and announce the winners. The election results were then posted on the forum. The winners were (for each of the three factions):

* SP: Cindy Ecksol (LRA), Soro Dagostino, Robert Galland
* DPU: Sonja Strom, Pip Torok
* CSDF: Arria Perreault, Gwyneth Llewelyn

The Scientific Committee also reviewed the total number of RA members, in order to determine the number of interim representatives to be named by Al Andalus. Counting the dual citizens (those declared in both the old part of CDS and in Al Andalus) twice, as foreseen by the merger bill, the total number of citizens was determined to be 131, of which 71 were counted for the old CDS. Dividing by ten and rounding down gave 7 RA members from the old CDS and 6 RA members to be named by Al Andalus.

On July 22 the sims of CDS and Al Andalus physically merged together to form one land mass.

Cindy Ecksol as new LRA announced on July 23 that the first RA meeting of the new term would be held on August 2. And on July 25 Claude Desmoulins as SC Dean called for chancellor applications (candidates for the position of Chancellor declare their intention to the SC Dean).

Representative Assembly Meeting of 2 August 2009

The Representative Assembly meeting of 2 August 2009 was the first of the Fall 2009 semester. The agenda was posted here and the transcript can be found here.

The first item was inauguration of the new RA members. The following members were sworn in: Cindy Ecksol, Sonja Strom, Micael Khandr, Robert Galland, Pip Torok, Soro Dagostino, Carolyn Saarinen, Arria Perrault. Of these, Micael Khandr and Carolyn Saarinen were from Al Andalus. As Sonja noted on the forum, another two AA representatives, StuiChicanne Darkstone and Wasp Thor were absent. (And one can see lower down in the same thread that the remaining two AA reps would be Joaquin Gustav and Naftali Torok.)

Then, after a few administrative matters, came the election of Chancellor. The two candidates, Jamie Palisades and Zaphod Enoch, were present to make statements and answer questions. Sonja Strom and Arria Perault voted for Zaphod. Micael Khandr, Robert Galland, Pip Torok and Soro Dagostino voted for Jamie. Carolyn Saarinen abstained on grounds that she did not know the candidates well enough. (Cindy does not seem to have voted.) Thus Jamie Palisades was re-elected Chancellor for yet another term.

Sudane Erato made a presentation concerning the CDS budget. She spoke about collecting tier on the four original CDS sims. She had no experience yet with Al Andalus, but proposed to budget everything on a monthly basis, even though AA tier is paid every six months. The level of saving to reserves was still set at 25% of the available funds (after payment to Linden Lab). Sudane answered various questions, and Cindy reminded everyone that Jamie as Chancellor was responsible for preparing the budget for the upcoming semester.

Under "concerns of RA members," Carolyn Saarinn presented her ideas concerning an in-world status board that would show which CDS RA members were inworld. She also brought up the question of administrative permissions of RA members. Under "citizen concerns," Claude Desmoulins expressed the hope that a new Archivist would be named in order to ensure timely posting of legislation. Then Gwyneth Llewelyn, who had arrived late, was sworn in as RA member, and Jamie was sworn in as Chancellor. Rose Springvale announced the Inaugural Ball planned for August 9th, and the meeting was adjourned. READ MORE...

Fast Forward Part 6

The previous meeting of the Representative Assembly (RA), held on 14 June 2009, culminated in a vote on a proposal for a constitutional amendment, which some held necessary to support the merger between CDS and Al Andalus. But the proposed constitutional amendment failed to obtain the required two-thirds majority, so another version was again presented at the Representative Assembly of 28 June 2009.

(Note as usual that minutes of these RA meetings can be found in the part of the CDS forum called Representative Assembly Announcements.)

Representative Assembly Meeting of 28 June 2009

The meeting began with a brief Chancellor's report. Jamie Palisades invited everyone to look out the window to admire the just-delivered Monastery sim. He noted that most of CDS was sold. However, the refurbishment of the former Emporia Romani space in Colonia Nova, which some guild members had been asked to do, was still awaiting completion. The Al Andalus merger transaction, barring any last-minute deterioration of the legal environment, was on course to take effect between 7 and 16 July. The first step would be to add the AA voter rolls to those of CDS, and for CDS to start collecting rents from their HIPPO system and paying their tier. Then there would be all the details to work out, such as memberships in land groups, which Jamie would write about on the forum.

Patroklus Murakami mentioned that in previous elections no one knew what size the RA would be until polling day, since the electoral system defines it as 10% of the number of citizens, rounded down. If 30 new citizens joined just before polling day, CDS could end up with a 10 member RA but only 70 citizens entitled to vote (since new citizens have a waiting period before they can vote). Soro Dagostino, the Leader of the Representative Assembly (LRA), thought Pat was out of order because he was speaking to an item that would be on the agenda later, but Jamie took Pat's question to be about what happens if no constitutional amendment were passed, and thus relevant to Jamie's merger report. (Jamie's modification of Pat's constitutional amendment had been voted on at the previous RA meeting. It failed to get a two-thirds majority, but this was only confirmed after counting the "seven-day votes" requested by two absent RA members, Brian Livingston and Sonja Strom.) Jamie maintained that his own version of the constitutional amendment would have resolved the problem of double votes by CDS members participating in the selection of Al Andalus representatives.

Gwyneth Llewelyn observed that Al Andalus as a non-profit was billed every six months for tier payment to Linden Lab, and asked whether the merger would require CDS to change its legislation, which required the treasury to have funds for only 3 months of payment. Jamie replied that CDS had not yet had to deal with such a question, and would have to determine whether it would front the six months of tier while billing all citizens monthly.

Discussion then began on Pat's latest version of the constitutional amendment concerning merger procedures. This version was the shortest yet, containing only three sentences, the key one running as follows: "The RA may be supplemented with interim additional representatives, freely chosen by a community joining the CDS." Pat explained that this amendment was intended to enable the merger, by ensuring that the AA reps can join the RA, and also provided a minimal framework for future expansions. The proposal was seconded, and Pat then presented his arguments for the amendment. The CDS Constitution defines the RA as a body of democratically elected factions, with involved rules about how to conduct elections, nothing of which will apply to the AA reps joining the RA. So to accommodate the merger Pat borrowed language from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), to put into the framework for any future mergers the expectation that the RA will remain a democratic body. And Gwyneth quoted the relevant passage from article 21 of the UDHR: "Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives."

Jamie Palisades asked Pat whether the selection by AA of interim representatives in accordance with the merger bill would be constitutionally attackable without his constitutional amendment. Pat answered that he did think there would be a constitutional issue without his amendment. Jamie then asked whether, once the constitutional amendment was passed, the AA selection would still be open to challenge. Pat said he thought the amendment would reduce the likelihood that the AA representatives could be successfully challenged. Gwyneth added that some people in the future could contest the merger bill as unconstitutional, since it creates a way for RA members to be appointed outside the normal election process, and that Pat's amendment would ensure that the merger bill cannot be attacked. Pip Torok observed that "freely chosen" in the merger bill means that AA is free to choose according to their whim, and that CDS cannot say how they should choose.

Jamie made a last plea for his own constitutional amendment, which would explicitly legitimate a transaction procedure in the case of mergers with large bodies such as AA, and which itself would make the AA process for selection of interim representatives constitutional. But he also stated that since the deadline had passed for constitutional challenge of the merger bill, the completion of the merger required no constitutional amendment at all. And he suggested that Pat's amendment could be interpreted as opposition to the merger. This brought protests from both Pat and Gwyneth, who insisted they had never opposed the merger. Gwyneth acknowledged that the merger bill had passed all required review and would be implemented, but stated that she and Pat wanted to introduce the possibility of RA members being freely chosen from their communities in any FUTURE mergers, and to make that part of the Constitution.

The vote was called. Patroklus Murakami, Pip Torok, Sonja Strom and Gwyneth Llewelyn voted yes. Soro Dagostino voted no, and observed that there were two senators with seven day votes. Since a Constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds majority, it required one more yes vote to pass. (As can be seen on the forum, Cindy Ecksol and Brian Livingston voted no, and the proposed amendment failed.)

There was a brief discussion of when the territorial accession of the AA sims would happen (most likely between July 7th and 16th). This was left to the discretion of the Chancellor, provided that it did not fall during the upcoming election. The meeting was adjourned.

Transition to The Register

I'm losing ground. This series of summaries of CDS Representative Assembly meetings was supposed to be a "fast forward" to the present, but the last instalment was posted three months ago. I'm going to try yet another formula: a simple register of topics discussed and decisions taken. Transition to The Register Part 1.
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Fast Forward Part 5

The Representative Assembly (RA) of May 31 2009 had approved the merger offer which CDS extended to Al Andalus. The next RA meeting was held just one week later, on 7 June 2009. This meeting and the following one on 14 June 2009 were primarily taken up with discussion of proposed amendments to the CDS constitution, which some held to be necessary to accommodate the impending merger.

(Note as usual that minutes of these RA meetings can be found in the part of the CDS forum called Representative Assembly Announcements.)

Representative Assembly Meeting of 7 June 2009

The RA meeting of 7 June 2009 was a Special Meeting, announced at the last minute under conditions contested by Cindy Ecksol, who could not attend but who asked for a 7-day vote.

At the end of the previous RA meeting, the discussion on the latest proposal for a new Monastery sim had been postponed. To resume the discussion, Patroklus Murakami made a motion to approve this proposal, which Gwyneth Llewelyn seconded. The Leader of the Representative Assembly (LRA) Soro Dagostino noted that Chancellor Jamie Palisades had posted a new note on the subject that morning (which would seem to be this note). Those present were ready to vote without further discussion, so the motion was called - and it passed! Thus after 9 months of procedures Arria Perrault was finally able to create the first homestead sim in CDS.

The next matter was a proposed Community Merger Bill, presented by Patroklus Murakami. He began by saluting the "fantastic" news that Al Andalus had agreed to the CDS merger proposal. (The previous RA meeting had approved the Al Andalus Expansion Proposal, the final text of which was posted on the forum by Cindy Ecksol. The offer was sent to the Al Andalus Estate by Chancellor Jamie Palisades, who posted the text of the offer on 2 June 2009, followed by the text of the Al Andalus acceptance on 5 June 2009.) Patroklus maintained however that the merger required changes to the CDS Constitution, notably since the Constitution refers to the RA as being made up of "democratically elected factions."

During prior discussions, Pat had proposed a first version of such a constitutional amendment, but the merger offer was voted before any discussion of Pat's proposal. Then on the morning of 7 June, Jamie Palisades had posted a much simplified alternative version of Pat's text. Soro asked Pat if he accepted Jamie's changed version. But meanwhile the RA members asked for time to read the text - and they were apparently reading Pat's original version instead of Jamie's modified version. Pip Torok suggested changing the first sentence of Section 2 from "at least a year" to "a year to 18 months." (This sentence, about how long after the merger the community joining the CDS will retain its own Estate Owner, is found in Pat's original version.) Pat accepted Pip's suggestion as a friendly amendment. Gwyneth Llewelyn observed that the approved merger offer defines a transition period of a full RA term of six months (see section 4 of the final merger proposal), while section 3 of Pat's first version suggests instead a three month transition period. Sonja Strom proposed rewording this passage to read: "These temporary seats last until the first RA term in which the new citizens participate in the election." Pat accepted that also. There followed discussion of certain words that Pat had put in brackets, meant to be alternative wordings, in particular in the following passage: "the RA will be augmented by a number of [nonvoting] representatives (equal to the number of Interim Added Seats) appointed/elected by the community joining using its own [democratic] methods…." Pat proposed to take out "nonvoting" but to leave in "democratic."

Gwyneth asked if it was clear to everyone that the Interim Added Seats expired at the next regular election. Claude Desmoulins noted that if the merger happens more than thirty days before an election, the text is clear that the interim seats will last a full term, but if the merger happens less than thirty days before, there is ambiguity as to how long the interim is. However, it would be reasonable to assume that in the latter case the interim period would also be until the end of the term, because otherwise it would not be "interim." Sonja Strom asked about the sentence in section 2 which said: "Any sims owned by the community will merge as one territory with the CDS." Pat explained that he didn't mean "one contiguous territory," but that they could remain in different places on the grid. And Gwyneth asked what about getting "half a community"? Then Soro asked if the discussion could be postponed until next week, and Pat agreed that it would be better to get things right than to rush. The meeting was adjourned.

Representative Assembly Meeting of 14 June 2009

The RA decided that the first item of business would be continuation of the discussion about the constitutional amendment to facilitate the merger. Pat moved the proposed constitutional amendment that he had circulated at the last meeting and posted on the forum. Jamie however linked to Pat's most recent draft, which was much shorter, and which was in fact what Pat was proposing. Jamie also distributed Pat's latest version on a notecard, together with Jamie's own proposed modifications thereto. (Some other notable contributions to this long forum thread were from Rose Springvale, who expressed her opposition to any amendments that were "not part of the transactions contemplated," and Claude Desmoulins of the Scientific Council, who argued that the proposed merger was unprecedented and outside the scope of anything in CDS history to that point, therefore requiring a certain amount of flexibility. Claude felt that the attempt to amend the constitution to provide a general framework for any and all future mergers could hinder future ability to negotiate each merger separately.)

Patroklus opened the discussion of his own proposal. He observed that many citizens felt that his earlier drafts were too long, and that they undid the agreement with Al Andalus. He had therefore drafted a briefer version that would provide a general framework for all such mergers, and into which he had added a role for the Scientific Committee, to validate the number of seats a new community gets in a post-merger RA. Gwyneth agreed that it was important to avoid any amendment that would change the conditions of the merger offer. However, she felt strongly that it was necessary to deal with three issues: (1) transferring citizens (CDS members declaring themselves as AA members) exercising two votes, (2) RA members getting "appointed" (by AA) instead of elected, and (3) CDS maintaining the definition of "democracy" that had served CDS so well during the past five years.

Jamie then set out four points of his own. First, he echoed the suggestion by Sonja Strom (who was absent) that any general framework for mergers should go light on specific details in order to allow flexibility in individual situations. He noted that Pat's latest short version was appropriately light. Second, he felt that the constitution should be adjusted to support the merger fully, so that there would be no room for someone to argue afterwards that the merger was unconstitutional. Third, with respect to the issue of how AA selects its transitional representatives, Pat's insistence on using the word "democracy" could lead to someone challenging the AA selection method after the fact. Jamie therefore proposed to change the wording to "any reasonable method consistent with the joining estate's past practice." Fourth, Pat's most recent text changed the approved merger offer, which included a minimum of 2 AA reps, and which excluded from the next CDS poll any CDS members who participated in selecting the AA reps, thereby resolving the problem of double voting.

Cindy Ecksol moved Jamie's note card to amend the proposal on the table, which contained the text of Jamie's latest forum post. Patroklus commented that he was glad to hear that dual citizens would not be counted twice, but would like to see that clearly expressed in writing. And he still wondered how AA intended to select its reps. Had secret ballot elections been specifically rejected within AA? Why, he asked, would AA prefer to select its official reps at an informal discussion among only 4 or 5 members. Cindy explained that AA resolves everything by consensus – they talk about each issue until eventually there is a consensus that all can live with. Anyone who is interested shows up for the Town Meeting. Gwyneth called this "adhocracy," observing that the Guild functions similarly, only with voting by those present. Jamie stated that Pat had been wise to remove from his text all detailed procedures for dealing with the dual citizen issue, since such detail did not belong in the constitution. And he warned that imposing one specific sort of democratic decision-making on the joining party would appear to be a deliberate mechanism for undoing such decisions by referring them to the Scientific Council as unconstitutional. He felt that CDS should refrain from interrogating AA as to its method of initial selection, and adopt a more fair-minded attitude instead of giving lessons.

Patroklus then argued against Jamie's latest additions to his own shorter version, on the grounds that they added too much detail, and limited the discretion of the Chancellor to find a working deal. Gwyneth agreed with Pat, asserting that Jamie's additions would void the constitution of what she held to be its fundamental principle, quoting the following passage: "The Representative Assembly (RA) is a body of democratically elected factions which represent different ideological views of its citizens." She proposed that they vote on Pat's shorter text.

Cindy Ecksol observed that the motion on the table was Jamie's amendment to Pat's text. Gwyneth made a final plea for a text which would require all decisions to be made according to the principle of representative democracy. Soro called the question, and Jamie's amendment carried by three votes to two. Then the body voted on Pat's proposal itself (as amended by Jamie's additions). This proposal also carried by three votes to two.

Jamie observed that as a constitutional amendment the proposal would require five votes to pass (five out of seven being more than two thirds). It would thus depend on the 7 day votes from Brian and Sonja. He also reminded everyone that in little more than a week, on the 25th of June, the filings of candidacies for the next CDS elections would open. Al Andalus should make their decision before then, and they might decline the merger offer if there was a negative vote on this motion. Gwyneth replied that the failure of the constitutional amendment bill would leave intact the already approved AA merger bill.

Jamie then gave a quick Chancellor's report. He announced that the Monastery sim had been bought. Also, that CDS land was almost sold out – and so was Al Andalus land. The following item on the agenda was a presentation from the Scientific Committee, but as no SC members were online, this was postponed. Rose Springvale made a few announcements. A third Grand Tour of SL communities was upcoming. Rose advised everyone to go to see the CDS stand at the 6th Second Life birthday exhibit (SLB6). She mentioned that both CDS and AA had put up kiosks in Caledon's Oxbridge Village Gateway. The meeting was adjourned.
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