For about a year now we have been making a serious effort to update our citizenship process and make it more fair and more open to the people seeking to become a bigger part of our community. It has been clear for a while that our admin team has not been able to accommodate a growing desire for more permissive admin checks that take into account the advances in technology and the increasing large number of players whose internet connections are not what might be considered "traditional" as in years past. Methods have to change to adapt to new circumstances, but our admin team's methods have not. We have talked this issue to death already, and it is clear our admin team cannot alter their procedures in a way that is clearly required by the times we live in.
At the same time, many of us, including myself and the Delegate, do not wish for the admin team to be completely out of the process. There are very real security concerns with having too permissive a citizenship process. They have insight the rest of us do not, and so for something like 10 months or so now we have created an opening, an appeals process for those failed by the admin team to get reconsideration, and allow the RA to decide if they are "worth the risk" to let in. This process has always been clear to exclude clear examples of players with multiple accounts or, of course, those evading a judicial penalty. These scenarios must continue to be excluded. But seeing so many iterations of the appeal vote, it is clear that the RA is generous and permissive, and if someone is serious about becoming a citizen and is genuine and responsive, they are welcomed in. It still requires an appeal prompted by the applicant, and so many do not take advantage of this.
I am proud to advance the latest effort to refine our citizenship process, and thankful that he Delegate has seen fit to make this one of his priorities. Below is the proposed draft.
First and foremost: this bill would effectively make the admin check an advisory one, as has been suggested by many people throughout this year-long debate. To do this, however, requires additional effort to guard against the unintended consequences of disregarding the admin check. For one, this bill retains the prohibition on those who have multiple accounts or evade a judicial penalty. Currently the admins may fail applicants because they are unable to conclusively determine someone is not doing either of these things. However, that inability to come to a conclusion affects far too many who are not guilty of these things. Right now we allow the RA to be the second opinion, but only when an applicant appeals to the RA. To do this as a regular course would grind the gears of the RA to a halt, so we cannot do that. Instead, this bill removes the appeal process for rejecting applicants who fail the admin check, and replaces the RA discussion and vote with an interview process handled by the Speaker. Because I believe that these RA discussions are actually beneficial, and allow us to engage with prospective new citizens and gauge quickly how committed or present they actually are (as opposed to those who only post an oath and disappear), I have included a provision that gives the Speaker the option to interview any applicant. However, the Speaker will be required to interview those applicants who fail the admin check.
It may come to pass that the Speaker has some suspicion or bad feeling about a applicant, and this prompts them to request an interview. There are explicit provisions permitting the Speaker to call back the Vice Delegate or the admins to go over these concerns, and if in the process of their discussion, new information comes to light, they may revise their checks (if already made) to account for the new information. However, if nothing comes from this process, and the other checks are solid, the Speaker has to accept the application. It is only if an applicant failed the admin check that the Speaker has discretion in accepting or rejecting the application. And if the mandatory interview does not take place, that is a mandatory rejection.
Because the appeal process is removed by this bill, so is the provision for removing citizens who do not have a WA nation in TNP. However, because there will be applicants who failed the admin check but still became citizens, there is a new provision added to allow the Speaker the option to have any citizen evaluated by the admins, so that if they ever find evidence to suggest someone is using multiple accounts or evading a judicial penalty, they can be clearly removed from the citizen rolls. I do imagine there is some element of picking up information that goes beyond ip checks, for instance, the Speaker's office becomes aware of something said by a player suggesting they have evaded punishment or are using two accounts. The admin team could verify these claims and fail them based on this, rather than simply using their ip or forum history. This would be sufficient for the Speaker to remove their citizenship, even if superficially the check would turn out no differently than the first time they applied. Remember that this bill does not touch on specific methods of admin checks, and the admin team could fail an applicant on any reasonable basis for trying to determine if the applicant or citizen is violating the law. But again, the standard is confirming they are in violation. It is not enough to say that based on what they know, they cannot rule it out definitively. The standard is catching obvious violators, not assuming every non-obvious innocent person may be a violator. And because that's the standard I felt it was important for the Speaker to always have the option to check on existing citizens - this would likely only be done for those who failed the admin check initially, or have given any cause to treat them with suspicion. Note that this provision also allows the admin team to take this action on their own if they ever have cause of their own to be suspicious, and if they do discover a violation, they can bring it to the Speaker and have them take action.
There is also obviously no additional consideration for the Vice Delegate - that second look is only at the interview stage. If a citizen went on to do something bad that would give the VD cause to try to reject them in an application, I'm willing to bet they would be prosecutable targets. Even if they are not, I believe there is a big difference between catching someone who may have gotten away with breaking the law, and someone who may have been underestimated by the VD and the RA and perhaps would have faced additional scrutiny. I am not against a provision for effectively re-doing the VD check by request the same way we would now allow an additional admin check, but this just doesn't feel like the right move to me.
Finally, I added a provision allowing the Speaker to remove citizenship from those who are banned by forum administration. It's silly to leave an admin banned player on the rolls and let their citizenship lapse naturally, especially if it's a player who still maintains residency and for whatever reason is not banned from the region. They may not be able to make use of it, but it's an arbitrary red tape requirement, so I am cutting that red tape. I also cleaned up a grammatical error that always bugged me.
If it helps, my analogy for the process and what this law would do is this. We are looking for a needle in a haystack, and the admins simply say they could not rule out the haystack contained a needle. I believe that when a needle is found, the needle should be removed, and this law achieves that. What it will not do is flag every needle-shaped thing in the haystack and remove it just in case it's a needle. If it's not an obvious needle, then it should get passed around for an additional look, and only after taking that closer look should we rely on the Speaker to throw it out or decide it's likely not a needle. Even after it's decided it's not a needle, the Speaker can pick it up again and get another opinion, and if it is then discovered it's a needle, out it goes.
I hope you agree that this bill accomplishes our long-sought goal of making the citizenship process more fair and accessible while still taking reasonable efforts to safeguard our security. The last reform bill initially had a lot more consultation and discretion and became a voluntarily relief valve, and in practice a way for the RA to occasionally disagree with the admin check results. I hope you agree this one makes more effective use of our admin team, and I hope I can count on your support. If not, I welcome your thoughts and suggestions for how to further improve the bill.
At the same time, many of us, including myself and the Delegate, do not wish for the admin team to be completely out of the process. There are very real security concerns with having too permissive a citizenship process. They have insight the rest of us do not, and so for something like 10 months or so now we have created an opening, an appeals process for those failed by the admin team to get reconsideration, and allow the RA to decide if they are "worth the risk" to let in. This process has always been clear to exclude clear examples of players with multiple accounts or, of course, those evading a judicial penalty. These scenarios must continue to be excluded. But seeing so many iterations of the appeal vote, it is clear that the RA is generous and permissive, and if someone is serious about becoming a citizen and is genuine and responsive, they are welcomed in. It still requires an appeal prompted by the applicant, and so many do not take advantage of this.
I am proud to advance the latest effort to refine our citizenship process, and thankful that he Delegate has seen fit to make this one of his priorities. Below is the proposed draft.
Self-Checkout Act:
Self-Checkout Act:
Self-Checkout Act:
Self-Checkout Act:
First and foremost: this bill would effectively make the admin check an advisory one, as has been suggested by many people throughout this year-long debate. To do this, however, requires additional effort to guard against the unintended consequences of disregarding the admin check. For one, this bill retains the prohibition on those who have multiple accounts or evade a judicial penalty. Currently the admins may fail applicants because they are unable to conclusively determine someone is not doing either of these things. However, that inability to come to a conclusion affects far too many who are not guilty of these things. Right now we allow the RA to be the second opinion, but only when an applicant appeals to the RA. To do this as a regular course would grind the gears of the RA to a halt, so we cannot do that. Instead, this bill removes the appeal process for rejecting applicants who fail the admin check, and replaces the RA discussion and vote with an interview process handled by the Speaker. Because I believe that these RA discussions are actually beneficial, and allow us to engage with prospective new citizens and gauge quickly how committed or present they actually are (as opposed to those who only post an oath and disappear), I have included a provision that gives the Speaker the option to interview any applicant. However, the Speaker will be required to interview those applicants who fail the admin check.
It may come to pass that the Speaker has some suspicion or bad feeling about a applicant, and this prompts them to request an interview. There are explicit provisions permitting the Speaker to call back the Vice Delegate or the admins to go over these concerns, and if in the process of their discussion, new information comes to light, they may revise their checks (if already made) to account for the new information. However, if nothing comes from this process, and the other checks are solid, the Speaker has to accept the application. It is only if an applicant failed the admin check that the Speaker has discretion in accepting or rejecting the application. And if the mandatory interview does not take place, that is a mandatory rejection.
Because the appeal process is removed by this bill, so is the provision for removing citizens who do not have a WA nation in TNP. However, because there will be applicants who failed the admin check but still became citizens, there is a new provision added to allow the Speaker the option to have any citizen evaluated by the admins, so that if they ever find evidence to suggest someone is using multiple accounts or evading a judicial penalty, they can be clearly removed from the citizen rolls. I do imagine there is some element of picking up information that goes beyond ip checks, for instance, the Speaker's office becomes aware of something said by a player suggesting they have evaded punishment or are using two accounts. The admin team could verify these claims and fail them based on this, rather than simply using their ip or forum history. This would be sufficient for the Speaker to remove their citizenship, even if superficially the check would turn out no differently than the first time they applied. Remember that this bill does not touch on specific methods of admin checks, and the admin team could fail an applicant on any reasonable basis for trying to determine if the applicant or citizen is violating the law. But again, the standard is confirming they are in violation. It is not enough to say that based on what they know, they cannot rule it out definitively. The standard is catching obvious violators, not assuming every non-obvious innocent person may be a violator. And because that's the standard I felt it was important for the Speaker to always have the option to check on existing citizens - this would likely only be done for those who failed the admin check initially, or have given any cause to treat them with suspicion. Note that this provision also allows the admin team to take this action on their own if they ever have cause of their own to be suspicious, and if they do discover a violation, they can bring it to the Speaker and have them take action.
There is also obviously no additional consideration for the Vice Delegate - that second look is only at the interview stage. If a citizen went on to do something bad that would give the VD cause to try to reject them in an application, I'm willing to bet they would be prosecutable targets. Even if they are not, I believe there is a big difference between catching someone who may have gotten away with breaking the law, and someone who may have been underestimated by the VD and the RA and perhaps would have faced additional scrutiny. I am not against a provision for effectively re-doing the VD check by request the same way we would now allow an additional admin check, but this just doesn't feel like the right move to me.
Finally, I added a provision allowing the Speaker to remove citizenship from those who are banned by forum administration. It's silly to leave an admin banned player on the rolls and let their citizenship lapse naturally, especially if it's a player who still maintains residency and for whatever reason is not banned from the region. They may not be able to make use of it, but it's an arbitrary red tape requirement, so I am cutting that red tape. I also cleaned up a grammatical error that always bugged me.
If it helps, my analogy for the process and what this law would do is this. We are looking for a needle in a haystack, and the admins simply say they could not rule out the haystack contained a needle. I believe that when a needle is found, the needle should be removed, and this law achieves that. What it will not do is flag every needle-shaped thing in the haystack and remove it just in case it's a needle. If it's not an obvious needle, then it should get passed around for an additional look, and only after taking that closer look should we rely on the Speaker to throw it out or decide it's likely not a needle. Even after it's decided it's not a needle, the Speaker can pick it up again and get another opinion, and if it is then discovered it's a needle, out it goes.
I hope you agree that this bill accomplishes our long-sought goal of making the citizenship process more fair and accessible while still taking reasonable efforts to safeguard our security. The last reform bill initially had a lot more consultation and discretion and became a voluntarily relief valve, and in practice a way for the RA to occasionally disagree with the admin check results. I hope you agree this one makes more effective use of our admin team, and I hope I can count on your support. If not, I welcome your thoughts and suggestions for how to further improve the bill.
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