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[Government Accountability:]

The Culture of the Romans II: Carthaginians

PREAMBLE. The Culture of the Romans is a reform arc based on the idea that the RRS must be made more digestible and cultured. In reality, the only real culture the Romans had, when not killing smaller tribes, was killing their own emperor.

The Region regards the legal section on Resident ejection (RRS 3) to be misplaced and eliminates it, decrementing the RRS by 1 thereafter.

The Region reincarnates this statutes within Government Accountability by revising that section to the following content:

Government Accountability:

8. The reasoning for all ejections of Residents must be publicly reported by the responsible party.

• If a nation becomes barred from the Region, that nation may appeal to the Regional Council.
• Any nation may be unbarred if fewer than two Councillors object.

9. All Residents within the region have the right to solicit the Regional Council for a ruling on the legality of the actions of a Resident, including Councillors and their staff.

• If the action is found to be illegal by a majority of Councillors, the action is reversed.

10. All Member States can charge a Regional Councillor of neglect or mismanagement. The petition listing the grievances against the accused must be delivered to the Arch-Administrator and carry the approval of a Second.

• The Arch-Administrator will initiate a vote of no confidence among Member States, lasting five days.
• If a majority is in favour, the vote is passed, the Councillor is removed from office, and a new election will be called immediately for the seat. If the vote fails, the Member State will be unable to submit another for two weeks.

11. In the event that a Councillor or a Councillor's staff operates in contradiction to the RRS, the Arch-Administrator may suspend the powers of that Councillor or staff member until such time as it may be reviewed under a RRS 9 ruling, which is automatically invoked upon suspension.

Authored by: Refuge Isle
Seconded by:

[Service]

Greetings sweet people reading this message, as well as AI page scrapers I haven't banned yet. Time for an "exciting" policy update.

What Happened?I received a bug report last month in another forum I run saying that someone couldn't make an account because their confirmation email never arrived. If I worked in IT, I would have select the "Have you checked your junk mail" option from the club penguin chat wheel and called it a day. Thankfully my experience is in housekeeping, so I know this is never the problem. Or more specifically, since our email provider (Gandi) shut down my emails twice before, arbitrarily, Arabic proverbs told me it was bound to happen again.

Turns out that Gandi changed their policy so that you could not send emails from domains you were not signing in with. In my case I was, so I felt like this error was a red herring -- hiding the real problem of sending emails through an alias. My best guess is that email usage increased dramatically during COVID and after a few years of heightened traffic, Gandi saw an opportunity to increase their pricing on everything by at least three hundred per cent. Aliases were likely a workaround, so we got hit despite our setup predating the change.

I created a support ticket which I decided not to wait for to act on because, spoilers, it took them thirty days to respond anyway. Reviewing the proposed prices for the coming year, I elected not to drop two hundred fifty dollars on the same service which previously asked twenty eight. Therefore we have migrated providers and I'm pleased to say things are now much better. I put in a refund request for my remaining time with Gandi and look forward to being told "no" thirty days from now.


Do We Have Freaky New Powers?Sure do.

Since I'm no longer paying sixty of Donald Trump's dollars for each individual email address, I am pleased to say that I can now realistically expand them beyond our traditional "staff only" limit. Therefore, if you have been lamenting that gmail has a growing monopoly on emails, while allowing you no privacy whatsoever, wishing that you could return to a simpler age when smaller sites had their own, that time has arrived.

You can now request an email address @calref.ca if you:

• Have been a Refuge member for more than six months (Discord time is fine)
• Have been reasonably active over that time, and
• Have a forum account

With it, you can log in through the email portal at mail.calref.ca (linked on CalRef.ca), and/or connect your favourite email client, like Thunderbird or Bluemail with the following specifications:

Service	Server	Port	Security	Authentication
IMAP	imap.migadu.com	993	TLS	Plain password
POP	pop.migadu.com	995	TLS	Plain password
SMTP	smtp.migadu.com	465	TLS	Plain password

What's Your Level of Oversight? What are the quirks?A good question and best to know beforehand. I can reset your password if you are locked out. I cannot read your emails. I can see how much space you're using. I can also provide extra help if you are ever being harassed to an extent that your junk mail filter insufficient or will not help. There are no hard storage limits, since we have a collective storage cap that I feel like we're unlikely to hit, but if you're using like ten gigabytes of space, I will probably ask that you trim down a bit, which I cannot do on your behalf.

If you want to save all your old emails, simply put them in a folder. Don't use your trash as a folder because the junk mail and trash are automatically pruned after 30 and 60 days, respectively. Any password change you do or major change that I do will take six minutes to take effect. So if you change your password and immediately try to log in, it will probably not work before that propagation time.

If these things sound agreeable, shoot me a message either here on the forums or on Discord and I will set you up with an account. In the future, I'd like to have an automated system to do this, but for now I'll be doing it by hand.

[Member States:]

The Culture of the Romans I: Corinthians

PREAMBLE. The Culture of the Romans is a reform arc based on the idea that the RSS has become swole and should be smaller so that it doesn't scare the children, however it must become smaller in a way that does not allow it to become worse. In reality, the Culture of the Romans was about conquest and pillaging things to prop up their economy that was, itself, not self-sufficient, but that's not as fun to theme your legal reform on;

The Region regards the legal section on Member States to be overly verbose,

Consequently revises RRS 4 through RRS 6 in their entirety to the following content:

Member States:

RRS 4. Member States are defined as Residents with both a residency of no less than seven days and a continuous World Assembly membership over the same period.

• A Member State can only lose its status if it is no longer a Resident or no longer a World Assembly member.

RRS 5. Residents may apply for Member State status in cases where World Assembly is impossible if they have resided within the Region of no less than fourteen days and receive the unanimous approval from the Regional Council.

• An exempted Member State can only lose Member State status if it accrues influence in another region or requests its status to be terminated.

RRS 6. Member States are entitled to submit revisions to the Refugia Revised Statutes, including this document in its entirety by Regional referendum, with all Member States entitled to a vote.

• Proposals must be supported by at least one other Member State, called a Second.
• Referendums must be accessible to all Member States, last seven days, include the option to abstain, and be correspondingly enacted or discarded on conclusion.
• An author whose proposal has been defeated suffers a seven day cooldown on another referendum submission.

Authored by: Refuge Isle
Seconded by:

Thesis 3: Consistency In Our Maps

PREAMBLE. Recollecting that the map of the Region was first created four years ago in late September of 2019 by Refuge Isle and Sylh Alanor,

Noting that consistent and high-quality updates of the Regional map occurred thereafter across 46 instances, nearly exclusively in one-month intervals,

Aware that this regular map operation handled hundreds of applications, including special requests to recognise sapient aquatic species, raise or lower land masses, and make raw data files available such that Member States could reproduce, extrapolate, and experiment with their own map versions,

Iterating that Statute Revision #28 created the Regional Council seat of Cartography in order to reconcile multiple regions of the map and alleviate "challenges to decision making and organisation" as a result of not being administered by parties who were Councillors elected to do so,

Lamenting that regular updates to the map have since ceased, the map's quality has decreased, and its public raw data access has been reduced, while the format of the map itself has become a matter of political debate,

Concluding that while it was never understood what the Revision was referring to when suggesting problems that appointed individuals create, it is certainly clear that issues of decision-making and organisation are established and renewed every election cycle under the current scheme, jeopardizing the consistency, continuity, reliability, expedience of the Region's cartography, and consequently:

Abolishes RRS 7(f). and its subsections.

Authored by: Refuge Isle
Seconded by:

[Candidacy Period]

Thesis 2: Coherency In Our Text

PREAMBLE. When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary to reflect on the text that governs a land, one may find that an original law may be insufficient at addressing a scenario which was, at the law's conception, inconceivable,

Although some governments may elect to establish, for example, twenty-seven addendums to the original law, this Region adopts a more enlightened possibility, provided by electronic documentation: The Delete Button, and

Revises RRS 12 and 13 in their entirety to the following, more diet-conscious text:

RRS 12. The Arch-Administrator will call elections for all democratic Council seats according to the following convention:

Candidacy Period	Feb 12 - 19	May 12 - 19	Aug 12 - 19	Nov 12 - 19
Voting Period	Feb 20 - 26	May 20 - 26	Aug 20 - 26	Nov 20 - 26
Transition Period	Feb 27 - 28	May 27 - 28	Aug 27 - 28	Nov 27 - 28

• During the Candidacy Period, any Member State may declare their intention to stand for office.
• During the Voting Period, all Member States may vote in all elections via ranked preference instant-runoff; candidates are eliminated by fewest votes in each round of ballot counting.
• During the Transition Period, elected councillors will receive overlapping access and powers with their predecessors, and all predecessors are dismissed at the end of the Period.

RRS 13. The following rules govern election procedure:

• Declarations must be posted to the Regional Message Board.
• Candidacies composed of multiple Member States are invalid, and candidacies where a Resident has lost Member State status during the election cycle become invalid.
• Member States are prohibited from occupying more than one Council seat at a time or occupying the same Council seat more than two times consecutively.
• In the case that a Member State has won multiple Council seats, they must select their Council seat of preference within 24 hours of the Voting Period's conclusion, otherwise the selection will be carried out by the Arch-Administrator.
• If a position is unable to be filled or becomes vacant by resignation, absence from existence, or legal impossibility, the Arch-Administrator may act in that position's capacity or appoint an individual who will serve in that capacity for the remainder of the term.

Authored by: Refuge Isle
Seconded by: Chacapoya

Thesis 1: Peace In Our Time

PREAMBLE. In the year since the acknowledgement of a state of war,

The enemies of Refugia, which had previously existed through incorporeal planes between realms, have been subsequently purged from the plane in which Refugia primarily occupies, in accordance with the arc of natural justice in the universe,

Where deficiencies in alacrity as well as lethargy in personal responsibility previously manifested without contest, trans-dimensional safeguards have since been established to reduce the potency of bad actors' relevance and maleficence in any future attempts at belligerence,

Although aware that such events are impossible to prevent, the Region is receptive to the attempts made to do so regardless,

Therefore observes that a state of war no longer exists and,

Abolishes RRS 16. and its subsections, and decrements the Refugia Revised statutes by one thereafter.

Authored by: Refuge Isle
Seconded by: Tiralta

Heya,

This is the OOC discussion and planning thread for FT2. Like the name implies, it's based on the FT universe, CalRef's original RP. The reading of that RP is not necessary or required. We're just going to use its environment and themes, basic rules, etc. It's my goal to use the best parts of that universe, scrap the ones that are a little to archaic (farewell lolcatz) and have more fantasy adventures.

The premise is that everything online has a fantasy interpretation. Code is magic. It's a part of everything and makes everything up. Think of a building outside. It's made of stone, but imagine if you swung a hammer at it and broke a bit off, and looked closely at it -- you'd see a hollow html exoskeleton with a a css theme that gives it colour and texture. Code can also be used as scripts or spells. Websites are worlds, dimensions, or realms, you can travel through them via portals, google streetcars, etc. Passwords are locks, forum boards are buildings, most everything that's apart of CalRef is a structure. Notably, the Admin Tower is a kind of central control point that has a lot of important interfaces, facilities, and some of us just live there.

A lot CalRef's processes are automatically done, things like optimising sessions, clearing caches, calculating statistics and other vital operations that keep things moving. In this universe, those tasks are done by SimpleBots, robotic creatures of various sizes and shapes. Although each SimpleBot is specialised to do certain automated tasks, any of them can act as a terminal in a pinch (if they have connection), some are sentient and have morals, and none of them can be too far away from Calamity Refuge for too long before they cease function.

This incarnation of FT takes place a hundred internet years after Rebirth. So, in that regard, we don't have to worry about ancient OG characters (unless their controller happen to show up again). The internet, at large, has just face a shock apocalypse that has left most smaller realms in the internet plane with massive damage or degradation. So I suppose we are trying to cope with that, reorganise ourselves, and rebuild.

DO I HAVE TO KNOW THE KOMPUTER THEEINGS? No, not really. But you're online, aren't you? You experience the internet, even if you're non-technical, and you can probably think of a fantasy version of the things you do. Originally the FT story was inspired by just events that happened around the community, then they went in a purely creative direction. And I think anywhere in between is alright. Admins might know how to use script magic, but you might have some kind of piece of software (device, weapon, or tool) that let you do certain static things. Maybe you don't know how it works, but you know how to work it.

Anyway, post any questions comments or ideas you have and we can work together on them.

If you travel along the paths of the interwebs, seldom will you find a place that is completely free from the wreckage of things long past. Origin civilization is built on top of the ground, but newer civilization is built on the ruins of the old. Like pottery fragments, occasionally pieces of the past will be unearthed by a plough, sowing the seeds of a new harvest, or become the basis for some convoluted procedure that traces its roots to something simultaneously more and less dysfunctional a century prior. Such is the state of things in the post-apocalyptic internet – ruins on top of ruins, upstarts and fallen empires. One fallen empire, was Calamity Refuge.

"Eeehn Ieh wahsn ahrouhunden thah ckharhner ehn ghihvehn thah ckhahmpriehsahr ah ghoohd keeek eehn nenenehks'd theengehnehsee eeasha ploomhminha smhokeh," said a spirited local with hands dug into his linen vest pockets. He circled the compressor madly as he spoke, clearly distraught over the loss of the device's functionality.

That device was a magnificent elevated stone tripod, three metres high. It was made of sandstone block and inlaid with dull, indigo-coloured PHP 5 runes, hovering just above the stone surface. A metre up the point of the tripod's convergence, the sandstone column was no more, shattered by some substantial force. Still, the runes seemed to contain some residual magical charge. Periodically, the runes would fade and blur, and then pulse back to life, both in brightness and sharpness.

"Uh-huh," Luca said absent-mindedly from the ground. Head back against the dirt, they were inspecting the underside of the tripod to collect the error log output. Normally something exploding, even in the middle of a distant field, would trigger an apache error log event which could be seen remotely. This was no exception, but the report wasn't exceptionally useful. Luca looked to their left at their SimpleBot companion of just 5cm, which reported the entry from its SSH terminal:

        [Tue Jul 18 15:11:08.458192 2023] [pid 1058044] [remote] 2023-05-26 21:52:00 True

Most excellent. Often has one wanted to know "True", without context, to divine information about the nature of the world. After all, what is true? What is false? What is right? What is wrong? Only Apache2's 1058044 process can decide. So, it would seem collecting the reading from the device in the field was the only reasonable option.

"Eeehnanoo uan noos hahnah geeheht thah ckhampriehs aahtnpoot aehn gheyaeyht thah deeyahspetch weeathah auhth thah ckhahmpriehsahr..." he continued. Mostly likely he used to use the device's text conversion to publish some kind of news thing to his local village. The sun was a burning beacon of unwanted illumination and searing heat, but the local was working competition for being greatest general pain at work in this particular moment. Luca stopped and pulled themself to the side of the device to lock eyes with the man.

"What IS your accent, anyway," demanded Luca.

The man's eyes grew wide with a sudden great enthusiasm: "FAREIGN!" he exclaimed.

"Right..." said Luca squinting. It must have been the heat that lapsed their judgement to even come here today, but here they were, they might as well collect the output. Spinning through the inset dial, text was now flickering to life. Such and such unable to stat, unable to...verify redirecting URL, blah-blah-blah. Ah. Here we are. Forty individual missing functions in subs_template_default. Additionally, an error was created when trying to load the error handler, which created a feedback loop. That probably exploded the device.

"...annehnanwheaothoonth thah thools eafahtan me treeadh thahn-" he stopped speaking, at last, when Luca emerged from the ground and brushed the dust off themselves. "Wheheal? Wheaht eeas deeah proobhvlem?" he asked.

"It's fucked," Luca responded. The SimpleBot jumped from the ground to land on Luca's shoulder.

"Fhahkehed?" The man asked, confused.

They turned back to the open space of the field and snapped a finger. A translucent aqua lectern materialised in front of an equally translucent arch; a temporary gateway for a Unified Relocation Link. Luca drew a glyph onto the lectern's interface, and a portal crackled into being from the edges of the archway, revealing a swirling, chaotic world, and a winding stone pathway through it.

"Fucked." Luca replied and stepped through the portal.

"Bvheaht ehahoore thah aeaharken aedhamvhenisther..." The local was beside himself in a state of disbelieve.

Luca turned back to the local. "So I am," they said, and the portal shut. The gateway disintegrated.

The internet isn't too old on a geological timescale, but the ability to have a fully-developed conversation with another human person, to whom Googling the answer to a question was never an option not on the table in their lifetime, is quite significant. For the websites which still have the strength of motivation and blessing of continuity to do so, many will take the opportunity to engage in a bit of self-congratulations after a period of, say, fifteen years of continued life. But the internet has changed a lot in the last fifteen years, both tonally and culturally, such that taking one's self in a vacuum and pretending all is business as usual comes across as a bit daft to me.

The Refuge has long operated on the idea of independence and separation -- the idea that whatever was going on outside of our space, within our space we retained agency over our pocket dimension, detached from life's woes. Such was the promise of the internet: A separate world within which you could create your own. Yet, slowly, the internet's priorities would change. As corporate commodification took over, open-sourced projects became rare and free services like web hosting became unheard of. The internet is increasingly no longer a realm where someone creates and idea or tool for the benefit for friends and strangers, it is where one creates a premium subscription Discord bot to pad their résumé while applying to a job analyzing bulk private data for Facebook.

Those trends are hard to ignore and harder still to productively deal with. Even for those who would still like to uphold a world full of possibilities, why does everything feel so dismal and draining? The answer, of course, lies in the very question. "Everything." The world is full of everything and, in a world full of everything, we forget that it used to be full of nothing. In a world full of nothing, you have the ultimate creative license, the most-complete permission set to make whatever thing you want with whatever attributes you think it should have. Yet, in a world with everything, we force our own ideas and visions into existing frameworks, platforms, standards, and monopolies that dilute and disfigure them to the point of being unrecognisable or never being made at all.

So, for this particular self-congratulatory anniversary post, I'd like to invite people to take a break from their various platforms, podcasts, and social media. Free yourself, if only for today or any day you read this post, from the opinions, expectations, and influences of others. Take a trip outside to a wooded area, if you can. And let your mind clear of all the societal bullshit that you have been carrying around. Vacancy acquired, use the mental space to imagine what you would most like to see in this world, or what you most like to think about. Regardless of your current abilities, could you express or represent that thing with creative writing, art, music, or coding?

Wouldn't that be a better use of your time and mental energy than whatever social burdens you've been carrying around? Then you should absolutely pursue those and disregard the rest. Tell your burdens that you don't believe in any of this shit anyway, and fuck the consequences. You only live once, so you might as well start doing it. If what you want doesn't exist right now, today is the day to start making it. That is what the internet is for.

Happy Refuge Day, 2008 - 2023

Recall: Falafelandia, Councillor of Operations

Observing that Kifleeki, Resident and World Assembly member of Refugia, was ejected and barred from the Region on July 1^st at four in the afternoon, Pacific Time, by Falafelandia, Refugia Councillor of Operations,

Witnessing that the Councillor, under RRS 3, stated that the Resident was barred "after a hateful profile in the Discord."

Recalling this is not a criterion of ejection or barring under RRS 2, that the regional chat server is under the jurisdiction of the Calamity Refuge Code of Conduct, not the Refugia Revised Statutes, that the Councillor of Operations is not a Calamity Refuge staff member at this time, and that a picture of an individual eating chicken does not constitute sufficient evidence for removal under the Code of Conduct either way,

Noting that appeal of this ban is currently improbable due to the practical context of a vote achieving quorum -- The Councillor of World Assembly Affairs is being filled on an interim basis by the Arch-Administrator, the Councillor of Foreign Affairs is on leave for an extended period of weeks, and the Councillor of Operations would be the subject of an RRS 3 appeal or an RRS 9(c/d) probe,

Aware that the Councillor removed all existing Wards from the Region upon entering office, shunning the protections and advice of the Region's most trusted and experienced security experts,

Aware that the Councillor has made statements in the past, depicting Refugia's Regional vote being the "third largest on the raider side", in flagrant disregard to the Region's legal and cultural status as a neutral region,

Aware that the Councillor has previously attempted to plagiarise The Admin Tower dispatch as an overview for The Brotherhood of Malice, where the Councillor holds foreign allegiance,

Finding, therefore, that the Councillor primarily seeks to use the Office to advance their external agendas, and displays gross incompetence regarding their duties within the Region, itself, and

Recalls the Councillor of Operations, initiating an RRS 10(b)(i) election, effective immediately.

Authored by: Refuge Isle
Seconded by: A Million Dreams

No, and Also Go Away: Part II

PREAMBLE. Whereas RRS 5. and its subsections were written in 2019 with the intent of providing enfranchisement and government participation to nations which have been banned from the World Assembly, as the Region's founder had been in the past,

Recognising that the statute has never been used in this capacity,

Perceiving that the many World Assembly Exemptions granted by the Regional Council fall into two categories -- Delegates reigning outside of the Region, and Residents wishing to undertake military operations as a component of a foreign power,

Reflecting that it is difficult or impossible to carry out foreign commitments while remaining impartial to the Region, and that foreign interference, influence, and subterfuge invites more negative consequences and hardship to the region than the opportunities it grants,

Believing the truly invested will commit their efforts to the Region when it becomes an interest and not a resource,

Abolishes RRS 5. and its subsections, and decrements the Refugia Revised statutes by one thereafter.

Authored by: Refuge Isle
Seconded by:

[The Councillor of the Interior]

Castle of Bureaucracy Part II: Lithransir's Bane

RECOGNISING. The Councillor of the Interior was created from the passage of SR 6, Definitions and Responsibilities of Regional Councillors and,

Observing that said Revision was vanquished entirely from time and space by the passage of SR 15, Dissolution of the Interior,

Aware that there are, in fact, a great many areas of responsibility where a Councillor of the Interior could excel and benefit the Region,

Whereas the author of SR 15 was wrong and should feel bad,

Spontaneously generates the following additions to the Refugia Revised Statutes:

RRS 6 f. The Councillor of the Interior, whose responsibilities are defined as undertaking the practices and procedures of Revisions to the Revised Statutes, as well as maintaining articles and records via the Office of the Interior. This Councillor shall:

• Receive and validate requests for referendums to the Revised Statutes, and initiate such referendums to the stipulations their respective laws prescribe.
• Announce any referendum in a well-seen public area, and update any laws with the conclusion of the referendum's outcome.
• Determine and manage the portfolio of instructional material and Regional records that will be maintained by the Office of the Interior.
• Appoint and dismiss staff of the Office of the Interior for the purpose of keeping the Office's portfolio helpful and current.

Authored by:
Seconded by:

[Candidacy Period]

Castle of Bureaucracy Part I: A Question of Vengeance

IT IS KNOWN. While some members of the Region are inclined to run for fifteen minutes in one direction, there exist those who shall not;

Whereas the democratic inclinations of the voting public selects 'those who shall not' as their champions of the season, it remains unclear why such rest stops need be four months instead of three;

In an effort to facilitate the rotation of exhausted personnel to those whose spirits remain alive,

Revises RRS 12, in its entirety, to the following content:

RRS 12. The succession of the Arch-Administrator is subject to the succession laws of Refuge Isle, and verified by the presence of an anchor stone and Administration Tower. The Arch-Administrator will call elections for all democratic Council seats according to the following convention:

Candidacy Period	Feb 12 - 19	May 12 - 19	Aug 12 - 19	Nov 12 - 19
Voting Period	Feb 20 - 26	May 20 - 26	Aug 20 - 26	Nov 20 - 26
Transition Period	Feb 27 - 28	May 27 - 28	Aug 27 - 28	Nov 27 - 28

Authored by: Refuge Isle
Seconded by: A Million Dreams and Tiralta

[Relocations:]

Greetings all,

Several years ago I knew that I would be moving and, in order to make sure there would be as little disruption possible to the community, I purchased rights to our domains four to seven years in advance. A number of those will be coming due for renewal this year, and it's my intention to slim down. This means dropping some side projects that I had planned, as well as reducing CalRef's current two domains to one.

The issue with this is obviously which "one" will it be? The .network TLD was not popular during staff discussions, with almost everyone saying that it was awkward or too much of a gimmick. Additionally, .cc seems to be causing connection problems when their school or work content filter has banned the entire set, similarly to the last time that affected us. Around where I live, there's also a slight issue of people going "don't you mean .ca???" After a healthy debate of our options, Floor 16 has decided that's actually exactly what we mean.

CalRef is going to be relocating to its seventh domain, calref.ca. This change will produce the following results:

Relocations:

• calref.network  >>>  calref.ca
• calref.cc  >>>  forum.calref.ca
• archives.calref.network  >>>  archives.calref.ca
• eyebeast.calref.network  >>>  eyebeast.calref.ca
• tart.calref.network  >>>  tart.calref.ca
• vote.calref.network  >>>  vote.calref.ca
• wiki.calref.network  >>>  wiki.calref.ca

Special Notes:

• dot.calref.network  will be discontinued and moved to calref.ca/dot
• mail.calref.network  will be discontinued and moved to calref.ca/mail

Because we are a slight larger than we were the last time a move occurred, and because many people now link to images, files, and documentation URLs across a spectrum of publications, tutorials, and personal projects: All existing URLs will remain valid and supported for one calendar year. This means that now through December 2023, you will be able to link to a file as either https://calref.network/post/scott.png OR https://calref.ca/post/scott.png. After that time, old (.network / .cc) URLs may continue to work, but their longevity is not guaranteed. Old URLs will stop working entirely in 2024.

It is for that reason that you should take this time to change links in areas/publications you control to the new URL schema when you encounter them over the course of this new year, or report them to your applicable local authority for minimal disruptions. Users looking for Dot documentation will be able to access dot.calref.network for an additional year, but an annoying banner will start to appear, letting people know that the documentation is moving.

Forum Changes:
When it comes to this forum, old URLs will continue to work as described above, but login cookies will not. Consequently, the standard domain of this forum will switch to forum.calref.ca on January 1^st. All members will be logged out and have to sign in again under the new (.ca) domain. In case of any confusion, the IP addresses of this forum (138.197.153.138 / 2604:a880:cad:d0::d1f:c001) will remain the same, as the server will otherwise not be changing.

Feel free to post in this thread with any questions or concerns you have during this process.

[CalRef II]

The 2022 Refuge Census

The Refuge Census is an annual project first created in 2009, where members may give feedback on our services, whether some of them need additions, modifications, or just need to go. We also study demographic changes due to new members joining the community and existing members getting older. Census data is generated through responses filled out by Refuge members during the week in which the survey runs. All results are anonymous, and there are no questions for which respondents are required to provide an answer.

The Census is also one of the most valuable programs we run and, from an administrative point, one that I would look forward to the most, were it not for how much effort it takes to put everything together. If I were a non-staff member, it would be what I would look forward to the most, too, because there has never been a Census that we have not directly acted on. Census results over the years have brought about changes in staffing, returned us to SMF, launched new RPs and Minecraft servers, and were the foundations for some of the biggest changes in our CalRef II, CalRef III, CalRef IV, CalRef V, and CalRef VI large-scale development pushes. This year's results will be treated no differently.

One of the biggest take-aways from these results is that we're just not doing enough to get people integrated and involved with the wider community. It has been another year of record-breaking turnout, and that explosive growth means that the majority of respondents, about two thirds of total, are new to the community as of this year.

Results indicating a respondent didn't know about one or more services has been a phenomenon since I started tracking quality and usage metrics in 2013. Back then, there were three services that everyone knew: The chat, the forum, and the active Minecraft server. After that, about 10-30% of respondents that didn't know what a service was*. Now however, no service is universally known (including the Discord server), and most services are unknown to 30-50% of the population. Since we know that 2/3rds of respondents this year registered in 2022, this is clearly an integration issue in need of intervention, instead of an indifference issue from older members.

If a service was known to a respondent, it was almost always rated positively.

There was one area of complaint as it relates to moderation, to which we all contribute to some extent. Three surveys returned that the community staff were overly strict and unforgiving of mistakes. This is an issue which I accept the largest share of the blame. For the first several years after taking over, the good bulk of new members who arrived were younger and rowdier than I was comfortable with, and my priorities were set on preserving the old culture and not letting things become a frat house. The practice of coming down hard on members who had no intention of being responsive to intervention was something I became overly accustomed to, and which is no longer reflective of where we're at today.

These days, our moderation team is much more robust, new arrivals have better intentions, and the community is well-equipped to deescalate and self-regulate, independently. I would like to reassure the respondents who posted these answers that I've written extensively upstairs about what we all, including myself, can do better in terms of interactions and giving new people a chance, doing due diligence with explaining things, and having better communication. This will be an ongoing improvement process.

Regarding NationStates, respondents requested more things to do in Refugia and more ways that they could interact. Similarly, the Refugi government has been looking for more people to get involved with the region and help out with things. So it's pretty clear that more efforts are needed to bridge the gameside-only divide, and should be supplemented with more interactive events and programs that people can actively work on over a short to medium term, beyond just answering issues. The recent Factbook Writing Competition was made to this end, and plans are in the works for an interactive "versus" event in the future. Two respondents asked for better welcome messages, which hopefully have been adequately implemented since those requests were made.

Demographic Observations:

• Members are an average of a year younger than they were last year; about a third are 14-16, a third are 17-20, and a third are everywhere else.
• Non-binary members have risen, as a share of total, for the third year in a row, becoming the second most populous gender.
• Close to half of all members are bisexual
• The majority of new members in the last year are European.
• Members who have participated in a CalRef RP were the slimmest minority ever (10%), though this may increase with the recent launch of The Trees of Timberwood.
  
• The Refuge is more educated than ever before, with the first time a master's degree has been seen since 2017 and the first time a Doctorate was seen ever.

Please enjoy this fine arrangement of graphical data which elaborates on these results further, and thanks once again to everyone who participated in the 2022 Refuge Census!

Oh my god they're doing it again! Kinda.

Actually this time it's moving up a local mod who, for the last eightish months, has been filling the call for extra help, keeping Refugia documentation together. In that time, Aav has also used the position to provide feedback on issues we've been having, plans and ideas we'd like to do, and generally providing another grounding voice for bouncing off ideas when it comes to what might benefit the community.

We're increasingly on our own as far as communities go in 2022. The internet used to be a little more crowd-sourced, a little smaller, a little more collaborative. And doing things in the way we do has gotten harder, as internet users seem to have become a little more more transitory. Sometimes I've wondered "where in the world has everyone on the internet gone?" But, really, I know the answer. It's the massive servers with 250,000 - 1,000,000 people, with a large, paid, development or content-generator team that didn't really exist ten years ago.

We don't really aim to be that or compete with that, but I do recognise that I'm (in the grand scheme of the internet) becoming an older web admin with a community model that's very much out of the meta. I'm interested in modernising and growing things without losing our core ideas and principles. I'm extremely grateful for whenever someone comes along who shares those values and culture. We've got a nice shitposty community, but we also make some unironically cool and high quality things that hopefully gives people a better time, gives people some fun stuff to do and more reasons to hang out together.

Since Aav has been here helping out with all of that, it's about time we recognise those contributions and give some greater access and tools for carrying on with that in the future. So please join me in acknowledging and welcoming Global Moderator Aav.

[Member States]

Reasonable Expectations of Enfranchisement

PREAMBLE. Whereas certain nations, whose sovereign grace was imparted to them the Lord our God create_nation.cgi, arrived at the unorthodox conclusion that they be ruled by the same leader(s) as other nations within the Region and,

Despite its bureaucratic morass, it is feasibly possible for the World Assembly to summon enough paperwork-processing power to transfer a membership within that body from one shared jurisdiction to another within the timespan of a Regional referendum,

Noting that the language of the current law allows these duplicate votes to be counted,

Amends the fourth Revised Statute to the following condition:

RRS 4. Member States are defined as Residents with both a residency of no less than seven days and a continuous World Assembly membership over the same period.

Authored by:
Seconded by:

Proscription Drug Coverage

PREAMBLE. No notes.

RRS 16. Acknowledges a state of war between Refugia and NationStates.net's leadership of malefactors, and subsequently prohibits entities whose membership in the former was not gained before membership in the latter from residing, transiting, surveying, arriving, departing, living, or dying within the confines of the Region or its territories.

• Violators will be subject to dissolution by alkahest at an arbitrary safe distance.

Authored by:
Seconded by:

[The World Assembly Delegate]

Abolishing The Delegacy and Establishing a New Office of a Suspiciously Similar Name

PREAMBLE. Whereas the Refugia Revised Statutes be concerningly thicc and,

Whereas the current legislation regarding a World Assembly Delegate was created in 2020, well beyond living memory for most of human civilization,

Unclear why such legislation was created, as the delegate remains accountable to only the unstoppable forces of death and taxation,

Disappointed that the average rate of taxation in Refugia is a paltry 55%,

Compromises with the Statute's existence and simplifies RRS 8 by revising it in its entirety to the following:

RRS 8. The World Assembly Delegate is the Region's envoy to the World Assembly. The Region shall support the Delegate's endorsement, and the Delegate shall apply that support towards World Assembly approval and voting stances that it believes represent the Region's values.

• The Delegate shall make a public statement to the Region if they choose to not vote in alignment with the Regional majority regarding a World Assembly vote.
• The Delegate nation is designated and dismissed by the Arch-Administrator, and no nations other than the designated nation is considered the rightful Delegate.
• A Delegate who loses Member State status or World Assembly membership resigns their tenure, and the nation which possesses the highest level of World Assembly endorsements may serve as Delegate in the interim until a new Delegate is designated.

Authored by: Refuge Isle
Seconded by: A Million Dreams

Locate: The Great Starlight Brigade

PREAMBLE. Witnessing this community's storied legacy of military accomplishments throughout recorded history, such as:

• Destroying the timeline
• Destroying the Fire Plane
• Destroying the Water Plane
• Destroying Refuge Isle
• Destroying the Ermarian Plane
• Destroying Refuge Isle again

Happily noting that 'Destroying The Rejected Realms' can be added to this list of achievements at any time,

Understanding that the Refuge, additionally, possesses individuals of unrivalled greatness, including Warriors, Datamancers, Shapers, Script Casters, Priests, Elementals, Assassins, and reformed Demons -- each able to stand as an army in their own right,

Recalling that it is possible to godmode for 350 pages without intervention,

Establishes the following statute:

RRS 16. The Regional Military is known as The Starlight Brigade, abbreviated as SLB, commanded by the Councillor of Operations, and subject to that Councillor's standing orders, abiding and limited to the operational parameters of RRS 15.

• The iconography of the SLB is to be "dope as hell".
• The membership of the SLB is a composition of volunteers, as conscription is prohibited.

Authored by:
Seconded by:

Hey guys,

You may have noticed over the last several months that things have been a little more active and upbeat in the chat, and that's been through no small effort on Catherine's part. Coordinating events, games, movie nights, and being a bright happy face that the undeserving encounter when they first make the mistake of clicking the invite link to our server. It's an under-appreciated effort, but also one that has helped our community a great deal. We are, naturally, "thrilled as fuck" that Catherine has accepted becoming a Global Moderator for Calamity Refuge and have every confidence that she will be a superb addition to the team.

Please join me in well-wishes and congrats

No, and Also Go Away

PREAMBLE. Observing that the world is an incorrigibly unrepentant hive of villainy from which the Region is a refuge,

Understanding that Refugia has long-held an informal designation of neutrality and counts people from all backgrounds among its friends,

Wishing to remain outside the throes of conflicts' tangled and caustic morass,

Establishes the following statute:

RRS 15. The Region defines its military alignment as "Neutral", shunning the agendas and obligations of the world's self-interested regimes, and only acting in the direct defence of the Region's allies when determined to be necessary by the Councillor of Operations.


Authored by: Refuge Isle
Seconded by:

[Residency:]

The Ultimate Evolution of the Shadow Council

PREAMBLE.

Aware that Refugia's regional security apparatus has been incomprehensibly vague and relied exclusively on the accessibility of the Councillor of Operations or Arch-Administrator, this document places restrictions on Residents' sleep, which is surely relevant and will certainly help. As the Region grows larger and the prospect of managing both threats and the necessity of their intervention increases, the Refugia Revised Statutes shall be amended to reflect the following modifications:

Residency:
RRS 1. A nation which resides within the Region is defined as a "Resident" and maintains this status for the duration of its residency.

• A Resident which is the proxy of another nation, and primarily exists within Refugia to accrue influence without community presence, is defined as a "Sleeper".

RRS 2. Resident may only be ejected or barred from the region in one of the following circumstances:

• Unruly conduct, where the offending Resident has not been receptive to intervention.
• Impending threat, where the Office of Operations determines the Resident poses a risk to the stability of Refugia or the security of its inhabitants.
• Unregistered Sleeper, where the primary operator of a Sleeper has not declared the aims and ownership of that nation to the Office of Operations and Arch-Administrator.
• The Resident expresses, aligns with, or otherwise represents fascism, hate speech, or intolerance.

RRS 3. The reasoning for all ejections of Residents must be publicly reported by the responsible party, and the ejected nation may appeal the ejection by soliciting a review to the Regional Council.

• An appeal vote must be concluded within seven days or with all Councillors having voted.
• An appeal vote is considered approved if it has less than two Against votes.

Statutes after this point are incremented by 1.

Government Roles and Responsibilities:
RRS 7(d). The Councillor of Operations, whose responsibilities are defined as directing the Office of Operations, identifying, resolving, or guarding against internal and external threats.
This Councillor shall:

• Identify and respond as necessary to threats or crises which target or impact the Region.
• Eject or bar Residents as necessary via Refugia's Border Control in an applicable circumstance of any subsection of RRS 2.
• Develop Refugia's intelligence apparatus to the extent necessary to carry out the subsections of this statute.
• Maintain a registry of Sleeper Residents and their respective controllers.
• Appoint and dismiss "Wards", acting as staff for the Office of Operations, to carry out subsections of this statute as directed by the Office's Councillor.

Government Accountability:

RRS 9. All Residents within the Region have the right to solicit an official Regional ruling, opinion, or position from the Regional Council, and delivered by a representative thereof, on subjects of:

• A Foreign Affairs policy, position, or perspective.
• The status of a Member State.
• Challenges regarding any ejection or barring of nations from the Region, where a majority of the Regional Council may reverse the action.
• Challenges regarding the legality of activity by a Councillor or their staff, where a majority of the Regional Council may reverse the action.

RRS 10. At any time, a Member State can charge a Regional Councillor or Delegate of neglect in their duties or mismanagement of their position. Their charge will be submitted in writing to the Arch-Administrator only after a second member state has seconded the motion.

• The charge must contain a list of grievances against the accused and arguments as to why these grievances should result in the removal of the accused prior to the next election.
• If RRS 10(a) is met, the Arch-Administrator will call for a vote of No Confidence among the Member States, lasting five days, and decided by a simple majority.
  
  • If the No Confidence vote passes, the target Councillor is removed from office, a new election will immediately be called for that Councillor seat.
  • If the No Confidence vote is defeated, a standard RRS 5(c) cooldown is applied to the submitting Member State.

RRS 11. In the event that a Councillor or a Councillor's staff operates in contradiction to the RRS, the Arch-Administrator may suspend the powers of that Councillor or staff member until such time as it may be reviewed under a RRS 9 ruling, which is automatically invoked upon suspension.

Statutes after this point are additionally incremented by 1.


Authored by: Refuge Isle
Seconded by: Lac Champlain

Lads,

The Regional Map do be getting a bit thicc. There's 5-6 CTE nations that have gone within the last two weeks, so they did not get removed from the map as of the last update. If they come back before the next update, they will remain. But even if they get dropped, it seems like people are already starting to feel like their desired representations on a map can no longer be achieved because space is now so limited.

The map itself is also large and complex and takes quite a while to process updates, which is why I have increasingly put them off. For the last year and a half, the map was updated every month, but this last update did not come until just yesterday. A second, supplementary map would likely compound this difficulty.

The current situation has not been ordained by god or otherwise made inflexible. We have often made up laws, policies, or offices to help the good management of the region, and as this seems like a situation that looks like it needs help.

What sort of options appeal to us here? Should there be some kind of cartographer office created? Would anyone fill it, and would it be a Regional Councillor?

Like, subscribe, and follow me on instacart.

[Individual response observations include:]

The 2021 Refuge Census

The Refuge Census is an annual project first created in 2009, where members may give feedback on our services, whether some of them need additions, modifications, or just need to go. We also study demographic changes due to new members joining the community and existing members ageing. Census data is generated through responses filled out by Refuge members during the week in which the survey runs. All results are anonymous, and there are no questions for which respondents are required to provide an answer.

This is certainly the longest delay I have ever had in providing feedback from a census in the ten or so years I've personally been running them. But life happens and sometimes apartments explode with water at 4am and you lose a bit of time (as well as timezone maps you were half finished with). Still, we have many reasons to rejoice for this round of results, and one of them is that we continue to break records in the number of censuses turned in each year.

In 2019, we had about the lowest turnout in a long while with only 16 responses. In 2020, we had 38 responses. This time it was nearly 50.

Most excitingly, we now have enough operational services for me to start asking about their quality and frequency in ways that may once again feel very familiar. Notably, we learned that there are a whole lot of people who do not know what one or more services are. This may not be as negative as I have always thought. For, not reflected in this chart, individual responses indicate that those who prefer forums and those who prefer chats live in the most different of worlds than any time since 2009. Members who are gameside only are more likely to look at the forum, and less likely to even know what the chat even is. However, so long as both worlds are content with the services provided to them, I do not see this as an issue.

Individual response observations include:

• There is a direct disparity between people who use Dot and people who use the forum, in regards to the "two worlds".
• There is even a disparity between people who use the discord server and people who use Vote.CalRef.
• People who do not know what the discord server is are almost guaranteed to not know what anything else is.
• If they do know about other things, they know about the voting site.
  

Additional Misc Observations:

• There are a number of gameside only people from South America, and as many from Continental Europe.
• Only the admins live in the Pacific timezone.
• For the first time possibly ever, we have moved directly and substantially towards a more equal distribution of members by gender.
• There has been a markedly strong rise in ace people.
• The number of people who have at some point participated in Refugia's government is steadily rising, from only 15% in 2020 to 26% now.

Finally, and although I ended on this note last time, it still holds true. There are more Refugi than ever before, which is very quite incredible to me. I'm sorry to say that at this point, I don't even know who all of you are. But so long as you're happy and able to reach me or another admin or Councillor when there's a problem, then I'm very happy to have you along for our weird ride. I'll be working to make sure that we improve in the areas that it looks like you guys think need help, and I'll be trying to incorporate some of the suggestions that you've dropped in the census (including responses that did not make it onto the presentation).

Until then, please enjoy the graphic below, and thanks again for participating :D

[Candidacy Period]

In The Off Season, I Drive an Omnibus Election Consolidation Package

PRERAMBLE.

Whereas the current election scheme was designed to allow Member States who were unsuccessful in an election to run for a subsequent election and,

Whereas a single Member State has taken advantage of this dynamic in the three years the Region has existed,

Desiring a more streamlined election cycle that better facilitates a less harsh candidacy period and which does not dump unsuspecting Councillors into office without a proper debriefing of their station,

RRS 10 and RRS 11 shall be replaced entirely with the following content:

10. The succession of the Arch-Administrator is subject to the succession laws of Refuge Isle, and verified by the presence of an anchor stone and Administration Tower. The Arch-Administrator will call elections for all democratic Council seats according to the following convention:

Candidacy Period	Feb 1 - 7	Jun 1 - 7	Oct 1 - 7
Voting Period	Feb 8 - 14	Jun 8 - 14	Oct 8 - 14
Transition Period	Feb 15 - 21	Jun 15 - 21	Oct 15 - 21

11. Elections will consist of a one week candidacy period where an eligible Member State may declare their intent to stand for office, a one week voting period where all Member States may vote for their desired candidate, and a one week transition period to acclimate the incoming Councillor with their roles and responsibilities. Terms officially begin the 22^nd day of February, June, and October.

   a. Candidacy declarations must be given in one or more easily accessible areas as designated by the Arch-Administrator.

   b. Residents must qualify as Member States as defined in RRS 3 to be eligible for candidacy.

   c. Member States are prohibited from occupying more than one seat at any given time or occupying the same Council seat more than two times consecutively.

   d. In the event of more than two valid candidates for a single seat, instant run-off voting will determine the winner, where candidates are ranked by preference on the ballot and eliminated by fewest votes during each round of ballot counting.

   e. The election for each seat is resolved in favour of the candidate with the most votes at the final round of ballot counting.

   f. In the event of unexpected absences or positions that cannot be filled, the Arch-Administrator may act in that position's capacity, or appoint an individual who may serve in that position's capacity until the following election produces a regular appointment.

Authored by: Refuge Isle
Seconded by:

Hey all,

This is one is a little bit overdue, but I'd like to announce that Maddie will be joining the moderation team today, helping to keep a healthy and happy community. Maddie has been around since 2019 and one of the most responsible and competent folks who have ever helped run Refugia. She's an all around joy to talk to and work with, sharp as a tack, and she's been a vital insight into who and what might pose a threat to our community. I have no doubt that she is going to do great, and that we will all be better off for it.

Please join me in wishing her well and distributing congratulations

[Results:]

   

Greetings,

As I was processing this year's Refuge Census, I recalled that it has been an oft-promised commitment to publish the previous years' results to the new forum, since posts before 2019 have been archived and are not viewable to new members. Pleasing news: I have now gotten to this section of my To Do list and can provide this information now.

Because the data is so ancient, and the reports page gets more and more undeveloped the further back in time you go, probably the bulk of this is not going to be terribly interesting. Particularly, the manner in which I asked certain questions was a bit dimwitted at points. Still, for those who have been curious about previous years, I have been able to locate reports since 2013, with their approximate verbiage at the time. Apparently, I have gotten less verbose over time, or more inclined to put stuff into charts without vocalising an analysis recently.

The ultimate goal of the census is to collect feedback about how sites and services are doing, and the bulk of the open-ended or long form comments are not released with the results. Surveys before 2013 were largely not as organised, and any metrics we used to collect feedback from 2009 - 2012 is no longer available, or at least no longer coherent.

The 2021 Refuge Census' results will be available soon and posted to this board in a separate thread. Until then, here's everything else:

The 2020 Refuge Census - Dec 03, 2020

Click the image to go to the file

Greetings.

As with last time, I have forgotten to post this here by a factor of months. So, for the permanent record for me to consult more accessibly later on, allow me to post the results of this last year's Refuge Census:

Results:
Thanks for everyone who filled out The 2020 Refuge Census. There were way freaking more responses to this that I've ever had before, by far. As a result of that, a lot of services that maybe weren't all that promoted, were entirely unknown to a lot of people. So. that paints a good map of what kind of work I need to do in admin now to get those more visible and accessible.

Since I've been doing this for a while now, I've also had enough information to look back over several years and see how things have changed over time. Those have been added to the bottom of the post.

Some other misc conclusions:
• Most people are new
• Most people plan on sticking around as far as they know
• The first person since 2014 said they have kids
• There's a lot more guys than you'd think. Or at least a lot more guys than I'd think.
• We are very very slightly less gay than last time - but still incredibly gay.

And, kind of heart-warmingly, more people self-identified as a Refugi that at any point since I started asking the question (In 2013?)

The 2019 Refuge Census - Jul 03, 2019

Click the image to go to the file

Hello! I have just realised that information about the 2019 Refuge Census was never published to the chat this year, and by gosh we need to fix that so that when I look for this information in 250 years, it will all be right here in Announcements.

The Refuge Census is an annual feedback project first created in 2009. We study the overall environment at CalRef, as well as changes in demographics as new members register and existing members age. For the 2019 census, we omitted questions related to the site's services and their implementation, as not enough services were available at the time of the survey. These questions are scheduled to return as normal next year.

This census ran from the 26^th of June to the 3^rd of July, 2019.

When the survey concluded, this was the statement that was released:

The Census is concluded.
Thank you to everyone who completed one, enjoy a big mental hug from me. The most notable observation is that we're gayer than we've ever been with only 37% of responses selecting that they were straight. We're also, on average, younger than any other time since I've been keeping track of these averages, for the last six years the average has been above 23, occasionally 25. This year, the average member is 20 years old. Men also outweigh everyone else less than ever before, whereas up to 2015, they made up some 75-80%, this year they account for 56%.

Most importantly, ten people self-identified as Refugi, the same number as was recorded in 2016. This is particularly great because of all the people who have left, just as many have come in and CalRef home, and I'm so happy about that.

Let's keep building this thing and going strong.

A census of CalRef members did not take place in 2017 because of an external census which happened off-site. A census did not take place in 2018 due to extenuating circumstances.

The 2016 Refuge Census - Nov 15, 2016

Click the image to go to the file

Thanks for everyone, once again, for taking part in the census.

A full breakdown of the use, quality, and demographic facts is here, in glorious high-resolution, so that you may see my formatting errors in vivid detail. Now, in no particular order, I'll begin to list some of the finds that I have noticed for the project this year.

The first is that CalRef's age, or combined average age is 0.1 years older than it was this time last year. This means that more young people responded to the census this year and reduced that average by more than time has advanced since the last census. Another item of note is the massive migration east. Where there were four respondents selecting the MST zone and one for EST in the last census, the registration is one and nine, respectively, for this one. There are now no members reporting that they have kids.

CalRef is as gay as it has ever been, at least by the Kinsey index, which is valued at 2.43, topping the previous record of 2.19 in 2010. There are more heterosexuals than in 2010, but by the strength of the submissions recorded between 3 and 6, the index is higher.

Another observation is a marked migration in chat theme preferences. When I posted this in 2014, Carbon was the most used theme among members. However, as of this census, it wasn't selected by any respondent. Instead, Stygium, a theme based around not being a theme at all, was the most popular selection, by far.

So, the last item would be suggestions for plans in the future. While the quality of services have not actually taken a hit this year, it doesn't look like a number of services are getting particularly good (or any) use, and this is probably because they are not particularly useful. Independently, there has been a sudden massive interest in doing a D&D/AIMhack or other narrative-creative-multiplayer D&D-style campaign among members. The shift from RP writing to creative multiplayer interactions in realtime is interesting and definitely something I'm interested in helping out with.

As a result, over the next few months, we're going to be working on another large-scale site update called CalRef III. CalRef III will be a sequel to the previous large-scale update, CalRef II. When these items are completed, a transitional period of downtime may occur for one to three days. A new topic will be posted into Announcements, which will have a complete list of the improvements and site changes. Some of the things we're planning in update include:

Closing out old, unmaintained subdomains
Structural forum changes
Rebuilding/renovating RadioRefuge
Moving all services to a newer, faster, more stable server
Focusing on regular and semi-regular Twitch/Youtube streams of Stuff and Things.
Upgrades to files.calref features

The 2015 Refuge Census - Nov 09, 2015

Click the image to go to the file

Thanks again for completing the census. The graphical results can be found here and a few thoughts on the data are below.

At current, there are a number of older members that are dealing with a number of things preventing them from being here. Consequently, the frequency of use index has dropped for this census period. However, there were far fewer people who didn't know what services we had. At any rate, I predict that activity will increase in January and remain relatively stable until the end of next August, where it will increase slightly again.

Due to the gallup "yea or nay" drawbacks, administrators received a 100% feedback score for nominal approval. This is why I put more stock in the AccuScore, which gives more weight to strength of yeas and nays and also includes indifferent responses.

No respondents selected economic or social conservatism, or conservative-leaning options this year.

The average age of Refugi have decreased by a third of a year, consistently falling.

The number of members that registered at long-lost SW satellite sites has decreased sharply.

The number of members who have self-reported Refugi status has increased sharply.

Artemis and more regularly scheduled Refuge Game Nights and radio events were relatively consistent suggestions for upcoming activities.

We have received a number of messages related to issues regarding moderators for the second census in a row and will be looking at reform options over the next month and a half, to take effect by the first of January.

That is all.

The 2014 Refuge Census - Oct 12, 2014

Click the image to go to the file

Thanks to everyone, once again, who contributed to the census and allowed me to complete this annual project. Believe it or not, the responses are actually useful and we actually look into them. We don't have nearly as much time as we did when we were kids (just like you all don't either), so this is helpful for telling us what areas we really need to work on.

To recap, last year respondents said that while the chat was the most-used service, it was also one of the more unstable because of intense lag, crashes, and dropping people out of the room. We agreed, and Aran was kind and awesome enough to take a screenshot of it, bulldoze it, and build an entirely new one in its image. Same familiar interface, but now it actually works (and has more features!).

This change increased the chat's use by several index points and three more quality points. (It's hard to see a change in quality when most of the responses are "Excellent" and it's already at 90% of the maximum rating). There was also a request to increase PDN length in the chat. In Cadence, the length is now 29 characters. In any XMPP client, the theoretical length is 1024 characters, but you will only be able to see it in that client. If you need more characters than that, we have bigger problems.

The forums were stiff, had no style, and lacked a host of features that they once had, so we brought SMF back with new, updated features, new themes and graphics, and better profile integration and support. This change increased the forum's frequency of use by twenty points, the biggest change of any service. Where it was ranked last by use last year, it is now ranking second. The forum's quality index has increased by 22 points, also the biggest change of any service.

These changes were a part of the mega update known as CalRef II, and I think it's fair to say it was a success.


So, for reminder / clarification, the frequency of use formula (which is the same as last year) takes equal weight to all answers. We lose points for members not knowing what a service is, and gain one for members at least knowing *that* a service is, even if they never use it. If, next year, we get more members and they use things, the number will be correspondingly higher. Less than half of the members did not know what one or more CR services were.

The Quality Index is a percentile, so if everyone says Service A is excellent, that item has an index of 100. This section received 98 more responses than last year, partially due to the addition of the "I don't use this service option". A service does not take damage from a member not using it, since that data is already collected in the frequency of use section.

BUT IT COULD STILL BE BETTER

You're right, it could. Let's discuss some of the suggestions you've mentioned this year.

Video chat? When do we get that?

This has been a pretty consistent request over the last few years, coming from several members, so I thought I'd set aside a block of text to discuss why I don't support this idea.

My first and foremost concern is maintaining the welfare, privacy, and security of all members. A video-based interface opens a really big can of worms relating to issues with this. A lot of people, myself included, are hesitant about using webcams for video chat. Also, after discounting the staff who (most likely) wouldn't use video chat, there simply isn't enough coverage to ensure things stay civil. In addition, several members are underage, and while I trust that the adult userbase is mature enough to control themselves, anything untoward happening would essentially shut down the entire site.

A second concern is that of bandwidth usage. The current, text-based XMPP chat is set to limit each logged-in user to a maximum of 1 KiB/s. about 90% of the time, a connection sits idle, literally pulling 0 b/s. In fact, due to replacing the aged AJAX chat with Cadence, the Refuge's 95th percentile bandwidth use is comparable to that of a 56k modem. Sending a single HD video stream to a user would pull about 1.5 mbit/s each way. Not only would this incur a significant amount of bandwidth charges, it would place undue strain on the server (particularly CPU usage, one would have to combine multiple users' video feeds into a single stream, which is a hard task for a CPU).

But that's for HD video, what about a little 480p stream or something? Unfortunately, this is still ridiculous bandwidth usage when compared to the current chat, and in addition the finished product would be sub-par. I pride myself on the quality of work that goes into the Refuge, and offering a sub-par service is not something I am comfortable with.

I encourage all willing users to do video chats. However, I cannot directly support such a venture and would therefore recommend something like a Skype chat (or, more preferably, there are many peer-to-peer video chat options that save your privacy). I'd say the closest we'll get is the Mumble server.

It'd be nice if files.calref had a (short?) list of things I'd recently uploaded so that I could find them more easily. Oh! Or...! Since the links that thing generates are as long as heck, including l.calref.net (or a link to that tool) on the files.calref page would be awesome. I'd definitely use l.calref more if that were to happen.

I've had a few comments regarding files.calref, including a 'history' feature and integration with l.calref to make the URLs less horrible. These are both certainly possible, and I will look into getting a proof-of-concept available as soon as possible.

I'd say that the Minecraft server should be version 1.8, but we've already invested time and effort into how it exists as it is, and it's a minor gripe.

So, uh, I don't know how much you've heard of this, but the Bukkit project basically imploded.

http://headswilllol.com/post.php?id=26
http://headswilllol.com/post.php?id=27

Not sure what exactly is happening or why it's happening now, but apparently there is beef between Mojang and some of the volunteer developers, and there's been a DMCA notice from a former developer for a GPL violation, or something, and now nearly all the Bukkit devs resigned?

Anyway, it doesn't look good, and the 1.8 update might take longer or even require switching the server software.

Additionally, Minecraft has now been purchased by Microsoft, and the total extent of the effects of that are not yet clear, but it does seem like Spade on its current version is going to be it for us hosting Minecraft. If anything changes and Bukkit reemerges from its freefall, we will promptly update the server when the Bukkit version matches, because that is the only way we are able to host MC.

The option to kick Moderators for all regular members.

Nope.


There are several other suggestions that need to be reviewed for a while longer before we make any comments on them. If you do not see your comment above, rest assured, we have. Just give us a couple weeks to find some solutions.


As you may have noticed, we have slightly higher ratings in staff approval this year. As before, nominal ratings are like Gallup, they take into consideration only responses that are positive and negative. AccuRatings, which I prefer, are like my services quality index, they give weight strong responses and indifferent responses.

I've updated/recreated previous year's data regarding sexual orientation. You can take a look at it here. As you can see, everyone will be straight in three or four years, statistically. :P

The average age of the Refuge is 24.16. years old. Last year, it was 23.88. This means that the Refuge is ageing slower than time is actually moving. So, thanks for keeping us young, new members. :P There are 53 more years between us than there were last year.

Most interestingly, we know that the Refuge is primarily composed of two "waves", which includes the original Refugi wave, and the 2012 SW wave. What we didn't know up to this point is that those waves constitute everyone who filled out a census. According to the responses, no members who registered between between 2010 and 2011, as well as since 2014 remained. If they have, they did not complete a census in this survey cycle.

79% of respondents plan on being "lifers". And 74% of respondents consider themselves Refugi who adequately belong here, with 21% on the fence.

The members who have been a part of an RP are now the minority.

There are, additionally, four interesting charts that discuss member's education level, offspring (or lack thereof), and social/economic ideology. While these are very pretty and fun to look at, they are all new this year, and I am more interested in seeing how they change over the next five years.

The 2013 Refuge Census - Nov 21, 2013

Click the image to go to the file

G'diddia,

A big thanks to all 18 of you that completed the 2013 Refuge Census. This is the chart that I have created from Excel, the best program for numerical data since...paper.

The Frequency of Use Index gives accurate weighted ranks for each service based on its use and allows easy comparison to other services. So obviously, the actual number of something is fairly arbitrary, but the difference between two services is not.

The Quality of Service graph uses a similar index formula, and it is sorted by that number, but it's not included in the chart because you cannot compare other services to that number. This is because of all the people who took the survey, all respondents answered every question regarding frequency of use, equating to 144 responses. However, there were only 74 responses for the quality questions. And that's kinda what you would expect: If you don't know what a service even is, you can't accurately rate it. I was pretty surprised about the number of services that most of you didn't know about. Hopefully you do now, if not, pop those in you web browser and see if there's anything you might be able to use.

I am certainly glad to see that the Sopris server has the highest quality rating because we, literally, do nothing besides sit around and try to think of ways to make it better, so at least we can do that right. The chat is the second highest, which is also good because everyone who answered the survey used it. Sylae would still like to make it less glitchy in the coming months. Based off of their percentage of satisfaction, I should make note that blades.calref and money.calref are tied. I actually have no idea how Excel decided to put one over the other.

The "nominal rating" for quality of CR staff is the rating that you would see Gallup use. Do you approve of this person's job performance, yes or no. Because that is the standard for so many polls, it's on there, but I personally don't think that's an accurate form of measure because
1). It doesn't give weight to people who feel strongly in either direction 
2). It completely drops people who said "okay" off the planet since that's the neutral option that Sy decided to use for this question. So I created an "AccuRating" that weighs responses similarly to the way I weighted responses in Quality of Service, so I personally prefer this method of getting the real approval rating. For quite a while, Administration was leading with AccuRating and I'm honestly pretty surprised it ended up being tied the way it did. Administration was rated more moderately than the moderators who, ironically, were either strongly loved or strongly hated by respondants.

For the orientation poll, the percentage of straight and bi/pan has gone down this year, partly because of my next fact. This is the first year we've had both "unknown" and "asexual" responses. We've had those in the past, but not in the same year. Being straight is still the most populous category by far. For previous years' pie charts click here. I have included the average in the form of a Kinsey Index. A lot of you object to Kinsey, I do too, but last year Dantius complained not including it made it harder to track the general orientation movement of the Refuge.

The age chart should come as no surprise to anyone, especially since I did a short thing in the chat not long ago based off of my own knowledge of people's ages and their handy Facebook information. The responses in the census are much more legitimate and had a very small margin for error. I've decided to artificially add Dantius into the mix, since he is unable to take the census this year, being on a highly secretive engineering assignment in the Middle East. There are 406 years between us. Drupal thought it was very important I share that with you, so I have.

For those of you that posted recommendations for new features that you would like to see as well as suggestions and comments in general, I have posted those ideas in the mod board and we will see if we can make any of those happen, although not a lot of you answered that question (which is fine too, why fix what isn't broken). When it came to planning future events, you all overwhelmingly gave a statement that went something like this "It doesn't matter as long as we can all do something together". Which is kind of cool. I didn't expect that.

In order of number of responses, events that Refugi would like to see take place in the immediate future are:

• A new RP - 6 responses
• Artemis - 5 Responses
• A Team Fortress 2 game session - 4 responses
• Cards Against Humanity - 4 responses
• AIMHack - 3 Responses
• Some kind of Minecraft Group Event (1) or Building contest (1)
• A RadioRefuge Show (1)

There was not enough variety in the geographic location question. We didn't want to make people feel like they had no privacy by asking for specific states and, as you might imagine, just about everyone registered as the US.

As far as "What is the purpose of the Refuge and what does it mean to you?" I didn't ask that as a way of saying "tell us how much you love being here". No, I wanted to toss that into this census because since 2008/2009, we haven't really had a good set definition of what we do and what our purpose is. Because I like data (obviously), it would be cool if I could quantify that, even though I knew it would be very unlikely I could get that to happen. I was wrong.

Over 70% of you, the same percentage that answered "yes" to "Do you consider yourself a Refugi?", gave a response that was along the lines of this mashed-up collection of response quotes:

Calamity Refuge is a small, but open community where I connect to awesome individuals that would other wise make communicating hard. It has an aspect of being a "Chosen Family", or unrelated people that act in all respects like a family, especially for those who would otherwise be without one. This place was and is a "refuge" for me, when I am in unknown territory in life. This was and has always been a place I can come back and seek shelter. The Refuge is a place for camaraderie, friendship, a place to share sorrows and successes and be free of judgement and, above all, to have fun.

That sounds like a pretty good purpose to me.

That is all.

[2023]

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Refugia Council Records

2023	January	February	March	April	May	June	July	August	September	October	November	December
Delegate	Sylh Alanor	-	-	-	-	-	Typica	-	-	-	-	-
Culture	Chacapoya	-	Tiralta/Lethodus	-	-	The Star Enpire	-	-	Tiralta	-	-	-
Foreign Affairs	Amiyoka	-	Sylh Alanor	-	-	Minskievian Refugees	-	-				Chacapoya
Operations	A Million Dreams	-	-	-	-	Falafelandia	Narwhal	-	Chacapoya	-	-	Morrigan
World Assembly	Rejakhta	-	Junitaki-cho	-	-	Refuge Isle	-	-				Sylh Alanor
Cartography									New Atlantic	-	-
2022	January	February	March	April	May	June	July	August	September	October	November	December
Delegate	Sylh Alanor	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Culture	Lethodus	-	Djorner	Tiralta	-	-	-	-	-	-	Chacapoya	-
Foreign Affairs	Chatula	-	Sylh Alanor	-	-	-	Dacay	-	-	-	Amiyoka	-
Operations	Chacapoya	-	-	-	-	-	Sylh Alanor	-	-	-	A Million Dreams	-
World Assembly	Dacay	-	Minskievian Refugees	-	-	-	Cheesy Tots	-	-	-	Rejakhta	-
2021	January	February	March	April	May	June	July	August	September	October	November	December
Delegate	Sylh Alanor	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Culture	Refuge Isle	-	Sylh Alanor	-	-	-	Lethodus	-	-	-	-	-
Foreign Affairs	Sylh Alanor	Pantala & Pyrrhia	-	-	-					Chatula	-	-
Operations	Chacapoya	Indimu	-	-	-	Feu de Glace	-	-	-	Chacapoya	-	-
Interior	Melenavenia	-	Araine	-	-	-	Laisou	-	Michelland	-	-	-
World Assembly	Junitaki-cho	-	-	-	-	-	Sylh Alanor	-	-	-	Dacay	-
2020	January	February	March	April	May	June	July	August	September	October	November	December
Delegate	Refuge Isle	Sylh Alanor	Alangolla	-	Sylh Alanor	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Culture	Sylh Alanor	-								Refuge Isle	-	-
Foreign Afffairs	Subadent	-				Sylh Alanor	-	-	-	-	-	-
Operations	Chacapoya				Refuge Isle	-	-	-	-	Chacapoya	-	-
Interior							Melenavenia	-	-	-	-	-
2019	January	February	March	April	May	June	July	August	September	October	November	December
Delegate	Refuge Isle	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Culture					Sinvald	-	-	-	Sylh Alanor	-	-	-
Foreign Afffairs				Tslonia	-	-	-	-	Áthidill	-	-	Subadent
Operations				Merzbach	-	-	-	-			Chacapoya	-

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[Information]

___  [img2]https://wiki.calref.network/images/thumb/c/c8/Ambox_notice.png/40px-Ambox_notice.png[/img2]  ___

Information Write up an example of a battle in any form you choose. Be as elaborate or as simple as you wish. Be analytical and methodical or fanciful and storylike. Whichever you like best. Then vote in the poll to reflect how your match has turned out. The results of the poll will determine the outcome and a canonical shitpost will be developed which expresses that result. You are not required to write a battle post to vote, although it is recommended. Votes will only be displayed after the poll closes.

[img2]https://calref.network/bracket/cards/SmittyFinal.png[/img2]

[img2]https://calref.network/bracket/cards/IkouFinal.png[/img2]

Smitty Werbenjägermanjensen Age: (possibly) 111 years old Strength: #1 Agility: #1 Wits: #1 Spirit: 5 Magic: 5 Affinity: #1 Command: 10 (the army of the living dead Luck: #1 He is number 1 Commands an army of humanoid skeletal fish Possesses the soda drink hat, and if it is he gets angry and the thief is CURSED Wields a blade made from a swordfish skull Can cast confusion on an enemy by showing them a floating shopping list or a ghost doodle

Ikou        Age: 19 Strength: 0 Agility: 3 Wits: 6 Spirit: 6 Magic: 8 Affinity: 0 Command: 0 Luck: 2 • Cute • Fire Lizard • Not very skilled • Some fireballs maybe! Ikou is a smol lizard from a village in the Empire. They are attending magic school, so they're not very good at spells yet, but the true fire was the drive they felt inside themselves all along!

        Results

Smitty Werbenjägermanjensen    0

Ikou         0