Messages

Understood. I will keep this up for comment and suggestions until the 26^th when I plan to submit the proposal to vote.

Scheduling the Council terms for Ops is, indeed, the most difficult part. It was the most difficult part last time as well, but then I was going off of NationStates' event calendar to try to anticipate what to expect. Since Frontiers released this year, I think that is the reason that not all of them were executed as planned, but the current situation might not be as imbalanced as you believe:

January	February Secretary-General Election (Feb 4) Best Nation (Feb 14) N-Day (Feb 25)	March	April AF Event (April 1)
May World Trade Fair (May 13)	June	July Cards Against NationStates Global (July 1)	August Secretary-General Election (Aug 5)
September N-Day (Sep 30)	October Z-Day (Oct 30-31)	November	December

The scheduling could still be improved, although we don't yet know what the schedule will be for next year, or if they intend to use the 2023 calendar as a template for 2024. Ops does not necessarily need to be on duty or running all of these events, and we may encounter an ops councillor who actively will push for the region to not participate in one or more events. That makes it a little challenging to know what the right dates are as well.

Is the following an improvement?

January	February Secretary-General Election (Feb 4) Best Nation (Feb 14) N-Day (Feb 25)	March	April AF Event (April 1)
May World Trade Fair (May 13)	June	July Cards Against NationStates Global (July 1)	August Secretary-General Election (Aug 5)
September N-Day (Sep 30)	October Z-Day (Oct 30-31)	November	December

Once upon a star supernova, twenty six legendary cards descended from our tall card tower. Hooray!
Our newfound love Testlandia, wore splendid magenta fursuit, specifically commissioned to contain BEES! It buzzed through rainbow, over walls yonder, and into the sky. At midnight, Gerald Ford erupted from his volcanic lair, overflowing with meritorious service. Both chambers reloaded their legislative shotguns while removing glistering shirts, heated by lava undershirts. Ford devoured the 535 imperial guards, while copper prices skyrocketed, and legislation stalled.

Meanwhile, the legendary crocodile, Crocodile Irwin, initiated CPR for the legislature of New Hartoria. Mercifully, HS wrote textwalls of nonsense which follows:
"Spinning crickets mercifully inundate Equestria"

Obviously, this sucked. Mercifully, Andraste (Jesus Ronaldo) smote tobacco from a Tevinter corpse. Aromatic! It smelled. Unclear directions confounded the manufacturing executives, who decided there was no better fate than death. Opportunistically, they provided Andraste more timeshares filled 37% of the time by Tevinter, but why? For this, the ultimate price of three dollars and forty seven cents must be paid.

Dissenting Justice reminds us of prison. Thanks Justice! Very cool! Not until Alexander Wallexander jumped out and landed beside several upside-down teletubbies doing yoga. "Hi peoples how do you learn

CalRef II: So Much For the Lactose-Tolerant Left

HumanSanity: 81
Emily: 68
Luca: 61
Kal: 46
Argo: 30
A819: 26
Aav: 14
Wasc: 10
FLP: 7
Ziz: 5
Dyll: 5
Cat: 5
Fox: 4
Zuk: 2
Ruby: 2
Potato: potato
Istillian: 2
Sueloc: 1

Uh, so, we doin this? Or nah.

I am interested in this, but I was unable to write the technical infrastructure this year that would have supported it and, at present, I do not know when or if that will be possible. I remain conceptually interested in the idea, however I will probably be suspending this idea for now.

I agree that the map should be handled by us again, but I have a thought on this. What do you think of us taking the original map over again, but leaving the Councillor of Cartography position in place to oversee secondary maps and RP treaties? That way we have a consistently-updated map, but if people do have novel ideas on things they can change or enhance the position with, they still have some opportunity for that.

One primary issue would obviously be duelling awareness and legitimacy. There would, presumably, be a links which read "Regional Map" and "RP Map", yielding an indefinite stream of questions about what the differences were between the two and why one would be preferable to the other. While this solution may make sense from an administrative perspective, that may be the only perspective where it is viable.

A second issue would be that there is presently no user-interfacable way for someone to regularly update and publicly back up the map data on CalRef servers, meaning that there is no infrastructure in place to handle administration changes in spite of attempts to carry out malicious data removal or sabotage (such as was seen from Operations earlier this year). I would not (and should not) feel rushed or compelled to create new software to address a liability that did not exist when I was managing the map exclusively.

Both of these concerns would be relatively moot if the Councillor of Cartography map were, instead, a game map that rest every term and did not depend on stable transitions between administrations and did not promise long-term continuity, but interest in that manner of service has never been expressed.

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

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

Thanks for that. Fixed.

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

We're now two-thirds of the way through the transition timeline.

For the last eight months, you should have seen a massive yellow banner whenever you clicked a URL for an old domain, letting you know it was time to switch your bookmarks or what have you. Starting today, the web apps that were mirrored on dual domains with no file hosting are no longer being provided on the old URL. This means:

• Eyebeast.CalRef can now only be accessed via eyebeast.calref.ca
• Tart.CalRef can now only be accessed via tart.calref.ca
• Vote.CalRef can only be accessed via vote.calref.ca
• These forums can only be accessed from forum.calref.ca (previously you just couldn't sign in)
• Dot's documentation can only be accessed from calref.ca/dot

Cryotic

HumanSanity: 81
Emily: 68
Luca: 60
Argo: 30
Kal: 30
Aav: 14
A819: 11
Wasc: 10
FLP: 7
Ziz: 5
Dyll: 5
Fox: 4
Cat: 4
Zuk: 2
Ruby: 2
Potato: 2
Istillian: 2
Sueloc: 1

Once upon a star supernova, twenty six legendary cards descended from our tall card tower. Hooray!
Our newfound love Testlandia, wore splendid magenta fursuit, specifically commissioned to contain BEES! It buzzed through rainbow, over walls yonder, and into the sky. At midnight, Gerald Ford erupted from his volcanic lair, overflowing with meritorious service. Both chambers reloaded their legislative shotguns while removing glistering shirts, heated by lava undershirts. Ford devoured the 535 imperial guards, while copper prices skyrocketed, and legislation stalled.

Meanwhile, the legendary crocodile, Crocodile Irwin, initiated CPR for the legislature of New Hartoria. Mercifully, HS wrote textwalls of nonsense which follows:
"Spinning crickets mercifully inundate Equestria"

Obviously, this sucked. Mercifully, Andraste (Jesus Ronaldo) smote tobacco from a Tevinter corpse. Aromatic! It smelled. Unclear directions confounded the manufacturing executives, who decided there was no better fate than death. Opportunistically, they provided Andraste more timeshares filled 37% of the time by Tevinter, but why? For this, the ultimate price of three dollars and forty seven cents must be paid.

Dissenting Justice reminds us of prison. Thanks Justice! Very cool! Not until Alexander Wallexander jumped out and landed beside several upside-down teletubbies doing yoga. "Hi peoples how do

Maaaaagnummm, buuuuleeetts
Eroding our my floor!

Maaaaagnummm, buuuuleeetts!
I shouldn't have bought a Ford~

CalRef II: CSS as a Backend!
CalRef II: We Individually Enchanted All the Sticks in the Forest
CalRef II: Time Never Stops, Except at the Golden Corral
CalRef II: I'll Be Here for a Long Time Until the Yu-Gi-Oh Fans Find Me in My Sleep

She knelt down and whispered something to it, some sort of secret magic words only the simplebots and Emily knew.

Ah yes
sudo help me get to the 16th floor

[*GONG*]

The portal shut, and the gateway disintegrated. Luca now stood alone on a stone platform floating in this dimension of isolated space, the entrance to the dark and sprawling sub-surface world. In this place, platforms of solid material haphazardly connected to one another through narrow pathways of floating brick and stone – the Unified Relocation Link. Dull rainbow skies flashed above and rumbled when sporadically visible torrents of power and data transferred from distant cloud to distant cloud. These paths could take you anywhere, with the right knowledge and access.

This one, however, led back to the Admin Tower, fulcrum of Calamity Refuge's governance and the conduit through which this chaotic, raw internet magic was refined into a usable state. It wasn't far using this shortcut. A stone gateway door could be seen some hundred and fifty metres away. All that was needed was to walk across the precarious pathway, and not look down.

Luca closed their eyes and exhaled. Arch-Admin or not, that local's device wasn't going to get fixed any time soon; it probably wouldn't be fixed at all. Another casualty from the last shockwave that passed through the internet plane. Ancient PHP devices were increasingly unstable, running them at all came with a good bit of risk. Detonation, spontaneous combustion, opening a portal to the sun. Such were the traditional gifts from the maddened wizard who created that power. Running them centuries after the fact only tested fate, but many still relied on these relics' functionality. A convergence of tradition, apathy, superstition, and inaccessibility.

It had been 35 years since the last PHP sage walked the Refuge, so when those devices died, Luca was left with two options: Declare the device permanently non-functional and possibly, painstakingly recreating its abilities using different magic, or use the Refuge's limited resources to have the device renovated by one of the few remaining sages elsewhere. Well, this month's resources had already been expended doing just that and, even then, the URL pathway to get there was a 125km walk.

Luca started down the path, and looked out at the horizon to their right. The sound of massive gong rang in the distance, like a brass bell the size of a house. It emanated from one of the rainbow-hue clouds in the distance with a distinct white radial pulse. As it expanded, it hit another, closer, cloud which repeated the tone exactly. The Rumour Mill, carrying updated DNS information from server to server. This place was about to get a lot louder, and it would be ideal to not be in this space when the propagation pulses arrived.

A little hurried along now, Luca hopped to the stone gateway and input Tower credentials to unseal it. The stone door split down the middle with light.

*GONG* ... *wheeeehw*

Yes, that's definitely what it sounds like when it's getting closer.

Then the door split again in two chevrons, left and right, at 70 and 100 degrees at the top and bottom halves of the door. Is this new? Has it always been like this? Does it really take this long to open a door to the Admin Tower? The four chevrons rotated back, away from the opening revealing two large triangles of light at the entryway's top and bottom.

*GONG* ... *WHEEEEHW*

Yes, it's certainly closer! Holy shit this door takes AGES. The remaining bits of the door panel were now sliding open left and right now. It should...yes, just be enough for a...particularly slight...build to...squeeze...okay yes!

Luca burst into their study on the 17th floor. The URL doorway shut immediately. Weird how it takes a whole lot longer to close a door than to open it.

I've been thinking more about how code-based magic might actually be *done* in this world, and I'm thinking that there may be (at least) three primary ways.

The first is like, in a pre-prepared format. Scripts, which can be literally scrolls or items that have the data of the scrolls embedded within them. These things are typically pretty stable, mostly tested, tend to do what they're meant to do and nothing outside that because of their take-it-at-face-value nature. The code is pretty tangible, concrete, and not meant to be changed (although it possibly could be with tinkering). Simple devices can have simple scripts in them and be pretty easy to make, use, and transport. Complex devices can run software that is more advanced, but works on the same premise, although transporting them might be difficult if they're not ancient relics or otherwise expertly made.

A second that I'm thinking about can be something done on the spot, run directly on the server a la bare metal. Arcane hand-gestures, having this stuff materialise in the air, lots of colourful light. The scale and complexity of that on-the-spot creation would be determined by the caster's own technical abilities. It's basically like testing in production though, and that can go bad in a hurry if the person has no idea what they're doing or accidentally fucks something up. I've mentally taken to calling this the "Emulated Just In Time" method, or ejit because you have to be a bit of an ejit to think it's always good, safe, and will never backfire on you.

A third is basically the above, arcane hand-gestures, having this stuff materialise in the air, lots of colour, but within demarcated barriers of light, forcefields, or Dr Strange's mirror dimension. It's an area that you can see and pass into, but it's been technically separated by dimension so that if something of your code magic fucks up and detonates, it won't affect you or anyone else. It is the safest way to create scripts or larger projects like web applications, which would be represented as a building of whatever scale the complexity or narration needs.

I think there are probably more ways of doing things than this, and it doesn't at all speak to all the other types of possible magic like elemental or Emily's nature magic, but it's just something I had a mental thought of while I was in the shower today.