The Affairs of Congress, December-January 2013 : Special Edition

Day 1,896, 09:51 • Published in Japan Japan • by Zodiarque

Hi, eJapan, it's Zodiarque!

First, I want to congratulate every elected Congress persons, their parties and all the voters who accomplished their civil right and duty.

As part of my job as the Speaker during January, I wanted to give you an update, you could all make use of I guess, as many things have been addressed or are being discussed in congress on the forums. Without further ado, let's begin.



1. The Immigration Law of eJapan (Preliminary Consultation and Discussion)

Since the current Immigration Law was voted when eJapan got back its first region again, the Congress was only of 10 people. The Party presidents were merely consulted and, in addition, the Law project vote was forced on the Interim Speaker of that time under the shape of a multiple-choice question paper and not as full written Law. Therefore, this Law is admittedly considered void by some parties. President Akki endorsed that fact and decided to make Top Priority the establishment of a new Immigration Law that would be fully recognized, accepted and implemented by every parties and there Presidents, warrants of any In-Game authority.

There were Preliminary consultation, starting from the current written Law, where any citizen could expressed their idea and so that everyone could eventually aknowledge eachother's expectation of the Law. Then, the discussion could begin.

At that specific time, I'm sure (or at the very least I hope that) you all (even those not consulting the Forums) have received PMs from your Party President and or partaked in an In-Game discussion thread, so that your Party president could express in the Discussion thread on Forum the opinion and version of the Law that the whole party seemed to agree on.

The Discussion is still being in progress and we are soon to reach a consensus that will end up with a Law that could last for months.

Speak up! : The Party Presidents have spoken and you can now all debate there. Please, come and give everyone your opinion about how the Immigration process shall be like.



2. The Diet's Discussing/Voting system (Discussion)

It has been brought to the discussion that the Voting system of the Congress wasn't as efficient as could be. That discussion has somehow put on hold the discussion about Immigration Law because if eJapan seek a Law that everone would agree on, it should be a Law that everone could vote on efficently.

It has been brought up to the discussion several means all relying on different medias exting in the eRepublic sphere. The difficulty comes majorly from the fact that eJapan community is pluricultural. In eJapan, you may not have the same time zone as your neighbour, making it extremely difficult to have everyone gathering in IRC for instance. Some also expressed concerns about privacy and internal security, Congress needs a platform that allows both : Accessibility to eCitizens of eJapan but discrimination towards eForeigners.

Attempt of a comparison table of the different medias.

Speak up! : The discussion about this matter is still opened there. Please, come and give everyone your opinion as the more we are, the more Pros and Cons we will be able to weight.



Now as part of my job as the Interim Speaker of the Congress, allow me to adress our whole new Congress. Let's keep on the strong effort started last month and not give up on our dream to have a well organized and administrated eNation.



3. Get your access to the Forum (See there)

Like every month, Congress member can receive their full access to the Congress romm and private parts so that they can deal with the work they were entrusted to carry on by the people of eJapan.

In order to get your access (aka «Congress mask») you just need to post their with your citizen account so that Moderation Team aknowledge your presence and desire to be an active member. If you were not to have a Citizen account yet, don't worry, the process is well oiled and fast managed. Just register, open a post entitled [CM]"your eRep name here" in the Application section and ask for a Citizen mask. Then send Squibeel or Me a PM in eRepublik as an authentification. Thus, you are two ste from being masked. Remember that you were not elected to be lazy enough so that you wouldn't bother doing this very few.

4. Speaker of Congress Nomination (See there)

As Interim Speaker, I declare open the nomination of the February Speaker of Congress. As only about the half of the Congress has yet join in the Forum, I'll extend the duration to 72h instead of the usual 48h so that you all have more time to carry on the registration process.

I'm thinking about experimenting on the voting system for this objectively low important issue. Along with the nomination which will still be conducted on Forum, I'll propose that Congress members can eventually vote by PM adressed to the Interim Speaker who will then post the Screenshots on Forum for both transparency's and archiving's sake.

The process would be the following :
- Nomination on Forum there,
- Starting of the Vote there,
- Mass PMing from the Interim Speaker to the unmasked Congress Members under the form of a ballot (copy/paste from the Voting openned thread in Forum)
- Answers from Congress members in Forum or in the In-Game thread.
- Copy/Paste of the In-Game thread appearing at the closure of the Forum vote.
- Closing of the vote and signing of the bill.

I'm sure this will be a rewading experiment as we can always improve the uses of Congress to make it more efficient, more equal and more easy to partake.

Edited banner, I was too ashamed of my sleepwalker's poor english and japanese.

That's all for today. By the way, if you would like to inquire about every little discussions that are currently being held and participate, then I cannot encourage you more to join the forums and get you Citizen mask now. Registration is made in a minute and all you need is to write a post in the appropriate section there and an In-Game Private Message to me Zodiarque as I'm also Moderator of Forums.
Additionally, if you liked this article feel free to vote it up and subscribe to my personal newspaper, Keeper of Precepts. Also feel free to leave a comment, thanks !