I’d like to discuss the current senate vote with members of Parliament who will likely be voting on the upcoming bill which is currently being called Senate Vote 23.
From my point of view, the entire text of the legislation goes in the face of Senate Rule A.2.ii, which states «The Senate does not pass or propose legislation regulating the internal rules of the VillageCraft Staff». An analysis of the legislation makes evident that it intends to impose a forced set of required tasks upon the system administrator of VillageCraft, all of whom are volunteers and unpaid people with real jobs (like me!). It was made evident in recent discussion that requiring even 5 minutes of work from the system administrator is unlawful for the Senate.
The following excerpts from the current bill being voted upon show how this new legislation is unlawful, violative of Senate mandate A.2.ii, and should not be enacted by Parliament :
For the Donors of $20 range, it is stated that donors will be granted several new permissions allowing mobile access to disposal, grindstone, smithing table, as well as the ability for players to begin choosing particle effects. As somebody who used to do plugin management and configuration for the server – I can safely say that all of this work (and it is work) will impose at least 15 minutes of work on the sysadmin. If the particles plugin has never been used before (is it even installed?), then I can easily see that number jumping up to 30+ minutes. And, if it is forcing the addition of a new plugin – the bill will be supplanting the VC system administrator’s rôle in this area – again violating A.2.ii.
The next groups - $50 and $75 – adds in several more permissions (ie – even more configuring), plus the addition of a Cheese hat. Now, don’t get the wrong – I love cheese as much as the next guy – but forcing the system administrator to design a new hat is very time consuming.
The next group for $100 adds in yet even more permissions – that’s more time forcing the system administrator to do required work. I’ll remind you again – it’s against the mandate of the senate to regulate the internal rules of the VillageCraft staff. It was established in previous bills that requiring the sys-admin to do any work, regardless of the amount of time it would take, is unlawful.
And now – the worst offending donation groups $150, $200, $300, $400, and $500 – these are 5 brand new security/access groups. Not only do these have to be configured, but the system administrator will need to go through the entire player/donor list, and manually add each-and-every-single-relevant-player to these new groups. The new groups will have to have permissions added and modified.
Finally – there is one main technical problem with this bill. Most of these new groups $150 - $500 – include practically no new content. Sure, there’s the ability to use more colors, and more particles, and set 102 homes so you can player kill and harass players at your leisure. It seeks to define new groups – add barely anything to them – and state they will include more outstanding features as they are added? Isn’t that the *point* of this bill? To add more features? Why then is there basically nothing new in the $150 - $500 range. To me – it seems like this bill was rushed through.
The main thing it accomplishes is make it extremely easy for player killers to harass and intimidate people they don’t like. They could have a home set at each of your homes to make sure you’re never left alone to build, and they could do this for many players – and still have enough homes left for the things they actually care to work on.
All of this bill feels as if it’s been rushed, and hasn’t had enough input from the community. The features and groups that are being added add very little at the higher tiers, imposes a huge set of tasks on the system administrator (which again is against the mandate of the Senate), and allows for a ridiculous number of homes to be set (which will surely be abused by those meaning to do harm). I urge the MP to vote against this legislation for the reasons I’ve detailed above.
Don't get the wrong impression here - I'm all for expanding the benefits available to donors (personally I would love to see the /disposal command) - but the way it has been proposed here is rushed, underdeveloped, and creates unintended consequences. This is something that parliament - not the senate - should be pursuing.
