Hello everyone,
This is a summary of the Gov Hours held last 19 Mar 2023.
The procedure is that only questions from the public, and the replies by CDS officers from the three branches of Government are transcribed.
If possible, a more concise answer will be transcribed, but sometimes answers are given in a flowing conversation (conversation detours removed!), so the transcript will reflect that.
This Gov Hours was shorter than usual as it morphed in the NonProfit Commons March CommonGround event, that started half an hour later.
Still, the visitors arriving for the CommonGround were able to still assist the end of it -- this new audience was impressed by the CDS project, which was unknown to most of them!
Answering questions: Moon Adamant (Executive Branch); Lilith Ivory and Delia Lake (SC)
Question: Nice. Interesting. I'm new, so everything is a question.
[12:41] Delia Lake: we do this because our community is run by a democratically elected government, of the citizenry for the citizens
[12:43] Delia Lake: we have divided our government into 3 branches as is true for many rl democracies too
[12:45] Delia Lake: many of our citizens including most of us here right now have taken a turn in our government and a number are current government officers
Question: Well, onto CDS topics, how is it that this place has run so very long?
[12:47] Delia Lake: So Moon is our current Chancellor, head of our Executive Branch... well that's when she doesn't have her executive turkey accompanying her. We are serious about democracy but also a group who has a sense of humor
[12:48] Delia Lake: imo it's what I just said plus citizens volunteer their time for 6 months terms in the government periodically, plus we have a good Constitution and set of written laws to guide us
[12:49] Delia Lake: Sandy and Rosie are current members of the Representative Assembly (RA) which is our legislative body.
[12:49] Lilith Ivory: people working together on keeping CDS alive is our secret and formed several long lasting friendships I think
[12:50] Moon Adamant: here's our website: https://cdsdemocracy.org/
[12:51] Delia Lake: and the Scientific Council (SC) is the branch of government that helps to carry on the consistency of process from term to term to term. We are not an executive branch or a legislative branch. The SC is an UnCourt so to speak. We review the new laws to ensure that they are consistent with the constitution in word and intent for one thing
[12:53] Delia Lake: the SC also enforces the very infrequent banning of avatars who grief people here
[12:57] Delia Lake: so we here in the CDS take our few, simple rules seriously, we respect our fellow citizens, and enjoy making friends and building community
[12:57] Delia Lake: we have been doing that here in sl for over 18 years now
[12:58] Delia Lake: Moon and I have lived here for 17 years and we are not the longest residents even
[12:58] Moon Adamant: we are wrapping up our Gov Hours Q&A, which is a participatory event in our democracy
[12:58] Moon Adamant: you are very welcome to watch the end
[12:58] Delia Lake: we are just talking democracy and community building
[12:59] Delia Lake: this really transitions us into the next part of today's event which is networking with the larger Virtual Worlds Education Consortium (VWEC) of which the CDS is a member
[13:03] Delia Lake: we do hold CDS Government Question Hours once a month so that not only our citizens but any people who want to talk about democracy and especially democracy in virtual worlds can come and converse. So everyone is welcome to join us next month