Judge by my deeds, not by my past

This is directed more towards Requiem Domine but I feel that I have to defend myself against accusations made by others that I am not interested in eBelgian affairs, that I do not contribute and that I continue to see myself as a eBritish citizen.

One of the first accusations made towards me is that I don't contribute to internal discussions. The immediate problem I have with that is that I have no right to contribute since the discussions take place under a congressional forum. Since I am neither a minister nor a congress member, I cannot contribute. I do, however, read most, if not all, of the topics posted and consider the views posted. When I read the Judicial Transparency Act and the responses to it, Lily Jayne Summers was kind enough to post my reactions to it under her own name in order for me to express those views. If you don't believe that, ask her yourself.

The very idea that I don't contribute is a farce. I contribute behind-the-scenes. I have, to date, discussed with Lily Jayne Summers (who is, by the way, running for Country President) a number of different proposals including devolving responsibility for immigration to Congress, rather than having the Ministry of Immigration. Another proposal was to merge the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Education since the two roles over-lap in terms of their scope and it seemed needless to have two ministerial posts for roles so similar.

If you read the article regarding congressional candidate opinions posted by Nohjis, you would note that I expressed an opinion on most of the issues discussed and, was in fact, selected as having an interesting opinion on eBelgian foreign policy vis a vis neutrality. So, please refrain from making such needless accusations before you research the issue. I find it incredulous that people would judge me based on my activity. No, it's true that I don't go on the IRC much but I found it was difficult to integrate into the community because people would sometimes shift to a different language.

Another criticism made of me was that I referred to myself as a British citizen in an article. First, let's look at the articles I posted in context. They were mentioned in the context of British affairs and their post-ONE status in terms of alliances. Having been a British citizen before and being British in real-life, I would hope that one would hardly judge a slip of the tongue and view it as some kind of insult to eBelgium. I have been here less than a month and yet I find myself on the end of a vitriolic hate campaign purported by the Country President who has spoken less than ten words to me.

It is not an impossible task to find me. I would, if asked, come onto IRC to discuss issues or you could send me a message. Instead, I find myself receiving messages by proxy. I do not appreciate having my friends used as agents in a campaign against me so I'd appreciate that, in future, if you do have a problem with me. You tell me. You don't go running to someone else and I have to hear it through them. If it happens again, I will simply ignore you. You will soon get the message.

Third, the congressional elections. I was criticised for not garnering many votes. Let's look at this realistically. Most active eBelgians who bother to vote are likely to be on the forums. They will know who they want to vote for and vote according to instructions. Second, I only ran as an assist to both Lily Jayne Summers and NLSP who stated that they were always an insufficient number of quality candidates running. Compared with the likes of many others who got more votes than me, I'm surprised I'm criticised given that I was one of the few who bothered to create a manifesto and pledged to donate the gold to the country accounts, something very few others promised to do.

If you don't want me to be a citizen here, that's fine. I'll keep to myself and remain outside of the community but do not expect me to accept this kind of vitriolic hate without need or basis. I am perfectly happy to keep to my circle of friends and I don't expect people to welcome me with open arms but I would, at the very least, expect people to either do their research on me or show a little interest in me before making judgments about who I am or what I'm interested in.

Oh, and feel free to lock this if you think this is inappropriate. I personally think I'm fully entitled to make a stand against such needless commentary but the moderators may decide otherwise.

Hi, Veruvia. As a moderator, I see no need to lock this. I personally have not observed this campaign you feel is being waged against you, but would like to point out a couple of misconceptions I feel you have.

First, with regard to your point about your right to post in Congress debate, although I understand your reservations, I think you should understand that in eBe, everybody with a citizen mask has a right to post in the public section of Congress. You have a right to post anywhere the forum allows you to do so.

Second, although eBe citizens do tend to be wary of outsiders, RL citizenship is really not an issue. I am one of several RL Americans here, for instance, and I have been CP twice, CM 13 times, and a member of many governments. I am not the only RL American who has been CP. We have also had RL British, Irish, Macedonian, and other nationalities active and accepted here. If there is distrust toward you, which I have not observed, I can only suppose it is because you are new and unknown here. I give you the same advice I have given others in your situation - just keep showing up and contributing until others see your worth.

With regard to the language issue on IRC, I would not take that personally, either. It does happen that people start conversations in other languages in eBrussels, most often but not always Dutch. Not being a Dutch speaker myself - although I have started picking up a little bit - I figure I have a few options. I can ignore the conversation, use Google translate to try to figure out what is being said, or call attention to the fact that there are people present who do not speak the language being used. You can do this with humor, and people will generally not take it amiss.

With regard to the votes, I find it odd that you would be criticized for not getting enough, and wonder if perhaps you misunderstood. There are many people much better known here than you are who have not received votes. That is probably partly because it is summer. In any case, what is important is not whether you get a large number of votes but that you have done all you can to present yourself as a good candidate. After that, it is up to the voters.

I hope this clarifies things a bit for you. Be patient with us, and you will soon be an accepted part of the community.

Really, Veruvia? Whining about it will not make it easier.

First of all, I have not accused of anything, I was just curious why Lily is defending you all the time.

Veruvia wrote:One of the first accusations made towards me is that I don't contribute to internal discussions. The immediate problem I have with that is that I have no right to contribute since the discussions take place under a congressional forum. Since I am neither a minister nor a congress member, I cannot contribute. I do, however, read most, if not all, of the topics posted and consider the views posted. When I read the Judicial Transparency Act and the responses to it, Lily Jayne Summers was kind enough to post my reactions to it under her own name in order for me to express those views. If you don't believe that, ask her yourself.

What Maryam said. You could take part in the public part of the Congress section by yourself. If you really have read all discussions in it, you would have realised it by your own, since there are a lot of non-congressional members, posting in there.

Veruvia wrote:The very idea that I don't contribute is a farce. I contribute behind-the-scenes. I have, to date, discussed with Lily Jayne Summers (who is, by the way, running for Country President) a number of different proposals including devolving responsibility for immigration to Congress, rather than having the Ministry of Immigration. Another proposal was to merge the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Education since the two roles over-lap in terms of their scope and it seemed needless to have two ministerial posts for roles so similar.

Excuse me, but I do not have access to the RB part of the forum and I am not aware (and I believe it is not only me) how you do contribute to Lily's campaign or to the party itself. All I am talking about is your contribution to the community, not to a single person in particular.

Veruvia wrote:Another criticism made of me was that I referred to myself as a British citizen in an article. First, let's look at the articles I posted in context. They were mentioned in the context of British affairs and their post-ONE status in terms of alliances. Having been a British citizen before and being British in real-life, I would hope that one would hardly judge a slip of the tongue and view it as some kind of insult to eBelgium. I have been here less than a month and yet I find myself on the end of a vitriolic hate campaign purported by the Country President who has spoken less than ten words to me

Indeed that bothered me. I am not Belgian myself irl as well, but I have never referred to a country, different than that I am citizen ingame, as "we". It is just my two cents, but since you are eBelgian, I find it strange that you are thinking and acting as part of the British community. I do not speak French or Dutch either. Somehow I do not mind if the rl Belgians/Dutches start a conversation in their own language. I am fine with it and I simply do not pay attention to it. Oh, and it is not hatred, do not turn into dramafest, since it is only my concern and there is no campaign of hatred, since I just raised a question or two. And how am I supposed to talk with you, since I barely see you online? Excuse me, but it is not my duty to ask you to come online on IRC, if you want to integrate in the community, it is most likely that you have to do it by your own..

Veruvia wrote:Instead, I find myself receiving messages by proxy. I do not appreciate having my friends used as agents in a campaign against me so I'd appreciate that, in future, if you do have a problem with me. You tell me. You don't go running to someone else and I have to hear it through them. If it happens again, I will simply ignore you. You will soon get the message.

Was it me, who messaged you by proxy? It was not my intetion to, but Lily made a group chat. That's it. Since I can not get in touch with you at IRC and I am not likely to ask you to come onto it, I felt it necessary to talk with her about you (considering the fact she knows you more than I do).

Veruvia wrote:Third, the congressional elections. I was criticised for not garnering many votes.

Yet again you are wrong. You are not criticised, I just stated the fact that despite being prioritirized by Lily all day long, you are yet to qualify at the elections. And I think it is because of the fact that Belgians barely know you.

Veruvia wrote:If you don't want me to be a citizen here, that's fine. I'll keep to myself and remain outside of the community but do not expect me to accept this kind of vitriolic hate without need or basis. I am perfectly happy to keep to my circle of friends and I don't expect people to welcome me with open arms but I would, at the very least, expect people to either do their research on me or show a little interest in me before making judgments about who I am or what I'm interested in.

I am likely to repeat myself - turning into a dramafest is not going to help you. There is no hate, but pure interest where all of your competency went, when you come to eBelgium. It is true that I have barely seen you involved in anything and I was really surprised how Lily is so confident in your qualities (except of the fact she is your friend and she knows you beforehand).

P.S. You had your answer. It would be good if you do not moan more about it, because I will simply ignore you Yo

Alright, Requiem, let's clarify a few things. This isn't a drama-fest. This is me expressing an opinion about a Country President who seems to think it's acceptable to whine and bitch about people behind their backs.

Let's look at your first point - that I can contribute the public part of discussions. Isn't that an inherent flaw in the design of your system if new people do not know they can contribute? It's part of a congressional section and so it implies, by its very name, that it is designed for Congress. Why not have a separate forum for public discussion and then have Congress vote in a separate private/public forum like most eWorld forums do?

Let's look at your second point - that I do not integrate into the community. You may not be aware that I only recently rejoined eRepublik after taking a long sabbatical so I'm taking my time integrating into the community. It's odd that, as Country President, you don't feel it's your place to try and assist and help people get active. That's either your responsibility or the responsibility of the Minister of Home Affairs. No, you don't have to ask me to come onto IRC but I've had people do so before with me and I've happily obliged where I can. It's not a difficult task and I think it's case of you wanting to look like a big man, rather than sucking it up and appreciating that not everyone wants to throw themselves in at deep end.

Your third point - that you didn't message me by proxy. Yes, you do. When you talk to someone who you know has an affiliation with me, you are messaging me by proxy. The sole reason that I found out about your criticisms of me were through Lily. I apologise if I didn't respond to the group chat. It wasn't because I was in-game. It was because I was doing other things since, you know, I have a life.

You seem to have a problem with the fact that I know Lily more than I know you or the eBelgian community. Since I was the one who introduced into the wider world of eRepublik, we were always bound to have a close friendship. I'd be happy to have that same friend with anyone else but, like I said, I'm taking things slowly.

I've seen the logs between yourself and Lily so I know for a fact that it's not pure interest. You pushed and pushed for Lily to explain why she thought I was so good.

You are free to ignore me but, as I said, I'd hardly consider it appropriate befitting a Country President who doesn't like the fact that someone has called you out on something.

-----------------------------------


MaryamQ, thank you for agreeing not to lock this. I don't think it's a hate campaign purported by the eBelgian community. I think it's Requiem Domine (and perhaps a select few others who might not know me) who seem to have a problem with the fact that I'm not fully integrated into the community and I would hope people would be accepting of that fact.

Hell, it took Lily weeks to get onto the forums and even longer before she started to become truly active over in the eUK. She may be more confident now than I am.

I was off-put by how the discussions in the last two/three weeks have descended from genuine discussion into trolling and "he said/she said" situations. You've got ThomasRED's resignation for SO, the criticisms of the Finance Minister by Shadowuksc et al. and then the forums seem to be awash with a divide between people who like the rules and people who hate them.

Now, no, I don't know how everything works or how everything operates so I'll apologise that I haven't contributed to congressional affairs or matters but, as I posted above, I think that's a problem with the design of the forums and not simply me being a complete moron.

The sole reason I posted this was because I don't appreciate people making accusations about me and doing so through my friends. I'd love to call some of the people in the eBelgian community friends as and when that happens but I don't feel like I should be criticised for not having fully integrated yet and that's exactly what Requiem Domine is doing - arguing that activity is somehow inexplicably linked to competence.

It's not. You could have someone posting dozens of things a day and they'd still be a more or you could have someone who is more composed, posts one or two things a day and is right. I'd rather have the latter, wouldn't you?

Veruvia wrote:Let's look at your first point - that I can contribute the public part of discussions. Isn't that an inherent flaw in the design of your system if new people do not know they can contribute? It's part of a congressional section and so it implies, by its very name, that it is designed for Congress. Why not have a separate forum for public discussion and then have Congress vote in a separate private/public forum like most eWorld forums do?

We do?

Veruvia wrote:Let's look at your second point - that I do not integrate into the community. You may not be aware that I only recently rejoined eRepublik after taking a long sabbatical so I'm taking my time integrating into the community. It's odd that, as Country President, you don't feel it's your place to try and assist and help people get active. That's either your responsibility or the responsibility of the Minister of Home Affairs. No, you don't have to ask me to come onto IRC but I've had people do so before with me and I've happily obliged where I can. It's not a difficult task and I think it's case of you wanting to look like a big man, rather than sucking it up and appreciating that not everyone wants to throw themselves in at deep end.

I think it is not my place to get you active. As CP, I have more important things to do than trying to get you in particular active on forums or IRC by myself. I can not make you doing it. I mean, you are aware of the forum/irc channel exisiting. If you want to integrate, it is up to you to do it. If you don't, fine by me. (now you are active, so I guess I did what you expect of the "normal" CP)

Veruvia wrote:Your third point - that you didn't message me by proxy. Yes, you do. When you talk to someone who you know has an affiliation with me, you are messaging me by proxy. The sole reason that I found out about your criticisms of me were through Lily. I apologise if I didn't respond to the group chat. It wasn't because I was in-game. It was because I was doing other things since, you know, I have a life.

And yet again, I talked with Lily about you, because she is the only one, who has some kind of an idea who you are. Considering that, she is the only one I can talk with about you. Would it have been better if I didn't express my concerns?
P.S. I had to take a break as well, and that is why I actually could not wait for you to answer.

Veruvia wrote:You seem to have a problem with the fact that I know Lily more than I know you or the eBelgian community. Since I was the one who introduced into the wider world of eRepublik, we were always bound to have a close friendship. I'd be happy to have that same friend with anyone else but, like I said, I'm taking things slowly.

I've seen the logs between yourself and Lily so I know for a fact that it's not pure interest. You pushed and pushed for Lily to explain why she thought I was so good.

By my logic, if you do want to integrate in the community and become party of it, it is not enough to know only Lily. And yes, I am indeed interested to find out why and how you did so well in the UK and how you will do here, because I barely know anything about you, except what I heard of Lily.

First of all, I want to say that I got the impression that this getting a bit out of proportion. Maybe it is good if the people that felt attacked/unappreciated take a breath and relax a bit, after all, this is just a game.

Like MaryamQ said, every eBe citizen has the right to post in the public congress section and as long as you are not an admin (or an admin screwed up something) you can use the following rule of thumb: if you can post, you are allowed to post

I am glad you are elected as CM and I am sure that on your own tempo, how you want it, you will integrate in the community.
Anyway, I hope you will find a lot of pleasure in eBe

You have British flag in your avatar, you're in an eUK MU, you're located in eUK fighting for them most likely, when you're talking about eUK you say we instead of they. I always wonder why people take citizenship elsewhere and don't really want to integrate in their new country. If you take citizenship elsewhere you have to let go of your previous country or else you might as well not chance citizenship.

Fhaemita Malodorous wrote:
You have British flag in your avatar, you're in an eUK MU, you're located in eUK fighting for them most likely, when you're talking about eUK you say we instead of they. I always wonder why people take citizenship elsewhere and don't really want to integrate in their new country. If you take citizenship elsewhere you have to let go of your previous country or else you might as well not chance citizenship.

In response to that, I have queried with Tecuvo about joining the Belgian National Army but was told to wait until Saturday (this was a week or so ago) since the supplies were changing. Since I've heard nothing else, I assumed things will still up in the air. I'm perfectly fine with joining the Belgian National Army. I don't have a problem with that.

I tend to supply myself anyway so it's not as if I care much about the supplies and whether one MU supplies better than the other.

whaaaaaat???? A drama that doesn't involve me!



UNACCEPTABLE!