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Now, if we do proceed to follow the idea of a united Barton, then here's what we'll do.

[ ] Make rules and regulations. Pretty much laws of the town.
[ ] Create registration forms for citizenship.
[ ] Create forms for "house" and "land" ownership.
[ ] Create forms for moving Bartonians.
[ ] Create registration forms for shops and vendors.
[ ] Create a town/city layout.

[X] Establish a stable government. (We should vote on whether we'll have a democracy or...communism. Hopefully we'll start with democracy. sweatdrop )
[ ] Make an Interactive Map of the City. It's not hard if you use the same concept for banners and stuff. In other words, provide a city layout that helps make shorcuts to the subforums.
[ ] Figure out Statistical Information, such as:

[ ] Provide a Station that will give out Job Listings and Information.
[ ] Create a Item Listing for Store and Treasury Usage.
[ ] Create Holidays.
[X] Buy a Guild.
[ ] Create the BSS.
[ ] Gather a population of 200 citizens to make Barton Town official.
[ ] Advertise to get more citizens.

Supporters and Volunteering

namine melfina: Mastermind of the Barton Town Idea
Chang524: Future Head of the Gestapo Corp.
Ketsushin
Ember
Ved_of_Flames
kaiser321
Alanna_Malfoy
Red and Silver Death
Bartonian Spirit
Isis_Koku73

Namine, this idea makes me want to give you my job. Then again, I'm quite comfortable where I am, so too bad. mrgreen

I like the idea. If you look around here, we're not only an Army, but have been stretching our roles into diplomatic and political territories with the forging of possible alliances. Here's what we can do:

Main Guild~Barton

This is where citizens mingle. The main forum shouldn't be like what we have now but is only for exclusive things such as ID applications, important announcements, rules, and elections as well as links to member guilds.

It then branches off into sub-forums. We have the:

*Capital Building (Crew)
*National Archive (Thread Cemetary)
*National University (Converts noobs to legitimate members of society)
*Civillian Subdivisions (RPs, either serious or Casual)
*Town Square (General Discussion, basically everything we do on the front page here in the Army)
*Citizen Naturalization Offices (ID creation and basically an intro to the guild, like our Boot Camp)
*High Retail District (Shops)
*Town Hall (a version of the Suggestions Box)
*Barton Stadium (Contests and Games)
*First Barton National Hospital (Requests for actual RL help as well as in-game (questing threads not permitted)
*Alleyway (begging and questing, probably should be ignored like the plague)

That's all I can think of at the moment. xp However, I do see some very serious problems:

*Population and activity: How do we create and sustain a large, active member base?
*Exclusiveness: How do we keep the bad Bartonions out (ones that aren't noobs but are still just general assholes. This also includes the noobs for whom there is no hope)?
*Control: Are we able to get the majority of members to follow our rules?
*Financing: Where's the money coming from? (I'm willing to sponsor this project if need be)
*Authority: How many leaders will we need and who are they?

However, I still think this is a good idea. Although, I do not desire a government position but rather the status of the commander of the secret police department that helps to run the country with an invisible iron fist. mrgreen

Don't worry, Chang, I'm already leader of my own guild, so you can keep your position.

But truly, we probably want to get a different guild (possibly a used one), and go from there. Heck, we can get several Guilds if we get enough donations! But in truth, we can use the town hall to post the leadership positions, the Barton affiliations, the guidelines and all that stuff for the citizens and the affiliated Guilds' growth and recognizability.
Meaning...the Barton Town Guild will be an entire town, or parts of the Town, depending on what we acquire.

Now...I like some of the ideas you brought up for the subforums and whatnot, but we're going to debate and add more detail and light to them, ok? We definitely need to think this out and stuff.

For one thing, leadership is a voluntary position: you do not get paid.
However, if you choose to be a university teacher (of which will probably need to establish a series of tests, which will also be applied in other kinds of trust-based jobs), you will be paid, only very menial, like 5-10G per student. But that can add up after a while.
There will also probably be a need for community recommendations, so we pick out the bad eggs.

Now, for one thing, we will definitely have a Police Force to help establish control over the Guild. There will be fines and those who do not follow the rules will be exiled(banned) from Barton. There WILL be tests to measure the compentency of the officers and the areas for patrolling will be distributed among them. Larger issues...in which I believe we should have a courthouse(another series of competency tests for judges and jury), should be handled by the public, like a trial or hearing for menial and major offenses.

Positions....hmmm. We'll probably need to hold bi-annual elections for governorship, and annual elections for Cabinet and other lower positions. This is what I'm thinking:
-Governor
-Lieutenant Governor (Second-In-Command)
-Cabinet [10 members] (elected by the citizens and tested for their honesty and hard work, as well as their intelligence and wise decision-making)
-Secretary of Barton
-Barton Treasurer
....these are the main ponchos for the government. There will be more positions, but they won't be as influential as these people.
Perhaps, though, we will have three governors that have rule over certain districts if things get complicated.

Well, I was only laying down some ideas for the sub-forums, thinking things up as they go.

Leadership I expected was to be merit-based and completely voluntary. And I agree on jobs such as university teacher and of course other things such as people to work on a newspaper, advertise the guild, etc.

My biggest problem, however, is my own experience with this guild from start to finish. We've had an overbearing, egotistic, Godmodding jackass fighting another overbearing, egotistic, Godmodding jackass for control of the Army (the veterans remember this one from the days of the first war), inactivity and ban-fests galore, revolutions and assholes who just can't shut up for the life of them, et cetera.

We can polish it up. We can dress it nice. But how do we combat problems with administration, with internal affairs, and how do we know if a member meets criteria? What criteria do we hold them to?

Oh, and if you're wondering why I ask so many questions, I like to be sure of my investments before I invest anything. wink I really like this idea and to have a Barton state would be something that would blow all the other little Durem/Aekea/Gambino-centric guilds (no offense to the DRA) out of the water, but before we set it up and then think, we outta think out every possible problem, fix it right then and there, and then set it up to create the Barton nation.

Well, as soon as we can get everyone interested, we'll start debating and organizing. Hey, is everyone free on Thurday? Or Sunday? Those are the days I'll be good to discuss anything.

Before I go and make my lunch for tomorrow, I want to list some things we need to go over.

1) "Special Cases": What is meant by this is when we are accepting citizenship applications, we will of course administer a literacy test. Of course, a long time ago, literacy tests were established by the white supremacists who wanted to make sure that differently-colored, newly-arrived foreigners wouldn't be allowed several citizen rights like voting and sitting amongst the older American generations. In our case, it's probably along the same concept, except we want to CHANGE that. What I'm thinking is to use that boot camp that Chang was suggesting to...reform them and get them to be a bit more literate. But with the basics, they can stay within the society, but maybe not rise through it.

2) Education: To help them rise through the ranks of a normal citizen, education is needed and so are degrees. I suppose the recommendations are also good for jobs and such, as well as campaigning.

3) Application Process: There will be several things interwoven into the Citizenship application process, including options.
For the application, there will be current information on the avatar and username (if there is a change, they will have to resubmit the application with the new information). There will also be some general things, like personality descriptions and interests so we can help direct them to places they may enjoy. The second part will be the list of Laws & Regulations that the citizens MUST with their best attentions abide by. After reading it, there will be a small 20-question test to see if they actually READ it. Then they will provide a signature under their USERNAME (we will suggest the use of Photobucket to make it official. [We need to make a Database and hire secretaries to handle this process.] And that completes their citizenship process! xd
Now, for the options that will be given to them. Here they are:
1) They can join the combined Barton military, of which there are many parts(Guild Armies) to join and be chosen from. Whether they're chosen or not may be a problem, though. sweatdrop
2) They may choose the available districts to live in or choose to live in a dorm-like abode.
3) Although they might not decide immediately, they can choose an occupation they would like to pursue. We will give them helpful recommendations to assure them that they will enjoy living in town.