Expropriation of the Clan Wiki

The Expropriation of the Clan Wiki was a major conflict entered into by the Triumvirate in September of 2013.

## Background

In late 2013-II, on August 23, Triumvirate Major Executive Nathan Maine, who had recently been reelected to a second term, proposed the WEB (Website Expropriation and Begetting) Act to the Executive Branch. The bill made rules for the creation of new websites, provided guidelines for Triumvirate activity on websites, and, most importantly, would allow for the Triumvirate to conduct military operations on other websites. A key section of this bill permitted the expropriation of the RuneScape Clan Wiki, a site where the Triumvirate originally had tremendous presence on (it was also the central site of the Triumvirate prior to 2011 when this wiki was created). The bill, co-framed by Chief Ambassador and Chairman of the Joint Command Council Jackson Mearl and associate member of the Joint Command Council (and future Deputy Speaker of the Administration) Edward Stenbach, was referred to by Major Executive Maine as the "PEACE Act Mark II", as a bill with "more teeth" than the original PEACE Act. It would allow the Triumvirate to pursue aggressive foreign policy actions towards the Clan Wiki in seizing up management authority of the Clan Wiki to better protect the site. The site had been deteriorating over the past year due to excessive vandalism, lack of management, and weak community. The purpose of the WEB Act was to allow the Triumvirate to step in as a management authority and fix that.

It was the first serious foreign policy movement of Major Executive Maine's agenda, set to take place in the last trimester of 2013. However, the bill failed to pass the Executive Branch the first time it was proposed by a 4:4 vote due to Executives Mitchell Carrick, Ascencia, Andrew Hester, and Spencer Kaye all voting against the original bill for various reasons. They announced some concern as to whether it "was the Triumvirate's place" to take action here or, as Mitchell Carrick stated, "there is no possible way to engage or enforce any of this [bill]". Spencer Kaye criticized the bill due to the fact that it was "not the authority of someone who knows nothing about RuneScape" to engage as Major Executive Maine and Chief Ambassador Mearl were seeking to do. During this initial proposal, Chief Ambassador Mearl first brought up the argument that it was a "humanitarian effort on our part" to engage in this and to promote stable management and protection on the Clan Wiki.

Major Executive Maine returned to propose a new version of the bill on August 28. The most significant difference was an adjustment to attempt to appease Ascencia and get his vote, which was loosening restrictions on the selection of the Deputy Head of Intelligence position. The bill immediately secured the same four votes as it had when originally proposed but as the end of the trimester drew very close, were it to be sent to the Administrative Branch, Speaker of the Administration Andrew Mearl, an avid critic of Major Executive Maine and of international affairs, could simply wait until the end of the trimester (when the Administrative session were to end) to table the bill and the clock would run out with the end of the trimester before the bill were even voted on. Maine requested that voting be postponed until the onset of the new trimester. When the new trimester came though, a shift in the political situation posed new challenges with the new Administrative Branch electing two conservatives from the same party (the Establishment Party) as both Speaker and Deputy Speaker, effectively denying almost all chances of progressive legislation being even tabled to the Administration. Along with that came Andrew Hester's abrupt resignation from both Head of the Treasury and Minor Executive, causing the Executive Branch to select a new Minor Executive, Lanclot Rice (Head of Commerce and Industry). With these new changes in political layout within the government, the WEB Act would become even more difficult to pass. On September 2, early in the new trimester, Major Executive Maine was approached by conservative Administrative Liaison Mitchell Carrick to make a deal on the bill in order to get it passed, but also to give things over to the conservatives in exchange. After a negotiation between Maine and Carrick, an agreement was struck and a deal was made to cut spending per trimester by 70 tri (the Major Executive was permitted to select from where), to return some government institution money to the central account, and to cut the flat tax down to 4% (from 5%), and in exchange for all that, the rest of the bill would remain the same. With Hester's departure the bill only needed four votes to pass, and with Carrick now in favor, it achieved that and was passed along to the Speaker.

On receiving the bill, Speaker of the Administration Mearl contacted the Major Executive to see if he could negotiate himself. With Carrick sitting in on the conversation with Maine and the Speaker, the Speaker requested further spending cuts, and Maine walked out of the conversation citing that they had made a deal and that it was totally inappropriate to seek for more. Maine immediately made what had happened public, appealing to the Executive Branch and to the general populace as to what the Establishment Party had done to attempt to squeeze the bill and get as much out of it as possible even after a deal had been made. With Chief Ambassador Jackson Mearl, who happened to be Speaker Mearl's brother, as a co-framer of the bill, Jackson too began to put pressure on the Speaker and the Establishment Party and after a flood of letters to the Speaker, along with several key politicians criticizing the Speaker publicly, eventually the Establishment Party members in the Administrative Branch such as Deputy Speaker Edward Stenbach and Jackson and Andrew's cousin, Harrison Mearl, began to fear for their own reelection and push the Speaker into tabling the bill. Finally, Major Executive Maine pushed it past the tipping point by threatening impeachment of Carrick, stating that he "had the votes" (which he may have, as much of the Executive Branch was enraged with Carrick at the time), and that Carrick had done nothing to bring the two branches of government together and had instead lead only to further separation and conflict between them. On September 5, the Speaker tabled the bill and by September 8, the bill had passed and the WEB Act became law.

The WEB Act did contain an enactment clause though which required the Major Executive to declare the law in effect (or to wait two weeks after passage for the bill to go into effect). On September 12, 2013, Major Executive Maine declared the law in effect and began the expropriation of the Clan Wiki.

## Expropriation Begins

The Joint Command Council, Department of Intelligence, and Department of State had all been preparing for the expropriation for weeks as even before the bill had passed, under order from the Major Executive, they had all worked to draw up plans for a potential expropriation effort ahead of time. On September 12, 2013, at about midday, Major Executive Maine gave the order to the JCC to begin expropriation and the Triumvirate assets marched forward and launched first actions towards the Clan Wiki.

The first day of the Expropriation saw little to no action, other than the fact that the Triumvirate Department of State had gained Bureaucratic status on the Runescape Clans wiki. During this time, the Department of State began to move to secure any foreign support on the site, with nearly half of all the active editors on the site in favor of the new Sysop.

The days after saw increasingly more conflict than the previous, started off by the protest of the Sysop "Excel". Eventually he was talked down by the Triumvirate and convinced to let us manage the site, to which the Expropriation forces saw as a big relief. Soon afterwards, it was revealed he had did the exact opposite and instead contacted the other inactive Sysops with Bureaucratic status to combat the efforts of the Triumvirate. Upon this realization, Lanclot Rice, the newly elected Minor Executive, opened a Public Support forum to show the Inactive Sysops where the communities hearts resided. Within hours, the support had racked up to over 20 supports with 0 in protest. Fearing that the Wikia staff would come in and see such a protest and  support working against them, they took efforts to lock the thread and remove it from public view. As soon as this happened, another Forum was started with teh same basic function, to which they locked it a final time and contacted Wikia staff on their own.

Shortly after the Sysops of the RSCW contacted Wikia Staff, the Triumvirate did the same in a effort to prove their case and to show the Staff how skewed the leadership of the RSCW had become. Upon seeing the mass Chaos and infighting on the Clans Wiki, they removed Bureaucratic rights from most of the Sysops on the site. The Draziw, in particular, was stripped of all rights until they were given back to him in a revert made by the Staff. The Triumvirate, seeing that their true goal in accomplishing the order and restructuring of the Clans Wiki complete, silently left and let the Clans Wikia be ruled by the Wiki Staff. Yet again, the Sysops of the Clans Wiki went back to being inactive, but notably the only one to stay was The Draziw.

5 Months after the original Expropriation efforts, the Draziw removed Sysop priveledges from The Dept. of State after becoming Bureaucrat after a rigged vote in which he gathered members from his own clan to vote in favor of the change of rights. This increased tension between the Runescape Clans Wiki and the Triumvirate.