14 Years of Zoochat: A Retrospective

But my point is that any country could make the citizens of another country "beholden to another country" by just giving them citizenship. As I understanding it, the Australian MPs didn't want their NZ citizenship, but the fact that they had it meant they couldn't represent Australia in parliament. Any country can just give people citizenship...
not really. For North Korea to claim all Australians as North Korean citizens they would have to create a form of legislation through which that could be supported. And it wouldn't be accepted by any other country in a legal context because it would be a nonsense legislation.

The New Zealand citizenship (or Canadian or Greek or whatever) is valid because those countries have legislation which is defensible and consistent (within their legislation), and is based on birth (of the person, their parent, or their grandparent, whichever would be applicable in the various countries). Citizenship is based always on being born in the country in some respect (i.e. directly, parent, grandparent, etc) or through it being granted to you through your own application.
 
I thought citizenship was something you can renounce?

Depending on the country, you may be entitled to citizenship through descent, but unless you apply for it you can't say you're a citizen of that country. Some countries won't let you have citizenship of any other country. And others seem to automatically give citizenship through descent without needing to apply.
 
Depending on the country, you may be entitled to citizenship through descent, but unless you apply for it you can't say you're a citizen of that country. Some countries won't let you have citizenship of any other country. And others seem to automatically give citizenship through descent without needing to apply.

No, my point was, and still is having read Wikipedia, that you can generally forego citizenship of one country if you have multiple ones. It's not a story I've followed deeply, but I don't see why the Australian politicians in question don't just cancel their NZ citizenship.
 
but I don't see why the Australian politicians in question don't just cancel their NZ citizenship.
That's what the Deputy Prime Minister did. I don't think it did him much good though.

:p

Hix
 
No, my point was, and still is having read Wikipedia, that you can generally forego citizenship of one country if you have multiple ones. It's not a story I've followed deeply, but I don't see why the Australian politicians in question don't just cancel their NZ citizenship.
From what I can gather, in this situation the politicians need to have renounced other citizenships before running for office (or to have taken the prior necessary steps to ensure this, even if it hasn't officially been completed by the time they are in office). There was one who had spent AU$25,000 on legal fees to renounce Iranian citizenship in order to run.

The problem seems to be that, firstly it is the individual person's responsibility to check they don't have dual citizenship and clearly a lot of people wouldn't deem that necessary (although in two cases the people were actually born in those countries - New Zealand and Canada - so they definitely should have covered their bases by checking). Secondly, they can't renounce their other citizenships while being in office because being in office with dual citizenship is illegal. Luckily for Australia, the Prime Minister has confirmed he only has Australian citizenship (or "unluckily" I guess, if you don't support him).

I think what would have to happen is that the person would have to resign, renounce their other citizenship, and then run again. I'm not sure if that would work, but it sounds like the appropriate legal option.
 
There are exceptions to this, like Morocco.....

Iran is another case. You can set up the process, but if it suits the state the process is ignored. Also Argentina has an interesting view on this by considering it a human right that people born as Argentinians cannot lose their citizenship.
 
Chlidonias,

We're on the sixth page of this thread, and I think two posts have been on topic.

It's about time we separated the non ZooChat History posts into a thread of their own and let Pachyderm Pro return to the project he initially created this thread for.

:p

Hix
 
well, technically all of it's on topic because the topic is Zoochat.

But I can split the "retrospective" posts from the "other" posts if @pachyderm pro wants.
 
How did I miss this thread? 'Twas nice to have been in contention for thread of the year for at least a little while.
 
Though perhaps moving the on topic posts to the front of the thread would be a compromise if possible.

Posts appear in date order, so that won't be possible.

What I *can* do is edit your first post to include a contents page or index, a bit like the one in my German Adventures thread, which contains direct links to each on-topic post :)
 
Posts appear in date order, so that won't be possible.

What I *can* do is edit your first post to include a contents page or index, a bit like the one in my German Adventures thread, which contains direct links to each on-topic post :)
Yes I would appreciate that :)
 
Moving aside from all of the citizenship discussions...

I have been shamelessly procrastinating writing this post, as I have either been too tired, or was binge watching season 2 of This is Us (Seriously great show). But alas, here I am.
Part 3: Another Step Forward

The years that followed saw the final present moderator join the site, @FunkyGibbon from China (Did I get right this time?;)). This rounds out our current crazy cast of staff members, along with admins @Simon Hampel and @jobalba . I just noticed that I never gave an official mention to @lintworm either, so here you go.

2016 was a very good year for zoochat in many different ways. Many members were joining every month, and it was all leading up to a change that would change the site forever. However, there was one downside to last year, as its when your truly stumbled upon the site on a bored Friday night :D. Ah those were the days. Pointless and/or repeated threads, pushing my opinions over others and my misspelled words/incorrect use of grammar, good times. I think back to when I was so naïve and so inexperienced, like a politician on his first day in office, struggling to find his feet (I could name names but political warfare has been done to death and deleted on just about a dozen other threads, so ill keep my mouth shout for now). Its amazing how people change in a year.

Anyway, the more notable thing was the major site revamp of October 2016, when the current format was first put into effect. It was three days of no zoochat, and the world went mad with withdraw. Riots occurred, protests were held and people were slowly losing their minds...
Somewhere in an alternate universe...

However, we all rejoiced when the site was launched with whole a new style, a new gallery and perhaps the more noticeable feature, the like button (Feel free to try it on this post). The overall interface became much more user friendly, and ironically enough, this update went into action on October 21, exactly 8 years and 1 day after the original name change, which also fell exactly 5 years and 1 day after the original creation of zoobeat on Oct. 19.

Speaking of...

Happy Birthday Zoochat!

Its finally been 14 years since the beginning of this forum! Its been 14 years of zoos, animals, plants, comedy, nonsense and geekiness! How exciting! Lets toast our tea and wish another great 14 years.

Thank you all for reading along but...

its-not-over-yet.jpg
 
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