Settlement Laws, should a DM Intervene.

[Lady Astray]

We have ways yes.
Hrm... quoting from the Wiki...

Becoming a Citizen

Speak to registrar NPC. Pay 10k, you're now a citizen of the town.
Taking citizenship at a town removes any citizenship of other towns. If you had prior citizenship elsewhere, you cannot run or vote for a year in the new town.
Citizenship will expire if you do not log in for 13 game months. (approximately 37 RL days)

I'm not entirely sure though if that's 'player log in' or 'Character log in.' I would think it'd be fairer if it was the latter.

If we went the suggestion rout, I'd say maybe make that period shorter (e.g. 6 IG months) and make it so that the rules were the same as if if you had prior citizenship. Which is to say, if you don't log in as that character for say, two/three weeks, you loose citizenship, and whilst you can retake it any time you want, you cannot stand/vote in a settlment for a IG year.
That seems... close to what is being suggested? Am I right?

Right.

[Queen Titania]

The above is character log in (So if you don't log into a character for 37 days, the citizenship is lost.)

There is a risk to the above suggestion: 6 months of inactivity would be an effective work around to be able to vote earlier in a new place. It would have to be in a way where the year penalty would take effect for any place bar the one you lost citizenship to.

[Ebonstar]

voting should be if your character is not active, not the player on an alt, is not active the day before an election starts or the entire week runup to the election start, they cannot vote in that election run.

this would keep players from unshelving citizen alts to move an election one way or the other when they hear about it through the grapevine.

and yes this does happen, I have seen it with my own eyes, alts that havent been seen for rl months all the sudden show up and vote when they havent a clue IC whats been happening and then they are back on the shelf again

[three wolf moon]

I tried to stay and be optimistic. Tried being nice to the new faction leader. That is, until they changed the name of the faction, booted all of us who stayed out of the faction's HQ, then brought in their own pre-existing faction to replace us. These events caused the majority of my faction to leave the settlement outright. On top of that a lot of top political figures and key role players in the settlement also left. After a while the new faction leader quit, along with the person who instigated the situation which caused my old faction leader to step down in the first place. Now the settlement is pretty much barren.

I've stuck around trying to help newcomers and contribute to the RP so that the settlement might someday replenish its numbers. But it is sad so many have left. Like I said, I get to RP and adventure significantly less now, because there is hardly anyone left to RP or adventure with. Out of the few people left, a lot of them are opposed to my character IC simply because she had the audacity to speak out against disbanding a centuries old military and refusing to swear any kind of oath of fealty to the settlement or its leader. I feel like an outcast in the settlement just because I insisted that the other people who arrived after I did follow old traditions.

This isn't what happened, at all. I think you are the one who needs to "reflect" on your own warped view of events. Also, it's very classless to say, "I'm not going to name anyone" and then so specifically call them out. Just because you didn't use their names doesn't mean you didn't "name and shame" them. You're not the only one guilty of it in this thread, either.

The name was changed to something that is actually elven and appropriate to the Forgotten Realms from something literally named after a faction in the Warcraft series. There is no reason to be upset over such a thing, not all traditions are good. Also, no one was 'kicked out', the ownership of the barracks changed because the previous owner left and no one bothered to ask for new keys. It was not disbanded, it was renamed, and people upset about the replacing of an actual Warcraft reference stamped their feet and acted proud. The people who joined up after, my character included, did so because they approved of the way things were going, they had been completely independent, otherwise, and had no affiliations to anyone previously. However your character has never done anything but glare at and second guess my character, you have never made any attempt to engage him otherwise, so don't pretend as if your character is some poor outcast by our doing. It is fine if your character doesn't act kind on purpose, but it seems out of character you have no idea how inhospitable she acts to everyone that doesn't exist inside her little bubble.

As for people leaving, I'm unsure what you mean. I barely ever saw anyone other than, maybe two of the "major political players" despite consistent activity. They had already checked out by the time they "officially" left. People usually play characters for a few good months before getting burnt out and moving on. That's just the way it goes, things tend to move in cycles. However, there are plenty of people active in Myon and many new people besides; most of them, such as my character, are roleplaying all over the server instead of just sitting on a couch by the mythal. My character travels all over, checking in on other settlements, building relationships and meeting new people, scouting the roads and gathering resources. Maybe you should try something similar if you find yourself bored. Like Harvey Danger says, "If you're bored then you're boring".

I don't know why you thought it was okay to post this, but I think you need to take a step back and be less biased to your own perspective, kinder and more accepting to your fellow players.

[Red Ropes]

I don't think citizenship should take immediate effect if you are new - it should have a one year cool-down as well.

Further - I think players should only be allowed to have one citizenship connect to any of their characters. While a solitary player might have multiple commitments across characters - it is only fair that they can only invest directly in one of them. They should have to choose where that might be. An IG year is only a month to restore citizenship and a cool-down of a year when you become active again is not a great pain to sit through.

Frankly, it's "anti-stupidity armor" and allows for a healthier, fairer settlement leadership field.

As the age'd system currently is I can have as many characters as I want. All of them an vote, and if someone is doing shady things or being very OOC with how they participate it can certainly be observed by the team, however, that would require them also for each specific instance to even know to watch.

With something like the above, everything is moderated without an overt need of the DM team.