Half Term Review

[Belschaft]

Two months down, two months to go. Which means it's time for a period of reflection and self-criticism. What has gone right, what has gone wrong? How do we work to make sure we do a better job over the next two months than the last two?

 

Any volunteers to begin?

[Kris Kringle]

These two months have been good for me in that I at last understood all the hard work that the Cabinet does. Where I think we have succeeded is in resuming the distribution of Foreign Updates, engaging citizens through activities like the Flag Contest, reforming the Charter where it needs to be reformed (Bill of Rights, Junior Cabinet), among others. These is consistent, I think, with what was said in the inaugural address and we should continue with the judicial reform and an important part of being accountable should be sending regular telegrams to the region, like we had planned at the beginning of the term, to inform on what is being done and how all residents can help. I do think that this will all be moot is we don't do something to solve the huge engagement problem we have, which means that we have thousands of residents but over a hundred citizens, and of those just a few participate in regional affairs. There are two things I think we could go to engage part of the problem:

1. First, we should ensure that the PDA section of MoRA is active and we should help Escade run some regional activities so that the whole region can feel engaged.
   
   
2. Second, perhaps we could add to citizenship applications some option to volunteer at one of the ministries or advertise on the WFE and the RMB the opportunities for each of the ministries, one per week.
   
   

I for one know that I've had several difficulties to appoint a Deputy Minister and ambassadors, and even then the DMoFA is not active and we just have four ambassadors, two of which hold elected office and have their own duties to attend to. Part of the problem, and I think we all know that, is that most citizens just don't appear to want to engage in executive functions at the moment. Some are interested in government, but to the extent of participating in legislative debates without working at the executive. The engagement problem is one that we somehow have to address. We cannot solve it outright but there are some things that we can do to ease the problem. I think that right now that is the most pressing problem we have concerning the region.


 

I can't believe it's already been two months!


 

EDIT: Now that we are talking about pending stuff, I don't think it would hurt to update the Security Status board so that B&N and Hile cease being listed as Delegate and VD. Also, I'm not sure if I'm comfortable with some nations having more endorsements than our Vice Delegate.

[Sandaoguo]

The Assembly has been moving along at a decent speed, with two major reforms to be completed as of this Friday. Next week I would like to introduce the judicial reform, but the timeline on that may be shifted, since I want input from Belschaft and Southern Bellz before introducing it to the Assembly. Other than that, it looks like the Assembly will be voting on an additional Charter amendment regarding the citizenship process. All in all, I think these past two months have been a success in the Assembly.

 

Regarding the region as a whole, I feel that it's been kind of trickling along. The reforms meant to provoke more activity seem to be stuck on the sidelines. I would like to see the NSA up and running and the Civil Guard formally established. Particularly, the NSA could be a boon of activity for us, if the MoA is dedicated to building it up and running regular missions. Not only does it generate activity, but a strong NSA could also protect us (and our allies) against foreign or domestic attack. I'm not sure if the NSA has even done anything in the past two months. If it has, there haven't been any announcements!

[Escade]

It has been an interesting experience so far with a few struggles.

 

One thing going well is that I mostly have a Resident Spotlight coming out about once every week or two. I enjoy putting those out. 

 

I sent the NS World Fair bid to Sovreignry who is now handling the whole process.  Voting on the bids was supposed to start this week but the change from Unibot seems to have delayed things a bit. 

 

The flag redesign competition was quite fun and I really liked that activity. I'd love to see more of those kind of things.

 

As for activity, in some ways I feel like we've all been trying different things and haven't really gotten the quantity of active residents that seems natural to expect for a region with about 2-3k regions (assuming that there are also a ton of puppets).  I think we might want to refocus on quality over quantity of participants or rethink our approach to participation. Maybe it will be small numbers of residents participating in different activities. 

 

As for the MoRA, when I revised all the "What We Do" and other sections it was with the assumption that it would be fully staffed with one deputy per agency and several volunteers but that might not happen this term. Therefore, some things have fallen behind.  B&N did promise me a revamp of the regional map this month. Otherwise the PDA agency has been on hiatus and some of my attempts to do small RPs haven't panned out.

 

I feel like some of the MoRA tasks might be spread out over the rest of the government, as Kringalia suggested.  

 

Anyway, it feels like a good two months in terms of some exciting changes from the flag to amendments, etc.

[Rebel-topia]

I see lots of the same problems within the region as there's been for the last year or so. lots of trying, very little succeeding when it comes getting the region involved in anything off-site. Feeder government, in my experience, always been that way, and its likely never to change.


I had a conversation with a fairly new citizen, who expressed to me that they really didn't feel welcomed here. They've posted here and there, still dabbling a bit. I couldn't get past the fact that they told me they didn't feel welcome. No one had contracted them until I had, abs that's only after noticing them post a few times.


And I was that person once... only after about 2 or 3 weeks of lurking did Ant pm me, inviting me to jump in and join the party.


I think THAT is our biggest fault. Residents come to the forum, and some become citizens, and that's as far as they get. no welcoming pm. No one reaches out to them, inviting them to get involved. It's not enough to get the residents from in-game to the forums. we need to work on getting the ones here involved. If they're here, they obviously went to get involved in some way.

[Escade]

Rebel, that's actually quite sad since we are all interested in helping new citizens or forum visitors to feel welcome.

 

A few weeks ago, I rewrote the welcoming document that was originally on the forums (with Kringalia's assistance) which gave a lot of introductory information. With the forum reorg I can't find it. It had me listed as a contact to message for any questions\etc.  I do like your "Welcome Mat" since its a bit more concise.

 

I think that we have all welcomed a newbie who claimed they were going to help us out or become deputy or do something and then the person just disappeared which is probably why Ant or others waited a while to see if the visitor was just passing through.  It was until a few months of random participation that I actually started getting involved in the non-game sections of the forums.

 

The nations that I'm more concerned about are citizens like Ryccia who have been contributing and are hitting a wall in that what they're interested in (in his case war RPs among other roleplays) which are not succeeding due to lack of participation. The last few RPs I tried to run had about 2-3 people active.

 

The problem of activity and inclusion needs attention. Perhaps we should throw a summit of our own and invite all TSPers to participate on the RMB, etc. 

[Hileville]

Maybe we should have someone in charge of integration into the community?

[Belschaft]

A new Ministry of Integration is possible, I suppose. Current efforts at getting more people active and involved haven't exactly been working.

[Kris Kringle]

How would this Ministry work exactly? Would it just focus on the integration of new residents/citizens or would it have certain shared responsibilities with MoRA concerning current residents/citizens that aren't new? Or would it just take over some of MoRA's current duties?

[Rebel-topia]

I dont think a new ministry is the way to go. Its already part of the MoRAs responsibilities. If the MoRA wants to make a new division of their ministry, Im all for that!

[Escade]

WTH?

 

Ummm...okay. 

 

If MoRA was running as envisioned, one minister and two deputies as well as some volunteers, we'd be able to do all of the Regional Affairs (aka everything else basically) tasks.  However, that is not the case.

 

Rebel seems highly interested in integration so let's see what he comes up with, finally the region will see a VD in action. Or maybe you should be MoRA and let's see how that works out?

 

Edited.

[Belschaft]

I think the general consensus is that integration is the major problem we're currently having. Fixing that problem is more important than arguing over who's responsibility it is. If anyone has any ideas in particular post them here and we can then divvy them out.

[Kris Kringle]

In all fairness there does seem to be a general lack of agreement from the Cabinet concerning the activity problem. Sure, we talk about it and have discussions, but so far there has been no coordinated policy to tackle the issue and what troubles me is that this isn’t anymore an issue of limited participation, it’s now an issue of almost no participation at all. The way I see it we have no participation from the 4000 nations that reside in The South Pacific, starting with the fact that only around 20 nations voted for us in the last election, and we can't seem to be able to formulate policies to solve the issue beyond telling Ministers to appoint deputies, which is an important first step but should be just that: a first step.

 

Escade simply can’t handle all the duties of MoRA, and understandably so. She is tasked with welcoming citizens, leading role-plays, promoting participation, organising cultural events, and writing reports on regional happenings. There is no way that one ministry can handle all these duties, let alone one person without the help of even a single deputy. The truth is that we all know that it is too difficult to find a deputy, and even more difficult to find one that is proactive and actually wants to work, instead of just being a deputy for the sake of it. I am currently personally managing ten embassies, and that is considering that we have around four embassies abroad with no ambassador and the fact that I have to write Foreign Updates and receive all proposals of agreements from other regions. Why? Because I simply can’t find volunteers for ambassadors. I had a hell of a problem to find a single deputy that isn’t that proactive and I’m still nowhere close to fully staffing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Unless I’m being withheld information, the New Southern Army doesn’t even exist beyond the fact that it is still taking applications from citizens. It hasn’t had any missions and it doesn’t train its members. Sandaoguo rightly said that even if we had wanted to, we couldn't have helped Lazarus during their problem with the delegacy because there was no New Southern Army to help with. The NSA has a huge potential to boost activity and participation, create loyalty to the region, expand our influence and enhance our reputation, but instead I don’t have any memories of any mission, beyond the Adolf Stalins Foundtaion one, which wasn’t such a great success either. It seems like the Assembly is the only government body that is doing relatively well, and even then we have dozens of citizens but only a few actually participate in debates and vote on bills. Take the vote for Hileville’s nomination to the Committee for State Security: just 11 votes, and of those seven where Cabinet or CSS members! How on earth can we claim to be legitimate when at the most 20 people from around 4000 actually vote on the regional legislature? I know that most will say that several of those 4000 nations are puppets, still you all get the point.

 

The point I’m trying to make is that we need to have a coordinated policy regarding inactivity in the region, not just for this Cabinet but also for all subsequent Cabinets. There needs to be a set of guidelines about our objectives and aims, and how to meet them. QuietDad has suggested creating a government body entrusted with welcoming and mentoring new residents and citizens to the region, and I think that is a great idea so that we can make citizens feel welcomed and an important part of The South Pacific, as they should be. Perhaps we should even consider reforming MoRA so that it doesn’t condense so many diverse duties. The truth is that most citizens feel intimidated and stop participating after a few posts, and while that is understandable, we can reduce the chance that some citizens do so. We could also include in the citizenship application form an option to volunteer at a ministry, so that new citizens can choose to work at MoRA, MoFA, NSA, SPINN, or whatever options there are, and be integrated into the regional community. I want to see as well regular regional telegrams from the Delegate. We were supposed to write regular reports to be included in the telegrams, and while I agree that weekly telegrams were a bit extreme, perhaps monthly telegrams would be alright, so that the Delegate keeps the region informed of what the Cabinet is doing. We also need to be advertising on the RMB whatever opportunities there are in our respective departments and account for our actions, informing on what we do and inviting the region to make suggestions and participate.

 

There is a lot that we can do to help solve the activity problem. I have no problem in admitting that part of the problem comes from the lack of interest from citizens, but the other side of the coin is that we need to better integrate the RMB and Forum sides of the region, and that the Forum and government sides of The South Pacific aren’t that welcoming either, and I think that we can work to fix that. If there is something we from the government side can do to fix the problem, even if it doesn’t fix the whole problem, the we have a responsibility to do it and be part of the solution.

[Rebel-topia]

The point of my post was that we cant go creating new positions, as we dont have the numbers to staff the positions we curently have. For a while, Michu was doing really well with welcoming new nations to TSP. Somewhere along the line, the rope was cut, and, to my knowledge, it hasnt been done in a while.

 

What yall are seeing is exactly what Ive been trying to say since I was elected MoFA in may of last year... People come in, run in elections, but, when elections are over, those who lost are not to be seen again until the next election cycle. No one wants to help after the elections are over. I, for 2 full and 1 partial term, barely had any help with my foreign affairs, even WITH a deputy. There are few here that really want to see this region prosper. Most may say they do, but very VERY few really shows it.

 

Im sorry if Ive offended you, Escade. But, as you and a few others are newcomers to the cabinet... I WANT you to be mad! I love the passion yall are bringing to the region and government. Im sorry if you expected more from the few that spend time on these forums. Very few actually get involved. I wish more were like Escade, Kris, and Sandaoguo. Passion for this region, and the will to fight for what you think is best for it. We need a region full of those like you. Hile, Bel, SB... They've given their all for TSP, and continue to do so. But it gets tiring doing everything yourself, as you're now realizing. But keep the passion, and lets try to move TSP in a positive direction.

[Escade]

The archives of previous MoRA administrations are easily accessible. I have spoke to two out of three of the past MoRA's (and I briefly contacted Eluvatar) and their job has always been difficult.  

 

As for welcoming, it's been a community thing since I joined TSP. A few regulars always welcome new registrants (Loh, etc.).   

 

Then again I'm of the mind that the forums are not the center of TSP at all and that as much as possible we should be utilize the RMB and NS forums. 

 

So far various people across the forums and RMB are trying to increase engagement and what I appreciate is people who try to do things then point fingers. 

 

I'm more mad at the government officials at their lack of engagement then I am with TSPers. What right do I have to be be mad that residents are participating when I can hold various events or activities and my colleagues don't even show up? 

 

Let's try two or three different things.  First, let's change the requirements of citizenship and the requirements of running for office so that a term of service to any of the various TSP agencies is required. 

 

Then, let's try an RMB roleplay.  Of the various things we can do, a war with two sides (and colleagues taking a side and actively participating) would be fun and something that we could keep up.  Just seeing even four of us constantly post and keep it up would encourage residents to engage.

 

Finally, TSPers seem to like quizzes with the WFE prize.  Let's each come up with a weekly quiz topic\questions and a day\time we can all post on the RMB.