Consultation on Historian roles in TNPU

[Simone]

Motivation

As part of my Delegate election platform, For All of Us - Your Delegate, Empowering You, I had promised to consult on the appointment of a "TNP Archivist", who will be the official historian of TNP and will be in charge of compiling historical data, information and tidbits/trivia etc., on Delegates, Vice Delegates, and Ministers. As TNP has its own server, it will also organize exhibitions and to document our travails over the last 20 years.

As part of plans for implementing such roles, any input on how to organize this endeavor will be much appreciated. Some of the questions that input will be much appreciated on include:

Questions

1. What is the name of the role? "TNP Archivist" sounds too similar to the Archivist in charge of FOIA requests under Delegative Directive #8, so the current tentatively proposed term is "Historian".
2. Is this one person or multiple people, like a "Committee of Historians" of some sort? Or a "Guild of Historians"?
3. Where is the best location to host this? "Stella Polaris Museum" of TNP University is now the tentatively proposed location. (My platform originally allowed for the possibility of the TNP Archivist to attend cabinet, but some of the candidates I approached declined to attend).
4. Is the role similar to Executive Staff (ie sign up freely) or require some kind of formal appointment process?
5. What is the scope of the role? Do we chronicle authors? Have the historian(s) regularly contribute to TNS and other publications? Events or lectures at TNPU?

Your input is very important!

Regards
Simone

 

[Halsoni]

Did you not create a plan for the role while editing your campaign?

 

[Robespierre]

This does not need to be formalized. I feel like we’ve told you that before, but it seems that you’re determined to press on despite our objections.

Ideally, community members who are interested in the region’s history will take it upon themselves to document it. In the past, there’ve been numerous examples of players doing just that (see: pretty much every other thread in this subforum). Regardless, I'll answer your questions and I'm assuming that my answers will be taken into serious consideration just as they have been since you were elected (heavy sarcasm).

1. What is the name of the role? "TNP Archivist" sounds too similar to the Archivist in charge of FOIA requests under Delegative Directive #8, so the current tentatively proposed term is "Historian".

Oh, right. The FOIA backlog still exists. On another (albeit unrelated) note, perhaps you should prioritize that item over this one. Nonetheless, I think it would be best if you didn't arbitrarily create more meaningless titles for people to keep track of. We have no shortage of those already and people don't need a title for recording things that are already important to them otherwise.

This doesn't need to be a dedicated job, especially not when we've seen how those who have been assigned the job of going through FOIA declassifications haven't been as productive as one would hope for one reason or another. Giving people titles and such might serve as a motivator in the short term, but the novelty of that tends to wear off rather quickly (usually within the first two months).

2. Is this one person or multiple people, like a "Committee of Historians" of some sort? Or a "Guild of Historians"?

No, conceptually speaking, there is not a Committee of Historians nor a guild of any kind. Not only does the sort of recordkeeping that you're wanting not require executive oversight, but we also shouldn't be gatekeeping who can and can't contribute to these efforts by establishing some sort of bureaucratic body that, as I've said already, doesn't need to exist in the first place.

3. Where is the best location to host this? "Stella Polaris Museum" of TNP University is now the tentatively proposed location. (My platform originally allowed for the possibility of the TNP Archivist to attend cabinet, but some of the candidates I approached declined to attend).

The same place it's always been. Please do not have the admins create a separate subforum for this because, again, it really isn't necessary. Also, it's good to see that you've backtracked and have given up on having a "TNP Archivist" sit in with the cabinet. That's a small step in the right direction and demonstrates better judgement from you after further review.

4. Is the role similar to Executive Staff (ie sign up freely) or require some kind of formal appointment process?

Absolutely not. Creating more bloat and sign-up threads/sheets is most surely not the way to go here. We don't need a Ministry of Information or anything of the sort that would merit having a dedicated staff. Likewise, no one needs to be appointed either. Those who are passionate about TNP history will care enough to volunteer their time to preserving it just as they always have, I would imagine.

5. What is the scope of the role? Do we chronicle authors? Have the historian(s) regularly contribute to TNS and other publications? Events or lectures at TNPU?

There shouldn't be a role at all, so that should save you having to define its scope. You also don't need chronicle authors, as that would require you to track down the relevant players (some of whom are practically unreachable today) to find someone knowledgeable enough to write about a certain time period in TNP. Moreover, I don't believe that you'll have much success with so-called historians wanting to contribute regularly to TNS, TNL, etc. We have people who've done both before (e.g. Kasch), but it should be up to people to decide what they do and don't want to get involved with and they should be free from the expectation of having to write for said publications just because they happen to be interested in regional history.

Eagerly awaiting your response!

 

[Hulldom]

I will say at least on the FOIA point that has someone who has dealt with that particular source of pain before that it does, in fact, take time. Us politicians on a browser game can be wordy people, but I will also simply say that while I like the *idea* in principle, I’d like to know how the Delegate would measure whether this position has been a success, who they have in mind to do it, and whether instead encouraging for instance Comms staffers to take up the historical documentation role since they evidently aren’t doing much of anything else (outside of Kasch) might better fulfill the goals the Delegate has for the historian role rather than a separate position.