Those of you who remember that fantastic world in a forum far far away will recognize the following words. They were my platform for Vice Delegate when this election originally began last month. For the sake of consistency and continuity I have posted them again.
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Hello again, for the second time I am here to ask for your vote for the office of Vice Delegate. I was last elected in a special election to replace our beloved Deropia, and I believe I have been serving capably in that capacity ever since. It has been a little over a month, however, and there is much work to be done. I would be honored if you would give me the opportunity to continue that work.
As before I stand by my credentials: former two-time Delegate, member of the Security Council, and former two-time Minister of World Assembly Affairs. This last role was relevant as a major goal of my campaign was expanding the WADP. This proved to be much easier than I had anticipated, and with the help of the MoWA and Siwale we made it a reality. In terms of the work of Vice Delegate, the WADP has been published twice since I took office, every citizen check has been done on time, and we have released two endorsement alerts to boost the endorsement count of Security Council members, which are dispatches that mention every nation which has not yet endorsed that SC member. This has been the primary vehicle for the push for individual SC member endorsement campaigns, which was another one of the goals I outlined in my first campaign. However, that idea will continue to be developed, as a more direct approach is still needed to secure as many endorsements as possible. In the term ahead these alerts will be supplemented by telegrams tailored to the nations who have not endorsed the SC member in question. I will approach this the same way I approach my own endotarting using the SC's lists.
I wanted to quickly note a goal that has existed since Deropia's campaign, getting 900 endorsements for every SC member. This was in reach when I took office, but has become less likely due to the decline in the WA population in the region. Endorsements are roughly in line with where they were when I became Vice Delegate as a percentage, but the totals are further from the 900 goal. I believe in the aspiration Deropia had and will continue to push that number as high as I can get it, but I won't promise you a specific, arbitrary number that may not be achievable.
With the two major goals of my first campaign under development on my watch, I have turned my focus to bringing out more activity and presence from the Security Council in general. We are discussing a convenient and effective way for all SC members to enhance their endotarting and alert campaigns by being more present on the RMB. I also hope to help them with this effort by regularly publishing snapshots of their endorsement counts in my forum thread. I would like everyone to see how we are doing with this effort week-to-week and get in the habit of more public discourse. To aid us in that effort, I encourage you all to ask questions and offer feedback, not just in this campaign but to the Vice Delegate's Desk on the forum.
With that I yield the floor to you. I hope that my short term has showcased what I can do and that you continue to have confidence in my ability to carry out the duties of Vice Delegate. Thank you for hearing me out, and thank you in advance for your vote.
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I will now repost the answers to McM's probing questions from that old thread (and of course the questions themselves):
I am unclear on what goal you are referring to here. Could you elaborate on this and how it came to be a reality?
Expanding the WADP to incorporate WA voting awards and participation was a major goal of mine, and as I recall you and I actually debated the idea in my last campaign thread. Perhaps as a result of that discussion, or the fact that it remained an unresolved matter in the SC for so long, Siwale made a push to start implementing the changes. I wrote the new WA participation factbook and he added the metrics, while we continued to rely on MoWA to generate the information about votes for public consumption. I would actually have to give Siwale more credit for making this a reality than myself, since I just contributed content and supported the expansion. I pictured more of a debate and drawn-out process, it just came together so quickly I actually wondered why it didn't come together sooner.
How would you rate the success of this initiative?
Considering we have done two alerts so far and the second is finishing its second week, I think it's a bit early to judge conclusively, but we did learn some useful information. So far we have had two RMB posts for each alert cycle, and I have observed an uptick in endorsements when those pushes are made. If we increased those posts to maybe 4 per cycle, we would get a bit more life. I had intended for the GAs to do some of the redundant posting, but I imagine even with all of that we will probably only see maybe an additional 20-25 endorsements. This is something that will work better as part of a larger initiative, and as I will address below, I think part of that will rely on more involvement from the SC members who are the focus of the alerts.
Could you elaborate on how you have sought to bring more activity and presence from the Security Council?
So far seeking more activity from the SC has come from an ongoing discussion about creating a greater expectation that the SC post on the RMB. We want to be fair and deferential to everyone's schedule, and avoid reducing their activity consideration to a simple posting quota. However, greater visibility for the SC members, especially during periods where they are featured, should lead to better endorsement gathering. If they are posting, they will hopefully also endotart more often, particularly with TGs. I wager that increased use of the game will make it easier for them to take a moment to engage in the game in every way they can, but the toughest part here is going to be getting in that habit, and only SC members can make themselves accountable in that way. Depending on how this discussion goes though, if the SC is willing to be stricter in this regard, and agrees to require this activity more consistently, then hopefully we will see a Security Council that is visible in public and communicating with them more often.
Could you elaborate on what this convenient and effective way for all SC members to enhance their endotarting and alert campaigns by being more present on the RMB is? What does this involve?
I characterize a single post when they are featured (on the WFE or in an active alert dispatch) and a single post each month to be "convenient," especially in tandem with endotarting. I believe that a visible SC member will gather more endorsements, especially when their name is coming up a lot. I accept that I may be making too optimistic an assumption, or over-emphasizing one metric that by itself doesn't necessarily do much, but I intend to play around with this until we find something that not only works, but works for our SC members.
SC weeks have been a suggested initiative by former candidates for Vice Delegate including myself, and were pushed by r3n, Siwale and others. A proposal compiled by myself and Bootsie on how to do this has been collecting dust in the Security Council for a number of months. Do you envisage that you would intend to enact this idea during your upcoming term?
I liked SC weeks. As I recall, you and I got tangled up in how much of it was RP and how much of it would be just straight game background. I envisioned a setup where each SC member had a factbook that was in line with their interests, so if one wanted a heavily-RP based one that would be fine, whereas mine would be more historical with some little nuggets of personal trivia. Part of why it was forgotten was that several SC members were unable to write up drafts of their factbooks. I believe that custom content from each SC member would make theirs more meaningful, but I suppose we could workshop it as a group. I would be willing to pursue this, especially since it's the kind of project that will bring a bigger spotlight to SC members and is precisely the kind of thing that a targeted dispatch could enhance.
Do you have any concerns about the activity level of any particular SC members?
It is true that some SC members are more active than others, but I have seen every one of them participate to some degree during my term as Vice Delegate. When I was Delegate, we had SC members who never posted and started missing their legal activity requirements. Compared to them, the current SC roster is solid. I would like to see more out of a few of them, but they also happen to have quite a bit longer a tenure than I do and I do find their contributions to be valuable. I hope that our effort to encourage greater activity and publicity will mitigate the smaller activity level of some of our members.
Are there any members of the region who are not currently members of the Security Council that you would encourage to join? Did you make any such approaches in the last month of office?
I got this question in the last campaign and my answer remains the same. Currently there are no members of the region who I would encourage to join, and I did not approach anyone to do so.
Do you believe that the requirements for joining the Security Council are properly understood? Noting that we've had a number of applicants in recent years who have satisfied the legal requirements (i.e. endorsement number, influence etc) but not been admitted.
Every applicant we have had to the SC in my term has clearly understood the requirements. The problem that applicants run into is never the legal requirements, but the more intangible qualities and benchmarks the SC prefers to see in applicants. I think we could do a better job of communicating those, so we don't keep saying the same things when applicants come to us and instead let them know going in what they can do to have a stronger case for admission.
Would you accept the speculation as accurate that the Vice Delegacy is a stepping stone for you to seek to run for Delegate upon Siwale's retirement?
Such speculation is understandable, logical even, but I wouldn't characterize it as accurate. I see the office of Vice Delegate as separate and distinct from Delegate, and do not believe that you have to be one or the other before you can win the other office. I was elected Delegate previously but hadn't been Vice Delegate. It is not a stepping stone for me, because I have already been there and, at the risk of sounding a tad conceited, do not believe I need a stepping stone to the Delegacy. Furthermore, I was always in the top 3 or 4 for endorsements even after leaving the Delegacy, so I do not need to be Vice Delegate to set myself up for it. No matter how I do in this office, I do not really see how my accomplishments or experience will really translate into a hypothetical run for Delegate, the offices do such very different things. Trying to use this experience in that campaign would be insufficient to make a strong case for another term as Delegate, I would need a platform as long as this post answering your questions, and I'm not going to get that as Vice Delegate.
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Hello again, for the second time I am here to ask for your vote for the office of Vice Delegate. I was last elected in a special election to replace our beloved Deropia, and I believe I have been serving capably in that capacity ever since. It has been a little over a month, however, and there is much work to be done. I would be honored if you would give me the opportunity to continue that work.
As before I stand by my credentials: former two-time Delegate, member of the Security Council, and former two-time Minister of World Assembly Affairs. This last role was relevant as a major goal of my campaign was expanding the WADP. This proved to be much easier than I had anticipated, and with the help of the MoWA and Siwale we made it a reality. In terms of the work of Vice Delegate, the WADP has been published twice since I took office, every citizen check has been done on time, and we have released two endorsement alerts to boost the endorsement count of Security Council members, which are dispatches that mention every nation which has not yet endorsed that SC member. This has been the primary vehicle for the push for individual SC member endorsement campaigns, which was another one of the goals I outlined in my first campaign. However, that idea will continue to be developed, as a more direct approach is still needed to secure as many endorsements as possible. In the term ahead these alerts will be supplemented by telegrams tailored to the nations who have not endorsed the SC member in question. I will approach this the same way I approach my own endotarting using the SC's lists.
I wanted to quickly note a goal that has existed since Deropia's campaign, getting 900 endorsements for every SC member. This was in reach when I took office, but has become less likely due to the decline in the WA population in the region. Endorsements are roughly in line with where they were when I became Vice Delegate as a percentage, but the totals are further from the 900 goal. I believe in the aspiration Deropia had and will continue to push that number as high as I can get it, but I won't promise you a specific, arbitrary number that may not be achievable.
With the two major goals of my first campaign under development on my watch, I have turned my focus to bringing out more activity and presence from the Security Council in general. We are discussing a convenient and effective way for all SC members to enhance their endotarting and alert campaigns by being more present on the RMB. I also hope to help them with this effort by regularly publishing snapshots of their endorsement counts in my forum thread. I would like everyone to see how we are doing with this effort week-to-week and get in the habit of more public discourse. To aid us in that effort, I encourage you all to ask questions and offer feedback, not just in this campaign but to the Vice Delegate's Desk on the forum.
With that I yield the floor to you. I hope that my short term has showcased what I can do and that you continue to have confidence in my ability to carry out the duties of Vice Delegate. Thank you for hearing me out, and thank you in advance for your vote.
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I will now repost the answers to McM's probing questions from that old thread (and of course the questions themselves):
I am unclear on what goal you are referring to here. Could you elaborate on this and how it came to be a reality?
Expanding the WADP to incorporate WA voting awards and participation was a major goal of mine, and as I recall you and I actually debated the idea in my last campaign thread. Perhaps as a result of that discussion, or the fact that it remained an unresolved matter in the SC for so long, Siwale made a push to start implementing the changes. I wrote the new WA participation factbook and he added the metrics, while we continued to rely on MoWA to generate the information about votes for public consumption. I would actually have to give Siwale more credit for making this a reality than myself, since I just contributed content and supported the expansion. I pictured more of a debate and drawn-out process, it just came together so quickly I actually wondered why it didn't come together sooner.
How would you rate the success of this initiative?
Considering we have done two alerts so far and the second is finishing its second week, I think it's a bit early to judge conclusively, but we did learn some useful information. So far we have had two RMB posts for each alert cycle, and I have observed an uptick in endorsements when those pushes are made. If we increased those posts to maybe 4 per cycle, we would get a bit more life. I had intended for the GAs to do some of the redundant posting, but I imagine even with all of that we will probably only see maybe an additional 20-25 endorsements. This is something that will work better as part of a larger initiative, and as I will address below, I think part of that will rely on more involvement from the SC members who are the focus of the alerts.
Could you elaborate on how you have sought to bring more activity and presence from the Security Council?
So far seeking more activity from the SC has come from an ongoing discussion about creating a greater expectation that the SC post on the RMB. We want to be fair and deferential to everyone's schedule, and avoid reducing their activity consideration to a simple posting quota. However, greater visibility for the SC members, especially during periods where they are featured, should lead to better endorsement gathering. If they are posting, they will hopefully also endotart more often, particularly with TGs. I wager that increased use of the game will make it easier for them to take a moment to engage in the game in every way they can, but the toughest part here is going to be getting in that habit, and only SC members can make themselves accountable in that way. Depending on how this discussion goes though, if the SC is willing to be stricter in this regard, and agrees to require this activity more consistently, then hopefully we will see a Security Council that is visible in public and communicating with them more often.
Could you elaborate on what this convenient and effective way for all SC members to enhance their endotarting and alert campaigns by being more present on the RMB is? What does this involve?
I characterize a single post when they are featured (on the WFE or in an active alert dispatch) and a single post each month to be "convenient," especially in tandem with endotarting. I believe that a visible SC member will gather more endorsements, especially when their name is coming up a lot. I accept that I may be making too optimistic an assumption, or over-emphasizing one metric that by itself doesn't necessarily do much, but I intend to play around with this until we find something that not only works, but works for our SC members.
SC weeks have been a suggested initiative by former candidates for Vice Delegate including myself, and were pushed by r3n, Siwale and others. A proposal compiled by myself and Bootsie on how to do this has been collecting dust in the Security Council for a number of months. Do you envisage that you would intend to enact this idea during your upcoming term?
I liked SC weeks. As I recall, you and I got tangled up in how much of it was RP and how much of it would be just straight game background. I envisioned a setup where each SC member had a factbook that was in line with their interests, so if one wanted a heavily-RP based one that would be fine, whereas mine would be more historical with some little nuggets of personal trivia. Part of why it was forgotten was that several SC members were unable to write up drafts of their factbooks. I believe that custom content from each SC member would make theirs more meaningful, but I suppose we could workshop it as a group. I would be willing to pursue this, especially since it's the kind of project that will bring a bigger spotlight to SC members and is precisely the kind of thing that a targeted dispatch could enhance.
Do you have any concerns about the activity level of any particular SC members?
It is true that some SC members are more active than others, but I have seen every one of them participate to some degree during my term as Vice Delegate. When I was Delegate, we had SC members who never posted and started missing their legal activity requirements. Compared to them, the current SC roster is solid. I would like to see more out of a few of them, but they also happen to have quite a bit longer a tenure than I do and I do find their contributions to be valuable. I hope that our effort to encourage greater activity and publicity will mitigate the smaller activity level of some of our members.
Are there any members of the region who are not currently members of the Security Council that you would encourage to join? Did you make any such approaches in the last month of office?
I got this question in the last campaign and my answer remains the same. Currently there are no members of the region who I would encourage to join, and I did not approach anyone to do so.
Do you believe that the requirements for joining the Security Council are properly understood? Noting that we've had a number of applicants in recent years who have satisfied the legal requirements (i.e. endorsement number, influence etc) but not been admitted.
Every applicant we have had to the SC in my term has clearly understood the requirements. The problem that applicants run into is never the legal requirements, but the more intangible qualities and benchmarks the SC prefers to see in applicants. I think we could do a better job of communicating those, so we don't keep saying the same things when applicants come to us and instead let them know going in what they can do to have a stronger case for admission.
Would you accept the speculation as accurate that the Vice Delegacy is a stepping stone for you to seek to run for Delegate upon Siwale's retirement?
Such speculation is understandable, logical even, but I wouldn't characterize it as accurate. I see the office of Vice Delegate as separate and distinct from Delegate, and do not believe that you have to be one or the other before you can win the other office. I was elected Delegate previously but hadn't been Vice Delegate. It is not a stepping stone for me, because I have already been there and, at the risk of sounding a tad conceited, do not believe I need a stepping stone to the Delegacy. Furthermore, I was always in the top 3 or 4 for endorsements even after leaving the Delegacy, so I do not need to be Vice Delegate to set myself up for it. No matter how I do in this office, I do not really see how my accomplishments or experience will really translate into a hypothetical run for Delegate, the offices do such very different things. Trying to use this experience in that campaign would be insufficient to make a strong case for another term as Delegate, I would need a platform as long as this post answering your questions, and I'm not going to get that as Vice Delegate.
