- Pronouns
- He/Him, They/Them
Hello, I’m running for delegate. Many people - even myself - expected me to be but I’ve spent the last week umming and ahhing over it. I was entirely content to step aside and let a qualified and competent candidate come into the seat. I await one joining the race.
That was a joke, before people accuse me of making the election personal. Fiji will be at the very least an adequate delegate, but there’s plenty of issues with his platform - though as I write this he’s removed one of the biggest, joining Libcord and dragging TNP back into the failing defender-sphere that for as long as I’ve been in TNP, has never benefited us. He should be - and has been - praised for adapting to public opinion and removing that part and I join in on that praise - it’s a good move.
I posted a platform back in January and much of what I’m standing on is in that platform. It’s a good read. You can read it here. Some things have changed from January though, and much of this post will be given over to that, obviously. I don’t believe in imposing plans on my ministers, so this platform will make no big pledges - that’s partly based on my aversion to such things, having seen overly ambitious platforms that promise the world in the past, only to fail, and also based on pragmatism. We’re just about to enter what’s traditionally known as the summer lull, so I’d much rather take things as they come, whilst making big moves that would require fewer people than you’d think.
On that topic, let’s talk WALL. WALL is effective in marshalling a significant number of votes in the World Assembly, but not so much at fostering authorship and collaborative drafting and feedback. We should be going out into the World Assembly forums on the NationStates site and finding authors and drafts and helping them to get their works passed. We should be proactive in this endeavour. With a small, dedicated team in the Ministry of World Assembly Affairs, we could be doing this, as well as continuing with our current work of drafting IFVs and getting them out as early as possible. I think our current guidelines work very well, however, and will not be changing them to enact anti-democratic measures like stopping the vote on resolutions early. We should by dynamic and willing to adapt to change, not harsh and strict.
A big issue I can see on the horizon is TNP Government again imposing on RPers, through failed projects that have been resurrected time and again - and have never succeeded. TNP Government should be working with RPers to see what it can provide to make RP easier and more accessible, TNP RPers would rather get on with RP than contribute to some misguided attempt to advertise our RP efforts to our own region - and other regions that probably won’t even read the ad. Our roleplay is already known. We have supplanted The East Pacific as the Roleplay Pacific. Our friends in Greater Dienstad have complimented our RP scene and it is a large part of our community, both on the forum and on the main site itself. We can do more, of course, but it’s only through working with the RP community that we can achieve actual results. I’ll be doing just that, if elected.
With all this in mind, I think that perhaps the Ministry of Culture has become responsible for too many things. We’ve been great in the previous terms with events - and Asta and her team should be given a huge amount of applause for that - and a Culture ministry that actually does events was so happy a thing to see, but because of this, and due to RPers natural dislike for the kind of top-down imposition that TNP government tends to do, RP focussed cultural activity hasn’t been as successful. I think that as a region we should perhaps look at creating a Ministry of Roleplay, solely responsible for advancing our RP and the cultural facets of that, and leave the Ministry of Culture for events, things like the Lennarts, which if they are being brought back will need serious revamping, spam weeks and also game nights, which is a long term project that is currently in the works.
In my last campaign I put emphasis on the delegate and the government working with the Regional Assembly and guiding a legislative agenda through it, I still plan to do that, but anything we can do, we should start now. To that end, I have proposed a law criminalising espionage against our partner regions. I believe this is a common sense proposal that showcases our commitment to them - I won’t be pushing the issue to them to take similar measures, but I’d certainly like them to. I still plan to look to appoint a Regional Assembly Officer to help guide that agenda through, as clearly I am not as good an author of laws as I am an author of RP.
I will resist any attempt to put TNP back into the failed defendersphere and take a positive outlook on changes being proposed to the game that will affect TNP. The Faction Gameplay presents a major opportunity to build new ties and TNP should be prepared for it, even if it is unlikely to be implemented during my term. We should seek new ties and formalising existing ones with regions we currently don’t have treaties with as a matter of course and this will be a major focus going forward - there are relationships out there that TNP can and should explore, and I’d like to build on the excellent work of Siwale and Pallaith in this regard.
Similar to how I’d like TNP Government to work with the Roleplay community, we should also strive to better work with the RMB community as well. The RMB AMAs have been a great success, and continuing them and the fine work done by the Gameside Advocates will happen. We should also seek to empower the RMB in other ways, but this can only be done by working with and consulting them, rather than top-down impositions that only breed resentment - I’ve worked closely with RMB RPers for over a year now, and I think this has given me invaluable experience in how the RMB operates and how we can work with them.
When I came back I announced an intention to update our Freedom of Information law - however following the outcome of my request for review I believe the law as currently written is adequate for our purposes. Maybe we can return to it later in the term, but regardless, the court ruled that our FoI law applies to all executive spaces. To that end, if elected I intend to release all government records from the discord that are one year or more in age, as the law requires, within one month of taking office. I believe this timescale will allow appropriate time to review the records and redact private or sensitive information.
TNP does many things very well, and I would be remiss not to mention the good qualities of our regionmates (even those who politically are opposed to me!) and especially the hard work done by members of the Executive Staff over the last term. Our ministries would cease to function without their dedication and contributions and I am happy to see future ministers and even delegates amongst their number. There’s a number of very talented people working in our ministries and the next generation of TNPers will be as great or better than the current one. Our future is bright, and I hope to help shape that, even if I fail to win this election.
If I do win, and I very much hope to, the upcoming term will hopefully be one where we can address our issues and implement programs that last and are successful, whilst also reshaping the dynamic of our community to be more open, more welcoming and more outwardly focussed. Thank you.
That was a joke, before people accuse me of making the election personal. Fiji will be at the very least an adequate delegate, but there’s plenty of issues with his platform - though as I write this he’s removed one of the biggest, joining Libcord and dragging TNP back into the failing defender-sphere that for as long as I’ve been in TNP, has never benefited us. He should be - and has been - praised for adapting to public opinion and removing that part and I join in on that praise - it’s a good move.
I posted a platform back in January and much of what I’m standing on is in that platform. It’s a good read. You can read it here. Some things have changed from January though, and much of this post will be given over to that, obviously. I don’t believe in imposing plans on my ministers, so this platform will make no big pledges - that’s partly based on my aversion to such things, having seen overly ambitious platforms that promise the world in the past, only to fail, and also based on pragmatism. We’re just about to enter what’s traditionally known as the summer lull, so I’d much rather take things as they come, whilst making big moves that would require fewer people than you’d think.
On that topic, let’s talk WALL. WALL is effective in marshalling a significant number of votes in the World Assembly, but not so much at fostering authorship and collaborative drafting and feedback. We should be going out into the World Assembly forums on the NationStates site and finding authors and drafts and helping them to get their works passed. We should be proactive in this endeavour. With a small, dedicated team in the Ministry of World Assembly Affairs, we could be doing this, as well as continuing with our current work of drafting IFVs and getting them out as early as possible. I think our current guidelines work very well, however, and will not be changing them to enact anti-democratic measures like stopping the vote on resolutions early. We should by dynamic and willing to adapt to change, not harsh and strict.
A big issue I can see on the horizon is TNP Government again imposing on RPers, through failed projects that have been resurrected time and again - and have never succeeded. TNP Government should be working with RPers to see what it can provide to make RP easier and more accessible, TNP RPers would rather get on with RP than contribute to some misguided attempt to advertise our RP efforts to our own region - and other regions that probably won’t even read the ad. Our roleplay is already known. We have supplanted The East Pacific as the Roleplay Pacific. Our friends in Greater Dienstad have complimented our RP scene and it is a large part of our community, both on the forum and on the main site itself. We can do more, of course, but it’s only through working with the RP community that we can achieve actual results. I’ll be doing just that, if elected.
With all this in mind, I think that perhaps the Ministry of Culture has become responsible for too many things. We’ve been great in the previous terms with events - and Asta and her team should be given a huge amount of applause for that - and a Culture ministry that actually does events was so happy a thing to see, but because of this, and due to RPers natural dislike for the kind of top-down imposition that TNP government tends to do, RP focussed cultural activity hasn’t been as successful. I think that as a region we should perhaps look at creating a Ministry of Roleplay, solely responsible for advancing our RP and the cultural facets of that, and leave the Ministry of Culture for events, things like the Lennarts, which if they are being brought back will need serious revamping, spam weeks and also game nights, which is a long term project that is currently in the works.
In my last campaign I put emphasis on the delegate and the government working with the Regional Assembly and guiding a legislative agenda through it, I still plan to do that, but anything we can do, we should start now. To that end, I have proposed a law criminalising espionage against our partner regions. I believe this is a common sense proposal that showcases our commitment to them - I won’t be pushing the issue to them to take similar measures, but I’d certainly like them to. I still plan to look to appoint a Regional Assembly Officer to help guide that agenda through, as clearly I am not as good an author of laws as I am an author of RP.
I will resist any attempt to put TNP back into the failed defendersphere and take a positive outlook on changes being proposed to the game that will affect TNP. The Faction Gameplay presents a major opportunity to build new ties and TNP should be prepared for it, even if it is unlikely to be implemented during my term. We should seek new ties and formalising existing ones with regions we currently don’t have treaties with as a matter of course and this will be a major focus going forward - there are relationships out there that TNP can and should explore, and I’d like to build on the excellent work of Siwale and Pallaith in this regard.
Similar to how I’d like TNP Government to work with the Roleplay community, we should also strive to better work with the RMB community as well. The RMB AMAs have been a great success, and continuing them and the fine work done by the Gameside Advocates will happen. We should also seek to empower the RMB in other ways, but this can only be done by working with and consulting them, rather than top-down impositions that only breed resentment - I’ve worked closely with RMB RPers for over a year now, and I think this has given me invaluable experience in how the RMB operates and how we can work with them.
When I came back I announced an intention to update our Freedom of Information law - however following the outcome of my request for review I believe the law as currently written is adequate for our purposes. Maybe we can return to it later in the term, but regardless, the court ruled that our FoI law applies to all executive spaces. To that end, if elected I intend to release all government records from the discord that are one year or more in age, as the law requires, within one month of taking office. I believe this timescale will allow appropriate time to review the records and redact private or sensitive information.
TNP does many things very well, and I would be remiss not to mention the good qualities of our regionmates (even those who politically are opposed to me!) and especially the hard work done by members of the Executive Staff over the last term. Our ministries would cease to function without their dedication and contributions and I am happy to see future ministers and even delegates amongst their number. There’s a number of very talented people working in our ministries and the next generation of TNPers will be as great or better than the current one. Our future is bright, and I hope to help shape that, even if I fail to win this election.
If I do win, and I very much hope to, the upcoming term will hopefully be one where we can address our issues and implement programs that last and are successful, whilst also reshaping the dynamic of our community to be more open, more welcoming and more outwardly focussed. Thank you.
