Gorundu for Delegate, Take 2

Gorundu

I finished my Chinese homework
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Gorundu
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(I hope you won’t mind me using a few elements from my previous campaign)
Hi, I’m Gorundu. I’ve been in TNP for just over a year, which is not a long time, I guess. (I’ve been in NS for a bit longer, in a small UCR for the first part of my time.) This election happens to be exactly one year after the one where I was elected Speaker, my first Government Official position in TNP. In addition to serving as Speaker, I’ve also served as Minister of Communications this term, and Minister of World Assembly Affairs the term before under McMasterdonia.

As MoWAA I have led the ministry through extremely busy times in the WA, producing Information For Voters dispatches and maximizing our influence in votes. Although I can’t take credit for everything the Ministry has done, I am proud of the level of participation and activity. As Speaker, I had been reliable in citizenship checks and votes, ensuring smooth running of the Regional Assembly.

As many of you would remember, I ran for Delegate in the last election. Although I didn’t win, I was grateful to be given the opportunity to serve as Minister of Communications. My term as Minister of Communications has had its ups and downs. On the bright side, we managed to publish the first issue of The Northern Lights since January and are on track to publish The North Star consistently. On the other hand, the ministry still suffers from a staffing shortage and the difficulty of incentivizing writers, which makes publication prone to delays. I’ll of course discuss this in more detail later in the Communications section of my platform.

So, why am I running for Delegate? I believe I have the right ideas to take the region forward, many of which I already proposed during the last election, and which I continue to believe will be useful for the region. I believe I have proven myself to be reliable and dedicated in government, and capable of leading ministries. I’ve been an Executive Staff member in most ministries, so I believe I have the knowledge to present viable ideas.

I'm not the kind of person to make big and broad promises, but I will try, to the best of my ability, to be a representative for all TNPers. I believe in TNP as a community, not divided into groups as roleplayers, gamplayers or RMBers, but as a community with a common purpose to become the best we can be, and each person with a different path towards it. I will try to be open, transparent and informative to all TNPers in what the government does and what the government hopes TNPers to do. I will try to listen to all reasonable voices and use them to think about the direction of the government.

With that in mind, let’s move on to what I plan to do if elected:

General Executive Staff matters

During my time in the Executive, I have noticed that some ministries are suffering from staffing shortages, and that’s a primary cause of inactivity. In particular, the shortage in Comms has prevented it from efficiently releasing publications. In these cases, often extra pressure is put on the Ministers, and this is not sustainable. If elected, I will place a focus on recruiting for the Executive Staff, and create specific advertisements for each ministry, especially those in need of more staff. This will of course be done through Home Affairs and Gameside Advocates (more on that in those sections). I also hope to run an event showcasing the Executive Staff and Executive Council with the Culture ministry to boost engagement (more on that in Culture).

Regional Message Board and Gameside

Firstly, the Gameside Advocates have been tremendously helpful to the region. If elected, I will continue having the Gameside Advocates advertise various regional events and initiatives, including Executive Staff recruiting which I’ve already mentioned.

The Regional Message Board can be chaotic at times, which is why as Delegate, I would create a consistent presence there, because I believe having a more visible Delegate on the RMB will be a stabilizing force on the chaos. Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s my sole purpose of being on the RMB. I also intend to be more active on the Regional Message Board to engage more with the vibrant community there, because they too are a valuable part of the community that are often overlooked. I hope to run regular polls too, whether they are funny, serious, or promote a certain regional activity.

NSGP

TNP often loathes being involved in what’s known as “NSGP” - a general description for a group of players who hang out in certain servers and take a keen interest in arguing on the Gameplay subforums on NationStates or in the Discord server. So I want to talk briefly about our relationship with GP separately. It’s true that a lot of the time, there aren’t any real benefits from being involved in this. However, I believe that we can use this platform to be a more powerful advocate for democracy and transparency. Of course, that doesn’t mean marching into every debate or picking fights. It means choosing opportunities to take a strong stance when one is warranted and could potentially have an influence on events. Additionally, I will publish more content on our GP embassy, including TNS, TNL and important events. This will boost our engagement with the GP community, which will be useful in extending our influence.

Dispatches

TNP has been well-known for our ability to increase visibility of dispatches from our regional nation, The Northern Light, by encouraging residents to upvote. Lately, however, there have been some challengers to our dominance in this area. Some of you will know where I’m going with this - we need an upvote squad to get our dispatches up. Now, we do ping residents on Discord for major dispatches, but a lot of them - especially World Assembly Information For Voters dispatches - don’t get upvoted enough. This upvote squad can be both on Discord and gameside and operate through Discord ping and RMB tags, as often those active on one platform are not active on the other. We shall assert our dominance in dispatches once again!

Cards Guild

The Cards Guild has been operating smoothly under Guildmaster Praetor, with more and more ambitious projects to help our residents and cement our place as the number one region for cards. Honestly, with it working so well, I can't think of any improvements (which might also have to do with me not being an expert on cards). I hope the Guild continues operating the way it does, and I would be more than happy to provide any resources the Guild might need for future expansion.

Now, onto the specific ministries:
We’ll be planning the next WA Symposium.

Obviously, I intend for the ministry to continue with the work it has done in producing IFVs. The ministry over the last term has been stellar in proactively checking for submitted proposals so that they can be put to our WA residents to vote as soon as possible, and internal discussions within the ministry can start as soon as possible. In addition, I would direct the ministry to engage more directly with new authors, both within TNP and externally. Our ministry is perhaps the most influential in all of NS, and I want to direct this to encouraging new, competent authors (of course, this will have the side effect of new authors being grateful to us), so that our influence can extend externally. We should pay more attention to those who apply for the sponsorship program. Even if their first proposal is not viable, we should explain to them why it isn’t and how they can improve, so that we can cultivate them as future authors.

A project that was started during my ministership was Heroes of the North, which has stagnated recently. I understand there are existing unfinished drafts for certain candidates, and I look forward to the ministry extending their hand to perfect these drafts. I also intend to push the list along and start research on more nominees, and look to target specific people with knowledge on these nominees to speak up and contribute. I believe we have a capable WA staff that can complete the research meticulously. I also hope to reach out to a wider section of the TNP community for research on these nominees, as many of them are personalities TNPers know and love.

Within WALL, in the last terms we have initiated more activities and discussions, and I hope to continue that if elected. Encouraging our allies to speak up more in WA discussions can only be achieved when we speak up more too. In the last term, we had a goal to increase transparency in WALL with various ideas. Unfortunately, due to the complex nature of WALL, they weren’t able to be realised. However, I will continue to look for small ways to improve transparency of WALL. I believe WALL’s Gameplay forum thread is a tool that can be utilised further to achieve this.
Foreign Affairs is a curious department, because most of the work can’t be measured or even be easily seen. The role of the ambassador is to promote the region to others abroad, but leaving a good impression is a delicate task. With that in mind, these are my ideas for improving FA as a ministry:

Firstly, I believe we should assess whether each embassy region is active enough to warrant an ambassador. Being assigned to an inactive embassy could seriously dampen someone’s interest in serving in FA and for the region. I also intend to direct an assessment of our current embassies and check if there are any inactive ones that we should close. This way, we can ensure each ambassador is assigned to an active region so they have something to do, and remove the need of ambassadors having to take on more regions or having players who already have lots of other regional duties take on another one, which would make them less effective. Similarly, we should also be fast and efficient in assigning new staffers to embassies, so that they do not lose interest. In addition, in times where we have a staffer surplus, we need to have a plan on what we can ask non-ambassador staff to do. It could be that we assign additional junior ambassadors to allied regions, or it could be that we find a way for them to participate in the UCR outreach program. This refresh of ambassadors should also help with continuing the World Factbook project, as we add more regions and knowledge to the list through ambassadors more focussed on their jobs. To help accomplish this, I intend for current ambassadors to be surveyed on their satisfaction with their assigned regions, so we can make adjustments that will be optimal for each person.

In terms of broader FA policy, the UCR outreach program has been stagnant with no real progress. Unforeseen events have played a part in this, but overall, I think the regions that we have targeted may not be the best fit for us. Regions that I believe have potential include the Union of Democratic States (which recently signed a treaty with our ally, Europeia) and Spiritus. We also happen to be cooperating with both of these regions (and more) for N-Day as part of the Potato Alliance, which will be an opportunity to further our relations with more UCRs. Of course, TNP will still continue to maintain its current alliances and support our allies in their own endeavours when necessary. Particularly, I think we should be doing more with Europeia, which is likely the closest to us in terms of ideology and culture. We’ve increased our military cooperation with Europeia over this term, but I’ll also be looking to hold an event with Europeia if I’m elected.
Home Affairs will of course continue with recruiting new players through list telegrams and the mentorship program. Developments in HA have been positive this term - there are more mentors, more telegram lists, which means more people reached. As long as this continues, HA is doing well. HA will also, as I said before, be part of the effort to recruit new Executive Staff members by producing advertisements for each ministry.

Something I have thought about in HA is Project Provide, a project to produce tutorial and introduction videos on Executive Staff ministries, started when Robespierre was Minister, but never finished. I know that there was some preparatory work done on the forums, and I will assess the viability of finishing it with the staff if I'm elected. This could be a great asset for the previously mentioned project to recruit more Executive Staff, and it would be wonderful to see it come to fruition.
In Defence, we will continue to pursue our independent path. As part of that, I believe the NPA should seek a better balance between raiding and defending activities. Many of our soldiers, for example, aren’t familiar with the technique of chasing (where you follow raiders into a region to prevent their raid from succeeding), and that is an area we can work on.

As always, I will encourage cooperation with other militaries, which of course helps improve our foreign image and help our soldiers become familiar with the wider picture and other parts of the community. The NPA has done very well in working with other militaries over the past term, including some new partners, over the past term. Working with other militaries is a valuable FA opportunity that should not be understated.
I will admit that this is my least familiar out of all government departments, though I do have several ideas. Firstly, I intend to make the Games Discord server used more often by advertising it on the WFE and RMB. We should also seek interested people to host games and small events on the server to keep it active. Of course, it would also be open to large events like the Epic Gamer Party with TRR.

As I have stated before, an Executive Council event, running much like the Security Council event that has just occurred, would be a project for Culture. An AMA with different Ministers describing their experience, dispatches encouraging people to join a ministry, etc.

Another project is to improve our current information on RP communities, The current dispatches are outdated for some time, and don’t include many of our newly established RP worlds. The primary project would be to provide basic information on all these worlds in a dispatch to demonstrate the variety of RP we have to offer, and if that can be done, then an extension would be to create more detailed dispatches on each world. The Roleplay Reel is doing well in its current format and I hope to appoint a Culture Minister that will be able to continue it.
As I said in the introduction, we have made some progress in Communications. However, there’s no doubt the staffing shortage still exists. Hopefully, this will be alleviated with more Executive Staff recruiting. This term, I made efforts to bolster the staff by inviting new and promising players to join the ministry, and guide new staff members through the process of writing. This will ensure there is a steady stream of authors who can write for The North Star. The ministry will also continue exploring ways to make The North Star more interesting, with possibilities such as opinion articles on government actions and foreign region spotlights.

As for The Northern Lights, the new issue, tied with the WA Symposium, should be released soon (whether at the end of this term or start of the next), and I have a plan for topics and authors for the next issue. TNL is especially difficult to seek out authors for, and I’ve found that directly contacting players who you think will be able to produce a good article on a specific subject is often the most effective, and this includes seeking foreign authors when necessary.

I will likely be more personally involved in the ministry to see that my efforts this term will be continued, and support the Minister in searching for ideas and authors.
Radio has progressed impressively and has truly shown itself to be worthy of its own ministry. The staff number is currently small, but that is to be expected due to the somewhat higher barrier of entry than other ministries. I’m not particularly familiar with Radio, so besides the great work that has already been done, I hope to work towards more regularly scheduled NBS news shows if possible. Radio could also work with the previously mentioned Executive Council event to showcase our Ministers through interviews.

As I alluded to in the Home Affairs section, Project Provide is something I do want to get done, and Radio will play a part in this. Tutorial videos have been the most popular of the content produced by the ministry, and these new videos would be more in-depth tutorials that bring new players even closer to joining the government.

Lastly, productions by the ministry are in need of more advertisement, and this involves putting them in dispatches that can be easily distributed across all platforms of NS (telegrams, pinned to WFE, RMB), as well as posting a selection of them outside TNP (including in the Gameplay forums) for a wider audience to see.

Freedom of Information Act

Last but not least, I want to talk about FOIA. As we all know, the Executive government has been less than ideal in complying with its provisions. I hope to turn a new page by beginning the process of releasing records in earnest, starting from forum records, which are better sorted, and have mechanisms to easily move threads. I expect this can be finished quickly, so that efforts can be focused on Discord records. I expect some will be easier than others depending on the amount of sensitive information, with Cabinet and certain FA and WA chats probably being the hardest. I will direct Ministers to review records under their own ministries in manageable portions and declassify them regularly. Lastly, I will create a thread that informs the region whenever new records are declassified.

And that's my platform! Feel free to ask me any questions below, and I will be sure to answer them. I hope I have earned your support in this election. Cheers!
 
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This looks like a coherent platform, good job!
What do you have to say on the subject of the deputy minister situation?
 
Regarding your proposal to slim down the ambassador corps, you propose to reduce the number of embassies that have ambassadors. Currently, there are 2 open embassies which will likely be filled soon with new ambassadors coming in. Therefore, won’t your proposal actually create the opposite problem of not having enough embassies for the number of ambassadors that we have?

How will the refresh of ambassadors help with the continuing of the world factbook?

You mention that you want to carry on with the UCR outreach program but don’t really say anything about the plans that you have for the program. So could you expand your ideas on how you want the project to work and how you plan on working with other regions as part of the program.

What are your thoughts on the role that the senior diplomats should play in the FA ministry?

If you could negotiate a treaty with any region, which region would it be and why?

You also say that the region should be doing more with Europeia and that you would look to hold an event with them should you be elected. What sort of things would you be looking to do alongside them as well as the event?
 
Would you be interested in expanding the number of regions in WALL? Prydania previously expressed interest in the admission of more regions, specifically Forest.
 
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What is your opinion on "Approval Raiding" within the World Assembly, where people go into regions and endorse a native in order to disrupt the delegacy and influence the approvals on a proposal in order to prevent it from going to vote?
 
Two hypothetical questions. Feel free to answer one or both.
  1. Let's say you want to remain as delegate indefinitely. How would you orchestrate this?
  2. Let's say your overarching goal is to weaken and destabilize the region. How would you go about achieving this goal?
Yes yes, this is a variant of "how would you coup the region?"
 
This looks like a coherent platform, good job!
What do you have to say on the subject of the deputy minister situation?
I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to by "the deputy minister situation". But in general, I believe deputy ministers should be active in their ministry and be viewed by Ministers as potential successors to be trained. For that reason, I think one person shouldn't be deputy minister of more than two ministries.
Would you be interested in expanding the number of regions in WALL? Prydania previously expressed interest in the admission of more regions, specifically Forest.
In all honesty, the diversity of regions in WALL and the requirement for a unanimous vote to admit any new regions make this quite difficult. I would be open to admitting more regions into WALL, and if any viable regions express their interest in joining WALL, I (and the WA Ministry) will do our best to improve their chances of admission.
Regarding your proposal to slim down the ambassador corps, you propose to reduce the number of embassies that have ambassadors. Currently, there are 2 open embassies which will likely be filled soon with new ambassadors coming in. Therefore, won’t your proposal actually create the opposite problem of not having enough embassies for the number of ambassadors that we have?
I should have probably removed the part about ambassador numbers being down. However, I believe the core problem I described does exist. We regularly assign ambassadors to inactive regions, which leaves them with not much to do or participate in. These staff would be more useful in other positions, even as a second ambassador to an active region. We also have many ambassadors who have other regional duties and don't have much time to devote to FA, so replacing some of them with more dedicated new players could be a potential way to ensure there are enough embassies for the number of ambassadors. I've updated my platform with this information.
How will the refresh of ambassadors help with the continuing of the world factbook?
Well, ambassadors should all be informed about their duty to provide updated information on the regions they are assigned to.
You mention that you want to carry on with the UCR outreach program but don’t really say anything about the plans that you have for the program. So could you expand your ideas on how you want the project to work and how you plan on working with other regions as part of the program.
The outreach would firstly involve active communication between our regional and FA officials and theirs, whether it's casual chats on Discord or formal discussions about FA policy. As I mentioned in my platform, we should be an advocate for democracy and transparency as a region, and so this is what we should discuss, with regions who practise these principles or want to improve their practice of these principles, and are willing to advocate for these principles. We could also hold small cultural events (e.g. game days/nights on the games server) to get our region members more acquainted with each other. Our FA ministry should also work to identify any shortfalls in the UCRs' government and give them ideas for improvement.
What are your thoughts on the role that the senior diplomats should play in the FA ministry?
Senior diplomats should play an advisory role. The Minister can't be expected to be knowledgeable on every region we have and, sometimes, don't have relations with. Senior diplomats play a useful role in filling that gap in knowledge and would definitely be consulted on major decisions for the ministry.
If you could negotiate a treaty with any region, which region would it be and why?
As of now, there are no regions I think we should negotiate a treaty with. Future treaties would depend on development of relationships with regions that we have non-aggression pacts with (such as Lazarus) and the success of UCR outreach.
You also say that the region should be doing more with Europeia and that you would look to hold an event with them should you be elected. What sort of things would you be looking to do alongside them as well as the event?
Continued military cooperation as we've seen recently, and more discussions in WALL, where we can and should regularly solicit opinion on proposals from Europeia and other WALL regions. I would also try to be active on Euro's Discord and encourage their officials to do the same on ours.
Who would your ideal cabinet consist of?
Do you mean what would the ideal cabinet me, irrespective of availability, or who I would realistically offer cabinet positions to if I was elected?
What is your opinion on "Approval Raiding" within the World Assembly, where people go into regions and endorse a native in order to disrupt the delegacy and influence the approvals on a proposal in order to prevent it from going to vote?
I think approval raiding should only be done under very special circumstances, and so far the only one I would classify under this is proposals by fascist regions. Otherwise, even if there are proposals we very strongly oppose, counter-campaign telegrams should be the first option and often work well enough. The reason I am hesitant about using approval raiding is its impact on other perfectly legitimate proposals that are submitted around the same time, as it could possibly deny these proposals from reaching queue.
Two hypothetical questions. Feel free to answer one or both.
  1. Let's say you want to remain as delegate indefinitely. How would you orchestrate this?
  2. Let's say your overarching goal is to weaken and destabilize the region. How would you go about achieving this goal?
Yes yes, this is a variant of "how would you coup the region?"
This is going to take a bit of thinking, so I hope you don't mind if I respond a bit later.
 
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Do you mean what would the ideal cabinet me, irrespective of availability, or who I would realistically offer cabinet positions to if I was elected?
If you could pick any individual to serve in your cabinet, who would it be?
 
Gorundu, your run for delegate last time rather impressed me, and considering it was said to be a last minute decision, you seemed to put a lot of thought into it and took it seriously. I am glad to see the same here with the platform you have outlined. There is a big glaring issue for me, however, considering how well-planned it appears to be at first glance. As of this moment, you are not even a member of the WA. It's well-known that people planning a run for delegate begin the process of endotarting early, as we have the highest number of endorsements and transitions can take a long time even when the incoming delegate starts much closer to the outgoing delegate's endorsement count. In something like 10 days, we will have a new delegate but it remains to be seen how long it will take that person to take the delegacy in-game. If this was a planned thing, why didn't you plan for the endorsement gathering and get started on that ahead of this run?

I would also love to hear your thoughts on the recent events in TEP regarding the treaty with TWP, particularly how you would compare and contrast their legal system and executive policy with ours, and where they may have improved how it was handled (and how you think that would have played out if it was in our region). Related to that, is this an example of a situation where you think TNP could have been more present in GP? Were there any others in the last term or even before that where you think we should have been more visible or more involved?

Related to that, aside from the content you named (which is already posted on our GP thread), what would you post that we haven't posted? Would you create new content for this purpose, or just post more of our internal updates? How would you promote democracy, would this be an academic thing, like participating in discussions about forms of government, or would it be more like an essay/lecture kind of thing? Would it involve more intervention and involvement in conflicts where democracy is involved?

You were the WA minister before. How would you engage in discussions with WALL differently than you did as minister? Did you learn anything fro back then that could be used to improve that sort of thing today? Who else would you conceivably bring into WALL given the aforementioned diversity of opinion and unanimous requirement? What can we do to improve region's chances of joining when, say, a region who is ideologically opposite one of our partners wants to join, or a region has prominent players who have a negative relationship with prominent players of one of our signatory regions? What if they have no pre-existing relationship with most or all of the WALL signatories? You previously mentioned you don't plan to have any new treaties, but it should be noted every WALL signatory is a treaty ally of TNP and in some cases some of the others as well.

Given your experience with The Rejected Times, and your subsequent fiery discussion about it with other players in NSGP, I'm curious about how you think opinion articles would work in TNS. How would you get around the inevitable discomfort some would feel with an official product of the executive government engaging in speech that may be construed as favored or endorsed by the government? Recall also the debates about the university that happened last year. Would TNS need to be removed from the ministry's direct purview? The more interesting and opinionated the authors get, the more these issues will crop up, and carving them out for independent publications isn't going to allow the ministry to benefit. So how does that get resolved?

Was there anything in your last platform that you feel has been taken care of, or in retrospect doesn't apply to TNP as it exists now compared to back then? Is there anything that you feel is even more important now than before?

There's some really intriguing and potentially promising things to consider here. Thank you in advance for taking the time to consider these questions and for your thoughtful responses to them. You are actually rather good at this, and I am glad to see you taking another shot.
 
If you could pick any individual to serve in your cabinet, who would it be?
I haven't been in TNP for all that long, so judging by my personal experience, it would look something like this:
WA Affairs - Tlomz, Bormiar
Defence - Rom, Robespierre
Foreign Affairs - McMasterdonia, Tlomz, Pallaith
Home Affairs - Nimarya
Culture - Prydania
Communications - El Fiji Grande
Radio - Dreadton
Two hypothetical questions. Feel free to answer one or both.
  1. Let's say you want to remain as delegate indefinitely. How would you orchestrate this?
  2. Let's say your overarching goal is to weaken and destabilize the region. How would you go about achieving this goal?
Yes yes, this is a variant of "how would you coup the region?"
Okay, here it is:

1. Firstly, encourage the region to pass a bill removing term limits. Then be a good delegate and run repeatedly with new ideas. Every time, make it clear what you have accomplished the past term. Of course, you'd eventually run into the issue where people get tired of you, so to minimise that, introduce newer players to your cabinet while retaining older players as advisors. And of course, you have to be a fun person that people like to be around.

2. Get people outside who dislike TNP to become citizens. Kind of like vote-stacking, if you will, but more comprehensive. They will constantly rail against democracy and extol the virtues of "meritocracy". While this won't be immediately effective, this will set up for a long conflict with each side attempting to undermine the other. To make it messier, support democracy publicly but help its opponents in private. Help them take in impressionable newcomers instead of getting them to do anything productive. Decrease activity in the ministries by halting recruitment. This will reduce the citizenry's focus on government activity and direct it even more towards the conflicts.

Wow, now I sound really evil.
Gorundu, your run for delegate last time rather impressed me, and considering it was said to be a last minute decision, you seemed to put a lot of thought into it and took it seriously. I am glad to see the same here with the platform you have outlined. There is a big glaring issue for me, however, considering how well-planned it appears to be at first glance. As of this moment, you are not even a member of the WA. It's well-known that people planning a run for delegate begin the process of endotarting early, as we have the highest number of endorsements and transitions can take a long time even when the incoming delegate starts much closer to the outgoing delegate's endorsement count. In something like 10 days, we will have a new delegate but it remains to be seen how long it will take that person to take the delegacy in-game. If this was a planned thing, why didn't you plan for the endorsement gathering and get started on that ahead of this run?
When you start endotarting early, the ones who endorse you back will be the most active endorsers, which means that even if you don't endotart beforehand, they would endorse you within a day or two of the regional notice getting sent out after the election. The hardest part about transitions is the last 100 or so endorsements, which every new delegate, no matter how much they had beforehand, has to face. You have to wait for the inactive WA nations endorsing the previous Delegate to CTE, which is why transitions take about a month on average. And in that time the less active, but not completely inactive people will manage to endorse you. Simply put, I don't think endotarting beforehand would give that much of an advantage.
I would also love to hear your thoughts on the recent events in TEP regarding the treaty with TWP, particularly how you would compare and contrast their legal system and executive policy with ours, and where they may have improved how it was handled (and how you think that would have played out if it was in our region). Related to that, is this an example of a situation where you think TNP could have been more present in GP? Were there any others in the last term or even before that where you think we should have been more visible or more involved?
TEP has an unnecessarily complicated legal structure, to be frank. Firstly, their legislature is not open to all citizens, with the stated aim being security, but we have seen in practice that Fedele was nonetheless able to manipulate this system during his reign, leading up to the coup. Secondly, they don't have a mechanism for the citizens to remove a bad Delegate. They have, instead, a rather complex system of removing the Delegate through the Viziers (their equivalent of Security Councillors) and Conclave (their Court), which makes it more exposed to manipulation. They also don't have strong resident rights, which was what made Fedele's marsupial ejections possible. All this makes it harder for residents to understand how the law works and how to protect themselves and their rights. In terms of executive policy, I think the system of Chief Ministers with Ministers under them don't particularly serve any useful purpose, and the large number of advisors - well - soliciting lots of opinions can be good, but having such an expansive cabinet kind of defeats the point and makes controlling the message harder.

As for how I would have handled the situation, it's a bit difficult to say because I don't believe I have all the information they had when making the decision. However, it's clear that it wasn't a good move to attempt to re-negotiate the treaty with TWP if you are convinced that they have been disrespecting your region. TEP should have taken the first step by making a public statement to cancel the treaty, with clearly articulated reasons and evidence on how TWP has disrespected them. If it was in our region, I would of course have presented it in private citizen channels to solicit feedback first (which relates to the fact that they don't have a citizen's legislature). The Badger and Halo indictments were unnecessary and unadvisable with the evidence that they had (assuming that was indeed all the evidence they had). The Aelitia situation is where I'm not sure I have all the information. I definitely would have raised some questions on their past actions, their departure, and the timing of their return, but I probably wouldn't have denied it outright.

I thought the situation was potentially one we could have made our stance clear on, given the pile-on by TWP supporters on TEP before context was made clear. However, it turned out to be a rather messy situation where TEP has most definitely miscalculated some moves, and I couldn't see any benefit from getting involved.

As for past events, one from last term where we could have been more visible is the NSToday situation where they sensationalized a not-too-important leak from Lazarus and attempted to grandstand when Lazarus asserted its rights to self sovereignty. That seemed like a place where a public gesture of support could do well and send a statement that leaking just because it's leaks is not a press freedom issue. I can't really think of any other, but I wasn't too tuned into these stuff until about a year ago, and I'm hesitant to comment on events which I did not witness myself.
Related to that, aside from the content you named (which is already posted on our GP thread), what would you post that we haven't posted? Would you create new content for this purpose, or just post more of our internal updates? How would you promote democracy, would this be an academic thing, like participating in discussions about forms of government, or would it be more like an essay/lecture kind of thing? Would it involve more intervention and involvement in conflicts where democracy is involved?
I've noticed that TNS isn't posted consistently, actually, and in my opinion they can be a useful source of information on WA votes and introducing our region's personalities to a wider audience. Certain radio shows can also be of interest to the wider community, with a good example being the yet-to-be-released WA Symposium show, and also interviews with prominent members. Other than that, I would envision new content to be made for posting rather than internal updates. This would tie in with what I said about getting involved in some inter-regional conflicts where a strong stance from us can be influential. It also involves being aware of when discussions are going on about democracy and forms of government in Discords and on the Gameplay forums (but of course we need to be selective about where we want to be and who the audience is, since not all arguments are created equal).

I'm not sure what exactly you count as "intervention" in conflicts, but any involvement in conflicts that mainly have to do with other regions should first require some good research on what exactly is happening, some private contact with one side (if we're particularly inclined about supporting them) or both sides of the conflict. Involvement can take several forms, whether it's just advice behind the scenes, a public statement of support, or where applicable, military action, and obviously depends on the circumstances. I might add that just because a side appears to support democracy doesn't mean it's necessarily good, as there could be hidden agendas.
You were the WA minister before. How would you engage in discussions with WALL differently than you did as minister? Did you learn anything from back then that could be used to improve that sort of thing today? Who else would you conceivably bring into WALL given the aforementioned diversity of opinion and unanimous requirement? What can we do to improve region's chances of joining when, say, a region who is ideologically opposite one of our partners wants to join, or a region has prominent players who have a negative relationship with prominent players of one of our signatory regions? What if they have no pre-existing relationship with most or all of the WALL signatories? You previously mentioned you don't plan to have any new treaties, but it should be noted every WALL signatory is a treaty ally of TNP and in some cases some of the others as well.
Woah, that's a lot of question marks, let's go through them one by one.

While I was Minister, I think I was a little hesitant to bring up topics and proposals for discussion because I was new to the job. I think the main improvement to be made is to bring up potential topics for discussion as early as possible, as opposed to only when proposals come to vote. This will help us get a better picture of what the WALL regions' votes are going to look like before they go to vote, leaving us with enough time to think about what we are going to do.

As for new member regions, as I said before I won't be proactively trying to bring them in. If a region is ideologically opposite one of the current WALL regions, it's unlikely they are interested in joining in the first place. If a region has no pre-existing relationship with most WALL regions but looks promising, I would encourage and help them build these relations, including their relations with us (which can be achieved as a part of the UCR outreach program). As for treaty allies, TNP is allied with a diverse range of regions, some of which will likely never join WALL or be interested in doing so. Relations can exist outside WALL, and even WA cooperation can occur in a one-on-one basis outside WALL. If however, a new promising treaty ally comes up (although I doubt it) and I think they could fit in WALL, I would encourage them to try and join.
Given your experience with The Rejected Times, and your subsequent fiery discussion about it with other players in NSGP, I'm curious about how you think opinion articles would work in TNS. How would you get around the inevitable discomfort some would feel with an official product of the executive government engaging in speech that may be construed as favored or endorsed by the government? Recall also the debates about the university that happened last year. Would TNS need to be removed from the ministry's direct purview? The more interesting and opinionated the authors get, the more these issues will crop up, and carving them out for independent publications isn't going to allow the ministry to benefit. So how does that get resolved?
I would follow a model similar to Europeia's EBC, which posts lots of opinion articles on domestic issues. If we decide to do opinion articles on TNS (and that is an "if"), we would open the opportunity to all citizens, staff or not, and try to publish as many as possible as long as they fit the editorial standards and are written professionally. This would be the best way to avoid any bias.
Was there anything in your last platform that you feel has been taken care of, or in retrospect doesn't apply to TNP as it exists now compared to back then? Is there anything that you feel is even more important now than before?
The shortage of staff and inactivity in Home Affairs has definitely been taken care of. So has the staff shortage in Foreign Affairs, although as I mentioned in my response to Owen's questions, I believe the underlying problem still exists. The WA Symposium has obviously already been held. The diversity of our military cooperation in the Ministry of Defence has increased to an extent, in line with my last platform. I'd say we made some improvements in Communications, but a lot of what I said still applies and I will continue trying to work through that.

As for what is more important, I'm sure you'd noticed that my sections on NSGP and dispatches didn't exist in the last platform, and the FOIA section was significantly expanded. For NSGP, well, I just felt from my interactions outside TNP that we could be more influential and use our existing influence better. For dispatches, it's a thing I observed in passing. And for FOIA, it just seems to be that it has been delayed for too long.

And of course, everything I reiterated from my last platform, I believe, are equally important now as they were then.
There's some really intriguing and potentially promising things to consider here. Thank you in advance for taking the time to consider these questions and for your thoughtful responses to them. You are actually rather good at this, and I am glad to see you taking another shot.
Thanks. Hope I've answered all of your questions.
 
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Suppose your plan was to coup The North Pacific. How would you go about executing that plan?
 
What would you say to people who don't like getting a lot of pings and are concerned about your proposals to ping for more dispatch upvote purposes?
 
Your citizen nation is not in the World Assembly. What do you plan to do to speed up your transition, should you get elected?
 
When you start endotarting early, the ones who endorse you back will be the most active endorsers, which means that even if you don't endotart beforehand, they would endorse you within a day or two of the regional notice getting sent out after the election. The hardest part about transitions is the last 100 or so endorsements, which every new delegate, no matter how much they had beforehand, has to face. You have to wait for the inactive WA nations endorsing the previous Delegate to CTE, which is why transitions take about a month on average. And in that time the less active, but not completely inactive people will manage to endorse you. Simply put, I don't think endotarting beforehand would give that much of an advantage.
I can kind of come to understand why you would think this, however I disagree entirely with what you’re saying here and believe that it couldn’t be further from the truth.

Indeed, the most active endorsers are the ones who will return your endorsement first when you begin endotarting. That being said, you shouldn’t rely on a regional notice to bring you several hundred endorsements at a few days’ notice when you’re literally starting your campaign for the Delegacy at zero endorsements. That isn’t a realistic expectation and it doesn’t serve as proper justification for why you haven’t taken the time to endotart up until this point.

You are correct in saying that the last one-hundred endorsements or so, generally speaking, are the most difficult in terms of actually progressing your way through the top ten most endorsed nations in the region. Even so, what I think you fail to understand is that there’s a certain echelon by which even gaining a few dozen endorsements proves difficult.

If nothing else, endotarting before an election signals to potential voters that you’ve incorporated a level of preparation into your approach and that you’re willing to do what it takes to become the next Delegate of the North Pacific - whatever that may be.

Seeing as to how you’ve offered your opinion as to why you don’t believe that it gives much of an advantage to endotart beforehand, I must say that potentially supporting your campaign is now becoming increasingly difficult when you’re to be stacked against candidates that already have 600-800 endorsements.

Whether you think it does or does not, this puts you at a distinct disadvantage when compared to the other options that the citizenry has available to them once voting begins in a few days. I can definitely appreciate your ongoing active service in the North Pacific Army and I completely understand the need to remain WA mobile for the purposes of continued participation within the Ministry of Defense.

Nonetheless, it’s extremely disappointing to see a candidate with your potential running for Delegate yet not taking the time to properly prepare your own residential nation for what would, in theory, be your transition to the Delegacy.
 
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Suppose your plan was to coup The North Pacific. How would you go about executing that plan?
Oh golly. So, I don’t think it is possible for a coup to last any significant amount of time in TNP if it is billed as a coup. The amount of influence (the in-game mechanic) possessed by residents is just too great to pull one off. If I were to perpetrate a coup it would have to be billed as a “restructuring” that concentrates power on myself.

Firstly, weaken the executive ministries and decrease their activity. Appoint ministers who don’t care. Quietly halt recruitment efforts by Home Affairs - you just need an inattentive Minister who doesn’t care much. Any effort to weaken the region would of course involve dramatic, consuming and unresolvable conflict - the plan for which I have outlined in my previous response to Cretox. Once conflict has become consuming, you must paint yourself as the reasonable middle who will restore order and unity to the region. Find people who are frustrated with the conflict and recruit them to your side. Convince people that the conflict and the inactivity is unsustainable (which by that time should be true anyway) and that you need more powers to make sweeping changes that will bring the region back on track. Propose a "compromise" system of governance that will supposedly keep the bad actors out but also "preserve democracy" - an example being an elected legislature where you can stack members and influence votes by endorsing candidates you favour. Gradually expand your powers, from something mild at first - perhaps loosening restrictions on ejections and bans. Make it easier to deny citizenship - paint the overly democracy-aware people as destabilizing agitators and ask the citizens to deny their citizenship. At this point, you can start making the executive active again, but make sure to indoctrinate any new recruits and only keep people you trust close to you. And of course, remove term limits to you can run indefinitely, but since we still need a "coup" aspect, eventually just declare the system is working so well there is no need for elections.

This is a pretty difficult task, you need to know the right thing to say at the right time, and a lot of things to go right, people have to do what you want them to do. So it's definitely not advisable, don't try at home, plus it's not really a full-on coup anyway.
fifth time is the charm I guess
Well, their previous four terms were a charm too.
What would you say to people who don't like getting a lot of pings and are concerned about your proposals to ping for more dispatch upvote purposes?
Perhaps I should have made it clear that the program would be voluntary, so those who don't like getting a lot of pings won't get a lot of pings.
Your citizen nation is not in the World Assembly. What do you plan to do to speed up your transition, should you get elected?
Well, now that the ongoing NPA operation is over, I have returned to the World Assembly on my citizen nation. I will be endotarting over the next few days, and should be endorsing every WA nation in the region before the end of the election cycle - maybe even before voting starts, if I have the time. As for what I would do if I do get elected, the first thing would be endotarting daily. Second would be using telegram and dispatch notifications - I believe telegrams work better, and in addition to whole-region telegrams, I would send targeted telegrams to those who aren't yet endorsing me. Anyway, for anyone who's not the Vice Delegate or a Security Councillor, the transition is bound to take some time - as I said before, about a month.
I can kind of come to understand why you would think this, however I disagree entirely with what you’re saying here and believe that it couldn’t be further from the truth.

Indeed, the most active endorsers are the ones who will return your endorsement first when you begin endotarting. That being said, you shouldn’t rely on a regional notice to bring you several hundred endorsements at a few days’ notice when you’re literally starting your campaign for the Delegacy at zero endorsements. That isn’t a realistic expectation and it doesn’t serve as proper justification for why you haven’t taken the time to endotart up until this point.

You are correct in saying that the last one-hundred endorsements or so, generally speaking, are the most difficult in terms of actually progressing your way through the top ten most endorsed nations in the region. Even so, what I think you fail to understand is that there’s a certain echelon by which even gaining a few dozen endorsements proves difficult.

If nothing else, endotarting before an election signals to potential voters that you’ve incorporated a level of preparation into your approach and that you’re willing to do what it takes to become the next Delegate of the North Pacific - whatever that may be.

Seeing as to how you’ve offered your opinion as to why you don’t believe that it gives much of an advantage to endotart beforehand, I must say that potentially supporting your campaign is now becoming increasingly difficult when you’re to be stacked against candidates that already have 600-800 endorsements.

Whether you think it does or does not, this puts you at a distinct disadvantage when compared to the other options that the citizenry has available to them once voting begins in a few days. I can definitely appreciate your ongoing active service in the North Pacific Army and I completely understand the need to remain WA mobile for the purposes of continued participation within the Ministry of Defense.

Nonetheless, it’s extremely disappointing to see a candidate with your potential running for Delegate yet not taking the time to properly prepare your own residential nation for what would, in theory, be your transition to the Delegacy.
Alright, I guess there's not much for me to really say here. I hope that people can see I have put in the preparation and am willing to do the work it takes to become the Delegate, and the work it takes as a Delegate, and that the fact that I started gathering endorsements a few days late is not a lack of preparation but a decision to commit what I can to North Pacific Army that I took an oath to join. In any case, my citizen nation is now in the WA and endotarting as you read this.
 
I have a few questions of my own for you.

1. Will you be appointing any advisors to your Cabinet?
2. Will you be selecting a Chief of Staff?
3. Will you continue to employ a Press Secretary as several delegates in the past have done?
4. Will you be inviting the next Vice Delegate to sit in on Cabinet?
5. Are there any major legislative initiatives that you will pursue in the Regional Assembly, and if so, what would those entail?
6. If there was three changes to the structure of the North Pacific Government that you could make, what would those be and why?
 
Do you find NationStates fun to play? What is fun about it?

Do you think being delegate will make it more fun? What do you think will be fun about being Delegate?
 
I have a few questions of my own for you.

1. Will you be appointing any advisors to your Cabinet?
2. Will you be selecting a Chief of Staff?
3. Will you continue to employ a Press Secretary as several delegates in the past have done?
4. Will you be inviting the next Vice Delegate to sit in on Cabinet?
5. Are there any major legislative initiatives that you will pursue in the Regional Assembly, and if so, what would those entail?
6. If there was three changes to the structure of the North Pacific Government that you could make, what would those be and why?
1. I may be inclined to appoint an advisor primarily for Foreign Affairs, depending on the area of expertise of whomever is appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs.

2. In my past 2+ terms in Cabinet, I have not seen the Chief of Staff play a particularly useful role. The role has never really been clearly defined, and I suspect sometimes they are appointed to essentially fulfill the role of an advisor. As such, I will likely not appoint a Chief of Staff. Management of staff in individual ministries will fall to their respective ministers, while overall supervision of government progress should be the duty of the Delegate.

3. Press Secretary seems like a job where you don't have much to do between the writing of press releases. In addition, the content covered by press releases has varied over the years and not all of them have required a Press Secretary. They have been used for general updates, publishing election results, or singular statements/addresses from the Delegate. I see press releases as perhaps most useful for updates on ministry happenings and directing readers to periodical ministry reports by the Ministers, or statements on important events from the Delegate. Add that to the fact the WFE and pinned dispatches are more visible ways of transmitting important regional news and events, I'm not entirely sure a Press Secretary is necessary.

4. As is tradition, and in the interest of necessary coordination and cooperation with the Security Council, the Vice Delegate will be invited to sit in the Cabinet.

5. I'm a fan of McMasterdonia's Court Amendment Act and I'm hoping it gets passed in the next term, but it's not my proposal so I guess I can't really say I would be pursuing it. However, I would certainly offer my help in pushing it along. I admit that it would look like a conflict of interest since it grants the Delegate the prerogative to nominate Justices, but I already support it and support it regardless of whether or not I'm the Delegate. I would also be interested in revisiting proposed changes to the prosecutor system, where there seems to be some agreement in the region that some changes are needed.

6. I'm not sure if this is a theoretical question covering all aspects of TNP government, including branches which the Delegate has no control over, or a question about possible changes I would make to the executive branch as Delegate. If the former, then as I mentioned in the previous question, I would make the changes to the court system. If the latter, I can't think of any changes I would make - the current system works quite well.

And sorry Zyvet, it's getting late and I just saw your question, so I'll answer it when I wake up. The general answer is yes but I think you'd want something more comprehensive :P
 
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What region do you believe is our closest ally? Furthermore, what regions do you think TNP should have a closer relationship with?
 
What is your vision for TNP? What do you want to change that other candidates would not do?
 
Do you find NationStates fun to play? What is fun about it?
Yes, of course I do, otherwise I wouldn't be playing. I think what makes it fun is twofold. Firstly, it's the wonderful people you meet in the community, whom you have built relationships with and enjoy chatting with, and that's not just in TNP. The second reason, I suppose, could be described as the "thrill" of the game. Every game needs something exciting to keep you engaged, and in NationStates, I find the regional and inter-regional politics exciting, as well as the R/D. Of course, other people find different aspects of the game exciting - the big one being Roleplaying - and as the largest region in the game, TNP has
Do you think being delegate will make it more fun? What do you think will be fun about being Delegate?
I don't think one should run for Delegate if they don't believe it would be a fun job. Sure, there are responsibilities that come with the position, but you definitely can't take the attitude of it being a chore to the office. I think what will be fun about the office is the ability to leave your own legacy on the region that you have grown to love. And of course, all the power that comes with being the Delegate of the largest region in the game :P
What region do you believe is our closest ally? Furthermore, what regions do you think TNP should have a closer relationship with?
I think we could count TSP, TRR and Europeia as our closest allies due to shared values (most notably democracy), a crossover of citizens to some degree, and cooperation (culturally and militarily). That said, while I think our relationship with TSP and TRR have advanced in recent times, our relationship with Europeia has somewhat stagnated, which is why I proposed increasing cooperation with Europeia in my Foreign Affairs platform.

As for other regions I think TNP should have a closer relationship with, I will note Lazarus, which we signed a non-aggression pact with not too long ago and appears to be on a path towards democratization, as well as regions I have stated in my platform that we should look into, such as Spiritus and UDS.
What is your vision for TNP? What do you want to change that other candidates would not do?
I think one major point of differentiation is that I believe TNP should be a more forceful advocate for democratic and transparent governance on the international stage. Another smaller point is that I believe in a more visible Delegate on the gameside/RMB, because a more visible leader will be better at encouraging people there to join the Forum/Discord communities and the government. Overall, my vision for TNP is to become more influential abroad and more active at home.
 
Let's say you believe an Executive Officer is being disloyal and intentionally being difficult, but you can't prove it. How would you handle this?
 
According to credible media reports, Tlomz will be offering a monthly $25 Taco Bell UBI to every citizen of The North Pacific. Will you be matching this promise?
 
Let's say you believe an Executive Officer is being disloyal and intentionally being difficult, but you can't prove it. How would you handle this?
It would depend on the exact circumstances and how strong the suspicion is. If say, they're misconveying instructions, they could be intentionally difficult, or it could have just been a dumb error. If you think they're leaking, for example, then there has to be some evidence, even circumstantial, that makes suspicion fall on them. Either way, I would first discuss the issue with other ministers/advisors to see if they share the same suspicion. If they do, then we would attempt to gather up some evidence and confront the officer in question. If it potentially reaches criminal levels, then an indictment will be filed. If it doesn't, then we would see if they could explain themselves. Then either they admit to misdeeds, in which case they would be asked to resign and make a public apology, or they provide a satisfactory explanation, in which case they would stay, or they provide an unsatisfactory explanation, in which case I would likely have to take action to fire them.
According to credible media reports, Tlomz will be offering a monthly $25 Taco Bell UBI to every citizen of The North Pacific. Will you be matching this promise?
Taco Bell :ill:
 
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