Fregerson for Speaker: Reflections & Moving Forward

[Fregerson]

First of all, you should really have a look at my last two campaign threads, namely the original campaign in September 2021 and the winning campaign later in end-October 2021.

I guess as an incumbent, I would do something different, by reflecting on the past 4 months. I started my journey as a Deputy Speaker under @Oracle, and I am very glad they gave me the first glimpse into the inner workings following my run in the September elections. Unfortunately, it wasn't the most active of terms, and I wasn't formally introduced to the processes of the Speakership before the by-election came about. With the by-election, I came down to a one-to-one with @bootsie, who fought hard, and I became the Speaker. The one with all the responsibilities shouldered upon me, the one who has to answers to issues facing the Speaker's Office.

It wasn't all smooth sailing, this entire journey. Thankfully, my group of deputies was able to help me sail through these few months really smoothly. @Dyl (up to their LOA and resignation) and @bootsie continued to be really active Deputies who helped to cover my duties, especially during a period where I was really stuck outside for weeks and weeks and only had my phone to continue processing citizenships. @Bobberino's activity up front wasn't as much, but they provided quite some advice from the back based on their historical experience, while @Tree of Wisdom clearly knew their stuff from their experiences in other regions, and adapted to TNP's procedures quite quickly.

There was a few incidents of note during my Speakership. One was, of course, the failure of a particular script that recorded the forum posting activity. When that was down, I realised quickly and reported it to the admins, and I really thank them for their quick solutions. The script, however, was constructed in a way which required the application to run for 30 days before being able to determine activity, and that meant we, the office, had to find an alternative solution. I proposed using last forum login date as a way to flag out potential members who might have fallen afoul of the posting rules, and we stuck with that till around 2 weeks ago, where the script was back up working. The other was the recent case of a missing citizenship, and without much reference, I made the decision to just reinstate them on the citizenship roll with the citizenship date effectively backdated.

Going forward? To me, running for Speaker is...the same as running for Justice. You either test me on my knowledge of the laws (in this case, especially those on citizenship); or you test whether my personal qualities are that of a Speaker. Other than that, I point to my track record of coming from nothing when I became Speaker to now, and you may raise questions on that. I learnt, from my term thus far, that you can't exactly make much promises in a position which isn't the most active up front, unlike that of the Delegate or Vice-Delegate. So with all of that above, I am open for questions.

 

[Tree of Wisdom]

No questions from me. I certainly have enjoyed working with you, and the other deputy speakers this term. Thank you for your patience, guidance, and helping me get settled in the role! Look forward to working with you again in the next term!

 

[bootsie]

Do you see your personal activity improving during this upcoming term?

 

[Fregerson]

Do you see your personal activity improving during this upcoming term?

Actually, it only gets better from this point on. I would say the end of the year was the worst, mainly due to the nature of my current work. Ultimately, I think that keeping my personal activity at current levels doesn't reflect well on the Office, and I learnt that I can't expect my Deputies to keep high activity levels if mine isn't fantastic. So a personal goal will definitely be to set a higher personal standard

 

[Pallaith]

I’m on the Court. I disagree with your comparison. The Speaker should be judged on their performance and knowledge of the job. You coming into it blind is not a disqualifier, you’re not the first to be in that situation. But after a term, even a partial one, you ought to have something to show for yourself. I can’t say I’m terribly impressed, and I say that as someone who voted for you over a multi-time Speaker who was coming back to activity and has since shown it to be a lasting return so far.

This is a hard job. It’s often a boring job. And above all else, it’s a thankless job. I appreciate the effort you’ve put into it but I’m not convinced it wasn’t more than you could handle. You don’t have to be there 24/7 if you have a solid team of deputies and you manage them well. The modern Speaker’s office relies on this, and we’ve seen it happen in recent previous terms. I don’t think you’ve handled this aspect of the job as well as you need to.

It’s a bit ironic that you ran for this office in large part by focusing on a tech review that seemed out of place and had a major tech issue with the script. The recent history of this office with mishandling scripts with past Speakers insists upon this office keeping a close eye on such things. I was surprised you got caught flat footed on this given that background. Good call on fixing the citizen record though.

For me to consider supporting you for this office again, I need a lot of reassurance that you’ve learned what didn’t work and what needs to be done better next time. I need to see our checks happen regularly, I need to see a full and acting team of deputies. I need to see predictable and correct performance from those deputies, from how the votes are conducted to when they are scheduled. I know it’s tough but we’ve seen past Speakers offices run darn near flawlessly. TNP is not in a state where we can be slow to bring in new faces and not have the machines running at full efficiency.

I’m sure a lot of this came off as harsh, and for what it’s worth, I do appreciate that you saw the need and stepped up to run the last few times. I don’t discount that and I don’t discount the actual work you have done. This wasn’t a disaster of a term - we have definitely had worse Speakers. But I need a reckoning here because we’re starting to move toward a chain of difficult terms and this office can spiral very quickly. I need the next Speaker to see this and correct course accordingly.

 

[St George]

Why should I vote for you when there's people waiting to be masked as citizens two days after passing all three checks?

 

[Fregerson]

I thank @Pallaith for taking the time to type out such a long post. Let me address them one by one.

1) I never particularly said that me being new to the role was an "excuse". Admittedly, I would think I barely passed, especially with activity of the Office in general not doing as great as we would have expected.

2) I don't quite consider myself to be caught flat-footed with regards to the citizenship incidents. Maybe the activity levels might have made it look like such, but I would say being able to catch the issues with such efficiency is good enough. About whether we can do a review of the current system, I think I will still keep it in mind when approaching the admins. I can't understand how some of the things work because I don't have the backend access that an admin has, but my ability to read code will certainly help in knowing what is logical to have and what things to ask for.

3) What needs to be done better next time? To me, it is about coming down hard on the activity of me and my fellow Deputies. I think it is fair to say this activity standards aren't fantastic, I don't think you are being harsh on that point. Going forward, as I have pointed out to bootsie, my activity is bound to improve back to near-normal standards, and I will make sure the Office keeps the daily activity that they are required and push my Deputies to similar standards.
Another point is on the smoother transition with regards to training new Deputies. I did come up with a textual guide on some of the Office procedures; for the next term I am planning to convert it to a full forum thread with the necessary images. This will make the training process easier.
The last target I have is probably secondary, since it is not in the tasking list of the Speaker's Office. I won't want to be distracted with this before the day-to-day activity of the office is settled, and I foresee myself not doing this at all if we do not have the luxury of manpower. But if it really is possible, I will propose to work with the Executive, mainly the Home Affairs and the Gameside Advocates, to improve citizenship take-up rates gameside. Probably also see if there are any dispatches on citizenship and the Regional Assembly which we can promote; as well as whether we can correct any misconceptions on what the Regional Assembly is about. I was considering the last point really hard, given the feedback I have obtained when I was sending the HA telegrams. Many link the Regional Assembly to the RP nature of NationStates Issues and NRI section of the Gameside forums, which is why they might be hesitant about joining as a citizen. Or not understanding what is in store for them as a citizen. But again, I didn't seek reelection with that in mind, I will emphasise that day-to-day activity is priority.

To address MJ/St George's point, I reiterate what I said on Discord. Tree of Wisdom (who happens to also be running for Speaker) is new to the Office, and since they already did the checks below, I thought to leave them to do the citizenship adding and masking as part of their learning process. I reminded them to do so instead of doing it myself, and will check back to see if they done it properly. This links back to my idea as mentioned in point 3 to Pallaith - making sure my Deputies get up to speed with the process to make sure I can have my hands off should I not be available for some days. Personally, I will be running a check personally later before the voting opens. That should rectify all the problems.

 

[Comfed]

There are not a lot of deputy speakers right now.
1. Do you know why?
2. Do you think this is a problem?
3. Do you think that more deputies would make the speaker’s office work better?
4. What are your plans for Speaker’s office staff?