St George for Delegate

[St George]

Four months ago, in my last election platform, I laid forth what I said was a gloomy but realistic view of where The North Pacific was and how we were doing, both singularly and in the wider NationStates world. I then set out how I would be attempting to address the situation. Four months on, I’d like to start this platform with an admission:

I was wrong.

I was wrong about the scope of the tech issues we were facing and I was wrong about Frontiers/Strongholds being imminent. They aren’t and it’ll likely be some time before we have to address them. That doesn’t mean we haven’t been at work looking at how we can best adapt and react to F/S and I’ve been in talks with some of our allies about it, with further talks planned for mid-January, should I win.

In terms of tech stuff, it became apparent early on in the term that the tech review as I had first envisioned it was neither needed nor practical - our issues were resolved before I was even in the seat in-game (sorry for that taking so long). For that, I’d like to thank both Siwale and r3n for their excellent work and ongoing support. In general, TNP admin has been incredibly supportive over the last four months, as has the Security Council, whom I also thank.

The last four months have been equal parts rewarding and frustrating - I’ve been satisfied by our progress but I chafe at the slowness of it sometimes. On the world stage we are widely respected, the re-engagement with our allies and other regions I started as Foreign Minister under Robespierre continued, with cultural events such as our NationStates Day celebration with Balder, The Rejected Realms and the United Regions Alliance, and our attendance at the Liberty Gala.

We also showed that The North Pacific is ready and willing to take the tough decisions when it was appropriate to. Our reaction to the incursion in Stargate and our taking part in the Liberation of Trovons being two such instances. Going forward these events will inform and help us shape our foreign policy and military activity.

On the subject of military activity, the North Pacific Army has had a successful, if quiet term. We have taken steps to address our manpower shortage by reviving the auxiliary and discussions remain ongoing about how else we could ensure that the strength and activity of the NPA is maintained and improved.

I said in my last platform that a big term was needed from some of the Ministries to justify their continued existence, and whilst Cards performed above expectations, other Ministries fell short, due to lack of staffers and lack of direction, as well as upheaval in terms of leadership at the top. I hold my hands up and say, we could’ve done better. We will do better.

Several ministries need reforming and revamping and the work they will change over the next four months, should I be re-elected. Over the next few paragraphs I will detail these changes and also what you can expect from all our ministries going forward.

Firstly, and the biggest change, is that I will be merging the Ministry of Radio back into the Ministry of Communications. Radio and Communications have both had poor terms, despite the best efforts of their Ministers. Ministers themselves cannot do the work of entire ministries, and so it is my hope that this change, along with several others, will streamline and lighten workloads, without compromising on quality. Under the newly formed Ministry of Media (happy to hear alternative name suggestions for this), work done will be split into two sections. Firstly, the Northern Broadcast Service will provide Radio shows and live content, produced in tandem with the Ministry of Culture.

The second section will be The Northern Lights, led by a new Editor-in-Chief. Similar to the role taken on by Praetor during last term, the Editor-in-Chief will be responsible for sourcing, writing and producing articles for The Northern Lights. I will put no targets on volume or frequency of publication, due to the paucity of willing authors over the last term, but we will certainly aim to provide one issue as soon as it's ready.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is one of our largest Ministries, with a large staff of active players. For this reason, next term I will be asking the Ministry to revive the practice of posting foreign updates to our embassies, instead of relying on Communications publications, or just posting delegate statements. These updates will be collated by the Ministry and will detail the work of each Ministry, as well as other interesting happenings in TNP, each month. As well as this work, work will continue on our database of admin bans, as well our other regular work, and we will spend the next term getting further reacquainted with our allies, and seeking out new life and new civilisations friends from across NationStates.

The Ministry of Culture will continue the fine work they’ve done over the past term. I know the current Minister has a great many ideas and I look forward to discussions with him over how best to put them into practice. As well as continuing Theme Thursday and Music Monday, I want to further encourage the development of live content, with our watchalongs and live-streams from the past term being continued and expanded.

The Minister of World Assembly Affairs will continue to help shape the World Assembly, and working with WALL and other allies, MoWAA will ensure that The North Pacific always has one of the strongest voices at the table. The Ministry will also be hosting a World Assembly Symposium, where we will welcome WA authors, delegates and voters to The North Pacific for discussion and debate on WA issues.

The Ministry of Cards will continue its excellent revival from the last term, with our Kard Karl events and preparations for Season 3 of cards (it’s coming, I promise!) continuing. The Cards Guild recently celebrated its two year anniversary, and we look forward to continuing to be at the forefront of the Cards game in NationStates.

The Ministry of Defence will continue to work to strengthen the North Pacific Army, whilst also looking at ways we can reform and reshape the NPA and its place in military gameplay. We’ll be continuing to recruit, train and promote from within, to ensure that when we deploy, no matter what side we deploy on, we do so with the best possible version of the NPA.

The Ministry of Home Affairs will continue its vital yet largely unheralded work of being the front line of our outreach, welcoming and mentoring. As well as a planned review of our lists and the order and frequency at which they’re put out, we’ll continue to work on welcoming new members of The North Pacific, giving guidance to those who request it and wishing you all a happy birthday.

One thing I want to see across many of the ministries is better use of the forum to promote and announce things. Discord may be the area where the community is most active but large parts of our community do not use it, and so making sure things are announced in forum topics as well as on Discord will be a focus.

And I know it’s not technically a Ministry, but I’ll address the Gameside Advocates here too - over the last term they’ve been helpful in keeping the RMB clear of spam, in promoting our projects and communities and in making The North Pacific a more welcoming place on the RMB. We’ll continue that work, and try and keep you engaged and entertained with polls and discussions and perhaps even some games on the RMB.

Outside of the Ministries, I’d like for us as a region to continue to address deficiencies in our laws and take up opportunities to improve them. Pallaith’s current Freedom of Information Act proposals are ones I agree with - and we should look at how we can improve our citizenship processes to allow members of the region like Boston Castle to become citizens. Further, whilst I no longer believe the change is imminent, perhaps legislating our relationship and approach to Frontiers and Strongholds is something we should consider.

Finally, I’d just like to thank all of you who voted for me last time, all of you who vote for me this time, and wish good luck to anyone else in the election - by standing you do yourself and your region a great service. The last four months have been the culmination of what I consider to be a redemption arc for myself. If I win, then the next four months will be about building upon the foundations we’ve laid this term, and building a better TNP for everyone.

 

[Dreadton]

How is merging Radio and Comms going to solve the underlying staffing issues? If you have two people in each department and merg them they will have 4 people on paper but their production capacity will not increase. The same amount of work will be getting done. Its seems more like "hey im doing something about this" statement without actually doing something about the foundational issues. Is changing the name and merging going to magically increase the number of people who will be doing work in this new ministry?

 

[Comfed]

How is merging Radio and Comms going to solve the underlying staffing issues? If you have two people in each department and merg them they will have 4 people on paper but their production capacity will not increase. The same amount of work will be getting done. Its seems more like "hey im doing something about this" statement without actually doing something about the foundational issues. Is changing the name and merging going to magically increase the number of people who will be doing work in this new ministry?

This reflects my concerns as well.

 

[Hulldom]

Perhaps it’s not my place as a Resident to ask these sorts of questions, but I’ll shoot anyways.

1. I know during Robes’ term, there was a discussion about changing the one org policy for the NPA and I know that, frankly, the NPA is in a pretty weak spot personnel-wise (at least it seems from someone not particularly engaged in the world of R/D). Would you consider revisiting that policy in your new term if elected? Have you had discussions with Koopa, Bob, and other military stakeholders on this subject?

2. We recently opened an embassy with the UDS. Great news as they’re a great region and surely an excellent partner for us to have a relationship with. There’s also the Lazarus treaty to note. In your foreign affairs platform, what sorts of relationships do you envision pursuing? Do you have any ideas for potential new partners or what sorts of things you intend to do to expand on a relationship with existing partners?

3. What sorts of training and leadership initiatives would you encourage Ministers to undertake with their staffers? Part of the problem we have, speaking as a Minister with a large department, but a small active staff, is that there aren’t many people who can step up when the time comes for someone to step aside. How do you plan to address this in a way that allows us to build on what we *currently* have and doesn’t necessitate us trying to recruit players from without? (Not that the latter is bad, but the former is undeniably better from a personnel standpoint.)

4. What steps will you take to ensure that the Delegacy and its Ministers retain some level of gameside presence. I’m guilty of not being much of a quantity gameside anyways for a number of reasons. But especially as we start down the slide toward summer, we need to prepare for some fall off in interested players in all areas. Do you expect to have your next set of ministers step up their efforts to be a known quantity among our RMB community, so that potentially the GAs and MoHA’s fruit can start to flourish to a greater degree than it has in the past?

5. Who do you expect to be your Cabinet next term?

 

[Vivanco]

How is merging Radio and Comms going to solve the underlying staffing issues? If you have two people in each department and merg them they will have 4 people on paper but their production capacity will not increase. The same amount of work will be getting done. Its seems more like "hey im doing something about this" statement without actually doing something about the foundational issues. Is changing the name and merging going to magically increase the number of people who will be doing work in this new ministry?

I will add myself to the concern of this question.

 

[Comfed]

Perhaps it’s not my place as a Resident to ask these sorts of questions, but I’ll shoot anyways.

You're such a devoted and hardworking member of the region that we passed a law so you could be MoWAA, I think you're entitled to ask

 

[Oracle]

Full support.

 

[Fregerson]

How is merging Radio and Comms going to solve the underlying staffing issues? If you have two people in each department and merg them they will have 4 people on paper but their production capacity will not increase. The same amount of work will be getting done. Its seems more like "hey im doing something about this" statement without actually doing something about the foundational issues. Is changing the name and merging going to magically increase the number of people who will be doing work in this new ministry?

To add on to this, may we ask more details about the plan of moving the burden of foreign update publications (which was fulfilled by The Northern Light and Polaris in the past) to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs? What benefits do you think this will bring to your new Ministry of Media, as well as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs?

 

[Gorundu]

One thing I've noticed this term is that the reports from Ministers, and indeed yourself, have been inconsistent. While some Ministers published half-term or even monthly reports, others have made no reports throughout the term. Do you believe this is an issue that needs to be rectified, or do you believe perhaps these reports do not serve much of a purpose?

 

[St George]

How is merging Radio and Comms going to solve the underlying staffing issues? If you have two people in each department and merg them they will have 4 people on paper but their production capacity will not increase. The same amount of work will be getting done. Its seems more like "hey im doing something about this" statement without actually doing something about the foundational issues. Is changing the name and merging going to magically increase the number of people who will be doing work in this new ministry?

Merging the two and changing the name isn't going to magically increase the number of people doing work in this new ministry no, but this is more than just doing that. It's about changing and sharing workloads better, and having a better approach overall to content creation - this requires both a change in personnel at the top of the Ministry, and better delegation of work and follow-up on such, all of which we will be doing.

Perhaps it’s not my place as a Resident to ask these sorts of questions, but I’ll shoot anyways.

1. I know during Robes’ term, there was a discussion about changing the one org policy for the NPA and I know that, frankly, the NPA is in a pretty weak spot personnel-wise (at least it seems from someone not particularly engaged in the world of R/D). Would you consider revisiting that policy in your new term if elected? Have you had discussions with Koopa, Bob, and other military stakeholders on this subject?

2. We recently opened an embassy with the UDS. Great news as they’re a great region and surely an excellent partner for us to have a relationship with. There’s also the Lazarus treaty to note. In your foreign affairs platform, what sorts of relationships do you envision pursuing? Do you have any ideas for potential new partners or what sorts of things you intend to do to expand on a relationship with existing partners?

3. What sorts of training and leadership initiatives would you encourage Ministers to undertake with their staffers? Part of the problem we have, speaking as a Minister with a large department, but a small active staff, is that there aren’t many people who can step up when the time comes for someone to step aside. How do you plan to address this in a way that allows us to build on what we *currently* have and doesn’t necessitate us trying to recruit players from without? (Not that the latter is bad, but the former is undeniably better from a personnel standpoint.)

4. What steps will you take to ensure that the Delegacy and its Ministers retain some level of gameside presence. I’m guilty of not being much of a quantity gameside anyways for a number of reasons. But especially as we start down the slide toward summer, we need to prepare for some fall off in interested players in all areas. Do you expect to have your next set of ministers step up their efforts to be a known quantity among our RMB community, so that potentially the GAs and MoHA’s fruit can start to flourish to a greater degree than it has in the past?

5. Who do you expect to be your Cabinet next term?

1. This is a conversation that's been started in the NPA over the past few weeks but as of yet I'm yet to be convinced that it would help alleviate the NPA's manpower concerns. Most of the arguments seem more to be based around the fact that in recent terms mercing has become more widespread and has had blanket approval, and so we should get rid of the policy for that reason. That... doesn't really convince me at all. If we're going to get rid of it, it has to be because doing so will strengthen the NPA. Thus far no one has managed to explain how it would do so.

2. I've always been one to think wide rather than tall in terms of partner regions and we want to pursue a wide range of possible partners - I can't say who right now, but we're going to look at regions that are active and prominent in their spheres of work, from NS Sports to Gameplay, and beyond.

3. I think this is a big part of what Ministers have to do, and I'll freely admit that we've not done good enough on this matter in the last term, is ensuring the Ministry is in as strong a place (or stronger) than when they started their role, and ensuring there's at least one person from within the Ministry who could come in and take over without a loss in quality is very important. I did this in Culture under McMasterdonia, with both Kasto and Sarah being given responsibility and leadership roles and Sarah becoming Minister of Culture last term and doing a good job. There's Ministries we have where this could happen today - Home Affairs immediately comes to mind - but also ones where this term we will have to spend time identifying who is most promising, most willing to put the work in and most appropriate to take on the role of Minister in their respective Ministry.

4. The term started with fairly frequent RMB Q&As and we'll try to make sure those are revived for the whole of next term - the Lead Gameside Advocate will be important in making sure these happen, and happen at the time they're supposed to. As well as that, I'll be encouraging my Ministers to take at least a few minutes every day to check over the RMB and use it to promote the work their Ministry is doing. Ministers should be visible in all our venues - the forum, the discord and on the RMB - rather than firefighters coming in to suppress spam and then leaving again.

5. There's a few that are confirmed but more that are up in the air. I wouldn't want to pre-empt someones decision on who to vote for by dangling a shiny appointment in front of their face.

To add on to this, may we ask more details about the plan of moving the burden of foreign update publications (which was fulfilled by The Northern Light and Polaris in the past) to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs? What benefits do you think this will bring to your new Ministry of Media, as well as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs?

I think this will allow the Ministry of Media to focus on other affairs and projects, and bring them to life in a timely fashion. By giving Foreign Affairs responsibility for creating and collating foreign updates, we not only alleviate the workload of Media, but we also give FA staffers things to do between releases - I've had ambassadors approach me and ask "what am I supposed to do now" over the last term, and this will hopefully keep them busy and engaged.

One thing I've noticed this term is that the reports from Ministers, and indeed yourself, have been inconsistent. While some Ministers published half-term or even monthly reports, others have made no reports throughout the term. Do you believe this is an issue that needs to be rectified, or do you believe perhaps these reports do not serve much of a purpose?

The Ministerial turnover didn't help with getting reports out, but I'd consider the opening statements of new Ministers to count as reports in this regard, though I accept the point that they have been inconsistent. I definitely should've been more on top of my own reports, and I'll be endeavouring to do so should I be re-elected. With FA taking up foreign updates again, part of that will be detailing or summarising the activities of the Ministries, so if we can get out one of these a month at least, that will suffice for reports, I believe.

 

[Simone]

My main concern is to improve endotarting and membership (to an extent) increase the influence of TNP in WA, so we can determine or at least strongly influence the outcome of votes. I think Gorundu has a strong platform on this (or at least he talked about it), but this ultimately still comes down to the delegate. What are your plans on this? Can you be more specific? I am aware this is effectively an unopposed election but would still like to know.

 

[Hulldom]

My main concern is to improve endotarting and membership (to an extent) increase the influence of TNP in WA, so we can determine or at least strongly influence the outcome of votes. I think Gorundu has a strong platform on this (or at least he talked about it), but this ultimately still comes down to the delegate. What are your plans on this? Can you be more specific? I am aware this is effectively an unopposed election but would still like to know.

The only real way in raising our influence in the WA (hi, our actual WA Affairs Minister) would be to raise the number of WAs in the region or ensure a higher yield rate with what we do have.

 

[Sil Dorsett]

My main concern is to improve endotarting and membership (to an extent) increase the influence of TNP in WA, so we can determine or at least strongly influence the outcome of votes. I think Gorundu has a strong platform on this (or at least he talked about it), but this ultimately still comes down to the delegate. What are your plans on this? Can you be more specific? I am aware this is effectively an unopposed election but would still like to know.

Hi. Security Councilor and former Vice Delegate here. Believe it or not, the World Assembly Development Program is actually more closely administered by the Vice Delegate. They're the ones using the tools to send out telegrams and dispatches to raise Delegate and SC endorsements and promote the program with the monthly awards. Gorundu had a platform regarding this because the job he's going for has a greater impact on your concern. Delegate, not so much.

 

[Space Cat]

How is merging Radio and Comms going to solve the underlying staffing issues? If you have two people in each department and merg them they will have 4 people on paper but their production capacity will not increase. The same amount of work will be getting done. Its seems more like "hey im doing something about this" statement without actually doing something about the foundational issues. Is changing the name and merging going to magically increase the number of people who will be doing work in this new ministry?

I am a bit concerned too

 

[Simone]

Hi. Security Councilor and former Vice Delegate here. Believe it or not, the World Assembly Development Program is actually more closely administered by the Vice Delegate. They're the ones using the tools to send out telegrams and dispatches to raise Delegate and SC endorsements and promote the program with the monthly awards. Gorundu had a platform regarding this because the job he's going for has a greater impact on your concern. Delegate, not so much.

Yes I am aware of the division of responsibility, I kind of meant that the delegate ultimately represents TNP (in a way, I am more speaking from an impression perspective, not constitutionally) so I would like to see the delegate having a view on promoting this.