Lord Dominator for Delegate

[Lord Dominator]

Hello all, and welcome to my Delegate campaign in the May 2022 General Election.

I am Lord Dominator, as most you already know. I’ve been in TNP since early 2019 and NationStates in general since April 2015. I’ve participated in largely every form of activity there is on this site, whether that be Issues, the WA, R/D, or assorted regional governments. I enjoy being here, and enjoy the people I spend time with here. Now I’m running for delegate, and I hope you will all give me a fair shot and a fair look (and pardon my comparative briefness in campaign, I assure you it’s only because I don’t naturally write long).

As it comes to my prospective delegacy, I won’t pledge you any grand vision, or an overarching goal. Instead, I pledge many little visions for various parts of the region. I do this not because I couldn’t necessarily come up with a vision, but because I believe we don’t need one. By-and-large our region is pretty great, our community is awesome, and our various ministries function well. I offer gradual improvement on what is, rather than great and bold change, because that is what I believe our region needs. Indeed, I think you will find that this is essentially what all candidates for any of our positions offer - improvement of what is, not vast change of the same.

For your viewing convenience, I’ve grouped my platform bits and ideas into a few broad sections:
1. General Goals, representing those things that have no particular home
2. Ministry Goals, where I discuss my plans for and with the various ministries. Many of these aren’t strictly associated with only one, but I’ve associated them with specific ministries for topical convenience


General Goals:

1. I intend to give my best efforts for recruiting people to the ministries, as is only proper of any delegate. In my view no ministry would be worse off with more people, and we should always be striving to bring new people up in our community. I don’t say this to be an actual goal separate from the actual work done in that area, but to indicate my belief in this always being the highest priorit.

2. General engagement. It is my belief that where possible, a Delegate (or any regional leader) should try to engage the region in what’s going on, and what we should be doing. A little direct democracy and further debate, if you will (as well as general contribution of citizens to the various tjings our ministries do or intend to do - we undoubtedly have many who don’t have the time to be in culture all the time for instance but I bet can do one thing to help out with a festival being planned). I intend fully to both try and engage our community in government decisions where reasonably possible, and in general to also try and direct more conversations to the forums. Our Discord is wonderful, but often can leave important conversations buried in hundreds of messages and hard to find (both immediately for other citizens, and for the governments of the future).

3. I have observed that many of our ministries have a great deal of pinned threads covering different parts of the Ministry, sometimes few to no threads, and in the case of the NPA many threads scattered. This is often confusing, both in finding particular information or in simply the clutter. I intend to do my best to ensure that every Ministry has reasonable number of pinned threads, and that those threads are together are useful for the average citizen and members of the Ministry.


Ministry Goals:

Cards - I am but a toe-dipper in the world of cards. While I understand much of the mechanics, I lack the interest to do much with them myself. As such, I will be relying heavily on my Minister, but will do my best to support them. We have one of the best programs in the game, I would hope that we continue to do so (whether or not Season 3 ever comes).

Culture - I will admit, this is naturally not my area of expertise. As such, I will likely be leaning more on my Minister of Culture than recent Delegates. Still, I intend to promote cultural activities (such as Theme Thursday), festivals and Democracy Day), and any cultural collaborations that may occur with other regions. Additionally, I hope to create a set of regional “awards,” so to speak. Multiple efforts have been in the last year or so, and while they have a good idea, they’ve gotten bogged down in what should go along with it (in my view, the award honor alone) and trying to justify a single very high award. Instead, I wish to create a proper set of awards dealing with general contributions to the region or in specific areas, such that we can properly recognize the best among us, no matter if the rest of the game necessarily has reason to. Finally, while I am no longer certain of whether I will truly try, I may well try and run a weekly watch-through of Wander Over Yonder, which is both a great cartoon (one of my favorites) and the origin of my nation/username.

Defense - R/D is something near and dear to my heart, no matter what form that takes (even if I will always be a raider at heart). I will work to ensure we continue to project what power we have in this sphere, and grow it further. In particular, we need to continue our support for Stargate against the Brotherhood of Malice. At the moment, we are essentially maintaining a permanent garrison in Stargate. While this does somewhat work (or at least increases the effort level on the part of Malice to tag it), this has proven to not be a complete solution, and compromises our ability to work with other allies or to combat other activities of Malice beside. Therefore, if Stargate willing, I would hope we can use our forces & connections with defenders to provide them with the influence at-need in order to impose a password to provide better security. In my vision, we would work to establish a large group of sleeper nations essentially, such that as Stargate needs we can WA them up to provide/replace influence needed for passwording and changing it. I do not propose this lightly, but as the threat to Stargate seems unlikely to go away soon, we need to think about a more permanent solution until it does. Finally, while the work thats been to directly combat Malice has been good, we should also not forget the advantages we can put it to - and NPA recruitment is at the top of the list, since military recruitment is generally much easier with a clear “goal.”

Foreign Affairs - Another topic near and dear to me, as both the history behind every action and frequent arguments are often wonderful. I intend to continue our good work, in particular with our ambassadors. At present, our ambassadors often act only in the direction of their appointed region, with not much coming back to us. I intend to not only continue with efforts such as the WFE Factbook or the standardization of ambassador reports, but to use them to better inform our citizens. As-is, any reports coming back really only end up with the FA Ministry. Once we can better standardize reports and make them more regular, I wish to create a basic Ministry report for dissemination to the region briefly describing what our friends and allies have been doing, with additions from the Ministry as a whole about events involving those regions that are not our friends. I intend such a report to better keep all of us citizens informed in interregional happenings, to keep us all from avoiding the trap of ignoring the outside world.

Gameside Advocates - Our Gameside Advocates have an important role in managing our RMB and engaging the community there, and they do it well. However, much like Dreadton and as nicely dovetails with my general goals, I intend to further push the promotion of government activity to the RMB.

Home Affairs - HA is both an important ministry, but also a frequently tedious one. Still, it works wonderfully so far as I know, and I intend to help ensure that it keeps doing so, whether with mentorship, recruitment, or the birthday wishes.

Media - The Northern Broadcast Service has been productive and good so far as I know (by personal preference I don’t often listen to or watch long-form recordings or videos), and hope that this continues. On the other side of things, it has been [awhile] since The Northern Lights has produced an issue, and I will own up to my own share of blame in not providing an article. Still, I will work with the Editor-in-Chief to keep working to produce an issue (possibly with a few more prods at those thinking of writing, myself included again).

World Assembly Affairs - Hulldom is indefatigable. That is really the story of WA Affairs. Under their leadership we produce quality and timely IFVs on every proposal, and enjoy close cooperation with our WALL allies in them for many of these IFVs. Still, I have a few proposals. First, I intend to add (and keep updated) a little section on the WFE with our voting stances on whatever may be at vote, to better ensure our regional position is seen and read by all. Second, I wish to propose a corollary to the Heroes of Valhalla program the Ministry has. Our work to ensure that deserving individuals in both TNP and our WALL allies receive recognition is good work. However, it leaves out our own region, and I think that shouldn’t continue. Obviously it’s considered poor form to try and Commend your own region, so instead I would hope we can work with another region to accomplish the same. Further, I intend to try this outside of our WALL allies - personally my preference would be to run this with TRR, as they themselves (or parts like the RRA or TRT associated with) are deserving of one, and a trade as such would be a wonderful promotion of both us and an ally. I fully expect this to be perhaps my most controversial proposal in this campaign, but it’s something worth thinking about - our region almost certainly deserves one, but with all of our authors, the pool for someone external to give it a go is rather limited, much less for someone to do it on their own initiative. Thus, a trade makes a certain sense to me, and I hope to you. Finally, the new Declarations add a wonderful area of opportunity for promoting our interests - MJ has jokes a bit about one on Independence, but I think we should do something like that (likely in concert with WALL and other Independent friends/allies).


Conclusion:

Thank you for your time in viewing my campaign, and I hope you liked it. If you have any questions, feel free to ask (whether on the forum, Discord, or the RMB). Just please, if on Discord or the RMB tag it so that I see it in a reasonable time.

 

[Hulldom]

Your WA part of the platform intrigues me, LD. These are, I'm sure, things that have come up in different ways in the past but I'm glad you're bringing them up now.

1. I think the first think is readily doable, you'd just have to find the right place in the WFE's code.
2. I'm not a huge fan of the whole tit for tat thing, but I think it might be a good idea to engage with new partners in the area of the WA, just to see what's to do there.
3. I love the idea of utilizing a Declaration for Independence! I think it would actually be unique among Declarations for memorializing an IC ideology and not a one-off event or joke.

 

[Lord Dominator]

Your WA part of the platform intrigues me, LD. These are, I'm sure, things that have come up in different ways in the past but I'm glad you're bringing them up now.

1. I think the first think is readily doable, you'd just have to find the right place in the WFE's code.
2. I'm not a huge fan of the whole tit for tat thing, but I think it might be a good idea to engage with new partners in the area of the WA, just to see what's to do there.
3. I love the idea of utilizing a Declaration for Independence! I think it would actually be unique among Declarations for memorializing an IC ideology and not a one-off event or joke.

That description is perhaps more accurate than I'd like, but yes my general intention is essentially an expansion of sorts on Heroes with other regions/other versions of that (based still on that Commend idea, because I believe realistically neither we nor they are likely to get one soon otherwise).

 

[Gladio]

Your main goal for Defense revolves around the protection of Stargate, which is fair. But what plans do you have for day-to-day training activities? Would you support tag-raiding and occupations? Especially with friends and allies like Osiris and Europeia and possibly other Independent regions or do you share your opponent's views that ops like that are "pointless"?

 

[Lord Dominator]

Your main goal for Defense revolves around the protection of Stargate, which is fair. But what plans do you have for day-to-day training activities? Would you support tag-raiding and occupations? Especially with friends and allies like Osiris and Europeia and possibly other Independent regions or do you share your opponent's views that ops like that are "pointless"?

I am/was a raider, I rather enjoy occupations myself (I don’t enjoy tags, but that’s a personal preference) I have no intention of halting either of those. I do expect that current interregional politics would limit the number that occur, but I have nothing against doing them in theor.

 

[Gladio]

I am/was a raider, I rather enjoy occupations myself (I don’t enjoy tags, but that’s a personal preference) I have no intention of halting either of those. I do expect that current interregional politics would limit the number that occur, but I have nothing against doing them in theor.

Understandably our current relations with some of the main raider regions are not good but The NPA can still do raids on it's own and with allied/friendly regions.

Best of luck, you have my vote!

 

[Hulldom]

Here's a question I think might be interesting, revealing, and also might just be fun to answer:

Assume for a moment that every TNPer you've worked with is around and active again. What would your dream Cabinet of TNPers you've worked with look like?

 

[Dreadton]

Whats your biggest regret in your NS career?

 

[Comfed]

I’d ask you how you’d coup the region, but that’s an overused question. Instead, I’ll ask you this: if you were to coup the region, what do you think would be your motivation?

 

[Lord Dominator]

Here's a question I think might be interesting, revealing, and also might just be fun to answer:

Assume for a moment that every TNPer you've worked with is around and active again. What would your dream Cabinet of TNPers you've worked with look like?

Honestly I couldn’t say (especially not in a way that doesn’t largely rehash the present) - my memory for specific people is pretty shit, and consequently most of the people who are gone or not really active are a blur (also my attention was often elsewhere to begin with). You for WA though I think (in that you legitimately are better at it than anyone I can recall). Probably Bob for MoD, because I think they’d be fun for that. Not really sure on the other cabinet people.

Whats your biggest regret in your NS career?

I think the time I spent in Lazarus and much of it in TEP - not because I have anything against either, but because I was largely just there and not doing much of anything that mattered to the overall region. Really just took a chunk of my time I could have spent elsewhere. I also regret my procrastination on many WA projects I thought about doing, but that’s basically a life regret.

I’d ask you how you’d coup the region, but that’s an overused question. Instead, I’ll ask you this: if you were to coup the region, what do you think would be your motivation?

The permanent banjection of EretzIsrael.

 

[Dreadton]

Is there any policies you will be looking into adopting from your competition?

 

[Lord Dominator]

Is there any policies you will be looking into adopting from your competition?

I liked your bit about doing more with promotion of government activity, so that one already got buried in there. I do also like the idea at least of Pallaith’s merger of Media/Culture, though I think a modification in how leadership operates (possibly designated deputies to cover the former constituent parts) in it would be in order to account for your given concerns - subject of course to a fuller citizen and ministry conversation, since running it from one change among several on a campaign isn’t precisely a mandate in totality.

 

[Zyvetskistaahn]

Do you have a view in relation to the legislative ideas put forward in the other platforms?

Do you have any view on what TNP's approach should be to the Frontier/Stronghold idea, in the unlikely event of its implementation in the coming term?

 

[Lord Dominator]

Do you have a view in relation to the legislative ideas put forward in the other platforms?

Yes - my platform included at one point a prosecutor/universal standing bit much the same as Pallaith’s, only more specific in what I view as a desirable solution to both at once. Assuming I can force myself to write it, I will likely propose it at some point regardless (which is why I removed it from the platform).

Do you have any view on what TNP's approach should be to the Frontier/Stronghold idea, in the unlikely event of its implementation in the coming term?

So I wrote the below spoiler and only then realized your question was a should and not a will - in the vein of should I’m not sure that matters, but while my personal preference would be a quick jump to what I think will inevitably happen anyways (though I suspect defending of Stronghold regions would become more popular, including in TNP), any event of that actually happening in a term of mine would result in nigh-endless debates for some time (both as a given and what I think should happen) before any change happens, whatever that may produce.

Spoiler

Also yes, with the caveat that my views are essentially the same for all Gameplay regions and represent my opinions of what the general “end-state“ status-quo of F/S will ultimately be. In my view, TNP will itself establish or try to establish Frontiers (like most major Gameplay regions) in order to make up for its loss of new foundings, and the new way of potentially gaining more. Further, with all Frontier regions drawing from the same pool of spawns and thus their own collection of such being determined by the total number of actively spawning Frontiers, all Gameplay regions will inevitably and ultimately be drawn into the conflict of defending the Frontiers of their own & allies and the conquest or destruction of others. Consequently, TNP will likely, and in my view inevitably, shift to a schema of defending frontiers of TNP and allies, while destroying those of enemies. This holds true for all types of Gameplay regions (raiders and defenders included, the former more rapidly and the latter eventually, at least on the overall scale - the full reasons aren’t relevant here), and represents what I consider will be the final victory of Independence (or Imperialism).

As an addition, I suspect defending of founderless Strongholds would become more popular, such that the game is divided into the political/military playground of Frontiers/associated Gameplay regions and the off-limits Stronghold regions of everyone else (the former is opt-in, also resulting in the oft-requested opt-out for non-Gameplay folks in the latter).

 

[mcmasterdonia]

I’m glad you’ve run a serious campaign, but it is a bit surface level. Do you have a grand vision for TNP? Where would you like to see us 8 months from now?

 

[Lord Dominator]

I’m glad you’ve run a serious campaign, but it is a bit surface level. Do you have a grand vision for TNP? Where would you like to see us 8 months from now?

I believe I noted that in the campaign opener or so that I don’t have a combined grand vision for a region, just lots of little visions. In terms of 8 months (and what I’m taking as a hypothetical 2nd term) - I can’t necessarily say for sure, because a lot can change - but I would like a more permanent protection of Stargate (ideally that doesn’t rely on us constantly piling there, but if so thats what it would need to be), some level of integration with non-WALL members to duplicate aspects of the Valhalla program as well as promote our interests via declarations (both of which expand our diplomatic goodwill long-term), ideally a TNL issue, and I think the attempts at an awards program working out would be nice. That isn’t to say there aren’t other things I’d maybe want to see in 8 months, but those are the highlights in my opinion.

 

[Chipoli]

Why should the citizens of TNP elect you over any other candidate? Do you have anything that makes you stand out from anyone else?

 

[Pigeonstan]

I believe I noted that in the campaign opener or so that I don’t have a combined grand vision for a region, just lots of little visions. In terms of 8 months (and what I’m taking as a hypothetical 2nd term) - I can’t necessarily say for sure, because a lot can change - but I would like a more permanent protection of Stargate (ideally that doesn’t rely on us constantly piling there, but if so thats what it would need to be), some level of integration with non-WALL members to duplicate aspects of the Valhalla program as well as promote our interests via declarations (both of which expand our diplomatic goodwill long-term), ideally a TNL issue, and I think the attempts at an awards program working out would be nice. That isn’t to say there aren’t other things I’d maybe want to see in 8 months, but those are the highlights in my opinion.

how would you describe your position in one sentence?

 

[Lord Dominator]

how would you describe your position in one sentence?

I have no idea which particular position you mean, so I would remove all the periods from my initial platform and respond with that.

 

[Lord Dominator]

Why should the citizens of TNP elect you over any other candidate? Do you have anything that makes you stand out from anyone else?

Well, by direct comparison to Pallaith I have been neither a delegate or Minster & my principal NS career has been in other regions - strictly speaking that makes me stand out in comparison (and vice-versa). If you mean in terms of my platform on the same question, I would say probably my specific goals (particularly regarding the NPA/Stargate & WA things to do).

In regards to “why me,” I don’t have a good answer. Not because I particularly think I’m worse or better than other options, but because I don’t think there’s particular difference there - only differences in specific goals and methods & neither of us in my opinion has such that specifically recommend one over another (just which set you’d prefer over the other).

 

[Pallaith]

Thank you for actually writing a platform first of all. And it’s nice to see you giving it a serious try at that, it’s about time.

Why didn’t you run for Speaker? Lots of people seemed to want/expect that, so one could argue that you would have done well and maybe even win. I can appreciate having greater aspirations, but I must confess I was one of those who thought you would have been a fine Speaker candidate. Alternatively, consider this question me asking why you wanted to run for Delegate specifically, and why now.

 

[Lord Dominator]

Thank you for actually writing a platform first of all. And it’s nice to see you giving it a serious try at that, it’s about time.

Why didn’t you run for Speaker? Lots of people seemed to want/expect that, so one could argue that you would have done well and maybe even win. I can appreciate having greater aspirations, but I must confess I was one of those who thought you would have been a fine Speaker candidate. Alternatively, consider this question me asking why you wanted to run for Delegate specifically, and why now.

Quite honestly the why now for Delegate is twofold - one, you and Madjack got the idea in my head of actually trying, so term-limit on the incumbent seemed as good a time to try as any. I’ve also flirted personally with founding my own region (I’m currently in a position of being unlikely to do that for reasons unrelated) & I had wanted to at least give this a go before trying that, so as to not split attention between two time-consuming jobs were I to hypothetically win this election. That merged with the former to produce the result of intending to run now, with less consideration of whether it’d be a good time otherwis.

As to Speaker - I really just didn’t think about doing it for myself (and haven’t really thought about if I would want to as the full rather than a Deputy) and didn’t actually consider until someone else mentioned in the last week or so - at which point I had already tarted, and sunk-cost fallacy is a heck of a thing. Maybe in the future though, dunno - I was honestly surprised that people thought I would run.

 

[Cretox]

I like this platform more the more I read it.

As it comes to my prospective delegacy, I won’t pledge you any grand vision, or an overarching goal. Instead, I pledge many little visions for various parts of the region. I do this not because I couldn’t necessarily come up with a vision, but because I believe we don’t need one. By-and-large our region is pretty great, our community is awesome, and our various ministries function well. I offer gradual improvement on what is, rather than great and bold change, because that is what I believe our region needs.

Well this isn't something you see very often. It's refreshing.

I intend to give my best efforts for recruiting people to the ministries, as is only proper of any delegate. In my view no ministry would be worse off with more people, and we should always be striving to bring new people up in our community. I don’t say this to be an actual goal separate from the actual work done in that area, but to indicate my belief in this always being the highest priorit.

Thank you. Recruitment overall deserves far more attention than it usually gets in these races: the rest of this stuff just won't get done without people to do it. How specifically would you boost recruitment outside of the NPA (which you have gone into more detail with)?

I intend fully to both try and engage our community in government decisions where reasonably possible, and in general to also try and direct more conversations to the forums. Our Discord is wonderful, but often can leave important conversations buried in hundreds of messages and hard to find (both immediately for other citizens, and for the governments of the future).

What sorts of decisions do you think you'd involve the community more in, and what would that engagement look like? The forum/discord point's an interesting one- what sorts of discussions currently based on the discord do you think are better suited for the forum?

I have observed that many of our ministries have a great deal of pinned threads covering different parts of the Ministry, sometimes few to no threads, and in the case of the NPA many threads scattered. This is often confusing, both in finding particular information or in simply the clutter. I intend to do my best to ensure that every Ministry has reasonable number of pinned threads, and that those threads are together are useful for the average citizen and members of the Ministry.

Thank you thank you thank you.

Additionally, I hope to create a set of regional “awards,” so to speak. Multiple efforts have been in the last year or so, and while they have a good idea, they’ve gotten bogged down in what should go along with it (in my view, the award honor alone) and trying to justify a single very high award. Instead, I wish to create a proper set of awards dealing with general contributions to the region or in specific areas, such that we can properly recognize the best among us, no matter if the rest of the game necessarily has reason to.

Would you implement these awards through a legislative change or by delegate's prerogative?

R/D is something near and dear to my heart, no matter what form that takes (even if I will always be a raider at heart). I will work to ensure we continue to project what power we have in this sphere, and grow it further. In particular, we need to continue our support for Stargate against the Brotherhood of Malice. At the moment, we are essentially maintaining a permanent garrison in Stargate. While this does somewhat work (or at least increases the effort level on the part of Malice to tag it), this has proven to not be a complete solution, and compromises our ability to work with other allies or to combat other activities of Malice beside.

What are your thoughts on the NPA's current state and capabilities overall? Would you stick to the r/d stance outlined in On Alignment, or would you take things in a different direction, even if only slightly?

Therefore, if Stargate willing, I would hope we can use our forces & connections with defenders to provide them with the influence at-need in order to impose a password to provide better security.

What if Stargate refuses?

I intend such a report to better keep all of us citizens informed in interregional happenings, to keep us all from avoiding the trap of ignoring the outside world.

Tangentially related, but what's your stance on government members being involved in multiple regions? Ambassadors aren't allowed to have residency/citizenship in their assigned regions as far as I know; do you think that's a good rule to keep?

HA is both an important ministry, but also a frequently tedious one. Still, it works wonderfully so far as I know, and I intend to help ensure that it keeps doing so, whether with mentorship, recruitment, or the birthday wishes.

Would you use HA's recruitment capabilities for any specific objectives, or would you prefer a more untargeted approach?

Still, I will work with the Editor-in-Chief to keep working to produce an issue (possibly with a few more prods at those thinking of writing, myself included again).

What's your stance on bringing in foreign authors, say to write some opinion pieces on areas of the game they enjoy? Have you considered resurrecting TNS as a separate publication from TNL? Why or why not? What are your thoughts on bringing back an image-based publication like TNL used to be?

I fully expect [commending TNP] to be perhaps my most controversial proposal in this campaign, but it’s something worth thinking about - our region almost certainly deserves one, but with all of our authors, the pool for someone external to give it a go is rather limited, much less for someone to do it on their own initiative.

Personally, I think that commending TNP isn't so much controversial as it is difficult to execute without being a self-commend in some way. Speaking of the WA, what are your thoughts on WALL's current membership? Do you think the body's procedures are fine as-is? Have you thought about expanding the organization's membership, as other candidates have proposed both now and in the past?

 

[Lord Dominator]

I like this platform more the more I read it.


Well this isn't something you see very often. It's refreshing.

Why thank you.

Thank you. Recruitment overall deserves far more attention than it usually gets in these races: the rest of this stuff just won't get done without people to do it. How specifically would you boost recruitment outside of the NPA (which you have gone into more detail with)?

My intention in how I raise recruitment isn’t that I have specific ideas for the other ministries, rather I think I think it should be a high priority for any delegate (including myself), regardless of whether specific ideas are had at campaign time.

What sorts of decisions do you think you'd involve the community more in, and what would that engagement look like? The forum/discord point's an interesting one- what sorts of discussions currently based on the discord do you think are better suited for the forum?

Generally, it’s not that there’s any particular Discord discussions that are better-suited for the forum, it’s a view that many of our conversations on regional government and the like can get buried in long Discord discussion (whether their own, or subsequent other conversations), and this reduces both the ability to easily read-back and the ability of those not actually present at the time to read what was being discussed. As to community involvement, I don’t have particular limits (except those imposed by time constraints and regional security, ie much of FA) - one example I can think of however is further regional discussion on changes like the prospective Media-Culture merger, since one item of several in a campaign for Delegate isn’t precisely a mandate for it. Similarly, I think it worth thinking about how to involve non-staffers in the affairs of Ministries in this manner, like my Festival example.

Thank you thank you thank you.

Would you implement these awards through a legislative change or by delegate's prerogative?

Long-term, my ideal is legislative, so that the awards would be fairly set and less dependent on a delegate’s whims. I don’t know specifics right now, both because I don’t know specifically how I’d want it done & I want further regional discussion.

What are your thoughts on the NPA's current state and capabilities overall? Would you stick to the r/d stance outlined in On Alignment, or would you take things in a different direction, even if only slightly?

I think we’re well capable with what we have right now, but our numbers are a bit lackluster. I do believe I’d still be sticking to On Alignment broadly (I’ve been open that I consider it to be largely a description of what the NPA does rather than a policy change in it).

What if Stargate refuses?

Then they do, and hopefully we can find another solution, even if that does mean maintaining a permanent garrison.

Tangentially related, but what's your stance on government members being involved in multiple regions? Ambassadors aren't allowed to have residency/citizenship in their assigned regions as far as I know; do you think that's a good rule to keep?

I don’t mind government ministers being involved in multiple regions so long as their activity elsewhere doesn’t compromise it here (whether in literal activity terms, or seeking to influence for the benefit of the other). I’m neutral on the ambassador restriction, as I can see compelling arguments both ways.

Would you use HA's recruitment capabilities for any specific objectives, or would you prefer a more untargeted approach?

At the moment, more untargeted/status-quo

What's your stance on bringing in foreign authors, say to write some opinion pieces on areas of the game they enjoy? Have you considered resurrecting TNS as a separate publication from TNL? Why or why not? What are your thoughts on bringing back an image-based publication like TNL used to be?

I don’t object to bringing in foreign authors, provided they do good work. With TNS, I think current difficulties in producing one paper rather preclude the production of two. However, I do believe we should consider merging aspects of TNS into TNL more permanently - perhaps it makes a longer paper, but it might be helpful in a more permanent solution to the production problems in both. If the image-based portion isn’t terribly hard to produce, I have no particular objection - but neither do I see any particular need outside of it looking fancier.

Personally, I think that commending TNP isn't so much controversial as it is difficult to execute without being a self-commend in some way. Speaking of the WA, what are your thoughts on WALL's current membership? Do you think the body's procedures are fine as-is? Have you thought about expanding the organization's membership, as other candidates have proposed both now and in the past?

I think current membership and procedures are good, and while I would love to add more members I think it is fairly unlikely to happen - between the needed diplomatic connections with all current member regions essentially, and a dearth of potential new members.

 

[Pigeonstan]

will you change RMB Rules

 

[Lord Dominator]

will you change RMB Rules

Probably not

 

[Simone]

Your WA part of the platform intrigues me, LD. These are, I'm sure, things that have come up in different ways in the past but I'm glad you're bringing them up now.

1. I think the first think is readily doable, you'd just have to find the right place in the WFE's code.
2. I'm not a huge fan of the whole tit for tat thing, but I think it might be a good idea to engage with new partners in the area of the WA, just to see what's to do there.
3. I love the idea of utilizing a Declaration for Independence! I think it would actually be unique among Declarations for memorializing an IC ideology and not a one-off event or joke.

To follow on a little bit from Hulldom 's comments, can you elaborate a bit further on your plans for WA expansion and WADP? I know this is more of a vice delegate 's responsibility, but this is really the only part of NS where I am heavily involved. I am on the side of being quite keen to expand our influence on WA.

 

[kat]

Are you for or against multiple posts in a row on the RMB?

 

[Lord Dominator]

To follow on a little bit from Hulldom 's comments, can you elaborate a bit further on your plans for WA expansion and WADP? I know this is more of a vice delegate 's responsibility, but this is really the only part of NS where I am heavily involved. I am on the side of being quite keen to expand our influence on WA.

I don’t have specific plans as such on WADP. In terms of general WA stuff, I do like the attempts at onsite WA voting in a manner that counts towards the Delegate’s vote - provided we can ensure that those results don’t just duplicate the IFV/Delegate vote and are reasonably restricted to TNP people. You’ve otherwise seen some of my proposal for matters relating to writing.

 

[Lord Dominator]

Are you for or against multiple posts in a row on the RMB?

Generally against - either edit or wait for someone else to post (shouldn’t be long). If it has been awhile or your two posts are very different, sure that’s more reasonable.