Minister's Opening Address - January 2023

Becoming the Minister of World Assembly Affairs felt like checking off a box in my "list of goals in NationStates". Maybe because World Assembly was the first major area I explored in NationStates, some 3 and a half years ago, and how MoWAA was really the first area in the Executive I was brought into, thanks to then-minister @TlomzKrano who saw me bashing WA proposals gameside and thought I could be a Deputy. And all that is exactly the reason why I have quite some opinion about the new player experience in TNP when that topic was raised by one of the newer players around. But let us leave that for another thread (and I will eventually put my thoughts down to paper there once I sorted them out).

At this point, I would first like to thank @Hulldom for putting his faith in me. More importantly, I would like to thank my predecessor @Chipoli for helping to maintain the foundations of this ministry, and also keeping up with the work of this Ministry, in spite of your rather busy schedule towards the end of the term. I would also like to thank my fellow Deputies during the term, namely @Caius, @Greater Cesnica, and @Simone_Republic. While I will let @Caius focus on his duties in the Ministry of Home Affairs, I will start off by confirming that Greater Cesnica and Simone Republic will continue to stay as Deputies for the new term. Please take your oaths

Now, time for the main content of this address - laying out expectations and targets.

1. Activity of the Ministry
Let me quote the Opening Post of the Executive Staffers Application Thread.

WA Affairs staffers assist the Minister and Deputies with developing voting opinions along with running internal operations and ongoing projects.

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In the MoWAA, rather than requiring lots and lots of manpower to deal with big events, we need people who are able to help with consistent effort over a long period of time. As of writing, apart from the 2 proposals on the voting floor, we have 4 GA proposals and 1 SC proposal at quorum or on track to reach quorum. It is therefore imperative for staffers to continue to remain active so that we can keep up with the resolutions and push out IFVs to WA residents in TNP and beyond. Which was why I did consider whether a specific roll call thread is required (in any case, there is one for existing staffers here, and you should fill it to stay on), since, well, such a roll call thread would probably only be a good count of staffing levels for the next 2-3 weeks, and not the entire term.

What I do want to propose is the notion of a "rolling roll call" - in the sense that staffers in this ministry would need to maintain certain levels of activity to stay on. Every MoWAA staffer should fundementally contribute to IFVs in some way, and help us keep up with the proposals there are on their way to the voting floor. With that in mind, I will consider making the following the basic requirements of being a WA Staffer:

1. Participation in every Voting Thread (with a For or Against)
2. Contribute to IFV writing by providing sound reasoning to your votes (either on Discord, or alongside your vote in the Voting Thread
3. Help to structure and tidy the reasoning for the IFVs on Discord
4. Be on the lookout for new resolutions on track to make quorum, and open the relevant Voting Threads should there not be one.

The first point should be a given, and forms the basis of the rolling roll call. The second point is something I hope to encourage in every WA Staffer. While this may not be possible at every vote (especially for more foreign topics/niche areas), it should be done as frequently as possible. With some leeway (since RL > NS), Points 1 and 2 will be reasons for removal that I will enforce throughout my term. Points 3 and 4 are things I hope staffers can help with. In fact, I think it is the experience of drafting your own IFV, and also getting first opinion on a new resolution (at its final draft during submission, not like the drafting phase gameside) that helps newcomers gain confidence about working with the WA, and also strengthen their reasoning skills so that they can come up with good WA drafts in the future.

All of this then ties into the point made by Hulldom during the campaign about an activity-based rewards system for MoWAA. While the Cards Ministry reviews the details of reviving the executive cards rewards system, we will conduct internal tracking of the activity levels of every staffer. I hope that when the cards rewards system comes back, we would be able to backdate some of the rewards to include efforts made at the start of the term, to thank all the staffers for their work in making each and every WA resolution easy to understand, and providing the IFVs to guide everyone in making the correct votes.

2. Gameside Presence
I mainly summarised this portion as to answering two questions - how do we connect to the WA voters gameside in TNP and let them have a say in the Delegate Vote? How can we help TNPers who might have an interest in doing more in the WA to join our ministry? The first question has been an issue that Hulldom was looking at when he was WA Minister, and we will look into resolving this issue in my term. We would look at other examples before us, notably TSP's WA Voting Center System (and that infamous incident of vote rigging), before coming up with plans on bringing WA votes gameside. The second question is something I would love to look at, given, well, my story at the start of this message, and we would explore if this should be done at the leadership level, or using Gameside Advocates, or a mix of both. While I can't present specific measures as yet, I will put this as a priority to explore over the next few weeks.

3. Cooperations, Mentorship Programme, and Guides
I grouped the remaining points under one section, simply because I think they are all related. TNP does have a bunch of people with experience in authoring WA resolutions, but it doesn't hurt to get more opinions from others out there. That was an original motivation for the World Assembly Legislative League (WALL), where we could work with experienced authors from Balder, Europe, Europeia and IDU to look at resolutions, share IFVs, and mentor new writers from our regions. But TNP has other partners. Other allies who also have their own WA agenda and talent. When we have a common topic to work on in the GA, we cooperate and come up with resolution(s) to resolve them. When we have a common target for commendation/condemnation, we can co-author a resolution to recognise the nominees. With co-authors now also getting their relevant recognition for their contribution in a proposal, there is no reason not to co-author work.

With that in mind, collaborations and cooperations would be something the MoWAA will be actively approaching this term. Previously, we had various projects, such as the Heroes of Valahalla, where we would look at writing commendations to recognise the efforts of various individuals in our regions' history. Aside from that, we will be talking to a number of other partners to see if we can work out a program for new resolutions, in the WA or SC.

Another aspect will be with regards to Mentorship Programme. The WA accelerator programme has always been sticking around in different forms, but I would like to convert it towards more of a mentorship programme for new aspiring writers. Such mentorship can take two forms - either asking senior WA staffers from TNP and beyond to comment on the given resolutions, or to partner these budding writers with a senior writer that can hand-hold them through writing a resolution, from researching to drafting and to voting. The updated WA accelerator programme will work hand-in-hand with everything else I have listed above. Finding an aspiring writer from TNP struggling in the gameside forums, then helping them get some direction, get them a mentor/co-author to help, and then to the voting floor - that is the ideal state of how things can flow, and how we uncover new talents for the ministry and WA as a whole.

For some people who might be newer, but don't have lots of time on their hands to go through a full mentorship programme, we will be working on a fuss-free guide. Written by experienced authors in GA and SC, from TNP and beyond, this would give them an idea about the resolution-authoring process, and point out some of the common pitfalls for newcomers in the World Assembly. The target is for this guide to be out by the end of the term, and it would be published somewhere gamesides for easy accessibility.

Hope all this gives everyone a clear understanding of the goals and targets for the WA Ministry this term, and that is all for now. Every month I will get a monthly review out, and we will use the monthly review to check where we are in terms of these targets and rationalise some of the plans we have.

Yours,
Fregerson

Addendum
I forgot to mention this in the message itself, but if any existing Staffers are interested in becoming a Deputy, I do have open positions. No prior experience required (I mean, I was a complete newbie when I was a Deputy), just a heart to learn and contribute to managing day-to-day affairs of the ministry. DM to let me know and we can have a talk.

Also if you are a non-staffer who wants to apply to be a staffer, please go ahead and apply if you have an interest in the WA (you probably have if you managed to navigate that text wall) and TNP residency or citizenship

Postscript I
To add experience to the leadership team, I will also be welcoming @Chipoli and @Magecastle onboard as Deputy Ministers. Chipoli is the former Minister, and needs no introduction. Magecastle, on the other hand, is an experienced WA author who has written numerous resolution, most recently being the Repeal and replacement GA#635 Religious Freedom Protection on religious freedoms. Please take your oaths.

I am expecting to add one more deputy. (Someone who heard about this plan joked that I was trying to beat the Speaker's Office in the number of Deputies). Unlike the previous ones, I intend this deputy to be a newcomer interested in WA matters, to be able to focus more on the IFV side of things so that the other deputies can focus on other projects coming up for the office. Again, like I mentioned in my addendum, I am still open to receiving any applications for the position.

Postscript II
Its the festive season in where I am, and therefore I was a little busy and overdue with certain of my targets, so I am here to review them all.

Firstly, going on that Deputy appointment. After spending a bit of time considering the candidates, I have decided to appoint @Nutmeg The Squirrel as my fifth deputy. Like I previously said, I intended for a relatively less-experienced person to learn the ropes, while working on making sure the IFVs and voting threads and released to all our WA Residents on time. Though they may not have much experience right now, I am sure experience on the job would allow them to learn the trades of the WA, and eventually, make their contributions on the WA scene. Congratulations to them, and a huge thank you to the rest which made their applications.

Secondly, as promised, I will be doing a purge of the current roster of Staffers. As of present, I will give a bit more time (with a Direct message Forumside & on Discord) to the users who are currently citizens/residents, but I will be removing all which do not have an active nation registered in TNP. For the record, they are: @Bachee @Bella @Bormiar @Chairman Meow @Cretox @Deropia @Epicurus @Gem @godpope @icarlo1808 @Kasch @khaszae1 @Morover @Notsgnik Eel of the DSC @President Connor @Satanelle

If these members think there is a mistake in their removal, they can reach out to me.

Currently, I am putting the Accelerator Program on a hold, with the intention to rebuild it to become more of a "pre-forums" guidance program and adding the mentorship option to it. This will be brought up with our fellow WALL counterparts before the revamp is released.