[2416.CN] PM Penguin's Cabinet Appointments

Assembly
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In light of the brief discussion that has taken place within the Private Halls of the Assembly surrounding the appointment of select individuals nominated by the PM to serve in their Cabinet. The Chair has accepted a motion by two members to move the debate threads for each nominee to the public area of the Assembly’s sub-forum. Noting that previous appointment debate threads have also taken place within the public halls of this Assembly. I see no problem granting their request.

Each individual appointment thread has also been combined into one for the sake of simplicity.

The nominees for @Penguin’s Cabinet and their respective portfolio are listed below:

  • @ProfessorHenn as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs

  • @Silva as Minister of Culture

  • @Vrigny as Minister of Defence

  • @lordnwahs as Director of the Office of World Assembly Legislation (OWL)

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What is the role of a Deputy Prime Minister exactly?

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Hi everyone, I am honored to be nominated for the position of OWL director by the PM. I will cover what I intend to do for this term, and I am more than happy to answer questions from citizens and (especially) other interested WA/SPSF members of the Coalition.

As Penguin has made clear:

I share the PM’s vision for the OWL, and I will detail what I have in mind, if I am successfully nominated for this office.

Short-term actions:

For the most part, the key functions of the OWL will remain as it has been in the past under recent OWL Directors/PMs. That is, when there is a good reason (e.g. security-related) to direct the Delegate and recommend the WA/SPSF membership of the region to vote a certain way on a resolution, this direction and recommendation will be communicated on the TSP Discord. Otherwise, I will post voting and debate threads on the TSP Discord to determine the Delegate’s vote on a particular resolution.

The key difference (compared to recent months at least) would be a concerted effort to reach out to interested WA/SPSF members who may not be on the TSP Discord yet, or may not have had the time to check the TSP Discord to appraise themselves of the current OWL recommendation/voting thread. This will take the form of regular dispatches gameside and promoted on the RMB, as well as posts on the regional forum. I am currently considering the option of using telegrams gameside as well, but I am open to feedback on that.

Medium-term plans:

I think one of the broad concerns that members might have is whether the OWL under my leadership can reasonably post information for voters (IFVs for short) on every resolution, given my (relative) lack of GA/SC expertise. While there is no statutory obligation to post IFVs, I think this would be a valuable service that the OWL could provide, and my aim is to build expertise in this region to write IFVs for every resolution at vote/queued so that WA/SPSF members will have an accurate summary of what they are voting on, and why the OWL is recommending a vote one way or another.

For one, there is actually no shortage of members engaged with TSP in one way or another that have a wealth of GA/SC expertise, including allies that may not be resident in TSP. I intend on tapping on this wealth of expertise where appropriate. I also intend on implementing a OWL volunteer system (fancy acronym to be decided at a later date), where interested TSP members can volunteer to draft IFVs on resolutions and be publicized for their efforts.

My aim is that by the end of my term, we would have made good progress on a system where IFVs can be published for every resolution.

Long-term vision:

My vision is that an active WA culture can take root in this region. TSP is a region that has so much influence on WA votes, with the size of our WA membership as well as the incredible endorsement count that our Delegate has. I believe that active WA culture, where resolutions are debated actively and robustly, can only serve to amplify this influence, and it is my hope that my actions and plans, as detailed, will bring us on the right path towards this vision.

On that note, I am also thinking about how the volunteer system that I detailed earlier can be augmented to build a resolution-drafting culture in the region as well. Resolution-drafting, without a doubt, is an intimidating process, but currently-active members of the region have had success drafting resolutions in the past, and I want to tap on their expertise where possible.

Conflict of Interest Declaration:

I am, of course, a citizen and legislator in TSP. My WA nation (Differences-in-Differences) is resident in TSP. I am currently a citizen of TNP, where I was formerly a minister and a speaker about 10 years ago. I am currently an executive staff (volunteer) in several ministries in TNP, namely Culture and Home Affairs, but I don’t intend on being active or renewing my executive staff membership in any ministry in TNP once successfully nominated. My full energy on NS, besides usual citizenry-related duties, will be directed towards my work in the OWL here in TSP.

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Hello dear Legislators and Citizens. As previously mentioned, I was nominated to occupy the position of Minister of Culture, something that, I confess, I had been eyeing for a while.

Anyway, here we go:

Interviews: Interviews with people from the TSP, initiated by the former Minister of Culture and now Prime Minister, Penguin, will continue. As himself/herself said:

New Competitions: new competitions will come, if there is enough time, two are planned. If it becomes too difficult to organize the polls (as we will both need it) with MoOSE, I will see if it is viable to do it another way, perhaps through a poll site.

Discord: I will admit that I don’t have anything concrete for events on discord. Part of this is due to technical issues with how these events would be hosted, as I see something much more interesting being done “live”, maybe something like a “Game Night”, but, If I extend it here, we’ll get to…

Secretaries: I want to recruit “Secretaries of Culture”, people who will assist me as Minister of Culture. If everything goes well and plans go as planned, there will be events directly linked to Discord. The secretaries will also be responsible for giving ideas, regardless of whether they think this will happen or not, it must be debated.

Main Goal: I’m not going to lie, but my main focus here is on the RMB. I have always had a great affection for this part of the region, but not only that, this is also the gateway for many, especially newcomers. I want to see an active and engaged RMB, I want to see new people interested in politics and maintaining the region’s “main page” is, in my view, essential. I believe that an active RMB in itself is an important and much-needed step. I want people to feel that the government, especially the Cabinet, is part of the region, not something disconnected. I will maintain constant contact with both RMB and Discord, as well as the Assembly.

Conflict of Interest: Citizen and Legislator (of TSP only), SPSF member, DAC member. My WA Nation was in the service of Tidal Force when the site was last up (just like all my other alts, just reserves for SPSF in general).

As is imaginable, new ideas will probably come as the term progresses.

Thanks for reading, I look forward to your questions!

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Greetings, y’all! I have been nominated to be Minister of Defence by PM PenguinPies, a position I look up to considering my involvement with the SPSF along the years. Although I have been part of TSP’s great army as a simple soldier, I still believe that doing the job of MoD is still possible for my capabilities and experience with the SPSF! If any citizens, members of the SPSF, or legislators have any questions for the objectives or ideas for my term, I will gladly respond.

Just as Penguin said:

While “awesome” is a pretty general and subjective word, I guess that I can only agree with our PM in this. I understand the SPSF being awesome as, keeping up the activity and engagement of its soldiers, and maintaining our presence in liberations, be it minor, large… I will proceed to explain some ideas in some detail now.

Keeping up the Activity: My main focus for the SPSF these four months are to keep its presence in military events: liberations, detags, defenses… with the posibility of recruiting and training new members who may join the SPSF in order to ensure that the SPSF remains as one of Nationstates’ most reliable, active, and largest liberation armies.

Tidal Force Ideas: I am mostly talking about activity of the Tsunami Force in the previous paragraph. However, in order to truly ensure at least some activity from the SPSF even when members are busy with other factors, I would suggest a buildup of the Tidal Force as well. This section of the SPSF mainly is focused on doing “slow” detags, in which members don’t even have to be present at the moment of the NS update. I will be honest when I say this, and I still have to talk with the Tidal Forces coordinator to see how feasible this idea could be, but it is the following: In the event the Tidal Force gets some more soldiers, it could be divided into a “Team A” or “Team B” (it could also be named regiments, or something fancier). With this idea, the Tidal Force would be able to liberate more than one region at a time, although the nations involved would only have to respond to their corresponding team, to keep it as simple as it always has been for them. This would have to depend on the establishment of a second Tidal Force coordinator, or captain, which could be subordinate to the existing one, in order to coordinate efforts.

Recruitment and Training: I have written simple ideas about the two main forces of the SPSF. In this paragraph, I would like to expand on my intention to keep up an effort in recruiting interested TSP residents and citizens into the SPSF. After all, an army is nothing but some fancy thought if it doesn’t have soldiers who proudly participate in it. This recruitment could be done by messages in the TSP RMB board, direct telegrams… I would gladly recieve any ideas, though! However, after the recruitment of new members, their training would be essential in order to keep their interest in the SPSF (what fun could joining an army be if it seems like they’re not doing anything?). For this, the activity into even minor liberation activities, mainly over in the discord and Libcord, would be good to keep the thought that the SPSF is, and always has been, an active army that is interested in all of its members, and is glad to have them.

Keeping in contact with command/Notifying Early: Finally, this is obvious in order to lead such liberations, but I intend to keep contact with our captains and generals, and also other members of the liberation command. This will hopefully give the SPSF the intel when it’s necessary in order to prepare for SPSF intervention, mainly by giving out pings to SPSF soldiers hours before the actual liberation begins, so that they may know about the intervention beforehand.

Conflict of Interest Declaration:

I am a Citizen of TSP and a SPSF Ensign. I’m only currently a citizen of TSP, although I will note that I was a citizen once of TNP over 8 years ago. I have only ever been a member of the SPSF (since August 2022), although I got more involved in 2023 and currently. My last WA nation was used in part of a liberation some days before NS went down. All my NS-related activities are SPSF or RP-related (on the TSP forum). I will mainly focus my time on NS on the latter and MoD duties, and depending on free time and how busy some periods in the term may be, I will keep up my RP, mainly just keeping my general presence as a citizen of TSP.

These are just some basic ideas. Nothing the SPSF hasn’t ever done. As the term goes on, I may end up with newer ideas or plans, and I will say that I’m always open to suggestions by members of the SPSF.
Thank you all for your time reading this! If you have any questions, do not be afraid to ask!

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Who has been appointed MoOSE?

How will this be different from the staffer system?

Do you think an “active RMB” is a “much-needed step”? I thought it was always bursting with activity.

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The current MoOSE will continue in his role, according to the Prime Minister.

I honestly don’t know how the employee system currently works (or used to work), but if it’s as I think it is, there will be no differences, but I can guarantee that there will be constant communication and exchange of ideas. I want them to be future Ministers, not just of Culture, but I want them to be interested in politics in TSP and hold positions in the Cabinet.

I guess it depends on what you consider “activity”. When I said active, I basically meant more messages, discussions, new faces (even more) and people really engaged with the region.

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Where did they say that?

I guess I’m struggling to understand how the RMB can possibly be lacking in “more messages” when the place basically bursts with posting all the time.

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Will have further questions when I have more time to type, but I would just follow up on this to ask: could the PM post a list of all proposed Cabinet ministers, including those who will remain in post from the prior term?

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If I’m not mistaken he mentioned this in his campaign, and I also asked him via discord, but perhaps only the Ministry remains.

Well, even if there really is high activity in this sense, I don’t see, or I see few, people really engaged with the region, especially in the political sphere.

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How exactly is communication on Discord less “live” than on other platforms?

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I hate google translator. Basically, I wanted to say that via Discord I find it much more interesting if we have events broadcast live, with real-time interaction. Like Gartic Phone or something. Of course, in theory, it wouldn’t be a requirement to turn on the microphone, but it would be a tool, so I think it would be cool if we used it.

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Greetings. Thank you to the Prime Minister for their confidence and support in this appointment. I will do my best.

I’ll keep this in brief, to attack the broader plan over the next few months, but my focus will be on FA more than on being Deputy PM. To answer Pronoun’s question, it’s what the Prime Minister and I decided on for me since I was advising her on more than just foreign affairs and we had a broad alignment of the strategy that we wanted to implement for the term.

That said, here’s my goals for this term:

  • Expand current relationships with InterLeft and non-GP aligned regions. Primarily we’ve engaged in bilateral discourses with these regions/alliance to cover areas of policy we’d like to collaborate on, and have sought to perform more cultural events for cross-membership communication and the building of interpersonal ties.
  • Continue work on an Aegis project concerning raid prevention. While we have a dispatch (that is currently unavailable) about the topic, we can continue to make tweaks and perform more outreach on defending against raids. Defenders have had a bad run of operations lately, and we have to keep up the press on recruitment and FA work to better help us in liberations.
  • Facilitate ongoing integration discussions. We’ve recently had some conversations that have rekindled a flame to get our integration infrastructure and plans back onto a solid track, and I’d like to see those continue so we can achieve something of a group consensus on what needs to be done. One person isn’t able to do everything, but we can spread the workload out among quite a few folks so it’s both manageable and possible for many folks to get invested in the end product.

Standing by for questions, as always.

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For the MoC (@Silva):

  • What about festivals? Your term coincides with Coalition Day, Defender Day, and Independence Day. I don’t believe we had celebrations for any of these last year, but in previous years we have.
  • What about roleplay? Since there is no longer a Minister of Roleplay (unless I’ve missed something) then the MoC will take on the responsibility of helping the roleplay, as before. We were just getting something going with TIR when the term ended, and I’m sure many people would love to see that continue.
  • Your main goal is more engagement/integration-related than culture-related. Why is this? Shouldn’t the main focus of the Ministry of Culture be culture?
  • I feel your focus on the RMB and neglect of the forums and Discord is detrimental. While I do agree that in recent times, the RMB has been neglected by the MoC (tbf everything has been neglected by recent MoCs), overcompensating by making the RMB your primary focus when there really isn’t that much to do with the RMB culture-wise will lead to a bit of a weak term. No question here, just a statement.
  • I can understand not having ideas for events on Discord, but the excuses you added on seem quite weak. After all, when I was MoC, we had several weekly events. I would be fine with a trimmed down version of this… like, perhaps, bringing back Theme Thursday.
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Could you elaborate on what these two categories of regions comprise? And why is it preferable to expand our current relationships with them vs. regions outside of these categories, which, I assume, would include GP-aligned regions?

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I will certainly talk to former Ministers (especially of Culture) to find out what was done in other years and think about what can be done this year. I’m not going to lie and say that I know what I’m going to do, because I don’t know, but I intend to do something about it, I just didn’t talk about it so as not to be sure.

The last time I saw something about it, the Prime Minister @Penguin said he would leave it open, so I don’t know how to answer you about that. I would rather have a Minister of Roleplay than have this delegated to me. I think it’s appropriate for him to respond instead of me.

I think that the Minister of Culture is one of the few Ministries that can have the capacity to have “Secretaries” and outline a path, in a certain way, easy, so that people can engage within the Cabinet. It is important to say that culture has not been left aside and will not be left aside. There will still be competitions and the like.

This is due to the fact that I’m not very used to Discord, so there certainly can be, and will be, flaws in this regard. This is one of the reasons for Secretaries. As for the Forum, I honestly don’t see how the Minister of Culture would work on it, but I’m open to suggestions.

Believe me, I want there to be events on Discord too, and I will do my best in both that and bringing events to RMB.

One thing I want to tell everyone is that there will be failures and mistakes, that is undeniable. Part of this is due to my inexperience, but I will not fail to communicate anything, whether to the Cabinet or to the Assembly, on the contrary.

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I want yall to know I see your questions and will answer them as soon as I am able. (Probably later tonight)

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What is the role of a Deputy Prime Minister exactly?

Henn will be there to support and advise while still doing his FA stuff. If for some reason I am unavailable for a day- Henn would be up to bat.

MoOSE was a misunderstanding on my part. I am still looking for someone for that role.
MoI is still something I need to get going, but I think I have a person in mind for it.
RP is still in the air as well.

I think that is everything?

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What role do you envision for a Minister of On-Site Events, given that your nominee for Minister of Culture has stated their main focus would be on the RMB? I know they mentioned collaboration on polls, but what would the on-site events portfolio consist of other than that?

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There currently is no one in that role and there may not be. I know I have a number of new faces in the Cabinet but I believe in them and think that it will be good.

After all - I will be here to pick up the slack and to help where and with whatever is needed.