I write this from a position of inexperience, but perhaps it is that very inexperience that makes this so important, at least to me. Increasingly, members of our community have begun to express concern over the activity levels within our Assembly. Questions have been raised on the validity of mentorship programs, the method in which new members are brought into our ranks, and as the title implies, how active the Assembly is in matters such as healthy communication with our elected officials.
An issue that some may see as minor in relation to these issues, or perhaps as something that would be naturally solved alongside with them, but that is nonetheless important to me is the problem of unopposed elections. It should not come as a great surprise that a democracy cannot be healthy if only one person steps up to run. As we discuss the ways for us to encourage participation in this level of government, it is my hope that we’ll take the time to consider encouraging those among us who may wish to prove themselves in the higher levels of government.
I agree. It has always been a concern of mine since I became Minister (and even before when I was thinking about this possibility) to bring new people into the Cabinet. Maybe, but just maybe, the big issue is people’s “fear” (and from my own experience); taking office on a role as someone inexperienced is scary, to say the least. Like I said, it’s my experience, and maybe it’s not the rule, but I believe that at least some people feel this way. That’s why I did the thing with the Secretaries, I think this is a good way to integrate people into the government and gives them the opportunity to see how things work without necessarily place on them the responsibility that a Minister has.
I think the Assembly can help citizens to enter politics, but there are also non-legislators who I believe are very interested in this.
I don’t know if I would call it fear, at least in my personal experience. More like recognition of one’s own inexperience / potential incompetence. But I broadly agree with this sentiment.
In my mind, the thought process has gone something like this: (1) I’m too inexperienced to run for PM without first serving in the Cabinet; (2) I’m too inexperienced to serve in the Cabinet without first having some understanding of the ministry I would be running; but (3) there are few readily available ways to gain experience / understanding of a ministry outside of serving in the Cabinet itself. So no progress is ever made. (Which is why I commend your efforts with the Secretaries; that program begins to address issue (3)).
In the past, I’ve seen folks respond to these concerns by saying something like–“Well, you could just volunteer. Ask the Cabinet minister to get involved / how you can help out.” I don’t entirely disagree, but I have two problems with that response. First, it doesn’t really seem to be happening. Whoever’s fault that is, the reality seems to be that if we want folks to get involved with ministries, then it is the minister who needs to take the initiative. Second, I can see why people don’t just volunteer. If one doesn’t know much about the ministry in the first place, it’s hard to know what sort of projects would be worthwhile to volunteer for. And it’s natural (even if sometimes incorrect) to think that if the minister wanted help, they would have asked for it.
I’ve been a big proponent of creating opportunities for people to volunteer with the Ministries, but I get why people may be skeptical considering previous attempts. I think some people just need that encouragement to join. Since, in most cases, the people who have a network of friends here to encourage them are those who already joined the higher government, really the only person left to do it would be the Minister
I think “joining a ministry” is well-intentioned but sometimes incomplete — ministers shouldn’t just advertise opportunities to gain some new title of ministry member or staffer or fellow or whatever you want to call it, they should advertise things to work on. Maybe those are projects with a relatively fixed timeframe that don’t need some long-running deputy system — “we have a month until Coalition Day to plan a festival, and are looking for volunteers to help out.” Maybe those are tasks where we are looking for something more long-term — “we have our welcome dispatch that needs to be routinely updated.” Maybe we’re even looking to develop future leaders in our community — “we could use some help with policy-making and project development [to quote Kris from months ago] and are looking for deputies to pass on knowledge to.”
Ultimately, just joining a ministry doesn’t guarantee any of these things. I think being able to say “I joined a ministry and was added to its Discord channel” is a lot less meaningful than “I planned the schedule for our 2024 Coalition Day celebrations” for both that individual as well as others to feel greater confidence in their ability to serve in the Cabinet or run for office.
When I first joined the Minister of Culture as… uh… whatever the assistants were called, I recall it being more like a place for people to create their own events and then get Ministry feedback on them. A potential alternative to Ministers getting help from the community for specific projects could be helping members of the community work on their own projects in the field, although that wouldn’t work for every field (I doubt the MoD should be helping people to set up their own private militia )
Forgive me if I’m gravedigging, but I’d like to give my two cents about this.
Speaking from personal experience, I understand why a lot of people aren’t more active in government or just in general. I know how it feels to be someone who’s “afraid.” In many ways, I still feel it. Not knowing where to start or having some sense of direction contributes a lot to this feeling. Forgive me if I get things wrong here, but perhaps abolishing the staffer system was a mistake. I understand concerns about joining purely for bragging rights, but the staffer system was an easy gateway for lots of people (myself included!) to be more active in government and be more familiar with how it works.
When I first became active in TNP, I was afraid to do things purely because I might mess up. I took very careful steps just so I would avoid making mistakes. Of course, mistakes are inevitable and, in some cases, even beneficial, so that we can learn from them, but I think that the prospect of making a mistake and being judged for it is a driving factor in why people don’t do more. It certainly was for me. I know that public scrutiny or criticism is unavoidable. It’s beneficial for a healthy democracy! Being a public servant myself, though, I see why it makes some people hesitant.
Inexperience also restricts people’s confidence in their ability to do things. Some people believe they need to “learn more” before they deem themselves worthy to try for a certain position. It took me eight months of being a deputy speaker to finally run for speaker. Back then I didn’t really have the confidence to lead a team of deputies and be the front face of the Speaker’s Office. I see this a lot from other people too, including close friends. It takes a while to shake that feeling off.
I think how we attempt to hold our officeholders to account also plays a role.
Sometimes, the questioning can be a bit sharp, especially if the person is a first-timer in holding office. Even some more veteran officeholders face sharp questioning that may be seen as overly critical or sharp to a newer player looking to get involved.
I by no means suggest that we should curtail or stop holding our elected officials accountable, but I think it is important for those who do wish to serve that function to tread a fine line between getting the answers and being too blunt/direct in asking those questions.
I only joined the Ministery of Culture, but from what I remember it was basically something where you could help work on upcoming MoC events, or get help running your own event under MoC (back then I didn’t realize you could just do stuff on your own, I thought you had to do it through MoC)
From what I know, it was a system where a ministry had people to help it out (staff), not just the minister themselves and/or their deputies. I’m pretty sure it was something similar to what we have over in TNP, if I remember correctly. Tasks varied from ministry to ministry.
Staffers were abolished because the system had grown way too burdensome to maintain and far too bureaucratic for what is supposed to be an online game. @KrisKringle had a solid idea about how a staffing system should be run, but we (the community and the government) have yet to implement, partially because nobody’s got the energy and time to try it and fail, I bet.
I want to reiterate my general support for seeing Kris’s idea given a proper effort and that probably the person in the community I’d be most excited to see run for PM is Kris.
Just so I can disabuse myself of any misconception, is this the mentorship idea everyone has been talking about all this while?
Personally (speaking purely as a citizen), something “do-able” from a government perspective (seeing as I don’t think many experienced people here have the bandwidth to mentor all the time, and there’s some resistance to the idea of “staffers for the sake of staffing”) would be involving new and interested citizens in various ongoing government projects, like what Silva has done with his secretaries for Culture events and I have sort of done with recommendation-writing in OWL. The process could honestly be as simple as just “asking for contributors/volunteers” when starting a project.
I know this would be a really big uptaking up-front, but I think making a sort of “read-through mentorship” could perhaps be useful. We could compile a lot of the important information from mentorships in it and direct anyone interested in learning more about that field to it. It would allow people to go through the mentorships at their own pace, whenever they want to, and give them something to reference in the future if they need a refresher. Then, if people have further questions, that indicates genuine interest in the topic, and should be easier to manage than walking them through the entire mentorship.
Since this is a talk on our inactivity, I think it’s important that this topoc remains, well, active. I’ll try to post here again later, and I’ll be dropping a link on the discord whenever I’m able to as well
Well @Griffindor, I’m not about to let your Fortnightly Briefing be the final call on whether this discussion is dead or not! So, this discussion started out about a potential reasoning for people not feeling comfortable running for office (perceived inexperience) and transitioned to a solution for that (mentorships). I want to circle back to another comment that was made about the way we keep our elected officials accountable.
I’m grateful that HumanSanity has consistently stepped up to do this exact thing when no one else does, but I don’t think it’s healthy for the assembly to be relying on a single person for that. Rather, I think we should consider ways to encourage more people to ask questions of our government sooner. I remember some conversation about the potential for the State or the Assembly floor to become a stage for questioning back when Drew was in office, so that could be a good starting point.
I also think we should put more emphasis on communication during our upcoming election season. Ministers should not be afraid to ask their Prime Minster for advice or help, Prime Ministers should understand that it’s their responsibility to keep frequent conversation with their Ministers and the Assembly, and Legislators and Citizens should not think it’s out of line for them to talk with or criticize the PM and Ministers.
Something that I don’t appreciate, although I recognize this will be rich coming from a guy who’s been in government for a year and a half, is that the pressure from the Assembly on holding the government accountable is incredibly erratic and can feel random at times. We will be cruising along doing fine for a month or two before two, three, four people start to dog on us for accomplishing (or not) certain things that were in the platform or in public communications.
If the Assembly could maintain a consistent pressure, or at least not be so intense that government ministers get disillusioned with being in government and just don’t want to deal with all of it, then that would go a ways towards convincing newcomers they could do these jobs too.
I think a good step would be to encourage people to take notes, or at least pay attention to what’s happening in the Cabinet, and then organize something like a monthly interview with the PM and Ministers to let people get their questions and criticisms out of the way. We’d then also have a very clear timespan to see how/if they have improved and if promises are being met.
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