The OWL dispatches havent been updated in almost 3 years!
God knows whose informing the delegate what proposals to approve or whether to vote for or against.
If theres 1 thing we can agree on it’s that something needs to be done with OWL.
Hi, Delegate here!
I’m informed of how to cast my vote on the Discord channel dedicated to OWL. The WFE is also updated with the recommend vote action by the OWL Director, Prime Minster, or myself every time a new vote starts.
If it’s a matter of an old dispatch still being linked somewhere, then that’s something that the people who maintain dispatches will want to know about.
Perhaps @New-Halo is referring to this hub page: https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1396505? That links to “live” WA voting reccomendations that are indeed out of date, though I don’t know by how much. The newest dispatch from the OWL nation was 115 days ago.
Perhaps that could be better attended to? But I certainly don’t want to suggest that there isn’t an active system, the delegate is misinformed or anything like that. This feels like it only causes issues in the edge case that A) a WA member finds this page, B) the member doesn’t realize the bill it describes is not the one up for vote, C) the member somehow misses the discord, the reccomendation on the WFE and the vote preference of the delegate in the WA.
I’m also not convinced the assembly is the right forum for this kind of issue? Could be wrong, this just feels like the sort of thing to take up with whichever executive committee runs the dispatches.
I think the current OWL voting system on Discord is fine. However, it should be better advertised, as I, like @New-Halo, was unaware of it for a long time. In our last few votes, only 8 to 10 nations participated out of 679 WA nations. Additionally, the main dispatch should be updated, as it links to a page that still states:
“How to vote: When OWL staff detect a submitted or prepare-to-submit resolution proposal, they will post a notification on The South Pacific WA Voting Center”
(https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1385515#voting), which is no longer accurate.
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Speaking in my capacity as OWL Director.
I can work on updating the dispatches (probably need to coordinate with Viet on this) so people know how we actually determine votes. I think a lot of gamesiders don’t really know but… I suspect a lot of WA nations don’t really care either? Other regions (including TSP in days of yore) have tried involving their RMB with choosing how the Delegate votes and from what I can tell it rarely actually works out that well. Usually people just stick to discord/regional forums.
Also, I’ll add that my view as OWL Director is that OWL recommendation dispatches/IFVs are less effective than people tend to think they are at persuading voters. I tried to be active in pushing them for quite a bit, but honestly inertia aside my view is that they are too time-consuming to manage for too little return. I am thinking of maybe doing something more akin to what Ridgefield has (“next week in the WA” or something to that effect).
As long as something is done I’m fine with it.
Yea, just give me an outline of the content and I can write it. On the IFV thing, it should not be an obligation. We should just invite people to come up with them and if nobody does, we just don’t make one.
I’d rather have an automated dispatch system to a manual one, but barring that, agree with Nwahs that the work is not worth the reward.
Im sure rmbers would like to debate wa proposals. I personally would
You could really just join the TSP Discord if you’re so keen on discussing and participating. You’ve also posted your own proposal on our forums which is a start as well.
There really isn’t that big a demand for WA discussions RMB-side from past experience - it’s too cumbersome a venue for long-form discussions for one.
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Abolish OWL, free the Delegate to vote however they damn well feel. It’s one of the few benefits of the job.
#makeTSPfunagain
I appreciate that the Delegate’s vote is determined democratically, as it is primarily a ceremonial role. However, if OWL were to be abolished, which I strongly oppose, it would be more appropriate for the PM or the MFA to direct the Delegate on how to cast their vote rather than the Delegate being free to vote however they like.
#makeTSPfunagain
If this snowballs into the-thing-that-shall-not-be-named I want nothing to do with it.