I do not intend to appoint any senior leadership for the remainder of my term. I think it adds an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy to a relatively small ministry, and since my personal philosophy on how the ministry works should be prioritizing staffer-led passion projects, I don’t see where a Senior Staffer or Deputy Minister (beyond mentoring the latter to potentially take over as Minister) would be of any major benefit.
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Hello, everybody.
I’m pleased to report that the new Cabinet has finally taken office. Many thanks to our predecessors, Purple Hyacinth, Sandaoguo, and Pronoun, for their dedication to the Coalition!
There’s a lot of stuff we have planned for this term, on all fronts. On the whole, we’re aiming to rework integration and breathe life into our community again, especially in aspects that have been neglected and laid to the side. Concrete Slab has plans for both our WA community, in building a strong one capable of writing excellent resolutions and recommendations, as well as recruiting for and promoting activity within the SPSF.
Maluhia, returning Minister of Culture, is working on culture calendars detailing events throughout the month, as well as several larger culture events. We’re cooking up some more inter-regional events as well, and I’m hoping we can make an announcement for one very soon. Griffindor and I are also continuing the work that Pronoun began with the Welcome Dispatch, as well as revamping how we handle integration into our community. A new mentorship program is in the works, and we’re hoping to see some more experienced South Pacificans engage with it to help guide our newer players.
HumanSanity is continuing their great work in Foreign Affairs, and is seeking MoFA Advisors to join them in the ministry. Some of their duties are to be engaged and active consumers of foreign affairs information, debaters of relevant NS current events, and to have both a high level of discretion with potentially sensitive information and limited-to-no foreign entanglements. Experience is not a requirement, just interest. Please reach out to them on Discord (HumanSanity#9270) if you are interested.
Concurrently with this address, I will also be issuing several Cabinet Orders. C.O. 25, concerning the abolition of the staffer system, might come as a surprise. I want to clarify that my intent is not to shut out any others from participating in executive work, but instead in restructuring how we go about introducing others to working in the executive, and in mentoring eager TSPers to be able to take over from the current generation in time. There will be other changes I will request be made, so that we can implement this more fully.
Our community has been in a slump recently, but our unique status in NationStates gives us an excellent opportunity to restore activity and engagement with our politics and culture. It’s our intention to take it.
Yours Truly,
@ProfessorHenn / Sporaltryus
Prime Minister of the South Pacific
Congratulations to the new Cabinet, and best of luck with all of your endeavors this term!
I’m excited to hear about each minister’s ideas for the term, but I’m also curious as to their plans for bringing those ideas to fruition. Could each minister (and the OWL director, though I suppose that’s included already) share their goals for the coming week and the coming month?
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I guess I will start off by saying as Minister, I would like to create monthly culture calendars. This is not only a goal for the next month but for the entirety of the term.
I know previous Ministers have embarked on a similar quest; the art of making calendars which detail events that are going on in the coming month. I will publish the February edition promptly.
In other words, I have been in direct talks with Prime Minister ProfessorHenn about some interregional events. I will spill the beans that we are working on a weekend event with TNP and TEP and you’ll see some more of that real soon!
Additionally, TSPride is coming up in June and I have already discussed some potential events we can hold and fun contests during the month.
Also, if you take a look at the forum event calendar, you’ll see some GeoGuessr games in the past (more to come soon!) and a movie stream coming up (I believe this is on the Discord calendar).
I’m not quite sure I follow — which of these are goals you aim to complete in the coming week? Which are for the coming month?
Just as a heads-up, I actually don’t see any (perhaps because the event is displaying “0 users participated”).
Well the culture calendar is for this coming week. Along with the planning of an interregional event.
Additionally, about the calendar, most of these events on the calendar might have passed and that’s why they do not show however I’ll revisit the tech side of that soon.
Hi, apologies for the delay. My platform is laid out in my campaign thread.
Overall, I have no goals in terms of negotiating new treaties this term.
My short term goals for the next 1-2 weeks include distributing a start-of-term Cabinet update to our Gameplay forum thread and to individual regions, ensuring the forum announcement of the recently signed Award Accords, and a successful Potato Alliance N-Day.
I want to express my gratitude to Prime Minister @ProfessorHenn who is facilitating an Aegis-regions-invited movie night in our server this upcoming Thursday, which will likely be followed by movie nights hosted by other Aegis members in their servers. I also am looking forward to the joint TNP/TEP/TSP games weekend this afternoon hosted which @maluhia has been running logistics for.
My medium-to-long term goals include seeing through the Aegis movie night event and facilitating at least one major Aegis military exercise this term.
Hello,
The Cabinet is seeking applications for the Legislator Committee.
Some of the major requirements are:
- 18+ in age
- Have relevant GP knowledge, including potential security concerns
- Attention to detail
- Tolerance for repetitive tasks
If you’re interested and have the time to perform LegComm duties, please reach out to @HumanSanity (HumanSanity#9270) or @anjo (anjo#3888).
As it’s been (just over) a week since then, do the ministers who haven’t shared their plans for the start of their terms have any plans to share for their second week in office and the coming month, or any updates on what they did during their first week in office?
Could have sworn I replied to this, then I discovered it was still a draft lol!
My plans for the first week went pretty smooth. My goal was to start with welcoming every player that came to the forums, and I have done that. Similarly, we have noticed an increase in the number of people welcoming each player that comes to the forums, so… progress!
The Prime Minister had a discussion, and will have more, as we work to develop a new mentor system to guide new forum users in their initial first weeks/months. Y’all be checking your DMs over the next few weeks!
Since it’s still technically engagement… the card program is seeing its first real interest in a very long time. I have already stated my intention for my ministry to steer clear of card farming and the like, but as needed, I can personally provide overall supervision of the program should it appear to need it, or if the project managers desire it.
My goals for the coming month will be the official launch of said mentor program. It’s success depends entirely on the members of the experienced community, so please consider joining if you meet the requirements (when they are released).
My other goal, will be the continued welcoming of each new player to the forums.
I am happy to answer any questions as they come! Sorry for the unintentional delay!
Do you view welcoming new players to the forums as a community effort or as something that a specific government official should be tasked with (or both)?
So… what changed your mind?
The Prime Minister, in their campaign, stated their belief that:
Do you have any plans with respect to this? And was this something that was brought up in your discussion with the Prime Minister?
It should ideally be a community effort. If we create a culture of welcoming new members and making them feel like they belong here, they will be more inclined to stay and contribute to the regions future.
The government, in my opinion, should ideally lead by example. If they don’t contribute toward the welcoming and integration of new players in the region then they shouldn’t be in government.
I still have not changed my mind. I do not want the MoE to become tied down in maintaining and implementing the card program should progress and enthusiasm slow.
However, if the players that work on the program remain committed and productive, then, should they desire, I would be open to being a liaison with the cabinet and providing an unbiased perspective in times of disagreement.
Thanks for bringing this up, it had slipped my mind when I was first drafting my post.
Our initial discussion was largely big picture and built around ensuring that the WFE only had the essential information and dispatches present. We have not developed any concrete plans as of yet, and will likely do so in the coming weeks.
Thank you for the follow up questions, I am happy to clarify things.
Hello! Sorry for the delay again, but here are my goals for this term!
My primary overall goal for this term as Minister of Defense is bolstering the numbers of the SPSF. In recent times, our region has seen a downturn in military activity, with many updates only having 1-3 SPSF members participating. What’s important is I don’t want to just increase the numbers, I want to increase the numbers while also having SPSF members being active and contributing to updates consistently. I’m happy to say we already have three new members of the SPSF this term, those being @Osheiga, @king.fenik, and @Evi.
Another overall goal is increasing the number of military reports posted. It’s important they are made light and fun to encourage newer members to join and to also get our brand out there. @Klysevia has been a big help in putting these out. I plan to continue making sure these are posted while also helping new members write a few so they can get a feel for it.
Furthermore, I would love to increase engagement with our Aegis allies. Most of this is under the jurisdiction of other ministries, but @Klysevia has a detag run prepared for Tuesday’s minor where I would love to have a large SPSF presence.
Thank you for your time, and I am excited to continue working with this Cabinet and for TSP!
Hey there! Just popping in here with a few brief questions:
- I still haven’t seen cultural events on the forum event calendar. Is that still a work-in-progress or no longer a priority?
- Given that cards are already being offered as rewards for cultural events, has there been any communication between those involved with SPACE and with those cultural events on how many cards we’re expecting to produce, or are we drawing from our ‘reserves’ with these rewards?
- Does the Ministry of Engagement plan to seek public comment or input before the launch of the mentor program? Or is the plan to launch it first, then adapt it to community feedback while launching it?
We’ll put larger cultural events on the forum and Discord calendar. This includes events like Aegis streams or larger interregional festivals. After a formal announcement is made, events like those will be added to the calendars.
As for regional culture calendars, there was a slight delay for the March edition for personal reasons however I’m posting that during this online visit.
The Mentor program will launch when the initial pool of mentors has been finalized. The program will then operate under its initial guidelines until such time as feedback (both ministry observed and community provided) on best practices can emerge.
Public feedback from experienced members and mentees alike will be vital for the eventual success of the project.
Hello everyone,
We’re now a month into the term, and I’m here to report on behalf of the Cabinet for the stuff that we’ve done, the things that we’re doing, and the places we’re going.
For Culture, Minister Maluhia has been very active in developing monthly culture calendars, highlighting the variety of holidays and otherwise bigger cultural events that occur throughout the month. Tomorrow happens to be Max Barry Day, so I hope to see everyone sporting a fresh copy of the 22 Murders of Madison May! He has also been running a successful, if difficult, series of GeoGuessr rounds for us on the forum, as well as leading the charge on an upcoming festival with some of our friends. Work will continue on all three as Culture is also hosting a TSP-only Hockey Tournament on the NS forums.
With Engagement, Minister Griffindor has been working behind the scenes on a mentorship program, meant to help guide new players into the politics and culture of our region and promote higher retention. I’m hoping we can roll that out in the very near future. We’ve also been continuing to tweak our dispatches and WFE setup, aiming to simplify it and make its maintenance an easier task.
Defense, led by the increasingly popular Concrete Slab, has been doing great. 4 new recruits, 4 returning soldiers, 104 defenses and 209 detags, with 16 soldiers participating in the ongoing siege of England. Special shoutout to Klysevia, the most active soldier we have who, at least by my count, have not missed a single update in March or February. The SPSF has been extremely productive, and I can’t wait to see what else we’ll accomplish after this siege is completed.
Foreign Affairs is a quiet beast, perhaps thankfully so. We’ve been more culturally and militarily active with our allies in Aegis recently, a trend I look forward to seeing continue and grow. There’s also another bit of good news with Aegis, but we’ll cover that another time. . .
Rounding things out, OWL has been extremely productive as well under the tenure of Director Concrete Slab, producing many recommendations (as well as the best one yet with Commend Nakarisaune, read it here if you haven’t already). The Office intends on writing a resolution or two in the next month and send it through the Partnership for Sovereignty once we’re done working on it in house.
Overall, a lot of good work was accomplished, with much more well on the way. If you have any questions, please ask them!
Yours Truly,
@ProfessorHenn / Sporaltryus
Prime Minister of the South Pacific
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I’ll definitely echo this — Slab has been an absolute pleasure to work with. The Special Forces have been hard at work and it’s always great to see new talent growing within our organizational structure.
I’m hoping that too! The Minister of Engagement posted on March 7 that the “Mentor program will launch when the initial pool of mentors has been finalized,” so I’m curious about what’s taken place in the ten days since. Has it been difficult to find potential mentors?
I’m also not sure why this work has to take place behind the scenes. Unlike some other projects from the Cabinet, the mentor program hasn’t received a topic here on the forums or a thread in #executive-planning on Discord. What’s the reasoning for excluding the mentors themselves, or the community writ large, from being able to share their ideas and contribute to bringing this program to fruition?
With the recommendations coming out, I think a section for OWL is a nice touch!
I’m more confused by the decisions regarding pinned dispatches. Was the CRS consulted prior to the SWAN dispatches previously pinned on the WFE being removed? Maintaining high cross-endorsement levels seems like an important aspect of regional security to me. Did the Cabinet and CRS feel that those dispatches were not providing a useful contribution to regional security?
(And apologies if those dispatches weren’t unpinned by anybody in the Cabinet — I’m just assuming that’s what this sentence is referring to.)
I’m also curious about the reasoning behind continuing to pin the 5,600+ word ‘NationStates Guide’ while removing these other dispatches. In particular, it seems the ‘Introduction to NationStates and the South Pacific’ dispatch has been unpinned — which has content tailored to our region and which comes in at only a fifth of the word count. What was the reasoning behind these decisions?
A topic has been created in the Cabinet subcategory for us to take a look at and provide feedback on, before the Minister publishes it and moves forward with the program. I expect that to be released very soon.
I removed all pinned dispatches that were directly linked otherwise on the WFE, to include “The Southern World Assembly Initiative” and “Endorse everyone the fast way!” dispatches, the tailored “Introduction to NationStates and the South Pacific” dispatch, and others. I did not reach out to the CRS concerning the removal of pinned SWAN dispatches. In addition, I’ve also elected to leave the “Mental Health Resources” dispatch up until a suitable replacement was made, as well as leaving Amerion’s “NationStates Guide” for its generalized outlook on the game, since neither have links on the WFE.
Looking forward to it! Though I’m still curious about why work on this program in particular has warranted this much behind-the-scenes work and secrecy.
I see the reasoning, though I’d still request that the Cabinet reconsider. Our formatting options are limited on the WFE, but pinned dispatches are displayed in a larger font size and a different font and can catch the attention of a viewer who might have glossed over the WFE. For instance, if we must cut down on dispatches, I’d argue that a dispatch with content tailored to our region is a greater priority to promote than content applicable to NationStates in general — especially when one was written with concision in mind and the other with comprehensiveness as a goal. We can always direct players in search of more general and comprehensive information to the guide, but it doesn’t have to be featured in large green text with the authoritative-sounding title of “NationStates Guide” at the expense of a guide tailor-made and maintained by our region that’s simply behind a link saying “start here.”