Please don’t associate my resignation with anything else. This was entirely a personal decision that wasn’t influenced by anything Henn did.
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I know, that’s why I linked your post. Still, it’s catastrophic
In your resignation, you mentioned losing interest in being the OWL Director. Was there any communication between you and the PM on that matter, or any notice that you’d be resigning?
She notified me last night of her intent to resign, and indicated that she’d write her own resignation statement.
Indeed, and I’m taking responsibility by recognizing that the selections I made then do not mesh well with the plan this administration will have moving forward.
I’m not going to call you Silvae still, so I definitely will ask that you respect others by properly spelling their names. It’s a personal slight otherwise.
If there’s not a need to fill a spot, then I won’t fill a spot artificially. Integration does not need a minister to accomplish the tasks it needs to, Roleplay under the current administration has accomplished very little, although Robby is working on their proposal to restructure how it has done business, and Culture is going to be focused on things that I’m already working on.
You are welcome to ask them if they feel that it was unfair. What I received after notifying them of my decision was a general sense of understanding of the decision, and that it was either coming up anyways due to RL or was a fair decision due to the current workload.
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I was refering to the current Ministers
Then why fill them in the first place?
You keep talking about personal responsibility. And that is true. There were mistakes, and I’ll admit they were on both sides, but the position you hold and I held require a certain amount of responsibility, and that requires more than just an “I’m sorry, my bad”. If you didn’t like what I was doing, that was your responsibility to tell me. I was a second-time Minister, still learning the ropes, but never once before yesterday did I have the impression that I was doing wrong, that I had missed expectations in some way. You failed, and I got punished for that.
I think it’s fair to ask you how you’re going to learn from this lack of proper communication, and what your plan is with the remaining ministers (though I suspect communication will be easier with two Ministers remaining). Additionaly, are there any plans to fill the OWL Director position?
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I don’t mean to be mean, but am I the only one who sees a contradiction in “second-time minister” and “still learning the ropes”?
The problem is that it just doesn’t work like that. Experience helps, yes, but there are some things that you need to be taught. 1 ½ terms is nothing compared to the political careers of some of our residents, I think it unfair to expect me to be on the same level as them. I doubt that’s what you were saying though, so let me explain it differently.
When I first became the MoOSE, it was my belief that that came from me expressing interest in eventually becoming the Minister of Culture. A year ago, I was a staff member of MoC and Ministers were still elected. It was my belief that gaining experience as staff was the path forward to eventually becoming a Minister. Since there was no staff anymore, over the summer I had asked about the programs we have (I forget the name), that are designed to teach residents how to do stuff, such as Assembly writing. Maybe I should have declined on the grounds of having no experience.
Looking back at my work, I no regrets. If back then I knew how it would end, would I do it again? No, I don’t think I could watch all my work pointlessly crumble to the ground. We had something good going here. What I’ve realized, however, is that I’m not the Minister to be bound to someone elses agenda. If I’m going to serve as MoC, the only way I can do that is my own way, not under the expectations of someone else. Maybe that sounds arrogant, and it probably is, but I believed I was chosen because of my ideas, not to carry out someone else’s. If this means I’ll never serve in the government again, fine. If it means that someday I get the chance to serve again, fine. Let fate be fate, I can live with it.
I’m not going to call you arrogant for this, but this does lends credence to the narrative that you were relieved of your position due to a difference in vision, as opposed your claims to the contrary. Under our laws, ministers aren’t just appointed by the Prime Minister — they are appointed under a specific role defined by the Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister is ultimately responsible for the actions of their appointed ministers. The Prime Minister is responsible for, among other things, implementing their electoral mandate and promoting regional culture, and that’s a responsibility that can not be delegated to any Minister of Culture even if desired. Regardless of how this went down, I think it is fundamentally reasonable for a Prime Minister to hope or expect ministers to follow the expectations of the person who defines their role in the first place, and who is on the hook for any exercise of executive power by ministers.
You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the system under which you were appointed. We no longer elect ministers with their own individual agendas, we elect a Prime Minister who then appoints ministers to enact his or her agenda. Of course there is an expectation that you as minister come with your own ideas and style, but that is all second to the Prime Minister’s directives.
Before wading into, well, whatever the actual fuck the rest of this is, I want to thank the Prime Minister for outlining the agenda you have set for the rest of the term. I look forward to seeing progress on these items.
Do you have any specific regions in mind for upgrading a consulate to an embassy?
I’ll try to segment the rest of this out (although these segments will be imperfect)
The Mystery Event 
Where was work on Legend’s other projects conducted? Have you reviewed this work previously?
Who is “we”? Where were this “we” showing their work? What was this “work”?
Were you close to the finish line or close to a date you had aspirationally set to be the finish line? Those are two different things.
There are two levels I disagree with this on.
First, substantively: is it exciting to be waiting for a present you don’t know is coming? I guess it’s nice when you just get a gift out of the blue, but people get excited when they get gifts for, say, a holiday or a birthday and the anticipation builds. Some secrets are reasonable – say, maybe a theme – but the entire thing, all its parts, etc. being secret … that just screams of being Schroedinger’s event.
Second, in terms of process: it’s one thing to not reveal the whole box, but you’re not revealing anything, even after you were sacked for this event’s questionably existent existence. Not to mention, it’s one thing if you keep parts of your event hidden from the public but why does the PM not seem to be aware of what the event entails? Were you ever asked about it? How did you respond when you were asked about it? If you were never asked, fair enough, that’s Henn’s mess up. If you were asked and you weren’t forthcoming with plans, that is a you problem.
Why did the project need to be “presented” to the PM? Why wasn’t the work-in-progress just…already available to the person who was the MoC’s boss? That would seem reasonable enough
You’re definitely right: big projects don’t happen overnight. I don’t begrudge that Legend was taking a while on a project. If there was a project genuinely close to completion, then the PM shouldn’t have caved when I started going “soooo what’s Legend doing” a few days ago and instead been like “HS shut up and in a few days it’ll be fine”. But, clearly, the PM didn’t feel the same way about whatever “big project” Legend was working on.
A side note on communications
Where are these screenshots coming from? They look to be from your DMs with the Prime Minister. I find this a little concerning, since it makes it harder for the records to be kept in an accessible place – for future Cabinets or Ministers and for public review. In general, doing things through “official” channels is ideal, otherwise we end up exactly where we are: a massive game of “Henn said, Legend said” that no one can actually document or demonstrate what was said.
“Different agendas”
This is an understandable position (although not one I entirely agree with as there’s obviously value to both - otherwise you wouldn’t be promising a larger HPFoF replacement event with our foreign friends in the second half of the term). However, a more pressing question at the moment is: when and how was this communicated to the then-MoC?
Communication by the PM within the Cabinet
Honestly, this is the most important part.
Why were you content with that? You’re the Prime Minister. The boss. Act like it. Give orders. Set a vision. Execute it. It’s fine if your vision isn’t a twenty step plan to save the region, it’s actually probably better to set deliverable goals rather than extremely lofty ones.
Did you communicate about that? How will you communicate about it better next time?
Honestly, Silva puts the takeaway really well:
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Presented to the rest. The Prime Minister was able to see every step of the process.
lol
Then what were those steps, besides picking a date?
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I’ll try not to expose everything, but here are some:
Define the quantity; what events would be involved within this; define the organization of each one and what each person within it had the responsibility to do; define the names.
I think what was really missing was the design of each part. Events would be added over time, even if Legend had already defined some.
That looks like a list of things that need to happen, not a list of plans that were already made. A wishlist isn’t a plan yet, it’s the start of a plan.
These are things that have already been done.
Were these things put onto a schedule? Were there graphics for the event prepared? Dispatches and forum announcements drafted? Feelers being sent out to generate hype?
It sounds like you were actually pretty close to the finish line, although we haven’t seen the materials.
Something has gotta give here. According to Silva and Legend, there’s an 80% done mega-event that had potential to really be a barn burner and the PM sacked Legend claiming they weren’t doing anything. According to the PM, Legend kept delivering on empty promises.
The PM should invite a trusted third party to review the relevant materials or should declassify them altogether so the Assembly can examine them.
We’re coming out of a turnover in 4 of 6 positions within the Cabinet. Maybe that was the right call. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe the issues the Cabinet experienced were something that “just happens”–after all, the PM can’t control inactivity in the Cabinet or Ministers who don’t want to act on the PM’s agenda. Maybe they were due to administrative neglect by the PM.
The relevant parties have already been fired. Right or wrong, the Prime Minister clearly thought that things weren’t working they way they should. Can we get real for a second and just let the region know what this mystery event was so that we, as your constituents, can assess for ourselves whether the event was even worth this much trouble?
It’s similar in nature to the Harry Potter festival that we do annually, or the very old Regional Games that used to be held here. Folks are assigned to a house, whose names were being worked on at time of release, and would accomplish a series of competitions, games, and minor events in order to win their team points. Some events that were being discussed (but were nowhere near to completion, to my eyes) was a short story competition, a worldbuilding competition, wargames based on a map, a poetry contest, a joint-house production of several short plays to be acted out, and several spam games such as Count to A Number.
I don’t know if graphics, an announcement, informational posts/dispatches were created/drafted yet, I haven’t seen any. I don’t personally feel that it’s ready to go in any sense next week, which was the original time frame that I saw (end of December).
Given the similarities between this and the formerly-HPFOF, now winter-themed festival, it would make little sense for us to partake in both simultaneously.
I’ve reiterated the agenda for the remainder of the term and I haven’t had issues in communicating with the remaining Ministers. I intend on hunkering down, completing the agenda outlined, swinging by the Assembly and Office of the Cabinet more frequently to give smaller updates, and writing up a turnover for the next PM. I don’t see a need for appointing any more Ministers, I don’t have a name for OWL Director and frankly don’t want to, since I also intend on proposing legislation to move OWL Director away from requiring an approval vote.
Silva’s takeaway implies that I ordered Legend to plan RMB debates, the art gallery, the Houses idea, when those were all his ideas from the start that I took no issue with making a government project. The art gallery wasn’t a success, the debates weren’t a success, and the Houses idea both overlapped with HPFoF and were a massive increase in scope and planning. There doesn’t need to be fancy graphics and dispatch code, but having something written up the day before announcing and the week before launch is crucial, and not having that while maintaining such strict secrecy over a culture project inspires no confidence in me.
Legend expanded the scope of this project to a semi-annual, even quarterly event before the discussion on what the final schedule and venue for the first iteration was actually going to be was held. It makes little sense to me to do that before seeing how this one pans out, especially since the last two events that were put on under MoC were not successful.
Including the discussions that have been occurring tonight, which Legend kicked off with “Alright people, obviously we got a massive fricking wrench thrown into this.” Unless the Delegate is taking up the mantle for it to get the word out officially, in which case I hope he notifies me beforehand, there’s not really legal room for announcing the Houses project via TG or dispatch.
We’re eyeing The Region That Has No Big Banks and Alcris, currently, for a consulate and embassy, respectively.
In the event the project was to move forward, you would, of course, be notified of that happening, especially if I were to endorse it moving forward.
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If I may add one thing to the record, let it be this. It was always going to be ran several times a year (thank you Pronoun, good catch). You know of the nature of this event, and clearly that isn’t sustainable if it’s only once a year. I would also like to say that the proposed frequency was three times a year, not four times. Not a big difference, I know, but if you’re going to talk about the event I would ask that you get the details correct. It is not so difficult.
I mean, what else would you call it? 