What do you want the other parts of your cabinet to do? I see you only addressed OWL
Why have you, after stating the following quote, incorporated a AI generated image and video into your campaign (and for the image the same message)?
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If you are referring to the Constitution that the Pacifica had, then that’s where this statement derives from. The written constitution was an AI created document left by the guy who founded the region. I think there’s a fine line between pictures vs written content. A regional foundational document cannot be an abstract written by a computer.
Sure. I’d be happy to give a better and brief summary. Before I address the cabinet question. I want to highlight OWL and the Civil Service comments I’ve made.
If I am elected Prime Minister, there will be two major legislative proposals that will serve as my corner stone for the premiership.
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OWL Reform: I will send a bill to the Assembly to reform OWL completely. The details I can provide are making a World Assembly Ministry. We will keep OWL as a sub-department of the World Assembly Ministry. This new ministry will focus on writing GA/SC proposals, owning the initiative of increasing WA endorsements for our WA Delegate, work with the CRS to enforce endorsement caps, and continue the current OWL’s role. This will need to be quick as we have the GA Secretariat elections and the GA reset coming up quickly.
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Civil Service returns: I think we need a better organized program that will help us attract newer citizens to work in a ministry. Right now, every ministry has a loosely structured system but not necessarily organized. My first move when sworn in as Prime Minister, I will appoint a Civil Service exploratory commission to work alongside the cabinet to put together a plan that we can send to the Assembly to codify into law and implement into the executive slowly.
Hopefully this explains why my campaign is OWL heavy at least until July to get the reform completed. Then we will need to implement the changes in a methodical manner. Now onto the other cabinet plans.
Foreign Affairs: I will work with Welly to help increase our list of ambassadors, evaluate our current list of embassies, and look at the possibility of a Security Council Voting Bloc. The thing is with that, it’s tricky because we are very democratic when it comes to our Delegate votes. I’d really like to have the OWL reform completed first before I go further into the details.
Integration Ministry: I think we need to implement a better support system of getting the people who reside on game-side onto the discord and more involved with community engagement. Here’s where I might draw some eyeballs. I think the integration ministry should have a role in citizenship. I will work within the constraints of the law to role out a pilot program where the integration ministry will work towards speeding up the citizenship process. Now, I am not taking the Citcom out of the process. Instead, them and the forum administrators will serve as a secondary source to check the IP’s and whatever else goes on behind the scenes. We will make sure we keep a tight security posture, but let’s improve the efficiency. While we are working that, the applicant will have an opportunity to request for someone from the integration ministry to serve as their mentor to help them get started. I didn’t have this program option when I joined, but Welly was amazing with helping me get settled. I appreciated that and it’s what kept me here in TSP during that long stretch of no citizenship applications being looked at.
Culture Ministry: I love what they are doing! The RMB Poll Master, the releases of our monthly news, and the culture calendar is awesome! I don’t want to promise much changes here. I would like a culture festival with another region or two to help build on relations. But, I’ve made so many declarations, I don’t want to change much here.
Defense Ministry: Kind of the same thing. I think with the OWL reform, this will help cover my previous comments about us being one of the leading regions to help Libcord command with SC proposals. I’d like to push harder on recruitment and possibly tie this into the citizenship pilot program I want to bring in.
@olivrser I am making massive reform declarations. My premiership vision is about creating more opportunities for citizens to be involved with the government, establishing a better World Assembly culture, looking at improving the citizenship experience process, and being a unifying figure for all platforms TSP uses.
A mentoring system would take a lot of manpower and would likely need a lot of effort. Also, this would make CitComm even slower than it already is. Are you sure you would want to implement this? As a current MoI myself, I’d much prefer a very informal mentoring system where government officials go out of their way to help out a new player, not the Ministry of Integration taking a section of the citizenship application process to provide the same effect..
You seem to always echo Langburn’s statements, which is fine but… I really hate this idea and I’ll tell you why.
The biggest problem is flexibility. With our current structure, a minister can quickly appoint people who are active right now instead of waiting for formal procedures and other unnecessary bottlenecks (for a role with not that high of importance in the government). If somebody suddenly proves themselves capable, they can immediately be brought into the ministry and start contributing. Under a rigid structure, talent often gets bottlenecked behind bureaucracy. Also, with loosely defined teams, the Ministers have absolute control over allocating certain teams to specific projects.
A rigid civil service structure also tends to create unnecessary barriers for newer members. People may feel intimidated by ranks or requirements. A looser team structure makes it easier to casually join projects, help out, and gradually become more involved. It is generally a lot less headache to just have loosely defined teams. Our teams’ members, currently with the informal system, are much more personalized to each ministry and are much more casual. This is a much more preferable system in my humble opinion.
All I’ll say is that the last time we had Executive Staff/civil service, we had elected ministers. Why are we going back in time to where our government was much less effective?
What’s the point of this you’re reforming OWL to already be that way and have those responsibilities? This sounds quite unnecessary to me.
I respectfully disagree on this remark. The law for OWL doesn’t state that OWL has to make sure people are endorsing the Delegate, has to write SC/GA proposals, or anything extra. The job of OWL is to make sure WA members of TSP get the right to debate and vote so our WA Delegate has a direction to vote. Then we write an analysis stating why the majority voted that way. The bonus points I mentioned prior are because previous Director’s, and now myself included, felt we should expand on the duties. I can’t confirm this but someone said it’s been years since TSP has written and passed a resolution. Not to mention the Spider-Man pointing at one another meme of who should actually tell people to endorse the Delegate. Yes you can say OWL is doing exactly more than it’s required. That’s at the Director’s discretion. I can’t predict what future Directors will do. All I can tell you now is this is the current policy I’ve mandated is what I will execute during my tenure. TSP has failed our WA members drastically for a while based on research and conversations I’ve had. I’m not echoing that because Langburn has said that. I’m telling you from what I’ve seen in my tenure as Director. We owe them to be better. With my final product, we will help speed up delegate transitions, charge the ministry with more defined tasks and an unified umbrella.
A mentoring system would take a lot of manpower and would likely need a lot of effort. Also, this would make CitComm even slower than it already is. Are you sure you would want to implement this? As a current MoI myself, I’d much prefer a very informal mentoring system where government officials go out of their way to help out a new player, not the Ministry of Integration taking a section of the citizenship application process to provide the same effect..
I don’t think this hurt the citizenship process at all. With an active Ministry of Integration, just helping process citizenship applications will help immensely. The Citcom would do more of a security check after the acceptance or denial process. To solve your concern with the mentorship process, we will install it as a selective option for the applicant.
@xshotss To answer your question about the Civil Service plan. My idea is to form a commission to look into what each Ministry needs and could use help with. I agree. It needs to be methodically thought out and tested. That goes for a lot of my proposals. There’s also the Assembly to take into account for too. I’m not sure if the chill approach to how we hire people in ministries, WA Culture, or the lack of transparency between the game-side and here are really effective. The truth is TSP is way behind in the gameplay community. The S7 and other organizations kind of are doing circles around us. Not to mention we lack structure and that is a major concern. I’m going to admit this because I think I should. I am not looking to be a Prime Minister who provides instant gratification. I’m looking at a longer term plan. We want to compete with the big dogs of Nationstates, we got to start raising the bar and using our regional size to our advantage.
This is not the job, at least solely, of the OWL Director and what it is intended for. Encouraging people to endorse the Delegate can usually be an effort by the whole government, not by a specific ministry or the goal of a specific ministry.
I really cannot bring myself to agree with your OWL campaign at all. I simply do not see how making a whole new ministry will change anything, or benefit OWL at all, or benefit the region altogether. I also seem to be in the minority that OWL is doing way too much for what its purpose is. I don’t have a problem with OWL’s current traditional duties, but you are doing way too much with the other changes. Also, I don’t see much of a reason why OWL HAS to write SC/GA proposals, OWL is meant to mentor people into writing those, not really writing them itself.
And for the record, much of our executive is actually not defined legally (i.e deputies, actual specific ministers and their responsibilities). OWL is quite an exception to this in that it is. But that does not mean ministry duties are limited by law, nor that ministries are legally defined, nor do you need this whole song and dance of making OWL have a whole ministry. Adding this whole new ministry thing is only going to slow down our region even further, make OWL more bloated, distance itself from what it was originally going to do, and so on… I cannot in good faith support this.
I’d love to see said research you have. And what you mean by “failing our WA members”.
Again, this does not need MoI involvement in the citizenship application process itself, nor does the MoI have any authority to do so. The MoI, if it so wishes to implement what you are saying, can simply look out and reach out to new citizens to check if they are in need of assistance (whether that is included in welcome messages or anything similar).
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I take that as a compliment! I’m glad to see that people recognize the effort I’m putting in raising the bar for OWL in it’s current form. For the record, OWL doesn’t actually have to provide mentorship in writing proposals either. With us possibly unifying all WA Affairs under one umbrella will make life easier. I like to double down on several people have passed the buck on who’s supposed to encourage people to endorse the delegate. So I took on that initiative. The problem I see and why my reform actually makes sense is TSP grew comfortable with doing the bare minimum for WA Affairs. Now, I admittedly can’t say where or how that happened because I wasn’t here. But it’s so easy to recognize. By expanding OWL’s capabilities and scope will help immensely. We may not agree on the initial framework. I’m always happy to find compromises if it comes to that.
I was so praying you would bring this up! There are currently to date, as of today, 561 total WA nations in TSP. 435 endorsing Nwahs and 126 not endorsing Nwahs. Currently 148 nations have voted in the current GA resolution at vote. You wanna know how many people voted before our recommendation vote of against? 15 people voted. I could do some digging of how the other feeders are doing and try to track down our last resolution we wrote and passed. The few things I mentioned alone should make you say wow. 561 nations and 148 are voting. That’s roughly 26.38 percent. You know the percent for that 15? Try 0.0267%. That’s scary numbers. Partly why I have taken a very hardline approach as the Director of OWL.
Again I don’t think that’s being done is it? Does the applicant even know who to reach out to? I just find it weird how we are so nonchalant about a lot of policy items that could help us be better.
Now that we are all caught up. I want to take the time now to thank you all for questions, comments, and encouragement over the last few days. The declaration period is winding down and the polls will open up for you to cast your ballot. I hope you give me a look. Out of all the candidates running, I’m the newest member on the block. While that maybe true, I have the most aggressive campaign platform. What I offer won’t happen over night. It won’t be instant gratification. In fact, there will be the need to compromise with the Assembly and other members. That’s understandable. What I am offering is a long term vision that isn’t your typical candidate who is running in this election. I am hard working and been charging hard since I got here. I have given you my all to provide what I hope is a transparent campaign platform. I am not the most decorated or experienced candidate. I can promise you this. You want a Prime Minister who will strive to raise the standard and the bar in this region, I’m your guy. Do you want more transparency and gameside attention? I’m here for that too. Do you think an outsider that has spent a lot of time on the campaign trail who hopefully provided a comprehensive plan? I’m your man. It’s been a busy few days. But just know if elected, I am going to work hard for you on day one!
Good Phil’s Good Questions | PM Special Elections
I. Acknowledging the strong democratic spirit of our region, do you think that a strongly contested election such as this could reveal the fundamental differences in what TSPers prioritise when it comes to Government? What result would shock you the most, and how would you continue to advocate for your platform should you lose?
II. Pick one of the following outcomes to your Civil Service Factfinding Commission proposal, and write a short response detailing your action plan following that:
- That the Commission finds that while the idea is generally feasible and there is appetite for it within the region, the actual improvement to governance and standards would be too low.
- That the Commission finds that the idea is bad and while it may have marginal utility for integration efforts and finding and nurturing potential within newcomers, the security and logistical risks would outweigh any practical gains.
- That the Commission finds that the idea is overall good, and with effective Executive Management, would revolutionise talent integration, activity within the region, and improve work output and better timelines for delivery but there is no appetite for it within the region’s members.
- That the Commission finds that the idea is excellent and that it should replace or strongly complement the Deputy Minister system already in place.
III. You have said that you have reached out to nations via Telegrams. Have you transparently disclosed the contents of such Telegrams and would you, for the sake of posterity, and to avoid any untoward implications, affirm that you have not unduly encouraged citizens to vote for you through generally inscrutable private communications?
IV. You’ve tackled questions and challenges to your bid based on your supposed inexperience. What is a relevant and required threshold for people to make a serious bid for the Premiership, and why?
That said, all the best for your election!
Thank you for your comprehensive and detailed responses. I have a few questions.
Our Executive is designed to maximize the Prime Minister’s flexibility in structuring their Cabinet in the way that they feel will best effectuate their agenda. That’s why the Charter not only allows the PM to appoint Ministers, but also to create and abolish Ministerial positions. OWL is already a bit of an exception to this rule, as the Director position is created by statute. But the drafters of WA Act were careful not to mandate that the OWL Director be automatically in the Cabinet, lest the Act impinge on the PM’s control over the composition of their government. Why should we limit the PM’s control and flexibility by requiring the appointment of a WA Minister? Is there a reason why our WA affairs require such special treatment as to warrant the creation of our only statutorily mandated Cabinet office?
Separately, I’m puzzled and a bit troubled by the proposal that OWL would work with the CRS in enforcing endorsement caps. The CRS is (rightly) comprised exclusively of long-serving, high-trust members of TSP. It is that status that positions the CRS to carry out highly sensitive security functions, including the enforcement of the endorsement cap, in an neutral, dispassionate, and apolitical fashion. Why is it a good idea to involve political appointees in those functions?
Could you elaborate on the role you envision the Ministry of Integration playing with respect to citizenship applications? While I am not on CitComm, my understanding is that the vast majority of the work involved in processing applications is either directly security related or adjacent to it (e.g., administrative work related to documenting security checks). I do not see any space for politically appointed ministry officials to play a role in executing those tasks. Again, like the CRS, CitComm is comprised of long-serving, high-trust individuals for a reason.
Relatedly, I’m unsure of what you mean by the suggestion that Administrators will play a role in the citizenship application process. They do not currently, and they should not. Admins are OOC positions; CitComm is an IC institution.
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I think having many candidates running showcases that we have a diverse group of opinions on how our region should be ran. I believe that pending the outcome of the election, we will know more where TSPers want to see our region head. I’m not sure when it comes to the results part. I think whoever wins will do great for our region. Whoever the next Prime Minister is, I would certainly be supportive in helping them succeed so our region succeeds. I think to advocate for my platform, I am in the perfect place right now. Hopefully the next PM says that they trust me to continue leading OWL and to see my vision through. Maybe not necessarily the reform aspect. But you will continue to see us working towards authorship of proposals, steadying the ship for the GA Reset and look at the GA Secretariat election coming up.
I chose this one because this is a split idea. My campaign is aware of that aspect. I think we have to compromise on this issue. I’m ok with not getting a full restoration of the Civil Service. I think we can take this proposal many different ways and still succeed in a positive manner. I’ve always said that my platform is aggressive but compromise is always on the table. We can always build upon the existing the structure. Advertisement and recruiting people are the keys to revamping our ministries. I can’t fully say the On-Site Coordination department for OWL is fully successful. It’s still new and in the study stage. Their mission is to recruit new members and bridge the platform gaps we have in TSP. I’d like to mimic that on a bigger scale if I am fortunate enough to be elected Prime Minister. That’s what I like about my platform. I have an aggressive approach but these pillars do open other doors to take different paths that are just as positive.
So I want to clarify on this and differentiate some of the speculative aspects. I have not campaigned using telegrams on the game side, DMs on discords or the forum for that matter. Yes I have posted updates from my campaign on the regional messaging board because that’s the whole point of my campaign is to be transparent. I don’t believe in the behind the scenes campaign behavior. Now I have used all three platforms in my capacity as Director. A typical conversation is hey here’s my writing idea for Amerion’s proposal to the whole On-Site Coordination department launch. Any statistics I’ve mentioned, probably about OWL, are all public information you can find. For transparency, I’d provide a more detailed report on OWL but not necessarily in a campaign basis. I will be able to provide more detail about the GA reset here in the next few weeks when I write a white paper analyzing our position going forward.
I don’t think I would have launched a serious campaign if it weren’t for @Welly and our conversations about how Nationstates works when I first got here. Welly is the ideal person you want as a mentor here in TSP. I’d like to mention people like Rhaza, Nwahs, and Langburn for giving me advice about how to run OWL or answer questions about the World Assembly. From where I started on Monday to now answering questions today, I feel I have grown immensely. It’s been a grueling but fun campaign. I was nervous because what happens if I blunder? To have a successful and serious campaign, I’d tell anyone to be open minded, accept criticism and feedback, and be yourself. The campaign has been grueling but I have met new people on the campaign trail. If this election says anything, I hope it’s that I have shown I can be serious, hardworking, and dedicated to making TSP better.
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I will reply to other questions soon. What I am going to expand on is my comments to Good Phil. This platform is a very adaptive platform. What I want to stress again is that I am looking at the long term vision for our region. I want to post some short term goals too as this term is shorter than most.
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Endorsement & Recruitment Push: Recruiting and getting nations to endorse Nwahs! I want to buy recruiting stamps and recruit that way, have manual recruitment competitions to award the highest recruiter. I am going to coordinate with the Integration Minister and OWL for weekly recruitment/welcome telegrams. I will personally send stamped recruitment telegrams to new nations. Run a short RMB campaign encouraging endorsements with clear benefits.
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Gameside Engagement: I am going to host ask me anything sessions, weekly update addresses/statements, and be visible on the RMB daily.
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Foreign Affairs & Defense: I will be reaching out to key allies and conduct a light embassy cleanup, with our MoFA, that are inactive or fail embassy standards.
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Culture & Community: I still want to hold a music festival in June. Something summer themed and fun along with inviting regions to attend.
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OWL: I will work with OWL on the July 01 GA reset. I will continue working on various WA proposals as I promised I’d see them through.
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Internal Organization & Efficiency: I want every cabinet ministry to audit their internal processes and see where they need more help at. We will map out the plan ahead to help improve our processes and decrease the number of excel sheets we have for things.
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Community Outreach: I will host a “New Citizens Welcome Event” or casual Q&A on the RMB/Discord. This will help encourage everyone who to get to know one another better. I want to introduce the citizen of the week or featured nation of the week. That way we are showcasing all the awesome nations that make up TSP!
I wanted to get this out there because I’ve been very narrow minded on my major policy aspects that this was on the back burner. Hopefully this provides some more clarity on other aspects of the campaign. I’m not saying I am going to abandon my proposals. Instead, I think reforming OWL and the Civil Service initiative needs more studying. Because we they need to be implemented in a very specific and healthy manner for the region.
My objective with Question 2 is to get an idea of how you’d respond to each potential scenario, not just pick one. So if you could give me a quick write up on your Plan of Action for each of the options, that’d be great!
I thank you for your questions on these matters. I’ll address them all below.
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For the citizenship improvement idea, I am omitting the idea of MoI stepping in. I think the best approach to that is to hold welcome meet and greets weekly or biweekly for newer nations to get to interact with everyone. From there, we can help them get settled in and help answer any questions they may have. Admittedly MoI has enough things to work with but I’d like to see them and Citcom work together in an unofficial capacity.
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OWL I still believe needs expansion. I think instead of a full reform, I’d like to alter the law more to expand their scope of operations. I’d work with Langburn to help keep recruiting people there and continue the policy vision I’ve created for there.
You might ask why such a scaled down approach. I think while I am still in favor of these policy proposals, we need to have the people to actually be able to execute that along with Assembly support. I have sat down and scaled back to what would be a more realistic approach.
I think it goes to what I told Welly. The Civil Service is still a great policy idea I feel. I intend to still have the commission. But instead I want to alter my idea a little to the Internal Organization and Efficiency Plan. I think we need to evaluate our cabinet departments to see what we need as far a people help and organizational help. Again why the scale back now? I think it comes down to what’s realistic now vs later. I think implementing a full civil service now is not entirely feasible. Hence my commission. But I’d like to start with the Internal Organization and Efficiency plan first. I am not against the Civil Service but it’s about being realistic and reading the room.
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I want to circle back to give @olivrser a better answer to their question.
- Endorsement & Recruitment Push: Recruiting and getting nations to endorse Nwahs! I want to buy recruiting stamps and recruit that way, have manual recruitment competitions to award the highest recruiter. I am going to coordinate with the Integration Minister and OWL for weekly recruitment/welcome telegrams. I will personally send stamped recruitment telegrams to new nations. Run a short RMB campaign encouraging endorsements with clear benefits.
- Gameside Engagement: I am going to host ask me anything sessions, weekly update addresses/statements, and be visible on the RMB daily.
- Foreign Affairs & Defense: I will be reaching out to key allies and conduct a light embassy cleanup, with our MoFA, that are inactive or fail embassy standards.
- Culture & Community: I still want to hold a music festival in June. Something summer themed and fun along with inviting regions to attend.
- OWL: I will work with OWL on the July 01 GA reset. I will continue working on various WA proposals as I promised I’d see them through.
- Internal Organization & Efficiency: I want every cabinet ministry to audit their internal processes and see where they need more help at. We will map out the plan ahead to help improve our processes and decrease the number of excel sheets we have for things.
- Community Outreach: I will host a “New Citizens Welcome Event” or casual Q&A on the RMB/Discord. This will help encourage everyone who to get to know one another better. I want to introduce the citizen of the week or featured nation of the week. That way we are showcasing all the awesome nations that make up TSP!
To the audience, I’ll echo what I told Good Phil in a previous question/answer. When I started on Monday, I gave you all my long term vision. After reading the room and weighing the realism of accomplishing those things in 60 days are honestly not feasible at that magnitude. I’m not abandoning them but approaching them at a reasonable level. Before we can just implement changes like that on such a grand and massive scale, we need more people who are genuinely interested in that. I haven’t swayed away from a people first and providing a transparent line of communications.
Sorry for asking SO many questions, haha.
Could you list some specific plans you’d have for the GA reset? What will you work with OWL on when it happens?
Absolutely. For starters I want to put this disclaimer out there. I haven’t conducted any official business on behalf of the TSP government when I say I’ve had conversations with other World Assembly Departments outside of our region. I’ve talked with Cretox and Rhaza about what that means from TSP’z perspective. Langburn is currently working on a GA proposal to submit once the reset is completed with Cretox and myself as co-authors. What we want to do from here is gather and understand the writing new rules being implemented. OWL’s long term vision is to bring back writing camps and publish a comprehensive writing guide to help new and inspiring authors. The way to get TSP out there in a positive light is establishing positive relationships with groups like The Sovereign Seven and other World Assembly departments. I speculate the GA will be hectic for the next few months. That’s why we want to tackle having a good quality writing program, having good networking relationships, and creating the all around OWL Advisor who specializes in different aspects of the World Assembly. We have the GA Secretariat elections coming up. We will need to be engaged to see who is the best candidate across Nationstates who can represent TSP’s vision. Honestly, theres no shortcut here. We are going to get our names out there especially with the SC proposals we have currently with Condemning Belshaft, Commending Amerion and hopefully Commending Concrete Slab. It’s all about us creating a good and comprehensive information center to help teach people who are interested in the GA.
Hey, that’s one WA policy of yours that I agree with 
. I think those are good plans.
Speaking of S7;
What GA policy do you follow personally, as a WA member (Intfed/NatSov)? Would you publicize this if you were to be elected as Prime Minister?
In my opinion, the South Pacific should take a neutral stance on GA policy. Do you agree with this? Why or why not?