As you can tell, I am running for Prime Minister
As PM I intend to build my cabinet around a central agenda which my ministers will help me execute. Our current system is designed around a central, powerful PM, to execute a single cohesive agenda. From what I have witnessed, Ministers typically end up creating and implementing their own agendas which they make after being appointed. Very little of their agenda is typically PM-driven. My central Ministers will not need to create their own agenda, rather I will put forth my agenda in this campaign post, which me and my cabinet will collectively execute. My agenda is divided into four categories, and I will appoint four ministers to help me execute them. My agendas can be found under the spoilers below.
Culture
When it comes to culture, what people see happening is what the ministry has accomplished. Culture is the most immediately visible portfolio of them all. Culture needs to cover all areas of our community, available to lurkers, RMBers, those who frequent our forums, and those who chat on discord. If cultural work is happening, the average member should be able to go and point you to what is happening with ease. My plans for culture consist of the following:
Our Regional Polls are a tool central to a cultural agenda. They are highly visible, and anyone can participate without needing to do much. I plan to make full use of the regional polls, leaving no planned downtime on them during my term. Two elements of my cultural agenda, the RMB Mayor and Event Contests, will alternate between the polls so they each get a turn to shine while always having something simple going for people to engage with.
A summary of the RMB Mayor, for those who weren’t around during my term as MoC or who don’t remember, is a position elected by the region via regional poll, who gets to choose and create the polls for the duration of their term. The RMB Mayor not only serves as a position that drives engagement, but can also be considered a “stepping stone” position. While the position has no requirements when it comes to experience or capability, running certainly serves as a message that whoever it is wants to engage with the community.
I plan to run the RMB Mayor slightly differently than I did when I was MoC. As I said back then when I first ran it, the times weren’t fixed. I will be running the RMB Mayor with a longer election period and a longer term, as was the general consensus I felt after the first go of it. In addition, I will be using the Executive Discretion granted by the Regional Officers Act to give the RMB Mayor polls powers directly, so as to enhance their visibility as RMB Mayor, and to reduce their dependency on other ROs to create their polls so they hold more of their responsibility in their own hands.
For Event Contests, these are a staple of the Ministry of Culture. For years these have been a go to campaigning point. I don’t have any particular emphasis on them, as there is an extent to what they can do for culture. As has been said many times in the past, culture is not just holding events. However, events are still fun and engaging, and I plan to hold two. They will alternate with the RMB Mayor terms, one after the first RMB Mayor term and another after the second. I don’t have any particular specifications on what the events need to be, I’m happy to take any suggestions if someone really wants to see a specific thing, or if there’s something one of my ministers want to run. Regardless, if there is no input I have an ample list of events that can be run, from a culinary contest to a flag contest to a number of other ideas I have squirreled away in my planning docs.
Moving down the region page from Polls to the RMB, I have additional plans more specific to the RMB, rather than just generally On-Site. While polls are great for having general participation, there’s not a lot to do once you’ve put in your submission or declaration and made your vote. One idea Zhuangwhei came into his term with, which I think is an excellent and fun idea, is to hold games with the inbuilt Cards Against Nationstates game. I’d like to hold these every so often, as an instance of something more active for people to engage with.
On the topic of the RMB, another thing I plan for my cabinet to do is to debut a more comprehensive version of New Halo’s RMB Awards. I currently have put together a spreadsheet that automatically generates the rankings of RMBers, not only for New Halo’s rankings of most posts and most likes received, but also likes given and average likes received per post. My spreadsheet should make it easy to create the tables for a RMB Awards dispatch, and allow for flexibility if people wanted to see rankings refreshed over a shorter timeframe, or if ranking Knowhere or including it in the main rankings is desired. While I haven’t engaged with New Halo’s RMB Awards, I have seen a lot of joy in various incarnations of them across my time on NS, and would love to have comprehensive RMB Awards implemented as part of my culture portfolio.
Moving away from the RMB and On-Site in specific, there are three topics which I don’t feel would be right to pin to any particular areas of the community, even if they have been in the past.
The first of which are Resident Spotlights. I’ve loved seeing when Resident Spotlights come out about members of our community and I’m rather disappointed I was never able to do any when I was MoC. Not only are Resident Spotlights a great way to recognize our established members, but they’re also an excellent way to bring light to newer members as well. In the past I have attributed Resident Spotlights to being “Off-Site” given historically the interviews have been most commonly conducted on discord, and the spotlights have been released on the forums. However, that is a blinding way to view them. The actual publication can be released anywhere, from forum topic, to dispatch, to discord announcement, and the interviews can (and have) been conducted in as many places. More glaringly, thinking of them as “Off-Site” grants an incredible likelihood to overlook our members who frequent the RMB more than anywhere else, be they new or old. I seek with my agenda to hold any Resident Spotlights to be released across our community, and to not overlook any areas of TSP with them.
The next element of my agenda which I cannot restrict to any “Off-Site” category, is that I plan to work with our soon-to-be Delegate, Henn, to hold a second South Pacific Hockey League tournament. During my term as MoC (under Henn who was PM), we held the first instance of SPHL, which evolved out of a fun and silly forum topic. While SPHL planning, organizing, and finally streaming of the games was conducted over discord and the forums, my efforts in getting the matches out to people, saw people accessing the streamed matches from the forums and even RMB, in addition to discord. In the second tournament of the SPHL I will continue to work to ensure that everyone is able to access it and have fun. In addition to continuing accessibility to the SPHL, I hope to work with Henn to implement more player agency over the teams. I’d love to be able to have people be able to choose the builds of their player to increase agency, and make victory more than just random chance. There’s a number of things that can be tweaked about the game Henn has used to hold the SPHL to allow for more agency and influence over how each team plays.
The third element of my agenda that’s broadly cross-site, is Card Giveaways. I’ve held this in the past when I was MoC, and it’s a great tool to either have self-contained or to tack onto a larger going-on. I enjoy cards, and I know other people do too. Card Giveaways, while technically “On-Site” in the nature that they’re technically involving a game mechanic, certainly aren’t tied to any specific area, as the requirements for entering a giveaway can be anything. I don’t have much to say specifically on Card Giveaways, other than they’re a tool I will make use of.
One element of my agenda that is about a specific area of our community, I plan on holding some Game Nights or Movie Nights in VC on discord. This was another element of my agenda when I was MoC that I unfortunately was not able to execute on, but I am determined to hold them this term. When I’ve participated in this kinds of events I always enjoy them, and I hope to hold them with sufficient (but not overbearing) frequency during my term.
Moving on to another topic within culture, there are three regional holidays this term: Creation Day, celebrating the creation of NationStates on November 13th; Foundation Day, celebrating the creation of the South Pacific on December 31st; and Delegates Day, celebrating those who have served as Delegate of the Coalition on January 1st. Two of these regional holidays fall right in the holiday season IRL, and thus likely will not have too much going on. Regardless, I believe we should be celebrating our regional holidays, so I will hold at least one event specific to each of them for those who are around during those times. Even if it’s just a card giveaway there will be something. When it comes to November 13th, it’s a lot more open to holding events. I’d love to see a Creation Day game night, and/or other celebrations as well. As I did during my time as MoC, I will ensure TSP’s holidays do not go forgotten.
Regardless of the focus on any part of the community by any element of my agenda, when I am putting out announcements I will be putting them out across TSP, via regional TG, discord announcement, and forums together. We should not be limiting the participation of our members no matter where they do or don’t frequent. Additionally, by not just limiting announcements to the parts of the community that will take place, they encourage those primarily on-site to join off-site spaces, and for those primarily off-site to show their faces on the RMB and similar spaces. There is no reason why we cannot give every member of our community full access to the information on what’s going on.
As a final point for my culture agenda, one issue I find with the executive, which is primarily only a problem for culture, is the time it takes to find and appoint a MoC, leaving nothing getting done when it comes to culture. This is especially a problem when it takes a while. This isn’t a problem that I plan to address by rushing a cultural appointment, but rather one I will remedy by maintaining culture myself until I have the cabinet to carry it. I plan to hit the term running, and set us into motion. The most important part of culture is to have something people can point to and feel like there is something they can engage with, and I seek to never fail that during my term.
Integration
Integration has sat as one of the region’s most desired areas to fulfill, as seen when you look at the polls of past administrations. However, when I look at recent integration agendas, a lot of it is relegated to just recruitment, a vital part, but not something you can rely on alone. Recruitment gets people into TSP, but there needs to be a pipeline into engaging with the community. While we have the welcome TG, plenty of dispatches, and what’s in the WFE, there is always more we can do.
One project I would like to see implemented, and will use my cabinet to begin, are Welcome RMB messages, which would ping newly founded nations, welcome them, and encourage them to say hello on the RMB. A nation engaging on the RMB is one that is more likely to log in again, and again, and again, is more likely to participate in ongoing cultural events, and is more likely to engage further in our community. A new nation who posts on the RMB is one whose questions can be easily answered and who can be directed to the things they might be interested in. Such Welcome RMB messages would also be able to direct people to resources linked within the message. I find additional avenues of getting people into our community to be a boon.
Despite the fact that recruitment does not build communities by itself, it is still a vital part of maintaining one within this game. While we as a feeder do not need to rely on recruitment in the same way a UCR does, we still need to recruit in this day and age. As it stands we have an excellent recruitment team and setup, which I aim to expand. Recruiters are an important base to develop, not only to improve our recruitment, but also because those who send out our recruitment TGs are also those most likely to work on Welcome RMB Messages and similar projects. I intend to bring an awards system to our recruitment base, not only to encourage new members, but to recognize the work of those who give the most.
One important aspect of Culture is its ability to play into integration. The avenues of engaging in culture events not only benefit all who want to participate, but also provide avenues for people to get more involved in the region. There are a number of small ways culture plays into integration, and I want to emphasize the importance of culture in integration. By seeking to have something anyone can see and point to, we also increase the ability of new players to see and engage with our region. Cultural events serve as a stepping stone for new people to take the leap and dive into talking with us and engaging with our community. When it comes to cultural events I seek to ensure that anyone can participate, and to make all parts of our community more obvious to those who have not otherwise seen. I want my cultural events to be an easy access point between On-Site, discord, and the forums, and desire to make it as easy as possible for people to see across them.
When it comes to more tangible, specific projects I would like to engage upon for Integration, I would like to give Knowhere a bit of an overhaul. As it stands, Knowhere isn’t as visible as it could be, has a rainbow colored WFE that is quite difficult to read, and the WFE doesn’t give as much guidance as it could on what Knowhere actually is for those unaware. During my term I would like to see an overhaul of Knowhere and its WFE. I seek to replace the WFE with something that informs visitors what the region is for, directs them to more RP specific resources, and encourages RP by as many people as possible. Roleplay was the thing I started with when I joined TSP, and is often the closest to what a lot of new players are looking for and instinctually engage in. I’ve seen so many new players post in the character of their nation and I do not want the environment of the game to deny them if that’s how they seek to play. Knowhere is our existing place for On-Site roleplay, and there are many things that can be improved about it.
Defense
Defense was a category that was in dire straits last election, but has since been turned around by Heliseum, our MoD. A significant portion of what I intend to do with the SPSF is continuing his agenda that he presented upon nomination for MoD. Of that agenda, have seen behind the scenes of a number of those, and have spearheaded a few as a Lieutenant of the SPSF. I have created a detagging tool to maximize the Tidal Force, which once the delegate transition is over will finally be able to be used, and I have been the most involved in putting together wargames and practice when there isn’t anything to do for the SPSF. Besides what our current MoD has done that I will seek to continue, there are a number of additional policies I would like to fulfill, and projects I would like to accomplish.
One thing we have yet to see resume when it comes to the SPSF are the Monthly Service Reports. Not only do these provide a summary of our operations over the month to the region, but they also recognize our members who have done the most in that month. The monthly reports (and the rankings of active members) was something I quite enjoyed seeing when I joined the SPSF, and I would quite like to see them resume. SPSF Service Reports are something I will hold in high priority to get done during my term.
Another part of the SPSF I quite enjoy are the ribbons. Heliseum has, with the Liberation of Liberty Islands, restarted the creation and issuing of ribbons for major operations. However, there are also existing ribbons we should utilize far more than we do. Of the ribbons, I would like to see more emphasis placed on the rank ribbons when it comes to new people joining the SPSF and when we promote people. By emphasis, I generally mean presenting them the rank ribbon in their acceptance to the SPSF or promotion, as their rightful award for what it is they’ve done and so they’re aware of those ribbons’ existence. Another set of ribbons are the ones for the total lifetime number of Detags done, Updates attended, etc. These ribbons could be presented either with the Monthly Service Reports (as a convenient place to note that they’ve been achieved), or in their own topics. The last set of ribbons are far more part of the previous section regarding Monthly Service Reports, as that’s where they are presented and given out, but I do intend to ensure to award the ribbons for who does the most in a month.
A fairly common point of confusion I see around people joining the SPSF, is between the Tidal Force & Tsunami Force and a Reserve Force. Additionally it’s not very clear from their names what the actual difference is between the Tidal and Tsunami Forces. I would like to ensure that in all our dispatches and material about the SPSF, there is an adequate description of the differences, and more importantly, it does not imply that the Tidal force is a “less active reserve force”. While the Tidal Force is primarily off-update, the closest thing to a reserve force would be those who are in the Tsunami Force but only show up for big liberations every few months. Confusion around how active you need to be to join the Tsunami Force, and more commonly seeking to join a nonexistent reservist force are two points I would like to clear up when it comes to the two forces of the SPSF. If people think a reservist force distinction would be helpful, I would also be open to starting discussions on that.
Foreign Affairs
Foreign Affairs is the area in which I have the least experience. I will be relying heavily on my MoFA in regards to handling the ministry. However, FA is also the area where there isn’t as much room for policy as other ministries. Some of the most important parts of FA are crisis management, and personal foreign connections, neither of which can really be campaigned upon as policy (and you certainly would rather not have to put crisis management skills to use if possible). When it comes to FA policy I will seek to implement, I would like to involve our allies in our cultural events and seek to do joint events as well.
When it comes to who I will appoint as ministers, there will be four Minister positions I will have that will need to be filled. To cover my agenda for the SPSF, I will be appointing a MoD, and to serve as my liaison to the wider NS community, I will appoint a MoFA. These two positions are very standard, and their purview will be similar, if not the same, as what we’ve seen with previous administrations, and they will execute on the FA and Defense agendas I have laid out in this campaign post. When it comes to my agenda for Culture and Integration, it will come together under one ministry, which will be headed by two Ministers of Regional Affairs. The two MoRAs will collectively oversee Integration and Culture. I intend to combine the two portfolios in this way because integration is not unconnected to culture, and I hope by combining them in this way, culture can be used to leverage integration. Having two ministers of the same portfolio, combined with my central predefined agenda should provide an ideal environment to allow new inexperienced ministers to take and fulfill the duties of the ministry, and to take on the mantle of minister.
I am not expecting my Ministers to come into their term with their own agenda, rather I expect them to execute on the agenda I have put forth in this campaign. Should a Minister have their own plans they would like to see implemented, I’d love to implement those as well. My Ministers will not be alone in fulfilling their ministry, as I will be helping execute each element of my agenda as needed.
When it comes to how I will appoint as Ministers, I will appoint my MoD and MoFA positions in the standard way of reaching out to qualified people until I get an acceptance. For my two MoRA positions I ideally would like to fill them in the same way Kringle filled his minister of culture and minister of integration positions, by presenting the opportunity to the region. In the event in which I would be unable to fill a minister position of MoFA or MoD, I would rely on their respective bodies of the Foreign Affairs Committee or the SPSF Officer Corps & Admiralty. If I am unable to find people to fill my MoRA positions, there is no active body to rely upon to execute my agenda. Should this scenario of a drought of people occur, I would seek to appoint temporary staffers to coordinate each event or cultural policy, and grant them the RO powers needed to execute on that. I don’t expect to be bereft of MoRAs as my agenda makes the experience required exceptionally minimal.
Conflict of Interest
- Citizen and Legislator of TSP
- Lieutenant of the SPSF
- Former MoC and MoRP in TSP
- Citizen and Former Delegate of Wintreath
- High Command of the Trident Alliance (N-Day faction)