Having read the Cabinet's responses to my questions, and the other discussions in this thread, I do not believe a motion of no confidence is necessary. It seems to me that there have not been adequate conversations about the severity of the problems prior to this thread. Most of the arguments have taken place in DMs / backroom channels and this has led to the cabinet ministers being unaware of the full extent of the problems, and therefore there have been no collective attempts to solve them. I believe that if these concerns had been raised among the cabinet before being posted here, there may have been a possibility that the working relationships could have been salvaged and this motion wouldn't have had to take place. At the very least we would have had more clarity on the Cabinet's issues if they had all been fully aware of Roavin's feelings before he posted this.

Roavin at no point stated, "Hey I'm going to call for a motion of no confidence if these matters aren't addressed." If he had stated that instead of continuing in the same vein as he had for a year, things would have played out differently. 

I also agree that far too much happened between the cabinets, the various ministry servers, and in DMs between cabinet members and advisers. There was no difference between venting which we all have done with each other with in DMs and backchannels, and a "Hey I'm in PM mode and want to have a serious conversation on this issue that is make or break at this point."

Again, I'll reiterate, if I was in his place I would have asked a member of the CRS (who can access the channels securely) to mediate. The timing of this and the lack of communication is completely surprising and feels wrong.

Then there's an implication that after matters were discussed, nothing changed. However, all of us tried to change and improve things after critique. All of us.  I have to address things one by one so I'll start here:
 
A. NSGP Posting

This was a topic that came up in cabinet where Roavin chastised all of us (myself, Somy and to a lesser degree Tim) for our NSGP posting. The conclusion we came to was regarding trying to be better about what we posted and when and how. This was on and around 4/22/2018. 

Since this issue was discussed in the cabinet, over a month ago, I have made the following major NSGP posts:

1. Mermaids Legislation (this meme was meant to be fun and created some activity in TSP, on the RMB (even musicals being written), and on Discord (including SPSF)

2. Posts Related to the Lord of the Rings Festival

3. Posts related to the NSWF and the TNP Administration Matter

For 1. and 2. - While these may not be perfectly written, they are culture\regional affairs posts and do use images and GIFs. I ran them by other players in the region before posting.  

The last one is interesting because it connects back to posts that I made, IC, in relations to Europeia which I expressed remorse for in the FA channel.  Roavin in fact acknowledged that while the content of my post was accurate, it was the writing that he didn't like (and he had Cormac rewrite one of my posts).

My posts about TNP Administration are regarding an OOC matter in which some players or groups wanted to see IC political consequences. This was discussed in the FA channel and cabinet in which groups\regions were considering cutting ties and basically blacklisting TNP as a government due to their administration's mishandling of an OOC issue.

During this time TNP also approached me on a cultural level to have an endorsement event. I politely delayed with TNP over the matter as the cabinet disagreed on relations with TNP. Several TSPers are working on the WADP development program outside of the cabinet as well.

On this topic, I and Somy agreed in our dissent about mixing IC\OOC. We also both agreed that justice was important which is what motivated Tim and actually made his disagreement with us understandable as well. I then went to the people I thought would have valuable insight on this matter to ask their thoughts about the NSGP thread.

These players included the person who should be at the center of any crusade for NSWF justice (so Imki who I have an OOC friendship with and who I have defended and advocated for throughout this whole incident), and HEM (yes HEM of Europeia) who I respect and trust with serious matters including administration. Both provided valuable insight which I took into consideration when making the posts in that thread.

I even edited one of my posts after speaking to key people.  It is also why in the FA discussion on this matter, I asked for us to talk to TNP administration on the matter before taking any drastic and unilateral actions. TNP was highly surprised about the lack of communication with them in general.

Communicating with them has proven to be the best course of action for TSP and TNP in terms of this TSP ideal of mutual respect and good faith for allies.

Escade

~ Positions Held in TSP ~
Delegate | Vice Delegate 
Minister of Regional Affairs, | Minister of Foreign Affairs | Minister of Military Affairs
~ The Sparkly One ~

My Pinterest

 

(This post was last modified: 05-29-2018, 05:08 AM by Escade.)

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Roavin at no point stated, "Hey I'm going to call for a motion of no confidence if these matters aren't addressed." If he had stated that instead of continuing in the same vein as he had for a year, things would have played out differently. 

I don't think it would have changed anything, which is why I took this step. Crass, yes, but we're all being held accountable now and this is a good thing.

This was a topic that came up in cabinet where Roavin chastised all of us (myself, Somy and to a lesser degree Tim) for our NSGP posting. The conclusion we came to was regarding trying to be better about what we posted and when and how. This was on and around 4/22/2018. 

It's been an issue with you for all three of my terms. But let's show South Pacificans what the issue was: Just start reading here for about 2 to 3 pages.

Since this issue was discussed in the cabinet, over a month ago, I have made the following major NSGP posts:

[...]

3. Posts related to the NSWF and the TNP Administration Matter

[...]

The last one is interesting because it connects back to posts that I made, IC, in relations to Europeia which I expressed remorse for in the FA channel.  Roavin in fact acknowledged that while the content of my post was accurate, it was the writing that he didn't like (and he had Cormac rewrite one of my posts).

Oh, I had Cormac rewrite one of your posts? That is fascinating news and the region should really know all about this. I hereby grant you permission to post anything relevant from my DMs with you to prove that I had Cormac do such a thing.

For some reason I suspect you won't deliver on it. It might be because it is yet another blatant lie.

(This post was last modified: 05-29-2018, 05:53 AM by Roavin.)

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Escade, it’s not fair to say that everybody tried to improve after “critique.” While yes, the NSGP posting issues improved, it was because of a moratorium on posting altogether until talking points were created (which they haven’t been, still). And the two events that triggered Roavin finally making this motion — the blowups over the LOTR festiva, and the Tim/TNP thing— happened in the past week.

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I actually looked very briefly, and so this is an incomplete list:

• Tim's broken promises were mentioned multiple times in each of DMs, FA HQ, and in the Cabinet office.
  
• Escade's NSGP rantiness was mentioned in DMs and in the Cabinet forum.
  
• Escade's Somy-bashing has occured and been talked about in DMs, the Cabinet office, and the Cabinet forum.
  
• Tim's propensity to present nuclear ultimatums has been talked about in DMs, FA HQ, and forum PM.
  
• Escade's vindictiveness has been mentioned in DMs and in the cabinet office
  

So as it turns out, yes, the team has seen all of these at some point. I urge you to not get stuck on this one item and consider it "the solution", but rather look at the broader scope of things. These are systemic and intrinsic problems. I'm trying to present them as honestly as I can (which includes my failures - yes, I could and should have addressed these things better and differently, as I've stated many times). My reputation is not unscathed by me doing this, and I knew that going into it.

Meanwhile, Escade is currently on a tirade in various places seen and unseen, proudly extolling everything that she's done for the region and claiming things that are absurd conspiracies at best and outright demonstrable lies at worst. I'll leave it to you to judge what's going on here.

I don't think the problem is lack of communication about the issues individually; I think the problem is lack of communication about the overarching consequences of these issues. Every minister has expressed surprise at this motion, and I don't think they're all lying about that. I believe that you acted fully in good faith, but I think that you should have brought up the whole 'this cabinet isn't working due to all the issues, I feel like I want to submit a motion of no confidence' among the cabinet first. It's possible, or maybe even likely, that the response to that would have been negative, and nothing would have been fixed, but at least then there would have been less ambiguity about whether these issues could be fixed. Right now, it feels like you hadn't exhausted all the options when it comes to making this cabinet work before submitting this motion.

Did some LC, MoRA, CRS stuff in the past. Do a lot of World Census stuff now.

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Since this issue was discussed in the cabinet, over a month ago, I have made the following major NSGP posts:

[...]

3. Posts related to the NSWF and the TNP Administration Matter

[...]

The last one is interesting because it connects back to posts that I made, IC, in relations to Europeia which I expressed remorse for in the FA channel.  Roavin in fact acknowledged that while the content of my post was accurate, it was the writing that he didn't like (and he had Cormac rewrite one of my posts).

Oh, I had Cormac rewrite one of your posts? That is fascinating news and the region should really know all about this. I hereby grant you permission to post anything relevant from my DMs with you to prove that I had Cormac do such a thing.

For some reason I suspect you won't deliver on it. It might be because it is yet another blatant lie.

I actually just remembered what this was about.

Just before I enacted the GP moratorium, I was once again telling Escade that her GP posts weren't helpful, this time in the Cabinet Office itself. Out of nowhere, she mentioned that Cormac had expressed his support for her statement. I countered by telling her to consider how Cormac would have said the same thing, however. Just to prove my point, I actually asked Cormac to rephrase the problematic post in his words and pasted that in the Cabinet Office (and nowhere else), hoping that she sees the difference. She responded with a sarcastic sneer and then went afk.

For reference, Escade's public post on GP:

You know what's really disappointing recently, Europeia becoming another tool of userite raider menace Balder and banning players from becoming citizens because your puppet masters just don't like them. The real disappointment here is how you ignore the real tragedy of Euro having become just a colony of invaderism\raiderism. It's really interesting to see a region that bans players because of their associations with TSP or defenders to lament anything at all.

The "rephrased" version by Cormac:

Europeia claims to be an independent and democratic region, but what kind of independent and democratic region rejects citizenship applicants based on dissent from established thinking? Europeia's tendency to prevent dissenting opinions from being heard in Europeia by blocking them from citizenship demonstrates that it isn't interested in real independence and democracy, it's interested in maintaining a pro-imperialist, pro-raider status quo that has existed in Europeia for years. This mentality has also spread to other regions in Europeia's sphere of influence, particularly Balder, with dissenting voices silenced in the name of security - but it's not about security, it's about ideological purity in a community that purports to be free of ideology.

I should note that my summary above doesn't adequately express Escade's dismissiveness or my desperate attempts to once again try to explain why the post was problematic in the first place. The Cormac thing was just a tangent of the overall argument. Escade dropping that little nugget of information into her above post, without the relevant context, is blatantly bad faith.

TL;DR: It's not a lie afterall, "only" a gross (and ostensibly malicious) misrepresentation.

(This post was last modified: 05-29-2018, 04:25 PM by Roavin.)

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I don't want to guess motives too much, but my sense is this is less about the actual motion of no confidence and more about bringing to light negative cabinet dynamics before the election before we vote.

The 16th Delegate of The South Pacific

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Since Panda Sharpeners joked for me to come up with a solution, I have a thing that i'll run up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes.

We can go ahead with this No Confidence. But in the future, give the Prime Minister more power over the cabinet, in order to combat infighting and to command respect, rather than getting ignored when he/she gives so and so a slap on the wrist.

And/or, we can heighten CoI restrictions. One of the root causes is 2 of the 3 cabinet members having extensive NSGP experience, so they go more with personal preferences, not to mention they have personal enemies. Not sure how the logistics on this would work, though...

Again, not my best product outta the old noodle.

Midwesterner. Political nerd. Chipotle enthusiast. 
Minister of Culture of the South Pacific // Former Prime Minister

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Here's another suggestion.

Why don't we mandate that all arguments between cabinet members are documented with date(s), brief points of the conflict, and resolution (if there was one). Then at the end of the term these could be released publicly.

This could also help all cabinet members see the bigger picture so hopefully we don't end up with a situation like this where the PM believes that the problems are much bigger than what the other ministers perceive.

The downside obviously is that it's hard to draw a line between respectful discussion/debate and arguments. Also, it would be up to the cabinet to self-moderate with this which could cause issues.

Did some LC, MoRA, CRS stuff in the past. Do a lot of World Census stuff now.

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Since this issue was discussed in the cabinet, over a month ago, I have made the following major NSGP posts:

[...]

3. Posts related to the NSWF and the TNP Administration Matter

[...]

The last one is interesting because it connects back to posts that I made, IC, in relations to Europeia which I expressed remorse for in the FA channel.  Roavin in fact acknowledged that while the content of my post was accurate, it was the writing that he didn't like (and he had Cormac rewrite one of my posts).

Oh, I had Cormac rewrite one of your posts? That is fascinating news and the region should really know all about this. I hereby grant you permission to post anything relevant from my DMs with you to prove that I had Cormac do such a thing.

For some reason I suspect you won't deliver on it. It might be because it is yet another blatant lie.

I'd like everyone to look at the above post and then the following posts. My post simply makes a statement. His post then accuses me of lying and even pings me about this in the legislators-lounge as such. The proof, from the cabinet channel, is above.  This I think accurately presents the way Roavin has approached me in this motion and throughout this term.

After 5-6 terms in the cabinet Roavin (who has been in the cabinet steadily since about two months after he joined) is showing signs of serious burnout through lashing out, scapegoating and otherwise the above kind of incidents where he assumes the worst. He even knew that Tim was going through RL issues and ignores that completely to assume the worst. I've always held the belief that we should show some understanding or compassion to our fellow players.  You can treat enemies as you wish, although even there keep some lines of respectability, but at least allies and friends and fellow region mates should be treated well.  It's why in the TNP discussion when Tim got heated about protecting Imki's rights as a TSPer I understood and I myself told both TNP and other players involved that we would not let a TSPer be treated unjustly. You can show compassion and empathy towards people and not just assume the worst.

Every NS player who has been in government for some time goes through burnout and it can get ugly which is what happened here with personal attacks and the above. It's possible that the cabinet is at fault, when Roavin told us he wanted to resign (whether in the cabinet office or privately) because of "not feeling it" and other reasons we maybe should have told him to go ahead instead of encouraging him to complete his term.

Anyways, I'm open to questions. I'm open to SouthernBellz or any member of the CRS (many of whom actually already have access to the relevant places) to examine all the following places: the cabinet channel, the security channel, the FA team channel, the RA channels, the group DMs regarding the Associate Justice and other considerations.

The Associate Justice group DM, for example, shows that even thought Belschaft was a unanimous candidate it took me telling people to get their act together to even get that selection out.  Therefore, yes, I am the person who says, "It's time to get things moving, people."

Anyways, I'm also going to agree with Kris's historical rant post because I do hope that TSP as a whole has seen my initial career here in TSP in a similar light (when I was delegate and MoRA) and will also see my second time around this way as well (where I've improved upon RA quite a lot). It's always for TSP. That's how you can differentiate - players who do things for the betterment of TSP.

Escade

~ Positions Held in TSP ~
Delegate | Vice Delegate 
Minister of Regional Affairs, | Minister of Foreign Affairs | Minister of Military Affairs
~ The Sparkly One ~

My Pinterest

 

(This post was last modified: 05-30-2018, 08:25 AM by Escade.)

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I'd like to clarify that my historical rant was not meant to support or oppose either side to this conflict. I saw someone post something arguably inaccurate, and sought to set the record straight. There is nothing more to that.


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Former Delegate of the South Pacific
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