(05-01-2022, 11:26 AM)HumanSanity Wrote:

(04-30-2022, 04:52 PM)Tsunamy Wrote: 1) Yes, the forum and game side does add value because we have to halves of a community here and it makes it so the game side isn't being dictated to by and off-site forum that is barely involved with in-game activity.

The fact that the off-site forum is barely involved in in-game activity is a state of affairs that has come into existence due to the arbitrarily enforced division between the gameside and the forumside. You can't separate "off-site disengagement with the gameside" from the hostility of the gameside to the off-site and also from forum-users' lack of desire or motivation to engage the gameside. You are correct, once you have already decided there is a divide between these two platforms, one will form and the Cabinet will become institutionally disinterested and incapable of RMB governance. Correcting that may take time, but removing the arbitrary institutional choice to create a divide between the game-side and the forum-side is the first step. Instead of imagining the forum as a separate community, imagining the forum as an extension of the South Pacific, the game we govern on NationStates, is the correct option and will eventually produce programmatic changes in integration and engagement.

(04-30-2022, 04:52 PM)Tsunamy Wrote: 2) Yes, the delegate is a figurehead, not someone with actual power. For as much as had been argued that the prime minister needs something to do, the prime minister is effectively the head of government and has been since 2016.

This is an argument for why the term should not be shorter than six months, not a reason the term cannot be longer than six months. Given the low work demands of the job, there is little reason to not make the job a year long term, or even life. You can disagree with that, let's discuss it at a GC

(04-30-2022, 04:52 PM)Tsunamy Wrote: 3) The approach the current Assembly is taking to the in-game community is disgraceful. Firs threatening the LC and now wanting to abolish it is just beyond the pale. Unless you planning to find some other way for the in-game community to have a say in their own governance.

I addressed this above, but I take issue with you simply picking things you don't disagree with and labeling them as "disgraceful" and "beyond the pale". This is a turn of rhetoric which is not backed by substantive argumentation and is, at best, rooted in democratic idealism which doesn't match the reality of running the region.

The Cabinet has attempted to engage with the in-game community and LC substantially in recent terms, all to little avail, with a key example of this being the Z-Day event of my term, where the LC ghosted and ignored me for weeks as I prompted them to create plans for an event which occurs entirely on the NationStates site, and then prominent members of the gameside community pretended this was a failure of the Cabinet for not having simply done the job for the LC. How is the Assembly's conduct "disgraceful"? The lines of thought in the Assembly that are becoming prevalent with regards to the gameside's autonomy are entirely in response to (a) the gameside's persistent demonizing rhetoric about the Assembly and the Cabinet and (b) the LC's persistent failure to actually govern the gameside.

Not to mention, a route will remain for all members of the Coalition to become involved in their own self-governance. That route is to take part in the government of the region, hosted on the forum as an extension of the gameside community, rather than the idea these are two communities.

(04-30-2022, 04:52 PM)Tsunamy Wrote: 5) Why have laws at all? Let's just let the prime minister decide everything! 

This is a blatant strawperson of the idea I have suggested. The Prime Minister can make essential decisions regarding executive government with an oversight or approval process from the Assembly. That is not "deciding everything" as the Assembly would retain an oversight prerogative and retain the responsibility for, ya know, passing legislation.

(04-30-2022, 04:52 PM)Tsunamy Wrote: Listen — here's the thing that seems obvious to me: there's a lack of activity and rather than try to find active participants, the powers that be are trying to consolidate power in the hands of a few.

How is blowing open the entire system of government an effort at power consolidation? If people wanted to consolidate power, they'd allow the status quo to continue, where they already have power and there are unlikely to be threats to their power.

(04-30-2022, 04:52 PM)Tsunamy Wrote: There are literally thousands of nations this Cabinet could apply to and try to get involved in off-site activities, but instead of engaging with the on-site community, they are attempting to dictate from the offsite how everything should be run.

I addressed this above. The system we have now provides the Cabinet, either individually or institutionally, no incentive to engage the on-site to such a deep level. Not to mention, you are being incredibly generous to the potential membership the on-site can provide us given the enormous number of card farming puppets and once-a-month log-in nations on the gameside.

(04-30-2022, 04:52 PM)Tsunamy Wrote: Something like the Chair's Briefing is a fantastic move imo to try and develop crossover between the communities.

The last several Cabinet's have been persistently making their announcements to the region via the RMB and at times via regional TG. If that is your vision of "outreach", that happens already, and it doesn't not happen simply because you do not notice it.

(05-01-2022, 08:11 AM)USoVietnam Wrote: That said, if we indeed want to start a GC, I would advocate getting rid of the current version of GC and replace it with something more flexible in the new Charter altogether.

I'm fine with amending the current all-or-nothing GC formula and replacing it with a new one.

There's two things I want to address here.

First, you can accuse me of strawman-ing all you want, but two of the most recent discussions here have been to (1) allow the Prime Minister to appoint the Cabinet and (2) a threat to disband the LC. And, then we suddenly have the idea of a "Great Council." so color me wrong, but it certainly seems like after earlier ideas were questioned, we're trying to find another way to force the wanted changes.

Second, regarding the LC and RMB representation, I'll acknowledge that I'm incredibly sensitive to this. It took significant effort and fighting to get the current levels of representation — however imperfect they currently are — and, so recent proposals and questioning of the RMB-involvement in these processes are especially triggering to me. If you want to find better ways for input and representation from the RMB side, I'm all about it. (I, too, don't especially like the divide between the offsite and in-game communities.) But, history has generally shown that the RMB side generally gets forgotten about until it's time for another delegate switch, so at least the LC provides some measure of governance.

I'm going to reiterate my stance that all GCs are legislatively unnecessary and broadly dumb. Although, I do broadly agree with Glen that too much stability is a bad thing and given the amount of "old" players near inactivity, it would make sense to shake things up. I just have and will continue to strongly advocate for the RMB to be understood as vital part of the region and having appropriate representation to go with that.