| Purple Hyacinth for MoE: Rebuilding the Ministry |
Purple Hyacinth for MoE: Rebuilding the Ministry
Hi everyone! I’m running for Minister of Engagement because I’m interested in getting more TSP citizens involved in our regional activities and government, and I’m interested in building a sustainable ministry.
My main nation, Purple Hyacinth, was founded in May 2020 in the South Pacific. I began getting involved in the region in July 2020, becoming a legislator and being part of the MoRA. In September 2020, I was elected as Chair of the Assembly, and served until my recall in August 2021 (more on the recall later in my campaign). During my time as Chair, I did a lot of things, but what I think is relevant to this campaign is that I implemented some outreach initiatives to boost Assembly participation. For example, I DM’d people reminding them to vote if they haven’t and posted Assembly votes to draw RMB interest. I was also pretty consistently active until later on in the term (again, more on this later). The inactivity towards the end of my tenure as Chair was part of a hiatus I was on until November of this year, when I started getting active in NS again. I’m currently a staff member of and part of the leadership of MoC, MoE, MoM, and OWL. I was pretty active in MoE when it was under Viet’s leadership. I’m also currently a member of the Coral Guard and a Cabinet advisor. Outside of the South Pacific, I’m a citizen of The Rejected Realms and Regio Stellaris of Inferno Stellaria. As TRR is an ally of TSP and I don’t really do that much in TRR these days, I don’t anticipate this really being a conflict of interest. My position as Regio Stellaris probably appears a bit more potentially conflicting since it is the head of government. However, I don’t anticipate it being a conflict as IS is a small culture-oriented region with little interaction with the GP world. Should this position somehow come in conflict with my position as MoE, I would resign from my position as Regio Stellaris. For more details, you can view my list of nations and past and present roles.
Before my textwall of a campaign really begins, here’s a summary of my vision as a Minister of Engagement. My primary focus is to engage MoE staffers and build a Ministry that can sustain itself. This is important because:
After this initial stage of getting the Ministry off of the ground, I will strive for greater staff independence and initiative. This means that, with Minister approval and oversight, staffers are encouraged to:
To ensure the sustainability of longer-term projects (those that span multiple Cabinet terms), staffers are encouraged to:
These are the long-term infrastructure projects that I plan to begin/continue work on/maintain:
There are several short-term events/projects I would like to pursue. However, they are subject to change, especially based on staff input. Here are my ideas:
Besides staff involvement and sustainability, other overarching goals I have for the term are:
So, let’s get onto the even more detailed version of my platform! If I’m elected as MoE, my primary focus would be to get the staffers working on projects and getting things done. In the previous term, there was nearly no activity within the Ministry, and all work was done by the Minister. I want to build a structure that is the opposite of that, where staffers spread out the work amongst themselves and the Minister acts as a facilitator of that (though I still will do work myself of course). My vision is that this structure can carry on to future terms, where projects can be managed by staffers without necessarily being constantly dependent on a Minister’s contributions. Under this structure, a Minister can still carry out projects that only they themselves work on, but those kinds of projects would be done alongside more sustainable projects worked on by multiple staffers. Especially when it comes to very long term projects, we want to have something that is not just done by one person, who could possibly disappear. Furthermore, I want staffers to be encouraged to proactively present their ideas and work on them. I want to build a culture where staffers are encouraged to take initiative. This does mean a slightly decentralized Ministry–however, I believe that it ultimately contributes to the health of the Ministry. There are a few ways this simply promotes getting work done. For one, when there is a vacant Minister or the Minister is on a Leave of Absence, it is still possible for work to be done. Additionally, the Minister is less likely to get burnt out from trying to manage many projects. This kind of staff-heavy structure also promotes the long-term continuity of the Ministry. When long-term projects are managed by staffers that are there term-after-term, they can ensure that the project is continued smoothly regardless of who’s Minister. Additionally, having opportunities for leadership within the Ministry allows for staffers to distinguish themselves as qualified candidates for Minister in the future. These benefits both pave the way for more “fresh blood” in the Cabinet, which can help promote new ideas, while still preserving the quality of the work of the Ministry of Engagement. I believe that the quality of the work will also increase when staff have greater independence and contributions to the Ministry. Having greater staff input can lead to more creative ideas and more polished work. Additionally, having the work spread out means that it is possible for more work to get done. Of course, I’m not advocating for total anarchy–the Minister is still in charge of setting the agenda, making sure that projects are practical and are executed smoothly, and getting the staff to work in a timely fashion. Especially right now, as there isn’t any activity, it’s important that a Minister to play a big role in getting people to begin working. In future terms, without a Minister doing this managing, the quality and quantity of work undoubtedly would suffer, but it’s important to note that it’s possible for some work to continue despite that. In my opinion, the Ministry of Engagement is the most important domestic ministry to maintain activity term after term. Without the MoE maintaining regional infrastructure, we would have a lack of accessible information for citizens new and old. If we aren’t getting citizens involved, the region could have a serious drop in activity. So, it is especially important that it is not just a Minister who is doing the work. While of course my purpose as the Minister of Engagement would be to engage the entire region of the South Pacific, I can’t do that effectively without first building a strong Ministry. In my campaign, I will still talk about various projects that I’d like to carry out in my term, and I will certainly try very hard to get those done within my term, but every project I mention is underlined by my goal to involve staff and ideally get them to be somewhat self-sufficient.
Given the previously mentioned lack of activity, we can’t jump into the whole staff-do-their-own-projects-with-Minister-approval thing right away. I’ll start off with a few measures aimed at getting staffers involved and active in the first place. This doesn’t mean that I’ll stop doing these things if the Ministry is active; in fact, I feel that this is very important to continue doing after we start. These are just my first steps. Ping and DM staffers for ideas and to get people working on projects I would ping staffers regularly to get their ideas on projects or get people who may be willing to work on projects. When it comes to ideas, I will both get input on existing projects/project ideas as well as ideas for brand new projects. I will invite all staffers, even those who may not be active in working on a certain project, to contribute ideas, as I believe that every idea helps. I will also DM all staffers for the same purpose as pings, but only once at the start of my term since it is only two months. I may ask what they are interested in working on, what their ideas are, and how available they are. For some of the less active staffers, they may not check all pings and could miss any that I do. However, it’s still important to check-in on them as they may 1) not be interested in the Ministry anymore, 2) on a temporary LoA, or 3) still have good ideas. Assign staff as leaders of some projects For some long-term and one-time projects, I’ll assign staffers to be leaders. I would work together with those project leaders to establish our goals, and I would still check-in on the projects regularly and work on them if needed. This will allow for staffers to demonstrate their independence and initiative, as well as keep projects going when I might not be around. Check in on progress of projects regularly This is pretty self-explanatory. Some projects will need a bit of pushing to keep going, so I will do that.
After the initial stage of work on projects getting started, I’ll want to do these things to encourage staff to be more independent in their work. Allow and encourage staffers to plan and organize their own projects from the ground up If a staffer has an idea they’re interested in personally pursuing, especially when it comes to one-time events/projects, I would encourage them to really take the lead. I would assist them with getting people involved in their project, approving their work, and providing any services (such as mass telegramming), but I would love to have a couple of projects where a staffer does that kind of thing on their own. Post public updates about their projects using their own accounts To show the public that the Ministry of Engagement isn’t just its Minister, I would encourage staffers to post updates on their projects in a public thread using their own account. I will still monitor and approve posts before they go in there, but I want to give an image of many people working together towards engaging the residents of TSP. Also, to bring this back to encouraging staffer independence, this helps staffers take pride in their own work, as they’ll have their name attached to their projects.
Long-term projects like the dispatch project are some of the most important things that MoE does. As such, it is vital that we ensure they stay running term after term. Long-term projects are especially tricky to keep going, so I’d like to promote the following things for long-term projects. Engaging multiple staffers rather than having a single individual do all the work At any given time, I’d want multiple staffers involved in the project. This would certainly mean multiple staffers “assigned” to the project at the very least. However, I do want to encourage anyone in the Ministry, regardless of what they may have been assigned, to jump in and do work on any project they’d like. Even if there is little work to be done on the project at a certain time, so one person handles all of it, I’d want more than just that person contributing to discussion about the project. That way, more people are familiar with the project, and may be able to jump in should there need more hands on deck. This does mean that I probably won’t be focusing on projects with scripting during my term. For one, I’m personally unfamiliar with scripts, but more importantly, they contribute to a culture of one person doing a bunch of work. I don’t want to discourage scripting in the future, but right now, I would like to focus on something other than that. Write guides for any tasks that new staffers entering the project may need to learn To help new people get involved in projects they may be unfamiliar with, I would have staffers draft up a guide for any critical tasks involved in the project and other important information. I don’t need or want some 50-page guide detailing every little thing that has been said, but just some concise documentation to help staffers get involved. This can also help the project pick back up if it experiences a period where no one is working on it.
So… we’re finally at the part where I talk about the stuff I actually want to do when it comes to projects. Maybe this is what you’re actually interested in reading and everything before this was not at all important to you  First I’ll discuss the long-term projects I want to work on. Informational dispatch infrastructure For those who aren’t in the know, the dispatch project is the project to maintain the informational dispatches that are on the nation Coalition of the South Pacific. The dispatches have been complete for a while now, so all that’s left. I don’t plan to do any sort of big changes surrounding it, mostly just making sure the information is up to date. I’ll work with staffers to have a look through all of the dispatches and make sure everything is up to date. Developing the card organization (South Pacific Association for Cards Exchange I had to include the name… it’s the only thing I’ve ever made that I’ve been proud of… jkjk Admittedly I’m not particularly involved in cards so I wouldn’t be of much help to the project. However, I do feel that it would be nice to have a functioning card org separate from MoE. However, card org development and farming is the kind of thing where you can have a lot of people working to farm cards, so I think it fits with my big goal of staff involvement. Additionally, it is currently somewhat close to completion, so pushing it over the finish line would be absolutely amazing. Manual outreach/mentorship This is something that would be a new project. Ideas for this were floated around in the previous term, and I’d like to really get it going. This would involve sending telegrams and DMs to new members. I think that contacting every person who joins the server or something like that would be extremely difficult and wouldn’t be very time-effective. Instead, I’d like to target people who’ve shown that they’re at least slightly active. Maybe they’ve talked a few times in the server or on the RMB, or they’re actively endotarting, or some other form of activity. I and other staff will be on the lookout for these kinds of people, and we’ll contact them to reach out. We would talk to them about their interests and direct them to joining roleplay, becoming a legislator, joining the Executive, endotarting, or other activities that they may be interested in. Ideally the people reaching out are relatively active in TSP so they can provide information to/mentor the people they reach out to. This kind of outreach will probably still have a low return–the number of people who are really willing to put in time to actively participate in our region is not very many out of several thousand residents. However, it’s important that we do something to get people who might be interested but are overwhelmed or aren’t sure what’s going on. Having a personal conversation is going to be more effective than reading a textwall on a dispatch. At this point, I am not really planning to set up any kind of separate mentorship infrastructure, where people could request mentors, but that could be something to explore in the future. What about other stuff? The wiki project and the recruitment telegram projects were all things that were pursued in the past. While I wouldn’t be opposed to taking this up if a staffer were interested, they’re not things I want to pursue in this term. For one, I already have a lot on my plate, and I don’t want to add more. Specifically for the wiki project, there aren’t a lot of people who are familiar with wiki code. The previous leaders of the project, Rabbitz and Comfed, aren’t active in TSP. Additionally, at least gameplay wise, few people use the wiki (I wonder how many of you all have never even heard of it?). I know there are a number of roleplay articles on there, but I don’t think they are that important as people typically also store information elsewhere, like in dispatches and forum threads. This could be an interesting project for the future, as it would be nice to catalog the history of TSP in a central place, but I don’t think that it needs to be a priority right now. When it comes to the recruitment telegram project, it is primarily about automated telegrams. As I mentioned earlier, scripted projects are not something I want to focus on in my term. Right now, a more effective use of our time would be the manual outreach project that I talked about.
Event promoting cross-endorsing I’m thinking that we could do some kind of endorsement event to promote 1) endorsing the new Delegate and 2) cross endorsements. It would be something like Endorsement days, but we could have some card prizes instead of just announcing who the winners are. There could be a prize for the winners, and a lottery for those who fit a certain criteria (perhaps endorsing the new Delegate, the CRS, and the CG, or endorsing >90% of nations). Hopefully we can help speed up the Delegate transition, or at the very least, promote cross endorsing. Event promoting joining the executive staff At the time of the campaign being released, we are currently in the middle of the Executive recruitment event run by HumanSanity. While I like what is going on, I think that this kind of event could be more effective with a team of MoE staff going on. This would allow us to do a lot of personal outreach promoting the executive staff, rather than a few interviews/games/Q&As. We can also have something to highlight each Ministry rather than a more general “join the Executive” message. Card org promotion event This would be contingent on SPACE being launched, so there’s a possibility that it won’t be able to happen. My plan for this would be to do a variety of activities promoting SPACE, such as giveaways, interviews, and games over a few days. The goal of this would be to get more people interested and involved in cards and SPACE, as well as increase visibility of SPACE as a new organization to the general public. Write/rewrite a good welcome telegram With a new Delegate being elected, I think it would be beneficial to work with them to develop a good welcome telegram that mentions important things, but also keeps readers engaged. Depending on staff consensus, we may write a completely new welcome telegram, or base it off of a previous one. Either way, I hope that having more contributors to the welcome telegram other than the Delegate will help to increase the quality.
There are a few other things I’d like to mention that I’ll do during my term. Coordination and cooperation with the rest of Cabinet I will make sure to work with the Prime Minister and other Ministers. I will make sure the rest of the Cabinet is informed on what the MoE is doing at all times. I will also work with other Ministers on projects if needed. For example, I would be absolutely open to MoE and MoC running a joint project together, the MoM using MoE infrastructure to publish something, or the MoE and MoD working together for recruitment. I don’t have anything planned, but if something comes up during the term or if someone else initiates this interministry work, I will be willing to work with them. Inclusion and connection between Discord, forums, and gameside This is very important to me. It is my belief that we recognize that the Discord, forums, and gameside are all important parts of TSP. Each platform has its own unique traits, but ultimately, to maximize outreach and engagement, we need to work with all three. If we try to promote things or recruit on just one platform, we are missing other parts of TSP that have active populations. When making announcements, I’ll be sure to relay all announcements to all platforms in some way. I’ll also try to include something on all platforms for all events. For the “connection” part, that is basically just recruiting people to the forums/Discord for involvement in government.
I’m sure you have some questions/concerns about my campaign. Please do ask me any questions you have. In the interest of having something typed up beforehand, I’ve addressed a couple of concerns that I anticipate coming up. That’s a lot for half a term! That’s true, it is a lot! My campaign is pretty long… wait, when did I write that much??? I’ll be totally honest and say that I’m probably not going to be able to do 100% of what’s in my campaign this term. That’s true for a lot of campaigns, but especially mine. What I can promise is that I will try my best to 1) get staffers involved with the measures outlined and 2) do at least three-fourths of the projects I mentioned in my campaign. Some of what I’m saying is kind of more of a blueprint for future terms, beyond two months, which I guess I probably shouldn’t have included, but here we are. I’ll still strive to at least mention my projects with staffers–most likely, I’ll drop the projects that generate little interest. On not becoming inactive/rambling about my recall So… some of you may recall (lol) that I got recalled in August of this year. This was very much my fault–I should have resigned when I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to be active. I understand that many of you may be worried that I’ll do this again. For one, I think that me becoming inactive is highly unlikely. I’ve just come back from a break but have consistently been doing things during this time. I’m not burnt out from doing too much yet, and I have shown in the past month that I can be active consistently. I also think that my recall experience has helped give me a better mentality. I understand that it’s not the end of the world if I can no longer hold an office or don’t finish my projects. I’m not afraid to resign if necessary, to protect my mental health and help the region move along. I also know that I won’t run for reelection if I’m already not active enough. Also, with half a term to go and the Ministry basically dead, there’s nowhere to go but up I suppose. Availability I’m generally pretty active on Discord, checking it practically every waking moment. I also check the forums multiple times a day. I check gameside the least, but I’ll typically check it at least twice a day. If I’m elected, I will strive to check gameside more and interact on the RMB as well. I’ll be able to frequently check in on staffers’ work. When it comes to times I’m available for sitting down and doing more substantive work, I will usually have a few days a week where I can get things done. I’m not particularly worried about being too busy with RL, but if I do become too busy, obviously I’d resign.
Even if I can’t do everything I mentioned in this campaign, I’d be happy if this kind of setup influences the next Minister of Engagement. At the very least, I’d be getting staffers to realize that MoE exists and that you can, in fact, do things as part of it! Please ask me all of your questions, I am looking forward to answering them. And sorry about getting this out a day later than promised, the campaign ended up being significantly longer than I thought it would be, as you might be able to tell. Final note: this campaign is longer than HumanSanity’s MoD campaign from June (3580 visible words including the spoiler). I guess I really do hate myself :pensive: ![[-]](https://tspforums.xyz/images/sidr/blue/collapse.png)
The following 6 users Like Purple Hyacinth's post:• anjo, HumanSanity, Moon, Nicholas and Great Britain, USoVietnam, Witchcraft and Sorcery
Thank you for taking the time to share your platform. It's incredibly thoughtful and speaks to something I think I've seen many recent platforms (including my own) neglect in recent times: how the Minister will serve as the leader of a Ministry rather than simply a work-producer on their own. Both your focus on this as a theme and some of the specific ideas (i.e. allowing specific staffers to take leadership, having them be responsible for communicating ideas to the citizenry, etc.) is highly encouraging.
Are there any ideas or projects that you would manage personally during this half term if elected? In your campaign, you say you feel good about our current Dispatches. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I believe our Dispatches are complete. On the other hand, I believe they're a little bit difficult to parse through, especially for new nations. Looking at this new nations Dispatch, I can see how it could be a bit overwhelming and not clear enough on X -> Y -> Z in terms of getting involved in any particular area. Would your term include any efforts to rework our most basic introductory Dispatches? How will you manage your own burnout? Will you cut back on your work in other Ministries to avoid overburdening yourself? Minister of Foreign Affairs
General of the South Pacific Special Forces Ambassador to Balder Former Prime Minister and Minister of Defense ![[Image: rank_general.min.svg]](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/TheSouthPacific/tsp-graphics/master/mod/spsf/150w/rank_general.min.svg){kind=icon} ![[Image: updates_lifetime_3.min.svg]](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/TheSouthPacific/tsp-graphics/master/mod/spsf/150w/updates_lifetime_3.min.svg) ![[Image: detags_lifetime_4.min.svg]](https://github.com/TheSouthPacific/tsp-graphics/raw/master/mod/spsf/150w/detags_lifetime_4.min.svg) ![[Image: defenses_lifetime_4.min.svg]](https://github.com/TheSouthPacific/tsp-graphics/raw/master/mod/spsf/150w/defenses_lifetime_4.min.svg) ![[Image: ykXEqbU.png]](https://imgur.com/ykXEqbU.png)
Not really a question but I will promise to finish the card program within the remaining term now that I am free. Our card project is so cursed right now due to a variety of factors. I don't even know if people are still interested in cards given that the experienced card folks in the region/the game in general seem to be inactive.
Chief Supervising Armchair
(12-19-2021, 05:08 PM)HumanSanity Wrote: Thank you for taking the time to share your platform. It's incredibly thoughtful and speaks to something I think I've seen many recent platforms (including my own) neglect in recent times: how the Minister will serve as the leader of a Ministry rather than simply a work-producer on their own. Both your focus on this as a theme and some of the specific ideas (i.e. allowing specific staffers to take leadership, having them be responsible for communicating ideas to the citizenry, etc.) is highly encouraging. Thank you for taking the time to ask questions! 1) This would depend on what staffers want to do. For most of the projects, I'd probably see if anyone was interested, and then take on whatever remains (hopefully around a third to a half ish). There are a couple exceptions, though. For the card project, I have very little experience in cards, so I would definitely not lead it. Thankfully Viet is here now to do that. The other exception is the outreach/mentorship project, which I would like to personally lead, at least for now. I have a lot of ideas for this, and given that it's a new project that is hopefully going to continue into the future, I'm not sure I would trust, say, an inexperienced staffer with this. 2) I definitely agree that our intro dispatches in particular should be improved. Since the information is there, and I have a lot planned already, I won't be taking this on as a high priority. But, if partway through the term I think that we are doing okay with the workload, I can have MoE work on that. 3) Yes, I'll definitely cut back on other ministries. Since I'm doing a decent amount of OWL work right now, I'd probably step back from that, and avoid taking on new work in other ministries. Also, I'll probably be cutting back on some of the other non-NS stuff I do (mostly grinding Tetris lol) so that I have more time for MoE and for resting if needed. (12-20-2021, 10:34 AM)USoVietnam Wrote: Not really a question but I will promise to finish the card program within the remaining term now that I am free. Our card project is so cursed right now due to a variety of factors. I don't even know if people are still interested in cards given that the experienced card folks in the region/the game in general seem to be inactive. Thanks for the update on your situation! Glad to hear that you're going to be active in the near future. I'm looking forward to your contributions. It is true that cards is a bit stagnant right now, but I think that our card org will still benefit the community. |
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