Eshia for MoC: A Bright Future

So, what is there to be said for the past two months here in the South Pacific's Ministry of Culture? Well, I see a few different things: both things that have been going well and can be built upon, and things that maybe need a bit of work. Let's look at them.

First, let's look at Doge Land's weekly events. Overall, I think that, while these have generally been a good idea, they haven't been working out as well as I would've hoped. Attendance to our games is way down since the new reaction roles system changed the @everyone pings in the TSP Discord to @Games and Events, with only TETR.IO Wednesday and Theme Thursdays surviving with healthy numbers; the former likely because of the existence of an external Discord server, and the latter on shaky ground (as evidenced by the December 30th Theme Thursday featuring a grand total of 0 entries).

The same largely goes for Doge Land's TSPtris event, which faced similar engagement issues, and, while this can partly be blamed on our promotion of the event, it's just indicative of a wider problem: TSP isn't currently excited by our events.

So, what can be done? For one, I believe that, with the help of the Ministry of Engagement, we can have more frequent events larger than the weekly ones and that these events can be hyped up properly. While the smaller events every week have been good and I don't plan on stopping those any time soon, we need larger events to get people excited about the MoC's activities.

Another way to build upon both our regular events and our larger ones is to hold them over VC in our Discord server. Prime Minister HumanSanity mentioned in their re-election campaign that they would like to promote a "more active voice chat culture in the Discord". I am entirely behind this, as VCs make events so much more fun. There's nothing quite like the laughs you can get in a game of Gartic Phone or Skribbl.io, and being able to share those laughs together would make our events that much more engaging.

Another thing that HumanSanity mentioned was working with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on building more inter-regional events. Again, this is something from their campaign that I wholeheartedly agree with. Even disregarding the foreign affairs/soft power aspect, which is wholly outside the MoC's purview, these sorts of events help build an aspect of community across NS that you just can't get in any other way, and, as such, I would love to help make more of them possible.

Lastly, while I'm not involved in the TSP RP scene as of right now, I would still love to work with our RP community to foster activity and keep TSP's RP great.

Conflict of Interest:

I currently serve as a Warden in The Order of the Grey Wardens (since February 2021), as well as a Guardian (since December 2020), Guardian-Captain (since February 2021), and TGW's emissary to 10000 Islands (since January 2022). I also serve as a Councillor in the LCRUA (May-August 2019; since February 2021) (though that region is... well dead now), and as an RO in The Embassy (since February 2021).

With that, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have about my campaign.

(This post was last modified: 02-01-2022, 02:18 PM by Eshialand.)

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I'm actually very glad to see you run for MoC, I think you have a lot of good ideas, a strong perception about the current strengths and weaknesses of the Ministry, and a determination that could work out quite well. I have a few questions/thoughts

So, what can be done? For one, I believe that, with the help of the Ministry of Engagement, we can have more frequent events larger than the weekly ones and that these events can be hyped up properly. While the smaller events every week have been good and I don't plan on stopping those any time soon, we need larger events to get people excited about the MoC's activities.

This is certainly the thing in your platform I most agree with. The MoC's leisurely state, focused primarily on simple maintenance of the Culture Calendar, hasn't given it much of a reason for existence and as a result the Ministry has lost a lot of its energy and purpose. Large, ambitious events that are more of a gamble could give it its purpose back.

One concern that I have about our cultural events is that they've become less creative than they need to be. Things are a bit formulaic: here's a game, play it live. Things that involve more creativity or long-term planning are getting brushed by the wayside. While I like the "here's a game" thing, I think it should be one tool in our repertoire. How would you diversify the portfolio of cultural activities we host in TSP?

One large problem in MoC (and in all TSP ministries except, perhaps, the SPSF) is integration. We often frame integration on a region-wide level instead of as being within each component of the region - i.e. that after someone joins MoC staff, they then have to be integrated to get involved in MoC. How would you handle integrating/engaging new MoC staff as Minister?

Minister of Foreign Affairs
General of the South Pacific Special Forces
Ambassador to Balder
Former Prime Minister and Minister of Defense

(This post was last modified: 02-01-2022, 08:28 PM by HumanSanity.)

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I'm actually very glad to see you run for MoC, I think you have a lot of good ideas, a strong perception about the current strengths and weaknesses of the Ministry, and a determination that could work out quite well. I have a few questions/thoughts

So, what can be done? For one, I believe that, with the help of the Ministry of Engagement, we can have more frequent events larger than the weekly ones and that these events can be hyped up properly. While the smaller events every week have been good and I don't plan on stopping those any time soon, we need larger events to get people excited about the MoC's activities.

This is certainly the thing in your platform I most agree with. The MoC's leisurely state, focused primarily on simple maintenance of the Culture Calendar, hasn't given it much of a reason for existence and as a result the Ministry has lost a lot of its energy and purpose. Large, ambitious events that are more of a gamble could give it its purpose back.

One concern that I have about our cultural events is that they've become less creative than they need to be. Things are a bit formulaic: here's a game, play it live. Things that involve more creativity or long-term planning are getting brushed by the wayside. While I like the "here's a game" thing, I think it should be one tool in our repertoire. How would you diversify the portfolio of cultural activities we host in TSP?

One large problem in MoC (and in all TSP ministries except, perhaps, the SPSF) is integration. We often frame integration on a region-wide level instead of as being within each component of the region - i.e. that after someone joins MoC staff, they then have to be integrated to get involved in MoC. How would you handle integrating/engaging new MoC staff as Minister?

The Ministry of Culture largely depends on interest from what I have seen. No interest in events, no matter the size, the type, the whatever, means a quiet MoC.

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The Ministry of Culture largely depends on interest from what I have seen. No interest in events, no matter the size, the type, the whatever, means a quiet MoC.

Sure, but at some point it's the job of the Ministry (and by extension the Minister) to try to generate interest. We have one-fifth of the new nations in the game spawning into our region, one to two dozen different daily log-ins on our forum, and a Discord community with a fairly wide group of contributors. Events should be able to generate interest.

Minister of Foreign Affairs
General of the South Pacific Special Forces
Ambassador to Balder
Former Prime Minister and Minister of Defense

Reply

I'm actually very glad to see you run for MoC, I think you have a lot of good ideas, a strong perception about the current strengths and weaknesses of the Ministry, and a determination that could work out quite well. I have a few questions/thoughts

So, what can be done? For one, I believe that, with the help of the Ministry of Engagement, we can have more frequent events larger than the weekly ones and that these events can be hyped up properly. While the smaller events every week have been good and I don't plan on stopping those any time soon, we need larger events to get people excited about the MoC's activities.

This is certainly the thing in your platform I most agree with. The MoC's leisurely state, focused primarily on simple maintenance of the Culture Calendar, hasn't given it much of a reason for existence and as a result the Ministry has lost a lot of its energy and purpose. Large, ambitious events that are more of a gamble could give it its purpose back.

One concern that I have about our cultural events is that they've become less creative than they need to be. Things are a bit formulaic: here's a game, play it live. Things that involve more creativity or long-term planning are getting brushed by the wayside. While I like the "here's a game" thing, I think it should be one tool in our repertoire. How would you diversify the portfolio of cultural activities we host in TSP?

One large problem in MoC (and in all TSP ministries except, perhaps, the SPSF) is integration. We often frame integration on a region-wide level instead of as being within each component of the region - i.e. that after someone joins MoC staff, they then have to be integrated to get involved in MoC. How would you handle integrating/engaging new MoC staff as Minister?

Many thanks for the thoughts and the insightful questions!

For the first one, about diversification: I'm honestly not too sure where we could go with this. There are a few different directions we could go in for this one, and I'd love to hear the Ministry's input on that could work. One idea I've been thinking of (though not one I'd be able to host myself) would be regional movie nights, similar to XKI, TRR, and some of our inter-regional events, such as Harry Potter and the Festival of Friends, where South Pacificans could get into a Discord VC and all watch a movie together. Again, there are other things that could be done, and I'd like to hear the Ministry's input.

Now for the integration question. What really can be done for integrating MoC members? Well, for one, we could have them help out with some of the larger events we may have during the upcoming term. If we plan on having more, larger activities, we're gonna need more people to help manage them. Giving our newer members the opportunity to help set up and staff our events can help them transition from newbies to seasoned MoC staff. As well, we should also be encouraging of input from newer members. Making sure that people are heard will help them feel more welcome in the Ministry and keep them around and active, not to mention the fact that they could have interesting new ideas and perspectives.

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Let's say you wanted to plan a large event -- something a few days long, with a handful of different components, types of games or events, maybe with international partners involved, etc. In broad terms, walk us through your plan for how to execute on the event and your to-do list to get there. What things would you need help with or ask a staffer for? What would you do yourself? How long would it take to plan? etc.

Minister of Foreign Affairs
General of the South Pacific Special Forces
Ambassador to Balder
Former Prime Minister and Minister of Defense

Reply

Let's say you wanted to plan a large event -- something a few days long, with a handful of different components, types of games or events, maybe with international partners involved, etc. In broad terms, walk us through your plan for how to execute on the event and your to-do list to get there. What things would you need help with or ask a staffer for? What would you do yourself? How long would it take to plan? etc.

There is a fundamental difference between inter-regional events and in-regional events, so let me cover these two in turn. First, the simpler of the two, in-regional events.

The first step is always to sketch out when this would roughly happen on the calendar. I'd probably either go for a weekend, just to make everything easier for everyone participating. Then I, along with MoC staff, would work on figuring out a theme for the event, as well as what sorts of activities would work out. I'd plan on a few party games across the days, which I could either host myself or hand off to any willing staffers, along with a few ongoing events, such as a choose-your-own-adventure (run by a staffer, since I likely wouldn't be able to do it that well) and maybe daily .io games (which I could either do myself or get a staffer to handle) as well as contests (which I could get a staffer to judge).

Once the event is sketched out, it's time for the finishing touches. My next step would be to contact the MoE Graphics team to, well, get some graphics for us, which we can then put in dispatches and our embassy thread on the forum. Then, I would submit a plan for what channels would be needed to the Admins of the TSP Discord server. Any in-regional events can and should be run on the TSP Discord to encourage as many people as possible to interact with the event. Ideally, as much chatter as possible should go in regular channels for maximum visibility, but separate channels will be required for other things.

If all goes smoothly, the event should be able to run without a hitch from there.

As for inter-regional events, a lot of the same steps apply, but with different ministries involved. For example, co-operation with the MoFA could lead to us holding an event with treaty partners to help bring us together, and co-operation with the MoD could lead to events with other defender regions that could have an additional wargaming element to it.

Obviously, there is more work that has to be put into these sorts of events. You'd usually want them to go at least a week, a separate Discord server has to be set up, more events need to be planned, et cetera et cetera... but with more regions also come more helping hands. I will work, not only with my staff, but with my counterparts in other regions, to make these events not only possible, but successful and memorable.

For both types of events, I will always be open to input and assistance from the members of the Ministry. As I have said before, hearing people's input makes them feel heard, and feeling heard is feeling welcome.

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