Hi there, all. My name is Comfed and I’m running for Minister of Culture.

While the title of my campaign and the campaign header might indicate that I’m running to abolish the Ministry of Culture, I’m not. Culture is a valuable part of the region and making TSP fun is a great role to have as a Minister. That said, it’s clear that the Ministry needs some serious reform if it wants to be active. Fundamentally, it suffers the same problems all of our Ministries do - bloat of roles, excessive focus on organizing stuff and not enough doing stuff, etc.. This can all be attributed to too much bureaucracy. As such, I propose to radically reform the structure of the Ministry to create one which is a better fit for its intended purpose. With that out of the way, here is my plan to destroy the Ministry of Culture (as it exists today).
 

Instead of the bureaucratic Ministry of Culture that exists today, the actual Ministry staff will consist of only a small group of Senior Staff - these would be the people in charge of the various Ministry projects. Participation in these projects would mostly not even require a signup and would be open for participation from everyone (which would have the added benefit of expanding cultural activity usually tied up in a bureaucracy to be open to the whole region).

• Roleplay - as the Ministry of Culture has supporting the RP community as one of its primary responsibilities, it is important that the Ministry maintain a presence in said community. However, as I outlined, there’s no reason for a staff group to do this. The Ministry should instead maintain a direct connection with the community, such as in their discord server, and cultural activities to promote roleplay should be coordinated with the roleplayers themselves in their venues.
  
• Large events, festivals, etc.  - these are the heart and soul of the Ministry of Culture. While it is with these that one could make the case for a more bureaucratic, organized Ministry, I do not think that this is necessarily the case. Under my vision for the Ministry, big events like this would be coordinated among the Senior Staff and a few additional interested people if needed.
  
• Small events and games - Of course, the importance of big events shouldn’t detract from the value of little events and games that keep the legion fun on a daily basis. I envision a structure where those little cultural activities are each separated into projects each led by one Senior Staff member and open to all interested TSPers to participate in - any interested member could host a game of skribbl.io or other online games, for example, and the games project would be led by a Senior Staff member appointed for the job.
  

Thanks for reading my platform if you’ve gotten this far. My vision for the Ministry is very different from what we’d expect from a Ministry, but I view it as a great way to bring TSP culture back to doing actual culture and fun stuff rather than doing scheduling ().

Again, thanks for reading and I hope I’ll have your vote.

Questions are welcome.

Conflicts of Interest

Citizen of The North Pacific
Citizen of Europeia

Spoiler

Republic of Lansoon (Pacifica)

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I like this platform a lot. The Ministry of Culture needs to do things and stop talking about them. I also like your initiative and willingness to step up.

How will you reconcile conflicts of interest as a member of the Cabinet given your citizenships in other regions?

If I can be candid, you have a tendency to appear and then disappear from regions at unpredictable times. Some of this makes sense for a young player who is trying different things out, but at some point it's reasonable to ask "what is Comfed doing?". Why should we have faith you won't leave the region or shift your primary activity to another region in the middle of your term here?

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

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Hi there! I am a fellow candidate for this role, I wish you luck in the campaigning phase and in the voting booth! Anyways, I have a question. I know you started TGC thread, "Abolish The Local Council." Though, you did not mention anything about the LC in your platform. I was wondering if you were still on the side of abolishing the LC. 

I wish you luck!

maluhia
minister of culture
ambassador to lazarus
roleplayer
 

 

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Hello Cornfeed. First of all I'd like to thank you for having the following in your campaign:

and cultural activities to promote roleplay should be coordinated with the roleplayers themselves in their venues.

For now, you appear to be the only candidate which specifically underlines the fact that, while MoC is there to promote cultural activities and roleplay, it is not the RP community. Furthermore, you appear to be advocating for even more freedom of choice being given to TSPers - in this case, the roleplayers themselves should (and do) coordinate activities themselves by their own accord within their own avenues. In the second case,

I envision a structure where those little cultural activities are each separated into projects each led by one Senior Staff member and open to all interested TSPers to participate in - any interested member could host a game of skribbl.io or other online games, for example, and the games project would be led by a Senior Staff member appointed for the job.

You've explained that the 'Senior Staff' would consist of volunteers wishing to participate; here you say that any TSPer who is interested could host game events with other TSPers. I endorse this method of approach as it is natural; to elaborate: participation depends on genuine interest, if such genuine interest exists it will expand by itself, if it does not it will shrink by itself. As there is no need to limit events, activities or participation, there is no need to force events, activities or participation by artificial means such as the 'bureaucracy of pure scheduling' you've mentioned.
Completely support this idea as it is self-regulating; It can be used by the MoC to assess how much TSPers are actually interested in activities, in which ones and their capabilities of self-managing playing a game within what is essentially a political simulation game.

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Hello again Cornfeed, now it is time for you to answer some harder questions:

You lack mentioning the ongoing discussions concerning the Executive branch of TSPolitics, which would also effect you were you to be elected as MoC. As such, I have a few questions:
What is your stance on having the MoC be appointed rather than elected, given your grass-roots approach in this campaign which seemingly contradicts the appointment system?
Do you believe that the MoC should be significantly reformed not only under your term but as an entire field. For instance, do you believe that the MoC should even be part of the Executive or should it be reformed into being 'a private matter of TSPers' like the MoM was (albeit in a different manner as it is a different field)?
Lastly - as I've asked other candidates. If the LC is to be abolished and you were to be elected the MoC, are you prepared to take on the LC responsibilities of 'encouraging game-side activity'? If so, how?

The Orange Records | Viliakmon (Pacifica) | NationStates Account Main | Discord: genericsequencealias#0990

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Good to see you participate in the election @Comfed! Although I believe that we both have the same fundemental idea, your approach to the issue is different though I do like it. It would be weird if I was fully supportive of your campaign though, so here come the questions:

I envision a structure where those little cultural activities are each separated into projects each led by one Senior Staff member and open to all interested TSPers to participate in - any interested member could host a game of skribbl.io or other online games, for example, and the games project would be led by a Senior Staff member appointed for the job.

I don't entirely understand your intent with this. Why don't we just have citizens run these games instead of seperating them into projects each with a senior staff member? You can't expand that much on the idea of hosting a game.

The Ministry should instead maintain a direct connection with the community, such as in their discord server, and cultural activities to promote roleplay should be coordinated with the roleplayers themselves in their venues.

The idea of having a strong connection is nice though hard though achieve. It is worth noting that people have tried to do MoC-run RP events in the past but they were not a success. How do you see a MoC-run RP event and how will you make sure that it won't fail?

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Sorry for taking so long to answer your questions, everyone!

I like this platform a lot. The Ministry of Culture needs to do things and stop talking about them. I also like your initiative and willingness to step up.

Thank you!

How will you reconcile conflicts of interest as a member of the Cabinet given your citizenships in other regions?

First, I will take steps to reduce any conflicts of interest - I will not take up any government offices in other regions during my term as MoC, though I do plan on staying in TNP and Europeia as citizens (but no other regions besides TSP ). That said, while going into hypotheticals is difficult, if a conflict of interest did arise I would act in accordance with my obligations to The South Pacific as an elected Cabinet official.

If I can be candid, you have a tendency to appear and then disappear from regions at unpredictable times. Some of this makes sense for a young player who is trying different things out, but at some point it's reasonable to ask "what is Comfed doing?". Why should we have faith you won't leave the region or shift your primary activity to another region in the middle of your term here?

I do not think that the trend you (admittedly fairly enough) point out will continue. In the past I've had a tendency to jump from region to region, staying active in few places for long - I think I can attribute that to my newness and later my curiosity in seeing what other regions have to offer and what can sometimes by an impulsive side of me. That said, I've become more settled into the regions I'm in right now and I have less of a desire to become involved in every interesting-seeming region I see (partially I think I've become less impulsive, although you may disagree ).

Anyways, I have a question. I know you started TGC thread, "Abolish The Local Council." Though, you did not mention anything about the LC in your platform. I was wondering if you were still on the side of abolishing the LC. 

I still would prefer abolishing the LC and the whole concept of "gameside independence". That said, my personal opinion on the matter is not relevant to the way things work now. I don't think the existence of the Local Council precludes the Ministry of Culture running gameside events, though.

What is your stance on having the MoC be appointed rather than elected, given your grass-roots approach in this campaign which seemingly contradicts the appointment system?

This is just the way that Ministers are selected right now. I would have been equally happy to make my pitch to a Prime Minister who appoints the Cabinet under my preferred system as well.

Do you believe that the MoC should be significantly reformed not only under your term but as an entire field. For instance, do you believe that the MoC should even be part of the Executive or should it be reformed into being 'a private matter of TSPers' like the MoM was (albeit in a different manner as it is a different field)?

I have thought about this, and I think it's good for Culture to be part of the executive - even if it's not a Ministry there should still be some cultural drive coming from the government. It is much more difficult to "privatize" culture than it is to do so with Media because Media requires much less coordinated effort than culture does.

Lastly - as I've asked other candidates. If the LC is to be abolished and you were to be elected the MoC, are you prepared to take on the LC responsibilities of 'encouraging game-side activity'? If so, how?

I'd be happy to take on the LC's responsibilities. I would take them on exactly as I have promised to take on every other aspect of Culture in my campaign - by directly engaging and coordinating with the community (for example, look to the way I have envisioned RP events and apply that to the RMB).

I don't entirely understand your intent with this. Why don't we just have citizens run these games instead of seperating them into projects each with a senior staff member? You can't expand that much on the idea of hosting a game.

My apologies if this wasn't clear - having citizens run games is exactly what I want. I don't intend to separate each individual game into a project - by project all I mean is the effort by the Ministry led by one member of the Senior Staff to have TSPers host and play games.

The idea of having a strong connection is nice though hard though achieve. It is worth noting that people have tried to do MoC-run RP events in the past but they were not a success. How do you see a MoC-run RP event and how will you make sure that it won't fail?

I think it's important that MoC-run RP events actively include the RP community (rather than just Ministry staff interested in the RP community) and that the events be relevant to RPers. Cultural RP events should ideally be by and for RPers, so I would find it critical that these events are run in coordination with the RPers themselves - ideally the person in my reduced Ministry staff in charge of overseeing the RP side of culture would be from that community itself!

Spoiler

Republic of Lansoon (Pacifica)

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Hello there!

I'm a major forum RP'er and also an editor for all three RP canons on the supporting TSPedia. I was wondering about a few concerns that I share with my fellow RP'ers which we talked about over discord. I'm afraid that this might prove a problem with a growing rift between gameside and the RP community, specifically the RP that takes place on these forums in Treasure Island. Frankly, most RP'ers are RP forum isolationists, but fairly active on our TSPRP discord and few gamesiders or even other forum users dwell on ours. I think the rift happened with consecutive MoC's eroding their relations with the forum RP community and it hasn't been addressed properly, which I hope will change with the next MoC.

Let me say that I believe the MoC could use some change as well. I wouldn't use your drastic wording, but change is required to combat the aforementioned growing seclusion. You mentioned plans and support for the RP community, however I do find that these words are rather empty from a forum RP'er perspective. As a prominent RP'er within the forum RP community, I don't recall you engaging with us and that is part of the larger problem. I also haven't seen you in our TSPRP Discord server as well (to my knowledge), so as of now I do have my doubts about you as an engaging MoC towards the forum RP community. Now of course you might be engaging in other RP communities like RMB's, but I believe the MoC's duties are to all of these TSPRP communities. Be it RMB, Knowhere, Psomwhere or on these very forums. So how do you see yourself connecting with us and maintaining it?

Now festivals and RP projects are a possible great way to help bridge the gap so to say. To what capacities do you intend to actively engage with the forum RP community? For I don't recall any MoC popping to our Discord to help with an event in the past couple of years. Sometimes they did come up with a project, but these weren't interesting to our larger community and were rather given to us, rather than built with us. Which I think is a very important distinction. So I'd like to ask you to share your concrete plans you have for the entire RP community, from the shores of Knowhere to the Badlands of Sector A1-0.

Pacifica: Myria, Sallodesia, Stoinia • A1-0: Stoinian Star Kingdom • Aurora: Kingdom of Threnebor

(This post was last modified: 08-03-2022, 07:55 PM by Maverick.)

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