I'm gonna be honest with the members of this Assembly when I say that we, as a body, need to have an honest, but polite, conversation about the process of this debate. There's a lot of underlying negativity and toxicity originating from this debate that needs to be addressed and dealt with. We need some sort of truth and reconciliation process here before moving on from this debate.

Most of the members of this Assembly would not know it, but this has been the case for weeks and there may still be underlying tensions coming from the original debate on this topic in December 2019. For citizens who are not legislators, they would not know that, while the region was celebrating its 100th legislator in this Assembly, we were privately arguing in #legislators-lounge over a member's "ridiculous" remark. This is just one of many examples of toxicity that has come out of this debate from various sides.

It is my hope that the members of this Assembly are interested in this effort that I'm proposing.

4× Cabinet minister /// 1× OWL director /// CRS member /// SPSF

My History

(This post was last modified: 05-10-2020, 09:50 PM by Jay Coop.)

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First, I despise the terms "toxic" and "toxicity" because they are overused and have become meaningless, in my opinion, as they have just synonyms for "disagreeable as judged by this individual", rather than as an expression of active harm and possibly malice with destructive effects.

On the topic itself, I think it would help if some specific instances are explained (in a rational manner) by those that feel wronged.

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Given the nature of this discussion, I suggest the active participation of the Chair (or if they are unavailable at the moment, a third party) to facilitate the dialogue.

Admiral General of the South Pacific

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First, I despise the terms "toxic" and "toxicity" because they are overused and have become meaningless, in my opinion, as they have just synonyms for "disagreeable as judged by this individual", rather than as an expression of active harm and possibly malice with destructive effects.

On the topic itself, I think it would help if some specific instances are explained (in a rational manner) by those that feel wronged.

Yes, I agree.

I think everybody -- no matter what specific position they have on the ministry split topic -- felt or feels they are in the right, which is not a recipe for producing easy apologies. We shouldn't expect those, or we're setting ourselves up for further acrimony.

Discussions about "toxicity" can come very close to becoming a forum for slandering people one has existing personal issues with if they're not properly moderated or carried out rationally. I'd strongly encourage the Chair to moderate this if multiple parties wish to go forward with it. Personally, I may feel that some members held (hold) flawed and problematic positions on the Ministry split issue in-character, but I haven't felt it transcending those boundaries of debate, other than what others have related to me. I too would like to see specifics put on the table if people who do feel things transcended the boundaries of debate want to have a fair discussion.

~ Aumeltopia ~

Raccoons are bandits! First they steal your food . . . and then your heart/identity!

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For starters, a number of people took issue with the fact that the OP of the debate started off with: "It's time to split up the Ministry of Regional Affairs." It was the view of a number of people that this statement predetermined how the debate was going to proceed. This phrase was interpreted to mean that the outcome of this debate must be a split, precluding any discussion on whether a split was merited.

As I had mentioned earlier, there is a post on 28 April that really prevented further legitimate discussion on the debate from taking place, even after the Letter to the Assembly. Regardless of the points made by the post, the prefacing of the post with describing the concerns of senior Ministry leadership as "ridiculous" stifled further participation in this debate from several senior officials.

And to another point, many of the members of this Assembly who are part of the senior Ministry leadership felt coerced to even support a split and present a proposal that would do just that. This is coupled with the fact that we felt rushed to draft an alternative proposal when a member of this Assembly demanded a deadline and an accompaniment of names on the proposal as to who supports it.

I will leave the floor open to the rest of the Assembly, including the members who also serve as senior Ministry officials, but I just want to say that it is truly unfortunate how this debate unfolded. I'm sure there are many of us who are disappointed and regret how this happened. I myself have a few regrets and know that I made a few mistakes throughout this process and I take full responsibility for that.

4× Cabinet minister /// 1× OWL director /// CRS member /// SPSF

My History

(This post was last modified: 05-10-2020, 10:24 PM by Jay Coop.)

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Madam Chairwoman, can we please move this to the private halls?

Above all else, I hope to be a decent person.
Has Been
What's Next?

 

CoA: August 2016-January 2017
Minister of Foreign Affairs: October 2019-June 2020, October 2020- February 2021

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Seconded

4× Cabinet minister /// 1× OWL director /// CRS member /// SPSF

My History

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the thread has been moved. I won't be available to really mediate discussion until tomorrow Evening.

Empress of Fire 
Current Minister of Military Affairs
Chair Perch of the Assembly (February to June 2020)
SPSF Soldier
MoRA Fellow
Ambassador to Forest and Lazarus

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As I had mentioned earlier, there is a post on 28 April that really prevented further legitimate discussion on the debate from taking place, even after the Letter to the Assembly. Regardless of the points made by the post, the prefacing of the post with describing the concerns of senior Ministry leadership as "ridiculous" stifled further participation in this debate from several senior officials.

Straight up, I don't appreciate this. I both apologized and attempted to tap this down, but now see that my words were and continue to be misconstrued, let's discuss.

First, I stand by my criticisms of the arguments. The arguments the MoRA presented against the proposal and this framing is what made this feel personal rather than objective or critical; in fact, even calling these "concerns" continues to set the stage for hurt feelings. They're not "concerns;" the only concern being presented is that power was moving away from the unnamed officials.

For example, the post on behalf of the RA officials referred to other members of the Assembly as "people outside of the ministry," pointed out "officials within the ministry are not being adequately heard" and suggested that a majoritarian institution is doing doing something by majority. This set the debate into personal terms about who is being listened to and who gets a say; That makes things "toxic" because it's personal and a rejection of an argument isn't about said argument, but a rejection is a rebuke of the person.

When I called them "ridiculous," it wasn't a criticism of people or even the sentiment. (We're allowed to be hurt by things that happen in this game!) But, our personal feelings shouldn't get a say in this. If I took every change to the forum or the government as a personal attack on me, this region would be a very different place. (Actually, tbh, I'm pretty sure we can go back to early forums and find where I took things personally and see how that turned out!)

In comparison, if we had framed the argument about splitting up the debate as "We don't believe this will achieve the goal of increased activity" (as Aggie did the first time around) that is an objective thing to debate. We can weigh those options and, while we might not come to the same conclusion, it's not personal. When we come down on different sides of an issues it's not about me, it's about the issue at hand.

Finally, seeing that (a) I apologized and yet we are still harping on this, and (b) my post concluded with saying I was on the side of the RA staff, I'm starting to believe this was a bad faith effort to create exactly this outcome.

-tsunamy
[forum admin]

(This post was last modified: 05-10-2020, 11:36 PM by Tsunamy.)

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For starters, a number of people took issue with the fact that the OP of the debate started off with: "It's time to split up the Ministry of Regional Affairs." It was the view of a number of people that this statement predetermined how the debate was going to proceed. This phrase was interpreted to mean that the outcome of this debate must be a split, precluding any discussion on whether a split was merited.

First off, I apologize if I was misunderstood. This first quote is a rhetorical statement meant to frame the debate to come as a question of how we would like to split. A majority of the region, the last time we held this discussion, was in favor of a split and I was attempting to evoke a sense of urgency so we would have this policy enacted before the start of Cabinet elections. Furthermore, I did not intend for this to be dismissive of those opposed to a split but of course, the debate would end in a proposal for a split because that is what would go to the vote. Being pro-split, of course I would frame the debate in the sense this was a long-overdue change; that was a rhetorical choice and I apologize if people took offense to this choice of rhetoric. It was in no way meant to prevent those who opposed a split not to speak their minds, in fact, I diligently engaged with the anti-split crowd. 
 

the senior Ministry leadership felt coerced to even support a split and present a proposal that would do just that. This is coupled with the fact that we felt rushed to draft an alternative proposal when a member of this Assembly demanded a deadline and an accompaniment of names on the proposal as to who supports it.

My request for a deadline was borne out of the impression I had that the leadership expected us to sit and wait for their proposal and halt our discussions. When debate in public was expected to cease so a debate the Assembly was not privy to could conclude, I understandably wanted to know when we might be able to continue our work in these chambers. My desire for names is related to my long-standing push for transparency. I want to know who supports any proposal, especially if there are multiple authors who drafted it away from the Assembly. I apologize that my requests for transparency and a resumption public debate were seen as coercion as that was never my intent.

As a general note, when the CoA said I had crossed the line, I readily apologized and have done what I can to keep all of my arguments focused on policy and process, not personalities. I apologize if I ever failed in that endeavor, I am only human.

(This post was last modified: 05-10-2020, 11:23 PM by Omega.)

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