Fellow South Pacificans,

It is unfortunate that I must address the Assembly at this moment, however a series of events relating to the Minister of Engagement have made it necessary. Many noticed that earlier this morning, Minister Tishers/Nyxonia left the TSP Discord server without public (or private) notice, followed by moving her nation Nyxonia out of the South Pacific. When a government official, especially a member of the Cabinet, disappears from the regional Discord server and the region without notice, discussion and speculation on the subject are inevitable. At this point, it is appropriate for me to inform the Assembly of the context so that it may discuss the matter and decide if any actions by the Assembly are appropriate at this time. I considered delaying making this post until the situation could become more settled, however I believe I have an obligation to provide the Assembly with relevant information and am concerned it is unlikely the fundamentals of the situation will change. I wish to apologize for the length of this post, I have opted to include as many relevant details as possible rather than too few details.

The remainder of this post will address two issues with the Minister of Engagement’s job performance throughout the term (prolonged inactivity with poorly communicated leaves of absence and failure to instruct or engage with Ministry of Engagement staff) before providing context and information about Tishers/Nyxonia’s departure from the regional server and making recommendations to the Assembly for options moving forward.

Going into this term, I reached out to each Minister in the Cabinet regarding their plans for the term during the transition, asking them to have a brief conversation with myself as Prime Minister about their plans for the term, how they planned to accomplish them, and if there were any areas where they would like for me to assist. Except for Minister Tishers/Nyxonia, all other Ministers and then-Director Concrete Slab had a start of term conversation with me about their plans for the term. Having such a conversation with each Minister is essential to my responsibility as Prime Minister for “overseeing a collective Cabinet agenda” and “overall coordination of executive activities” (per Article VI(1) and Article VI(3) of the Charter). To accomplish this, I reached out via the #moe-leadership channel of the TSP Discord to initiate this conversation with Minister Tishers on October 16 and November 1, 2 and 4. My message on November 4 offered to engage in the conversation asynchronously and sent a set of questions to guide planning so that we could have a more structured discussion. I also clarified my desire to have such a comprehensive conversation on October 26 via Discord DM at the end of discussing a specific endorsement promotion program for the CRS. At no point did Minister Tishers respond to any of these requests. This established a pattern of refusal to engage in long-term planning or discussion with the Prime Minister or Ministry staff regarding plans for the Ministry of Engagement.

Serving in the Cabinet is a demanding job in terms of time and energy, especially in the context of real-life commitments, which always come prior to the South Pacific and NationStates. However, it is also understood that if a legislator runs for office, they are committing to a level of availability necessary to actively pursue their agenda and to reasonably communicate leaves of absence to the rest of the Cabinet. Beginning in early November, Tishers’ activity in the TSP Discord server (where most Ministry of Engagement work is conducted) evaporated without notice to the Prime Minister, Cabinet, or Ministry of Engagement staff. On November 8, I reached out via Discord DM to inquire, and Tisha said she was currently on leave of absence due to work obligations, which is itself completely understandable. On November 12, Tishers returned to consistent activity on the TSP Discord server, including posting planning messages in MoE staff channels, however never responded to my original requests to discuss a comprehensive plan for the term. I reiterated that desire on November 14 and 16 in #moe-leadership and received no response. On November 19, I reached out again and received a response, and had a substantive conversation with Minister Tishers and MoE Staffer Purple Hyacinth about the Minister’s plans for the term, including discussing revisions to the welcome telegram and a helper/recruiting program. This conversation was productive and resulted in the Minister starting discussion threads about each of these ideas in the #moe-general Discord channel for more staffers to access. At this point, I felt considerably more optimistic about MoE’s prospects for the term as we had finally conducted a comprehensive planning conversation, albeit almost a month into the Cabinet term.

However, following this conversation, Minister Tishers again went on leave of absence without notice. On November 24, I reached out to Minister Tishers and was informed she was on a leave of absence, likely returning on or around December 1. I accepted this explanation, as those real-life matters take priority over NationStates as a game. On December 1, I reached out to Minister Tishers via Discord DM and received no response. On December 3, I reached out again and was told Tisha would reach out to me again later, which never happened. On December 5 and 6, I reached out again since there had been confirmation on December 3 that Tisha would be available to return shortly and discuss next steps with me. In my message on December 6, I was firm and clear that if such absences were expected to continue as a pattern, we would need to improve norms around communication and clarity, otherwise a resignation or recall may be appropriate, while also reaffirming my desire to move forward for the remainder of the term. I received a response on December 7, after sending a NationStates telegram, when the Minister again communicated that they remained on leave of absence.

Taking leaves of absence is understandable, expected, and more than acceptable, however the pattern exhibited here violated norms surrounding leaves of absence by Cabinet members, namely that: (1) they are communicated clearly to the rest of the Cabinet (this was the second LoA which was not communicated to the rest of the Cabinet at all), and (2) that they have somewhat clear start- and stop-dates (no stop date was provided for the first LoA and the stop date of the second LoA was not maintained, with leave extending a full week past the stated end of the LoA). Additionally, at this point Minister Tishers had been absent for around two-thirds of the Cabinet term, making me deeply concerned that such leaves would continue to be a pattern throughout the remainder of the term and inhibit progress in the Ministry of Engagement at a time when it was already struggling. Such inactivity is exemplified by the absence of Minister of Engagement updates from the Cabinet’s bi-weekly updates (except for the November 21 update, when I wrote a brief update based on initiatives begun by the Minister during a brief re-emergence from leave). Additionally, leaves of absence by Ministers are more understandable if they are preceded by giving instruction to Ministry staffers about how to fulfill Ministry responsibilities and continue work on projects in the Minister’s absence. Ministers are tasked both with accomplishing tasks and with leading a broader Ministry staff, a responsibility which Minister Tishers was not fulfilling. At this point, I considered requesting a recall from the Assembly based on solely dereliction of duty, however decided to wait several more days for Minister Tishers to return.

Within the next several days, Tishers returned to regular activity in the TSP Discord server but did not begin work on Ministry of Engagement business. On December 10 and 11, I reached out via the #moe-leadership channel again to discuss and received a response on December 11 which I responded to on December 12 with a consolidated “outline” of initiatives Tisha had discussed on steps to accomplish those objectives, to which I received no response despite substantive activity by Tishers in other areas of the Discord. Additionally, since returning from leave of absence, Tishers did not provide direction to Ministry staff, furthering the Ministry’s problem with staff inactivity.

All of this serves as further background to events between December 11 and 15 which led to my decision to revoke Minister Tishers’ Regional Officer privileges and subsequently Tishers’ departure from both the Discord server and the region. On December 10, Office of WA Legislation Director Jay posted a draft of a region-wide telegram communicating the recent changes to the Office of WA Legislation to the region’s residents in the #owl-senior-office Discord channel. On December 11, after I woke up, I communicated to Jay that I would send the telegram to the region after he was able to review the text again. Less than one hour later, Minister Tishers sent the telegram to the region and informed the channel of this. I responded by saying this had gone against my direct instructions and stating, “in the future please do not send regionwide TGs without clearing them with me”. This statement was a reiteration of a Cabinet-wide policy on communications that I had set on October 21 (at the beginning of the term) in the #cabinet-office channel on Discord that region-wide telegrams by the Cabinet would have Prime Minister sign-off. The reason for this broader policy was that the Prime Minister can then coordinate the comprehensive Cabinet agenda and communications with the rest of the region. In this specific context, the issue was that sending this telegram had gone against my explicit and context-specific instructions and had happened before Minister Tishers had responded to requests to outline a plan for her own Ministry in #moe-leadership.

If the problem had not reoccurred, this would have been an isolated incident. However, on December 14, Tishers sent a region-wide telegram announcing a new endorsement-promotion program without consulting me as Prime Minister, in violation of both the October 21 Cabinet communications policy and my restatement of the policy on December 11. While an endorsement-promotion program had been discussed previously in MoE channels, it was not discussed that the program was nearing completion or how it would be announced. Specific substantive concerns that I had with the telegram sent by Minister Tishers included that there was no Dispatch or forum post associated with the announcement (and therefore no durable public record) and that sending such an announcement would place too many regional TGs in close succession given the time-sensitive regional TG I intended to send in the next two days announcing an executive recruitment weekend (an event which had been discussed at length in #cabinet-office). Following this incident, given that the issue was specific to sending regional telegrams, I issued Cabinet Order 9 on my authority as Prime Minister asking the Delegate to remove Nyxonia’s Regional Officer powers and reallocate them to Minister Floptop (Lebatrip), an order which was carried out by Delegate Amerion. After issuing this Cabinet Order, I posted in the #cabinet-office Discord channel to explain the event and context to Minister Tishers. In response, Minister Tishers argued (a) that I had known the program was going to be released at some point and (b) that I “want my term as MoE to fail because you are not able to micromanage my time on when things get done”. The former is true, however the manner of announcing the program and the timing were the reasons I objected to the telegram sent (as explained in my initial message). The latter was rude and insulting to myself as Prime Minister, as it was always in my interest to see all Ministries succeed and avoid the political challenges of threads such as this one and secure what is best for the region. Additionally, while my leadership style is proactive and hands-on, the reason for this is to enable me to help where necessary and coordinate the Cabinet’s agenda. Further, if a Minister has an issue with a part of the Prime Minister’s leadership style, the best option is to discuss it with them rather than violating their guidelines (in fact, at one point in this term I had discussed with another Minister if they felt I was micromanaging their Ministry and whether they’d prefer I take a step back).

At this point, it was late in the day in my time zone, so I went to sleep. When I awoke the next morning, I found that Minister Tishers had continued to discuss/argue the issue with Cabinet Advisor Purple Hyacinth after I had gone to sleep, and then left the Discord server and the region in the morning before I had awoken. Upon discovering this, I sent a Discord DM and NationStates telegram to Tishers/Nyxonia, requesting they return and/or we discuss matters further. From my perspective, things had deteriorated but if Tishers demonstrated interest in dialogue could potentially be recovered. In response to my NationStates telegram, Tishers/Nyxonia said “I was removed from office without a recall or hearing”, which is false. The telegram continued “rule of law means nothing in TSP when the opinions of one person can determine the position”, which is again false, and if Tishers believed her removal as a Regional Officer to be illegal she is welcome to challenge such a decision in front of the High Court. Most frustratingly, the telegram stated “I am no longer a part of TSP”, but does not on its own constitute a resignation as legislator or Minister and additionally seems to be based on the faulty premise that Tishers/Nyxonia had been “removed” as Minister. I subsequently communicated to both point out the inaccurate statements made in the previous telegram and communicate that Roavin, a former Prime Minister and respected South Pacifican, had offered to mediate if she desired. When Tishers logged into Nyxonia subsequently, this offer received no response, further solidifying my perception that Tisha’s response to the conflict was to avoid it rather than attempt to address it in a constructive manner. The nation of Nyxonia has returned to the South Pacific, however this does not change the underlying concerns about inactivity by the Minister, refusal to engage in a collaborative planning process, or the events which led to her departure from the server.

Therefore, with a heavy heart, pursuant to Article XI(1)a of the Charter of the South Pacific, I am motioning for the recall of Minister of Engagement Tishers/Nyxonia for reasons of dereliction of duty and failure to abide by reasonable Cabinet guidelines for communications. This is not a decision that I take lightly, and in fact I have struggled with how to handle this situation throughout the current Cabinet term, however the departure from the server further exacerbates my concerns about inactivity, failure to offer leadership to staff, and poor communication by Minister Tishers/Nyxonia. If this recall fails, then I will continue to work with Minister Tishers. However, for the reasons explained above, I lack confidence these patterns will improve, and thus have submitted this motion to recall the Minister of Engagement.

Yours truly,
HumanSanity

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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I... did not know about this. Full support towards the recall motion.'

EDIT: Any update since Nyxonia has been moved back into the South Pacific in-game?

Local Councilroar.

Selfie

(This post was last modified: 12-15-2021, 09:55 PM by Apatosaurus.)

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EDIT: Any update since Nyxonia has been moved back into the South Pacific in-game?

My motion for a recall was posted after the nation of Nyxonia returned to the South Pacific and the text of the original post in this thread explicitly assumes it when I say:

When Tishers logged into Nyxonia subsequently, this offer received no response, further solidifying my perception that Tisha’s response to the conflict was to avoid it rather than attempt to address it in a constructive manner. The nation of Nyxonia has returned to the South Pacific, however this does not change the underlying concerns about inactivity by the Minister, refusal to engage in a collaborative planning process, or the events which led to her departure from the server.

At this time, I have not received any further communication from Tisha beyond what is described above. If I believed that waiting longer for more communication to occur would improve the situation, then I likely would have waited another 24-48 hours to inform the Assembly (although I do believe informing the Assembly sooner rather than later was important in a situation where there was public confusion about events). In my assessment, the pattern of failure to communicate or miscommunication by Minister Tishers is consistent and merits a recall, and the way this pattern has persisted for almost two months gives me little optimism the situation will improve.

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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Wow, this is very interesting. I hadn't even known this was going on for a while. They were the person who gave me a chance at the MoE, so this is very surprising and disheartening. I actually had a very nice conversation with them in the first week of December, so this development has caught me off guard greatly. I am very disappointed right now. I shall support the recall motion.

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This is all unfortunate. The discussion on Discord seems to be more about the unannounced leaves than anything else, but I think at the end of the day if you don’t have time, you should just resign. No shame in that.

The other things are more worrisome. While sending mass TGs without permission is relatively minor, I think the pattern here does suggest a go-it-alone attitude that sounds like it’s causing issues in the Cabinet, perhaps feelings of insubordination. That can happen, and in my Cabinet experience usually just needs some stern discussion or somebody’s gotta give. Otherwise you just have dysfunction.

The former is really the bigger issue for me. If you’re absent for so much of the term, just say it’s not a good time for you to do this and resign. It’s happened plenty in the past and we usually understand. But sticking in the role anyways usually ends up not looking good in the end.

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Which region did they move to, following their departure from TSP?

-Griffindor/Ebonhand
-Current Roles/Positions
-Legislator 2/24/20-
-High Court Justice 6/7/20-
-South Pacific Coral Guard 11/17/20-
-Minister of Engagement 6/17/22-

-Past Roles/Positions
-Legislator 7/3/16-4/10/18
-Secretary of State 4/3/20-2/24/21
-Chair of the APC 9/24/16-5/31/17
-Vice-Chair of the APC 6/1/17-4/10/18
-Local Council Member 7/1/17-11/17/17
-Citizen 5/2012-12/2014 and  2/26/16-7/3/2016

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Which region did they move to, following their departure from TSP?

A personal region titled "Land o odz", which they then left to return to TSP. Now, they have left TSP to go to a personal region titled "Catsylvania". Either way, the specific region itself is not the most relevant.

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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** I hereby resign my position as a member of the Coral Guard for the South Pacific and all of my other offices and titles held within the region. I do not need the stress of dealing with competing demands upon my personal life and family relationships. Tishers [Nyxonia]**


This is from Tish via discord earlier today. Posted with her permission.

This is Penguin!!
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Penguins shall one day rule the pie!
And by "pie", I mean "World"!!
Goddess Empress Queen Princess Lady of TSP 
Lilium Inter Spinas // Non timebo mala
I have done a lot of things in the Region in my History.
There's a list somewhere if you wanna go looking. 

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This is really unfortunate. Being a MoE now is exceptionally difficult because we haven't yet established the standard model of long-term operation yet (After the major infrastructure work was done, we need something else to drive activity in long-term, especially something that is more beginner-friendly). Tisha did plan for a mentorship program which will be the ministry's long-term activity driver and this kind of thing requires a lot of effort. My general absence due to RL's crunch time (which thankfully just ended yesterday, I have been getting little sleep lately) also completely halted any progress on the card program which is the only remaining big project to carry out and drive activity aside from Tisha's project. MoE is still in the process of establishing its long-term modus operandi which needs a leader with a lot of time to spare.

Looking back, it would have been better for MoE projects to be built within a ministry with existing infrastructure such as Culture or Media then separate them out into their own ministry (sort of like how the card program will move from MoE to its own thing in the future) once most things are done and we have a base of people willing to lead it. After all, MoE is doing things our region didn't really do in the past.

Chief Supervising Armchair

(This post was last modified: 12-20-2021, 10:27 AM by USoVietnam.)

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