On Community Building
By: Guess and Check, Editor-in-Chief
So if y’all haven’t seen it, I recently published this dispatch that discusses kinda how I view the general moving parts of a region. In that dispatch, I said I wrote that… essay, I guess, in preparation for an EDN article. This is said EDN article.
This is something I’ve wanted to write for a long time, although times have tended to change since I first started writing this a year or two ago. Most importantly… I feel the Union generally subscribes to this kinda way of thought, which it kinda didn’t when I first came to realize my opinions/observations on this matter. Nonetheless, this is basically a short article on what I think the Union, as a region, should have as its mindset when it’s generally considering any major initiative.
I should note I’m a subpar regionbuilder. But I do have observations and experiences that give me an inkling of an idea-framework here that works, I think, although I’ll leave you to judge that.
So let’s go.
THE BACKGROUND
So the way this small article will be framed is on the basis of the dispatch I linked above. I’d recommend reading that if you don’t understand this section. But to summarize.
From what I’ve seen, a region is made up of two parts. The community, and whatever institutions said community has that recruits for, maintains, and enhances the community. Both tend to need each other - communities give institutions purpose, and institutions need to function properly to keep the community alive. One type of such regional institution is a regional government, which generally runs a variety of programs that give the community more stuff to do AND allow community members to give back to the community.
Given the Union’s government (like most governments) is the primary caretaker of most of the community’s general aspects, you’ll notice that I view the lens of this article through the government. That’s because the government is primarily responsible for region-building, and thus this article is my opinion of the things it should do and the perspectives it should hold.
THE GOVERNMENT, THE COMMUNITY BUILDER
(TLDR; The Union should focus on community building (it hasn't always done so in favor of more splintered concerns) and should show the community it cares.)
Probably the most important perspective for the Union’s government is to simply focus on building a community. The reason is simple: the government in the Union is what is tasked with maintaining, recruiting for, and enhancing the community. Its entire purpose is to make the Union a place for people to stay, to have fun, and to make their home. Thus, it should focus on that purpose.
While this may seem inherently sensible at first, there have been times when the Union’s government has skimped on this part. Maybe it was a worry about perpetuating the government itself, generating an off-site presence whilst effectively ignoring the on-site region, or developing a political simulator government again (which characterized the region from 2015 to 2019/2020-ish), or so on. For a long time, the Union’s government had generally focused on a specific issue that was only a portion of its true purpose. In essence, the Union’s government had focused on the branches whilst ignoring the tree.
This is not to say none of those things are important. They are! But all of them serve the broader core function of the Union’s government to build a community, and thus none of them should come superior to that broader purpose. There is a more practical reason for this as well: you need a community to have a government in the first place. Fact is that if you don’t have a community of people invested in the region’s wellbeing, then you aren’t going to have people to recruit into your projects, join your off-site platforms, or participate in your politics. Which is why, before all else, the regional government must focus on building a community, and all its steps should be geared towards that broader purpose.
But it is not enough to just focus on building a community; an important part of this is to show the community that you care in the first place. Expectations beget expectations. When the regional government is inactive and doing nothing, at least publically, then people are left to believe no one cares about the region’s community. They then, in turn, find it less worth investing their time, efforts, and love into the community; for if the leadership of the community seems to not care, why should they? And so a death spiral may occur. Which is why beyond having that core focus, the regional government needs to show they care. Making things more accessible for people (such as forms anyone can use, without having a forum account), being transparent (weekly updates), holding events all can participate in (like songs of the week) - these things among others can showcase the government’s activity and care for the region, and therefore make it more likely that people will recognize something real is being built. I’ll touch on this a bit later, but generally speaking, the government should take moves to show it cares.
As a case study of how important the government showing it cares is, here’s this screenshot from one of our roleplay Discord servers.
From the Deran Fantasy Roleplay server, April 6th EST.
Showing we care about the proper thing matters.
HOW TO GO ABOUT IT
(TLDR; The Executive is the main branch responsible for community building. It should do this by helping community members run projects, act as a talent-finder, and be ready to give new excited community members spots in the Executive. The regional government as a whole should also focus on accessibility to make our region more inclusive for its inhabitants.)
So great. We’ve established that the Union’s government really should focus on community building and take deliberate steps to show it cares about the Union’s community.
But how do we get the government to build the community?
Well, one thing to remember about people is that we are naturally creative. When we get bored, many of us will sit down and try to improve/fix on something or create something new. This inherent tendency is pretty reinforced by the types of people NationStates encourages to stick around - often individuals who like to worldbuild. This is pretty clearly a phenomenon you’ll see in real life too. Point being, NationStates encourages its players to play in its sandbox and do whatever they wish - it plays into an inherent instinct to create that many of us feel.
This often leads to people expressing a variety of interests. Some tend to want to hold events for other nations; others like discussing World Assembly proposals. Whatever the case may be, such talents and interests grow naturally within a community like the Union’s. It is these very talents that the government should attempt to nurture and grow into something that helps both the individual and the community grow. Kind of similar to how a stereotypical music manager will find a good singer and help promote them and their work until they reach success, the government should aim to promote the works of the community and, if specific individuals want, offer them a more permanent platform to run projects for others. In this way, the government builds the community through initiatives, but it also propagates itself by training new people to take over its duties over time. This duty, by nature, mostly falls on the Executive branch of the Union.
So how should the Executive do this? One thing is by keeping an eye on the region for new ideas people may propose and/or indicators that someone may have interest in some area the Executive covers. One major way to do this is act as a project promoter. For example, if someone has shown an interest in maybe running an event, then the Executive should resolutely reach out to that individual and see if they’re willing to cooperate with the Executive to get that event up; the Executive can promote said event in all of the Union’s edifices, while the person running the event can get help from the Executive’s experience and available manpower. The Union’s benefit is that it gets a more polished event that more people are likely to enjoy whilst giving a Unionist more experience in event management and knowledge of the Union’s institutions. (As a note, this doesn’t mean Minister’s shouldn’t chase their own goals and ideas - they should! They’re a part of the community as well. But they should balance doing both what they want and what the rest of the community wants is all I’m saying.) This example does apply to other projects as well, like polls or game nights.
Another way for the Executive to do this is to give positions to people who show a nominal interest in an area. A great example of this, in my opinion, is the Ministry of World Assembly Affairs. If the Executive sees someone who has interest in World Assembly resolutions, then maybe said individual would be interested in hosting discussions for said resolutions! So the Executive should thus reach out to such an individual and ask if they want to be in the Ministry of World Assembly Affairs. And if there’s an open Deputy/Minister spot… the Executive should give them that as well! Give that person as much room as possible to experiment and explore the world of their interests. This could very well lead to a Unionist launching a variety of different projects (see: Aarman being awesome and running World Assembly discussions now) and perhaps help us seek new governmental leadership for the next generation.
One key thing I should note here is my language, that the Executive should reach out. In many regions and definitely in the Union, there tends to be a focus on self-interest; that people should express some interest in a position before we give it to them. This especially is shown in the idea of Executive applications; that people should apply for X or Y position to have any chance of joining a Ministry. The problem with this approach is that we presume the entire community knows 1000% well what happens in the Executive, or the expectations of serving in the Executive, or so on - which isn’t necessarily true. There could be many reasons why someone who’d be a great fit for say, Minister of World Assembly Affairs, wouldn’t think of applying - like maybe they’re scared to apply or don’t think regional government is for them despite never being in it! Whatever the case, it shouldn’t be a surprising notion that the Union may miss out on awe-inspiring power players simply because we expect them to reach out to us, when in fact maybe what's necessary is us reaching out to them.
(As a note, this isn’t to say Executive applications are bad; they’re great since they allow people who go unnoticed by the Executive to self-nominate themselves for appointment. BUT, they should be used in conjunction with the Executive reaching out to people, not as a replacement thereof. Also, the Executive should never pressure individuals to join; they should be free to decline a request. Which is obvious but, I’m saying this just in case.)
The interesting thing about the Executive is that once you join a Ministry, the only thing you need to do anything is the permission of the relevant Minister and the President. But one thing I've found oftentimes is that people may tend to feel restricted as a staffer, with an expectation that they're there solely to do what the Minister wants. Which isn't the right way to think about things, but this thought process naturally persists because that's how most hierarchies work. If you join someone’s staff, you’re there to do mostly their work - unless they give you free reign. Which is why Minister and Deputy Minister are important positions when it comes to community building, because the primary benefit they have is to encourage people to go buck wild in ways most people feel uncomfortable with as a staffer. (We should also encourage staffers to do their own things, don’t get me wrong - but oftentimes, having an official title is important to make someone feel a bit more comfortable in my experience).
This is why the Executive should make an effort to balance having proficient Ministers with allowing new players to take the reins. While many Executives may be hesitant to ditch a star three-term Minister for a newbie, there is also the fact that a new Minister often may have new ideas about what to do in a Ministry that they can probably carry out most effectively as Minister. There's also the fact that proficient Ministers can burn out if they're appointed to the job for a long period of time - there's been many cases across many regions of Ministers who, being seen as super effective, were kept in the seat for months on end and thus over time ended up burning out yet don’t have the heart to refuse being re-appointed. Such Ministers often lose the ability to do what made them a good pick in the first place. Having a bit more higher Minister turnover will help prevent this, alongside enabling the rise of more power players who can both gain more enjoyment from the game alongside producing content the rest of the community enjoys as well. In my opinion, this is one of the things the Union did a bit better in its political era in 2018/2019, and it has seemed to have lost a little bit as time has progressed.
This necessity of the statuses of Minister and Deputy Minister being available does also mean that the Executive should be fine with another thing: leaving those spots empty, at least for those Ministries that require less experience (specifically our foreign affairs, World Assembly, culture, and census ministries). Oftentimes the reason Ministers get burned out is because there's a worry from the Executive that if they have their awesome Minister resign, then no one will fill their spot. By keeping spots empty when there is no one who can fully serve in the office, the Executive can thus make it a priority to keep an eye out for anyone who might be interested in serving and do better in the job than a burned out Minister. And, of course, letting said burned out Minister go and do something else.
To add on to that, the Executive should also be flexible when it comes to Ministries and who it appoints as Minister. This is because while being a Deputy Minister can help someone be more comfortable in doing Executive duties, being a Minister increases that comfort. Being a Minister may also make sense if an individual is overseeing a very specific project - a Minister may not have time if they have multiple Deputies, afterall. While these speciality Minister-offices are rare, the Executive should be ready to accommodate its structure to make it more easier for people to do their duties - and thus, more easier for the Executive to build a community.
Another important thing for the Executive to do is try to either avoid boring mundane jobs or make such jobs more rewarding. I am, of course, talking about more long-term/monotonous jobs like UDSAF soldier or Union ambassador - staffer jobs that most people probably find boring to do. If the Executive’s general gist should be encouraging people to run programs they like, then it doesn’t make too much sense to give these monotone jobs an exception. Probably something like external motivation would be required for them (such as the UDSAF ranks and badges, or giving UDSAF soldiers a fun military community to be in) to always have - which I believe President East Chimore’s faction system will resolve - but nonetheless this should always be kept in mind in the Executive’s perspective. If the job is a monotone job that isn’t inherently rewarding in some way (unlike MoWAA discussion posting, which can be nice due to getting to see people’s responses), then the Union must add some form of external motivation to keep the job enjoyable. In other words - if a job is lacking some form of internal motivation, the Executive needs to provide some method of external motivation.
But one final thing for my thoughts on this matter, perhaps all else, is this: that when the region isn’t doing well, the Executive’s focus should be on the Ministry of Culture. This isn’t to say that the Executive can’t focus on other areas, but it is integral that Culture be an on-going Executive focus, forever and always. Because ultimately, Culture tends to be the Ministry that theoretically deals with most community-ran projects AND it also hosts its own projects that give the general community things to do. Without culture pushing activity initiatives and giving people ways to hang out, it is very unlikely that the Union’s general community will be as active or close with each other. It is the job of Culture, as the Executive’s most important Ministry, to build the community directly. So no Executive should ever sideline Culture, but rather cherish it. For it is the most crucial Ministry in fulfilling the Executive’s (and regional government’s) main purpose: to build up the region’s community.
INCREASING ACCESSIBILITY AND INCLUSIVITY
This is another major thing, in my opinion - and this is something that, whilst definitely important for the Executive, it is important for other branches as well. And that is accessibility.
Accessibility means improving and expanding the number of ways we enable the community to participate in the government. Some of the things I mentioned above, like the Executive reaching out to potentially interested people or utilizing forms anyone can use (as I mentioned prior) are ideas of this.
Effectively speaking, I think it would behoove our government and region as a whole to constantly be in a state of wondering how it can improve accessibility. And I mean this both in generally big things (like applications) and smaller things (like how our Ministers use Regional Officer powers, for example). It is important that we improve accessibility because it allows more people to participate in our community (like by improving on-site accessibility, we allow more on-site focused people to give input to traditionally forum focused things) and thus increases inclusivity. But it is also important that we improve accessibility to make it easier for people to perform certain tasks, particularly those in government. This article by Kron is a good reach into analyzing that part of accessibility.
Now to be frank, I don’t have too many suggestions on how to improve accessibility in general. There are some general things the Union should keep in mind to improve game-side accessibility, which I explain in my “The Future of the Game-side Community” article and thus won’t discuss in this article. But when it comes to the Executive, there are a few things I can think of. One is not mandating every person who the Executive reaches out to to fill out an application, since this is a useless step in onboarding that can be skipped. (If records of when someone joined the Executive are important, just make a thread and post a record stating “X joined Y Ministry after being contacted by the Executive).
Another idea, possibly a bit more controversial, is perhaps allowing staffers to be non-Citizens. This is kinda already done for the Ministry of Roleplay, but I think it could be a good idea to extend this to these lower level positions to allow people who may not be sure/not interested in becoming Citizens yet to join the Executive and start doing things there. This would mostly apply to anyone reached out to by the Executive I think, but nonetheless it’d also allow people to jump in immediately rather than waiting a day or two for bureaucracy. And if said person likes working in the government, they can always apply for Citizenship during their staffership and become eligible for promotions in the future.
There are, of course, concerns about regional security. And the fact is, they will always contrast with regional accessibility. For example, considering we’re a notable (albeit more on the minor side) defender region, we kinda probably need IP Citizenship to protect our voting processes. But our need for regional security should be balanced with making things easier for our community, like for example, the previous two ideas I mentioned don’t really impact our security that much yet pretty obviously make things a bit easier for newer players joining up in the Executive. Ideas like these - those that don’t impact our security as much, but do make things easier, are out there and perhaps waiting to just be discovered and tried.
If we make our region’s institutions more accessible and thus more inclusive, we both show our community that we care AND we allow for more community participation. A win win, in my opinion, so long as we do it right.
CONCLUSION
So you may be saying “G&C, you said this article would be SHORT”. To that, I must say my dear reader, I did. But that was before I wrote the first draft of this, and then I found it funny to include this part of the conclusion, and so it remains. A pseudo-short article, perhaps?
In any case! If you want a TLDR; of the article, it’s this: the Union’s government needs to take as its focus building the community, first and foremost. It also needs to show the community that it cares in the process. To facilitate this, the Executive in particular should both serve as a no-obligation platform to help Unionists run community events AND act as a talent-finder to help community members develop their skills whilst running government programs to benefit the community and themselves. Additionally, the region as a whole should keep in mind where it can improve the region’s accessibility to improve our community’s inclusivity.
Now to be clear, maybe I’m wrong here. I don’t think I am, but as I said I’m not too great a region-builder, who knows? Also, I’m not claiming that doing all I said will lead to insta-region success for the Union; region-building is more than a philosophy. But I am a personal believer that having a solid, grounded philosophy makes it easier to do things. So here’s my philosophy on regionbuilding.
So that’s all I have to say.
P.S. this is 7 pages - congratulations on reading it!
P.P.S. for funsies you can read a pseudo-Delegate campaign I made in the East Pacific once, which covers this stuff to some extent but with nicer graphics
By: Guess and Check, Editor-in-Chief
So if y’all haven’t seen it, I recently published this dispatch that discusses kinda how I view the general moving parts of a region. In that dispatch, I said I wrote that… essay, I guess, in preparation for an EDN article. This is said EDN article.
This is something I’ve wanted to write for a long time, although times have tended to change since I first started writing this a year or two ago. Most importantly… I feel the Union generally subscribes to this kinda way of thought, which it kinda didn’t when I first came to realize my opinions/observations on this matter. Nonetheless, this is basically a short article on what I think the Union, as a region, should have as its mindset when it’s generally considering any major initiative.
I should note I’m a subpar regionbuilder. But I do have observations and experiences that give me an inkling of an idea-framework here that works, I think, although I’ll leave you to judge that.
So let’s go.
THE BACKGROUND
So the way this small article will be framed is on the basis of the dispatch I linked above. I’d recommend reading that if you don’t understand this section. But to summarize.
From what I’ve seen, a region is made up of two parts. The community, and whatever institutions said community has that recruits for, maintains, and enhances the community. Both tend to need each other - communities give institutions purpose, and institutions need to function properly to keep the community alive. One type of such regional institution is a regional government, which generally runs a variety of programs that give the community more stuff to do AND allow community members to give back to the community.
Given the Union’s government (like most governments) is the primary caretaker of most of the community’s general aspects, you’ll notice that I view the lens of this article through the government. That’s because the government is primarily responsible for region-building, and thus this article is my opinion of the things it should do and the perspectives it should hold.
THE GOVERNMENT, THE COMMUNITY BUILDER
(TLDR; The Union should focus on community building (it hasn't always done so in favor of more splintered concerns) and should show the community it cares.)
Probably the most important perspective for the Union’s government is to simply focus on building a community. The reason is simple: the government in the Union is what is tasked with maintaining, recruiting for, and enhancing the community. Its entire purpose is to make the Union a place for people to stay, to have fun, and to make their home. Thus, it should focus on that purpose.
While this may seem inherently sensible at first, there have been times when the Union’s government has skimped on this part. Maybe it was a worry about perpetuating the government itself, generating an off-site presence whilst effectively ignoring the on-site region, or developing a political simulator government again (which characterized the region from 2015 to 2019/2020-ish), or so on. For a long time, the Union’s government had generally focused on a specific issue that was only a portion of its true purpose. In essence, the Union’s government had focused on the branches whilst ignoring the tree.
This is not to say none of those things are important. They are! But all of them serve the broader core function of the Union’s government to build a community, and thus none of them should come superior to that broader purpose. There is a more practical reason for this as well: you need a community to have a government in the first place. Fact is that if you don’t have a community of people invested in the region’s wellbeing, then you aren’t going to have people to recruit into your projects, join your off-site platforms, or participate in your politics. Which is why, before all else, the regional government must focus on building a community, and all its steps should be geared towards that broader purpose.
But it is not enough to just focus on building a community; an important part of this is to show the community that you care in the first place. Expectations beget expectations. When the regional government is inactive and doing nothing, at least publically, then people are left to believe no one cares about the region’s community. They then, in turn, find it less worth investing their time, efforts, and love into the community; for if the leadership of the community seems to not care, why should they? And so a death spiral may occur. Which is why beyond having that core focus, the regional government needs to show they care. Making things more accessible for people (such as forms anyone can use, without having a forum account), being transparent (weekly updates), holding events all can participate in (like songs of the week) - these things among others can showcase the government’s activity and care for the region, and therefore make it more likely that people will recognize something real is being built. I’ll touch on this a bit later, but generally speaking, the government should take moves to show it cares.
As a case study of how important the government showing it cares is, here’s this screenshot from one of our roleplay Discord servers.
From the Deran Fantasy Roleplay server, April 6th EST.
Showing we care about the proper thing matters.
HOW TO GO ABOUT IT
(TLDR; The Executive is the main branch responsible for community building. It should do this by helping community members run projects, act as a talent-finder, and be ready to give new excited community members spots in the Executive. The regional government as a whole should also focus on accessibility to make our region more inclusive for its inhabitants.)
So great. We’ve established that the Union’s government really should focus on community building and take deliberate steps to show it cares about the Union’s community.
But how do we get the government to build the community?
Well, one thing to remember about people is that we are naturally creative. When we get bored, many of us will sit down and try to improve/fix on something or create something new. This inherent tendency is pretty reinforced by the types of people NationStates encourages to stick around - often individuals who like to worldbuild. This is pretty clearly a phenomenon you’ll see in real life too. Point being, NationStates encourages its players to play in its sandbox and do whatever they wish - it plays into an inherent instinct to create that many of us feel.
This often leads to people expressing a variety of interests. Some tend to want to hold events for other nations; others like discussing World Assembly proposals. Whatever the case may be, such talents and interests grow naturally within a community like the Union’s. It is these very talents that the government should attempt to nurture and grow into something that helps both the individual and the community grow. Kind of similar to how a stereotypical music manager will find a good singer and help promote them and their work until they reach success, the government should aim to promote the works of the community and, if specific individuals want, offer them a more permanent platform to run projects for others. In this way, the government builds the community through initiatives, but it also propagates itself by training new people to take over its duties over time. This duty, by nature, mostly falls on the Executive branch of the Union.
So how should the Executive do this? One thing is by keeping an eye on the region for new ideas people may propose and/or indicators that someone may have interest in some area the Executive covers. One major way to do this is act as a project promoter. For example, if someone has shown an interest in maybe running an event, then the Executive should resolutely reach out to that individual and see if they’re willing to cooperate with the Executive to get that event up; the Executive can promote said event in all of the Union’s edifices, while the person running the event can get help from the Executive’s experience and available manpower. The Union’s benefit is that it gets a more polished event that more people are likely to enjoy whilst giving a Unionist more experience in event management and knowledge of the Union’s institutions. (As a note, this doesn’t mean Minister’s shouldn’t chase their own goals and ideas - they should! They’re a part of the community as well. But they should balance doing both what they want and what the rest of the community wants is all I’m saying.) This example does apply to other projects as well, like polls or game nights.
Another way for the Executive to do this is to give positions to people who show a nominal interest in an area. A great example of this, in my opinion, is the Ministry of World Assembly Affairs. If the Executive sees someone who has interest in World Assembly resolutions, then maybe said individual would be interested in hosting discussions for said resolutions! So the Executive should thus reach out to such an individual and ask if they want to be in the Ministry of World Assembly Affairs. And if there’s an open Deputy/Minister spot… the Executive should give them that as well! Give that person as much room as possible to experiment and explore the world of their interests. This could very well lead to a Unionist launching a variety of different projects (see: Aarman being awesome and running World Assembly discussions now) and perhaps help us seek new governmental leadership for the next generation.
One key thing I should note here is my language, that the Executive should reach out. In many regions and definitely in the Union, there tends to be a focus on self-interest; that people should express some interest in a position before we give it to them. This especially is shown in the idea of Executive applications; that people should apply for X or Y position to have any chance of joining a Ministry. The problem with this approach is that we presume the entire community knows 1000% well what happens in the Executive, or the expectations of serving in the Executive, or so on - which isn’t necessarily true. There could be many reasons why someone who’d be a great fit for say, Minister of World Assembly Affairs, wouldn’t think of applying - like maybe they’re scared to apply or don’t think regional government is for them despite never being in it! Whatever the case, it shouldn’t be a surprising notion that the Union may miss out on awe-inspiring power players simply because we expect them to reach out to us, when in fact maybe what's necessary is us reaching out to them.
(As a note, this isn’t to say Executive applications are bad; they’re great since they allow people who go unnoticed by the Executive to self-nominate themselves for appointment. BUT, they should be used in conjunction with the Executive reaching out to people, not as a replacement thereof. Also, the Executive should never pressure individuals to join; they should be free to decline a request. Which is obvious but, I’m saying this just in case.)
The interesting thing about the Executive is that once you join a Ministry, the only thing you need to do anything is the permission of the relevant Minister and the President. But one thing I've found oftentimes is that people may tend to feel restricted as a staffer, with an expectation that they're there solely to do what the Minister wants. Which isn't the right way to think about things, but this thought process naturally persists because that's how most hierarchies work. If you join someone’s staff, you’re there to do mostly their work - unless they give you free reign. Which is why Minister and Deputy Minister are important positions when it comes to community building, because the primary benefit they have is to encourage people to go buck wild in ways most people feel uncomfortable with as a staffer. (We should also encourage staffers to do their own things, don’t get me wrong - but oftentimes, having an official title is important to make someone feel a bit more comfortable in my experience).
This is why the Executive should make an effort to balance having proficient Ministers with allowing new players to take the reins. While many Executives may be hesitant to ditch a star three-term Minister for a newbie, there is also the fact that a new Minister often may have new ideas about what to do in a Ministry that they can probably carry out most effectively as Minister. There's also the fact that proficient Ministers can burn out if they're appointed to the job for a long period of time - there's been many cases across many regions of Ministers who, being seen as super effective, were kept in the seat for months on end and thus over time ended up burning out yet don’t have the heart to refuse being re-appointed. Such Ministers often lose the ability to do what made them a good pick in the first place. Having a bit more higher Minister turnover will help prevent this, alongside enabling the rise of more power players who can both gain more enjoyment from the game alongside producing content the rest of the community enjoys as well. In my opinion, this is one of the things the Union did a bit better in its political era in 2018/2019, and it has seemed to have lost a little bit as time has progressed.
This necessity of the statuses of Minister and Deputy Minister being available does also mean that the Executive should be fine with another thing: leaving those spots empty, at least for those Ministries that require less experience (specifically our foreign affairs, World Assembly, culture, and census ministries). Oftentimes the reason Ministers get burned out is because there's a worry from the Executive that if they have their awesome Minister resign, then no one will fill their spot. By keeping spots empty when there is no one who can fully serve in the office, the Executive can thus make it a priority to keep an eye out for anyone who might be interested in serving and do better in the job than a burned out Minister. And, of course, letting said burned out Minister go and do something else.
To add on to that, the Executive should also be flexible when it comes to Ministries and who it appoints as Minister. This is because while being a Deputy Minister can help someone be more comfortable in doing Executive duties, being a Minister increases that comfort. Being a Minister may also make sense if an individual is overseeing a very specific project - a Minister may not have time if they have multiple Deputies, afterall. While these speciality Minister-offices are rare, the Executive should be ready to accommodate its structure to make it more easier for people to do their duties - and thus, more easier for the Executive to build a community.
Another important thing for the Executive to do is try to either avoid boring mundane jobs or make such jobs more rewarding. I am, of course, talking about more long-term/monotonous jobs like UDSAF soldier or Union ambassador - staffer jobs that most people probably find boring to do. If the Executive’s general gist should be encouraging people to run programs they like, then it doesn’t make too much sense to give these monotone jobs an exception. Probably something like external motivation would be required for them (such as the UDSAF ranks and badges, or giving UDSAF soldiers a fun military community to be in) to always have - which I believe President East Chimore’s faction system will resolve - but nonetheless this should always be kept in mind in the Executive’s perspective. If the job is a monotone job that isn’t inherently rewarding in some way (unlike MoWAA discussion posting, which can be nice due to getting to see people’s responses), then the Union must add some form of external motivation to keep the job enjoyable. In other words - if a job is lacking some form of internal motivation, the Executive needs to provide some method of external motivation.
But one final thing for my thoughts on this matter, perhaps all else, is this: that when the region isn’t doing well, the Executive’s focus should be on the Ministry of Culture. This isn’t to say that the Executive can’t focus on other areas, but it is integral that Culture be an on-going Executive focus, forever and always. Because ultimately, Culture tends to be the Ministry that theoretically deals with most community-ran projects AND it also hosts its own projects that give the general community things to do. Without culture pushing activity initiatives and giving people ways to hang out, it is very unlikely that the Union’s general community will be as active or close with each other. It is the job of Culture, as the Executive’s most important Ministry, to build the community directly. So no Executive should ever sideline Culture, but rather cherish it. For it is the most crucial Ministry in fulfilling the Executive’s (and regional government’s) main purpose: to build up the region’s community.
INCREASING ACCESSIBILITY AND INCLUSIVITY
This is another major thing, in my opinion - and this is something that, whilst definitely important for the Executive, it is important for other branches as well. And that is accessibility.
Accessibility means improving and expanding the number of ways we enable the community to participate in the government. Some of the things I mentioned above, like the Executive reaching out to potentially interested people or utilizing forms anyone can use (as I mentioned prior) are ideas of this.
Effectively speaking, I think it would behoove our government and region as a whole to constantly be in a state of wondering how it can improve accessibility. And I mean this both in generally big things (like applications) and smaller things (like how our Ministers use Regional Officer powers, for example). It is important that we improve accessibility because it allows more people to participate in our community (like by improving on-site accessibility, we allow more on-site focused people to give input to traditionally forum focused things) and thus increases inclusivity. But it is also important that we improve accessibility to make it easier for people to perform certain tasks, particularly those in government. This article by Kron is a good reach into analyzing that part of accessibility.
Now to be frank, I don’t have too many suggestions on how to improve accessibility in general. There are some general things the Union should keep in mind to improve game-side accessibility, which I explain in my “The Future of the Game-side Community” article and thus won’t discuss in this article. But when it comes to the Executive, there are a few things I can think of. One is not mandating every person who the Executive reaches out to to fill out an application, since this is a useless step in onboarding that can be skipped. (If records of when someone joined the Executive are important, just make a thread and post a record stating “X joined Y Ministry after being contacted by the Executive).
Another idea, possibly a bit more controversial, is perhaps allowing staffers to be non-Citizens. This is kinda already done for the Ministry of Roleplay, but I think it could be a good idea to extend this to these lower level positions to allow people who may not be sure/not interested in becoming Citizens yet to join the Executive and start doing things there. This would mostly apply to anyone reached out to by the Executive I think, but nonetheless it’d also allow people to jump in immediately rather than waiting a day or two for bureaucracy. And if said person likes working in the government, they can always apply for Citizenship during their staffership and become eligible for promotions in the future.
There are, of course, concerns about regional security. And the fact is, they will always contrast with regional accessibility. For example, considering we’re a notable (albeit more on the minor side) defender region, we kinda probably need IP Citizenship to protect our voting processes. But our need for regional security should be balanced with making things easier for our community, like for example, the previous two ideas I mentioned don’t really impact our security that much yet pretty obviously make things a bit easier for newer players joining up in the Executive. Ideas like these - those that don’t impact our security as much, but do make things easier, are out there and perhaps waiting to just be discovered and tried.
If we make our region’s institutions more accessible and thus more inclusive, we both show our community that we care AND we allow for more community participation. A win win, in my opinion, so long as we do it right.
CONCLUSION
So you may be saying “G&C, you said this article would be SHORT”. To that, I must say my dear reader, I did. But that was before I wrote the first draft of this, and then I found it funny to include this part of the conclusion, and so it remains. A pseudo-short article, perhaps?
In any case! If you want a TLDR; of the article, it’s this: the Union’s government needs to take as its focus building the community, first and foremost. It also needs to show the community that it cares in the process. To facilitate this, the Executive in particular should both serve as a no-obligation platform to help Unionists run community events AND act as a talent-finder to help community members develop their skills whilst running government programs to benefit the community and themselves. Additionally, the region as a whole should keep in mind where it can improve the region’s accessibility to improve our community’s inclusivity.
Now to be clear, maybe I’m wrong here. I don’t think I am, but as I said I’m not too great a region-builder, who knows? Also, I’m not claiming that doing all I said will lead to insta-region success for the Union; region-building is more than a philosophy. But I am a personal believer that having a solid, grounded philosophy makes it easier to do things. So here’s my philosophy on regionbuilding.
So that’s all I have to say.
P.S. this is 7 pages - congratulations on reading it!
P.P.S. for funsies you can read a pseudo-Delegate campaign I made in the East Pacific once, which covers this stuff to some extent but with nicer graphics
