[1st Euro Census] September 17-24, 2019

[Prim]

(Header image courtesy of Ervald at the Europeian Design Institute)

1st Europeian Census
September 17-24, 2019

Non-Competitive Elections and the Expectations of Office-holding​

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The Europeian Census (Euro Census) will be conducted approximately twice per year and will probe some of the deeper questions and trends in our region, as opposed to the more targeted surveys that tend to occur around elections. As trends and issues ebb and flow in our region, there will always be new questions to ask, so please, feel free to suggest any large-scale questions you may have about our region.

In this regard, the Europeian Census has already been a rather successful survey project. Several larger issues have been a lingering concern in our region and I felt that perhaps broader polling questions could help clarify the issues and provide some crowd-sourced solutions. I think this initial survey has achieved that goal, and the main thrust of this 1st Euro Census Report will be focused on Non-Competitive Elections and the Expectations of Office-holding.

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Demographics

Total Respondents: 45
Citizen Respondents: 40 (88.9%)
Resident Respondents: 3 (6.7%)
Foreign Visitor Respondents: 2 (4.4%)

Spoiler: When did you join Europeia?

As shown above, a slight majority of our active citizenry (i.e. Census respondents) have been in Europeia for 2 years or less. The average join date response was 3.475, almost exactly midway between the "1-2 year" and "3-4 year" responses. While our region definitely idealizes and respects our more esteemed and tenured citizens, the majority of people have been around a much shorter time and constitute a pretty strong plurality of the region.

Spoiler: How long have you been active in Europeia?

A surprising difference from the join date metric, almost half of the region's active citizens have only been active in the region for one year or less. This was a rather eye-opening response for me, it definitely emphasizes the importance of our integration efforts and should prompt us to focus our efforts on methods of advancement for these new active players into higher office, perhaps sooner than would otherwise have been feasible in the past. I think we have seen strong evidence of this trend in the domestic branch ministries, with most seats being held by involved newcomers. These numbers may skew slightly younger as 2 foreign visitor responses were included in this section, and these tend to be much more recent arrivals compared to active citizens.

Spoiler: How long have you been playing NS?

Spoiler: How old are you?

While our player base has been aging from the increasing age of the region, it seems as if we continue to attract younger players as well. Our age categories seem to be evenly spread, with the average sitting around 20-21 years of age.

Spoiler: How often do you check your nation game-side / in NS?

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Citizen Opinions

Spoiler: Do you value the political simulation aspects of Euro more, or the social interaction aspects more?

Not a very surprising result, our region definitely enjoys the political simulation aspects more than the social interaction aspects, but there is a strong middle here that focuses on both aspects. There is an argument that the social interaction can boost the political aspects as well, it has a more "immediate" feel to citizen response than a forum thread and candidates can "schmooze" with the electorate, which can bolster advancement in the political sphere as well. Some interesting interplay between the aspects has a strong plurality of the votes here.

Spoiler: Should Europeia focus on emphasizing forum activity, discord activity, or neutral?

There were no responses with citizens wanting focus on discord activity more than forum activity. In fact a clear majority (57.5%) supports a focus on forum activity, to some degree or another, while the rest of the respondents (42.5%) prefer to emphasize both modes of communication equally.

Spoiler: Do you feel that there are ample opportunities to advance in Euro?

When I joined Europeia in early 2018, there were some rumblings about consistent filling of positions with old guard experienced citizens and the idea of opening up avenues for advancement was a hot-button issue. It seems that in that time there has been much progress in how citizens perceive the opportunities for advancement into roles of leadership. Over 75% of the citizen respondents see clear opportunities to advance in our region, though there are a few respondents who report some barriers or obstacles to advancement. It may be worth a discussion to see where these possible barriers may be.

Spoiler: If desired, have you found a pathway to leadership roles in a reasonable amount of time?

As with the previous question, around 75% of the citizen respondents have found pathways to leadership if they wanted to advance, while a slightly larger percentage (15%) have found some delay or no success advancing in the region, as desired.

Spoiler: Do you feel that Europeia has enough citizens to maintain its current ministries/councils?

One of the stronger areas of concern in this Census has been staffing concerns in our ministries and councils. While there was no clear majority for one side or the other, there was a slightly larger plurality noting problems with staffing compared to those saying that there were sufficient citizens to staff the departments. This may remain a concern moving forward, especially as it can predict issues with finding leadership candidates in these departments.

Spoiler: If you could suggest one thing to improve participation in Europeia, what would it be?

• Less drama
• Continue increasing the variety of offerings we have for people to participate in
• More elections, you have to wait a while before the next election comes up to be in a leadership position
• More aggressive recruitment via Gameplay avenues
• No idea
• A Regional Map
• Outreach beyond pings
• Just more gameside advertisement of the forum. Way more.
• Making newcomers more welcome both forum side and game side.
• An updated/modernised guide to the ministry's
• Gameside/RMB Outreach
• I say it good now but to me i didnt join because of the matter of freetime :/
• croissant
• More events and stuff

One comment that I took note of was this one: "More elections, you have to wait a while before the next election comes up to be in a leadership position"
I think our election schedule is probably pretty solid for allowing enough time to plan, lay out, and enact a policy program for the term. However, we could be doing slightly more to emphasize the leadership qualities and responsibilities of our Deputy Minister and Deputy Councilor positions, these are direct stepping stones to department-level management and in some departments they have quite a bit of responsibility for the day-to-day operations of our government.

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Europeian Elections

Spoiler: Have you served in High Office? (President, First Minister, Chief of State)

Drecq pointed out, after the Census went live and had a few submissions, that "High Office" should probably have included Chief Justice and Senate Speaker as well, and I agree. So, this question is more focused on Executive High Office, and future questions will be re-tooled to encompass more of these other top-level positions.

Spoiler: Have you served as a Minister or Councilor? (even if only a partial term)

A good number of citizens, around two-thirds have served in a department-level management position. I suspect there could probably be some more in-depth questions on this topic in the future, perhaps relating to expectations before becoming a minister/councilor, and how those expectations changed once serving in office. Or, perhaps a question on serving multiple terms or in multiple department-level positions. From experience, there has tended to be a significant number of newcomers entering these positions through a couple ministries (usually Culture and Interior), perhaps looking into more granular ministry-by-ministry questions could shed some better light on certain areas.

Spoiler: Have you served as a Senator? (not including Senate Substitutes)

This number seems in line with the Minister/Councilor question, this 60% range could be the number of active citizens that, on average, are willing or able to serve in high office. Perhaps finding out the needs or concerns of the remaining 40% could be enlightening to bring more people into leadership positions in the future.

Spoiler: Have you served as a Justice?

With the long term duration and a niche area of expertise, this result was expected to be low, yet 30% is a pretty respectable number of citizens.

Spoiler: Have you served in Office? Pivot Tables by Join Date

The progression of those entering the High Court seems to be a pretty expected rate. There has been one justice from among those with 12 months in the region or less, then around 33% of the citizens who have been here between 1-4 years, jumping up to 83% for those who joined between 5-9 years ago. None of the four respondents who have been in Europeia for more than 10 years noted that they had been a justice, slightly surprising, but with their status as seemingly "founding members", perhaps some had influence over law and order in other ways (e.g. administrative) over the years and not through in-character judicial means. The Senate advancement rate seems very solid. It goes from somewhat low numbers in the first year to a very steady progression through years 2 through 4, until reaching full service ratio at 5 years in Euro and older. I think the Senate advancement chart is a very good baseline for what we'd like to be seeing in the Minister/Councilor advancement chart as well. That being said, we do see some solid showing in the Minister/Councilor chart, with a slightly increased likelihood for those between 3-12 months compared to Senate service, but reaching a cap of around 80-90% service in department-level service between 1-4 years seniority. The High Executive Office advancement chart seems pretty good for only having about 4-5 elections per year in these roles. It goes from around 10% service (1 respondent) for those under one year in Euro, to around 20% for those in the 1-2 and 3-4 year categories, jumping up to 83% in the 5-9 years seniority category; probably what we'd likely see from these offices, a slower progression, but reaching a majority percentage after a couple years in the region.

Spoiler: How often do you vote in Executive Elections? (President, First Minister, Chief of State)

Spoiler: How often do you vote in Senate Elections?

Spoiler: Have you wanted to run for office, but ultimately decided not to?

This question was added as a last minute idea right before opening the survey, but I felt that this really captured the best slice of one of our main issues recently, the question of non-competitive elections. Just over half (55%) of our citizens have voted that they have wanted to run for office, but ended up deciding not to run for various reasons [some listed below]. I think this question of how we can better engage our citizens in these positions of leadership will be an important one moving forward. How can we better train our deputy and junior ministers for them to feel confident to take a position of leadership? How can we adapt our positions of leadership to better fit our expectations and regional needs to increase participation in them? These questions should be part of a broader regional discussion on our expectations of our ministers/councilors and high officials. More detailed discussion below, relating to the comments.

Spoiler: If you decided not to run for office, what was the main reason for hesitation?

• I was too new to the region; inexperience.
• Not enough support and not enough time
• Feared time constraints.
• Lack of available time to commit to the role
• Time management
• Doubtful I would win
• Time.
• I didn't feel I could provide a level of value to the region I thought is needed.
• Euro workload vs Real Life balance.
• My own time, potentialy my chances of winning
• Incapable of being active enough.
• I don’t know enough and I don’t want to get attacked for being the new person
• The times I've decided not to run have been because I realized I didn't have enough time.
• I had decided to put focus on other areas; both in Europeia and in real life.
• Personal life time constraints
• I didn't really have the time.
• When there is broad consensus about re-electing the incumbent.
• To help represent my Europeian Constitutes and to improve on our legal definitions of certain things.
• Short freetime, exams, etr
• Time constraints
• Time commitment
• issues in personal life like stress levels, general health, etc.
• Too much responsibility
• idk never got around to it

Quite a few of these reasons for why someone would decide not to run for office, despite wanting to run, were very clarifying here. One of the main points that was made was the fact that potential candidates didn't feel they had enough time to devote to the positions. I think this is a valid reason to not contribute time to a position, absolutely, but I also feel like there might be a slight disconnect between the perception of time commitment to a position and the actual time commitment needed to excel in the role. I think some of our positions might have a bit of a "mystique" to them since much of the work goes on behind the scenes and in private subforums, so the expectations for managerial burden might seem larger than it actually is. Another aspect of this is to what degree are our ministers and councilors relying on effective delegation to deputy ministers. I think we should be emphasizing and encouraging the promotion of eager junior ministers into Deputy positions if they are interested in advancing and given a reasonable amount of responsibility for the inner-working of the department. I think this effective sharing of the burden of leadership roles should be re-emphasized in our more newcomer-rich environment, both to help train up more newcomers to take over these positions and to diminish the actual burden of responsibility in the Minister/Councilor office itself. We should be re-gauging our expectations for these positions as an electorate as well. This isn't to say we should let inactivity or incompetence slide, but we could perhaps engage more solidly in mentorship and guidance, even as regular citizens, to help keep our potential leadership players engaged and growing in skill and self-efficacy.

Spoiler: If you could suggest one thing to improve participation in Elections in Europeia, what would it be?

• Though many citizens deserve the right to question the candidates, horribly harsh judgements and closed phrases do nothing to support those with talent yet nervousness in running for a position.
• Make it worth running for
• Perhaps greater advertising to the RMB, or holding special events of some kind around the election to get less frequently active members drawn back in.
• Live streams of candidates, more elections=more opportunities to vote
• Our participation in this area is pretty good already
• Extend the voting period to 48 hours. Real life gets busy unexpectedly sometimes.
• Making more clear what the positions do
• I dont believe participation voting is the top priority. Ensuring voters are informed on the candidates before making a decision should be first and foremost. Radio shows, EBC interviews, and encouraging asking platform questions so people make an informed decision while voting.
• More encouragement on the forums and a greater display of information to the general public
• Term limits. No immediate reelection. People can run again but after waiting a term.
• N/A
• None i say maybe alittle bit more encouraging but its all the matter of freetime to me
• Better training and support for writing platforms
• I'd say extend the voting period. That's due to the fact that some of the members might be busy with irl things and is late to the Election.
• I don’t know

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Participation Information

Spoiler: Are you active on the Forum or the Regional Message Board?

A surprising amount of citizens do still check the RMB occasionally. I think there could be some good focus in RMB integration to bring more people from game-side to the forum through some innovative engagement in the RMB. I think the domestic executive's re-introduction of gameside polls is probably a step in the right direction.

Spoiler: Are you on the Europeia Discord Server?

Spoiler: Are you a member of a Ministry or Council?

Around 70% of the respondents are a member of a ministry or council. These numbers could likely use some clarification to find out why the other 30% are not engaging with the most active and accessible part of our government.

Spoiler: Are you a member of multiple Ministries or Councils?

Around half of the respondents are members of multiple ministries or councils, a solid number and a good base of staff. Though this can be a double-edged sword. The more people we have in multiple ministries, the less opportunity each ministry may have to advance these members to leadership, because they might be considering opportunities for advancement in other areas. This is similar to the Maowi situation several weeks ago, where Maowi was considered the top candidate for both Communications and World Assembly Affairs.

Spoiler: How often do you visit the Forum?

Spoiler: How often do you chat on Discord?

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Pivot Tables -- deeper analysis of trends for newcomers to tenured players

Spoiler: How often do you vote in Exec Elections? by Join Date

Our tenured members are a rather reliable voting bloc, whereas newcomers tend to have softer commitment to voting. Whether this is due to a reluctance to vote due to inexperience, or possible less availability around the election time to vote, is unclear. But perhaps more outreach to newer players during election time could benefit campaigns.

Spoiler: Perception of Staffing Issues by Join Date

It seems many of our newer players are much more optimistic about the staffing issues in some areas of the region, though this could also be due to newcomers tending to focus on domestic ministries, which have much healthier staffing levels compared to FA councils, which seem to have a slightly lighter roster.

Spoiler: Opportunity for Personal Advancement by Join Date

Newer players tend toward positive reactions to their advancement opportunities, though with a good amount unsure at the moment. There is also a significant contingent of more experienced players between 1-4 years in the region who are expressing some delays or lack of personal advancement in the region. Perhaps some more focus on these players in the middle could help boost engagement in higher offices.

Spoiler: Perception of Advancement Opportunity by Join Date

This more general question asked what citizens thought about the overall opportunities for advancement in the region. The negative responses in the previous question seem to disappear, leading to the interpretation that these respondents are seeing opportunities for advancement in the region generally, but not for themselves specifically, a frustrated contingent in the middle age range of the region. This question also seemed to bring out a slight bit of pessimism from the much older players, as several responded that there were barriers to advancement, even more so than the younger newcomers.

Spoiler: Forum vs. Discord Focus by Join Date

Citizens with over 1 year in the region tended toward a Forum focus by significant margins, and much of the "equal forum/discord focus" tended to come from newer players of between 3-12 months. I think this highlights the importance of discord as an integration tool as these players may value discord's more social atmosphere but then grow into active engagement with the political aspects of the region as they remain in the region.

Spoiler: Social v. Political by Join Date

The previous graph also hinted at this same idea, but this graph also bolsters the idea that newcomers tend to be more social and discord focused than some of our older players, leading to the assumption that either the newcomers may adapt to Europeia's political focus over time, or that the region may need to slowly shift to adapt to these newcomers.

Spoiler: Member of a Ministry? by Join Date

This graph seems to depict a bell curve of engagement in the chronological timeline of our population. Newcomers arrive unsure of what to do, they eventually join ministries and get involved. Around 1-2 years in, everyone is engaged in a ministry and moving along, while players that get to 3+ years in the region may be taking breaks from the region or retiring from executive work more generally.

Spoiler: Wanted to run for office, but decided not to? by Join Date

I think the key to understanding this graph is that there are a couple motivations behind why someone may respond negatively to this question. Younger players are more likely to respond "No" to this question because they may not feel like they have enough experience to run for higher office and so never even considered running yet. Older players are more likely to decide not to run due to time concerns or lack of knowledge about how to run a successful campaign or how to staff up a campaign cabinet. I think this issue could use some attention, both in raising the self-motivation and self-esteem of younger players to actually stand and run for these offices, regardless of their self-estimated experience or skill levels, and also in helping get some of the "middle-aged" players more support and guidance for how to run successful campaigns. In general, our player base needs more infrastructure and mentorship in actually feeling prepared and capable of holding and excelling in these offices.

 

[Prim]

Mis-posted earlier, but I have finished and edited in the full article now. Thanks!

 

[Aexnidaral]

spot the lloenflys

 

[Prim]

-snip-

spot the lloenflys

Indeed, I noticed that as well.

 

[Acapais]

Wow! that's a lot of valuable work, Prim. Thank you for doing this!

 

[GraVandius]

Newer players tend toward positive reactions to their advancement opportunities, though with a good amount unsure at the moment. There is also a significant contingent of more experienced players between 1-4 years in the region who are expressing some delays or lack of personal advancement in the region. Perhaps some more focus on these players in the middle could help boost engagement in higher offices.

To speculate a bit, there were a couple of players whom from 2014-2017 were always cycling around through the government and it is possible that the players that expressed dissatisfaction in the 1-4 year age group were players who were the like "second teir" politicians at the time for one reason or another, and didn't reach their aspirations due to the long and super successful careers of other Europeians.

 

[Calvin Coolidge]

Newer players tend toward positive reactions to their advancement opportunities, though with a good amount unsure at the moment. There is also a significant contingent of more experienced players between 1-4 years in the region who are expressing some delays or lack of personal advancement in the region. Perhaps some more focus on these players in the middle could help boost engagement in higher offices.

To speculate a bit, there were a couple of players whom from 2014-2017 were always cycling around through the government and it is possible that the players that expressed dissatisfaction in the 1-4 year age group were players who were the like "second teir" politicians at the time for one reason or another, and didn't reach their aspirations due to the long and super successful careers of other Europeians.

Get good, 2014-2017 scrubs.

 

[Prim]

Newer players tend toward positive reactions to their advancement opportunities, though with a good amount unsure at the moment. There is also a significant contingent of more experienced players between 1-4 years in the region who are expressing some delays or lack of personal advancement in the region. Perhaps some more focus on these players in the middle could help boost engagement in higher offices.

To speculate a bit, there were a couple of players whom from 2014-2017 were always cycling around through the government and it is possible that the players that expressed dissatisfaction in the 1-4 year age group were players who were the like "second teir" politicians at the time for one reason or another, and didn't reach their aspirations due to the long and super successful careers of other Europeians.

Well, the opportunities are here and there are almost a majority of active citizens who have been here under 1 year, people can "re-invent" themselves and move on up.

 

[Astrellan]

This is some incredibly interesting data. Thank you so much to Prim for all this detail, which is beneficial in a way nothing else quite is.

Newer players tend toward positive reactions to their advancement opportunities, though with a good amount unsure at the moment. There is also a significant contingent of more experienced players between 1-4 years in the region who are expressing some delays or lack of personal advancement in the region. Perhaps some more focus on these players in the middle could help boost engagement in higher offices.

To speculate a bit, there were a couple of players whom from 2014-2017 were always cycling around through the government and it is possible that the players that expressed dissatisfaction in the 1-4 year age group were players who were the like "second teir" politicians at the time for one reason or another, and didn't reach their aspirations due to the long and super successful careers of other Europeians.

Well, the opportunities are here and there are almost a majority of active citizens who have been here under 1 year, people can "re-invent" themselves and move on up.

I think if we ran the poll 6 or maybe 4 months ago, we would have a different response on that question. It is here I have to really applaud Pichto for consistently having newcomers on his Cabinet, which, while caused by necessity, was a smart decision in enabling newer but perhaps nervous or inexperienced players to rise up the ranks. Also, the electorate has been especially kind to newer candidates in Senate elections, so there's that too. I think the region recognised the issue and wanted to support those new players who wanted to move on upwards (I count myself on this list).

 

[Sopo]

I think, too, that a pretty significant period of poor leadership and inactivity really shifted the paradigm in terms of newcomer involvement and embracing new ideas. The executive split never would have happened a few years ago. We just aren't generally in a position to be able to turn people away...

 

[Lethen]

We just aren't generally in a position to be able to turn people away...

So that's why people still hire you and HEM.

 

[Le Libertie]

As always, commendable work, Prim.