- Pronouns
- he / him / his
HEM
Opinion
Managing Editor
This stream of consciousness was written without conferring with anyone else. You can read Dark's platform and develop your own stream of consciousness here.
**
INTRO"This is the first time I'm running for President" >>> duh! Okay, maybe other newer Europeians wouldn't know that. Don't be a dick, HEM.
Everyday should be "Every day" -- two words in this usage.
I don't get a strong sense of the *why* Dark is running for President in his intro. He touches on the importance of community -- he also seems to be leaning into his social presence.
Calvin's "it means a lot to see your beautiful, masked faces today" is really funny, except it presupposes that the platforms are events, and the candidates will read the whole manifestos out loud which would be boring and insane.
Calvin puts a fine point on his experience, and emphasizes incrementalism over radical change. Interesting.
INTERIOR
No out-of-date threads, great.
I remember someone put together a video guide to the Citizens' Assembly once and it was received to great applause. Not sure if it really impacted anything though.
FWIW, in 2020 I think there are people more likely to watch a video than read a long-ass thread. Hmmm. Not sold on the idea yet, but it's interesting.
"We want to reward those who recruit" >> an idea that goes all the way back to 2003. I remember I got in a fight in another region with someone who told me he was right because he had played the game longer than me. I asked when he joined, and he said 2001. Big cap.
Recruitment recognition based on a lottery system vs. volume is...interesting. I mean, we've established through research that bigger isn't always better with recruitment, but should we axe that incentive to send a few more telegrams? Idk.
Oh man, this integration section is a trainwreck. Summary:
(1) We want to have different approaches to integration on the forum and discord (ok, good, good, with you so far)
(2) On the forum, we want to be fostering, which means spamming new citizens with thread links (hmmmm maybe?)
(3) On discord, it will be different. But we're not sure how yet. We're going to launch a study (WHAT?????? Hasn't Dark been planning this run for 4 months???)
Honestly, the best part of this section was the videos by FAR. I think there's actual merit to this idea based on the evolution of the online ecosystem. This is supposed to be stream of consciousness, not scoring, but integration portion was F-. Give me the sweet embrace of a destined-to-fail mentor program over this.
COMMS
Mandatory recruitment has become mandatory article writing with the possible quota system in comms. Idk, not to make this all snarky!!! But the platform itself notes that the activity problem in comms has been mostly resolved, so not sure this idea even needed to be floated as a hypothetical. It's not particularly novel, and if you're having to mandate ministries' output that's just not...a good sign.
Looks like the video idea is the Heroes Program of Dark and Calvin's run. I actually like it a little less in comms, because I feel updates to Google Forms happen more frequently than in-game updates that would render video obsolete. But I still simp for video so fine.
Hard agree with limiting the number of upvote squad pings. I honestly think the whole thing is more impactful if we do harder pushes on the content that really, really matters. Idk, maybe I'm out of touch but I'm not convinced dispatches are the best way to communicate with the rest of the world most of the time.
Basically this section is less pings, more videos, and maybe quotas.
CULTURE
I feel like every election is about promising the sun, the moon, and the stars with events and I end up drunk, alone, with an empty whiskey glass in my hand looking at a sad subforum with two spam games and a single speech from the Culture Minister.
Idk!! If they call pull it off, there's enough holidays in the next term to be worthwhile but I'm skeptical. I feel like two ROTWs + one other event is a better formula.
I'm editorializing too much. Fuck me.
Honestly, the "how to discord" video idea is hilarious. Maybe a "how to log into the forum" video too. "How to create a nation" video. "How to turn on your Dell computer"
There I go again with the editorializing!!
The great war over scheduled and impromptu games continue.
Hyanygo proposed a regional game of chess on MSN Messenger from 2007 until MSN died out and it never happened. Somewhere out there he's so happy about all the games — unless he's fantasizing about having our inferior brains extracted for his research.
At least "dozens" of words in this platform have been spent thanking people for updating content.
RADIO
Recognition that there's a lot of anxiety about Radio is a really smart point -- and frankly, it's understated because there's a lot of big personality loudmouths who love it (me).
A VIDEO SHOWING HOW TO HOST >> okay, this is probably a good idea actually because I tried to learn from the written guide is failed. But yes, there is a video idea for every section of this platform.
"Furthermore, we are also going to ensure the staff list is updated as it is currently outdated." >> Sopo subtweet.
"Finally, we want to utilize the forums to ensure shows are scheduled with knowledge" >> how much knowledge do you need to schedule a show.
Yes, I know what they meant!! It's a fair point, especially since my last minute train-wreck, reality TV radio shows seem to cause a lot of the conflicts.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Yet another, "thank you for updating something!!!" section. This whole thread is basically the acknowledgement sections of a young adult novel.
"We are going to keep looking for issues in treaties, we might not find any, in which case it's early summer friday in the FA department"
this wasn't suppose to devolve to liveblog-level snark. Dammit.
"Secondly, we want to carry on our focus of meeting new regions" >> This is the definition of foreign affairs.
I'm behind on the times of what the "p-a-r-t-y" initiative is, but I'll take their word on it being a good idea.
I thought we already did a writer exchange program with NS Today??
ERN
"With the ERN, our focus carries on encouraging individuals to join the ERN either active service or into the reserves." >> I honestly don't know the answer to this Q: has the reserves been pulled back away from the active duty regiments (e.g. there was no difference between them except expectations)? I merged them as GA and fought to keep them the same, but I feel like people keep referring to the reserves as a separate thing so maybe that was undone?
"We will brainstorm recruitment ideas" >> isn't that kinda part of writing a platform? Hearing the ideas?
I think video makes sense for Navy too -- though, like I said, it has Big Europeian Heroes Program Vibes.
"Lastly, we want to continue operations and holds" >> omg........
WAA
"Highlighting on dispatches from communications, firstly, we want to ensure there is sufficient inter-ministry collaboration with the dispatches, hoping that we will release a collective dispatch post, rather than see a frequent amount of pings in a day which can be annoying to some individuals."
^^ Tattoo this on my FACE.
"We are also not carrying on the Europeian Heroes Programme. During the term, there was no vote on the promise to commend one or two europeians under the heroes programme, and as such we rather want to focus on devoting our time elsewhere."
It was a bad idea, Peeps' whole platform was a noun, verb, and "Europeians Heroes program", but somehow nothing of note happened at all.
I don't video really makes sense for a writing guide. Maybe for navigating the NS forum or other NS areas.
JUSTICE:
"Finally, we want to introduce a feature involving legal news and comparisons of Europeian law to real life." Interesting idea actually...could be good to try to stir up legal discussion as a gateway drug into Justice Department involvement.
Otherwise I don't care about Justice!!!
(yes, in that way!)
Oh man, I'm a negative nelly.
IS it really a good idea to let all my thoughts out into the wild?
Should I try to contextualize this some more?? Add scoring, metrics, invite other commentators to balance out the coverage??
Fuck it!!! I'm posting!!!
