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Eurofact Update #2
panel includes Calvin Coolidge, Ervald, Istillian, and United Vietussia
As we have continued our ratings, we have come across some promises that Ministers have described as no longer being priorities in their term. As such, we are adding the WITHDRAWN rating which will serve to describe any promise where work towards fulfilling said promise has intentionally ceased. This change was made as we believe that assigning an outright F rating could be too harsh in some circumstances, allowing for certain promises to be removed early on without the negative connotation that an F rating may carry. Some promises have been updated to reflect this change.
FM Overview
Interior
Roll out Recruiter of the Week awards: Changed from D to WITHDRAWN
Seek to complement the ERI by recognizing consistent recruiters while the ERI focuses on top recruiters by quantity: Changed from C to A
Overhaul the Newcomer's Handbook: Changed from IN THE WORKS to A
Culture
Put on events and/or challenges in Minecraft to keep it energized and active: Changed from UNKNOWN to IN THE WORKS
Build an "idea bank" to pool popular activites and games for festivals: Changed from UNKNOWN to IN THE WORKS
Communications
Initiate a review of the EBC Style Guide: Changed from UNKNOWN to WITHDRAWN
Use dispatches to connect and engage with foreign regions: Changed from C to B
Continue editor training by providing sample stories for practice: Changed from UNKNOWN to B
Justice
Advertise the interconnectedness of the Ministry of Justice with Senatorial legislation, and ensure timely and thorough Legislative Assessments: Changed from UNKNOWN to A
Analysis and News Roundup
You can view all promises in this spreadsheet. Unless otherwise noted in the spreadsheet, all promises have been compiled from Monkey and McEntire's platform, which can be found here.
With this week's update, just under one-third (29.6%) of promises now bear an A or B rating. Of the remaining promises, roughly half now bear some notable level of progress towards their fulfillment. Let's run them down.
First, we spoke with SEC in private about some of the goals of his term with the time he has left. With regards to recruiter of the week, he told us, "McEntire's view on recruiter of the week was that it was something he mentioned as a possibility for us to look into, and it's not something I can see any benefit to. [...] The lack of a formal award gives me more freedom to recognize and reward lesser known recruiters and encourage them to turn their first double doses into a streak. Basically, we won't be having any formal recruiter of the week, although there often will be one informally." As such, we have now indicated that "Roll out Recruiter of the Week awards" is WITHDRAWN.
On a similar note, SEC unveiled his daily dose turtles in his latest weekly update, which you can find here. Paired with the Daily Dose Hall of Fame, we believe that this is sufficient enough to revise "Seek to complement the ERI by recognizing consistent recruiters while the ERI focuses on the top recruiters by quantity" from C to A. The long standing leaderboard paired with a recruitment star-esque system focused on consistency rather than quantity will bode well for the continued promotion of consistent recruiting over batch recruiting.
Finishing out in Interior, the updated Newcomer's Handbook has been released, which you can read through here. As such, we believe it is self explanatory to revise "Overhaul the Newcomer's Handbook" from IN THE WORKS to A.
Moving onto Culture, both updates stem from Monkey's recent response to a question from Senator Darkslayer in a Senate oversight thread. You can find Dark's full question here, with Monkey's answer directly following (or you can directly jump to his answer here. For our purposes, Monkey's most notable comments were made surrounding Minecraft and the festival idea bank. Regarding Minecraft, Monkey stated, "I think we have seen great success in Minecraft where people have begun planning times to hop online and do certain tasks [...] and that's something I would look to encourage happening more frequently." Regarding the festival idea bank, Monkey stated, "Since [Republic Day] I have started the festival idea bank discussion that will work towards brainstorming festival activity ideas and hopefully outlining a general festival guide or tips for future ministers." We believe that given Monkey's comments on these two subjects, it is appropriate to rate "Put on events and/or challenges in Minecraft to keep it energized and active" and "Build an 'idea bank' to pool popular activities and games for festivals" as IN THE WORKS. Monkey noted in his response that Republic Day and an LoA had "[taken] a sizeable chunk of time out of my term", so perhaps we will begin to see some deliverance on the goals laid out for Monkey's Ministry.
In Communications, Minister Astrellan (Siph) released his midterm address, which you can find here. Most of our rating changes in Comms stem from this address, so we'll quote the notable sections as needed.
First, with regards to the EBC style guide, Astrellan noted, "I no longer see any reason to pursue a review of the Style Guide, and so it is no longer an intended goal for my term," citing that its similarity to the AP style guide leaves little to no reason to create any change for change's sake. As such, "Initiate a review of the EBC style guide" has been marked as WITHDRAWN.
Next, Astrellan noted that 4 dispatches have gone out this term and that Weekend Updates had been shifted to dispatch form. He noted that "the target audience of [Weekend Update] dispatches will be unfamiliar with the smaller events it would cover, as compared to our forum community which is commonly engaged daily." Only one Weekend Update dispatch has been released as of now, though it should help produce more dispatches as the last few weeks of the term play out. As such, "Use dispatches to connect with foreign regions" has been revised from C to B, and further change is pending the continued utilization of Weekend Update dispatches while the format is still being worked out.
Rounding out Comms, with regards to the Journalistic Support Service, Astrellan confirmed that two installments had been released in order to begin the work of trying to train editors by providing sample stories to practice on. The JSS seems to be on the right track, so while it continues to get on its feet, we have given "Continue editor training by providing sample stories for practice" a B.
Finishing up our round up, we'll check in at Justice. Attorney General Lloenflys has been 3 for 3 on Legislative Assessments in this term, all done in a punctual manner. As such, we see no reason not to give an A to "Advertise the interconnectedness of the Ministry of Justice with Senatorial legislation, and ensure timely and thorough Legislative Assessments" as Lloenflys has provided a perfect record thus far with an adequate sample size.
A few notes in closing:
First, I have made the decision to forgo the collecting of Chief of State promises. It is very late in the term for the Chief of State and back tracking through a month and a half+ of threads would take much longer than it has to put together what we have for the current First Ministerial administration. We will instead finish out with what we have now and aim to encompass all Ministries following the upcoming Presidential election, which will allow us to make note of everything upfront.
Second, and unrelated to Eurofact, GraV and I have been behind the scenes preparing the model to make the transition to the new Presidential system, and we hope to get you the opening numbers in the coming days with standing expected to open soon. Stay tuned.
And finally, thank you for keeping up with Eurofact. The entire panel, including myself, enjoys flipping back through the past week's happenings within the Executive to relay the information to you in a detailed but concise form that is (hopefully) easily digestible and allows you to get the information you're seeking in one simple article.
(I got caught up with a bit of real life which led to a bit of a delay in the release of this week's update, so we hope to get back to a normal schedule of releasing on Sunday night/Monday morning next week.)
