(Europeia - January, 2022) - On January 9, 2022 Giovanniland became the 51st delegate of The West Pacific (TWP), as such the Europeian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC) reached out to the new delegate, and was grateful to Giovanniland for answering our questions and allowing us to honour this milestone occasion. This interview will explore the history that Giovanniland has in NationStates (NS), such as his fascination for cards, his experiences as a citizen in Europeia, World Assembly (WA) initiatives, and importantly, how Giovanniland rose to the position of Delegate.
Turb: Hello there, welcome to today’s interview. What is the history you have in NS?
Giovanniland: Giovanniland was created on August 10, 2019, after I searched for nation simulators. I was founded in the West Pacific and have stayed there ever since, but my first few months had no interaction with the site beyond answering issues. The 8th edition of the Zombie Apocalypse led me to get more involved within the regional community and government, so I started by helping in some ministries. This includes Foreign Affairs, where my first ambassador assignment was Europeia, leading me to also get involved here (Comms, Culture and more recently WA Affairs); Back in TWP, I then got elected as Speaker of the Hall in February 2020 and re-elected twice, thus serving nine months in the position. I spearheaded the drafting of Regional Commendations, something similar to the Security Council but specific to TWP, and this was important later on for SC authorship. I was appointed as Guardian of the West in July 2020 for these contributions, monitoring the Regional Message Board and enforcing regional rules. Concurrently, I also became more involved in Trading Cards, firstly focusing on the Season 1 & 2 regional collections of every TWP card (both now completed), but later also built various other ones, such as cards featuring wreaths or Brazilian-like flags. I am also known in that community for reaching the 2nd place for Deck Value in the world, and even briefly taking the 1st spot, via a different but now commonplace method called card inflation, i.e. artificially raising prices, which is now subject of much debate in there. Later, when Dilber succeeded Bran Astor as delegate, I was appointed to jointly lead the Foreign Affairs ministry together with Fuentana (who is now Minister) due to my experience, though my official position "Minister without Portfolio'' meant that I also led various other initiatives in the region, such as SC authorships for TWP members, with four resolutions written by me in the last 6 months. Due to these many contributions Dilber chose me as the successor for the TWP delegacy.
*This is a good example of somebody getting involved in a region and succeeding with it. This can be good advice to anybody who wants to get involved in NS and to leave an impact on the gameplay scene.
Turb: What history do you have in Europeia?
Giovanniland: I firstly became involved as TWP ambassador, then applied for citizenship. The first ministry I applied to join was Communications I believe, where I wrote several articles, a lot of them being poll analyses for Executive or Senate opinion polls. Then I also joined Culture, becoming a twice Deputy Minister for a short while and helping in Weekend Games planning, besides helping to organize some festivals such as 2020 EuroPride (the Weekend Game part is also tied to my interest for the weekly Trivia sessions by Olde Delaware and later United Vietussia, in which I participated and often won). More recently, due to my participation in the SC, I also joined the WA Affairs ministry and have helped with discussions on SC proposals.
Turb: When and why did you apply for Citizenship for Europeia?
Giovanniland: I applied for citizenship in March 2020, four months after I became the TWP ambassador to Europeia in November 2019. The reason is that I found the community very interesting, and wanted to participate more. To this date I still remember asking if I could even hold citizenship to the region I was an ambassador to, as I was still a NS newbie, and since I was allowed I decided to do it.
Turb: Did you learn anything new in Europeia that will help you for anywhere else?
Giovanniland: One example I can think of: helping to organize various activities as part of Culture during 2020 made me more prepared to lead bigger cultural events and festivals later on. It also gave me another cultural view besides the existing TWP experience, and it is interesting to have a blend of both when leading these types of cultural events.
Turb: Why did you want to become Delegate for the TWP?
Giovanniland: When Dilber talked to me about becoming the next Delegate, I decided to accept as I agree with many of his initiatives and want to continue them (besides introducing potential new plans as well). Some of his ideas were revamping the Hall of Nations away from a legislative body and more into a transparency body, through Cabinet meetings open to all citizens and Question & Answer events with government members; as well as increasing our role in the World Assembly, particularly the Security Council, which fits with my ideas since I authored several SC resolutions and want others to do that as well. My opening speech outlines these goals with some detail, and can be seen in this dispatch: https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1642968
Turb: What plans do you have for this role of Delegate in the TWP?
Giovanniland: An example I'd like to highlight are my World Assembly initiatives: internally I hope to encourage endorsements not only for myself and the Guardians but also the general populace, as I believe this can get people more active in the region; while externally my main goal is to increase regional participation in SC authorship. Meanwhile, in Foreign Affairs I want to continue Dilber's actions of expanding Foreign Affairs horizons, including the start of diplomatic relations with several UCRs in the past year, therefore I'll ensure to not only keep those relations flourishing but also encourage new ones (maybe even new treaties if I feel a relation warrants it). There's some more in the above dispatch I linked, including some appointments to government positions I have made, so people can also read if they're interested.
*That is a clever way to add further information into an interview to make it more informative for readers.
Turb: What would Foreign Affairs look like under your leadership?
Giovanniland: Besides what I said in the previous question about future initiatives on diplomatic relations, not much changes from the internal framework. I believe TWP's system is effective, with the four ranks of junior diplomats, diplomats, senior diplomats and prime ambassadors. The prime ambassadors manage "spheres" of several regions at once and oversee individual diplomats to each region, which is good for them to mentor newer diplomats and possibly prepare for higher positions such as Ministers, like I did. We also produce Foreign Affairs Features with the help of our foreign friends from time to time, for example the one I wrote about Europeia, and I think that's also an interesting practice that we have.
Turb: One more question left, would you still have time for cards in NS while being this busy with your Delegate duties?
Giovanniland: The time I spend on cards has greatly reduced recently, but it's not really a result of more TWP duties, and rather of an unfortunate inactivity trend in the cards community. Goals I had, such as completing both seasons of the TWP regional collection, and passing the former cards overlord Koem Kab in deck value to briefly achieve the #1 spot is now done. Also, with the end of the Trading Cards Anti-Laundering System and its community-driven Pull Events, a significant part of the community spirit was also removed, not to mention it has been 2 years and 1 month since the release of Season 2. When Season 3 comes I have several collection plans and will have to juggle that together with the other things I do in NationStates, but hopefully it shouldn't be a problem.
Turb: Thanks for taking part in this interview and have a good day.
Giovanniland: No problem!
With the interview at its conclusion, it is clear that Giovanniland has been a strong presence across the game, especially when seeing how, outside of his responsibilities in the regions he is a part of, he has also provided significant time and effort into building and helping the NS Cards community, writing and editing WA resolutions, and overall being a reliable and professional diplomat, and friend, to the NS community. The EBC would like to congratulate Giovanniland once again on his rise to the position of Delegate, and we look forward to seeing The West Pacific community continue to thrive under his leadership.
