- Pronouns
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(Header image courtesy of Ervald at the Europeian Design Institute)
Mandatory Recruitment for Officeholders
48-hour Polling Results
(November 3, 2019) -- A major issue arose over the past few days in response to an Opinion Piece written by Maowi on the subject of mandatory recruitment by officeholders. Calvin Coolidge opened a Senate discussion the same day, proposing legislation to enact mandatory recruitment, sparking debate in the Senate as well. Aexnidaral followed by opening a Grand Hall thread, furthering the debate which, at times, threatened to turn a bit more personal and heated.
Shortly after the Grand Hall thread was opened, I decided to draft an opinion poll, seeing how divided the region was on this issue. With the poll having been open for a little under 46 hours, the polling essentially shows a region divided nearly evenly on this topic, with large groups holding strong views on the topic.
40.5% of the respondents (15 out of 37) noted that they are currently a recruiter.
83.8% of respondents (31 out of 37) noted that they are now or have been a recruiter in the past, a solid number, which means that if called to action most of the active citizens in Euro could take up recruitment again easily. I suspect some of the respondents who answered that they are current recruiters may have been from the recent push for recruitment since the incident with Bri, which found quite a few new and old people applying to re-join.
89.2% of respondents noted that they have served in the offices directly affected by this legislation, giving responses in later questions some real heft.
The ultimate take-away from these poll results is that the region is very heavily divided on this issue, with 48.6% (18 out of 37) supporting the concept and 40.5% (15 out of 37) opposing the concept. There are some remarkable divides when it comes to the strength of support and opposition as well. Half of supporters strongly support the legislation, and around 75% of those opposed hold strong views against the legislation. Over half the region have strongly held beliefs on this issue, either for or against, a deeply divisive issue that has sparked a fast and furious debate over the span of several threads in our region. There is a small group (10.8% or 4 out of 38) who are either neutral or unsure on the issue
Those willing to serve in office (59.5% of respondents):
- Would likely serve (56.8% or 21 out of 37)
- It will have no impact. (2.7% or 1 out of 37)
Those willing to serve, but expressing reservations (10.8% of respondents):
- Would serve but not be enthused. (2.7% or 1 out of 37)
- With reservations. (2.7% or 1 out of 37)
- Would likely serve, but begrudgingly (2.7% or 1 out of 37)
- Would likely serve, but I'm also very much retired from active politics. Of course, I'd continue to serve in my non-governmental (mostly ceremonial) role as SC while recruiting if it was added to the list. I personally don't think the OSC should be added to the list of mandatory recruiters, but that's neither here nor there. (2.7% or 1 out of 37)
Those unsure about their likelihood to serve (2.7% of respondents):
- Big maybe on this one. (2.7% or 1 out of 37)
Those unwilling to serve in office (27% of respondents):
- Would likely not serve (21.6% or 8 out of 37)
- No I wouldn't, in fact I would leave the region if this does pass. (2.7% or 1 out of 37)
- I make time for an elected office, because that is fun. I would be much less likely to make time for recruiting (if its mandatory, its not fun), and would probably find a way to get out of it. (2.7% or 1 out of 37)
- I think it's a good idea, could help Euro, but I worry that it could lead to some people not willing to serve in office.
- It's a fine idea. If there are exemptions for people who legitimately can't do it, it's fine. 50 TGs every two weeks is really not that much and if you can't spare time for that then you are most likely just being lazy. People spend hours in Discord doing nothing when they could be easily doing other things.
- There are a couple of patches to be made,but nothing that can't be fixed to produce the best result for Europeia.
- Many offices hold enough responsibilities even without mandatory recruitment.
- Is this where I blast the current MinRec and Pichto?
- This will end up being ignored and fails to address the actual issue of people not being motivated to recruit via rewards or awards. Having it as a weekly quota opposed to a fortnightly quota also seems prone to issue, what happens if someone goes on an LoA? What if they had intended to recruit at the weekend but then an IRL emergency comes up?
- Stupid idea.
- While I fully support the idea, I do think there should be exemptions to the rule - don't kick someone out of office if there's a legitimate reason for them not recruiting.
- It's an unnecessary, knee-jerk move in reaction. Get to the root of the problem and find someone experienced and trustworthy to fill the MoI spot and we'll be good.
- Pichto is a very mediocre leader, the worst the year
- Just worried about adding disincentive to running for office/accepting executive roles. Otherwise I like the idea.
- after reading all I can on this matter, I am physically shaking with anxiety of this law passing. Note that I will not rest easy tonight knowing this is a possibility for the future. As long as I've been in the region and knew about recruiting till now, it has been a voluntary job. Something that people would want to do. Making it mandatory does not only make it feel less exciting, but worrisome that I'm gonna lose my job for not meeting the quota. Something said by some of the senators is that some people don't want to recruit, they volunteered for the role in the Executive or Senate or Judicial system, whatever it may be, to do those roles. They did not join it to recruit, if they would like to recruit they can do it without having to be in any position. I'm having to take breaks away from my keyboard because of how much I'm shaking. At no point during all my readings did I find that the ones issuing/watching progress on the quota would warn individuals of getting removed from office for not recruiting. Honestly the quotas used to be set by MOI or MORecruitment for a while, and it was a goal to reach. Not saying anything against current people in the roles, I believe they are doing wonderful, this law would not be needed because the individuals that are FM and Min of Recruitment would already be doing this without distributing anxiety. The current problem shouldn't be solved by forcing people to recruit, but positively motivating people to recruit. I guarantee that a team motivated to recruit will not only surpass a team forced to recruit, but bring a sense of comfort to the region. This idea of having mandatory recruitment is good as an "IDEA", but put it to work and the region would more likely suffer from this. I will more likely be willing to leave the region than be forced to recruit. We all want to help the region, we want to do work here to make it better, but this isn't the way. I'm not sure if I put all that I wanted to say, im not yet comfortable with coming public about who I am, but will gladly talk on the matter when I stop shaking and feel more comfortable.
- Personally, I think this should be tried out as an executive infuriation before we pursued legislation.
- We will need to have a better method of tracking skipped nations than we currently do
- I'm neutral. I think the pearl-clutching of those opposed is very dramatic, and some of those vocally opposed do not surprise me at all (Drecq is a bit of a surprise though). That being said, I also don't know if this is the right time for mandatory recruitment, like Mal suggested. We've had a string of bad ministers; this may just be an over-reaction. That being said (yes, I vacillate back and forth a lot), I don't recall this legislation being nearly as controversial when it was implemented from 2009 to 2012-ish. I was a Minister at least twice during that time as well as a VP candidate (and possibly a Senator?), including a Cabinet role that was work-intensive and utterly demoralizing, yet I still found time to recruit. When I missed my quotas, I still made time to make up the work. Point is, there are pros and cons to both sides of this argument. One side is taking a more extreme tack, which may be doing its job effectively, but recruiting *is* the lifeblood of any region and equivocally stating you'll resign/retire/etc. in response to mandatory recruitment is akin to those threatening to leave a country if their political choice loses an RL election. We're better than that as a community.
- I'm confused about the goals of the Senate. What are they trying to do? "Get more people to recruit." Okay, make it mandatory for everyone, not just some people. "Show pride in the region" people can do that in a lot of ways that aren't recruitment, let them do it.
- Mandating people do anything as part of a position will only be a deterrent for people to hold office.
