Campaign: Domestic Affairs

[Millyland]

Appointees for Minister of Domestic Affairs are:
Avaerilon
Azerzia

Campaigning will occur in this thread, starting immediately.
A separate thread for voting on all Minister positions will open on the 18th at 00:00 GMT. Instructions on voting will be found there.

[Avaerilon]

Hi there, everyone!

As you may already know, we're having elections for the Cabinet positions of the SLU. One of these positions is Minister of Domestic Affairs. I'm the current minister in-charge, and would love to continue to serve the region in my capacity. I'd like to list my qualifications and my plans for the future; please take a look!

Like FDR says, I am pretty well-qualified for the job, having been minister for the past two terms. Here's a brief list of what I have done for Domestic Affairs, and indeed the region as a whole:

• Created the all-new, high-detail, high-definition region map
  
• Initiated one of the biggest (if not the biggest) forum clean-ups upon my first election victory
  
• Wrote and maintained the most successful "Council of Leaders" role-plays in this history of the SLU, in-terms of post number and views
  
• Codified a basic code-of-conduct for the use of militaries in role-play scenarios
  
• In the process of creating an incredibly concise and detailed linguistic map- the first ever in the region
  
• Created and chaired the first, formal regional debate
  
• Spearheaded the creation of the Diplomacy sub-board, and demonstrated how to create an official diplomatic programme
  
• Created a new, more definite brief tutorial to help newcomers
  
• Created short films like this to get more people interested in role-playing; I believe the first time anything to do with video media has been attempted on the forum

And now for the legislation I was involved in:

• Authored the TAPA bill, which established an effective protocol for archiving all kinds of forum threads
  
• Co-authored the LECA bill, which made it clear on how we deal with typos in legislation
  
• Co-authored the FLAVA bill, which is designed to ensure no-one is victim to anything especially offensive
  
• Co-authored the SPAM bill, to deal with those pesky spammers!
  
• Wrote and assisted in recent key constitutional amendments

So, these are my qualifications that I feel are important you know about :)

I do have plenty of plans for how we improve Domestic Affairs, which will improve the region as a whole, and of course the experience everyone has of it ;D

Activities
As far as I can tell, we have plenty of fun activities for nations to take part in. I was in-development of a new game to take NS further a wile back, but I was sadly snowed-under by academic commitments of my first university year. Happily, things are looking better now, and I should be able to devote time to create my new game for anyone who wants to play it. Apart from that, I have no major thoughts about changing the system we have; I'm proud of what we've achieved with activities.

Mentoring
Myself and numerous other Domestic Affairs staff have answered many questions asked, but we still have a gap to bridge with new members, when it comes to understanding the sometimes complex nature of the forum. That is why I propose to re-invigorate the Mentorship aspect of DA. Nations with a good-grasp of the forum will be invited to join the Mentorship Committee, and assigned new nations to actively mentor via telegram and private message. An active Mentorship Secretary will oversee this, as well as the creation of more definitive tutorials. New nations should feel there is someone they know that they can ask any question of at any time. It may even help people to make new friends!

Communications
We need a formal method of welcoming and assisting every newcomer to our region. That is why, under the Secretary of Communications, a Welcome Team will be established. Nations will receive a welcome telegram upon their arrival in the SLU, which will contain the information they need to get them using the forum confidently, and actively. This team will work with the Mentorship Committee to ensure everyone gets the best starting experience possible. I believe we also need to have active, committed journalists for the Weekly Journal, who should be paid for their efforts in Sluans (and cookies! (::)) and be recognised by the region for taking the tome to commit themselves to writing articles.

Well, I think I've droned on for long enough! If you have any questions, even stupid or crazy ones, don't be afraid to ask! ;D Thanks so much for taking the time to read this, and I hope you decide to vote in the election :)

[Administrator]

Hello all and thank you for reading this thread about why I should be the Minister of Domestic Affairs. I have a lot of plans for this position and will describe them in short order. But first, for those who do not know, here are my qualifications for the position:

Qualifications

Positions

• First Minister of Domestic Affairs in the region's history. (Initially it was called Minister of Communications)
  
• First Speaker of the Union in the region's history.
  
• Second Constitutional, Fourth Elected, and Seventh Ever Delegate in the region.
  

Legislation

• Writer of the Constitution and several of its amendments
  
• Writer of the Second Constitution, which is still under vote
  
• Writer of the Regional Administration and Government Act
  
• Active member of discussion and editing on every bill of the Open Parliament

Other

• Have been in the region since its founding, minus a few hours for defending purposes outside the region
  
• Original administrator of the current forum, as well as one of its most active posters
  

Now, what I intend to do as Minister:

Plans[/u]

Activities
The Department of Activities is the most successful department in the Ministry. It is responsible for creating and monitoring the role-play events and activities on the forum not related to the function of the government. As there are multiple posts and ideas thrown out in the Roleplay and marketplace on a frequent basis, we can see the results of that success. I do not want to mess with the system we have in place; it works great and I intend to keep the leadership responsible for it in place.
Communications
The Department of Communications has struggled more than Activities. It is responsible for censoring issues which come up on the forum and keeping members informed of goings on in the region. The censorship problem has never been a major issue, so that job is more on paper then anything else. The other point is handled by the SLU Weekly Journal. The Journal is updated infrequently, partially due to lack of news and partly to lack of time to report goings on. The best way to rectify that is simply to report more of the goings on in the region, by having a dedicated reporter. The best way to get at least one reporter is through getting new states involved. That comes through Mentorship, which I will detail below.
Mentorship
The Department of Mentorship is lagging behind severely. It is not as bad as it used to be but Mentorship is still not in the position it should be in. The idea has morphed a lot since it originally was discussed. The current form is to rely on tutorials on the forum to guide new member indirectly. I feel that that is not enough, and that the current tutorial system needs to be reworked.
First, the reworking. The tutorials are still scattered about the forum. There are detailed tutorials on several different topics which do more or less good. However, they are not all in logical places and could do to be organized better. Some tutorials could use expanding and I would like to help do that.
Next, the expansion of Mentorship. This is a two phase plan. Phase one is the Secretary of Mentorship taking the load. Inactive states need to be informed of goings on. In my experience, the best way to contact states is by telegram. To that end, the Secretary of Mentorship (which I would volunteer to be, unless another state would want the position) would message inactive states weekly to every other week about regional events, open positions and probably a link to the Weekly Journal. The flow of information will likely entice more states to get involved. Second, a group of Mentors can be created, much like the Recruitment Committee, who are assigned inactive states to contact by the Secretary of Mentorship. The Mentors will likely be newly involved states who are looking for a position to hold, which is why it is phase two.

With this is mind, I would like to open up a Q/A and will accept private messages related to my campaign

[Deleted]

Just a practical question: if you want to send out welcome telegrams with a team of let's say 3 people, how are you going to be sure that the new nations don't get the welcome message 3 times?

[Avaerilon]

Everyone will be assigned a shift, which should ensure a new nation receives the one message. However, if we don't have enough people to do that effectively, we should request in the message that the new nation post on the RMB to acknowledge. Or, the nation that sends the TG could post on the RMB with a simple "welcome [insert_name_here]."

[Administrator]

In my plan, it would likely be associated with Mentorship. The Mentor Secretary would likely do the welcome and let the state know to which mentor they would be assigned

[Deleted]

Azerzia: every nation will have a mentor assigned automatically?

[Administrator]

The Secretary of Mentorship would take them all to start, until more states get involved. Once there are multiple mentors, the Secretary would pick who mentors who (with approval from the MDA and Delegate)

[Kingdom of Grolsch]

Question: how do you think you can ensure you offer good mentoring if no one else wants to be a mentor? What would you do, were that to be the case?

[Administrator]

My plan, with its multiple phases, assumes there will be limited mentors to start with. Eventually there will be more.

I like to compare it in my head to how Immigration started. It was just the Minister doing recruitment and maintaining the list of nations. After enough time, we got enough interest for there to be recruiters to lighten the load

[Avaerilon]

If, hypothetically, I was the only nation offering to mentor, I would ensure all new members felt they were able to talk to me about anything pertaining to NS and the forum itself. Perhaps I would even make videos of how to use the forum, and how to navigate it; it's easily done, and would not take too much time on my part, or the other nation's, giving me more free time to address their concerns personally.

[Kingdom of Grolsch]

Ok, thanks for the answer to both of you.

[Administrator]

Looks like voting should open up either last night or in a few hours?

[North American Republics]

It looks like it should have opened this morning (GMT). I'll create the thread.

[Deleted]

I really can't decide who to vote for here.:p

[Avaerilon]

It's nearly over, now! Make sure you all vote!