Embassy of the South Pacific

[Sandaoguo]

THE SOUTH PACIFIC
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
From the Office of the Minister

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Originally posted in The South Pacific forums.

After consultation with the Cabinet, deputies, and former Ministers of Foreign Affairs, I have reached the conclusion that the existing organization and practices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are outdated and are in need of adaptation and modernization. Effective immediately, the following changes will take place:

• The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will end its practice of disseminating monthly updates on important events and happenings in The South Pacific, commonly referred to as “Foreign Affairs Updates” or “FA updates,” to each region with which we maintain a forum-based embassy or consulate.
• The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will still write a monthly update, but it will be published in a few selected central venues, namely the NationStates Gameplay forum and the Ministry’s own forum.
• All members of the Diplomatic Corps of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are honorably discharged from their duties, and the Diplomatic Corps is suspended pending reorganization and reimagining of its duties and purposes.

These changes were not made lightly or without much consideration. The central issue that catalyzed these changes was the difficulty multiple previous Ministers have had in maintaining an active and engaged diplomatic corps. When the Ministry’s diplomats are not active, their responsibilities are shifted upwards to deputy ministers and the ultimately the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
 
The serious difficulties in recruiting and maintaining the diplomatic corps, and the lack of deputy minister applicants, means the Minister of Foreign Affairs is tasked with writing the updates themselves, disseminating them to all of our embassies abroad, along with the other duties of staying up-to-date with the developments in all of our partner regions. In combination with the Minister’s political responsibilities as the lead foreign policy chief and counsel, the tasks shifted towards one person can be too great and too taxing.
 
Additionally, the purpose of the monthly update is to deliver important news at least once a month to our partner regions. Recent advancements and innovations in NationStates news media have rendered this job somewhat redundant. While the Ministry will still write monthly updates because independent news media does not cover all events in The South Pacific, the innovations of the news media will be adopted. Namely, newspapers and editorial magazines have large readerships in the NationStates Gameplay forum. If the purpose of the monthly update is to deliver important news about our region, then one of the goals should be reaching as many readers as possible. Adopting the publishing methods of successful news media will garner more readers than the current practice of posting monthly updates in largely unread and under-utilized embassy sub-forums.
 
Because the primary practical duty of the diplomatic corps was to disseminate the monthly update to their assigned regions, the end of that dissemination system means the diplomatic corps will become less and less necessary. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will still be in need of people knowledgeable about our regional partners. The diplomatic corps will be reimagined into a smaller, more streamlined, purpose- and goal-driven institution. Details of these changes will be forthcoming in the next couple of weeks. Current members of the diplomatic corps will be given appropriate opportunities to continue their work with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
 
I realize that this may affect our embassies and consulates abroad. Many regions conduct activity checks and remove embassies and consulates that are inactive. We will likely lose several embassies to those requirements. To be clear, the loss of forum embassies will not harm our regional interests or our foreign affairs. Very little diplomacy occurs through forum embassies. Those activities are mostly conducted through better real-time means, such as IRC and Skype. It’s the opinion of the Ministry that the optical politics are less important than some people believe, and that our regional partners ultimately will understand our reasons, if they do not outright agree with them. There has been, over the past year, a general decline in the use of forum embassies, and this is the natural conclusion of that decline.
 
It is my hope, and the hope of the Cabinet, that these changes will result a slimmer, more functional Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
 
Thank you for your support,

Sandaoguo
Minister of Foreign Affairs

[Unibot III]

A bold move from the MoFA! Probably a change that you will see carried out everywhere, TSP just took leadership on the issue. Embassy updates have become more or less irrelevant with new technology that allows for the wider dissemination of media and communication.

[Venico]

A bold move from the MoFA! Probably a change that you will see carried out everywhere, TSP just took leadership on the issue. Embassy updates have become more or less irrelevant with new technology that allows for the wider dissemination of media and communication.

Uhhhhh what were you using before Uniboy? Carrier pigeons?

[Cormacville]

I don't think this change will happen elsewhere, and particularly not among UCRs. In fact I think it is likely to be reversed in TSP within a month or two at the most.

I could be wrong about that though. GCRs are a different animal than UCRs and these updates are indeed less necessary for them. The whole world is already watching GCRs 24/7.

[Zaolat]

A bold move from the MoFA! Probably a change that you will see carried out everywhere, TSP just took leadership on the issue. Embassy updates have become more or less irrelevant with new technology that allows for the wider dissemination of media and communication.

Uhhhhh what were you using before Uniboy? Carrier pigeons?

I've been using those for a long time, am I behind the times?!

[Glen-Rhodes]

I don't think this change will happen elsewhere, and particularly not among UCRs. In fact I think it is likely to be reversed in TSP within a month or two at the most.

I could be wrong about that though. GCRs are a different animal than UCRs and these updates are indeed less necessary for them. The whole world is already watching GCRs 24/7.

I think the logic applies to UCRs just as much as GCRs. We've seen a decline in the use of forum embassies by UCRs, though not as pronounced as by GCRs. Many regions are do two month updates now. Several of the forum consulates in TSP are inactive.

The only difference I think is that an embassy with a GCR might he considered a status symbol. Smaller and newer regions tend to place a lot emphasis on their embassies, because they're seeking legitimacy in the game. But as they grow older or larger, the importance might fade. My prediction is that, if more people are honest about how useless these embassies are, fewer UCRs will buy into the illusion that forum embassies are a good way to increase their importance and fame.

Of course, this is all conjecture. I do think that this change will last in TSP, though. Three former ministers agreed that the diplomatic system is broken in our region. The Cabinet supports the changes. I think that the next minister will look at the history of the ministry, the difficulty building and maintaining a corps, and will think it's more trouble than it's worth. It's easy to just go along with what's already there. It's harder to justify changing everything. That's why I tried to work within the system, until I became so frustrated that I felt no choice but to radically change it. My prediction is that the next generation of ministers won't go back to the way things were, because there won't be a source of frustration to convince them to make that major change.


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[Carta]

The PRL probably won't be abolishing updates any time soon, but I applaud this sort of experimentation.

We have a private forum for each embassy (passworded), so they serve a more practical purpose than most in our opinion.

[Wintermoot]

I think it's an interesting solution to a problem many regions have, but at the same time I can't help but be dubious. I think that there's a certain symbolism in having active embassies in which both regions can be assed enough to spend a little time posting an update to it or even checking in with each other at times. At the very least it's an indication that the two regions at least have some interest in each other has diplomatic partners, even if it's a casual relationship. To that end, I try to personally respond to every foreign dispatch posted in an embassy in Wintreath, and hound our ambassadors to do their jobs in other regions.

Maybe I'm taking it the wrong way, but it comes off like saying that TSP can't or isn't able to conduct diplomacy on even a casual scale with their minor foreign partners they have relations with so it's not even going to try anymore. It's hardly surprising considering TSP has 36 embassies and consulates from my count, but I would hope this isn't merely a kind way of dumping its relationships with those regions without having to specifically execute embassy closings.

[Kringalia]

That is by no means our aim. We look forward to continuing relations with our partners. The dissolution of the Ambassador Corps is a matter of administrative concern for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and we are still looking into ways of keeping close relations and communications with other regional even without posting updates in each embassy. The bottom line is that we don't want to make embassies a pre-requisite for us to maintain contact with our friends abroad.

[Glen-Rhodes]

Wintermoot, I've heard that before and it's something that's I've discussed with various people. I think symbolism is the wrong word. A lot of what you describe is really the *illusion* of relations, rather than a symbolic representation of a diplomatic relationship. My hope is to break that illusion. Where meaningful relationships don't exist, I don't want to pretend that they do exist.

The politically incorrect reality is that TSP have a handful of truly meaningful and important diplomatic relationships. This is true of all the other GCRs, too, although most foreign ministers aren't as honest as I am about it. That's the political reality. If the largest aspect of our relations with a region is that we exchanged forum embassies, then it's unfair to both parties to pretend that anything important exists there.

That's not to say TSP doesn't value relations with small UCRs. There's a lot of unrealized potential in those relationships, particular on the military and cultural fronts. But the costs of maintaining a large diplomatic corps, and the asymmetric time commitment required there, are too high against the benefits. I would rather see real things happen, instead of posting an update and thinking that's a laurel upon which everybody can rest.


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[The Grim Reaper]

Maybe I'm taking it the wrong way, but it comes off like saying that TSP can't or isn't able to conduct diplomacy on even a casual scale with their minor foreign partners they have relations with so it's not even going to try anymore. It's hardly surprising considering TSP has 36 embassies and consulates from my count, but I would hope this isn't merely a kind way of dumping its relationships with those regions without having to specifically execute embassy closings.

This isn't, however, the real world, where people's perceptions of other state governments is absolutely crucial - this is NS, where people serve in multiple governments, and embassies can't handle passports or their nationals abroad. Forum Embassies need a serious rethinking to make them more than a chore for governments to give to new players with no time.

[Communist Eraser]

TSP just acknowledged the reality: Most of us read embassy updates if at all here on the Gameplay forum. Any disputes about it are also either dealt here publically or privately by other means e.g. tg, irc, they'll make a post anyway. The parties will also go to the person actually I'm charge while the ambassador is useless.

In fact, we should also cut out laws that require one of have a nation in the region in order to have citizenship. How often do we actually use the nation to interact with the region? For most of the cosmo off site government politicos it just another chore to have a puppet you just login once every 60 days.

[Southern Bellz]

I think it is about time. I feel like this is more or less a 'sacred cow' that has been around forever, and really has less value than it is worth.

There are much more valuable ways to be spending our regions FA efforts, and this is a first step in the right direction on focusing on much more value added activities.

[Glen-Rhodes]

An Actual Update, For Once

It's been a while, hasn't it? The South Pacific hasn't published a foreign update in several months! You guys have missed a lot, if you haven't been frequenting our forums. So why don't we get everybody up to speed on the big things?

New Forums

Crisis erupted in The South Pacific in late March. Hileville, the root administrator of our much-beloved forums, removed several administrators for inactivity, after warning them the month prior that lack of activity would result in a “shakeup” of the administration team. HEM, Southern Bellz, Rebeltopia, and Tsunamy were removed from the administration team, and Kringalia and Sandaoguo were appointed as the new administrators. The removed administrators raised objections, culminating in Belschaft accusing Hileville of being a “rogue admin” in a mass telegram sent out to the entire region. The community was split on this scandal, but ultimately Hileville decided that he no longer wanted to even host the forums.

That led to a scramble to convince him to keep hosting the forums, and figuring out what to do if Hileville remained true to his decision. After discussing many options in the Assembly, in the Cabinet IRC, and among each other privately, Sandaoguo, Kringalia, and Tsunamy got together and created new forums. Unfortunately, all the content from the old forums couldn't be imported into the new software.

The new forums, located at http://thesouthpacifix.x10.mx, are self-hosted and running the MyBB forum software package. Amazingly, in just a little over a month, we got over 150 members, who posted an astonishing 14,000 posts! Some feared the forum crisis would cause long and lasting harm to the community. But we banded together and came up with a solution, and now TSP is stronger than ever! So all we have to say about to the cynics is...



Elections

Since the last update, TSP has conducted a few elections. We elected a new Cabinet, and the Assembly created a new judiciary that received its first slate of justices. Here's our current government, including the judiciary:

The Cabinet
Kringalia (Kris), Delegate
Arbiter, Vice Delegate
Tsunamy, Chair of the Assembly
Sandaoguo (Glen-Rhodes), Minister of Foreign Affairs
Farengeto, Minister of Regional Affairs
Geomania, Minister of the Army

The Junior Cabinet
Gustave Berr, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs (Feeder & Sinker Affairs)
God-Emperor, Deputy Minister of Regional Affairs (Planning & Development Agency)
TheSolarRepublic, Deputy Minister of Regional Affairs (Roleplay Advisor)
LadyElysium, Deputy Minister of Regional Affairs (Communications & Integration Agency)

The High Court
Belschaft
Unibot
God-Emperor

The Appellate Court
HEM, Appellate Judge

Goodbye, NSA!

The New Southern Army ceased to exist on May 13, 2014. The Assembly voted to do away with the military, abandoning military gameplay and adopting an ideology of pacifism.

… Could you imagine, though? What really happened on May 13, 2014, is that the Assembly renamed the former New Southern Army to the new South Pacific Special Forces. Why? No reason. We were just bored. It's like when a woman gets the random urge to recolor her hair or a man decides that now is the time to stop skipping leg day and start wearing chino shorts.


Business on the top, party on the bottom?

The SPSF (do we pronounce that spiss-if?) had its inaugural mission to much fanfare. Unfortunately, that fanfare was mostly fighting on the Gameplay forums and had nothing to do with SPSF. So let's shine the spotlight on them here! The mission was the one everybody was talking about a for a while, the one in Liberal Haven. You know it, right?

After a little snafu, our Minister of the Army, Geomania, used his deft diplomatic skills to bring both sides together for a microsecond, and Liberal Haven was taken from the fascists. Both sides promptly began fighting again afterwards.


Actual picture of defenders and raiders fighting in real life. (Credit: Questionable Content)

But, hey, congrats to the SPSF! Here's to more successful missions!

If you'd like to work with our mighty forces, contact Sandaoguo or Geomania.

Escade Resigns

Our region suffered a horrible loss on May 12, 2014. Escade, celebrated former Delegate and then-Vice Delegate, resigned her position as Vice Delegate just a short while after being elected. As Delegate, she tried to reform the region, which she did by infusing its government with new blood.

Under her tenure, Escade expanded the CSS and welcomed youthful and green members of the community into government positions, which left its mark on the current Cabinet. She strove to reconnect the in-game and off-site communities. But ultimately, as Vice Delegate, she felt that she no longer enjoyed being in government, because she didn't like the danger and cold realpolitik of the whole game of thrones.

We will always remember Escade for being a break in the monotony of the old TSP. The current government would like to thank her for her service!

Arbiter was appointed as her successor on May 17, 2014. Arbiter was Minister of Regional Affairs during the Escade's delegacy, Roleplay Adviser under Farengeto, and is currently an Officer in the South Pacific Special Forces. Ever since he joined NationStates in October 2013 he has shown dedication to the region, proving that it is possible to get involved in the South Pacific, and we are sure that we will do an excellent job.

[All Good People]

The legs remind me of the day the sun first comes out after a long dreary winter in Seattle. Frightening.

[Southern Bellz]

I know I haven't been active much, but I just wanted to say that I thought this was a really good update. It was short, lighthearted, informative, and avoided lengthy eassy and op eds.

[District XIV]

The legs remind me of the day the sun first comes out after a long dreary winter in Seattle. Frightening.

You live in Seattle? I live right across the water on Bainbridge Island

[All Good People]

I lived in Redmond & Bellevue in the 90's (yup, worked at Microsoft).....West Seattle in the 60's.... but still travel there several times a year.

.... this was a really good update. It was short, lighthearted, informative, and avoided lengthy eassy and op eds.

I agree, all good qualities in an update.

[Kringalia]

This is TSP we're talking about. Anything we do is top quality.

[South Pacific Belschaft]

I don't know, the unashamedly pro-Hileville article is something of a joke. It's almost as if our forums weren't held to ransom, that literally every other admin didn't consider his "inactivity" claims spurious and presented clear and indisputable evidence to back that up, that the vast majority of TSP wasn't united in the opinion that he had to go as root admin, and that nearly everyone wasn't in agreement that a new host had to be found long before Hile "decided" that he was done. It's also not like Hile had a recent history of illegal action as root admin - having improperly removed admins previously and illegally banned citizens - which had been overturned by the admin team he was now trying to get rid of - strangely as they were in the process of overturning another unilateral decision of his. Nor that he repeatedly changed his position during the crisis, threatening to take down the forums within hours multiple times, refused any form of compromise suggested by the Delegate, and insisted that he either got his way or the region lost its forums.

Glen is approaching Unibotian levels of revisionism.

[Kringalia]

*sighs*

The focus of the article wasn't how Hileville ilegally banned citizens (which he did) or how we removed admins without following the established procedure (which he did) or how he indeed changed his opinions multiple times about hosting the forum (which he did). The focus of the article was how in the end we managed to get a new forum, and how despite everything we managed to keep a functioning community. That's precisely why the title of the article is "New Forums" instead of "Forum Crisis".

[Nierr]

*sighs*

The focus of the article wasn't how Hileville ilegally banned citizens (which he did) or how we removed admins without following the established procedure (which he did) or how he indeed changed his opinions multiple times about hosting the forum (which he did). The focus of the article was how in the end we managed to get a new forum, and how despite everything we managed to keep a functioning community. That's precisely why the title of the article is "New Forums" instead of "Forum Crisis".

Yeah but Bel has to get his kicks in. He can't function without some big bad enemy to focus on.

[Glen-Rhodes]

Glen is approaching Unibotian levels of revisionism.

I'm pretty sure The Rejected Times actually wrote two features about the crisis, which included all the things you discussed. As editor-in-chief of SPINN, you also have a platform to give an in-depth play-by-play of what happened. I'd be glad to give my side of the story, since I played a central role in deciding to go to new forums.

This is a forum update, not a newspaper. In the interest of keeping it short and readable, I did not write a long-form article on everything that went down. I don't see it as revisionist (what part is untrue?), nor do I see it as pro-Hileville. The point of the section was to advertise our new forums. It wasn't to rehash a scandal and a crisis. Kris has that right.

[South Pacific Belschaft]

You reported Hile's spurious "inactivity" argument as fact, rather than the bullshit it was proven to be. Your ommissions - for example, ignoring that by the time he "decided" he no longer wanted to host the forums the majority had already made it clear that he could not continue to do so - are just as egregious.

[Kringalia]

You reported Hile's spurious "inactivity" argument as fact, rather than the bullshit it was proven to be. Your ommissions - for example, ignoring that by the time he "decided" he no longer wanted to host the forums the majority had already made it clear that he could not continue to do so - are just as egregious.

I'm starting to think that you are doing this just for the fun of contradicting us...

Hileville removed admins, and was criticised for it. You sent a mass telegram accusing him of being a rogue admin and a couper, and he decided that in such an environment he did not want to continue being the root admin. In the end he turned off the forum earlier than expected, and we had to implement the myBB option. That is what happened, and adding anything else distracts us from the main objective of the article, which was to highlight the success of the new forum. Neither the Cabinet nor the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have any interest in having yet another endless discussion with you about what actually happened with the previous forum. It's not our fault that you fail to see or consciously ignore the point of the article.