NS World Fair V: We're Live

[Minoa]

I wonder if NSindex can hire a booth as an organisation for the next NS World Fair? I’ve just made a start on cataloguing all the World Fairs.

Another thought, can individual nations host the World Fair if they can handle the task?

Out of curiosity, what does a nation have to do as a host of the World Fair, apart from the logos?

The NSWF has traditionally had regions as hosts. While I won't say no, you'd probably have to give the NSWF staff a very good reason as to why you think that an individual nation should host the fair.

Most of the behind the scenes heavy lifting is done by the NSWF staff (and some heavy lifting it is!). The hosts get to pick a theme, and deliver a closing statement, alongside the NSWF staff. Oh, and the normally get to have their regional booth be the first one listed.

It has been something that Minoa has floated as an idea, that we could potentially host a World Fair under a inclusive theme: that is, a theme of multiculturalism, or a theme taking a stand against racial hatred.

In roleplay, I portray human rights in Minoa as typical of a very liberal and tolerant European country like the Netherlands, or the UK before 2010: Minoa ranks in the top ten of the World Press Freedom Index, constantly in competition for first place with the Netherlands and the traditional Scandinavian strongholds. It also allows same sex marriages, allows gender change without sterilisation, banned so-called gay conversion therapies, permits abortion with no fixed limit due to the varying circumstances of individual cases, and like Norway, puts rehabilitation of criminals above punishment, with no criminal records except for serious offences.

Like Germany (Hanover hosted the 2000 Expo), Minoa is very tough against racism and neo-Nazism, and its constitution promotes multiculturalism. Although Minoa is a small nuclear power like France, party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty of course, it is neutral, neither aligned towards the US nor Russia. Minoa never proceeded beyond informal relations with the two countries because of negative public opinion.

Gameplay-wise, Minoa is unaligned.

However, if we hosted a World Fair, it would be a tie between Athens or Istanbul, and even though both cities have comprehensive public transport like London and Paris, we know that the hub that serves the World Fair will have to cope with huge crowds. Even though Minoa integrates with the real world simply because I do not have the time to substitute the whole planet (so to speak), I can create Islands if we need more space.

Again, just an idea at this time.

---

Now, speaking from a journalist’s point of view, why did The Allied States lose its hosting rights to the NationStates World Fair?

[LollerLand]

Their founder personally attacked the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Europeia without any provocation and many regions said they will boycott the fair if TAS is kept as the host.

[Unibot III]

Is it just me or is there no defender or even NS liberal speakers at the Lecture Hall? I see imperialists, independentists, anti-fascists and invaders?

Generally in the past we've done our best to keep the Lecture Hall pretty open and horizontal across the board. What happened?

It may be that none of them simply were able to. I know Todd approached me about speaking, and I would've done a Defender topic with it, but I've been too busy to be able to participate in something like that and therefore had to unfortunately decline. Can't speak for the rest of the active Defenders on if they were approached about this or not, but I'd like to imagine that I wasn't the only one of us that ended up being asked to speak.

Well, I just know in the past when I had problems getting invader/imperialist speakers, I pushed on ahead and always found as decent a crop of people to represent various points of view as I could schedule. Those always ended up being the events that surprised me, anyways - the non-obvious ones, that is. It doesn't seem very open to have such a heavy invader leaning Lecture Hall this year, especially when they could have even booked a IRC talk, rather than an essay, like was done with Ananke in NSWFIII.

[Glen-Rhodes]

I was approached as well. I just don't see anything to write about. And if we're being honest with ourselves, none of the lectures thus far are anything to write home about. The most interesting thing was NK's Q&A, which is only interesting in that it confirmed what we've all been saying all along anyways. Then you have NES writing some nonsense about how "regional sovereignty" means anti-defender or whatever. (As if that's some kind of new revelation from him *yawn*)

The fair has been... lackluster. It's probably because nothing inspiring actually happened last year.

[Adytus]

Is being here forever a requirement for the lectures?

[Glen-Rhodes]

Is being here forever a requirement for the lectures?

It's probably an easy way to get an invite. But I'm sure they just look at who's had interesting things to say in the past. So your best way to get asked to write a lecture might just be to post a lot of substantive stuff here!

[Adytus]

Is being here forever a requirement for the lectures?

It's probably an easy way to get an invite. But I'm sure they just look at who's had interesting things to say in the past. So your best way to get asked to write a lecture might just be to post a lot of substantive stuff here!

Thank you!

[Minoa]

I was approached as well. I just don't see anything to write about. And if we're being honest with ourselves, none of the lectures thus far are anything to write home about. The most interesting thing was NK's Q&A, which is only interesting in that it confirmed what we've all been saying all along anyways. Then you have NES writing some nonsense about how "regional sovereignty" means anti-defender or whatever. (As if that's some kind of new revelation from him *yawn*)

The fair has been... lackluster. It's probably because nothing inspiring actually happened last year.

Maybe if we allowed participants to submit proposals early, it could help.

[Todd McCloud]

To be fair, many individuals were approached from a wealth of different backgrounds, but we had to get real creative real fast due to our lecture organizer running into real-life stuff.

People worked real hard to get this fair off the ground. If the lectures are boring to you, or if you don't happen to like the topics or speakers, no need to participate. Or, submit a lecture - there's a reason why the lecture schedule is referred to as "working". If not, have a fun time next year or something.

[Todd McCloud]

Is being here forever a requirement for the lectures?

It's probably an easy way to get an invite. But I'm sure they just look at who's had interesting things to say in the past. So your best way to get asked to write a lecture might just be to post a lot of substantive stuff here!

Several individuals actually approached us with writing a lecture, and several times in this thread we ask people to submit ideas. There's no secret to it. Submit a topic, we'll review it, and most likely we can accommodate a slot.

[Almonaster Nuevo]

If anything, we were trying hard to fill the schedule after our main co-ordinator had backed out. To suggest we were looking for lectures or lecturers to exclude is just laughable.


For those asking about giving a lecture - there is no need to wait for next year's announcement. If you have a topic idea, then please contact any of the committee. We are always on the lookout for lecturers, and would be happy to add you to the potential contributors list.
(If for some strange reason we don't ping you next time, then please assume bookkeeping error, not a rejection, and call us again).

[The Stalker]

Speaking of lectures, I have posted mine, Becoming the Mad King. It's a bit long and more of a narrative, hope folks will check it out. I will be answering questions tonight on the NSWF5 discord at 8 est.

http://s15.zetaboards.com/NSWF5/topic/10115497/1/