Partnership for Sovereignty | SC Voting Bloc

[Toerana]

Look, we're all ears, but there doesn't seem like much to contact them about. We asked privately to know how the vote went and was told no (beyond the verdict margin, anyway).

I'm personally not rushing to be like "oh well how can we have a relationship with the partnership" based on how this went. We waited a month and were told to go away, which is again, entirely their right, but I'm not looking to bend over backwards to force a relationship if the partnership doesn't want one (which it doesn't seem to), to be honest with you.

We reached out to a couple of individual regions in the partnership too and we got mixed results, so I'm not in a rush to be super close with the partnership as an overall entity right now, and I think that's pretty fair.

Fair enough

[Quebecshire]

Fair enough

If the PfS wants any sort of interaction with our region the ball is entirely in their court but considering only half of the delegations voted at all, and only one voted for, I'm not holding my breath whatsoever. That's not to say I think you've been unreasonable in this thread, but yeah, that's where I stand.

[The Notorious Mad Jack]

LCN appears to have been treated very shoddily here. That's unfortunate, and I hope the PfS reflects on its processes and improves its communication in future. Such misunderstandings are easily avoided if you engage with those involved.

[TheMothman]

LCN appears to have been treated very shoddily here. That's unfortunate, and I hope the PfS reflects on its processes and improves its communication in future. Such misunderstandings are easily avoided if you engage with those involved.

Full Agreement with Mad Jack, and full support to LCN for being willing to air it's grievances in place that give PfS a full chance to rebut while also informing future prospective members of their experience to better make an informed decision on if this organization is right for them.

[Frenchy II]

I do believe that the Partnership for Sovereignty has treated the LCN unfairly. The term "established" seems to me like it's to keep this group exclusive so you don't have the real lemmings of the world knocking on your back door asking for membership. Your group must remain the most pure and act as a saving grace for natives in the Security Council. In contrast, when it's time for the natives to get their say, all they can do is sit with their hands in their laps and read the pretty dispatches you folks put out. I can say I'm disappointed, but quite frankly I am unsurprised by the dealings of this institution.

[Frattastan IV]

We are immensely disappointed with how our application was managed. The Office of the Consulate fully understands that exist concerns about previous out-of-character practices, that much is obvious. We do not feel, however, that it warranted the treatment our application received.

To spell it out, the 'treatment you received' apparently is:
(1) taking a month for voting to happen;
(2) being rejected.

You should know very well that that time wasn't spent with delegations twiddling their thumbs and biding their time just to frustrate you, but to investigate whether moderation procedures had changed and what had happened to people who were involved in past incidents. The idea that a region which six months ago was making headlines because they were freely using the n-word and the like could be admitted within a week, or that no one would have any reservations that could drag debate, is just ridiculous. Given the terrible first impressions, time spent to set aside that, get to know the situation better and try to give a full assessment was only to your benefit.

To be extra-clear, my gripe with your response doesn't revolve on whether you changed or not, but on the fact that apparently you find it unconceivable that other regions could be cautious (which includes fact-finding, deliberating, etc.) and give pause to the thought of sitting in the same organisation as you.

I do believe that the Partnership for Sovereignty has treated the LCN unfairly. The term "established" seems to me like it's to keep this group exclusive so you don't have the real lemmings of the world knocking on your back door asking for membership.

In this case "established" is polite code for "didn't recently fuck it up".

[Quebecshire]

To spell it out, the 'treatment you received' apparently is:
(1) taking a month for voting to happen;
(2) being rejected.

I made it very clear in my post that our issue was taken with the handling from submission up until the vote began, not with the result of the vote, at least regarding our criticism. Please do not twist my statements to attempt to make it seem like our big issue here is just that we were rejected.

We were very clearly kept in the dark and given considerably less information about anything compared to the other delegations, and we were given no real status updates, no-nothing about any "investigations" or otherwise, so yeah, our application received some unprofessional treatment.

You should know very well that that time wasn't spent with delegations twiddling their thumbs and biding their time just to frustrate you, but to investigate whether moderation procedures had changed and what had happened to people who were involved in past incidents.

The Partnership for Sovereignty aren't the only people we've had to testify those changes to, and it took you guys considerably longer than everyone else, I could name several regions and organizations that we had to talk about the changes with, explain the deals with the people involved, and etc.

There was clearly a communication and management disruption that the PfS had that other regions and inter-regional connections did not have. Don't try to just pin it on OOC stuff that we've fixed, denounced, and worked hard to move past.

Given the terrible first impressions, time spent to set aside that, get to know the situation better and try to give a full assessment was only to your benefit.

This statement is nice and all but we were uhhhhh completely kept in the dark so it pretty much means nothing to me.

We don't know what you did, what you considered, and what conclusions were made. Was not enough changed? Was it just too soon to move past? We have no clue, and once again, the PfS is the main organization we have tried to rebuild or build relations with that specifically took a much longer amount of time while giving much less information to us on it.

To be extra-clear, my gripe with your response doesn't revolve on whether you changed or not, but on the fact that apparently you find it unconceivable that other regions could be cautious (which includes fact-finding, deliberating, etc.) and give pause to the thought of sitting in the same organisation as you.

To be extra clear, my gripe with this is that it very obviously attempts to deflect from one of the major points of concern we brought up - that we were kept completely uninformed whilst subjected to whatever you guys did. There is no reason we couldn't have been given the same information and awareness whilst being subjected to such reviews, period.

In this case "established" is polite code for "didn't recently fuck it up".

Yeah we fucked up. And we've admitted that, denounced it, moved past it. And we've had to tell that and prove that to SEVERAL regions and organizations, all of them found the apparently supernatural ability to both handle it in a timeframe similar to other functions and keep us informed of their deliberations and processes.

[Comfed]

While it’s not unreasonable for the PfS to take more time with the LCN’s application considering OOC issues I’m sure some degree of favouritism was probably involved. Spiritus, the FNR and the UDS are all reasonably well-liked defender-aligned or leaning regions. It seems a bit shoddy that the LCN’s application took over a month before voting even started and they were told very little. LCN probably should have raised this issue in private, though.

[Quebecshire]

While it’s not unreasonable for the PfS to take more time with the LCN’s application considering OOC issues I’m sure some degree of favouritism was probably involved. Spiritus, the FNR and the UDS are all reasonably well-liked defender-aligned or leaning regions. It seems a bit shoddy that the LCN’s application took over a month before voting even started and they were told very little. LCN probably should have raised this issue in private, though.

Of course we deserve more review than the UDS, FNR, and Spiritus, without a doubt. But that coupled with keeping us in the dark on it is what makes it particularly unreasonable, imo.

We could have raised it in private, and like I said, I'm not gonna fight on that much, I already said why we decided to make a public statement. The PfS continuing to keep us in the dark about everything related to our attempted admission is not reasonable towards the region, and I think that's a fair stance for us to take.

[HumanSanity]

We were very clearly kept in the dark and given considerably less information about anything compared to the other delegations, and we were given no real status updates, no-nothing about any "investigations" or otherwise, so yeah, our application received some unprofessional treatment.

Why would you be given information about an ongoing investigation regarding you? Sure, if we had specific questions, we would've asked you. But we were conducting our own review. Plus, each region may have conducted separate reviews from the main PfS wide review. This is also part of why there is no unified "PfS position" on the matter, because regions voted different ways and for different reasons. If they want to discuss that with you, they can, but you're not entitled to answers.

You should know very well that that time wasn't spent with delegations twiddling their thumbs and biding their time just to frustrate you, but to investigate whether moderation procedures had changed and what had happened to people who were involved in past incidents.

The Partnership for Sovereignty aren't the only people we've had to testify those changes to, and it took you guys considerably longer than everyone else, I could name several regions and organizations that we had to talk about the changes with, explain the deals with the people involved, and etc.

There was clearly a communication and management disruption that the PfS had that other regions and inter-regional connections did not have. Don't try to just pin it on OOC stuff that we've fixed, denounced, and worked hard to move past.

The PfS is a multi-region organization, so in addition to the difficulties of coordinating within a given region or organization, we have to coordinate across regions and organizations. This understandably increases the time it takes to handle things. Coordination between governments is always harder than coordination within them.

I'm not gonna fight on that much

Public statements in the GP forum are not what I consider "not fighting that much".

[Frattastan IV]

What information do you believe you could have received during that time? Because the reason for taking the time it took is pretty clear, and any mid-time 'update' on the situation would have been rather obvious and not particularly helpful to you ("we looked over the screenshots about the past incident, since not everyone knew the details", "one of us visited your server to see how moderation worked, what had happened to people responsible for bad comments, and sifted through logs to see if that behaviour had ceased", etc.).

The Partnership for Sovereignty aren't the only people we've had to testify those changes to, and it took you guys considerably longer than everyone else, I could name several regions and organizations that we had to talk about the changes with, explain the deals with the people involved, and etc.

There was clearly a communication and management disruption that the PfS had that other regions and inter-regional connections did not have. Don't try to just pin it on OOC stuff that we've fixed, denounced, and worked hard to move past.

At risk of being extremely obvious the reasons for that are: (a) that membership in an institutionalised interregional organisation is more 'permanent' than bilateral relations and individual regions know that they can't walk it back as easily, which means they will be more risk-averse (while embassies can definitely be closed again at a later time if one is unsatisfied); (b) that coordination between multiple regions means that you have to consolidate a position between more people, and that you act knowing that your decisions will have an effect on others as well; there isn't a single head of government who can say 'yeah, let's give them a chance' and greenlights it.

[Quebecshire]

Why would you be given information about an ongoing investigation regarding you? Sure, if we had specific questions, we would've asked you. But we were conducting our own review. Plus, each region may have conducted separate reviews from the main PfS wide review. This is also part of why there is no unified "PfS position" on the matter, because regions voted different ways and for different reasons. If they want to discuss that with you, they can, but you're not entitled to answers.

Yes and we know nothing about the results of any reviews by PfS members except for in a light sense, members we have relations with already and to an extent the UDS. We know nothing about if the changes were enough, if it's too soon, et cetera. Damn, feels like I've said this before.

The PfS is a multi-region organization, so in addition to the difficulties of coordinating within a given region or organization, we have to coordinate across regions and organizations. This understandably increases the time it takes to handle things. Coordination between governments is always harder than coordination within them.

A month is a month. A month with no information on where things stand is not reasonable, and that is our opinion, which we are entitled to have.

Public statements in the GP forum are not what I consider "not fighting that much".

You can twist my statements all you want but I was very clearly once again saying I wasn't going to fight hard on the "maybe you should've brought it up privately" statement, since that's a light difference of opinion, and not the overall issue.

[Quebecshire]

What information do you believe you could have received during that time? Because the reason for taking the time it took is pretty clear, and any mid-time 'update' on the situation would have been rather obvious and not particularly helpful to you ("we looked over the screenshots about the past incident, since not everyone knew the details", "one of us visited your server to see how moderation worked, what had happened to people responsible for bad comments, and sifted through logs to see if that behaviour had ceased", etc.).

We still have no idea the result of those reviews (which, if there are issues, would probably be pretty helpful to us reflecting on how the changes have gone, would they not?), and we could have been told what was going on, when we might be up for vote, etc. We got nothing. We didn't even know we were at vote until the last 12 or so hours of it.

And like I already said, OOC stuff wasn't the only reason I was given for delays, so it feels like we were still kept in the dark (and still are in the dark, because we were denied our request to know how each region voted) unnecessarily. This could have been handled much better, and it's our right to believe that.

At risk of being extremely obvious the reasons for that are: (a) that membership in an institutionalised interregional organisation is more 'permanent' than bilateral relations and individual regions know that they can't walk it back as easily, which means they will be more risk-averse (while embassies can definitely be closed again at a later time if one is unsatisfied); (b) that coordination between multiple regions means that you have to consolidate a position between more people, and that you act knowing that your decisions will have an effect on others as well; there isn't a single head of government who can say 'yeah, let's give them a chance' and greenlights it.

Well yeah, hence why we didn't expect the PfS to take like two days like TEP did. But let's take Libcord (I know it's not a treaty or formal agreement, but it's what we have closely) for example. Tim gave us regular and consistent updates, asked us questions relevant to the process, and kept us up to date. We never had doubt that it was actually being gone over. PfS did not come remotely close to that.

[Parxland]

What information do you believe you could have received during that time? Because the reason for taking the time it took is pretty clear, and any mid-time 'update' on the situation would have been rather obvious and not particularly helpful to you ("we looked over the screenshots about the past incident, since not everyone knew the details", "one of us visited your server to see how moderation worked, what had happened to people responsible for bad comments, and sifted through logs to see if that behaviour had ceased", etc.).

We still have no idea the result of those reviews (which, if there are issues, would probably be pretty helpful to us reflecting on how the changes have gone, would they not?), and we could have been told what was going on, when we might be up for vote, etc. We got nothing. We didn't even know we were at vote until the last 12 or so hours of it.

And like I already said, OOC stuff wasn't the only reason I was given for delays, so it feels like we were still kept in the dark (and still are in the dark, because we were denied our request to know how each region voted) unnecessarily. This could have been handled much better, and it's our right to believe that.

At risk of being extremely obvious the reasons for that are: (a) that membership in an institutionalised interregional organisation is more 'permanent' than bilateral relations and individual regions know that they can't walk it back as easily, which means they will be more risk-averse (while embassies can definitely be closed again at a later time if one is unsatisfied); (b) that coordination between multiple regions means that you have to consolidate a position between more people, and that you act knowing that your decisions will have an effect on others as well; there isn't a single head of government who can say 'yeah, let's give them a chance' and greenlights it.

Well yeah, hence why we didn't expect the PfS to take like two days like TEP did. But let's take Libcord (I know it's not a treaty or formal agreement, but it's what we have closely) for example. Tim gave us regular and consistent updates, asked us questions relevant to the process, and kept us up to date. We never had doubt that it was actually being gone over. PfS did not come remotely close to that.

Took me 40 days to become a citizen in the rejected realms. I think you're looking at laziness more than anything.

[Varanius]

Took me 40 days to become a citizen in the rejected realms. I think you're looking at laziness more than anything.

Should’ve taken longer....

[Parxland]

Took me 40 days to become a citizen in the rejected realms. I think you're looking at laziness more than anything.

Should’ve taken longer....

What's that, you want me to find your most cringe-y text in discord and message copies of them to your entire region? That's an interesting idea but it's not appealing to me. I don't think you've taunted me enough.

[Varanius]

Should’ve taken longer....

What's that, you want me to find your most cringe-y text in discord and message copies of them to your entire region? That's an interesting idea but it's not appealing to me. I don't think you've taunted me enough.

I’m...a little disappointed with this.

[The Notorious Mad Jack]

To be honest, it's becoming clearer and clearer that the PfS treated LCN very badly here. It doesn't take a month to do the kind of investigation Fratt is claiming happened, if one happened at all - I very much doubt it did. Parx for once seems to have hit the nail on the head. PfS was lazy and didn't take the application forward because of that. That's a very bad look.

The PfS should offer an apology to the LCN.

[Quebecshire]

To be honest, it's becoming clearer and clearer that the PfS treated LCN very badly here. It doesn't take a month to do the kind of investigation Fratt is claiming happened, if one happened at all - I very much doubt it did. Parx for once seems to have hit the nail on the head. PfS was lazy and didn't take the application forward because of that. That's a very bad look.

The PfS should offer an apology to the LCN.

I don't want to sow doubts about who did or didn't do any sort of investigation, I'm more concerned with timing and management and I'll take some word that it did happen (but I'd like to know the takeaways/results, which nobody will tell me), but I have some clear guesses as to what happened. I know that HumanSanity was on our server so they probably looked around, Phoenix from the UDS joined around the 27th of February, and etc - the FNR and Spiritus had or probably had done their own things to look into that in advance due to our relations with them outside of PfS. Obviously, this doesn't take a month to handle either way, and it hasn't for any other inter-regional org/group or for any region. A month is ridiculous, especially since information about our attempted admission was and continues to be kept from us.

I might get in trouble for saying this, but a conversation I had with a TRR official on February 6th/7th very clearly implied if not stated their mind was already made up on their position. So unless there was a pivot (I don't know for sure because they refuse to let us know the vote result, but I severely doubt it) or some new information came to light, it was pretty much told to me they had already made their (opposed) judgement by the 7th, so there is absolutely no reason to defend the 3+ weeks it took after that for the PfS to sort our application.

Plus, there is no reason to argue the "you didn't give us adequate info" point when we didn't even know we were at vote until the last 12 hours, and when they continue to tell us we aren't allowed to know detailed vote results.

[Sedgistan]

It does feel like someone from PFS could have let LCN know the decision on them would take a while, but discussions were ongoing. Similarly, when circumstances allow, it's good to tell people what the problems found were so they can improve on them.

And then from the other side, LCN would have done better by communicating the above thoughts in private, because bringing that kind of stuff up here tends to attract the people who are happy to bash the organisation, and try to drive a wedge between them.

[Quebecshire]

It does feel like someone from PFS could have let LCN know the decision on them would take a while, but discussions were ongoing. Similarly, when circumstances allow, it's good to tell people what the problems found were so they can improve on them.

We were told vague things here and there when we went and asked, stuff that would say it's still under consideration but say no voting date could be promised, or they weren't sure if our application would be pushed back again to make room for another that was submitted after it to go before it. Edit: Just so it’s like clear on what we were and weren’t told, that’s what I said that for.

As for the latter, yeah, HS and Frat (though idk if Frat was actually involved) have both neglected to answer my question asking what exactly about the old OOC stuff led to the present rejection, so we can make note of it. And we still don't know how regions voted unless they've personally told us, and I haven't really gone asking at the moment.

And then from the other side, LCN would have done better by communicating the above thoughts in private, because bringing that kind of stuff up here tends to attract the people who are happy to bash the organisation, and try to drive a wedge between them.

Probably fair, but I don't think it's entirely unreasonable for us to speak our concerns publicly when we've held our tongue about it at the PfS request for the entire month.

[Drop Your Pants]

Probably fair, but I don't think it's entirely unreasonable for us to speak our concerns publicly when we've held our tongue about it at the PfS request for the entire month.

By going loud in public you're only inviting hostile answers. Its not very diplomatic.

[Quebecshire]

Probably fair, but I don't think it's entirely unreasonable for us to speak our concerns publicly when we've held our tongue about it at the PfS request for the entire month.

By going loud in public you're only inviting hostile answers. Its not very diplomatic.

The PfS is an organization with sound principles and good ideas. That said, I don't think it's unreasonable, undiplomatic, bad faith, or whatever else to be open when criticizing their handling of our application process.

[Numero Capitan]

As fratt has already touched upon, an interregional alliance doesn't operate in the same way as bilateral relations or any other body. They require an informed discussion and formal vote, with every member getting an equal say in the process. The decision to admit new members in the fledgling days of the Partnership is extremely important and can seriously impact upon its future success. There isn't much ability to backtrack on membership decisions once the decision is made and therefore more caution is natural.

You may also be failing to note that multiple new members joined the PfS over the course of your application and then also needed to be briefed on the matter to have an informed internal discussion on how to use their own vote. Decision-making is decentralized and democratic in a body like that and it is not uncommon for decisions on new members to take time.

You referenced Libcord as a comparison but the decision-making process for that is entirely different. Matters addressed in update command are generally decided by a short discussion before a general consensus is reached or decided by a rough 'show of hands' (so to speak) from anyone who decides to contribute. There is no formal decision-making structure or voting procedure, peoples views are their own and matters are generally resolved in a matter of hours between updates or are parked until they are raised again. It is completely different to a formal partnership managed by representatives acting on behalf of sovereign governments.

The time it has taken to consider this issue doesn't surprise me as a complete outsider, and as others have commented the longer deliberation period likely worked in your favour in terms of fairly considering the application and your reforms rather than acting on first impressions (even if it didn't ultimately result in the outcome you desired).

In hindsight you may also have been better served handling the matter more delicately as a region yourselves, without nailing your colors to the PfS mast and publicly announcing your intention to join without any assurance that your membership was likely to be approved (you will note that none of the other regions to join the Partnership announced this until it was confirmed).

[Parxland]

-

sounds like some people don't want the LCN to join this alliance.

Would reallly suck for them if somebody helped the process along.