Why I Resigned

[Mousebumples]

​

Why I Resigned
A Mousebumples Tell-All​

As I stated in my resignation post, there are a number of factors that led to my resignation. Truthfully, Real Life is keeping me busy – and Real Life should always come before an internet game. Family stuff is good, boyfriend/relationship stuff is good, so that in turn, leads to less free time to spend on NationStates and Europeia.

However, that is a smaller part of why I resigned – maybe less than 25% of the true reason. I've debated whether or not I should share this information publicly. As a Supreme Chancellor of Europeia, I feel that it is my duty to put the needs of Europeia before my own desire for fairness or full disclosure. However, the malfeasance within the current administration has reached the point where I feel the need to be as clear and up-front as I can with what has gone down during recent administrations of President Writinglegend.

I'll begin during President Writinglegend's first set of Presidential terms. During, I believe, his second term (late summer 2015), there were a number of FA missteps that I'm unable to go into great detail about publicly, given that the conversations regarding these incidents were predominantly held in the EAAC. Of note, however, is a notable diplomatic incident with TNP, that resulted in notable cooling in relations between our regions, until this joint statement was issued.

Towards the end of that thread, McEntire asks for more details about what happened. The lack of further follow-up and explanation in response from the Presidential administration to detail what went down was and still is disappointing to me. However, a large portion of the details can be found here, for those that have access to the TNP forums and wish to gain more information on the subject.

As a backstory – and this is information I received through unofficial channels – the complaint was posted to TNP with only limited contact being made to the MoFA and Delegate of TNP prior to posting. Amping up the outrage to 11 straight out the gate, rather than continuing to pursue more diplomatic options, caused serious damage to our relations. Our relationship with TNP was only improved later that fall, through continual efforts from those of us that were not carrying a grudge and wanted to repair our relationship with one of our historic allies. I expressed my disapproval over how things were handled that resulted in such severe damage to our relations with TNP, and it was not well received.

I later learned that still-President Writinglegend expressed an interest in wanting to remove me from the EAAC since he didn't want me involved in his FA discussions. Of course, given that I was the WA Delegate, and I have an expansive network of FA contacts, that wasn't really feasible. Now that I'm no longer WA Delegate, I'm wondering how much longer that I'll be in EAAC for the rest of President Writinglegend's term.

Skip ahead to his his recently completed Presidential term. At the start of the term, it became obvious that there was a noticeable drop in activity in the Cabinet-related Discord channels that we have. Hypothetically, this would be associated with a noticeable uptick in forum activity - because more planning is going on there instead. That was not the case.

Instead, President Writinglegend - along with a number of his Ministers - created their own Discord servers for their own use, further splintering our community and making it harder to for casual players to stay involved unless they want to join multiple Discord servers. Additionally, there has been a notable lack of posting in the EAAC this term about FA affairs. I won't go into detail about what all has been discussed - after all, that would break all sorts of Protected Area laws - but there's plenty that hasn't been discussed there that must be planned elsewhere. Updates about how the CAIN conference was winding down? Discussion on how to best disseminate our agreement on CAIN? Details on discussions with new regions to form partnerships or working arrangements? (*Minus a thread that I started in EAAC after I received a telegram from a WA Delegate of a region. Note, however, that no information has been provided by the FA team in EAAC about what - if any - follow-up has been conducted after I shared that telegram with them.)

In my view, the EAAC serves a few purposes within our region that are vital for ensuring our FA interests when we transition from President to President and generation to generation. It provides an avenue for newer FA members to learn more about the background of our region. There is also a super-seekrit EAAC archive (that I don't even have access to!), but if there's an older thread that's relevant now, it can be moved back to provide greater background on a recurring situation.

The current situation - where next to nothing happens in EAAC and only happens on off-site chat programs - offers nothing to the next administration and is needlessly hampering our future FA affairs. Additionally - and I suspect this is a large part of the motivation - it allows them to keep me out of FA issues and also ensures that the same "ruling class of the FA" continues to be in power with regards to decision making. To be clear, this "ruling class" is an amalgamation of both new and old players (or Old and New Guard perhaps). I use the term "ruling class" because outside opinions (read: pushback against Administration mishaps) are generally dismissed if heard, if not actively avoided, and some content is completely omitted from the EAAC in favor of private advice from a handful of players, at best, on Skype or Discord.

Similarly, he appears to have taken a similar approach with his Ministers. There is minimal content being posted to Tomlinson, and while I can't legally disclose what has been posted there, I saw nothing in the posted content with regards to the Spam Accords or other WA Ministry related content after Malashaan lapsed into inactivity. However, if discussions were continuing to occur on off-site forums, failing to copy that information over to the forum for continuity purposes for the next administration and also for historical purposes, puts Europeia at a disadvantage both within this specific context, but also in ensuring that the next Presidential administration understands what we have been doing over the course of the previous term.

I've kept silent on a lot of this, as I've said above, because I wasn't sure that it was in the best interests of Europeia to have this conversation. However, as multiple high-level Europeians have shared with me, there's too many problems with the current Presidential administration (*including the previous term) that aren't being focused on or addressed, and they need a Come to Jesus moment.

Here are a few facts that need to be acknowledge and discussed and resolved, moving forward:

1. President Writinglegend needs to improve his interpersonal communication skills.
There are certainly a number of examples of this, but fresh in mind are a few from recent months that are fresh in my mind:

a) During the lead-up to Z-Day, I contacted Writinglegend to see about adding more Border Control officers to remove zombie-focused nations that were not citizens. I got the okay to add more BC nations to eject known puppets that were only there to wreak zombie-related havoc. I then ejected a few nations (including an alt of Notolecta - but not his main citizenship nation). Notolecta objected, saying that he was told he was fine to revive and move in puppets to spread zombies - which is the opposite of what I had heard from Writinglegend previously. As President, if Writinglegend had wanted to allow/encourage zombie-fying, that's fine. However, his lack of clarity on that point due to poor communication only made things worse in the proverbial heat of the moment on Z-Day and led to unnecessary conflict that could have been easily avoided with improved communication.

b) In the lead up to the first Commend Benevolent Thomas, Writinglegend messaged me to express concerns with the Commendation. In my continued view, he exaggerated the shortcomings of the text and failed to disclose the actual FA problem with the commendation - that The Gray Wardens are/were R/D opponents of ours. When I proceeded to read the commendation text and share with him my concerns over his assessment - including my plan to support the commendation in the voting thread - I got zero response back. I waited over 12 hours before posting the Europeian voting threads, mistakenly believing that a lack of response (since I'd seen him active on Discord elsewhere) meant that he agreed. That unwillingness to defend his argument to me directly is a failure of communication that is unfitting a President of Europeia.

c) President Writinglegend has, apparently, been against the Spam Accords for a long time. If that's the case, one would think that would have been communicated with me, the sitting WA Delegate, at some point in the month-plus that has passed since the posting of the Discussion Topic on the WA Spam Agreement. (You'll note that Writinglegend never posted in that linked thread, so his opinion on the matter was a mystery to me.) Better yet, if President Writinglegend was against it, one would think that he would have moved to repeal it or perhaps had a discussion in the EAAC about repealing it. (But, once again, that would require his FA administration to actually use the EAAC.)

2. President Writinglegend and Grand Admiral Kraken need to stop trying to "get revenge" on people who dare to challenge them.
A bit of backstory here, for those that weren't around for the June/July 2016 elections. Current President Calvin Coolidge was running for re-election. His Vice President, Malashaan, had gone missing midway through the term and was never officially removed or replace. From outward appearances, President Calvin seemed to think that things were going quite well. So well in fact, that in the view of many of us, he was taking re-election for granted and not engaging with critiques of citizens in his platform thread.

After discussion with a few individuals, Trinnien and HEM decided to run against Calvin, in what ended up being a crowded field. During this time, I also advocated (with both Trinnien and Calvin) against maintaining Kraketopia as Minister of Foreign Affairs, as I felt that a number of things had fallen by the wayside during the previous term and that it was time to move on to the next generation in Europeian FA.

Kraketopia was less than pleased with me, and tried to strong-arm his way into Trinnien's cabinet. When that didn't work, he followed up with applying for citizenship in Osiris (note the timing - days after polls closed) while we were still in the midst of hostilities against Osiris. I can't speak to his motivations, of course, but it's incredibly suspicious, in my view, given that any sort of espionage (for example) seems doomed to fail given that he gave his actual name and identity on his citizenship application. Was he planning to abandon Europeia for her adversary out of spite? Was he planning to give intel to Osiris and Cormac to ensure that Trinnien's Presidency was doomed to fail? Or, as some theorized while this was being handled - primarily behind closed doors - was it simply an immature "screw you" to the members in Europeia that may have slighted him?

As the term continued, I got the distinct impression that I was in "disfavor" with their clique from that point on. This continued, with them looking for opportunities to try to exact revenge for not trying to curry their favor.

Regarding the Commend Benevolent Thomas example referenced above, President Writinglegend never reached out to me via Discord or other avenues to explain what I was overlooking, with regards to our FA affairs and that commendation. Instead, he and others looked at that as a proper time to set an example about what happens when someone in Europeia dares to speak their opinion and oppose their Presidential administration. As detailed by Malashaan and Anumia, I did nothing wrong, and trying to politically tar me for daring to have an opinion is 100% un-Europeian. We should be a better region than that. (But the value of a minority opinion is a topic for a different editorial.)

Lest I be accused of having a persecution complex, I've also seen this desire for revenge being aimed at Ninja Kittens and Aexnidaral, and to a lesser extent, Sopo, after Ninja Kittens and Sopo (with campaigning help from Aexnidaral) came *thisclose* to beating out Kraketopia/Trinnien in the December 2015 Presidential race. Aexnidaral was further tarred as a traitor for collaborating on the Trinnien/Calvin Coolidge Presidential campaign (April 2016) when he decided to run with HEM as his Vice President. I remember individuals within that clique being shocked when Writinglegend decided to run with him for President in September of this year. Additionally, there were rumblings in October that Aexnidaral might be staging a run for President in the most recent elections, possibly competing against his current running mate. Remarks of him being "power hungry" were bandied about with individuals I spoke with at the time.

I know better than anyone how easy it can be to get caught up in this mentality of Us against Them, as I've found myself caught up in those details within the aforementioned paragraph. For me, that ends now. We need to be better than that, stronger than that, and to encourage competing ideas and stronger candidates for higher office running against each other.

Electoral competition gives us stronger candidates, better Presidents, and overall better leadership for Europeia. The last time Writinglegend faced, in my opinion, actual opposition for the Goldenblock was before his first term, when he faced off against McEntire/Brunhilde. Since then, his opposition has been comprised of joke campaigns or newcomers that are unable to mount a serious challenge. As Rach detailed in The Globe, we need more challengers and more contested elections. However, if individuals see revenge sought or meted out against political opponents of a certain ruling clique, that discourages dissent, especially from those that are hoping to have political success in the future.

Fortunately, I am beyond my days of running for office in Europeia, so now I can call out this behavior for what it is. It's not against the laws of our region, but we are better than this - and we should expect better than this from our elected officials.

3. Dissent is Europeian, and diversity makes us stronger as a region and community.
As I've been discussing the recent events with various people over the past few days, a similar refrain has come up more than a few times. The aforementioned individuals don't like being challenged, in terms of having to defend their stances or opinions. They don't like dealing with dissent. Those who stand up to them often find themselves steamrolled or targeted for the aforementioned revenge.

With regards to the Commend Benevolent Thomas example detailed above, I wish we had been able to have a frank conversation about what standards we should use to judge Commendations. Should all decisions be made solely based on our FA interests? Or, is there a time and place where it's worth working with individuals on the "other side" (i.e. defenders) to recognize players that have contributed a lot to the game over the years? We clearly believe that there are some occasions where cooperation is worthwhile (i.e. the recent CAIN agreement), but what other situations merit such cooperation?

We never really had that conversation, and there are so many discussions that should be had more in the public sphere rather than being limited to Discord or Skype chats. How can we improve our integration program? Why did we decide to move towards a closer partnership with 4. President Writinglegend and his Cabinet need to take responsibility for how their own actions resulted in the detriment of our WA authority and perception abroad.
The Minister of World Assembly Affairs position was created to be the connection between the Executive and the WA Delegate. This worked great in practice ... for a few weeks. Near the start of the term, Malashaan and I had a great discussion about where things were and where things should go. We discussed WALL, the Spam Accords (including a discussion where we agreed that we needed to post to Gameplay), and more WA related topics. However, when Malashaan got busy and wasn't active on Europeia - once again - he was not removed or replaced, and my contact with the administration ceased due to what I then perceived as an overall indifference with regards to WA Affairs. I now believe that was an actual attempt to create plausible deniability, which would allow them to blame me for anything and everything they could throw at me.

Yes, I acknowledge that I screwed up by not alerting our FA officials before I posted to Gameplay. However, I alerted my WA channel (which hypothetically included Malashaan, though I don't know if he ever logged on to see the message), and I alerted individuals within TNP and Europe about the posting shortly after I made it. Additionally, I posted to the #worldassembly channel on Discord right after making the post, so FA-oriented individuals were alerted shortly after the post was made.

I thought about making a big stink over all of this during the recent elections, but the lack of a credible challenger made me question that thinking, and - eventually - made me elect to not push on that point at that time. However, the fact that I am being asked to accept 100% of the blame when there is plenty to go around is not something I am willing to stand for any longer. Europeia deserves a full accounting of all of the malfeasance that has gone on within our region and our inner Foreign Affairs circles over the past year and a half, and I hope that Europeian citizens will demand an accounting from their elected representatives.

I have given a lot to Europeia over my years as a citizen; I've given my time, energy, and ideas. I remade the Interior Ministry, when appointed there by President Anumia. I improved our recruitment telegrams, positively impacted our retention strategy. In coordination with Elias Greyjoy, I compiled WA 101 coursework that provides a how-to on authoring a GA resolution. Upon being elected as WA Delegate, I worked to improve our region's WA membership - including getting more WA nations to join the ERN or Volunteers - and regularly Endotarted to improve my own endorsement count so I would have a stronger impact on behalf of Europeia's interests. I coordinated the widely successful Women & NS Symposium that invited participation and interaction with players from all across NationStates. I was selected by Lethen to join him as Supreme Chancellor because of all that I've done for and given to Europeia.

I didn't want to turn my resignation thread into a circus, so I didn't say this then. I've kept quiet about the concerns expressed here for well over a year because I kept hoping that things would improve, that the situation would change. They haven't, and I think it's time for all Europeians to understand the details that I've outlined above.

The primary reason why I resigned as WA Delegate is because I did not want to tolerate another 10 weeks of this treatment - of poor communication, of being scapegoated for things that I am not solely responsible for, of being accused of not doing my job by daring to have a different opinion. When I don't really want to check in every day because I don't want to see what I'm being blamed for this time, Europeia and NationStates stop being fun. My drop in activity over the past few weeks had largely been due to an overwhelming sense of dread, which in turn, led to my resignation.

I'll end this longer-than-anticipated missive with a congratulations to President Writinglegend and Grand Admiral Kraketopia. You got me out of your way and exacted revenge for daring to support a challenger to Calvin and discouraging the appointment of Kraketopia as Minister of Foreign Affairs months ago. Too bad that you ended up - in Anumia's words - in "a FA fiasco." It could have been prevented and avoided if not for the primary issues that I outlined above.

I'm done being silent. I may have made the post that led to these issues; however, the root cause for the problems ties back to the poor communication and desire for revenge that ended up costing Europeia on the international stage.

Revel in your revenge. I hope it was worth it."> ?

Healthy disagreement is a good thing, as it's a great way to explore avenues that might otherwise be ignored. Players with different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives are useful and help make us a better and stronger region. We've stagnated as a region and plateaued, when we should have continued to soar. Stifling dissent within our inner FA and Executive circles is one possible explanation, and one that we should strive to rectify moving forward.

4. President Writinglegend and his Cabinet need to take responsibility for how their own actions resulted in the detriment of our WA authority and perception abroad.
The Minister of World Assembly Affairs position was created to be the connection between the Executive and the WA Delegate. This worked great in practice ... for a few weeks. Near the start of the term, Malashaan and I had a great discussion about where things were and where things should go. We discussed WALL, the Spam Accords (including a discussion where we agreed that we needed to post to Gameplay), and more WA related topics. However, when Malashaan got busy and wasn't active on Europeia - once again - he was not removed or replaced, and my contact with the administration ceased due to what I then perceived as an overall indifference with regards to WA Affairs. I now believe that was an actual attempt to create plausible deniability, which would allow them to blame me for anything and everything they could throw at me.

Yes, I acknowledge that I screwed up by not alerting our FA officials before I posted to Gameplay. However, I alerted my WA channel (which hypothetically included Malashaan, though I don't know if he ever logged on to see the message), and I alerted individuals within TNP and Europe about the posting shortly after I made it. Additionally, I posted to the #worldassembly channel on Discord right after making the post, so FA-oriented individuals were alerted shortly after the post was made.

I thought about making a big stink over all of this during the recent elections, but the lack of a credible challenger made me question that thinking, and - eventually - made me elect to not push on that point at that time. However, the fact that I am being asked to accept 100% of the blame when there is plenty to go around is not something I am willing to stand for any longer. Europeia deserves a full accounting of all of the malfeasance that has gone on within our region and our inner Foreign Affairs circles over the past year and a half, and I hope that Europeian citizens will demand an accounting from their elected representatives.

I have given a lot to Europeia over my years as a citizen; I've given my time, energy, and ideas. I remade the Interior Ministry, when appointed there by President Anumia. I improved our recruitment telegrams, positively impacted our retention strategy. In coordination with Elias Greyjoy, I compiled WA 101 coursework that provides a how-to on authoring a GA resolution. Upon being elected as WA Delegate, I worked to improve our region's WA membership - including getting more WA nations to join the ERN or Volunteers - and regularly Endotarted to improve my own endorsement count so I would have a stronger impact on behalf of Europeia's interests. I coordinated the widely successful Women & NS Symposium that invited participation and interaction with players from all across NationStates. I was selected by Lethen to join him as Supreme Chancellor because of all that I've done for and given to Europeia.

I didn't want to turn my resignation thread into a circus, so I didn't say this then. I've kept quiet about the concerns expressed here for well over a year because I kept hoping that things would improve, that the situation would change. They haven't, and I think it's time for all Europeians to understand the details that I've outlined above.

The primary reason why I resigned as WA Delegate is because I did not want to tolerate another 10 weeks of this treatment - of poor communication, of being scapegoated for things that I am not solely responsible for, of being accused of not doing my job by daring to have a different opinion. When I don't really want to check in every day because I don't want to see what I'm being blamed for this time, Europeia and NationStates stop being fun. My drop in activity over the past few weeks had largely been due to an overwhelming sense of dread, which in turn, led to my resignation.

I'll end this longer-than-anticipated missive with a congratulations to President Writinglegend and Grand Admiral Kraketopia. You got me out of your way and exacted revenge for daring to support a challenger to Calvin and discouraging the appointment of Kraketopia as Minister of Foreign Affairs months ago. Too bad that you ended up - in Anumia's words - in "a FA fiasco." It could have been prevented and avoided if not for the primary issues that I outlined above.

I'm done being silent. I may have made the post that led to these issues; however, the root cause for the problems ties back to the poor communication and desire for revenge that ended up costing Europeia on the international stage.

Revel in your revenge. I hope it was worth it.

 

[GraVandius]

Well this was a verry interesting read.

 

[PASD]

holy shit

 

[Seven Deaths]

I don't know enough to make any real meaningful replies here, but I do have to say that I'm patiently waiting the only person who's reply will mean anything: Writinglegend.

 

[Altmoras]

I will say that I've noticed a trend of "waiting for it to go away" as the government's response to anything negative lately. Hopefully that trend won't continue when it comes to concerns raised this close to home.

 

[Lethen]

Even though I helped do some cursory edits, Mouse, I didn't fully read the fleshed-out text until now. Damn. Awaiting some actual answers/explanations from WL then. Or Kraken. Probably Kraken.

 

[Boomer]

I don't know enough to make any real meaningful replies here, but I do have to say that I'm patiently waiting the only person who's reply will mean anything: Writinglegend.

This.

And I would also be very interested in seeing Kraken's response.

 

[Calvin Coolidge]

Since I was mentioned, I'd just to apologize if it seemed I was distant during my reelection campaign. I certainly wasn't taking the race for granted, but my communication likely painted a different picture. I hear the criticism, and hope that my terms in office since have shown my commitment to this problem. I took the office of the President seriously, but I get where people were coming from when they felt I didn't, despite my efforts.

 

[Brunhilde]

Instead, President Writinglegend - along with a number of his Ministers - created their own Discord servers for their own use, further splintering our community and making it harder to for casual players to stay involved unless they want to join multiple Discord servers.

This is kind of disingenuous. Even before the move to Discord, there existed a large amount of Skype chats for different Ministry leadership groups. Even before I was a Minister of Foreign Affairs, I was a member of various Skype chats for my different positions throughout my Europeian career. Everything from Senate groups to Culture Ministry discussions took place in group chats on Skype where ideas were formed and fleshed out before being moved to the forum.

This hasn't gotten worse. The only difference between the terms under WritingLegend and the term under Trinn is that there was a transition to a different server for cabinet matters that you're not involved in. That shouldn't matter, though, as long as all Cabinet members take part in the server and the information remains secure. Both of those remain true. In fact, the information is probably more secure now than it was under Trinn now that the information is limited only to Cabinet members.

Additionally, there has been a notable lack of posting in the EAAC this term about FA affairs.

Lol, sorry. What?

This is an outright lie and what's screwed up is that I can't delve into why because any proof would be classified. Not that it matters to you, of course, because you'd rather smear the name of the administration without any proof than take any blame yourself.

I've discussed every major policy initiative from CAIN to WALL to the Accords with the EAAC. What I did not do was ask the EAAC to hold my hand. I don't report to the EAAC. I don't have to share anything whatsoever with them. They don't deserve any information from me nor do they get to dictate any of my actions or the actions of the President. They're there to help, not to order, and we've worked with them at every chance we've gotten on every major policy decision in order to best utilize that help.

It has been repeatedly shared in areas that you have access to that the administration views the Spam Accords as useless but rather than heed any of it or even talk to me ONCE about the issue, you simply pushed ahead with your own agenda.

In my continued view, he exaggerated the shortcomings of the text and failed to disclose the actual FA problem with the commendation - that The Gray Wardens are/were R/D opponents of ours.

c) President Writinglegend has, apparently, been against the Spam Accords for a long time. If that's the case, one would think that would have been communicated with me,

That's not true, actually, but go ahead with misinformation that you know we can't refute.

2. President Writinglegend and Grand Admiral Kraken need to stop trying to "get revenge" on people who dare to challenge them.

Lol, what?

I've repeatedly fought, argued with, and insulted both of these individuals. As President and Minister of Foreign Affairs of TCB, I literally told them to go fuck themselves. I've argued with them about far, far more policy decisions than I've ever agreed with them about and many of our arguments left a bad taste in our mouths. I'm not the only one, either. When WL asked me to be his MoFA, he has some severe issues with Kraken and Calvin's foreign policy. Kaboom and WL have disagreed multiple times yet they're still working together.

You're ignoring just how often WL has been opposed to Kraken/Calvin and how often he has happily worked together with those who have vocally opposed them.

They're not some cabal that's pushing one agenda and living out revenge fantasies. That's ridiculous. You're responding to doing something stupid with "they're out to get me" like someone too paranoid to admit that they did wrong.

Should all decisions be made solely based on our FA interests?

Yes all foreign policy decisions should me made to further our FA interest. On that point, CAIN also furthers our FA interests.

How can we improve our integration program? Why did we decide to move towards a closer partnership with ?

Yes, I acknowledge that I screwed up by not alerting our FA officials before I posted to Gameplay. However, I alerted my WA channel (which hypothetically included Malashaan, though I don't know if he ever logged on to see the message), and I alerted individuals within TNP and Europe about the posting shortly after I made it. Additionally, I posted to the #worldassembly channel on Discord right after making the post, so FA-oriented individuals were alerted shortly after the post was made.

I thought about making a big stink over all of this during the recent elections, but the lack of a credible challenger made me question that thinking, and - eventually - made me elect to not push on that point at that time. However, the fact that I am being asked to accept 100% of the blame when there is plenty to go around is not something I am willing to stand for any longer. Europeia deserves a full accounting of all of the malfeasance that has gone on within our region and our inner Foreign Affairs circles over the past year and a half, and I hope that Europeian citizens will demand an accounting from their elected representatives.

So you alerted a World Assembly channel and that's somehow the same as alerting the FA team? Really?

You didn't consult with any of us. You didn't bother asking anyone outside of yourself what we thought of WALL or the Accords. Instead, you simply used Mal's inactivity as an excuse to do whatever you wanted. It is not our fault that you didn't give the Accords their due diligence. You should have coordinated with us. You have access to the EAAC, every single one of us is active on Discord, and everyone has a personal message box that could have been used for you to ask us "Hey, do you guys still support me putting this up?" Instead, you did absolutely none of that and instead of owning up to that you're blaming people and saying that they're out to get you.

This all could have, and would have, been avoided if you had put even the barest amount of extra effort into talking to us after Mal became active. It could have been avoided if you had actually read any of the private World Assembly discussions we've had that you have access to. ">

For one, the first is really not something you deserve to be involved in. You're not a cabinet member, nor is that a matter of World Assembly or Foreign Affairs importance.

The second one is a non-issue. The EAAC was included in talks about drawing closer to various regions and it is up to them to use their own experience and deductive reasoning to decide whether that is worthwhile. Every single member of the EAAC has years of experience in regional and inter-regional affairs, they're completely capable of deducing common sense reasons for growing closer to large Independent regions.

Yes, I acknowledge that I screwed up by not alerting our FA officials before I posted to Gameplay. However, I alerted my WA channel (which hypothetically included Malashaan, though I don't know if he ever logged on to see the message), and I alerted individuals within TNP and Europe about the posting shortly after I made it. Additionally, I posted to the #worldassembly channel on Discord right after making the post, so FA-oriented individuals were alerted shortly after the post was made.

I thought about making a big stink over all of this during the recent elections, but the lack of a credible challenger made me question that thinking, and - eventually - made me elect to not push on that point at that time. However, the fact that I am being asked to accept 100% of the blame when there is plenty to go around is not something I am willing to stand for any longer. Europeia deserves a full accounting of all of the malfeasance that has gone on within our region and our inner Foreign Affairs circles over the past year and a half, and I hope that Europeian citizens will demand an accounting from their elected representatives.

So you alerted a World Assembly channel and that's somehow the same as alerting the FA team? Really?

You didn't consult with any of us. You didn't bother asking anyone outside of yourself what we thought of WALL or the Accords. Instead, you simply used Mal's inactivity as an excuse to do whatever you wanted. It is not our fault that you didn't give the Accords their due diligence. You should have coordinated with us. You have access to the EAAC, every single one of us is active on Discord, and everyone has a personal message box that could have been used for you to ask us "Hey, do you guys still support me putting this up?" Instead, you did absolutely none of that and instead of owning up to that you're blaming people and saying that they're out to get you.

This all could have, and would have, been avoided if you had put even the barest amount of extra effort into talking to us after Mal became active. It could have been avoided if you had actually read any of the private World Assembly discussions we've had that you have access to.

 

[Writinglegend]

As a backstory – and this is information I received through unofficial channels – the complaint was posted to TNP with only limited contact being made to the MoFA and Delegate of TNP prior to posting. Amping up the outrage to 11 straight out the gate, rather than continuing to pursue more diplomatic options, caused serious damage to our relations. Our relationship with TNP was only improved later that fall, through continual efforts from those of us that were not carrying a grudge and wanted to repair our relationship with one of our historic allies. I expressed my disapproval over how things were handled that resulted in such severe damage to our relations with TNP, and it was not well received.

Mouse, you know this is not what happened. You are a member of the EAAC and had complete and total access to the issue at hand, including conversation logs, diplomatic options that were used, and the state of our relationship then. We all make mistakes. You make mistakes, I make mistakes, even the greatest Presidents in our history make mistakes. The public statement was a mistake that I’ve been working on fixing ever since it happened and relations were damaged; I’ve now spent a great deal of time working with The North Pacific leaders on areas of cooperation such as WALL. But to blame this issue solely on me is an outrage and extremely incorrect. To say I went to 11 right out of the gate and didn't try diplomatic options is inaccurate as you know from being a member of the EAAC of the time. As detailed in the statement itself, miscommunication by TNP leadership at the time only escalated the situation. Of course, I’m not privy to release those details, but to say I didn’t pursue diplomatic options is false. There’s a reason this statement wasn’t signed by just us, it was because all three signatories believed diplomatic options undertaken were exhausted. But I don’t want to dawn on this issue, because as President I only wish to focus on future prosperity between TNP and Europeia. Like you should too. Thus I’m not sure why this was brought up.

I later learned that still-President Writinglegend expressed an interest in wanting to remove me from the EAAC since he didn't want me involved in his FA discussions. Of course, given that I was the WA Delegate, and I have an expansive network of FA contacts, that wasn't really feasible. Now that I'm no longer WA Delegate, I'm wondering how much longer that I'll be in EAAC for the rest of President Writinglegend's term.

I’m not sure of your anonymous source here, but I’ve never told anyone that I want you gone from the EAAC. I’ve always -wanted- your presence in the EAAC because of your WA skills, because of your Gameplay knowledge, because of your expansive contact regiment. I’m not sure where this theory is from.

Instead, President Writinglegend - along with a number of his Ministers - created their own Discord servers for their own use, further splintering our community and making it harder to for casual players to stay involved unless they want to join multiple Discord servers. Additionally, there has been a notable lack of posting in the EAAC this term about FA affairs. I won't go into detail about what all has been discussed - after all, that would break all sorts of Protected Area laws - but there's plenty that hasn't been discussed there that must be planned elsewhere. Updates about how the CAIN conference was winding down? Discussion on how to best disseminate our agreement on CAIN? Details on discussions with new regions to form partnerships or working arrangements? (*Minus a thread that I started in EAAC after I received a telegram from a WA Delegate of a region. Note, however, that no information has been provided by the FA team in EAAC about what - if any - follow-up has been conducted after I shared that telegram with them.)

If there’s nothing to discuss in the EAAC, I’m not going to post. The EAAC is an Advisory committee, I have nothing I need advice on at this moment outside of what is already there. We have been discussing relevant topics regarding our foreign policy, but to say we haven’t been discussing any of this is completely untruthful and not factual. CAIN, relation building, Spam Accords, etc is all there.

Similarly, he appears to have taken a similar approach with his Ministers. There is minimal content being posted to Tomlinson, and while I can't legally disclose what has been posted there, I saw nothing in the posted content with regards to the Spam Accords or other WA Ministry related content after Malashaan lapsed into inactivity. However, if discussions were continuing to occur on off-site forums, failing to copy that information over to the forum for continuity purposes for the next administration and also for historical purposes, puts Europeia at a disadvantage both within this specific context, but also in ensuring that the next Presidential administration understands what we have been doing over the course of the previous term.

I’m disappointed to see this violation of the tradition of admins and the SC's avoiding looking in forums that don't apply to them despite their ability. Going into Tomlinson and basically releasing what hasn’t been released is breaking the tradition that has been followed for years. I talk with my Ministers daily on Discord, and update their tasks when needed. I post necessary content in Tomlinson, not filler just to say I’ve been posting there. That content wasn’t posted in Tomlinson because it was being discussed in EAAC, as you should know as an EAAC member.

1. President Writinglegend needs to improve his interpersonal communication skills.

I’ve been my own biggest critic in my area, as seen in my campaigns for this office. I’ve been working on improving, but I can say that I’m not where I want to be. Thank you for listing these examples, although not all of these are entirely my fault. I’m not going to go point by point and counter each example you provide. All Presidents have a weakness. You had weaknesses. I have weaknesses. Mine is my interpersonal skills, you are correct. I do wish to counter your attack on me about the Spam Accords. In the EAAC, we have discussed the worth of the Spam Accords -before- you posted the thread in GP that damaged our foreign policy greatly. If you had an issue with that discussion, you could have easily countered any narrative being established or privately came to me. My thoughts on the Accords were clear in the Advisory Council. In addition, we have discussed the possibility of repealing it. Twice now. One more recently when I re-took this office. Any narrative that we haven’t discussed that in the EAAC is false.

2. President Writinglegend and Grand Admiral Kraken need to stop trying to "get revenge" on people who dare to challenge them.

I’m sad to see this narrative continue that I don’t like competition. If I wanted revenge on people that challenged me why would I have Kaboom - who ran against me - on my Cabinet in a high priority position? Why would I run with someone like Aex, who supported opposite campaigns multiple times? It’s no lie we’ve been on opposite sides of politics here in the region, but we came together for the betterment of the Republic, to show that exactly divisional politics is second fiddle to unity of one. I’ve become close friends with both Aex and Kaboom, both people who “challeneged me” of sorts. Also, Notolecta is a very close friend of mine despite him challenging me multiple times. During my Administration he held Notty Talk weekly to basically criticize the Administration, but I didn’t shut him down because of that or exact any type of “revenge game”. He is in his own right to do such a thing, I even encouraged him to do that. I even stopped a push by my MinComm then the possibly stop that programming due to the “state media” label. Brun told me to fuck myself as Minister of Foreign Affairs of TCB and we had quite the arguments when I was last President, but she’s now my MoFA and we work together despite what she has said in the past. I encouraged that type of criticism, just like I encourage it now. And I even work with those whom criticize me.

Point blank, I’ve never played any revenge game. I’m not here to waste my time on an online site to play realpolitik, hold grudges, and destroy careers. I’m here to grow as a leader, to learn more about law, and to be with a community that I have common interests with - outside of a public life where I wasn’t particularly accepted by my peers. I’m not sure why you are holding Shin’s WA discussion over me like I had anything to do with that, because I didn’t. I don’t play revenge games. I have a limited amount of time daily, and as President I’m not wasting that time to hold grudges and end careers. Anyone that knows me understands I love the culture of this region. Absolutely I do. I try and be friendly to everyone, try and relate to every newcomer and ensure they have a warm face greeting them, try and get everyone involved, try to make sure everyone has fun. Because if you’re not having fun on this game then there’s no point of wasting that time to check in daily.

Going back to Aex and NK - both are dear friends of mine. Aex is now my Vice President and we work daily for the progression of our Republic. NK and I talk whenever she is online, reminiscing about the days when we were both n00bs in Culture working together for a greater good. I’m playing no revenge game against them, nor hold nothing against them. They did what they did and ran to better the Republic and diversify opinions. Not sure what’s wrong with that.

I play no revenge game against anyone. I hold no grudges against anyone. This is an online game where we better a community of real people with real lives. This is not a simpleton creation where we get to practice realpolitik and destroying the fun of others. It’s quite shocking to me why you suddenly think I have this persecution complex against you, when I’ve personally always have tried to be a nice, kind individual to you. Hell, we may disagree with policy but that doesn’t mean I’m going to try and destroy your career here. I’m sorry if you feel that way, I don’t wish that feeling on anyone. I’ve often felt that feeling sometimes in my time here myself, and I don’t want anyone in this community to ever feel that way. I just wish you came and personally talked to me about this persecution complex you thought I had.

The last time Writinglegend faced, in my opinion, actual opposition for the Goldenblock was before his first term, when he faced off against McEntire/Brunhilde. Since then, his opposition has been comprised of joke campaigns or newcomers that are unable to mount a serious challenge. As Rach detailed in The Globe, we need more challengers and more contested elections. However, if individuals see revenge sought or meted out against political opponents of a certain ruling clique, that discourages dissent, especially from those that are hoping to have political success in the future

Again, I would like to point out examples of Kaboom about how I encourage and welcome competition and don’t hold it against them. Same with Brunhilde for running as VP to McEntire. I’ve advocated for people to run against me, it’s certainly not my fault in any way if no one takes it up themselves and runs. I can only welcome and advocate, I can’t force.

Yes, I acknowledge that I screwed up by not alerting our FA officials before I posted to Gameplay. However, I alerted my WA channel (which hypothetically included Malashaan, though I don't know if he ever logged on to see the message), and I alerted individuals within TNP and Europe about the posting shortly after I made it. Additionally, I posted to the #worldassembly channel on Discord right after making the post, so FA-oriented individuals were alerted shortly after the post was made.

That’s not the main problem. The main problem is you represented four major governments: Europe, 10KI, TNP, and Europeia without alerting any of them of what you were doing. You just did it, and then consequences came for all four regions. You alerted the channel, but only after the fact of when you posted. And Mal may have agreed, but I’m sure he only agreed to such a post if I, as President, and the foreign governments recognized under the agreement were alerted prior to the post. And this has greatly harmed our foreign policy, and better yet threatened our progress in areas such as the WALL and WA targeted outreach. We discussed in the EAAC getting rid of the Accords prior to that thread iirc, so it just would have been a simple private message, discord message, or post there to ask if we were still OK with it being posted. The environment changed over the term heavily, as seen with its failed usage in two SC votes. I’m not sure how this is at the fault of the Administration when we had all of the information there for you, and are now picking up the breadcrumbs of this issue.

I'll end this longer-than-anticipated missive with a congratulations to President Writinglegend and Grand Admiral Kraketopia. You got me out of your way and exacted revenge for daring to support a challenger to Calvin and discouraging the appointment of Kraketopia as Minister of Foreign Affairs months ago.

Any notion I wanted you out of this office is ridiculous and inaccurate and I’m not sure where it came from, exactly. I really didn’t care about who did or didn’t support Calvin, it’s an election where we have diverse opinions and a vote. Calvin lost fair and square, I’m not going to ruin the lives of Trinn supporters because they didn’t support Trinn. If I did half of the region would be having the experience of me apparently trying to kill their careers.

Mouse, I’m really sorry you feel this way. I really do. I have taken by two year career here and have attempted to connect with every person. I have attempted to make sure everyone is having a good time on this site, whether it is a shoulder to cry on, a person to laugh at, or someone to have a serious discussion with. I try and make this game enjoyable for people, because that’s what keeps people logging in daily. I have never in my years here tried to make this experience not fun for someone. Never have I gone against my own ideals of making this a fun experience, a cultural experience, for everyone. Never would I purposefully ruin someone’s online experience here for my own political prosperity, because I don’t care about that. I only care about making this community and Republic a better place.

Overall, though, thank you for airing your concerns about my leadership abilities (interpersonal skills) and how I deal with my Cabinet. Even if I may disagree and feel some of it is completely phony, some of them such as my weak interpersonal skills have merit. To that, I will say that I will strive to improve as a leader, as I have always done. As I have done since I first became Minister of Culture, and will do until my last leadership post for this great Republic.

 

[HEM]

I feel like I need to re-read both arguments again from scratch before commenting on the more intricate issues, but here's something I feel comfortable saying now. Regardless of its basis in truth or not, the perception of a "clique" in the region that mocks / works against their opponents, is not an uncommon view. From my view — and I am just a typical semi-active citizen now — that perception (which I think took a life of its own after Calvin's defeat by Trinnien) has been reinforced over the last two terms of Writinglegend's administration, not tampered down.

 

[Mousebumples]

Brunhilde, thank you for basically publicly illustrating the item I listed in #4. I'm not asking you or the administration to take all of the blame/fault, and within this post, I did acknowledge many of the shortcomings you cited as well as my own failings. However, the lack of accountability or willingness to admit any wrongdoing is frustrating and, frankly, disappointing.

Instead, President Writinglegend - along with a number of his Ministers - created their own Discord servers for their own use, further splintering our community and making it harder to for casual players to stay involved unless they want to join multiple Discord servers.

This is kind of disingenuous. Even before the move to Discord, there existed a large amount of Skype chats for different Ministry leadership groups. Even before I was a Minister of Foreign Affairs, I was a member of various Skype chats for my different positions throughout my Europeian career. Everything from Senate groups to Culture Ministry discussions took place in group chats on Skype where ideas were formed and fleshed out before being moved to the forum.

This hasn't gotten worse. The only difference between the terms under WritingLegend and the term under Trinn is that there was a transition to a different server for cabinet matters that you're not involved in. That shouldn't matter, though, as long as all Cabinet members take part in the server and the information remains secure. Both of those remain true. In fact, the information is probably more secure now than it was under Trinn now that the information is limited only to Cabinet members.

We appear to have different motivations here. My point in the section you quoted is about making it easy or anyone to get involved in the region and the community. However, if the point of the server was to have it be only for Cabinet members, why did other non-Cabinet members have access? The failure to communicate (which I've already acknowledged above is a two-way street) by this administration with the WA Delegate about what was going on made me think that there was a general lack of interest in WA Affairs by the administration. During this time, I made Writinglegend my primary contact with the administration, as I felt that if he had wanted me to be in touch with you or with someone else, he could have directed me as such.

He contacted me in mid-September (I believe shortly after elections) and we played Discord tag (so to speak) for a few days. On 9/17, he contacted me about Commend BT, which I outlined above. One of the lines in there was:

[9:52 PM] Writinglegend: Alright. I'll talk to Mal to see who we should reach out to and then come back to you, if that works?
[9:52 PM] Writinglegend: That way everything is more organized
[9:52 PM] Mousebumples: sounds good

I contacted him with my thoughts, again as outlined above, less than 12 hours later and received no further communications on this, despite the agreement that he would be coming back to me after speaking with Mal.

Our limited Discord chat history after that point is as follows, over the course of his Presidential administrations:

• 9/22, WL contacted me to change RO permissions
• 9/26, I contacted him as an FYI re: RO permissions among his Cabinet (no response)
• 10/5, I gave an FYI to him about an NS thread that I saw that seemed relevant but not EAAC worthy (no response)
• 10/7, I gave an FYI to him about a TG I got, and I also FYId you on that (no response from WL)
• 10/9, I contacted him about the Spam Agreement and on-going WA At Vote.

I did not get the impression at any time during this conversation that he wanted it repealed. I certainly can posts logs if that point is being disputed. I've also reviewed the thread on the subject once more, and the only member of the Executive Administration that posted there was Malashaan, who said:[/list]

Is that an agreement we want to be a Paar of? If not, given that we ate currently a signatory, is the potential harm of pulling out greater than the harm of staying in? I'm inclined to say it probably is. Given how toothless the agreement is, it really doesn't hurt us to stay in, and continue to judge our response to WA spam in a case by case basis. In the words of the accords, we will take "appropriate and sufficient" steps in response to spam.

• 10/12, I gave him an FYI about telegramming powers that he has as President (RO) gameside. The last thing I said to him during this short conversation was this:

[11:56 AM] Mousebumples: for the record, i'm planning to post the campaign spam agreement to gameplay, probably tomorrow sometime (since it's my day off)
[11:56 AM] Mousebumples: hopefully we can get more signatories from there, and make it a stronger document - or, at least, a strong statement against such spam TG campaigns

I received zero response to that or acknowledgement to that. I took that as tacit approval, even though I didn't actually post the following day. I can't remember exactly why I didn't post, but I think I was waiting to see how public response to the GH thread went since there were some loud voices that weren't in the administration that were advocating for it's repeal. Notable opponents were Onder (who wanted to strengthen or scrap them), Polling Booths, Rand, and Anumia. Some of those are known FA advisors of the current inner FA circle, so I think I was waiting to see if movement or discussion continued - especially with comments directly from the official Administration - regarding repeal. As I've stated elsewhere, that never happened prior to my posting to Gameplay, though there has been advocating for it's repeal since in Kaboom's Senate Confirmation Thread and also in various WAD platforms.

• 10/16, we had a discussion about the then-recent Senate elections

Until my resignation last week, that was the last Discord-related one-on-one conversation that I had with WL.

Additionally, there has been a notable lack of posting in the EAAC this term about FA affairs.

Lol, sorry. What?

This is an outright lie and what's screwed up is that I can't delve into why because any proof would be classified. Not that it matters to you, of course, because you'd rather smear the name of the administration without any proof than take any blame yourself.

I've discussed every major policy initiative from CAIN to WALL to the Accords with the EAAC. What I did not do was ask the EAAC to hold my hand. I don't report to the EAAC. I don't have to share anything whatsoever with them. They don't deserve any information from me nor do they get to dictate any of my actions or the actions of the President. They're there to help, not to order, and we've worked with them at every chance we've gotten on every major policy decision in order to best utilize that help.

It has been repeatedly shared in areas that you have access to that the administration views the Spam Accords as useless but rather than heed any of it or even talk to me ONCE about the issue, you simply pushed ahead with your own agenda.

I've rechecked the areas that I have access to, and I have seen no posts from the administration indicating that before I posted to Gameplay. I won't disclose details of what I did find, of course, but I invite you to PM me with the link to that post if you feel that I've overlooked something.

Once again, it appears that we're in disagreement about the purpose of the EAAC. Yes, it is an advisory chamber. But it's use, as a transition tool is more than that. I said above:

In my view, the EAAC serves a few purposes within our region that are vital for ensuring our FA interests when we transition from President to President and generation to generation. It provides an avenue for newer FA members to learn more about the background of our region. ... The current situation - where next to nothing happens in EAAC and only happens on off-site chat programs - offers nothing to the next administration and is needlessly hampering our future FA affairs.

In my continued view, he exaggerated the shortcomings of the text and failed to disclose the actual FA problem with the commendation - that The Gray Wardens are/were R/D opponents of ours.

c) President Writinglegend has, apparently, been against the Spam Accords for a long time. If that's the case, one would think that would have been communicated with me,

That's not true, actually, but go ahead with misinformation that you know we can't refute.

The first quote is from my personal conversation with him on Discord. I'm surprised that you feel that you can speak to the accuracy of that conversation, though I am more than willing to share logs, if that's what's needed to further clarify this situation.

Re: the second quote, are you now saying that WL is not against the Spam Accords? Or that he made a post somewhere I have access to with that information? Once again, I refer you to the point I made above. I understand that we can't talk publicly about what's in secret forums, but after doing a recheck, I see no statements to that effect being made prior to my post to Gameplay. If you feel I've overlooked something, please PM me.

2. President Writinglegend and Grand Admiral Kraken need to stop trying to "get revenge" on people who dare to challenge them.

Lol, what?

I've repeatedly fought, argued with, and insulted both of these individuals. As President and Minister of Foreign Affairs of TCB, I literally told them to go fuck themselves. I've argued with them about far, far more policy decisions than I've ever agreed with them about and many of our arguments left a bad taste in our mouths. I'm not the only one, either. When WL asked me to be his MoFA, he has some severe issues with Kraken and Calvin's foreign policy. Kaboom and WL have disagreed multiple times yet they're still working together.

You're ignoring just how often WL has been opposed to Kraken/Calvin and how often he has happily worked together with those who have vocally opposed them.

They're not some cabal that's pushing one agenda and living out revenge fantasies. That's ridiculous. You're responding to doing something stupid with "they're out to get me" like someone too paranoid to admit that they did wrong.

I'm glad that you've been fortunate enough not to be the target, as I - and others - have. As I said above:

Lest I be accused of having a persecution complex, I've also seen this desire for revenge being aimed at Ninja Kittens and Aexnidaral, and to a lesser extent, Sopo, after Ninja Kittens and Sopo (with campaigning help from Aexnidaral) came *thisclose* to beating out Kraketopia/Trinnien in the December 2015 Presidential race. Aexnidaral was further tarred as a traitor for collaborating on the Trinnien/Calvin Coolidge Presidential campaign (April 2016) when he decided to run with HEM as his Vice President. I remember individuals within that clique being shocked when Writinglegend decided to run with him for President in September of this year. Additionally, there were rumblings in October that Aexnidaral might be staging a run for President in the most recent elections, possibly competing against his current running mate. Remarks of him being "power hungry" were bandied about with individuals I spoke with at the time.

I have seen this. I don't have time right now (I've got an appointment shortly) to search Skype logs right now since that would involve reinstalling Skype on my laptop, but I can certainly look for log details of the aforementioned examples I reference if that would help to illustrate things better.

I obviously can't "prove" that there's a revenge attempt on-going against me, but from what I've heard from others (both inside and outside the present Cabinet) ... I'm not alone in thinking that there is someone (or possibly multiple someones) that is trying to manipulate things from within the inner circles to garner revenge. It's hard for me to say who is "the mastermind" or whatever, so it's possible that I may have misattributed that in the article above since that's more speculation, I'll admit. Frankly, most of the "revenge" related examples I've heard from others - and seen personally - involve Kraketopia. Like others, I'm still waiting for his public response, since the "Wow" I got over Discord last night is hardly indicative of ... anything.

He is the one that I specifically have evidence or links on, regarding revenge-related behavior. (See: the Osiris section above.) I suspect - though I can't prove - that he is the one that encouraged then-Shin4.0 to post to Senate to take me to task for daring to Euro-publicly support a Commendation for a defender that had accomplished a fair amount over his NS career. Of course, Kraken is politically savvy enough to not make those public comments and instead have one of his good RL friends make those posts instead. Same goes with Shin's current WAD campaign, which is basically trying to make this tabled legislation A Thing again. (It's his only plank, and - as discussed within his campaign thread - it is, in my view, something that is better suited for a Senate platform.)

I have considered both Kraken and Shin/RZM friends for a long time. I hope that we can have that friendship again, but that doesn't mean that I can continue to overlook what I feel as inappropriate treatment or targeting.

Should all decisions be made solely based on our FA interests?

Yes all foreign policy decisions should me made to further our FA interest. On that point, CAIN also furthers our FA interests.

:blink: This is taken out of context, more than a little. The paragraph in question is about SC Commendations & Condemnations. Of course, foreign policy decisions should be made to "further our FA interests," but that doesn't mean that they should be "solely based" on our FA interests. Also, unless there's a Commend or Condemn CAIN resolution that I'm unaware of, your CAIN reference is not really relevant here.

How can we improve our integration program? Why did we decide to move towards a closer partnership with ?

For one, the first is really not something you deserve to be involved in. You're not a cabinet member, nor is that a matter of World Assembly or Foreign Affairs importance.

The second one is a non-issue. The EAAC was included in talks about drawing closer to various regions and it is up to them to use their own experience and deductive reasoning to decide whether that is worthwhile. Every single member of the EAAC has years of experience in regional and inter-regional affairs, they're completely capable of deducing common sense reasons for growing closer to large Independent regions.

Yes, I acknowledge that I screwed up by not alerting our FA officials before I posted to Gameplay. However, I alerted my WA channel (which hypothetically included Malashaan, though I don't know if he ever logged on to see the message), and I alerted individuals within TNP and Europe about the posting shortly after I made it. Additionally, I posted to the #worldassembly channel on Discord right after making the post, so FA-oriented individuals were alerted shortly after the post was made.

I thought about making a big stink over all of this during the recent elections, but the lack of a credible challenger made me question that thinking, and - eventually - made me elect to not push on that point at that time. However, the fact that I am being asked to accept 100% of the blame when there is plenty to go around is not something I am willing to stand for any longer. Europeia deserves a full accounting of all of the malfeasance that has gone on within our region and our inner Foreign Affairs circles over the past year and a half, and I hope that Europeian citizens will demand an accounting from their elected representatives.

So you alerted a World Assembly channel and that's somehow the same as alerting the FA team? Really?

You didn't consult with any of us. You didn't bother asking anyone outside of yourself what we thought of WALL or the Accords. Instead, you simply used Mal's inactivity as an excuse to do whatever you wanted. It is not our fault that you didn't give the Accords their due diligence. You should have coordinated with us. You have access to the EAAC, every single one of us is active on Discord, and everyone has a personal message box that could have been used for you to ask us "Hey, do you guys still support me putting this up?" Instead, you did absolutely none of that and instead of owning up to that you're blaming people and saying that they're out to get you.

This all could have, and would have, been avoided if you had put even the barest amount of extra effort into talking to us after Mal became active. It could have been avoided if you had actually read any of the private World Assembly discussions we've had that you have access to.

As I detailed above, I did contact WL back in October - after I had started the public GH post on the Spam Accords - saying that I was looking to post to Gameplay about the Accords in the near future. (I'm happy to provide screenshots, if someone needs visual documentation that I'm not forging those details.) As detailed above as well, I should not have taken the lack of response as tacit agreement; however, to say that no one in FA was informed that I wanted to post to Gameplay prior to my post was made is untrue, unless you're trying to argue that WL isn't a part of FA in his own Presidential administration.

Additionally, I'll re-iterate what I've said above, I rechecked the private WA discussions that I have access to, and prior to my posting of the Spam Accords in Gameplay, there was no indication to me from the administration that we wanted this repealed or that there wasn't support for it.

Communication is a two-way street. I tried to maintain contact with President Writinglegend via Discord, as I viewed him as the representative of the administration for obvious reasons. As I acknowledged above and elsewhere, I didn't expect the Gameplay response that I got from the Spam Accords, and I've owned my own failings there. However, the continued failure of the Administration (or at least your office) to acknowledge you did anything wrong is, unfortunately, more of the same and classic illustration of #4 as I outlined in my article.

**

Note to WL/Re WL's post - your post has been seen, but I don't think I'll have time to reply before my appointment. A detailed response is forthcoming, however.">
The conversations I'm alluding to - and this is my own fault now that I see a lack of clarity within the article here - should have been held in public. (i.e. in the Grand Hall) The stuff that I'm talking about here is aimed at getting community input, similar to the GH thread on the Campaign Spam Agreement that I linked above. Discussions on how to improve our integration program impact all of Europeia, and some good discussions have been had recently in a newcomer's newspaper, Flibbertigibbet.

Additionally, we should have more details - in my view - disclosed publicly about why we decided to sign a treaty or agreement with other regions. That's not to say that EAAC discussions should be moved wholesale into the Grand Hall or anything. For example, when President Calvin introduced the treaty with TWP to the Senate, it was associated with minimal commentary on his part. While there is some additional information available here (in the Senate discussion on the topic), I think it would be best if our region had more information about why or how this treaty came about. In addition to providing greater background and understanding of FA matters to our citizenry, it might have inspired some players to join MoFA to work as diplomats or to join the ERN to go on joint military missions or ... whatever else.

While this article has been predominantly about my role as WAD and my interaction with the administration, that's not all that this is about. There are a lot of things that can be improved upon, and this one has to do with informing and interacting with the public of Europeia.

Yes, I acknowledge that I screwed up by not alerting our FA officials before I posted to Gameplay. However, I alerted my WA channel (which hypothetically included Malashaan, though I don't know if he ever logged on to see the message), and I alerted individuals within TNP and Europe about the posting shortly after I made it. Additionally, I posted to the #worldassembly channel on Discord right after making the post, so FA-oriented individuals were alerted shortly after the post was made.

I thought about making a big stink over all of this during the recent elections, but the lack of a credible challenger made me question that thinking, and - eventually - made me elect to not push on that point at that time. However, the fact that I am being asked to accept 100% of the blame when there is plenty to go around is not something I am willing to stand for any longer. Europeia deserves a full accounting of all of the malfeasance that has gone on within our region and our inner Foreign Affairs circles over the past year and a half, and I hope that Europeian citizens will demand an accounting from their elected representatives.

So you alerted a World Assembly channel and that's somehow the same as alerting the FA team? Really?

You didn't consult with any of us. You didn't bother asking anyone outside of yourself what we thought of WALL or the Accords. Instead, you simply used Mal's inactivity as an excuse to do whatever you wanted. It is not our fault that you didn't give the Accords their due diligence. You should have coordinated with us. You have access to the EAAC, every single one of us is active on Discord, and everyone has a personal message box that could have been used for you to ask us "Hey, do you guys still support me putting this up?" Instead, you did absolutely none of that and instead of owning up to that you're blaming people and saying that they're out to get you.

This all could have, and would have, been avoided if you had put even the barest amount of extra effort into talking to us after Mal became active. It could have been avoided if you had actually read any of the private World Assembly discussions we've had that you have access to.

As I detailed above, I did contact WL back in October - after I had started the public GH post on the Spam Accords - saying that I was looking to post to Gameplay about the Accords in the near future. (I'm happy to provide screenshots, if someone needs visual documentation that I'm not forging those details.) As detailed above as well, I should not have taken the lack of response as tacit agreement; however, to say that no one in FA was informed that I wanted to post to Gameplay prior to my post was made is untrue, unless you're trying to argue that WL isn't a part of FA in his own Presidential administration.

Additionally, I'll re-iterate what I've said above, I rechecked the private WA discussions that I have access to, and prior to my posting of the Spam Accords in Gameplay, there was no indication to me from the administration that we wanted this repealed or that there wasn't support for it.

Communication is a two-way street. I tried to maintain contact with President Writinglegend via Discord, as I viewed him as the representative of the administration for obvious reasons. As I acknowledged above and elsewhere, I didn't expect the Gameplay response that I got from the Spam Accords, and I've owned my own failings there. However, the continued failure of the Administration (or at least your office) to acknowledge you did anything wrong is, unfortunately, more of the same and classic illustration of #4 as I outlined in my article.

**

Note to WL/Re WL's post - your post has been seen, but I don't think I'll have time to reply before my appointment. A detailed response is forthcoming, however.

 

[Mousebumples]

As a backstory – and this is information I received through unofficial channels – the complaint was posted to TNP with only limited contact being made to the MoFA and Delegate of TNP prior to posting. Amping up the outrage to 11 straight out the gate, rather than continuing to pursue more diplomatic options, caused serious damage to our relations. Our relationship with TNP was only improved later that fall, through continual efforts from those of us that were not carrying a grudge and wanted to repair our relationship with one of our historic allies. I expressed my disapproval over how things were handled that resulted in such severe damage to our relations with TNP, and it was not well received.

Mouse, you know this is not what happened. You are a member of the EAAC and had complete and total access to the issue at hand, including conversation logs, diplomatic options that were used, and the state of our relationship then. We all make mistakes. You make mistakes, I make mistakes, even the greatest Presidents in our history make mistakes. The public statement was a mistake that I’ve been working on fixing ever since it happened and relations were damaged; I’ve now spent a great deal of time working with The North Pacific leaders on areas of cooperation such as WALL. But to blame this issue solely on me is an outrage and extremely incorrect. To say I went to 11 right out of the gate and didn't try diplomatic options is inaccurate as you know from being a member of the EAAC of the time. As detailed in the statement itself, miscommunication by TNP leadership at the time only escalated the situation. Of course, I’m not privy to release those details, but to say I didn’t pursue diplomatic options is false. There’s a reason this statement wasn’t signed by just us, it was because all three signatories believed diplomatic options undertaken were exhausted. But I don’t want to dawn on this issue, because as President I only wish to focus on future prosperity between TNP and Europeia. Like you should too. Thus I’m not sure why this was brought up.

A few things in response:
1) I was a member of EAAC at that time, and I had an accounting of what had happened. I don't recall logs being posted to EAAC, but I may have forgotten. I was able to obtain logs from multiple individuals with regards to conversations I wasn't a part of at that time, and I made a number of edits to this section based off of what I had remembered and what my updated understanding was after reading those logs. I am in no way saying that TNP is blameless - both sides made mistakes at that time, which in turn led to the joint statement. However, as I've underlined in my original statement, I also did not say that you didn't make any diplomatic overtures prior to posting the complaint to TNP. I said that more diplomatic avenues being explored would have been preferable. My memory (which, again, may be faulty as the relevant information is presumably in the EAAC archives that I don't have access to, which leaves me unable to confirm) is that I - personally - did not get a full accounting of exactly how things went down, leading up to the composition and posting of that public complaint. In fact, until this past week, I did not know who was all involved from Europeia in the private conference that you reference in the complaint itself. (I had thought that it was only you who had been invited/involved until I did deeper digging.) You are not the only one at fault; however, as President at the time, unfortunately, much of the blame in this case (and credit in others) falls on your shoulders.

2) It was brought up because of the next section you quote and respond to, so I'll respond further there. It was (is?) my most probable theory as to the why behind what I had been told.

I later learned that still-President Writinglegend expressed an interest in wanting to remove me from the EAAC since he didn't want me involved in his FA discussions. Of course, given that I was the WA Delegate, and I have an expansive network of FA contacts, that wasn't really feasible. Now that I'm no longer WA Delegate, I'm wondering how much longer that I'll be in EAAC for the rest of President Writinglegend's term.

I’m not sure of your anonymous source here, but I’ve never told anyone that I want you gone from the EAAC. I’ve always -wanted- your presence in the EAAC because of your WA skills, because of your Gameplay knowledge, because of your expansive contact regiment. I’m not sure where this theory is from.

I heard this from one or more individual(s) ... I think about a year ago. I'll re-install Skype later today to check those logs to see if they had gone into greater detail over what you had said, and I'll also follow up with them individually to see if they still have the logs based on what I presume was a conversation they had with you where they felt you had expressed such a thing. It's certainly possible that an off-handed statement made in the heat of the moment over ... whatever incident was taken as gospel when it was a momentary frustration. However, it doesn't change the fact that I've felt muscled out of FA matters and discussions over the previous months. That may be more the work of other individuals than your own motivations at play, of course, and I sincerely hope that you haven't had others muscling you along to better serve their own personal interests.

Instead, President Writinglegend - along with a number of his Ministers - created their own Discord servers for their own use, further splintering our community and making it harder to for casual players to stay involved unless they want to join multiple Discord servers. Additionally, there has been a notable lack of posting in the EAAC this term about FA affairs. I won't go into detail about what all has been discussed - after all, that would break all sorts of Protected Area laws - but there's plenty that hasn't been discussed there that must be planned elsewhere. Updates about how the CAIN conference was winding down? Discussion on how to best disseminate our agreement on CAIN? Details on discussions with new regions to form partnerships or working arrangements? (*Minus a thread that I started in EAAC after I received a telegram from a WA Delegate of a region. Note, however, that no information has been provided by the FA team in EAAC about what - if any - follow-up has been conducted after I shared that telegram with them.)

If there’s nothing to discuss in the EAAC, I’m not going to post. The EAAC is an Advisory committee, I have nothing I need advice on at this moment outside of what is already there. We have been discussing relevant topics regarding our foreign policy, but to say we haven’t been discussing any of this is completely untruthful and not factual. CAIN, relation building, Spam Accords, etc is all there.

I'll clarify my CAIN reference above, since apparently that wasn't clear on my end - and, certainly, perhaps I should have posted something to the EAAC myself regarding my concerns of this sort. Was the CAIN agreement ever posted to Gameplay? I don't recall seeing it, but I'll admit that I've been checking the Gameplay forum (and NS forums in general) much less frequently as of late. Not everything needs to be posted to the EAAC, but as I said above in the original post - and also in my previous reply to Brun - I feel that the movement of so much FA content out of the EAAC to Discord or Skype or other avenues - makes it more difficult for future administrations to look back at whatever went on now and piece together the details.

While in the name External Affairs Advisory Chamber, the word Advisory is key. However, in my view - especially as a Supreme Chancellor for Europeia - it's important to provide sufficient information to assist with transitions and historical reference. You can and will run your foreign affairs as you see fit, but if I feel a different approach would better suit the future of Europeia, I will advocate for the posting of logs or more frequent updates of what's going on, if it will serve our foreign policy better.

Similarly, he appears to have taken a similar approach with his Ministers. There is minimal content being posted to Tomlinson, and while I can't legally disclose what has been posted there, I saw nothing in the posted content with regards to the Spam Accords or other WA Ministry related content after Malashaan lapsed into inactivity. However, if discussions were continuing to occur on off-site forums, failing to copy that information over to the forum for continuity purposes for the next administration and also for historical purposes, puts Europeia at a disadvantage both within this specific context, but also in ensuring that the next Presidential administration understands what we have been doing over the course of the previous term.

I’m disappointed to see this violation of the tradition of admins and the SC's avoiding looking in forums that don't apply to them despite their ability. Going into Tomlinson and basically releasing what hasn’t been released is breaking the tradition that has been followed for years. I talk with my Ministers daily on Discord, and update their tasks when needed. I post necessary content in Tomlinson, not filler just to say I’ve been posting there. That content wasn’t posted in Tomlinson because it was being discussed in EAAC, as you should know as an EAAC member.

I didn't have access to Tomlinson until I was made SC, as I hadn't been in Cabinet. I spoke with both Trinn and HEM (and I thought you - though perhaps that was an oversight on my part) upon their election/ascension to clarify that I'm happy to help them and their administrations as a semi-unofficial MwP due to my Tomlinson access as Supreme Chancellor. I didn't view that as "not applying to me" because I view my role as Supreme Chancellor as trying to help all aspects of the region function as best as possible. I know that I've made posts in this area in the past since becoming SC, though I won't touch on the details as I don't want to violate the Protected Areas laws.

As I've said in the recent Senate discussion on the amendment to the Protected Areas Act, even as SC, I don't have access to everything. I can't see into joinable groups that I'm not a member of. I don't have access to the EAAC Archive. I don't see an Admin-HQ forum that I figure probably exists to handle admin matters. And even beyond that, there are probably forums I don't have access to. My role as SC coincided with my being able to see Tomlinson, The Founder's Study, and the Situation Room. As a result, I viewed each of those as a part of my role as SC and not, "forums that don't apply to them despite their ability."

Re: EAAC and the Spam Accords, I'll re-iterate what I said to Brun above. If I overlooked a post that you (or another member of your administration) made denoting any questions regarding whether or not to keep the Spam Accords in place before I posted to Gameplay, please send me that link via PM or on Discord so I can note my oversight.

1. President Writinglegend needs to improve his interpersonal communication skills.

I’ve been my own biggest critic in my area, as seen in my campaigns for this office. I’ve been working on improving, but I can say that I’m not where I want to be. Thank you for listing these examples, although not all of these are entirely my fault. I’m not going to go point by point and counter each example you provide. All Presidents have a weakness. You had weaknesses. I have weaknesses. Mine is my interpersonal skills, you are correct. I do wish to counter your attack on me about the Spam Accords. In the EAAC, we have discussed the worth of the Spam Accords -before- you posted the thread in GP that damaged our foreign policy greatly. If you had an issue with that discussion, you could have easily countered any narrative being established or privately came to me. My thoughts on the Accords were clear in the Advisory Council. In addition, we have discussed the possibility of repealing it. Twice now. One more recently when I re-took this office. Any narrative that we haven’t discussed that in the EAAC is false.

I will applaud you for improvements you've made in this area since your first Presidency. I'm also glad that you are aware of your shortcomings, as you say, we all have them. Like I told Brun above, I rechecked the EAAC and unless I completely missed a thread, there was no discussion that any member of your executive administration participated in, saying that they did not feel the Spam Accords should be maintained prior to my post in Gameplay. (And, once again, I welcome links being sent to me to indicate to the contrary.) I also told you via Discord, as indicated above in my response to Brun, that I was planning to post to Gameplay - and that was in October, while the Grand Hall discussion thread was on-going. I took your lack of response as either indifference or tacit approval.

2. President Writinglegend and Grand Admiral Kraken need to stop trying to "get revenge" on people who dare to challenge them.

I’m sad to see this narrative continue that I don’t like competition. If I wanted revenge on people that challenged me why would I have Kaboom - who ran against me - on my Cabinet in a high priority position? Why would I run with someone like Aex, who supported opposite campaigns multiple times? It’s no lie we’ve been on opposite sides of politics here in the region, but we came together for the betterment of the Republic, to show that exactly divisional politics is second fiddle to unity of one. I’ve become close friends with both Aex and Kaboom, both people who “challeneged me” of sorts. Also, Notolecta is a very close friend of mine despite him challenging me multiple times. During my Administration he held Notty Talk weekly to basically criticize the Administration, but I didn’t shut him down because of that or exact any type of “revenge game”. He is in his own right to do such a thing, I even encouraged him to do that. I even stopped a push by my MinComm then the possibly stop that programming due to the “state media” label. Brun told me to fuck myself as Minister of Foreign Affairs of TCB and we had quite the arguments when I was last President, but she’s now my MoFA and we work together despite what she has said in the past. I encouraged that type of criticism, just like I encourage it now. And I even work with those whom criticize me.

Point blank, I’ve never played any revenge game. I’m not here to waste my time on an online site to play realpolitik, hold grudges, and destroy careers. I’m here to grow as a leader, to learn more about law, and to be with a community that I have common interests with - outside of a public life where I wasn’t particularly accepted by my peers. I’m not sure why you are holding Shin’s WA discussion over me like I had anything to do with that, because I didn’t. I don’t play revenge games. I have a limited amount of time daily, and as President I’m not wasting that time to hold grudges and end careers. Anyone that knows me understands I love the culture of this region. Absolutely I do. I try and be friendly to everyone, try and relate to every newcomer and ensure they have a warm face greeting them, try and get everyone involved, try to make sure everyone has fun. Because if you’re not having fun on this game then there’s no point of wasting that time to check in daily.

Going back to Aex and NK - both are dear friends of mine. Aex is now my Vice President and we work daily for the progression of our Republic. NK and I talk whenever she is online, reminiscing about the days when we were both n00bs in Culture working together for a greater good. I’m playing no revenge game against them, nor hold nothing against them. They did what they did and ran to better the Republic and diversify opinions. Not sure what’s wrong with that.

I play no revenge game against anyone. I hold no grudges against anyone. This is an online game where we better a community of real people with real lives. This is not a simpleton creation where we get to practice realpolitik and destroying the fun of others. It’s quite shocking to me why you suddenly think I have this persecution complex against you, when I’ve personally always have tried to be a nice, kind individual to you. Hell, we may disagree with policy but that doesn’t mean I’m going to try and destroy your career here. I’m sorry if you feel that way, I don’t wish that feeling on anyone. I’ve often felt that feeling sometimes in my time here myself, and I don’t want anyone in this community to ever feel that way. I just wish you came and personally talked to me about this persecution complex you thought I had.

As I said to Brun above, it's quite possible that you had no involvement in the revenge games I have seen play out in Europeia over the past few months. However, they have been on-going, in my view, and I will look for those Skype logs as well later tonight. If you were not involved in any way, I apologize for mis-attributing any blame for that on you.

Still, as HEM has pointed out:

Regardless of its basis in truth or not, the perception of a "clique" in the region that mocks / works against their opponents, is not an uncommon view. From my view — and I am just a typical semi-active citizen now — that perception (which I think took a life of its own after Calvin's defeat by Trinnien) has been reinforced over the last two terms of Writinglegend's administration, not tampered down.

I'm not in those conversations anymore, largely, so I don't know who is saying what, who is masterminding what, or what - exactly - is going on. I know what individuals - both inside and outside of Cabinet - have shared with me over the past few weeks, and also since the posting of this article last night.

If that is not intended by you, I am glad to hear it. I can't say I know how to fix it, as people will do what they will, as our laws allow, but I hope that as a region, we can work to battle against this going forward.

The last time Writinglegend faced, in my opinion, actual opposition for the Goldenblock was before his first term, when he faced off against McEntire/Brunhilde. Since then, his opposition has been comprised of joke campaigns or newcomers that are unable to mount a serious challenge. As Rach detailed in The Globe, we need more challengers and more contested elections. However, if individuals see revenge sought or meted out against political opponents of a certain ruling clique, that discourages dissent, especially from those that are hoping to have political success in the future

Again, I would like to point out examples of Kaboom about how I encourage and welcome competition and don’t hold it against them. Same with Brunhilde for running as VP to McEntire. I’ve advocated for people to run against me, it’s certainly not my fault in any way if no one takes it up themselves and runs. I can only welcome and advocate, I can’t force.

I don't blame you for your lack of opposition. However, as there is a perception of fear - as described by HEM above - that may be working to subconsciously discourage quality opponents from standing against you when you run.

Yes, I acknowledge that I screwed up by not alerting our FA officials before I posted to Gameplay. However, I alerted my WA channel (which hypothetically included Malashaan, though I don't know if he ever logged on to see the message), and I alerted individuals within TNP and Europe about the posting shortly after I made it. Additionally, I posted to the #worldassembly channel on Discord right after making the post, so FA-oriented individuals were alerted shortly after the post was made.

That’s not the main problem. The main problem is you represented four major governments: Europe, 10KI, TNP, and Europeia without alerting any of them of what you were doing. You just did it, and then consequences came for all four regions. You alerted the channel, but only after the fact of when you posted. And Mal may have agreed, but I’m sure he only agreed to such a post if I, as President, and the foreign governments recognized under the agreement were alerted prior to the post. And this has greatly harmed our foreign policy, and better yet threatened our progress in areas such as the WALL and WA targeted outreach. We discussed in the EAAC getting rid of the Accords prior to that thread iirc, so it just would have been a simple private message, discord message, or post there to ask if we were still OK with it being posted. The environment changed over the term heavily, as seen with its failed usage in two SC votes. I’m not sure how this is at the fault of the Administration when we had all of the information there for you, and are now picking up the breadcrumbs of this issue.

The underlined and bolded portions are false.
1) I had been talking with individuals in Europe and I believe TNP leading up to the posting of the statement to GP, and I had contacted the heads of government previously about posting to Gameplay, though I believe the only response I got back from 10KI was to clarify that I should use Lousistan as the signatory as he was the WA Delegate when the Agreement was signed.
2) As I stated above - and I rechecked the morning - there was no posts by members of the Administration to that effect prior to my posting. (If I overlooked something, again, I'll invite you to link me to it via PM/etc.) At this point, I don't doubt that your FA Administration was probably discussing this amongst yourselves - presumably on Discord or elsewhere. However, that information was not placed in any area that I have access to, so there was no way for me to know that that was your opinion.

I had told you a few weeks prior to posting to Gameplay that I wanted to post the agreement there. As I've said before - and will say again - my taking your lack of response as tacit approval was obviously incorrect. But failures to communicate work in both directions.

I'll end this longer-than-anticipated missive with a congratulations to President Writinglegend and Grand Admiral Kraketopia. You got me out of your way and exacted revenge for daring to support a challenger to Calvin and discouraging the appointment of Kraketopia as Minister of Foreign Affairs months ago.

Any notion I wanted you out of this office is ridiculous and inaccurate and I’m not sure where it came from, exactly. I really didn’t care about who did or didn’t support Calvin, it’s an election where we have diverse opinions and a vote. Calvin lost fair and square, I’m not going to ruin the lives of Trinn supporters because they didn’t support Trinn. If I did half of the region would be having the experience of me apparently trying to kill their careers.

Mouse, I’m really sorry you feel this way. I really do. I have taken by two year career here and have attempted to connect with every person. I have attempted to make sure everyone is having a good time on this site, whether it is a shoulder to cry on, a person to laugh at, or someone to have a serious discussion with. I try and make this game enjoyable for people, because that’s what keeps people logging in daily. I have never in my years here tried to make this experience not fun for someone. Never have I gone against my own ideals of making this a fun experience, a cultural experience, for everyone. Never would I purposefully ruin someone’s online experience here for my own political prosperity, because I don’t care about that. I only care about making this community and Republic a better place.

Overall, though, thank you for airing your concerns about my leadership abilities (interpersonal skills) and how I deal with my Cabinet. Even if I may disagree and feel some of it is completely phony, some of them such as my weak interpersonal skills have merit. To that, I will say that I will strive to improve as a leader, as I have always done. As I have done since I first became Minister of Culture, and will do until my last leadership post for this great Republic.

Thank you for your thoughtful response, WL. Even though we have continued disagreements - over both facts and best approaches, as evidenced above - I appreciate your time and willingness to try to work through this issue to best serve the Republic above all else.

 

[hyanygo]

Mouse is right in labelling a core function of the EAAC as one of providing continuity and good transitions. The founding motivation and entire reason for existing -is- that.

What I am disturbed by is my FA betters completely missing that point entirely. Which leads well, to the upthread.

 

[Mousebumples]

I just wanted to post a quick note for public consumption, as President Writinglegend and I finally had a chance to catch up today, and - fortunately for everyone - we were able to resolve the majority of our own interpersonal differences.

1) With his authorization, I am acknowledging that there are posts in the EAAC that can be viewed as being opposed to the Spam Accords prior to the time when I posted to NS Gameplay. In my own defense, they are nebulous enough that it's not crystal clear, but I should have asked for further clarification.

2) Related, we have an on-going problem within Europeia (in both public and private forums alike) of allowing conversations and discussions to fall into disuse without providing any resolution or final conclusions. Some threads aren't important enough to ensure we have follow-through and finalization, but this is something that both President Writinglegend and I will work to be cognizant of going forward.

3) Building off of that, we have both acknowledged our own issues here and will continue to work to improve our communication with each other and other Europeians going forward.

I'd also like to publicly apologize to President Writingelgend for aiming the brunt of this article in his direction. As I've said previously, as he is President, I allocated more of the responsibility for some things to him than was perhaps appropriate. I look forward to continuing to work with him and his administration for the remainder of this term - and in whatever positions he may hold in Europeia in the future.

 

[Kraketopia]

Seeing that Mouse and WL have come to an understanding, and that this thread is fortunately winding down, I'm going to leave it at that. I know I'm expected to respond, so here is my response: For the benefit of unity and moving forward, I'm going to leave things as they are. If Mouse wishes to discuss any of her points with me in private, I am more than open to talking with her.

 

[Brunhilde]

Notable opponents were Onder (who wanted to strengthen or scrap them), Polling Booths, Rand, and Anumia. Some of those are known FA advisors of the current inner FA circle, so I think I was waiting to see if movement or discussion continued - especially with comments directly from the official Administration - regarding repeal.

I wouldn't say any of them are part of the current inner FA circle. Anumia's probably close, due to his involvement in the EAAC, but that is the extent of his inclusion.

:blink: This is taken out of context, more than a little. The paragraph in question is about SC Commendations & Condemnations. Of course, foreign policy decisions should be made to "further our FA interests," but that doesn't mean that they should be "solely based" on our FA interests. Also, unless there's a Commend or Condemn CAIN resolution that I'm unaware of, your CAIN reference is not really relevant here.

In the same paragraph you asked this question: "We clearly believe that there are some occasions where cooperation is worthwhile (i.e. the recent CAIN agreement), but what other situations merit such cooperation?"

My point was that CAIN does further our FA interests.

For example, when President Calvin introduced the treaty with TWP to the Senate, it was associated with minimal commentary on his part.

Aye, it was, and that was extremely unfortunate and an area that every administration since then has looked to oppose. We've talked about a reasoning for every treaty since the one with TWP, though, in an attempt to better outline the purposes of our actions.

---

Mouse is right in labelling a core function of the EAAC as one of providing continuity and good transitions. The founding motivation and entire reason for existing -is- that.

What I am disturbed by is my FA betters completely missing that point entirely. Which leads well, to the upthread.

I don't think it's the business of the EAAC to ensure that Europeia's foreign policy continually stays the same. It has no business trying to set a check list that the the MoFA needs to follow. Instead, I believe its core function is ensuring that all foreign policy is well advised and continually well thought out.

Regardless, by discussing every major policy decision and every major world happening that relates to our region, we've succeeded in keeping future administrations informed of our thought process.

---

I don't agree with many of the things you've said but I acknowledge that you have a right to be upset. I hope this doesn't conflict with future cooperation.

 

[Mousebumples]

Seeing that Mouse and WL have come to an understanding, and that this thread is fortunately winding down, I'm going to leave it at that. I know I'm expected to respond, so here is my response: For the benefit of unity and moving forward, I'm going to leave things as they are. If Mouse wishes to discuss any of her points with me in private, I am more than open to talking with her.

It is concerning to me that you, Kraken, refuse to acknowledge whether or not any of this may or may not be true. I know that President Writinglegend and Minister of Foreign Affairs Brunhilde didn't (and perhaps still don't) agree with a number of points within my original article. However, at least they publicly responded to the details rather than just hoping that things would go away on their own.

As I stated above, you are the one that I have specific evidence against, and specific concerns against. And even in the Mixlr radio chat about this article, when asked to speak to what you felt had gone on, you responded with, "I'm getting very tired of random accusations. I could certainly make accusations of my own. Everyone is wanting an "open space" after all. But I won't do that."

These are not random accusations. These are specific accusations and statements. And rather than responding to them, you lash out with a threat to take down everyone else with you, unless we accede to what you want.

A number of us have been waiting for your response on this article. Your non-response was very political, but in no ways helpful to discussion or reaching a mutually agreeable resolution, which potentially will impact all of Europeia.

You say in your response, "For the benefit of unity and moving forward ... " No. Keeping things hidden "for the sake of unity" is why I've been quiet for so long. I've since realized that I should have stood up and said something before now. We cannot and should not continue to hide things under a rug for the sake of public unity. We deserve an actual, public response.

Whether you care to provide one, however, is on you.

 

[Kraketopia]

My apologies, it seemed from your post with WL that you were willing to move forward. I will be posting after the upcoming Judicial Convention, as I do not want attention being drawn from it to a back and forth between you and I.