SENATE STANDING COMMITTEE: Gov't Oversight and Reform (Recommendations)

[Senator Napoleon]

The entire first month or so of my term was spent on constitutional amendments and resolutions, which didn't exactly give the SoIA much to work with.

[Governor Scott]

The entire first month or so of my term was spent on constitutional amendments and resolutions, which didn't exactly give the SoIA much to work with.

Still, I think it would be helpful if the SoIA wrote news stories every now and then.

[Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I would like thank Marokai Blue and Afleitch for the detail provided concerning that period of the fall of 2010. It is not my goal to rake people over the coals for personal problems beyond their control, especially when that period probably is ranked equal to or maybe even above the middle of 2009 in terms of economic related debate and discussion. What I want is a comparative history, insight into behind the scenes discussion and so forth and if stuff didn't work, we need to look at possible ways to fill in the gaps. And that is what you two have provided.

Would you two state that the administrations are too "dis-jointed" in terms of continuity? Is this something that could be fixed, perhaps by having the officeholders leaving office write reports to their successors on issues still facing the country, previous administration ideas, etc etc? Then they can choose to follow that or take a different path with solutions, but certain priorities remain priorities.

[Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The entire first month or so of my term was spent on constitutional amendments and resolutions, which didn't exactly give the SoIA much to work with.

Still, I think it would be helpful if the SoIA wrote news stories every now and then.

There is also the implementation details of legislation passed in previous terms that often times has a lag. Like the lag time with the construction of High Speed Rail mentioned earlier.

[President Marokai]

I definitely think more continuity would be better, it's a bit frustrating for me, especially, when I look at Shua's GM work and just see all of my stories completely and utterly abandoned. Officials who come into office should be bound to, or at least informally expected to, continuing a lot of the previous official's work. Instead of having very defined roles and expectations, every new cabinet official just seems to want to come in and make the position completely different just for them. Which I think is sort of silly.

What I want is a comparative history, insight into behind the scenes discussion and so forth and if stuff didn't work, we need to look at possible ways to fill in the gaps.

I would like to at least state that I think the Social & Economic Development Zone Improvement Act, while a great piece of legislation (and, fittingly, originally started as an Afleitch idea), has gone ignored. It was what the Administration at the time considered our economic legislation centerpiece, and we had hoped that it would result in either the Senate, the GM, or Regional Governments specifically constructing the SEDZ in a "game" way rather than assuming they were created and never touching on them again. It's a pretty massive bill that we haven't seen hide nor tail of since it was (barely) passed by the Senate at the time.

[Senator Ben]

From the international side, I echo Marokai's concerns about continuity.  When Joyce replaced me, he followed through on my stories, which was a good thing.  Unfortunately, I don't think there's any legislative way to force a new office holder to follow through.

[Governor Scott]

From the international side, I echo Marokai's concerns about continuity.  When Joyce replaced me, he followed through on my stories, which was a good thing.  Unfortunately, I don't think there's any legislative way to force a new office holder to follow through.

I agree.  Unless we threaten impeachment or call upon the person in charge to be reconfirmed more often (not likely), there's really no way of enforcing this.  However, I think the president ought to appoint people who openly intend on continuing on the storyline.

[Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I think looking back if we had left the storyline creation with the GM, a less partisan position, and then had the SoIA/SoEA/AG etc respond to what the GM does, call upon the Senate and President when legislation is necessary, it would be easier to fix this problem. But I think even with the current setup, a fix is still possible.

We need to find a way to require continuity of the backstory, because it is what keeps the game going. It is what provides us with the issues, events, problems and results on which provide the platform for the Regions, the Senate and the Campaigns can operate around.

I want to here from the current SoIA and GM about this?

[Senator North Carolina Yankee]

WHAT THE HELL DO WE PAY YOU PEOPLE FOR?!!!!!!!!!!!

[Senator North Carolina Yankee]

It says something you know, when people who haven't held these offices for two years are more cooperative then the current occupants.

[I Can't Get That Sound You Make, Out Of My Head]

I think looking back if we had left the storyline creation with the GM, a less partisan position, and then had the SoIA/SoEA/AG etc respond to what the GM does, call upon the Senate and President when legislation is necessary, it would be easier to fix this problem. But I think even with the current setup, a fix is still possible.

We need to find a way to require continuity of the backstory, because it is what keeps the game going. It is what provides us with the issues, events, problems and results on which provide the platform for the Regions, the Senate and the Campaigns can operate around.

I want to here from the current SoIA and GM about this?

OK, umm well the problem is that the GM Shua hasn't really contacted me about how to 'continue the backstory'.

I'm only fairly new to Atlasia, so I don't really know much about the stories here.

If someone could tell me, I will try and complete this with the best of my ability.

[Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Did you consider contacting him?

[Senator Ben]

Could we, perhaps, require an outgoing GM/SoIA/SoEA to prepare a list of their story lines, publish them publicly, and require the incoming officeholder to adhere to the stories, under threat of impeachment?

[Governor Scott]

Could we, perhaps, require an outgoing GM/SoIA/SoEA to prepare a list of their story lines, publish them publicly, and require the incoming officeholder to adhere to the stories, under threat of impeachment?

I don't think a list of storylines is necessary when all the stories can conveniently be found in the threads themselves.

[Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I think having them make reports would be better because, then you are presented in a truncated form all that needs to be know for the incoming official.

[Senator Napoleon]

Could we, perhaps, require an outgoing GM/SoIA/SoEA to prepare a list of their story lines, publish them publicly, and require the incoming officeholder to adhere to the stories, under threat of impeachment?

No.

[Badger]

Gentlemen:

Unemployment and slackening GDP were looming as major issues during my sojourn as GM. I chose not to spoonfeed answers to the government or Atlasia at large. As in real life, the chorus of competing interests and ideolouges across the spectrum each proscribe their own remedy is anything but unified, even in identifying the underlying problems (let alone worthwhile solutions).

I DID believe their was an underlying fundamental problem with the Atlasian economy, quite similar, actually, to the real world economy: Mass consumer purchasing power and confidence were both weak and dropping fast. The solution I I felt was to put as much money and job secuity into as many hands as possible as quickly has possible. Investment income (of which therels never been any shortage) and business confidence woud follow. IIRC that wasn't agressively followed by the government in my tenure.

I did attempt to hint, if one looked for the forest for the trees (please don't ask vfor specifics; I don't remember) that this was t he best choice among various competing proposals. I truly believe t his is the way to make the game fun: give the government options that all sound viable to some degree (ifonly to the wingnuts sometimes) but don't tell t them which one(s) are correct.

I'll also note that there was an ongoing financial crisis where the Chinese threatened to cut off/sharply reduce financing our debt. Though it never came to light as I planned on using the government's decision to trigger long range consequences which I never enacted before moving on, the government frankly botched the crisis quite. Badly.  More on that later.

[shua]

From the international side, I echo Marokai's concerns about continuity.  When Joyce replaced me, he followed through on my stories, which was a good thing.  Unfortunately, I don't think there's any legislative way to force a new office holder to follow through.

I agree.  Unless we threaten impeachment or call upon the person in charge to be reconfirmed more often (not likely), there's really no way of enforcing this.  However, I think the president ought to appoint people who openly intend on continuing on the storyline.

I'm not sure where this assumption comes from that enforcing something is the way to make it happen.  If you want more stories, focus on the stories in the Senate's discussion.  If no one is paying attention to the stories, and actively engaging with them in the political discourse, what's the point of continuing them?  I've gotten the sense as GM that the Senate and the regions are more interested in the raw numbers.  That's what people ask me about. You want a story about something? Okay, let me know. I tried to encourage community collaboration on stories when I started the GM position.  It got nowhere, but I still think it would be a good idea.

[President Marokai]

It is not the public's job to think up stories for you to write, Shua. It is yours. Purple State's tenure as GM taught me that you won't know what people can/will respond to unless you write it.

[Senator Napoleon]

I'll point out that I like what both Badger and Shua have said here.

[Governor Scott]

To be fair, however, we can all "write stories."  If I were to write about me promising Felipe Calderón support for restoring lost territories to Mexico, thereby potentially jeopardizing Atlasian-Mexican relations, that would probably be accepted as part of the 'timeline.'  Not that I would ever consider doing something like that, of course.

[shua]

It is not the public's job to think up stories for you to write, Shua. It is yours. Purple State's tenure as GM taught me that you won't know what people can/will respond to unless you write it.

When was the last time the public was interested in any story, either domestically or internationally? I can't remember. The more fundamental issue is that there's little evidence that what I write is read at all. If it had been, the question of why we still have high unemployment would not be such a complete mystery.

[Senator Napoleon]

It is not the public's job to think up stories for you to write, Shua. It is yours. Purple State's tenure as GM taught me that you won't know what people can/will respond to unless you write it.

When was the last time the public was interested in any story, either domestically or internationally? I can't remember. The more fundamental issue is that there's little evidence that what I write is read at all. If it had been, the question of why we still have high unemployment would not be such a complete mystery.

If you produce something, I will quickly use the pulpit to make the public care.

[shua]

It is not the public's job to think up stories for you to write, Shua. It is yours. Purple State's tenure as GM taught me that you won't know what people can/will respond to unless you write it.

When was the last time the public was interested in any story, either domestically or internationally? I can't remember. The more fundamental issue is that there's little evidence that what I write is read at all. If it had been, the question of why we still have high unemployment would not be such a complete mystery.

If you produce something, I will quickly use the pulpit to make the public care.

People will be interested in what they will, but that could help. It looks like the private press may be in revival, which could help keep stories alive as well. 

I'm trying to look through the old update threads to see if there have been any stories that have ever been continued from one GM to the next. So far, I haven't found any.

[President Marokai]

It is not the public's job to think up stories for you to write, Shua. It is yours. Purple State's tenure as GM taught me that you won't know what people can/will respond to unless you write it.

When was the last time the public was interested in any story, either domestically or internationally? I can't remember. The more fundamental issue is that there's little evidence that what I write is read at all. If it had been, the question of why we still have high unemployment would not be such a complete mystery.

It used to be popular to call Purple State the "Game God" back in the day, because that's what you have to remember that you are. You aren't just a dispenser of random statistics, you can shape the narrative of the entire game. You have immense power that you should use to write stories that people must respond to.

Who cares if people haven't expressed specific interest? This game currently lacks direction and it lacks focus, our parties act as weak and amateurish organizations compared to our old institutions, and the Senate runs around with their heads cut off picking random fights with the Supreme Court or arguing about toilet regulations than anything else. Your position was created to give the game direction and narrative it could fall back to if the meta-game started to break down, and you should be using that authority.

I'm trying to look through the old update threads to see if there have been any stories that have ever been continued from one GM to the next. So far, I haven't found any.

Look harder. I was not left much to work with, story wise, but I sewed up Badger's story about the GTO bomber (where has the GTO Ambassador gone, by the way? That position just faded away) and Yelnoc's stories about hurricanes and emergency conditions throughout the Mideast. They were minor stories, but I felt continuity was important and finished them.

If you're looking for some of my old material, there was a Midwest tax shelter story I started that no one followed up on, an abortion story I started no one followed up on, the social unrest in Oceania that no one followed up on, stories with the SoEA about african nations joining the GTO and the restrictions placed on them by doing so.. that no one followed up on, and the two other major stories I started, unsafe nuclear power facilities and a failing Postal Service, I had to solve myself when I became Senator months later.

The Guardian-Informer, folks. Ask for it by name.