Join the new world

From left to right: Deputy Lupurus, Deputy Blackwood.285 and Minister Marjoo Umbri

This may be coming a little late, given the election was almost eight days ago (hectic RL as usual gets in the way), but I'm very happy to introduce to you the Department of Education and Entertainment under CP Jeff Vader for the April 2014 term! We had a crazy election, and an utterly insane month prior to the election, but I can assure you, the country is in safe hands, both those of our new CP who has valiantly stepped up to take the reins despite his surprise at winning, and his new cabinet. Hail Lord Vader, long live the Empire!

For those who aren't aware, my name is Marjoo Umbri, and I held the position of Deputy Minister last term, and basically took over the Department whilst my mentor James Rellori was dealing with real life. There is a heap I want to get done this term, and sadly it happens to coincide with a very busy month for me, but with the help of my two deputies, Lupurus and Blackwood.285, I am confident we can achieve our goals. But before I go into my plans and vision for this term, let me introduce the team!



Marjoo Umbri
Minister of Education and Entertainment

As I said earlier, I semi-ran this department last term and I was pretty pleased with my output; I directed efforts such as the national player library reshuffle and the Journalist of the Month competition. However, you may not know that many many years ago on another account I also held a myriad of other cabinet positions, the longest being my time as Minister of Culture. I can't really remember what I did back in the day, but hey I'm sure I did something! My personal goals for this term are to procrastinate less in the writing of my articles (this has been sitting here for at least 24 hours) and make sure there's always a competition running in eAustralia.

Lupurus
Deputy Minister of Education and Entertainment

Lupurus is an active new player, the creator of the constantly-running Poor Man's Raffle and an excellent scribe and ideas man, which lead to him being one of the three winners of the aforementioned journalism competition. This term I hope to see him actively participating in getting activity up, but in particular he will be focusing on creating a world history of sorts for all new players to enjoy (more below). I'll also show him and his fellow deputy the ropes of being a minister so perhaps one day they can take over.
A word from the man himself: "There really isn't anything worth saying about me. I'm pretty sure everyone just knows me as the crazy raffle guy. Not much to say; just trying to keep people interested, give folks a reason to log in, and try to help out those less impulsive when it comes to spending money than me >.>"

Blackwood.285
Deputy Minister of Education and Entertainment

In all honesty I haven't spoken to Blackwood.285 before his appointment as my deputy but I'm greatly looking forward to working with him this term, as his attitude is positive and experience not lacking given his two terms in congress. I'm looking forward to a term of activity from him as well, and depending on his response will put him in charge of running a regular news bulletin, which I will again delve into below. Again this term will be a learning experience for Blackwood.



New Player Library renovations
So as I mentioned before, there are a lot of projects I wish to undertake this term, so I thought I'd start with an old one we're carrying over from last term. Probably due to my own laziness, the new player library is looking very old and dusty. I have a lot of updates in a Google Doc somewhere, but I've simply neglected to update the posts on the site. This term I'd like to get that updating finished and publish the informative articles periodically through the in-game media module, to maximise exposure. This shouldn't be too difficult, as most of the articles have been updated and most barely need updating anyway.

Competitions
As I said earlier, I am for there to be a competition running at all times in eAustralia, to keep young players rich, happy and active. I'll be steering the competitions less towards flash games and lotteries (not to say I won't run a few of these, but there are already heaps run by private accounts already) and more towards encouraging activity, self-education and involvement. IRC has been looking abysmally dead lately, so I will try to run a pub quiz of some sort if interest is shown, and young players will be rewarded for things such as IRC check-ins, registering your nick etc. I will also be running the journalism competition again for the entire month, which I'll be mentioning in every DoEE article from now on.

Alliance history and news bulletin
Actually stemming from the suggestions of Lupurus himself, this is basically a plan to create an information database for young citizens to learn about eRepublik. As I've said in the past, joining this game can be very disorientating when you have zero conception of its geopolitical structure, both past and present. Thus, Lupurus (as I mentioned before) will get to work at compiling a multi-part history of alliances text, showing us the rise of today's superpowers and the fall of its old ones. We will also be attempting to publish a regular news bulletin, summarising the most relevant in Australian and international news with links to the original article/activity; this way, the entire community stays in touch with the happenings of eRepublik.

Mentoring, new player message, cold lampin' etc.
I won't go into any of these things in depth because the ideas are barely fleshed out (except for cold lampin', I can do that pretty well) but basically new citizens need to be picked up as soon as they join. I'm not sure how effective the new player message is but it's ridiculously outdated so it can't hurt to update it anyway. I'll be working with the rest of cabinet on this point. I also want to set up some sort of mentoring scheme (you can see the remnants of one in the current player message) so we really drill the essentials in this game and community into younger players, making sure they stay active and educated.



2nd Australian Journalist of the Month Award!
This article is getting hella long, so I'll be as brief as possible. The journalism competition last month was less than successful, but I still firmly believe that reinvigorating the media is paramount to eAustralian activity. Thus, I'm proud to announce the 2nd AJM Award! After last month, I've decided to change a few rules: entries are now open all month! Basically any article posted between Day 2329 (April 5th) and Day 2359 (approx May 5th) can be nominated for the award. Citizens will now be judged less on their individual article and more on their oeuvre of work; a citizen now may be nominated for up to 3 articles. I won't go into the details of why this competition is important, so check out my first article on the subject.

The rules are as follows:

- Anyone can enter up to three articles of their own that have been published between Day 2329 and Day 2359.
- Players can also be nominated for the award by another player, again who can nominate up to three articles (multiple nominations for an article or player will be taken into consideration upon judging).
- Articles must be at least 400 words in length and cover an entertaining and informative eRepublik topic - one cannot simply publish an article about how much they like cats, or five photos of cats.
- Articles may be opinionated or neutral - how well you defend your argument will be taken into consideration upon judging (you can't assert an opinion without clear evidence).
- Entries will not be accepted after Day 2359 unless specified otherwise, and results will be announced within a few days of the deadline.
- Entries will be judged by the DoEE team, with input from cabinet and the community taken into consideration, on the criteria:
Accuracy of information - are the contents of your article correct, current and well-cited?
Research undertaken - does your article show evidence of effort beyond its writing?
Entertainment value - how interesting are the topics covered and how well are they presented?
Quality of expression- how well do you write?
Presentation - is your article's layout and format aesthetically pleasing and practical?

Writers block? Here's a couple of suggestions:
- Interview a veteran eAustralian or other eRepublik player on their experience
- Research the origins and outcomes of a present or past war
- Report on a political crisis, domestic or overseas
- Profile an allied or enemy country to give our citizens a greater understanding of the New World
- Express your opinion on a recent political or military decision
- Detail some economic tips and guidelines

To enter yourself or another person, comment below with a link to the article in question, or send the Aus Ministry of Culture organisation a PM with your details.



No more from me, sorry for the wall of text. Once again I'd just like to remind any players with concerns or questions about the running of our government that the Ask Your Cabinet board is still running active, and there are a plethora of experienced players waiting to answer any question you may have.

Hey eAustralia, Just DoEEt!

Minister of Entertainment and Education: Marjoo Umbri
Deputy Ministers of Entertainment and Education: Lupurus, Blackwood.285













Please subscribe to the Government Department Newspapers, Join the eAustralian Forums, and take a look at our National Library run by the Department of Human Services to aid our New Players.