The Economist ~ Open Government

Day 3,846, 02:23 • Published in United Kingdom United Kingdom • by Spite313
Please help by voting and subscribing


Dear friends,

One of the principles I’ve always held to is that government should be open and accessible. I don’t really believe in hiding information or keeping closed council, unless of course it is military plans or something similar and there is an important advantage to doing so.

This month the government has mostly been James soldiering on alone with very little help. I am not James, and that is not my idea of fun. To manage the eUK we need input and support from the whole eUK community.

The government should not just be the same players recycled through every month. That just causes people to burn out, when a game becomes a job and people stop logging in or enjoying themselves. So we need new blood.

With that in mind the focus this month will be on bringing new players into government in junior roles, training them and giving them experience. The aim of this is that future Presidents will have a wider pool of people to pick from when they form their cabinets, to avoid burning out our best. Hopefully some of those new players will one day be President themselves.



James introduced “New Player Fridays” (NPF) during his CP run and it has been a proven hit when it comes to retention. More players log in on Friday than any other day. Week-on-week more players have taken part and claimed rewards. The most significant fact is that we have had more discord-active new players in the last 3 months than we managed from the whole of 2017. In fact, the number of new players born in 2017 and alive today can be counted on your fingers.

Of course we will be doing our best to keep NPF running if I am elected. However the tasks in NPF were mainly about explaining the most basic aspects of the game- posting in feeds, writing an article, fighting, working, training. The next step of this is to open new players up to the community, and to the more complex work that comes with it. In other words, the government itself.

With this in mind we will be reopening three ministries, and staffing them primarily with new players. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA), Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA). The Ministers (experienced players) will lead a small team of new players in a series of tasks, and the new players will be financed and supported (by me) to complete these tasks. In other words, instead of being paid 250 currency for making X kills, they will be paid for completing ministerial tasks of use to the country.



The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will be reopening the Ambassador Program this month. Ambassadorial tasks are mainly focused on promoting our relations with other countries around the world. To be clear, you will not be negotiating treaties or anything like that. You will be publishing articles (about the UK, and about your assigned country), hanging out in their chat channels, and generally giving them a good impression of how wonderful we are.

The Ministry of Defence will be hiring apprentices, who can hopefully learn from the Minister the mechanics of warfare tactics and strategy in eRepublik. They will be given certain tasks to do that will help them grow and develop, and also help the Minister with any tasks that they give them.

The Ministry of Home Affairs will be primarily tasked with the task of educating, entertaining and informing our player base. This means publishing and republishing guides, running government-approved games and lotteries, and updating the population with the latest news and events. This is also where the New Player Friday program naturally lies. During my term the MoHA will hopefully provide the main conduit through which news reaches the country.

I am fully aware that MoFA is the most glamorous of the three, but generally if you want to be President one day (and you should want to be) then you need an understanding of all three. The MoHA is particularly useful for gaining name recognition and support, vital for a CP run. MoD work is also important if you’re going to be CP. To reflect this importance, the MoHA will offer the biggest financial incentives, the MoD the second biggest, and MoFA the smallest. This also reflects the work involved. To be clear, this will be paid for by me for this month.




If you’re interested in any government role, as a Minister or as a new player helping in one of the above programs, please sent me a PM or find me on the eUK discord and message me there.

Iain



Thank you’s

Thank you to everyone who endorsed the last article, and for all the messages of support. I appreciate not everyone agrees with me, or supports my plans, but try and keep the comments fair and clean please.