The Decay of Parties: How to Fight It
Day 1,207, 19:39
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Published in USA 
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by
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by Mark Valshannar
Not the best background music, but its a good song
This article is part addressing a problem, part info to SFP members and part tooting our own horn.
As someone who has been in one party for almost all of the about 800 days I've spent in eRepublik, so I know a few things about them. I've been Party President 6 times and I've done almost every party job in the SFP at some point in time.
They are one of the first things that a new player sees when they come into the game and for a while they have been pretty weak.
Emerick addressed this in his presidential campaign last month.
The now elected Glove also adressed this
If the article written by his head of Party Communications is any indication, he intends to follow through on this part of his platform
But many people don't know what the hell is wrong with parties. Well in my opinion the answer is simple and comes from my own experience.
A lack of fresh faces. It doesn't matter if the "fresh face" to the party has played eRepublik for some time, but as long as he is someone new to the party. Fresh faces energize the party.
My own recent experience with my favorite party, the Socialist Freedom Party has confirmed this for me. Cival Unrest became PP. He was a fresh face from a merger made with a smaller party in a desperate attempt to keep the SFP afloat. He didn't necessarily bring in new members but old members returned and decided to be more active.
Now all the old members who returned are working hard to bring new players and fresh faces into the party.
What every party needs is a couple fresh faces every month or two to come in and take up some leadership positions. You can't reshuffle the same group and expect the party to remain stable forever.
The party also needs to be more then "lol we hang out together". It needs to run its own programs and have its own benefits. If you don't give something back to the membership, why the hell would anyone join?
I also think that people in party positions take too many jobs outside the party. How can you expect the party to run efficiently if it's leaders have three or four other jobs? Taking jobs both inside and outside the party is great but I think some people take too many. I honestly think that the PP of the Party needs to remain dedicated to the party for the duration of his term and at most have one outside job to do in eRepublik.
Now for what I think the SFP has done differently in recent months.
We aren't just talk.
Near the beginning of my term I quietly created a section on socialistfreedom.org labeled “Party Proposals”. With only the description “Where the party votes on general decisions.” to guide them the membership of the SFP took to it like a bird to the sky. Without the whole falling out the nest part.
So with four “Party Proposals” put forth with absolutely no direction from myself what so ever I decided to propose an official amendment to the SFP Constitution.
Any party member can now propose new policy or action in the SFP. This is a major and practical step to one of the SFP's goals: The empowerment of it's members.
We also have a multitude of party programs. We have the Rainy Day food program, designed to give food to anyone who over fought or just has no clue about the game.
We have party communes, which are run by volunteers. This has helped me personally, as before I had no experience running any company. Now through this program I can run a company somewhere else besides bankruptcy.
The Bear Cavalry is restarting for those of us who like the war aspect of eRepublik but prefer militias to the army.
Freedom Writers has also started up, to help those who want to be active in the media but find their writing or grammar to be somehow lacking. Again, this program helped me with this very article.
We are more than just a chat room to hang out (though #socialistfreedomparty is a fun place to do so). The SFP is developing into an independent think tank, a training ground for future leaders, a group of people dedicated to the independence of nations both large and small and willing to defend these values in the media and on the battle field.
Proud Freedom Writer
This article is part addressing a problem, part info to SFP members and part tooting our own horn.
As someone who has been in one party for almost all of the about 800 days I've spent in eRepublik, so I know a few things about them. I've been Party President 6 times and I've done almost every party job in the SFP at some point in time.
They are one of the first things that a new player sees when they come into the game and for a while they have been pretty weak.
Emerick addressed this in his presidential campaign last month.
The now elected Glove also adressed this
If the article written by his head of Party Communications is any indication, he intends to follow through on this part of his platform
But many people don't know what the hell is wrong with parties. Well in my opinion the answer is simple and comes from my own experience.
A lack of fresh faces. It doesn't matter if the "fresh face" to the party has played eRepublik for some time, but as long as he is someone new to the party. Fresh faces energize the party.
My own recent experience with my favorite party, the Socialist Freedom Party has confirmed this for me. Cival Unrest became PP. He was a fresh face from a merger made with a smaller party in a desperate attempt to keep the SFP afloat. He didn't necessarily bring in new members but old members returned and decided to be more active.
Now all the old members who returned are working hard to bring new players and fresh faces into the party.
What every party needs is a couple fresh faces every month or two to come in and take up some leadership positions. You can't reshuffle the same group and expect the party to remain stable forever.
The party also needs to be more then "lol we hang out together". It needs to run its own programs and have its own benefits. If you don't give something back to the membership, why the hell would anyone join?
I also think that people in party positions take too many jobs outside the party. How can you expect the party to run efficiently if it's leaders have three or four other jobs? Taking jobs both inside and outside the party is great but I think some people take too many. I honestly think that the PP of the Party needs to remain dedicated to the party for the duration of his term and at most have one outside job to do in eRepublik.
Now for what I think the SFP has done differently in recent months.
We aren't just talk.
Near the beginning of my term I quietly created a section on socialistfreedom.org labeled “Party Proposals”. With only the description “Where the party votes on general decisions.” to guide them the membership of the SFP took to it like a bird to the sky. Without the whole falling out the nest part.
So with four “Party Proposals” put forth with absolutely no direction from myself what so ever I decided to propose an official amendment to the SFP Constitution.
Any party member can now propose new policy or action in the SFP. This is a major and practical step to one of the SFP's goals: The empowerment of it's members.
We also have a multitude of party programs. We have the Rainy Day food program, designed to give food to anyone who over fought or just has no clue about the game.
We have party communes, which are run by volunteers. This has helped me personally, as before I had no experience running any company. Now through this program I can run a company somewhere else besides bankruptcy.
The Bear Cavalry is restarting for those of us who like the war aspect of eRepublik but prefer militias to the army.
Freedom Writers has also started up, to help those who want to be active in the media but find their writing or grammar to be somehow lacking. Again, this program helped me with this very article.
We are more than just a chat room to hang out (though #socialistfreedomparty is a fun place to do so). The SFP is developing into an independent think tank, a training ground for future leaders, a group of people dedicated to the independence of nations both large and small and willing to defend these values in the media and on the battle field.
Proud Freedom Writer
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Down with commies! 🙂
Have you ever herped so hard you derped?
I always love reading stuff from SFP
☭ SFP ☭
Best political party in the eUSA.
v & s
The best way to get parties more active is probably to stop getting PTO'd by Turks so we don't have to vote for USWP
That would go a long way as well.
SFP: the Greatest little party that could!
o/ Rock on
Oh Mr.MiCro, you know perfectly well the SFP are patriotic anarcho-socialist-commie-libertarian free thinkers with special hot sauce. Plus you have a Phoenix logo so you are obviously a PQ fan. xxxooo
☭ SFP ☭
Best political party in the eUSA. [x2]
☭ SFP ☭
Best political party in the eUSA. [x3]
Voted and shouted!
Vote😛
The biggest problem I see is the new faces, most people don't like real slow paced games.. when they first come on its the first few days that interest them. If they can find something to enjoy then they will stick with it.
Leveling training and finding things to do is difficult because people here just talk and meet each other. Most don't know where to start. All they see are plato's objective.. tries to do some find it to hard or boring and just leave. It almost have gotten to the point of multi characters or an alt of someone. Finding real new players seem to be a challenge, its hard for new people to compete and to catch up.
As for political parties.. As much as this game relies on politics, probably most members don't really know or care about what is going on. Most don't even vote! We gotta come up with ideas to make political parties interesting.
Anyways enough about my long post as usual. Good article and I do hope admins will do something about parties to make them more interesting.. Maybe politically run companies?
@Grafarian
"As for political parties.. As much as this game relies on politics, probably most members don't really know or care about what is going on. Most don't even vote! We gotta come up with ideas to make political parties interesting." agree
@Mark
great article, keep it up
☭ SFP ☭
there are no real differences between the top five (four), they just complete for the same pool of members with wannabe leaders changing as often as the wind blows. Just make one a true opposition party
☭ SFP ☭
Best political party in the eUSA. [x4]
Man Mark talks so pretty
@ "...How can you expect the party to run efficiently if it's leaders have three or four other jobs?": (Deff NOT my area of expertise!)
@ Civil Anarchy's: " ☭ SFP ☭ Best political party in the eUSA.":
OOHHhh! THAT'S what "SFP" stands for!
(sorrry as usual... the last one to learn about these things)