Convince me to vote for you

[The Peoples of Yavanna]

Okay, I'm back and I'm definitely sticking around.... I would like to invite the candidates to convince me to vote for them. ;D

So, I'd like to hear your comments on the following:

Immigration... how do we improve it? How do we get our numbers up??

Education: What do you feel the primary goal of the Education department should be?

Regional involvement: What are your ideas for improving and sustaining regional involvement on the forums? And how do we get people not just to move here, but to stay here?

[Hockeynutville]

Hmmm, are you sure 20 bucks won't do the trick?

[The Peoples of Yavanna]

Lol! ;D For shame... resorting to bribery

[Hockeynutville]

Hey now, I'm not running myself but I feel all the possibile ways to sway a vote should be out in the open

Seriously though, I agree with all your questions. You really should have dubbed it "Convince us to vote for you"

[Skwerrel]

Recruitment and retention are inseparably connected. I do not believe that just sending telegrams will greatly increase our numbers. Don't get me wrong, inviting people and getting the word out is a very important part of recruitment. We need to invite with substance. We have a lot to offer. I know that we are saying that in our messages that we send out.

Recruitment and retention are connected with our substance as a region. We, who have come to love the 10,000 Islands, know that we have a lot to offer. We should identify what makes us unique and improve those areas. To encourage activity and increase recruitment we need to also widen our base.

I feel we should expand our political process. It is one of my favorite things about this region.

I would like to see the expansion of role playing.

I love to see the contests that have recently appeared. The economic system is a great encouragement and I look forward to going into a future market place and spending my hard earned tacos.

I would like to see the a forum where only issues are discussed, both NS related and real world related. This forum would be carefully controlled by a moderator who job it was to pick topics and enforce civility (similar to the 10,000 island forum, but more focused).

We need to choose items that our solid core citizens will support. With their support we can build our base and grow. This is not a "what we are doing is fine" strategy. Is is a strategy to identify our strengths and use them to grow and retain.

The primary goal of the Education Department should be to create an experience that is worth people's time. Classes should be structured and interesting. The education initiative is a good example of a program that widens our base. It will draw people here and they will stay because they are interested in it.

We are a great region. We can become a better region. I am optimistic about the future. As a senator, I will use my excitement and optimism to solve problem and be innovative.

[XFracture]

yavanna said:

Immigration... how do we improve it? How do we get our numbers up??

yavanna said:

Regional involvement: What are your ideas for improving and sustaining regional involvement on the forums? And how do we get people not just to move here, but to stay here?

In my mind, these two items are inexplicably linked to one another. The goal of immigration is not to get people to check out our region. The goal is to integrate new nations into our region. We cannot focus only on recruitment. We must ALSO concern ourselves, perhaps even more so, with retention. In my opinion, our recruiting process (Immigration) is pretty solid. When I joined this region, the single-most important factor was the potential of the ideas and ideals set forth in the recruitment letter. While a member of the Immigration program, I saw nothing but great things.

The only things really needing improvement are the closed nature of the program and the high quotas. In my mind, we want to make it easier for people to share their excitement about this region with other. So, I would propose opening up the process to more people, with lower commitment requirements. More people doing less is often more efficient than a few doing more.

Retention is our real problem here in the islands. I think it boils down to a question of follow-thru, based on my experiences when I joined this region. We had all these great ideas and ideals expressed in the recruitment letter, but upon entering the islands, I found it close to impossible to experience any of those great things. I think this is partially due to the closed nature of the community. Newcomers, like it or not, need to be brought into the community. They already feel like a fish out of water when they join, and to only have one person embrace them as a newcomer is not a good way to encourage them to attempt to integrate.

To address these issues, I would propose some changes to the buddy program. Instead of just one buddy being assigned to a newcomer, how about 3? How about we have an “integration checklist” which lists items we feel vital for all newcomers to learn or experience at 10KI? These steps could include a minimum set of integration courses at 10KIU. How about the buddies stay with the newcomer for as long as it takes for them to go through the integration steps, instead of an arbitrary two weeks? How about we pay buddies for their time with our beloved tacos?

I would also propose a new emphasis be placed on the chatzy. This ought to be the first place people come to engage other 10KI citizens. I have a great amount of experience creating online communities. The single most important factor to my past success was real-time communication. When people can talk to multiple people, simultaneously, engaging the greater community is a lot easier. Think about it - most of us could not get along without having our AIM or MSN client on. Similarly, the real-time chat industry is still the largest form of online communication on the Internet.

I would also propose a "regulars" rank for TITO. This is where pretty much anyone can quickly join TITO, but be shielded from regional security concerns until they become more established. Most of the TITO missions I have I been here to participate in were dropped due to lack of nations ready to be deployed. The more people we open TITO to, the more people we can get in the battles. Also, a secured Chatzy room should replace AIM as the primary communication tool for battles.

I would propose to improve and expand our regional economy, and just for joining, I would give newcomers TONS of tacos! I agree with the opposition who believes that the economy (along with education) can be the key to differentiating our region for the better. But, so far, what we have is a system that seems incomplete and disjointed. I strongly support economic expansion, and welcome the opportunity to work closely with the Co9 and the RRC to develop a thriving community, lending my programming skills and real world resources to automating the program. I also firmly believe that the RRC should stand apart form the Co9. In every other real-world organization, power and money are always separate, in order to reduce temptation and abuse of power. Currently our RRC is running for senator. If elected, I will push for a governmental structure that prevents the possibility of such potential conflicts of interest.

These proposals, I believe help to bring the promises outlined so eloquently in our recruitment letter to fruition in the experience of the newcomer. When people feel integrated into a society they tend to stay. If integration is hard, they won’t. Additionally, if people do not a sense of worth and purpose, they will leave.

yavanna said:

Education: What do you feel the primary goal of the Education department should be?

I see the primary goal of education to be personal enrichment. Doing so as an online community is difficult, but I have already made proposals elsewhere in the forum, which I will link you to:

10000islands.proboards21.com/index.cgi?board=senele0106&action=display&thread=1141933860&page=1#1142225344

In closing, I am extremely optimistic about our future as a region. We have a great history and a great foundation of institutions already here. We need to evaluate how we can improve and expand them. We also need to explore new ways of making this region prosper.

No matter who is elected, I believe that the job will be handled well. One thing that I believe strongly about this election, is that even though someone will have to lose each race, the ideas that have been presented by all candidates are exceptional and ought to be seriously considered by whoever takes office after the vote.

[New Dracora]

I agree with both Skwerrel and XFracture with the views and ideas that have been presented here, I especially feel XFracture has hit the nail on the head in regards to the issues involving immigration and problems with retention (though I do feel having 3 buddies to each newcomer maybe a little impractical at this point). I do have a few things to add however...

Immigration... how do we improve it? How do we get our numbers up??

Regional involvement: What are your ideas for improving and sustaining regional involvement on the forums? And how do we get people not just to move here, but to stay here?

Put together they are the same issue

A lot of good ideas have already been put up here to address these issues. However, I'm not just a filler for the UPP - I do have a few ideas of my own.

One of those comes from an idea that was used in my old roleplaying forum back in Planetarion. (Back when it wasn't the dead zone that it is today ) That idea was a kind of safe zone - a thread specifically for newbies to post in and learn all the nuisances of the forum at large from a few more experienced posters that were regulars there. It helped to bring some newbies out of their shell and provided a good fun environment free of the threat of reprisal.

Of course it stopped working because we ran out of newbies, but then that forum doesn't have our excellent immigration team.

Anyway, what I propose is an additional forum section dedicated to newcomers. It should be a place when newcomers can introduce themselves, ask questions and meet others but most importantly it should be a place where regulars introduce themselves to newbies. It should be the common advice from buddies to at least post an introduction there, and then it would be up to the buddies to return that and basically say hello and welcome. Asking questions such as "So what brought you to the XKI?" or "What brought you to NS?" could be good icebreaker questions to be asked of newbies. At the end of the day, it would be a place under the control of the buddy program and it would be up to the buddy program to keep people talking. Newcomers are still going to be apprehensive, but less so if every else is a newcomer as well.


Another thing I want to look into is the nature of those nations that seem to reside here and are yet not "here". Basically I'm talking about those big nations that I constantly see on the top ten list but never hear a peep out of. Who are these people? I'd like to ask and get to know them and then if they are willing bring them over to the 'dark side' so to speak. My present theory is they are roleplayers... I dunno.


We also need more presence on the main NS forum itself. The place is a literal hive for roleplayers but it's also where a lot of random nations go to discuss er, random stuff. There is a section I believe dedicated purely for region advertisement - if we don't have an ad up there already then we should.


The other main issue I see is with the economic system. As XFracture pointed out, it is incomplete. At present we have a means of earning and collecting Tacos but no real means of spending them. The shop obviously needs ideas it seems, and people to follow through with them. I've always felt a flag creation shop would be a good start, and someone with enough time and art skills would be a huge help here - they could also make banners and other commissioned images. I thought about doing this myself as a way to help develop my art skills but I ain't much of an artist so yeah... we'll see.

A suggestion box would prove useful here, or a survey. Asking what people would like to be able to buy with their tacos. Of course, I foresee not many people having a clue so the senate would probably have to get inventive.

More comps would be a good thing for the region also. Things like Grubs contests and the recent arts contest provide something to do in the absence of anything else, but until tacos become relevent enough we are still going to have the low turn out we have seen so far. Never the less until such a time perhaps they can prove interesting activities for newcomers in the newcomer forum?

Lastly, as Skwerrel mentioned, a debates forum would be a good idea. It's place I can see getting heated but nothing that isn't beyond the control of the moderating staff. I've always felt the "10000 islands discussion" forum was this regions debate forum but if we give the masses a forum actually titled "debates" it will incite interest in that respect.

It would also be a good place to put up the present UN issue for discussion and vote.

Lastly - just a random idea that's been floating around in the back of my head - we could use an official greeter for all those foreign dignitories that post their updates in our embassy forum. I've always felt that such updates were pointless since no one ever reads them, but if we have a few people around whose job it is to strike up conversations with people making these posts, they might decide to look into the region further - I know from my previous emissary experience that breaking into a foreign region is not only difficult, but does not often seem worthwhile when all your friends are back in your home region. If the greeters can make friends with the foreigners, those foreigners may feel more comfortable posting in discussions on our forum.

Or they may not. *shrugs* It's just an idea.

Education: What do you feel the primary goal of the Education department should be?

Er... educating the masses? Heh. At the moment I feel that the education department really only has one goal - the university. It was pointed out that the islands have many initutions and ideas that have been around for a long time and can be built on. That is true for the university. The university has been in existance since before I was here, but apparently only now has there been any active interest. The university I feel would be a great place to learn new things but I also feel it has the potential to be another stepping stone for newcomer and foreigner alike into the region proper. Newcomers especially should be encouraged to join the university and at least take a course relating to this regions history (if there isn't one there should be). Active participation should also be encouraged, with test and quiz's regularly given.

I also feel tacos should NOT be giving out for simple attendance. If that is done, all you are going to get is a huge amount of people who sign up but never contribute. A better way would be to make every post in the University worth five posts or even ten posts - this would then give out tacos based on participation and raise they're status faster than those who do not. Good marks in test should also be rewarded as should graduation.

The same principle could also be added to other quieter areas - roleplay, debates, ambassadors, etc now that I think about it.

The university should also be well advertised, but ads should be focused on newcomers and out in the greater NS community.

The first few subjects are going to be the toughest, but once a subject has gone through to completion, that subject could be repeated with more ease next time around. So those teachers who get few students for their classes should not be discouraged, rather they can think of the first time as a kind of trial run in prepation of the many easier run-throughs that are destined to follow.


I think that's about it for added ideas from me. Basically if I get elected this is what I see myself doing 90% of the time - throwing up ideas for solutions to problems and then implementing them.

[XFracture]

Great post, ND, and great ideas.

[The Peoples of Yavanna]

Thank you all so much for taking the time to educate me on your views to my questions. I have been reading incessantly for a few days in all the campaign threads, to make sure I understand where each of the candidates are coming from. There are a lot of excellent ideas out there! ;D That is exactly what 10000 Islands need right now; just make sure that you follow through with them after elections are over .... I'm going to be "stalking" senators with questions and concerns.

Each of you has so much to contribute... let's keep moving forward, and usher in a new great era for 10000 Islands!

[Gluuland]

Yav is usually persuaded by a margarita....

[Sinn Féin's Ireland]

Hey, Welcome back. Better make it two....

[Gluuland]

Me? No, im still on vacation... Its a bit cold here in europe, so this debate is a good way to warm up....

[Sinn Féin's Ireland]

It got fairly too warm at one point, but we've all managed to rise above it.