Use of PM's for Offical Goverment Business

[Donegeal]

It has come to my attention that there is a TREMENDOUS amount of work done via PM's at the govermental level. Code Name Vodka, "such a good deal" and the like are all good ideas. They were also never disscused with the population. Yes, two heads are better then one, but 30 heads are better then 2. If you think you have a good idea, go and make a post in the respective Governmental minister thread and hash it out with all. This is a Democracy Game. We should all have a say in things, even if it is a quick, "I agree".

Also, the use of PM's for governmental duties (of which I am guilty) makes for upsetting citizens who might have struck a deal with a Minister and then that deal falls through for some reason. The current example is the galleys to be made in Hole In The Wall. According to one person, a deal was made to have the city produce a western fleet. The Minister who agreed with that deal was unable to attend the turnchat and he assigned the duties to someone else. Since that someone else wasn't aware of the PM deal struck, he did not follow the deal. The mistake is no ones. The situation should have been throughly discussed in an Official Ministers (topped) thread. Yes, the Hole In the Wall situation was discussed publicly to a small degree, but was never decided upon openly.

I propose that Each Elected Minister set up an Official Office Thread (to be topped by our prOphEt) that is open for discussion of matters relating to that office. I also feel that this thread should start with an Office directory similar to the forum directory (ie: CP would have links to all provincial threads and links to other CP related discussions; MoS would have links to Area 25 and to Sci related discussions.).

I also belive that this will make the flow of information better and make it so a Minister of Information might not neccisarily be needed.

Please discuss.

(note: I am not saying never use PM's just don't do so much with them. Let other people know your Ideas.)

[Duddha]

well put

[Shiber]

I must admit that I am also guilty of such demeanor. I have spoken with ministers via PM many times and I am currently sending my recommendations as overseas exploration advisor directly to Aggie.
However, I couldn't agree more with Donegeal's point. This is just as bad as the "shadow governments" that some party members have tried to impose on us. I for one intend to open an official overseas exploration thread after today's turnchat.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Re: Use of PM's for Offical Goverment Business

Originally posted by donegeal
It has come to my attention that there is a TREMENDOUS amount of work done via PM's at the govermental level. Code Name Vodka, "such a good deal" and the like are all good ideas.

Code Name Vodka was discussed on no less than 5 threads for a period of 2 months.

Just to set the facts straight. Details of Vodka were virtually NEVER discussed by PM, almost exclusively done on threads.

The code name part was more a prank than anything else.

[UnOrthOdOx]

I am flat out against the topping of seven additional threads. Why?

Why does it need to be topped?
Is it so hard to use a thread and let it die when not being discussed?
Can we not use the appropriate forum for discussion: IE, the War Academy, Machiavelli Inst, Adam Smith Foundation, City Council, and whatever else is needed?
Why use a 1/4 of the front page for something needed occasionally?

WE HAVE ONE FORUM!

We don't need to clutter the front page with all these topped office threads when we can as easily simply open a discussion for whatever plan and then let the thread die. For that matter, you can open these office threads and let them be bumped when needed, and die when not. They are all linked to in the directory, and easily found that way. Why do we need these topped?!

Yes, get the discussion in the open, but do NOT top more than neccessary.

[Apocalypse]

A better idea would be to just post orders for everything in the orders thread. That is a simple thing that still isn't being done.

[Arnelos]

I agree with Unortho about not topping the threads... such matters should be discussed in threads rather than PMs, but we needn't top a bunch more threads... we have too many topped threads already (though part of that is the election).

[GodKing]

Guilty.

Note, the recent problem with hole in the wall is not one of communicating via PM's, but a simple misunderstanding.

This is what I had agreed to:
1) move the city south to have access to the ocean and a wheat square
2) start on a temple, when some shields had been added and funds available, purchase (no time frame given, just when available)
3) PW was to try and send a worker from france area to connect to the road system, along with developing mines and what not. If not able to send one, we would build one here as soon as feasable and it would stay in this area til its max work was complete.
4) start on a harbor, to assist in growth and be able to build a western fleat. Harbor was to be purchased when funds became available, which might not be til after other locations had temples and/or courthouses rushed (such as new persia and uber isle).
5) After harbor, a decision was to be made if it was worth wild to build a small fleet, or to start on items such as a courthouse or cathedral. As this was several turns in the future with government change, american war, etc. to still occur, accurate predictions could not be made.

This was not discussed via PM, but in the last turnchat I had attended. As I was not using the Queue function, but simply posting orders for the next 5 turns, this problem arised as I have not been able to do the last 3 orders (my bad).

As E_T is scheduled to take over the CP position, I have already communicated to him that I will do a memo with what I had planned regarding such things as this, along with all agreements, etc, that I had made (all were public I think...., but best to jot them down in one place for reference). Hopefully the problem with my computer will get fixed in the next day or two.

GK

[E_T]

Originally posted by GodKing
Guilty.

Note, the recent problem with hole in the wall is not one of communicating via PM's, but a simple misunderstanding.

This is what I had agreed to:
1) move the city south to have access to the ocean and a wheat square

This was done before I had taken the last turnchat for GK.

2) start on a temple, when some shields had been added and funds available, purchase (no time frame given, just when available)

When I did the Queue's, I had wondered about HIW building a Harbor. But because of several issues, one being financial for Rushes and also the proxcimity of the Roman city, I had desided to change it to Temple and rush that. HIW had expanded borders by the beginning of this turnchat (580AD) cycle.

3) PW was to try and send a worker from france area to connect to the road system, along with developing mines and what not. If not able to send one, we would build one here as soon as feasable and it would stay in this area til its max work was complete.

I had then put a worker into the queue for two reasons, time and the impending war with France & the need to have the city Grow by having connected to our trade network via Rome. I had originally planned to rush this in 590AD for 20L. Funds were refused by the MoE for this, but after decussion during turnchat, The VP had decided to rush this in 580AD for 24L. HIW is now getting Luxes & Resouces

4) start on a harbor, to assist in growth and be able to build a western fleat. Harbor was to be purchased when funds became available, which might not be til after other locations had temples and/or courthouses rushed (such as new persia and uber isle).

My original plan was to build a spearman/pikeman next, hoping to rush as a spearman before the trade network was up and therby reduse the cost. HIW is currently behind enemy lines (will be) and I've PMed the SMC about how we can possibly get some
additional forces there. The defencive unit was incase actual timing of events didn't work out. Also the SMC had requested having 2 Mil units for each border city.

As DFM for Trade, there have been some thread discussions that I haven't been a part of, either for time constraints or interest. Some of them, because of the titles, I haven't even read. I remember seeing a thread about needing more ships, but never even opened it to see what it was about. I'm figuring here that some of the discussions that GhengisFarb have allured to are in that thread.

HIW has been changed to Harbor. Rushing it will be depending on the Funds request to the MoE. There are a lot of our cities that are in near catastrophic corruption/waste and with us in Republic and needing funds to help increase our Technology Research, these still have some priority.

We did Rush the Harbor in AGC on Uber and with Astronomy, Uber is now part of our Trade network. Not all of it's cities are connected yet, but but we have an increasing worker force there that is working on it.

5) After harbor, a decision was to be made if it was worth wild to build a small fleet, or to start on items such as a courthouse or cathedral. As this was several turns in the future with government change, american war, etc. to still occur, accurate predictions could not be made.

one of the nice things about queue's is that not only can you look at the expected build plans for the future, but they can be changed, as was done during the turnchat with Termina, at the Request of the SMC.

This was not discussed via PM, but in the last turnchat I had attended. As I was not using the Queue function, but simply posting orders for the next 5 turns, this problem arised as I have not been able to do the last 3 orders (my bad).

As E_T is scheduled to take over the CP position, I have already communicated to him that I will do a memo with what I had planned regarding such things as this, along with all agreements, etc, that I had made (all were public I think...., but best to jot them down in one place for reference). Hopefully the problem with my computer will get fixed in the next day or two.

GK

I await your memo and I hope that any changes that have already been done, fit you overall objectives for the nation.

E_T

[joncnunn]

I checked the front page.
Currently over half the front page is a toped thread. (Due to elections)

If an additional 7 threads were toped, there would be very little else left there during elections.

[Donegeal]

The topping thing was just sorta thrown out there and was not meant to be a main topic... Its the use of PM's for governmentel business that I think is the problem. Even if the PM is "should we be working tile x over tile y" it should get posted somewhere in an official Ministry thread so the general public knows that the issue was at least discussed.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

The entire purpose of building the harbor first is that it would give the benifit of veteran ships, connecting to the capital AND all of its resources AND luxuries. Thus allowing its units to upgrade to the best available to us.

We instead built a worker, which will take FAR MORE than one turn to connect us to the capital and resources. We could have a Pikeman and be building a second Pikeman/Musketman right now if the harbor orders had been followed. This effectively wasted shields and put Holeinthewall at defensive risk.

A worker is not superior to a harbor in this case. The change was an extremely poor decision.

[Donegeal]

Actually with the road connected to Rome, Hole is there by connected to our resourses and lux via our connection to Rome. Hole has all the lux and can build Muskets or a harbor or what ever we want.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by donegeal
Actually with the road connected to Rome, Hole is there by connected to our resourses and lux via our connection to Rome. Hole has all the lux and can build Muskets or a harbor or what ever we want.

The worker had to move to the tile and then build the road. It would have already been connected if it had built a harbor instead of a road. But this is the real issue:

I was the Regional Administrator for Holeinthewall.

It was my job as such to determine its production and tile use. I did. I did it on time and posted it in GKs order thread and pmd it to GK.

GK then compiled the orders. The orders were given to ET. ET changed the orders because he didn't feel like the CP or the RA mattered.

I pmd ET about the change and informed him I was the RA for Holeinthewall and I had put those orders in because after weeks of thread discussion it was agreed that it was the most effecient plan.

ET once again stated that he didn't care and was going to do what HE thought was best.

I just looked at the log from the turnchat and discovered that ET lied to Apoc about the situation and claimed it was merely a pm from me to GK when HE KNEW ALL ALONG THAT IT HAD BEEN A POSTED ORDER.

Not only did he willing change orders from elected officials, but he lied to get his wishes done. This is NOT the kind of actions I want in an elected official.

[Apocalypse]

If we had rushed the Habor in Hole then we might not have had the funds to pull of the tech deal. We definantly would not have been able to rush the Temple in San Cortes and it would have taken even longer to rush the settler in AGC (which will probably be this turn).

It may not have been the best choice of E_T, but it wasn't all bad. You people must make sure you aren't narrowing your vision. Worse things have happened. I am really not too upset about this part, even though I was lied to apparently. My real life has been pretty ****ty and if I got horribly upset over everything that went wrong, I'd never recover. Instead I just try to find something I can use in every problem I encounter.

What I am incredibly upset about is that it wasted my time. I am very busy. Today was a day off for me yet I've been working my ass off almost non stop for the past 16 hours doing this, college applications, yard work, and getting ready for the debate tournament I mentioned earlier. I am also banking on a hope that I will not have a Holocaust paper due tommarow.