OGO Nomination: Merlovich

The Magisterium
1

I hereby propose that we grant the Order of the Golden Ocelot, the highest order in the region, to Merlovich:

Before his instrumental role in bringing a new era to the RMB Community, Merlovich began his tenure in The East Pacific as a Valsoran Roleplayer. After being banned once in the past, Merlovich returned with a new perspective on the region, dedicated to service and community above self. He had held the title of Valsora Cartographer twice before he initiated sweeping reforms that would forever change the face of the map.

For the first time since the founding of the map, the Cartographer position was devolved into a Cartography Council. The expanded staff could produce more frequent updates and increase opportunities for RMBers to contribute to Valsora. Furthermore, however, for the first time in history, these Cartographers were elected. Through tireless campaigning and a map-wide referendum, Merlovich brought democracy to Valsora.

His work did not end there. Named Minister of Outreach under Delegate Altys and elected to replace him as the 28th Delegate of The East Pacific, Merlovich used his position in the government to bridge the divide further between the government and the RMB. Not only did he directly increase RMB representation, inspire new RMB-based government officials, and improve communication between the two, but he also played a key role in bringing the RMB Cafeteria server under Tep Network as an official community server. Considering the former animosity held by the RMB Cafeteria, this was a crucial step in Government-RMB Relations.

All things considered, Merlovich’s history in The East Pacific is a true story of dedication, hard work, and a true love for his region and his community. He has changed the Valsoran Community, and our region, forever.

—————

At this time I am accepting alterations to this proposal in order to reflect the full breadth of Merlovich’s career.

2

I am not too sure about this one.

I want to preface this by saying that Merlovich has done excellent work and his actions so far have already benefited our region greatly. To put it bluntly, he’s as equal if not much more competent player than myself, if that helps put perspective.

That being said, I am not sure he’s ready for the OGO yet. Mainly because it seems a lot of this hinges on basically 3 things: a) founding the Cartography Council, b) RMB outreach, and c) being a great Delegate.

I think my main problem is that a lot of this seems to hinge on his Delegacy, since without his Delegacy I don’t think there’s enough of a history of service. But the Delegacy isn’t strong enough to push things past the limit for me because while he has done great things as Delegate he ultimately did keep the status quo going from Altys. Which isn’t easy at all and does deserve recognition (which is why it would be a great part of an OGO for Merlo down the road), but at the same time it isn’t to the level of Altys or Lib’s Delegacies - ones that fundamentally changed the region and its mode of operations. Merlo’s Delegacy is for sure like 100x better than mine but I don’t think it’s enough to make this the strongest case it can be. For an OGO that hinges hard on a Delegacy I feel the Delegacy has to be relatively history shattering, and I don’t think Merlo’s was that.

In other words I think waiting a year or two is better, because with Merlo I’m certain he’ll continue to do amazing things that can flesh this out a bit more and make an even stronger case. I’m not a big fan of the argument that people should only be honored at the funeral of their careers, but I think letting Merlo cook a little bit more would be best for a convincing case that doesn’t seemingly rely as much on his Delegacy.

3

I don’t see it as primarily being because of the Delegacy, I just think not including that in the description would be a disservice. It’s built around what he’s done for the RMB. He brought democracy to Valsotan cartography, expanded the staff team, wrote a lot of dispatches, worked hard to increase representation in government, and was a major part of the Cafe finally becoming an official server after all these years of tension. I also see his transition to the court and Praesidium as a kinda final form like my own status right now as Magister and Vizier (he can feel free to correct me if he has more plans).

I’d also say that there’s a lot of people, myself included, who received OGOs long before they were done. I was elected Delegate two years after the Delegacy where I was given an OGO, and I would like to think that some
of my accomplishments in that time would be worthy of addendum onto the OGO. Granting the award should be based on if the nominee has standing merit and not if the nominee has peaked yet or anything.

Ultimately, while I understand that his Delegacy was maybe not comparable to Marrabuk’s or Libertanny’s, I think his achievements more than warrant an OGO, especially when, again, I received one with less accomplishments.

4

Also, Nova’s and Tuva’s OGOs I think are very comparable to at least the cartography part of this here, and that’s excluding the consideration of RMB-Gov relations or government work.

5

Then that’s what should be included in the OGO. Right now it mostly reads as Merlo doing some nice RMB/gov work but it doesn’t really sound that strong in either direction, which is why it gives the vibes of his Delegacy doing a lot of work in holding up the OGO.

I don’t see it as primarily being because of the Delegacy, I just think not including that in the description would be a disservice.

Which is valid, but I feel like this should be rewritten to be much more RMB-centric as a result. With the way it is right now it wasn’t convincing and honestly I wasn’t convinced overall merlo deserved it before you nominated him. But now that you helped me remember a lot of RMB stuff I can see a lot more clearly why he deserves one - because it’s true that he’s kinda forever altered RMB relations with the government in a way none of us have predecented before.

But that’s also why I think it needs to focus a lot more on his RMB stuff and a lot less on his gov stuff. Mention the gov stuff ofc, but if he’s primarily notable for RMB stuff then that should be in strong language and the primary focus.

Also hot take - you do not need to restrict yourself to one paragraph for the citation. I think that’s the tradition IRL and in TEP to keep it relatively short (and ig citations themselves ARE short) but considering we don’t maintain the forum thread that holds the full citations anymore they could be a page long if needed. Which would benefit Merlo in this case to really help expound on his RMB work.

Granting the award should be based on if the nominee has standing merit and not if the nominee has peaked yet or anything.

To be clear I agree with this, I was just arguing that Merlo’s case wasn’t strong enough yet and needed more time until I read the post I’m quoting now.

6

Revised. How’s this?

7

suggestions

8

If we change For to Before the semicolon has to become a comma.

9

yeah i missed that but it should happen yeah

13

I move for a vote.

14

Seconded