Also proposing to repeal the resolutions honoring Xoriet and Pax.
Following discussions held in the Ministry of Outreach, I present all of the above ideas as this proposal.
Can/should we compel a community to create and administer awards?
The Urth and RMB communities can determine their award system to be non-existent as far as the act is concerned. They have conplete autonomy for what shape it takes. The RMB community is apparently willing to cooperate here if I understood Merlo correctly. Urth already has an awards system in place. This is designed to bring all awards together in one place with a new awards system.
Alrighty. And my last concern was a far more major and far more subjective one - I’d prefer if Merit was divided into FA, Culture, WA, News, Legislation, Arbitration, Security, etc
I prefer this way. All achievements this way are ranked equal to one another. FA, EPSA, Magisterium, etc. have no distinctions. Distinct awards would also have awards with so few members that they just don’t look valuable. A single order with tiers, to me, would be more desirable to attain.
I think we need some kind of small award that can be easily received and given to show gratitude and hard work. I don’t think it’s a great thing to just have one highly selective award, because then people can miss out on recognition because they may not meet the Order of Merit’s standards. I think more specific awards help out with that as well (i.e. what Aiv said for Magi, EPSA, etc.), since they help recognize achievement in specific areas and possible could be given multiple times (whilst the Order of Merit is once per tier).
Awards shouldn’t just be about selectivity, but selectivity balanced with recognizing people who haven’t had the chance yet to work 5 years in TEP. But I fear having just one legalized award is going to mean people who may only do work for one or two del terms may never get official recognition, or that their recognition will be seen as less through an Executive-created award compared to a legislative one. Goodness knows we sometimes suck at even giving informal recognition and gratitude at times. We shouldn’t prioritize making our awards look fancy and balanced over actually giving people recognition they deserve.
It may also lead to an opposite scenario where the Order of Merit gets flooded with nominees because there’s no other fully legal award and Delegates may not be willing to create a billion new awards or find old ones. It’s why Libertanny awarded the most OGOs in TEP’s history. This could potentially lead to a similar situation in the future. Smaller and less exclusive awards preserve the selectivity of the Order of Merit.
I’m also not nessecarily a fan of removing Pax and XOr’s resolutions. Don’t think we need to standardize everything to such an extent so as to repeal their specific resolutions. Nothing is hurt if they’re honored in two resolutions compared to one.
I’m firmly against the fragmentation of awards. This was what was used last time, many disparate awards, and it fell into disuse with personal Delegate awards taking their place. The Order of Merit is designed to be a singular replacement for the disparate awards that is hopefully strong enough to kill the idea of personal Delegate awards.
A major problem with disparate awards is that they are difficult to manage and hand as they are attained. We had this problem last time.
One universal award is easier to manage and hand as it is warranted.
For selectivity, if sensibly done, makes reaching an award more rewarding. Multiple smaller awards that are more easily attainable just wouldn’t be as prestigous or motivating.
To preserve selectivity, my idea is the awarding of it solely on recent activity, within the this year, and future activity. And that actions someone takes as Delegate to be excluded from consideration of their induction. Everything before this year is irrelevant as my idea of this award stands.
This should make the members list slim.
If you want added selectivity, I can add a clause that repeals someone’s award if they have lost residency for longer than 30 days or so. Similar to how a deceased person is removed from an awards list in real life.
I’m in favor of repealing Xoriet’s and Pax’s resolutions to consolidate their recognition into one. It’s simply a matter of reducing the number of resolutions and standardisation, which I’m a strong believer in.
I will include a provision soon to include special event badges like Z-Day, N-Day, EPSA operations, etc. since I forgot to.
No.
and it fell into disuse with personal Delegate awards taking their place.
Any Delegate who has given awards has at least given one of the minor awards. Altys gave the mentorship to Sammy iirc, Shadow and Aiv and Atlae gave none, Aurora gave out mentorship, I used a couple, and before any of these awards existed Lib made his own.
Personal awards don’t seemingly replace more selective awards, but are used in conjunction with them. So unless you mean something different by personal awards… no, they haven’t. The issue is more on individual Delegates caring to give awards at all (if so, they usually make at least one of their own + use the law awards) or give none at all.
A major problem with disparate awards is that they are difficult to manage and hand as they are attained.
What do you mean by difficult to manage?
For selectivity, if sensibly done, makes reaching an award more rewarding. Multiple smaller awards that are more easily attainable just wouldn’t be as prestigous or motivating.
Sure, but IMO that’s worth it. I think the slight loss in recognition for the limited number of people who get the Order is far outweighed by the recognition given to the larger number of people who may never truly be worthy of the Order, yet deserve some form of recognition or something they can look to with pride.
TEP is not just about the super stars who succeed in everything and outshine the brightest sun - the people who do the small things well or consistently deserve recognition too (and not just words in a statement, but something they can show off and be happy about… i.e. an award). But a highly selective general award is probably only going to really award the former and not the latter - otherwise it wouldn’t be selective.
I get there’s three tiers and theoretically that should somewhat avoid this, but I think it’s possible the conception of the Order itself being the only official gov award will mitigate that implied inclusivity the tiers give. Seems to have done so in Thaecia at least.
To preserve selectivity, my idea is the awarding of it solely on recent activity, within the this year, and future activity.
How will you enforce this, considering this system could last years past when you or I or most TEPers leave NS?
Not that I really agree with this anyways - I think the top tier award of our system should focus on one’s career and one’s overall benefits to TEP, not just whether someone had a superstar year.
Unless… you’re proposing a removal of any sort of top tier award? Based on how the Act read, it seems the Order of Merit isn’t like the OGO in the sense of being a supreme award, but just a small gov one. In which case, not sure what to think of that yet.
If you want added selectivity, I can add a clause that repeals someone’s award if they have lost residency for longer than 30 days or so. Similar to how a deceased person is removed from an awards list in real life.
No thanks. I’m arguing for less selectivity, not more.
I’m in favor of repealing Xoriet’s and Pax’s resolutions to consolidate their recognition into one. It’s simply a matter of reducing the number of resolutions and standardisation, which I’m a strong believer in.
Seems we disagree on that matter.
In any case, so long as there are no less exclusive and smaller awards, I oppose this proposal and I would encourage every Magister to do the same. We should not make our award system more exclusive just to make our awards seem more prestigious. (I also oppose the repeals of Xor/Pax’s resolutions, but that’s a more personal perference than anything).
Can we theme the Res as OGO?
there wont be so few if we (a) take more action to honor ppl and (b) make ogo more exclusive
i disagree with everything you just said.
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the way to stop personal delegate awards from replacing other awards is not to get rid of other awards, it’s to ban personal delegate awards
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you cannot simultaneously want selectivity and try to fight the practice of few ppl having each award.
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your idea of awarding based on recent activity isnt gonna solve everything because delegates arent gonna go by your ideas, they’re gonna do what they think is best.
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if you dont want actions as delegate to contribute to awards, SPLINTER THE AWARDS AND MAKE ONE FOR EXCELLENCY IN THE DELEGACY
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removing awards after nations cte sucks. suddenly tep doesnt care about anything people do if they stop playing? cte’d nations can keep wasc commends but yet cant have regional awards?
TEP needs a new reward system. The old one is decrepit, uninspiring, bloated, and was such a weak system that it was easily superseded by the personal Delegate awards handed out at the end of every Delegate’s reign. This new system is supposed to be more durable than the last, novel, have a stronger emphasis on publicity, be more exclusive, and get the RMB and Urth communities to get recognition of their stars.
The old system has collapsed. The OGO was awarded far too often and became bloated. The smaller awards meant to recognise smaller contributions in a wider field became unutilised and lacked prestigiousness. Those awards became uninspiring, no incentive came from them. The killing blow was the personal Delegate awards which de facto replaced the system. The old system was so badly organised that no one has a list of all the awards and their awardees. There was no centralization and systematic record keeping.
No matter what arguments or how eloquent they are, the old system is a failure. Slap paint on a corpse, it is still a corpse. No amount of theoretical arguments can change that they failed and a new system is needed.
Many smaller awards are not a good idea. Practically, because they failed anyway. Theoretically, because they would lack any prestige and desire.
The Order of Merit is meant to discard the past. It is a new award system for the recent past and the future. Those whose achievements were in the past can keep their previous awards. Nothing in this Act forbids them from displaying them. It is meant to favour new people and active people. If people really want, I can add a historical award which is what I personally prefer over the resolution. The idea of removing awards upon a certain amount of time of losing residency is meant to add exclusivity and push the idea of it being for the new and active further. Ultimately, I do not care one way or the other about auto-removals. It was a throwaway idea.
The first rank of The Order of Merit is meant to be more exclusive than the OGO. The second rank is meant to be roughly less exclusive than the OGO. And the third rank is meant to be more freely given. Since it is hierarchical, there is a more natural incentive the climb the ranks of merit than there would be in the old system.
Each awardee would have their award and reasoning listed in the pinned dispatch so it is easily viewable for everyone. This would be a lot more public-facing, and consequently more encouraging for people to attain, than a thread in the forums and we would be able to format it to look a lot nicer as well.
The above makes many smaller awards difficult to manage and is another reason why I oppose it and will add it to the proposal.
Each awardee is also meant to have their award handed to them personally by the Delegate as they earn it both to make the impact of their award more significant and to encourage others.
Urth and the RMB community also get their notables recognised in the same dispatch. They can decide how they want their awards system to work, if any. Whatever they decide, the government will add it to the dispatch without quarrel, granting their members the same honours as the government’s members.
EPSA service, Z-Day, and N-Day awards will also have their sections in the dispatch but any additional awards, such as the personal Delegate awards, have no place on there. This will both discourage them and render their impact less.
All of this is meant to work together to create a more lasting system. No system can be guaranteed to survive until the end of time. This, at least, aims to be significantly stronger than the previous awards system.
You can disagree but I challenge you to present a better system that does all of that as elegantly as possible. A new awards system is needed and it needs to be as strong, durable, desirable, and it should include the RMB and Urth communities as much as is reasonable. This is the best attempt we in the Ministry of Outreach have made.
it was easily superseded by the personal Delegate awards handed out at the end of every Delegate’s reign.
I’m still confused what you mean by this. Do you mean that personal Delegate awards were given alongside the other awards - and by that fact alone, they depreciated the value of the other awards by the mere existence of the personal Delegate awards?
The smaller awards meant to recognise smaller contributions in a wider field became unutilised
In some sense, this is true. But I think this is probably more because the fields some awards were given for have fallen less active and didn’t really get new individuals who deserved awards. But does that mean we should cease recognizing people for the work they did when such an area was active - and could be again in the future?
lacked prestigiousness. Those awards became uninspiring,
To you.
no incentive came from them.
I do think you’re right that there’s less incentive because of smaller awards. But I think that’s a good thing. As I said prior, I think giving official recognition to more people is more important than creating a carefully crafted system of prestige that ultimately will probably not do much better (assuming you accept internal motivation is generally more effective than external motivation. I do.)
The killing blow was the personal Delegate awards which de facto replaced the system.
I’m still confused why you think personal Delegate awards killed the system. Especially considering they’ve always been used in conjunction with those awards or not at all.
Which Delegates since Libertanny have given formal personalized awards yet no awards from the system during their Delegacy?
The old system was so badly organised that no one has a list of all the awards and their awardees.
I mean… I did. It is buried, admittedly, but it exists.
There was no centralization and systematic record keeping.
Ironically, that was to generate some selectivity. I can see why having no formal records is a bad thing though, and honestly I do like that your system has a centralized dispatch.
No amount of theoretical arguments can change that they failed and a new system is needed.
The issue is, in some ways (i.e. personal Delegate awards), you haven’t proven that it has failed in a way that your new system fixes. But there are some things your system does fix (like creating centralized records), admittedly - though even that’s less fix and more a change in direction. So framing it as a fix isn’t the best thing.
Practically, because they failed anyway.
Why have they failed?
Theoretically, because they would lack any prestige and desire.
You’re right they lack prestige, but I’m unsure why that’s an issue - we don’t every award we give to be a Nobel Piece Prize. A better argument to make would be that they detract prestige from the top level award like the OGO. But I still don’t see why that’s too much of an issue - the OGO or equivalent will still be pretty prestigious regardless if you make it unambiguously the best award (and perhaps have something to distinguish it from the rest, like how the OGO was the only one to have records and a ribbon).
As for desire… maybe small awards aren’t desirable like the OGO, but they can certainly be meaningful and good at bringing recognition to someone. At least for me personally, there’s been periods of a month or greater over the years where I felt the little I did/do in TEP is not appreciated at all. I can tell you that Aurora granting me the mentorship award meant a lot - I had no idea people valued that I was welcoming people once, and it meant a lot to me. And assuming I’m not a special unique case, I presume others feel the same way. Awards tell you your contributions matter. Limiting the number of opportunities we can give someone an award inherently gives us less opportunities to formally tell them their contributions matter.
Which is pretty important considering most of us really suck saying thank you in a deep, meaningful way in everyday times that comes more easily with awards.
In any case, the prestige I get from any of my awards isn’t primarily from their selectivity, it’s that someone thought I deserved them and gave it to me. Selectivity does play a role - but not nearly as a strong one. I personally don’t care that 39 people (and possibly more in the future depending on how your bill goes) got an OGO - I’m proud of mine even if I kinda feel like I don’t deserve it, because it shows this region formally values what I’ve done for it. Which feels nice.
It is meant to favour new people and active people.
Which I think personally sucks. Awards should certainly be awarded primarily to active people (sans times when people may have not gotten awarded for past work). But they should also be a point of pride for people who are no longer active, as gateways to learn more about the achievements of a certain individual that is no longer active. We shouldn’t disregard people, nor their recognition, merely because they’re no longer active - and that includes ensuring the principles of our system don’t do that.
Those whose achievements were in the past can keep their previous awards. Nothing in this Act forbids them from displaying them.
No, but removing the legal force of those awards does do something. It detracts some meaning from those awards, because it feels like people who had those awards no longer matter. They’re old news - old stuff, and we don’t care about them to the point that we don’t care to legitimize the recognition we once gave them.
It’s a weird thing, but I also think it’s inevitable if we want to change our system and we shouldn’t be limited by it. But just wanted to note that.
such as the personal Delegate awards, have no place on there. This will both discourage them and render their impact less.
It’s sad that you’re aiming to negate the stopgap that could potentially help the people who wouldn’t receive recognition under your system.
Not that I disagree with this idea specifically, but I don’t think we should try shooting down personal Delegate awards in general. Just raise the legal ones up in another level.
You can disagree but I challenge you to present a better system that does all of that as elegantly as possible.
I doubt you’d like any form of system I could come up with, since our principles diverge so significantly, but my attempt I guess.
If I were to make an award system, I’d want to:
- Focus on recognition over prestige. I’m not saying prestige isn’t important, but awards should be more about saying thank you than motivating people to do more work for an award - my belief.
- There should be a top tier award that overrides everything. I think it’s nice if there’s at least one award that overshadows every other award from all parts of TEP. The OGO currently serves this role - some way to unite the communities together by claiming greats from all parts of TEP, not just the gov side.
- There has to be a way to honor historical greats - legally. If we accept that awards established by law tend to grant more and mean more than awards generated spontaneously by Delegates, then it makes sense to honor people who’ve done a lot historically for our region and we should do so by a legal mechanism. There’s also more than 20 of them, so selectivity is a bit of an issue, but I think that’s mostly a bullet we have to bite.
- We need semi-selective awards. - While I don’t value selectivity over recognition, I do agree selectivity plays a role.
So my proposal would be:
- Per your suggestion, create a centralized record dispatch for all awards.
- Give a special epithet (smth like “Pillar of the East Pacific” to avoid the nobility connotations titles like Lord tend to give) to people who are listed in your resolution proposed, and ensure no other award gets an epithet (nor that the Delegate can make ones spontaneously). Have it so to be given that epithet (and included in the resolution), those people need to be nominated by anyone, go to vote in the Magi, and then get confirmed by a referendum. This would be less selective in numbers, but more specific in terms of process and what they get. This will be the top-tier award. The resolution will be listed in the awards dispatch, as well as all their names.
- RMB and Urth will do their own awards and get included in the dispatch.
- The Order of Merit will be the government’s highest award, beneath Pillar of the East Pacific (or w/e). 1 tier, can only be given once. Given when proper, not at end of term, ideally.
- The government will also have a variety of smaller awards covering broad areas (culture [including UTEP and cards as they are unique things but could fall under culture], FA, WA, EPSA, mentorship, newbie recognition) that the Executive can award as many times as it wants. These will be given at the end of terms.
So you’ll generate a basically 3 tiered system:
- Highest: title
- Second: order of merit
- Third: Small awards given repeatedly.
I think that develops some form of external motivation in 3 tiers (small numerous awards to the big gov award to the big awesome award and the only one with a full unique title and your name in psuedo-legislation), while simultaneously making sure people who aren’t epic powerplayers can et some recognition.
The existing system was difficult to manage. Hence why it was so easily supplanted by personal Delegate awards which were easier to manage. Delegate awards are easier to manage since they are as centralised and concentrated as it gets; one award straight from the hand of one individual.
Personal Delegate awards are not good. They replaced the last system of formal awards. They may add incentive and will always have a degree of prestige considering where they are from, but they immediately degrade the institutional awards system. That is bad.
Personal Delegate awards and an institutionalised awards system are irreconcilable. The former supplanted the latter and then rendered it less potent, eventually killing it. The pinned dispatch with personalised notes recording awards is meant to fix this.
The smaller awards, meant to recognise smaller contributions write unutilised because of the Delegate awards supplanted them. The fields of FA, welcoming newcomers, EPSA, RP, and other government work didn’t fall inactive. That is false. The awards fell into disuse because managing so many awards is a lot more complex than one. The evidence against disparate awards is there by our own example. I will not support their return.
I was never inspired by the awards. They are flatly uninspiring. This is without a doubt the same for the majority of people. Not only are the awards lacking prestige, most people in all probability cannot name them all to begin with and may not even be aware they exist.
I also completely reject the idea that external motivation matters less than internal motivation. I firmly believe the reverse, that motivation generated externally is a lot more important in most people’s cases than any motivation generated internally. There are countless IRL examples, from Hannibal telling his men that fortune was across the Alps to Napoleon’s men carrying batons in their knapsacks.
Prestige and desire go hand in hand. Too many awardees degrades prestige, which then degrades the desire to attain them. Exclusivity is a necessity for this system to be motivating.
A personalised note both adds additional prestige to an award and is significantly better at recognition than a dozen smaller awards.
Award systems should favor new and active people. We are already lacking fresh people. Anything to retain the few we can get them is a good thing. I stated before, recognition of old awards can be done with a section in the dispatch dedicated to historical awards. I favor this solution over your resolution. No meaningful “legitimacy” is lost this way.
Again, where is this evident? What Delegate has given only personal awards and none of the Pacificum Orientale Act awards?
And how does nuking smaller awards even encourage the ditching of such Delegate awards? Theoretically it’d encourage more such awards - like we saw happen with Libertanny.
The awards fell into disuse
They only fall into disuse so long as the Delegate feels like awarding something or not. Altys awarded Sammy the mentorship award at the start of his first term, ftr.
This is without a doubt the same for the majority of people.
You can’t say that without a doubt. I mean, I can’t say they’re inspiring for most people either, so you got me on that. But based on my personal experience, they mean something to me. So they probably are inspiring to other people. The question is how many, which can’t be easily answered.
nonetheless, not “without a doubt”.
Not only are the awards lacking prestige, most people in all probability cannot name them all to begin with and may not even be aware they exist.
So? I doubt most RMBers or Forum RPers could even tell you the OGO exists - even with Dylan having it in his pfp for years and Sammy in his sig.
I guess having one award could fix that to some extent, but I doubt it’s going to make as much of a difference as you think it would. This isn’t a good example of why smaller awards are less prestigous, not that I care about that fact.
that motivation generated externally is a lot more important in most people’s cases than any motivation generated internally.
I don’t really agree when it comes to a game, since usually external motivation for NS is more political positions. Awards that grant prestige could be a factor, but I don’t think it’s as strong a motivator as you think.
In any case, ig this is a point we just gotta agree to disagree on.
Prestige and desire go hand in hand. Too many awardees degrades prestige, which then degrades the desire to attain them. Exclusivity is a necessity for this system to be motivating.
Based on my previous words, I can thus say I personally don’t think prestige should be as important as overall recognition. IG this is another “agree to disagree”, but I think there’s more value in actually thanking people for their service in comparison to just using awards as a carrot to garner more work from people.
Award systems should favor new and active people. No meaningful “legitimacy” is lost this way.
Awards should primarily be given to active people, yes. But they should also be a record of past contributors. We shouldn’t forget the work of people who came before us and made this region possible in the first place. And inherently speaking, shoving their recognition away in a legal spotlight (i.e. turning the OGO from a high-teir award to a historical oddity) is inherently stripping that legitimacy, regardless of what one thinks.
Overall, we’re probably arguing in circles so I won’t respond further. But I stand by my previous sentiment: as it stands, this proposal is not a good idea because it a) considers prestige over meaningful recognition for more minor work, b) fails to account for recognition in smaller government areas, and c) encourages pushing aside and lessening the recognition of the work of our forbears merely to create a doubtful motivation structure for newer players.
I encourage all Magisters to vote against it.
Note I am writing a counterproposal which I will share with the Magisterium, and particularly Vussul, when it is complete. I wish to address some of the issues Vussul takes with our current system without completely uprooting it or undoing the parts which I believe work/can work.
So we will have to agree to disagree then.
I maintain the old system and any system modelled after it will has failed and will fail. This new system will fix that and grant more recognition and prestige than anything else.
I will be interested to see what you can weld together out of two drastically different ideas.
This proposal is tabled.