Post by The Red Factions on Sept 20, 2004 16:24:52 GMT
1)Pope Hope, you have been quite a prominent, powerful and most influential member of the ADN. Who are you really? Tell us a bit more about yourself and could you please tell us what lead you here? Why you joined and what plans you had in mind when becoming Director? Are you satisfied with the results?
OOC? The brief and generalized rundown: I am a full-time student who continues to add majors or minors to her agenda. I'm a writer and a musician; a very loyal friend.
IC, I am the leader of a nation of Hopians who value the environment and respect animal life. They are very spiritual people, and are very outspoken about keeping Civil Rights and Freedoms a priority in Pope Hope. I tend to role play my main character, High Queen Pope Hope IV, as my RL persona: honest, fun loving, and very emotionally attached to her people.
Pope Hope first came to the ADN after Nasicournia was attacked multiple times by invaders. I was elected to the delegate position, and shortly thereafter, our founder ceased to exist. Our oldest allies of Cannabis Island repelled the first invasion of Nasicournia. At this time, CI was a member of the ADN, and shortly thereafter, we were asked to join. Meanwhile, I recruited to raise the population of our region from 16 nations to the count you see now, and added a recruit region consisting of a good number of permanent residents itself. Still, we were vulnerable. I had become pretty active in the ADN right away, and found a passion in Intelligence gathering. As Nasicournia continued to be threatened, we were also stalked, and especially myself. The ADN worked in coalition with the OSA on a top-secret mission to stop the attackers, which was successful. What they did was very dangerous and incredibly generous, and hence my devotion and loyalty to the ADN began. From that moment on, I threw myself into revitalizing the Intelligence department and getting as active as I possibly could in every way possible. I worked hard and was hence made Director of the ADN by Phoenix in late December/early January.
When I became Director, my goal was to revitalize the ADN. Activity was down, bickering was prevalent, and our organization structure needed a major security overhaul. While I am in no way completely satisfied as of yet, I am happy with a lot of the extreme progress we made. Our membership doubled, the addition of more OOC forums helped to form closer bonds between our members, and our diplomatic relations with the international community at large increased tenfold. Finally, people were noticing the good things accomplished by the ADN, and Ambassadors from other regions and defender organizations began reaching out to us. Defender Unity is one of the achievements that I am the most proud to have helped accomplish.
I know that our departmental organization improved drastically, although we never quite got everything organized enough due to bureaucratic holdups. Our Intelligence Department remains ranked among the best in the NS community.
I also tried to instill democracy in the Alliance Defense Network. Members of the ADN drafted a Constitution, which every region in the ADN revised and voted on. It was ratified by vast majority and went into effect towards the beginning of this year. I had very high hopes with taking more power to the people, but what we discovered was that the Constitution ended up causing the above-mentioned bureaucracy, and a stigma for "title grabbing" that interfered with our true cause of defending. This, of course, has led us to where we find ourselves today.
2) Concerning the drastic measures recently taken, can you please explain why you declared martial law?
Despite what narrow-minded critics of the ADN will tell you, I'm very straightforward and honest about our strengths and failures. I still believe the ADN has been successful in many wonderful ways, but we had hit a point of stagnation. As a result, inner turmoil started boiling to the surface, and it really looked like we might implode. Drastic measures were necessary.
My PM inbox is normally jammed full with 40+ messages a day. In the days leading up to the decision to invoke martial law, tensions between member regions boiled to a dangerous point, and I was approached by an incredibly large number of members from most of our member regions with the idea of martial law. It was the members of the ADN, not me, that finally decided enough was enough. Before that point, I really didn't know what to do.
3)Why did you keep these orders of martial law under wraps? Would the revelation that you planned on doing this change anything? For how long have you been planning this?
It would have caused mass chaos. You must understand that there were a lot of agendas floating around the ADN at this point in time. Everyone was trying to take over, and as a result, they were stepping over each other trying to get something done. If the whole ADN had known from the start that these changes were coming, nothing would have really changed.
I wasn't immediately convinced that martial law would be the ultimate outcome. You see, I'm dubious about ever taking any decisive action on my own. I knew I wanted to move forums, so I invited a large number of trusted ADN members to come over and help me get everything organized before the move would be initiated. In the process, we began a discussion about what was wrong with the ADN, and how we could begin fixing it.
I've seen a lot of conjecture that "Pope Hope is a dictator now oh no." I want to be honest and tell you...so many people asked me to just take over as a dictator. Seriously. But I would never want that for this organization, and ultimately I wouldn't act as one anyway, so I asked many members of the ADN what they thought should be done. They answered me in huge IM conferences, PMs, and on the ADN forum in posts that were visible to everyone. They basically said "It's broken beyond repair. PH, please do something to fix it because we've done all we can." So I did.
4)Do you feel that perhaps you may have violated the trust of the people by making regional leaders stay hush on the matter of martial law?
No, I do not. I regret that it had to happen that way, but in doing so, we have provided a much smoother transition into the new ADN. The regional leaders who were present in helping me construct the new board were a mixture of most of the active regions in the ADN, if anything, they stayed on to make sure their regional interests were represented. In fact, most of the leaders present were from the large group who effectively cornered me about doing this in the first place.
5)What do you say to people who think this move was orchestrated to be as politically expedient as possible. So much so that any dissent would be a moot point ?
It isn't about dissent; it's about effectiveness. We needed to make the move in a way that would allow for us to still get our job defending executed in the most organized way possible. By making it as speedy of a transition as possible in terms of physically moving, we have been able to liberate and/or defend several regions with better success and turnout than we did before the move.
6)What do you say to those who feel that this rule by decree will not be only temporary but lead to dictatorship much like how despots have taken power many times before?
Knowing what I do of myself, I have to grin at that. And I have, every time invaders have spammed the feeders about it. The martial law is most certainly only temporary. Anyone who looks around the board will notice I'm not ordering anyone to do anything other than read & follow the forum guidelines, which is not a change from our previous forum.
The bottom line is that I could never function as a dictator. That's not a possibility given my own leadership styles. Anyone around the ADN will attest to the fact that I ask anyone and everyone willing to listen to me or give an opinion before even alluding to making a decision.
I am extremely loyal to the ADN. I am loyal to our founding principles, and I am a firm believer that every member here is an equal. If you work hard and remain active, you will be punished with more responsibility. lol It's not about titles and/or who is a friend to whom. We're all friends here, as far as I'm concerned. Do the work, get more work. That's how I got here, and that's the only favoritism I exhibit. Under this new system, we concentrate much more on defending and much less on bickering politicking. I myself prefer, and have always acted as, more of an Advisory role as Director...and someone who protects the ADN and her roots.
Basically, this new system leaves less legislative control to the Director, and instead makes him/her an overseer rather than one who dictates policy. The new ADN leaves all diplomacy to the member regions, so the main items of policy are housekeeping items, not inter-regional politicking
OOC? The brief and generalized rundown: I am a full-time student who continues to add majors or minors to her agenda. I'm a writer and a musician; a very loyal friend.
IC, I am the leader of a nation of Hopians who value the environment and respect animal life. They are very spiritual people, and are very outspoken about keeping Civil Rights and Freedoms a priority in Pope Hope. I tend to role play my main character, High Queen Pope Hope IV, as my RL persona: honest, fun loving, and very emotionally attached to her people.
Pope Hope first came to the ADN after Nasicournia was attacked multiple times by invaders. I was elected to the delegate position, and shortly thereafter, our founder ceased to exist. Our oldest allies of Cannabis Island repelled the first invasion of Nasicournia. At this time, CI was a member of the ADN, and shortly thereafter, we were asked to join. Meanwhile, I recruited to raise the population of our region from 16 nations to the count you see now, and added a recruit region consisting of a good number of permanent residents itself. Still, we were vulnerable. I had become pretty active in the ADN right away, and found a passion in Intelligence gathering. As Nasicournia continued to be threatened, we were also stalked, and especially myself. The ADN worked in coalition with the OSA on a top-secret mission to stop the attackers, which was successful. What they did was very dangerous and incredibly generous, and hence my devotion and loyalty to the ADN began. From that moment on, I threw myself into revitalizing the Intelligence department and getting as active as I possibly could in every way possible. I worked hard and was hence made Director of the ADN by Phoenix in late December/early January.
When I became Director, my goal was to revitalize the ADN. Activity was down, bickering was prevalent, and our organization structure needed a major security overhaul. While I am in no way completely satisfied as of yet, I am happy with a lot of the extreme progress we made. Our membership doubled, the addition of more OOC forums helped to form closer bonds between our members, and our diplomatic relations with the international community at large increased tenfold. Finally, people were noticing the good things accomplished by the ADN, and Ambassadors from other regions and defender organizations began reaching out to us. Defender Unity is one of the achievements that I am the most proud to have helped accomplish.
I know that our departmental organization improved drastically, although we never quite got everything organized enough due to bureaucratic holdups. Our Intelligence Department remains ranked among the best in the NS community.
I also tried to instill democracy in the Alliance Defense Network. Members of the ADN drafted a Constitution, which every region in the ADN revised and voted on. It was ratified by vast majority and went into effect towards the beginning of this year. I had very high hopes with taking more power to the people, but what we discovered was that the Constitution ended up causing the above-mentioned bureaucracy, and a stigma for "title grabbing" that interfered with our true cause of defending. This, of course, has led us to where we find ourselves today.
2) Concerning the drastic measures recently taken, can you please explain why you declared martial law?
Despite what narrow-minded critics of the ADN will tell you, I'm very straightforward and honest about our strengths and failures. I still believe the ADN has been successful in many wonderful ways, but we had hit a point of stagnation. As a result, inner turmoil started boiling to the surface, and it really looked like we might implode. Drastic measures were necessary.
My PM inbox is normally jammed full with 40+ messages a day. In the days leading up to the decision to invoke martial law, tensions between member regions boiled to a dangerous point, and I was approached by an incredibly large number of members from most of our member regions with the idea of martial law. It was the members of the ADN, not me, that finally decided enough was enough. Before that point, I really didn't know what to do.
3)Why did you keep these orders of martial law under wraps? Would the revelation that you planned on doing this change anything? For how long have you been planning this?
It would have caused mass chaos. You must understand that there were a lot of agendas floating around the ADN at this point in time. Everyone was trying to take over, and as a result, they were stepping over each other trying to get something done. If the whole ADN had known from the start that these changes were coming, nothing would have really changed.
I wasn't immediately convinced that martial law would be the ultimate outcome. You see, I'm dubious about ever taking any decisive action on my own. I knew I wanted to move forums, so I invited a large number of trusted ADN members to come over and help me get everything organized before the move would be initiated. In the process, we began a discussion about what was wrong with the ADN, and how we could begin fixing it.
I've seen a lot of conjecture that "Pope Hope is a dictator now oh no." I want to be honest and tell you...so many people asked me to just take over as a dictator. Seriously. But I would never want that for this organization, and ultimately I wouldn't act as one anyway, so I asked many members of the ADN what they thought should be done. They answered me in huge IM conferences, PMs, and on the ADN forum in posts that were visible to everyone. They basically said "It's broken beyond repair. PH, please do something to fix it because we've done all we can." So I did.
4)Do you feel that perhaps you may have violated the trust of the people by making regional leaders stay hush on the matter of martial law?
No, I do not. I regret that it had to happen that way, but in doing so, we have provided a much smoother transition into the new ADN. The regional leaders who were present in helping me construct the new board were a mixture of most of the active regions in the ADN, if anything, they stayed on to make sure their regional interests were represented. In fact, most of the leaders present were from the large group who effectively cornered me about doing this in the first place.
5)What do you say to people who think this move was orchestrated to be as politically expedient as possible. So much so that any dissent would be a moot point ?
It isn't about dissent; it's about effectiveness. We needed to make the move in a way that would allow for us to still get our job defending executed in the most organized way possible. By making it as speedy of a transition as possible in terms of physically moving, we have been able to liberate and/or defend several regions with better success and turnout than we did before the move.
6)What do you say to those who feel that this rule by decree will not be only temporary but lead to dictatorship much like how despots have taken power many times before?
Knowing what I do of myself, I have to grin at that. And I have, every time invaders have spammed the feeders about it. The martial law is most certainly only temporary. Anyone who looks around the board will notice I'm not ordering anyone to do anything other than read & follow the forum guidelines, which is not a change from our previous forum.
The bottom line is that I could never function as a dictator. That's not a possibility given my own leadership styles. Anyone around the ADN will attest to the fact that I ask anyone and everyone willing to listen to me or give an opinion before even alluding to making a decision.
I am extremely loyal to the ADN. I am loyal to our founding principles, and I am a firm believer that every member here is an equal. If you work hard and remain active, you will be punished with more responsibility. lol It's not about titles and/or who is a friend to whom. We're all friends here, as far as I'm concerned. Do the work, get more work. That's how I got here, and that's the only favoritism I exhibit. Under this new system, we concentrate much more on defending and much less on bickering politicking. I myself prefer, and have always acted as, more of an Advisory role as Director...and someone who protects the ADN and her roots.
Basically, this new system leaves less legislative control to the Director, and instead makes him/her an overseer rather than one who dictates policy. The new ADN leaves all diplomacy to the member regions, so the main items of policy are housekeeping items, not inter-regional politicking