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Introduction
This is intended as a follow-up to my first post: On In-Character Governance and Considerations for the Delegacy, which explains my general ideas toward in-character governance that dovetails with this post. If you haven't already you may want to read that post first.

As we continue our revival, the time has come to consider how to do NationStates foreign affairs going forward. Since our community split in February 2023, I have been handling our foreign affairs, which in turn has been on autopilot. We've accepted all requests for new relations, and I've represented Wintreath at various events in other regions. However, we have not put out a foreign dispatch or assigned ambassadors since the split, and, being one person, I have not been able to go out of my way to represent us to any particular community or group. However, our friend-regions have been very understanding and nobody has terminated relations with us due to this inactivity. In fact, several regions have gone the extra mile of maintaining regular contact with us even as we couldn't reciprocate. As a result, we have relations with more regions now than we did at the time the split happened.

Minimalist Governance and Is FA Fun?
In my last post, I discussed the concept of minimalist governance, which focuses on things that are required (such as having a delegate), and then as a community focusing on the fun things we want to do (instead of having a government that is tasked with creating them). That raises the question of where foreign affairs plays in this minimalist mindset. Obviously, having relations with other regions is not a requirement. Wintreath, the NS region, and our community would all continue on without them. So the question becomes whether having them is fun.

Sometimes foreign affairs isn't fun at all. For a time, leading Wintreath's foreign affairs was a dismal experience due to various controversies and dramas, exasperated by our own community conflicts and splits over the course of over three years. At times we also give people who have been banned in other regions a second chance if we feel they're deserving of it, which at times has also led to contentious relations. However, I sincerely believe that with the improvements we've made in leadership and moderation over the past year, many of those experiences have come to an end. I believe Wintreath is now a safer and more harmonious community, and one that's more discerning about when second changes are deserved. Our community is one where people within can feel comfortable being themselves while our friends outside can have faith in us as a reliable friend.

Since our split, our foreign affairs have been very positive overall. We've had major successes such as the establishment of the N-Day Trident Alliance, which in turn has survived the last two N-Days as a top faction. We have great friend-regions, some of whose members have become regular fixtures within our own community. I believe that's both the hallmark of great relations between communities and evidence of the promise that future foreign affairs can hold. FA can be a fun and enriching experience for Wintreath, and having weathered past storms, it would be tragic to abandon that promise now.

Community-Based Procedures
Having determined that foreign affairs is something we should do in modern Wintreath, the question then becomes how to run it. Obviously, the answer isn't to revive an unnecessary FA ministry or to try to force people to become ambassadors...to push jobs on people that they don't want. I've given the matter some thought, and I believe I've come up with a system that's community-based, straightforward, and efficient.

Opening Relations
Opening relations requires two things: community approval and somebody to step up as our ambassador to the new community. Obviously the odds of successful relations are low if the community doesn't support having them, and if nobody is interested enough in the other community to serve as our ambassador then our interest probably isn't high enough to justify relations. In Wintreath and other regions, there's a lot of zombie relations: relations that only exist on paper with little to no interaction between governments or communities. Our foreign affairs should reflect where things actually are, not where we wish they could be, and if there's no interest in a relation then we shouldn't enter into it to begin with.

So when another community requests relations with Wintreath, a notice would be given to Citizens in the #governance Discord channel. First, it would ask if there were any objections to opening relations, and then ask for volunteers to serve as our ambassador to them. If there's no objection within a day and a volunteer in a reasonable timeframe, awesome! Relations started! If there was an objection, we would discuss the issue with the goal of reaching a consensus one way or another. If the consensus were to not have relations or there were no volunteers to serve as ambassador, then we would not pursue that opportunity.

Closing Relations
To prevent the accumulation of zombie relations, I believe we should automatically close relations if we haven't been able to find an ambassador within one month of the position becoming vacant, unless there's some emergency in the community that prevents ambassador positions from being filled. As aspirational as it would be to hope that all relations could be revived, again, if there's no interest among the current members of the community then it's a relation that serves no purpose.

Otherwise, it's rare for us to initiate a closure, but it does happen. In those cases, any Citizen would be able to initiate a discussion on closing relations with a community in the Discord #governance channel, with the aim of coming to a community consensus. In the event that support for closing relations appears to be overwhelming or in response to an emergency, the founder may also close relations in the interests if speed and efficiency as recently demonstrated by closing relations with Alcris.

Maintaining Relations
This is the big question mark, and will be based largely on what individuals and the community want to do...would it like to put together a publication? Would it like to send shorter summaries? Is there any interest in events and if so, what kind? These are questions that would need to be tackled over time, but would be based on what we and our friend-regions want to do, not on what we feel we're supposed to do (which usually ends up being some job or duty that sucks away any interest in FA).

As part of maintaining relations, our ambassadors should be regularly surveyed to make sure their assignment is still fun and interesting to them, and hasn't become an obligation. Assignments that keep becoming obligations are potential relations that should be reviewed for closure.

Foreign Affairs and Out-of-Character (OOC) Issues
While our recent foreign affairs experience has been very positive, there are still foreign communities which we have past OOC issues with, not to mention any the potential for new situations to arise. For example, if someone is banned from another region, they come to Wintreath, and then their original region contacts us about it. In these cases, the Regional Stability Squad will continue to oversee these matters as Wintreath's OOC oversight body. When that authority conflicts with the procedures here, the authority of the RSS will take precedence.

A Community-Powered Approach
Traditionally, foreign affairs has been the exclusive purview of the in-character government, especially the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. However, we have decided not to return to traditional NS-style governance for good reason, creating both new challenges and new opportunities for governing our community. In my opinion, a community-powered approached to foreign affairs has worked well in regions such as Forest, where knowledgeable and interested people regularly discuss the pros and cons of establishing, strengthening, and closing relations with various regions. Beyond that, our approach is minimalistic, efficient, and requires nothing more than volunteers to serve as ambassadors...no government or bureaucracy required.

I strongly believe that a system like this is the way to go. However, these are ultimately just my thoughts on something we should all be comfortable with. So please share your thoughts and feedback if you have any!

Echoing comments on Discord, I also think that closing embassies out of lack of ambassadors seems a bit harsh. Lack of interest in the ambassador role does not necessarily reflect lack of interest in any given region and can be due to many other factors. It can be difficult to find people who want to take on the role of ambassador, even when there is direct interaction and relationships between regions. It would be a shame to be permanently lose connections with other regions simply because people are temporarily too busy or the region is going through a brief lull.

But if there's nobody willing to be an ambassador, how can there be relationships? It seems to me that accepting relations and then not doing anything with them...stringing them along, essentially, is worse than just saying we don't have the ability to do this right now.

I know hope springs eternal, but if there's no interaction and there's no interest in interaction for whatever reason, at what point do we let go?

But if there's nobody willing to be an ambassador, how can there be relationships? It seems to me that accepting relations and then not doing anything with them...stringing them along, essentially, is worse than just saying we don't have the ability to do this right now.

I know hope springs eternal, but if there's no interaction and there's no interest in interaction for whatever reason, at what point do we let go?

We've had people come over and participate in the Minecraft server, join in discussions etc. I would consider that to still be a relationship even if there is no formal ambassadorial work going on.

We've had people come over and participate in the Minecraft server, join in discussions etc. I would consider that to still be a relationship even if there is no formal ambassadorial work going on.

So what's the solution? How do we separate these informal but positive relations with relations that are just absolutely dead beyond hope?

We've had people come over and participate in the Minecraft server, join in discussions etc. I would consider that to still be a relationship even if there is no formal ambassadorial work going on.

So what's the solution? How do we separate these informal but positive relations with relations that are just absolutely dead beyond hope?

I don't know if there's any single good reliable consistent metric. There often tends to not be. I think it's clear that whether there is an ambassador isn't the solution though. If this is something we wanted to do, ideally we would re-review all the relationships regularly, but without a formal government group that is difficult. Maybe some sort of more complex metric depending on certain number of interactions between regions over a period of time based on people posting in their spaces and ours, but that would be difficult to track.

Maybe this is the wrong angle to come from though - is it such a big deal to have these relations continued? It's not like there is any cost to having them. We already got rid of citizenship revocation; I think that in a similar way, to allow these relations to continue would also be a consistent application of our principle of openness.

I don't know if there's any single good reliable consistent metric. There often tends to not be. I think it's clear that whether there is an ambassador isn't the solution though. If this is something we wanted to do, ideally we would re-review all the relationships regularly, but without a formal government group that is difficult. Maybe some sort of more complex metric depending on certain number of interactions between regions over a period of time based on people posting in their spaces and ours, but that would be difficult to track.

Maybe this is the wrong angle to come from though - is it such a big deal to have these relations continued? It's not like there is any cost to having them. We already got rid of citizenship revocation; I think that in a similar way, to allow these relations to continue would also be a consistent application of our principle of openness.

Over time as I've become more of a minimalist I've grown more comfortable with letting go of things that aren't active or working out just in general, so it very well could just be a me thing. It doesn't cause harm to have inactive relations per say, but it doesn't do any good either, and it doesn't reflect the reality of our relations. If push comes to shove and we have difficulty getting ambassadors, I'd rather the ones we get go to growing relations we already have rather than hoping an inactive relationship could be revived. I suppose if we want to do a review, I can commit to starting that discussion in #governance every 6 months or so. It's not something we need to be hyper-focused on, just something to look at every once in awhile.

But beyond that, I feel like we should review our stuff in general to make sure it matches what we're actually doing. It's funny that you bring up Citizenship revocations, because I was originally going to propose this month that we bring them back (trying to pace myself when it comes to Wintreath work). Not anything that strict like we used to have...something basic like needing to make 1 post a year on any platform. We still have people who we know left during the split a year and a half ago and are still Citizens because they didn't formally renounce their Citizenship. That way our list of Citizens reflects our somewhat active community.

I think the true main problem with zombie Citizens is that in the past we put the cart before the horse...directing people to become Citizens as soon as they joined and before they had explored the community and decided if Wintreath was right for them. Last fall, I removed those directions from our NS welcome telegram, and what I've found that we've had far fewer applications, but those we've had are from people who have mostly stayed afterwards. So any revocation would impact far fewer people to begin with, and I think there's other ways to deal with the issues that led to us abandoning revocations, like an option for a private Citizenship app where people don't see that someone is having to reapply.

Didn't mean to elaborate so much on that...this is not an actual proposal, but I figured if I'm going to bring up revocations at all I better make my case along with it.

Even with our forum games. I've been thinking things like "Would Spyfall be more successful if it was moved to Discord? Should we close Werewolf since we haven't had a native Werewolf scene in years? What do we really need a website for? (my answer: security checks and information/discussions that people on the RMB side can look at without being on Discord)

I guess in the end I feel like we'll be more focused and organized if we narrow things down to what's active and what we're actually doing, and then we can build on that as we go on.

I enjoy a good NS festival sometimes. As with most things, it depends on where I am at any given time with my depression, but in the past, I've had fun with some of them. Can be a nice way of meeting new people if done right, and planned properly, not something I do well. Either I had them happen too soon or not soon enough, I'm never quite sure. I used to enjoy attending some of them though, so that could be fun.


To be honest, I'm always a bit worried someone might have a problem with some of my worst decisions in NS, but alas, I might also have been completely forgotten to history so meh, as long as I'm not causing Wintreath a problem, I'm happy with what we decide to do for the most part. As long as I don't have to talk to anyone I don't want to talk to.  I might also want to open relations between Wintreath and my own region, but that's just my own selfish hope. 

In terms of Wintreath's foreign affairs, I think having embassies with other regions, even if there is minimal activity between us, is a good thing. Even if we don't have active relations with a region, having an embassy open with them shows that there is still an amount of friendliness between our regions. For an embassy to be closed I think it should require someone to request a review of said embassy. Routine reviews of embassies would also be fine, but should be significantly less stringent than any investigation coming from a specific request to review. Routine reviews should only serve to clear out regions that are very clearly dead. 

In terms of reviewing citizenship, I think that would be a good thing, although there are many many ways to do it that would be undoubtedly poor. I think one way we could clear out inactive citizens would be to have routine checks where citizens must respond to show a wish to retain citizenship. Having it on a consistent schedule, like requiring a simple response on the first week of every month or something would allow people to easily maintain it while clearing out inactive people. I think that frequent announcements for it would be needed so that way active people don't miss it (and perhaps responding to said announcement if it's on discord would count too), but I don't think anyone should be pinged for it, that way we don't summon inactive people who don't actually care. Pinging people on these forums would probably be fine though imo, because people aren't likely to see a ping here unless they're active. I think that missing two responses in sequence would then be the threshold of losing citizenship.

In terms of Wintreath's foreign affairs, I think having embassies with other regions, even if there is minimal activity between us, is a good thing. Even if we don't have active relations with a region, having an embassy open with them shows that there is still an amount of friendliness between our regions. For an embassy to be closed I think it should require someone to request a review of said embassy. Routine reviews of embassies would also be fine, but should be significantly less stringent than any investigation coming from a specific request to review. Routine reviews should only serve to clear out regions that are very clearly dead.

In terms of reviewing citizenship, I think that would be a good thing, although there are many many ways to do it that would be undoubtedly poor. I think one way we could clear out inactive citizens would be to have routine checks where citizens must respond to show a wish to retain citizenship. Having it on a consistent schedule, like requiring a simple response on the first week of every month or something would allow people to easily maintain it while clearing out inactive people. I think that frequent announcements for it would be needed so that way active people don't miss it (and perhaps responding to said announcement if it's on discord would count too), but I don't think anyone should be pinged for it, that way we don't summon inactive people who don't actually care. Pinging people on these forums would probably be fine though imo, because people aren't likely to see a ping here unless they're active. I think that missing two responses in sequence would then be the threshold of losing citizenship.

The manner in which reviews would be conducted would definitely needed to be agreed on and consistent. Personally I don't like overly stringent requirements for stuff like embassies and foreign relations. I think sometimes loyalty is more important to numbers.

In terms of reviewing citizenship, I think that would be a good thing, although there are many many ways to do it that would be undoubtedly poor. I think one way we could clear out inactive citizens would be to have routine checks where citizens must respond to show a wish to retain citizenship. Having it on a consistent schedule, like requiring a simple response on the first week of every month or something would allow people to easily maintain it while clearing out inactive people. I think that frequent announcements for it would be needed so that way active people don't miss it (and perhaps responding to said announcement if it's on discord would count too), but I don't think anyone should be pinged for it, that way we don't summon inactive people who don't actually care. Pinging people on these forums would probably be fine though imo, because people aren't likely to see a ping here unless they're active. I think that missing two responses in sequence would then be the threshold of losing citizenship.

Nice idea, that reminds me of a micronation I'm in that maintains citizenship by emailing everyone once a year to confirm that they still want to stay citizens.

The manner in which reviews would be conducted would definitely needed to be agreed on and consistent. Personally I don't like overly stringent requirements for stuff like embassies and foreign relations. I think sometimes loyalty is more important to numbers.

While the manner in which reviews are called for and carried out should be agreed upon and consistent, I don't think there should be any checks on "activity" or "numbers". I don' think there are any good quantitative measurements that consistently provide a good measurement of a region's worth. Like you said loyalty is sometimes better than numbers. I said that routine checks should be less "stringent" than one called specifically for a region, because if someone's calling for a specific embassy to be reviewed there's likely a problem that should be carefully looked into. Routine checks would mostly just be fore clearing out regions that are long dead (like raiders tag it and there's only defender sleepers kinda dead).

The manner in which reviews would be conducted would definitely needed to be agreed on and consistent. Personally I don't like overly stringent requirements for stuff like embassies and foreign relations. I think sometimes loyalty is more important to numbers.

While the manner in which reviews are called for and carried out should be agreed upon and consistent, I don't think there should be any checks on "activity" or "numbers". I don' think there are any good quantitative measurements that consistently provide a good measurement of a region's worth. Like you said loyalty is sometimes better than numbers. I said that routine checks should be less "stringent" than one called specifically for a region, because if someone's calling for a specific embassy to be reviewed there's likely a problem that should be carefully looked into. Routine checks would mostly just be fore clearing out regions that are long dead (like raiders tag it and there's only defender sleepers kinda dead).

I hate the taggers, I don't understand the point. If I was going to do something, I figure you either go all the way or fucking forget it. Partial conquest to me is like partial surgery, not good enough!

I hate the taggers, I don't understand the point. If I was going to do something, I figure you either go all the way or fucking forget it. Partial conquest to me is like partial surgery, not good enough!

Don't think of tagging as conquering a region, think of it as graffitiing an abandoned building. Additionally occupations can take weeks or months, and constant vigilance from the raider BC officers to turn off defender jumps. Tagging takes only an update and can hit dozens of regions in that short time. They have fundamentally different goals. Occupations destroy regions. Tagging is just putting some promotional material on some already dead stuff. Additionally tagging is a lot more fast paced given they have to contend with fenda chasers. The more people you have the better you are against them, and everyone gets to be active. Occupations require pilers, but the only people who you benefit from being active are the BC officers. imo tagging is much better than occupations. Tagging harms no one, occupations kill communities.

I hate the taggers, I don't understand the point. If I was going to do something, I figure you either go all the way or fucking forget it. Partial conquest to me is like partial surgery, not good enough!

Don't think of tagging as conquering a region, think of it as graffitiing an abandoned building. Additionally occupations can take weeks or months, and constant vigilance from the raider BC officers to turn off defender jumps. Tagging takes only an update and can hit dozens of regions in that short time. They have fundamentally different goals. Occupations destroy regions. Tagging is just putting some promotional material on some already dead stuff. Additionally tagging is a lot more fast paced given they have to contend with fenda chasers. The more people you have the better you are against them, and everyone gets to be active. Occupations require pilers, but the only people who you benefit from being active are the BC officers. imo tagging is much better than occupations. Tagging harms no one, occupations kill communities.

I still consider it beneath me. Mind you I only took dead regions anyway. Can't ruin a long gone or banned founder region, only improve! More importantly, as with most things, my time has long past. My military stance is "retired."