NationStates Jolt Archive

A lot of people have been requesting that the names of dead nations be returned to the pool of available options.
Now, obviously this has several major problems with it, so it's unfaesable unless there are some conditions imposed.
Could the conditions not be that for a nation's name to be saved when it ceases to exist, the nation has to have been in existance for more than 40 days*. This would mean that players who came and played for a couple of days, then got bored and left their nation to die would not have their nation names reserved.
There could be a notice when the nation is created that unless it is logged into more than once over a period of 12 days, its stats will be deleted and the name will become available to someone else.


*Note: this means that nation exists for 40 days, not that the player has to have been active for 40 days. In actual fact, they'd only have to be active for 12 days.

I thought maybe recycle names which had gone inactive if there was no email address in them, so the former owner wouldnt even be able to proof that it was his/hers anyway. I suggested this to hack a week or so ago but I dont know what if anything is happening.

Also i think maybe asking the people with email whether they want there nation anymore.

Or use both suggestions.

I think we can safely presume that this is never going to happen in any form.

All the arguements Hack made still apply to even a period as small as 40 days existence.

E-mailing wouldnt be practical, for the same reason that the news letter was stopped. Besides, a lot of e-mails expire, especially in this game. Dozens of my puppets have their own individual email addresses, in order for me to be able to swiftly switch my UN status and I know there are some other players who do that aswell. Its impractical, and without some human input (even more inpractical give the numbers were talking about), itr would be unfair.

Personally, I like the checkbox idea best. Of all my puppets, there are only 5-10 that I'd actually want to ressurect if I ever left and came back. The 40-days idea is good, too, though. One thing to think about: creating a nation and putting it in vacation mode means you automatically live over 40 days.

The biggest problem is that anything we've suggested will only apply to new nations. Except for the "no email address = full delete" all of the ideas would more then likely require data that isn't stored yet.

All the arguements Hack made still apply to even a period as small as 40 days existence.
No, there was at least one where he used an example oft well-estalished players coming back after a long time. I don't think there are any well-established players less then 12 days old. At least not any with a positive role, so Count and MJ don't apply ... not that they could ever get ressurected no matter how long they were alive.

However, on the whole you could look at this as a "cost vs. benefit" thing. Though the cost of keeping one nation that didn't last 40 days is low, the odds that it will be ressurected (the benefit) are also very low. And with the checkbox idea, there is no benifit to keeping a nation that the owner does not want kept.

I thought maybe recycle names which had gone inactive if there was no email address in them, so the former owner wouldnt even be able to proof that it was his/hers anyway. I suggested this to hack a week or so ago but I dont know what if anything is happening.

Also i think maybe asking the people with email whether they want there nation anymore.

Proof of identity is not required when resurrecting a nation because the password remains the same.

At least not any with a positive role, so Count and MJ don't apply ... not that they could ever get ressurected no matter how long they were alive.

Well, leaving deleted nations that way is probably a good idea regardless.

However, on the whole you could look at this as a "cost vs. benefit" thing. Though the cost of keeping one nation that didn't last 40 days is low, the odds that it will be ressurected (the benefit) are also very low. And with the checkbox idea, there is no benifit to keeping a nation that the owner does not want kept.

Hm. This is actually a new idea for ressurections...

Okay, I don't like the checkbox idea, as that would only muck things up more. If it's unchecked by default, new players are gonna loose out. If checked by default, most nations won't go into the pool regardless.

For "cost v benefit", one does need to ponder how much coding this would require. I'm not sure, but it seems like there might be quite a bit. Also, this wouldn't help anybody who wants a name that's already removed from the pool of available names.

*sigh*

I typed out a response to Hack, but the server ate it and I don't want to retype it all right now.

The gist:
*In response to checkbox comment - Any way of storing names (including the current way) is going to have problems.

*In response to cost v benifit comment - I was thinking more of a person looking at it and drawing a line then a person coding a machiene to look at it case by case.