NationStates Jolt Archive

I don't know if it's just because I have an old Mac OS X 9.2 at my house, but each time I view an issue, the names change.

For instance, from Calvin King, Jennifer Johnson, and Freddy King as the speakers to Johann Jefferson, Al Fellow, and Billy-Bob King to Annemarie Gutenberg, Buy Spirit, and Larry Summers on "Think Tank Proposes Privatized Prisons".

Just wanted to know if that's a bug in the game or if it just happens to Mac users.

Laia, Queen of Viora

Don't mind it, that's how the issues are supposed to work. The way the issues are wrote, they use what amounts to a random name flag for people's names in the issues. No matter what OS or browser you use, that will always happen. Think of it as a feature that adds more replayability to the game.

Okay, thanks, that's a thought, I'm rambling....

But are we supposed to be able to log directly on to the forum or do we always have to access it through NationStates?

Just now, when I tried to log on to reply it kept deleting my password when I hit enter or clicked the login button. I eventually gave up, computers being as stubborn as they are, and just went via NationStates. Too much work to fight a computer, since it ends up sorta like this: :headbang:

Ooooooh, these animated emoticons are fun!!

That is a good emoticon, it seems to have a use in at least one place in every post.

Anyway, to answer the question at hand, or not, I'm not really sure about the forum login honestly. I've logged in outside of NS before, but that was about a year ago and who knows what's changed since then. I'll experiment later on and let you know the results unless someone beats me to the punch (would do it now, but I'm not on my own computer and am at least trying to get out of here soon). But I always just go through the NS site, as I'm never on this forum very much and don't trouble with logging into it when I'm not also on NS.

Hello. Yesterday, I was faced with an issue that I told my government to act upon, and I believe that the opposite position was actually implemented.

Yesterday, I received an issue saying that some people were planning a Neo-Nazi rally. I thought for a few minutes and then decided to allow the rally to take place. I come back this morning, and my profile says, "extreme political groups are outlawed". This effect is the opposite of the position that I had chosen.

I understand you might think that I chose the wrong position by mistake, but I do remember thinking long and hard about it, so I would say that the possibility of me having made that error is remote.

I would like to know for sure if the mistake is mine or the program's. If at all possible, I would like to see the error corrected. Thank you for your concern in this matter.

Hello. Yesterday, I was faced with an issue that I told my government to act upon, and I believe that the opposite position was actually implemented.

Yesterday, I received an issue saying that some people were planning a Neo-Nazi rally. I thought for a few minutes and then decided to allow the rally to take place. I come back this morning, and my profile says, "extreme political groups are outlawed". This effect is the opposite of the position that I had chosen.

I understand you might think that I chose the wrong position by mistake, but I do remember thinking long and hard about it, so I would say that the possibility of me having made that error is remote.

I would like to know for sure if the mistake is mine or the program's. If at all possible, I would like to see the error corrected. Thank you for your concern in this matter.

Perhaps you answered another issue which produced this result. Remember, the results of the issues are meant to be rather extreme and outlandish.

I don't know if it's just because I have an old Mac OS X 9.2 at my house,

In all honesty that might be part of your problem. I know that different computers react to the whole forum and game differently, as my home computer, my dad's computer, and my laptop each have different quirks about them in regards to nationstates.

The names changing is entirely normal and working as designed, because it uses the NS random name generator and gives you a new one every time the page loads. Just try hitting refresh on the page for an issue and you'll see what I mean. It happens for me as well, and I believe it happens for everyone.

As to not being able to log in to Jolt directly, I believe that may also be on purpose. I can't get to the forums unless I go through NS first, and if I try to log in to Jolt directly, it doesn't work. I believe accounts created from NS nations are placed in a special usergroup in the forums that doesn't have permission to log in but is auto-logged in from the links in the NS site. This usergroup is also the only one allowed to post in the NS forum, as other Jolt members can't. Although I am surprised that we can post in other areas in Jolt. I'd think we'd be restricted here.

In any case, I think both your problems are working as designed.

Yesterday, I received an issue saying that some people were planning a Neo-Nazi rally. I thought for a few minutes and then decided to allow the rally to take place. I come back this morning, and my profile says, "extreme political groups are outlawed". This effect is the opposite of the position that I had chosen.


Actually, this is the result of allowing the Nazi rally to move forward:

"the tenet of free speech is held dear"

and is the issue description right before the "extreme political groups are outlawed" statement. Had you chosen the opposite, to ban the march, it says something to the effect of "religious beliefs cannot be critizied in public" or something like that, I've only had that line once. I can't remember where the extreme political groups outlawed line comes from, as I've seen about every line about outlawing political groups due to a general disdain for democracy.

In all honesty that might be part of your problem. I know that different computers react to the whole forum and game differently, as my home computer, my dad's computer, and my laptop each have different quirks about them in regards to nationstates.

For the question at hand about the names though, the computer and OS is irrelevent. The computer and OS MAY have something to do with the forum issue, but I believe Haraki to be correct in saying:

As to not being able to log in to Jolt directly, I believe that may also be on purpose. I can't get to the forums unless I go through NS first, and if I try to log in to Jolt directly, it doesn't work. I believe accounts created from NS nations are placed in a special usergroup in the forums that doesn't have permission to log in but is auto-logged in from the links in the NS site. This usergroup is also the only one allowed to post in the NS forum, as other Jolt members can't. Although I am surprised that we can post in other areas in Jolt. I'd think we'd be restricted here.


At least, that's my conclusion as well, and I'm running an iMac with 10.3.9 installed and I had problems logging into Jolt separately on my friends Windows XP based system as well. I suspect the reason behind it is that some NS names are guaranteed to conflict with names already taken on Jolt at large, so by seperating our accounts from the main group, we don't have that issue. And I'd be very surprised if Haraki didn't hit it dead on when stating his ideas on the technical side of the sepeartion.

Yesterday, I received an issue saying that some people were planning a Neo-Nazi rally. I thought for a few minutes and then decided to allow the rally to take place. I come back this morning, and my profile says, "extreme political groups are outlawed". This effect is the opposite of the position that I had chosen.

Here's the issue you had to get that effect. You chose position 2. Hope that helps. :)
#12: Death Penalty on Agenda

The Issue
Following a tragic double-murder, capital punishment has surged as an election issue. There now appears a real possibility that right-wing candidate @@RANDOMNAME@@, running on a "Do the Crime, pay the Penalty" platform, will gain power. While society's intelligentsia is outraged, debate rages as to whether the government should intervene.

The Debate
1. "This is a democracy, remember?" rhetorically questions Professor @@RANDOMNAME@@ of the University of Greater @@NAME@@. "That means that if the people want something, the people get it. I hate to say it, but in the name of political freedom, we need to accept that our country will have the death penalty."

2. "I'm sorry," says Civil Rights Unionist @@RANDOMNAME@@, "but this travesty cannot be allowed to pass. If the government needs to crack down on lunatic fringe groups in order to keep our great nation free of the death penalty, then so be it. We must ban the politics of hatred and fear!"

As to not being able to log in to Jolt directly, I believe that may also be on purpose. I can't get to the forums unless I go through NS first, and if I try to log in to Jolt directly, it doesn't work.Incorrect. I can log into the forums directly with no problems. Several people have had their nations die because they hit the forums directly, in fact.

The password box clearing out when enter is clicked is how it's supposed to work; you just have to wait for the page to load. If you have problems with the password not working, that's because of goofiness between Jolt and NationStates. Jolt doesn't always have the correct password. Sometimes it's the first password you ever used on your nation, sometimes it updates to match your nation. It's a little twitchy like that.

I believe accounts created from NS nations are placed in a special usergroup in the forums that doesn't have permission to log in but is auto-logged in from the links in the NS site. This usergroup is also the only one allowed to post in the NS forum, as other Jolt members can't. Although I am surprised that we can post in other areas in Jolt. I'd think we'd be restricted here.The restriction is one-way because we demanded it. NS members are allowed to post in non-NS forums as we all have Jolt accounts, which is all that's required to post on Jolt forums.

What's really odd is that we can Moderate non-NS forums :eek:

Thanks for the clarification, although it is odd that I can't get into Jolt directly because I've always used the same password on my nation, and it doesn't let me log in. Oh well. I'll figure it out sometime, and then all will be well.

What's really odd is that we can Moderate non-NS forums :eek:

That is good. That makes me happy.

What's really odd is that we can Moderate non-NS forums :eek:

Just wondering...

...other than moving threads to the spam forum...do you or anyone else do this?

For the question at hand about the names though, the computer and OS is irrelevent.

Agreed, although I wasn't addressing that issue.

...other than moving threads to the spam forum...do you or anyone else do this?
I think one or two mods made some Moddish posts in Londinivm and were roundly slapped by native mods and players alike. Nobody that I've heard of has done so recently.

I can confirm with reasonable certainty that your operating system shouldn't cause any problems; I'm running MacOs 9.1. If you're running some sort of exotic browser, that may cause problems; all the major ones - Netscape, Firefox, Safari, Opera, even Internet Explorer - work as they should to the best of my knowledge.

I personally use Internet Explorer 5.1, and have been able to log into the forums directly for some time - although I had to use the Jolt forums' "forgotten your password?" function to get a new password emailed to me. If you're having trouble logging in using your NationStates password, you may want to try that.

~ Tsar the Mod.

RE: Other forums,

Yeah, we really don't bother. We've been giving supermoderator powers for other reasons, it just also carries the ability to moderate the other forums. It's been requested that we don't, as we don't know the ins and outs of Jolt's rules (we use our own ruleset). I believe we were given permission to address gross infractions (ie: deleting a post with goatse), but we're generally supposed to refrain from such things.

And, really, there's enough work to do here without hitting Jolt.