NationStates Jolt Archive

Greetings Fellow NSers,

I am attempting to gather as much support as I can for the following petition. I feel strongly about minimizing the annoyances we must deal with on the RMBs of the feeders. If you support the following petition please reply to this topic.

Salutations NS Moderators,

We the undersigned recognize that the NS moderators provide valuable services to the players of NationStates, and we also recognize that they work extremely hard.

We humbly ask that the moderators of NationStates would consider banning any ASCII graphic from advertisements that are used in our beloved feeder regions (The North Pacific, The Pacific, The South Pacific, The West Pacific, The East Pacific, Lazarus and The Rejected Realms).

While we can never stop advertisements from gracing our RMB's, we can help to minimize their annoyance to the many inhabitants of the feeders who have to read these ads day and night. We strongly feel that while ASCII graphics are a fun novelty item, they serve no purpose in the long turn. We firmly believe that they are an annoyance and a nuisance.

We the undersigned of this petition ask that the NS moderators ban ASCII graphic art from RMB advertisements.

Respectfully Yours,

Monte Ozarka (TNP)
Joshua (TNP/Lazarus)
Papercuts and Skittles (TWP)
Mavenu (TSP)
Winter Vacationers (TNP)
Isimud (TNP)
The culturally inept (The Pub)
Ananke (TNP)
Kandarin (TRR)
Pope Lexus X (Gatesville)
Biyah (TWP)
Misunderstood Blonds (TRR)
TAO (TWP, TNP, Lazarus, The Pacific)
Vrtbovska zahrada (TNP)
Lazega (Gatesville)
Byardkuria (TNP)
Infinite Loop (TEP)
Bhang Bhang Duc (TWP)
Fergi The Great
The Viking Warlords (Gatesville)
Northern Chittowa (Lazarus)
Dezzland (Lazarus)
No_State_At_All (Lazarus)
Geomania (TSP)
Mariadon (Lazarus)
Kingsteck (TWP)
Halmont (TWP)

- Bhagavan
Deputy MoCE of TNP

This is NOT me making a decision on this (I want that to be clear).

While I do understand that having an overabundance of ASCII art is annoying, it is entirely possible for excessively huge and repetitive ones to be reported on a case by case basis. It is also, I believe, possible for delegates to ban recruiters who use enormous art from reentering the region?

The problem is, I think, a lack of courtesy or a lack of understanding what effective advertising is. While the advertiser may think that his or her "art" is wondrous, it is often annoying to the natives of a feeder and may in fact damage their ability to attract as many new players as they otherwise might have. Short, sweet, and to the point will get people to read to the end, rather than long, rambling, and pointless. (I've worked for a media corporation before becoming a teacher of English -- concise makes the biggest impact.)

My personal OPINION (not ruling) -- a SMALL ASCII picture may work. But if your entire message is longer than, say, 15 lines, you're only hurting your recruiting ability and being a nuisance to the natives of the feeders, who have to look at your ad everyday.

I'd be interested in hearing more opinions from players as well as my fellow moderators on this topic.

What about a line limit, then, similar to the sig rule here on the forum, instead of an outright ban? It seems to me that would be a fair compromise (even though I personally think that any ASCII "art" is annoying).

I was more than happy to sign this petition, as someone who actively recruits for members in the feeder regions, I also enjoy reading the regional message board to compare our competitor's advertisements. But ASCII is being abused as a means of recruitment, leaving visitors to scroll past images that mean nothing. I suggest that we challenge recruiters to use their imagination and grasp the simple fact that it's what you say that gets people interested, not pictures of bongs or foxes etc.

What about a line limit, then, similar to the sig rule here on the forum, instead of an outright ban? It seems to me that would be a fair compromise (even though I personally think that any ASCII "art" is annoying).

As I recall, we discussed a line limit and decided that moderation was not going to enforce one. I'm certain I'll be corrected if I have misremembered.

Stifling creativity... :rolleyes: that's just great.

Boo-hoo. How is writing in English necessarily any better? Some people fail to adequately used a little feature known as "paragraphs". Would you rather look at the WALL O TEXT or some ASCII art? Some people are never happy either way. Personally the art is nicer than a wall of text.

As I recall, we discussed a line limit and decided that moderation was not going to enforce one. I'm certain I'll be corrected if I have misremembered.

'Twas just a thought, Kat. It seemed, like I said, a fair enough compromise, but I wasn't aware that it'd already been discussed and rejected. Sorry 'bout that. :)

Stifling creativity... :rolleyes: that's just great.

Boo-hoo. How is writing in English necessarily any better? Some people fail to adequately used a little feature known as "paragraphs". Would you rather look at the WALL O TEXT or some ASCII art? Some people are never happy either way. Personally the art is nicer than a wall of text.

In an ideal world, yes, I would like to see proper use of punctuation and grammar in recruitment posts, but it's hardly likely to happen. I agree a wall of text is annoying as are the silly messages often left along with the long winded history of region X. It's about minimising the annoyance really.

I just think that ASCII detracts from the actual purpose of recruitment; getting more members, because its creators are concentrating on making things look pretty, not on what the new members might actually want. As a new member, I wanted someone to show me the ropes and help me maximise the potential of the game, the recruitment message I received did just that, I can't see how any drawings are going to be helpful to new members.

Surely you're going to get your point over much more clearly by stating your objectives rather than posting badly drawn representations of what you're trying to say. A picture may say a thousand words, but ASCII says nothing.

Stifling creativity... :rolleyes: that's just great.

Creating an interesting ASCII art post is creative once. Taking a picture of Stewie (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10422040&postcount=140) and incorporating it into six or seven different region ads (that have nothing to do with The Family Guy) that get posted to seven different feeders every day for six months is spam. This isn't the first time (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=11308204#post11308204) that ASCII art has been raised as an issue, but we didn't get a clear enough consensus to do anything about it the last time.

Frankly, I'm not at all enthusiastic about adding anything spam-related to the Game Mod workload, as it is an enormous time-consumer for us to deal with. One regional adspammer can hit 100 player-created regions in an hour, and it takes us about the same hour to clean up after him. This happens several times a week, and it's a royal pain in the ass. I really don't want to have to police the feeders in the same way, given how fast they scroll off. We have enough to do as it is, and (while annoying) it doesn't actually hurt anything.

Personally I don't see the problem, how is an ASCII picture you've seen over and over again any more annoying than people who make huge text adverts full of "1337" speak, or that ignore things like punctuation and grammar.

My own opinion is that I would like to see a line limit or an outright ban on advertising, but that doesn't strike me as something that's likely to happen :)

So to stick to the point at hand, this petition just seems it will remove one annoying method of advertising, which will lead to more use of the other already irritating methods or people coming up with even more annoying concepts.

Just looked at the links fris posted, looks like i said the same sort of thing last time too :p