NationStates Jolt Archive

Note: This is a rewritten post based on the "To All regions griefed by the 'National Stalinists'" announcement. Now that we've hopefully survived the worst of that, I'm turning this into a more general thread.

What is Region Griefing?
Region Griefing is the malicious cousin of "region crashing". Where "crashing" involves moving several nations into a region at once and taking over the delegate-ship, griefing involves less savoury events afterwards.

Such as...?
Having acquired the delegate-ship, griefers have been known to kick all of the original member nations out of the region and password protect it. Under extreme circumstances, the griefers have actually left the region themselves - causing it to disappear. Following its disappearance, they re-create it with themselves as founders.

But, taking over a region is legal, right?
Broadly speaking, yes. I can move myself and my friends into your region and become the delegate. What I can't do is kick everyone out of the region. That's where "griefing" comes in. It's generally a fine line and the mods get a lot of requests to look at situations which may or may not be griefing.
Where griefing is definitely 100% illegal is when you do it with your 500 UN Member nations. As you all know, having more than one nation in the UN is illegal by itself, and using these multiple nations to take over regions is very illegal.

How can I identify a possible threat before it happens?
First and foremost, there is no easy way to identify possible griefers. If you are suspicious about a nation or a series of nations in your region, let one of the mods know. We can investigate to see if they've got multiple UN nations.
It might sound a bit paranoid, but remember that it's better to be safe than sorry. If you've spent a long time establishing a vibrant region, there's nothing worse than having it invaded and griefed.

What can I do about it?
Here are 5 ways, there are many others.
1. If you are in a user-created region (that is, not one of the Pacifics or the Rejected Realms), have a Founder appointed. Having two nations capable of ejecting others will make life slightly harder for the griefer.
2. If you are the founder of a region where this is going on, temporarily remove the Delegate's ability to boot players. If the Delegate is on your side, they will more than likely understand.
3. If you don't mind isolationism, password-protect your region. Even as a temporary thing while we deal with this problem. Yes, it prevents free and open travel, but we are dealing with a person who has been linked to 80 UN multis at one time.
4. Make toppling the delegate as hard as possible for the griefer. Impress on all UN members the need to endorse you and (especially in the Pacifics) impress on newer nations the need to join the UN and do the same. Obviously we are not advocating multi-ing yourself here, but be aware that you may have to muster a lot of endorsements.
5. Call in favours from other UN member nations. If you've helped them out with a war or joined their alliance, have them move to your region temporarily.

Above all - and I cannot stress this enough - let the Mods (preferably the Game Mods) know that you're suspicious of a particular nation or nations.

What can I do if my region is griefed?
1. Let people know. File a Mod Request via the Known Problems page explaining which region you were in and what happened. Telegram an online mod with that information. Post on this forum - but don't just call the thread "MODS!!", let us know in the title what you're on about (e.g. "ReallyCoolRegion has been griefed")
2. This might be tricky, but try to get a list of all the nations endorsing the new delegate and post these on this forum. Game Mods are capable of finding out a player's multis, but griefers sometimes work in groups of several individuals, so a list of nations to look at is very useful.
3. Try also to get a list of the "good" nations from your region who have been booted and let the Mods know these as well.
4. Hang tight. It takes time to weed through a series of nations and see who the multis are.
5. Don't take justice into your own hands. The worst thing you can do for your case is to spam your region's board or anyone else's, spam the forums or send millions of telegrams to the nations involved. Two wrongs don't make a right - even were you're dealing with griefers.

You keep talking about multis, so if I get a bunch of my friends and we kick everyone out of a region, we're in the right?
NO. If you grief you are automatically in the wrong, whether you do it with 50 friends or 50 multis.

What can I expect the mods to do if my region is griefed?
Varies from region to region. Where multis are involved, they will be banned from the UN at least - and possibly deleted where large numbers of multis are present.
Where a series of individuals have done the griefing, they risk UN bans as well, or worse.
Any password protection that the region has been given will be cleared, and all offensive slogans written in the factbook description will be removed.
Where it is judged necessary, a puppet nation of one of the mods will move into the region to prevent it from deleting while the original inhabitants return.
As much as we can, we'll let the original members of the region know that the griefing is over. This is why we want you to post a list of the "natives" of the region. Otherwise, that's your job after you're back home.
In extreme situations, a founder or delegate will be appointed. Any appointments done in this way are interim ones only, so feel free to endorse someone else for delegate or ask the mods to give you a different founder after peace is restored.

(EDIT by Rep Prod: This is going to be an ongoing problem, so I'm sticking this where everybody can see it!)

(EDIT by MGH: The above restrictions on ejecting nations from regions applies to Delegates only. Founders can boot any and all nations, for any or no reason.)

That post should be put on every regional HQ forum in the game...

Thanks, Enodia

If we have been booted, and did not catch the list of names in action, how can we get our region back?

Northern Europe is still taken by "NationalStalinism6" and is now password encoded. We can't get in, we can't get it back, without a mod.

What options exist for us and others like us?

The mods are working on all the regions hit by the National Stalinists. It'll just take slightly longer to resolve the ones where we don't know who we're against.

In the past few days, several regions have been griefed by a group of multis referred to as the National Stalinists. Such griefing appears to take the following form:
A nation joins the region and gradually accumulates endorsements.
Following the change in the delegate-ship, the Regional Happenings lists a nation with a variant of the name "-_-" arriving several times.
Having acquired the delegate-ship, the griefer boots everyone, including those who endorsed him/her, before leaving.
As a result, the region ceases to exist - leaving it free for one or more of the griefers to return to and gain Founder status.
The factbook entry for the region is changed to the address of a site called national-stalinism.tk or something along those lines.

How you can identify a possible threat before it happens:
Many of the nations we have dealt with have names like "AlbanianRefugees". That is, a nationality and another word with no spaces between them. If a number of these move into a region you are in (especially if they begin endorsing one another), this could be a problem.
If you are suspicious about a nation or nations in your region - whether or not you are the UN Delegate - telegram a Game Mod as soon as you can. We will be able to establish if there is a problem and then deal with it faster.

Precautions to take:
1. If you are in a user-created region (that is, not one of the Pacifics or the Rejected Realms), have a Founder appointed. Having two nations capable of ejecting others will make life slightly harder for the griefer.
2. If you are the founder of a region where this is going on, temporarily remove the Delegate's ability to boot players. If the Delegate is on your side, they will more than likely understand.
3. If you don't mind isolationism, password-protect your region. Even as a temporary thing while we deal with this problem. Yes, it prevents free and open travel, but we are dealing with a person who has been linked to 80 UN multis at one time.
4. Make toppling the delegate as hard as possible for the griefer. Impress on all UN members the need to endorse you and (especially in the Pacifics) impress on newer nations the need to join the UN and do the same. Obviously we are not advocating multi-ing yourself here, but be aware that you may have to muster more than 80 endorsements.
5. Call in favours from other UN member nations. If you've helped them out with a war or joined their alliance, have them move to your region temporarily.

Above all - and I cannot stress this enough - let the Mods (preferably the Game Mods) know that you're suspicious of a particular nation or nations.

If your region has been griefed:
1. There is a thread started (I think) by Ackbar on this forum where you should list your region as having been "mass booted".
2. This might be tricky, but try to get a list of all the nations endorsing the new delegate and post these on this forum. Game Mods are capable of finding out a player's multis, but where griefing is perpetrated by several individuals (with 10 nations each), a list of nations to look at is very useful.
3. Try also to get a list of the "good" nations from your region who have been booted and let the Mods know these as well.
4. Hang tight. Clearing up after this guy isn't the easiest thing to do, so don't get impatient.
5. Don't take justice into your own hands. The worst thing you can do for your case is to spam your region's board or anyone else's, spam the forums or send millions of telegrams to the nations involved. Two wrongs don't make a right - even were you're dealing with griefers.

As a side-note, if any nations are looking for a griefer-proof region to move to - telegram me for the instructions to join Mitteleuropa.

You should write a manual on how to grow a strong region... good post.

If we have been booted, and did not catch the list of names in action, how can we get our region back?

Northern Europe is still taken by "NationalStalinism6" and is now password encoded. We can't get in, we can't get it back, without a mod.

What options exist for us and others like us?

I thought I'd already zapped NationalStalinism6, but I guess I somehow missed it. Northern Europe is reopened to the public.

Bump this back to the front page.

I'd sticky it, but with any luck it's only a temporary problem.

Also, for regions hit by the griefer-

He always sets the password to 'aoeu'.

perdonally I would maby merge this one and ackbars topic, and sticky them so everyone sees them and knows whqat to look for.

Some additional notes about this griefer:

Attacks seem to be a nightly occurance now, beginning roughly around 11-midnight Pacific time, and apparently ending shortly before 2 am.

So far Enodia and I have been able to keep up with this dork- I think the UN multi count is closing in on 200 multies deleted so far.

I can't speak for Enodia, but this is what regions that have been hit can expect from the mods (myself, rather, as I can't speak for Enodia ^_~)

-The region's banlist, password, and UN delegate will be cleared out as soon as we are alerted to the attack
-The UN multies are found and modbombed with extreme prejudice.
-I then move my puppet nation (RPRA Techcorp) into the stricken region, or ask a volunteer from the Tech forum (so far 1 Infinite Loop has been greatly helpful in this) to move a puppet nation into the stricken region so that it won't get deleted in the daily update, which happens roughly a few hours after the attack.
-The world factbook entry will then be changed to this:
"Please excuse the mess- this region was hit by the National Stalinist griefer. I have cleared the banlist, password, and delegate, and moved a friendly nation (either my own puppet or a volunteer from the Tech forum) in to hold the region through the update. I recommend the natives discuss appointing a region founder soon."
-The placeholder nation will stay in the region until some of the natives return
-Hopefully the natives can swiftly select someone to be appointed founder so as to protect the region against future attacks.

sounds groovy to me
whipped up a quick flag for those camping

http://www.boomspeed.com/hikaru3/KOA.jpg

Alright folks! Roughly 4-5 hours until the next expected round of National Stalinist region attacks!

Shall we start placing bets on what regions Niko is going to try and hit tonight?

atheist empire?

I'll second most of what Rep said about "what you can expect from the mods", except that I don't move puppet nations around the place since that would get confusing. Where possible, I try to contact one of the natives via telegram to let them know to move back in as rapidly as possible. If there are any natives about, I'll appoint one of them as founder and/or delegate and be on hand to sort out those positions for them later if need be.

atheist empire?

It's already in pretty bad shape.

Alcatraz, maybe? Or he might go after Heaven- he's already hit Hell. :wink:

---Post deleted by NationStates Moderators---

-I then move my puppet nation (RPRA Techcorp) into the stricken region, or ask a volunteer from the Tech forum (so far 1 Infinite Loop has been greatly helpful in this) to move a puppet nation into the stricken region so that it won't get deleted in the daily update, which happens roughly a few hours after the attack.

I volunteer; if you need help, I can create a puppet nation for this purpose.

--The Democratic States of Cogitation
"Think about it for a moment."

I volunteer as well.

If I'm online when it happens, send me a TM saying which region to move a pawn to... I've got a few that are easily recognizable as being mine. ;)

Thanks for all your help guys =) Roughly 8 hours remaining until the next predicted round.

The fastest way to keep abreast of who's been hit and where we need campers is via the forums, so... @_@

---Post deleted by NationStates Moderators---

Count me in if you want another puppet country to assist... I can bounce in and out of my the alliance, as I have a few countries other than TC. Let's get this schmuck.

~ Tricia ~

---Post deleted by NationStates Moderators---

If we need somebody to hold a region, we'll say so here. We've still got a couple of hours to go

Alys and the Fiat are on call, jsut tm me at loop if needed.

~Loop

Well, roughly an hour or two to go! Let's see if this jerk follows through on his threats!

RP, dont forget I've got a puppet nation in the UN as well...

Friends, victims, not-really-friends, and people who've been keeping track of this situation!

I'm happy to say I think the boss has found an effective way of shutting down the National Stalinist griefer. If we get any attacks tonight, I'll honestly be surprised.

Thank you all for your patience and assistance in this situation- it has been greatly appreciated! =)

~Rep Prod the Game Mod

w00t!

And let's add a 'huzzah!' too.

Thanks for making this a sticky.

I like that so many nations volunteered to help camp on this issue. Shows you the game has surpassed "game" to community.

I like that so many nations volunteered to help camp on this issue. Shows you the game has surpassed "game" to community.

Yeah, it's certainly a very positive example of what can be done when people cooperate. =)

I concur RP :wink:

Friends, victims, not-really-friends, and people who've been keeping track of this situation!

I'm happy to say I think the boss has found an effective way of shutting down the National Stalinist griefer. If we get any attacks tonight, I'll honestly be surprised.

Thank you all for your patience and assistance in this situation- it has been greatly appreciated! =)

~Rep Prod the Game Mod

The mods rule!

Most boring flag ever.

So how did they shut-'em down?

Very carefully...and together, as a team...

---Post deleted by NationStates Moderators---

Let's hope something like this never happens again!!

Well, our region got griefed about 5 days ago, not by, far as we know the Stalinists group, but by Z3r0 On3. He banned me, the founder, and ejected fully half, if not more, of our nations. The region is Hogwarts. Now I have established a new region and am collecting up the flock as fast as possible, but we would like to reclaim our region, if possible. We do have a "spy" on tap to move in, but beyond that, we are not sure how to address this.

Any suggestions or help would be appreciated. We did report it, but we are just one lowly region of course.

Thank you for listening, anyway.

Aquatania2

I'm on it- the trail has turned up 15 or so UN multies already.

The modbombs are falling ^_^

~Evil Overlord Rep Prod the Game Mod

I'm on it- the trail has turned up 15 or so UN multies already.

The modbombs are falling ^_^

~Evil Overlord Rep Prod the Game Mod

Thank you very much for such incredibly prompt action on our behalf. We are truly most grateful. We are working on accessing regional control so those who were banned can return. Our lowly region salutes you!

I also cleared the banlist and password- people who were kicked out ought to be able to rejoin without a problem now =)

Flag of STALINASIA :
http://www.nationstates.net/images/flags/uploads/stalinasia.jpg
BAN them all or don't ban any.It's unfare and atacks people ideology.

Flag of STALINASIA :
http://www.nationstates.net/images/flags/uploads/stalinasia.jpg
BAN them all or don't ban any.It's unfare and atacks people ideology.

The griefing was not based on flags, or ideology. The 'stalinist griefer' used a massive amount of UN multies to take over regions, eject everyone, password lock the region, and then depart. Then they would re-found the region after it was deleted in the daily update. This is against the rules.

The only reason this particular griefer got an announcement thread like this is due to the massive amount of multies and regions involved (I think the final UN multi count reached more than 200 total, and at least 10 regions were hit), and the clocklike regularity of the attacks until we were able to track the IP and IP ban the player.

That said, if this Stalinasia subject is a completely seperate complaint from the 'national stalinist griefer', feel free to let me know.

~Evil Overlord Rep Prod the Game Mod

*Makes note on his to-do list for after exams to either de-announcement this thread and bury it or re-write the original post as a general "what to do if you are griefed"*

*Makes note on his to-do list for after exams to either de-announcement this thread and bury it or re-write the original post as a general "what to do if you are griefed"*

Please do the latter, and re-write the original post as a general "what to do if you are griefed." Without this, and you, we would not have been able to get the help we really needed. Others may fall prey to this sort of behavior in the future, and knowing that help is here and ready to assist makes a huge difference. Definitely not trying to add to your work load, but it seems only fair that others can be helped as we were.

Whatever you decide, many thanks for our work on our behalf, and on behalf of all those who have fallen prey to this ugly behavior.

Most Sincerely yours,
Aquatania2.

Quite the writeup. I promise that I'll get to work on that on the 25th of this month after I'm done for the semester.

Enodia,

You might want to add to the top announcement that founders can do whatever they like (regarding kicking/banning nations) and it isn't griefing. That question comes up a lot.

SalusaSecondus

I'll add it soon (or any other mod can). My internet connection's jumping in and out right now, so posting/editing isn't always do-able.

So it is written, so it shall be.

Can the region founder boot a delegate?

Region Founder can do whatever he pleases.


~Nutty the Mod

Good. I'm thinking, that it would be very easy to crash a non-UN region like the New Meritocracy, not that I'd ever do that, I have a puppet there.

Oh, please confirm: It is all right to have as many nations as you want, as long as a maximum of 1 is in the U.N.

That's right. As many as you want, only ONE in the UN.


~Nutty the Mod

Region with no Founder
Has an established UN Delegate
Notes massive influx in one day. All of the new nations endorse the same new nation for UN Delegate position.
Established UN Delegate ejects some or all of the new Nations before the delegate endorsements are tabulated.

Is this griefing? Is ejection allowed as a defensive strategy against crashers?

Mass-ejecting is legal as long as it's used to prevent an invasion, not after an invasion to hold onto a region by the invaders.



~Neut

Thanks for clearing that up.

Mmmmm regional take overs, GOT TO LOVE THEM!

sorry pointless post

Please ban Fruisia aka Loltion for griefing. See http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=48522

I noticed Sythia is still around and seeminly unpunished. It's common knowledge that he's a griefer. Is this an Al Capone type thing? Or are you worried that s/he'll come back as a new country?

Is it possible to list these possible multi-greifers? Especially for Stalinasia? I have heard that name before, and there might be some commonality in their names so as to give us a warning, or do you think that this guy was finally routed out.

The best way is to have a founder, and remove delegate powers. If a delegate and the founder could work together, the delegate could request the founder to carry out any tasks that the delegate and thus the region could require. The only problem is, if the founder ceases to exist, the region would have to either replace the founder, or delete the region and create it. This is the best defense for greifing. I'm surprised that this was not mentioned closer to the top of this thread.

Out of curiosity... if a region was created before the founder had those nifty powers; is it possible to give them to the person who created the region? Heh... region got crashed a month or so ago by George Bush the II and friend of his. This puts region over a barrel since he password protected it and I can't do a dern thing about it, even though I created it.

Avoiding it is simple, the griefing. Just screen nations that want to come in assuming your region is password protected.

And to Zeltec I'm afraid your probably out of luck. You should go to a Mod and report in detail your problem

I had a friend that had his region passworded and people still got in. They said they had hacked the region and found the password. IS this allowed. I am not sure if you can tell if they have hacked the server. THis makes the game suck, because they do stupid posts threaten to boot us from the region. It just pisses a person off.

They probably tricked someone into giving them the pw. Or they guessed it. I doubt they "hacked" anything.

I got a telegram a while back from a country that said:

Im the founder of [region name] and im inviting you to join our region. We're an invitation only region and we invade other regions. We're looking to increase our army size. We now have our army into companies that are led by captains. We have a forum and a website. The website needs to be updated. All together we have around 120+ nations if everyone were in the region at once. Our region is democratic. We dont judge you on how you run your nation, your political beliefs, or your views. You dont have to endorse the delegate. 11 regions have fallen to us and more are coming soon. If you have any questions then you can telegram me or just ask me for the password.
Needless to say, as soon as I told the other nations in my region about this, our Founder turned off UN Delegate access to the Region Control Panel to keep them from doing this to us. Should I report the name of this nation to a mod, or is what they're doing technically legal if they don't kick all the original natives out of a region? The telegram didn't say whether they do that or not, and I didn't think to ask until reading this thread just now. So maybe a mod should investigate their activities to see whether they're legal or not?

Oh, and I did consider asking them for their password so we could invade them :twisted:, but I only thought of it after I'd already replied that I was happy in my current region, thanks anyway, so I figured they'd get suspicious if I asked for the password after that. Besides, our region only had a little over 30 nations at the time, so the chances of successfully taking over a much larger region seemed low...

What they are doing is legal as long as they don't break any of the established rules.

As for what you can do to protect yourself, a password on the region is one way. Another way is to contact the numerous Anti-invasions groups that have formed recently.

What they are doing is legal as long as they don't break any of the established rules.

As for what you can do to protect yourself, a password on the region is one way. Another way is to contact the numerous Anti-invasions groups that have formed recently.

Could someone tell me some names of these groups?

Freedom Alliance is one, also check out the region Urbanites. They don't like invaders either.

Umm Nothingg, both of those groups are invaders, I recall them being involved in a invasion recently.

Ya, but they call themselves anti-invaders. It's how they invade and still try to take the moral high ground. It's all very confusing.

Ya, but they call themselves anti-invaders. It's how they invade and still try to take the moral high ground. It's all very confusing.

Actually, the way we do it is by endorsing the native founder. It's important to remember that difference. If the natives in the region don't want assistance, we leave... or at least we would, I don't know about other anti invasion groups.

Pete / Free Iuthia

Advocate of defence, Urbanites (http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi)

Ya, but they call themselves anti-invaders. It's how they invade and still try to take the moral high ground. It's all very confusing.

Actually, the way we do it is by endorsing the native founder. It's important to remember that difference. If the natives in the region don't want assistance, we leave... or at least we would, I don't know about other anti invasion groups.

Pete / Free Iuthia

Advocate of defence, Urbanites (http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi)

Not always the case. Yes members of your region help out from time to time, but some get bored and do their own invasions.

Not always the case. Yes members of your region help out from time to time, but some get bored and do their own invasions.

In that case if you see it again, or you know their names, I would like you to telegram me the details so I can deal with it, I would like to think that all members of the Ubranites do things with good reason.

However, we are not responable for any that have left for good since that time.

Please TM me any information as well as the context of the invasion (and where of course). I may not be involved with most the defending, being a RP nation and not a regional political type, but I do have some say with the elected leaders.

We agree and thanks for clearing that up!!!!!

A couple of questions about region invasions:
If a region is invaded, and new nations move in after the invasion, can the (invading) delegate choose to eject any (or all?) of them? Does the invading delegate become a 'native' at any time?

A couple of questions about region invasions:
If a region is invaded, and new nations move in after the invasion, can the (invading) delegate choose to eject any (or all?) of them? Does the invading delegate become a 'native' at any time?

1. Yes he can eject new commers.

2. No, the invaders never become natives. Natives are people in the region at the time of the invasion.

Wow. This place has the most amazing mods in the world. Y'all rock.

---Post deleted by NationStates Moderators---

***Note, I didn't read all of the thread***

Question: Why is griefing illegal? The FAQ justified the invasions by saying somethign to the effect of "Nations are free to move and vote how they please".
Could one not simply say "Nations whom are elected delegates are free to remove members as they see fit"?

Not that I support such a thing, but...why is it illegal?

We endorsed one of our nations for delegate in the greater krackin empire . After our mans endorsment was accepted and he was made delegate the founder banned us all and sent us to the rejected realms.
Is he allowed to do that??

Just an FYI to the mods.

I would be more than willing to use my nation to serve as a placeholder for region recovery. Seeing that I don't really get into the whole RPing aspect of this game I would enjoy doing something productive.

Hoping that this can be the start of all kinds of fun. That sounded really corny. Oh well. Such is life.

Just out of curiousity, how do you get a founder appointed in a region? Who do you ask?

Just out of curiousity, how do you get a founder appointed in a region? Who do you ask?

The mods - but it's extremely rare.