NationStates Jolt Archive

This is a question on the Pacifics. I am (or rather was) a resident of the North Pacific. But our current delegate has banned 115 nations (and counting) from the NP.

Is there an actual limit in the feeder regions to how many nations the delegate may ban? And is he also allowed to keep bans on longer than 24 hours?

Also, can he ban non-UN nations for posting on the regional boards?

-on a side note, it says Great Bight has been delegate for 27 days, but he's really only been there for I think about 10. Before him was UPS Rail, who did start 27 days ago.

Thanks!

Actually, as *another* of the former North Pacific nations that had been extremely active in the game since late Jan. 2004, I must say that I'm very disappointed with the handling of the entire situation.

I think that if the moderators are going to maintain that there is no griefing policy for the Pacifics, the FAQ should be changed to reflect this.

More importantly, I'd like to see players (new and old) get into a discussion about the role of feeder regions.

As it stands now, the game *mechanically* favours dictatorships and extremist governments. Now perhaps that it what Max was hoping for, but I don't find it a realistic model at all.

There are several suggestions on minor changes to the Pacifics (namely treating them like the Rejected Realms), which I think would help restore game balance.

Now is as good a time as any to discuss these issues, unless of course everybody likes getting complaints about griefing. The sad thing is this does distract many of the better / experienced players from continuing in off-site roleplaying and community building and generates too many real-world HOSTILITIES that should never be part of the game.

Michael

There seems to be a problem with the "delegate elected" bit

The ban list has a limit: 200 nations. After that, the early nations become unbanned.

Precedent has been to have no "natives" in any pacific regions

I believe I worked out a while ago that its almost physically impossible to greif (eject more than 20% of the region) in a Pacific. It'd take like 18 hours of constant ejecting or something

He can "ban" non-UN from posting if he likes, but that has no weight with the mods, his only authority would be to eject everyone who defied that ban (which he is entitled to do, but I doubt would be able to)

I'd very much like an explanation as to why "banning X% of the players in a region" has somehow become the only determinant of griefing. This definition of griefing is not true as explicitly stated in the FAQ.

I've been banned from The North Pacific twice now by the same player, once while supporting him and with his support on my UN resolution, and once while sitting there not communicating with anyone through TG or the regional board. It seems very likely to me that his aim is annoying or upsetting me (I can definitely say he's succeeding at it if it is his aim or not), which is the FAQ definition of griefing. Yet unless he does it to 1,500 others based on a percentage that cannot be found in the FAQ, it's perfectly legitimate. Why?

I think you have to prove that he is banning you just to annoy you. That's probably going to be difficult (Mens Rea generally is).

You might want to examine Melkor's post in the North Pacific forum. He gave some great wisdom as to how you should act regarding that situation.

1) the Pacifics have NO Natives, only Residents. therefore youcannot claim to be a native. (Neut as I recall ruled this one)

2) The Delegate of a Pacific may Boot Anyone for Anyreason at any time and may leave them banned as there are no Natives. (also Neut as I recall)

3) In the Pacifics, the Delegate is the Founder and technically Owns the region (Melkor recently imparted this one to me)

4) The Pacifics must accept regional recruitment messages, however these are limited to 1 per recruiting region per Pacific Per 24 hour Period.
(ie your messages cannot appear twice on a regional message board)

5) Griefing in the Pacifics consists of Spamming the regional Message board. and intentional spamming of the regional happenings board (Boot messages are not griefing, as the game generates the message not the player)

6) Rules, Civil Codes, Constitutions, or Artiles of Confederation enacted on a Pacific namely on an offsite forum, are not enforceable by the moderators.
If your regime falls your "laws are gone unless you are able to return to power".



this is all I can recall at the moment.
I know that there are a couple more, I just cannot recall them.
Also I do beleive as part of the banning thingy a Pacific delegate can ban as many people as he wants I think it only becomes griefing when the region gets down to like a 6th of its size.

1) the Pacifics have NO Natives, only Residents. therefore youcannot claim to be a native. (Neut as I recall ruled this one)

2) The Delegate of a Pacific may Boot Anyone for Anyreason at any time and may leave them banned as there are no Natives. (also Neut as I recall)

3) In the Pacifics, the Delegate is the Founder and technically Owns the region (Melkor recently imparted this one to me)

4) The Pacifics must accept regional recruitment messages, however these are limited to 1 per recruiting region per Pacific Per 24 hour Period.
(ie your messages cannot appear twice on a regional message board)

5) Griefing in the Pacifics consists of Spamming the regional Message board. and intentional spamming of the regional happenings board (Boot messages are not griefing, as the game generates the message not the player)

6) Rules, Civil Codes, Constitutions, or Artiles of Confederation enacted on a Pacific namely on an offsite forum, are not enforceable by the moderators.
If your regime falls your "laws are gone unless you are able to return to power".

I think I can accept everything but part of #2. Why can you leave people banned for eternity? I thought in normal regions you had to unban people after a certain amount of time. How do no natives lead to banning forever?

I also find it sad that after over a year in the same region I can't be considered a native, since it's a feeder region.

LOL, I have been in the EP for over a year and Im not even a native.
as for Bans, I have a person on the list who has been there since before I ws Delegate.
The most common way to get off of my ban list is to cease to exist.

1) the Pacifics have NO Natives, only Residents. therefore youcannot claim to be a native. (Neut as I recall ruled this one)

2) The Delegate of a Pacific may Boot Anyone for Anyreason at any time and may leave them banned as there are no Natives. (also Neut as I recall)

3) In the Pacifics, the Delegate is the Founder and technically Owns the region (Melkor recently imparted this one to me)

To my knowledge, these three are wrong. I'd like to hear an authoritative voice (a mod) clarify this.

Ballotonia

To my knowledge, these three are wrong. I'd like to hear an authoritative voice (a mod) clarify this.

Ballotonia


I know that I am not an autoritative voice, but "natives" are only declared when an invasion happens. During peace times there are only residents. Since invading a Pacific is virtually impossible (Because of the high number of endorsements the delegates possess, and the agressive ejections of opponents), it is safe to say that the term "native" will never aply there. I managed to invade The Pacific once, and I would have succeeded, if no mod interfered. That would have turned all the inhabitants of that Pacific into "natives", if I would have been allowed to win.

I think there are no natives at any time. Not even in an invasion. The best you could do was longterm resident.

But I still think people on a ban list should expire after a certain amount of time.

I think you have to prove that he is banning you just to annoy you. That's probably going to be difficult (Mens Rea generally is).

That is assuming that the game was designed with the ejection / ban tool being a means for the UN Delegates to remove political opposition.

The concept of griefing is purposefully left vague that the moderators *can* jump in and decide on their own if perhaps a serious of mass ejections and bannings of natives (and I assure you that the majority of the nations banned were natives, in the sense that I've developed a series of extensive long-term off-site roleplaying tools and used them frequently) is counter to the purpose and health of the game.


What I'm surprised about is how so many of you honestly believe and continue to support the idea that the game was designed with an ejection / ban feature so that nations could make political opposition just "disappear".

It is a silly idea. That is like saying that if Italy were elected the head of the EU and then kicked out Sweden, the UK, the Netherlands, France, and Belgium, and said that the Axis powers were once again in control of the EU, that the other nations would just create a new organization and call it the EU too.

Essentially Great Bight *dissolved* the North Pacific. Even Loop's League of the Pacifics recognizes *both* groups. Now Great Bight is abusing a moderation tool meant to keep trolls and bigots off the NS regional board as a means to secure his political authority, because frankly without the ability to eject nations, he'd be gone in 1-2 days ... we all know that.

Now Great Bight's claim to fame is that he is cyber squating on a silly name and such a poor player that he *has* to rely on getting on-line everyday in order to ban any nation not named Francos Spain that approaches his endorsement count.

Stop thinking about what you've been told are the rules ... look at it from two points of view:

- The elder states that were griefed and have read the FAQ rules (there are no others really that the majority of us have access to),

- What is the purpose of the ejection / ban tool anyways? Was it designed to help unpopular / unskilled players? Or was it a standard INTERNET moderation tool meant to be used to keep the regional boards mostly civil?

You can talk all you want about what the mods have said on IRC channels or even on this forum a year or more ago. The fact remains that this (mass griefing) will continue to happen until the rules are clearly spelled out in the FAQ *and* until the game purpose of the ejection / ban tool is also clearly spelled out on the FAQ.

I'd love to see the mods say:

Regional UN Delegates are given a censorship ejection / ban option. This was implemented in the game originally to keep forums civil, but in practice is a tool used by UN Delegates to effectively remove any opposition. The reason UN Delegates use this tool, is they'd rather not campaign for endorsements, when it is far easier for them to just remove opponents. Be careful who you endorse, because you are giving your UN Delegate this power of censorship.

I think you have to prove that he is banning you just to annoy you. That's probably going to be difficult (Mens Rea generally is).

I wasn't talking in TGs or on the regional board, nor was I anywhere near his endorsement count, so if the ability to ban is there to silence political opposition as some have suggested, then perhaps it should have to be proven that I was political opposition.

If it helps, I still have the TG in my box from after my first ban, where he states that he likes me and will unban me after the next update. Which he did do, only to reban me without any further communication and while I had half of his endorsement count.

Interestingly, he states in this same TG that he "ejected whoever (he) could" in the time he had to do it. Why mass-ban at random if not to irritate other players?

Edit: I'd also just like to note that I haven't even touched on any of the other 100+ similar stories that currently can be told by ex-TNP nations.

1) the Pacifics have NO Natives, only Residents. therefore youcannot claim to be a native. (Neut as I recall ruled this one)

2) The Delegate of a Pacific may Boot Anyone for Anyreason at any time and may leave them banned as there are no Natives. (also Neut as I recall)

3) In the Pacifics, the Delegate is the Founder and technically Owns the region (Melkor recently imparted this one to me)

4) The Pacifics must accept regional recruitment messages, however these are limited to 1 per recruiting region per Pacific Per 24 hour Period.
(ie your messages cannot appear twice on a regional message board)

5) Griefing in the Pacifics consists of Spamming the regional Message board. and intentional spamming of the regional happenings board (Boot messages are not griefing, as the game generates the message not the player)

6) Rules, Civil Codes, Constitutions, or Artiles of Confederation enacted on a Pacific namely on an offsite forum, are not enforceable by the moderators.
If your regime falls your "laws are gone unless you are able to return to power".

If you don't mind my asking, where are these rules listed? Each of these forums has an abundance of multi-page stickied threads, and none of this is in the FAQ on the main site, so I'm having a hard time finding any of these.

The fact remains that this (mass griefing) will continue to happen until the rules are clearly spelled out in the FAQ *and* until the game purpose of the ejection / ban tool is also clearly spelled out on the FAQ.

The ejection/ban tool is there for Founders/delegates to remove people from the region. It's to their discretion as to who and why they eject them. Whether they're an annoying spammer or a political rival; if they stay within the current rules regarding invasions, they are fine.

I'd love to see the mods say:

Regional UN Delegates are given a censorship ejection / ban option. This was implemented in the game originally to keep forums civil, but in practice is a tool used by UN Delegates to effectively remove any opposition. The reason UN Delegates use this tool, is they'd rather not campaign for endorsements, when it is far easier for them to just remove opponents. Be careful who you endorse, because you are giving your UN Delegate this power of censorship.

The ejection/ban tool is there for delegates to use as they see fit, as I stated above. If a delegate wishes to run their region as a dictatorship, good luck to them.

If you don't mind my asking, where are these rules listed? Each of these forums has an abundance of multi-page stickied threads, and none of this is in the FAQ on the main site, so I'm having a hard time finding any of these.

I would second this. It's frustrating trying to live in a region that somehow has different rules than most other regions, yet you aren't really sure what the rules are.

Can there be a thread that explains what the Pacifics are, and what their rules are? Either that or a subset of the griefing rules should be devoted to the Pacifics/Rejected Realms, since they seem to be different than normal.

I understand what *function* a ejection / ban list provide ... and it is clear that players that can't cut it without the aid of the tool *need* it to compete with other nations.

The question I have is *why* was it added to the game? To give an edge to weaker players? To promote griefing?

No. It was originally added to help maintain a friendly game environment. IRC / bulletin boards / emails lists all make use of human moderators with the ability to ban or silence people who are effectively trolls.

It has been said many times that the button was added for this purpose. But now there is a game culture built upon using this button for a different reason: political control, and it *has* shifted the game balance.

I understand what *function* a ejection / ban list provide ... and it is clear that players that can't cut it without the aid of the tool *need* it to compete with other nations.

The question I have is *why* was it added to the game? To give an edge to weaker players? To promote griefing?

No. It was originally added to help maintain a friendly game environment. IRC / bulletin boards / emails lists all make use of human moderators with the ability to ban or silence people who are effectively trolls.

It has been said many times that the button was added for this purpose. But now there is a game culture built upon using this button for a different reason: political control, and it *has* shifted the game balance.

So? If the admin wanted it to be used only in a certain way, guidelines would have been released when the features were added. Delegates and founders are given the powers whether they wish to use them to maintain civility or to maintain their own position.

One of the main problems I have with the mystery rules isn't so much that they're hidden (which is a huge problem, don't get me wrong), but that they're designed to support raiders rather than supporting a balance as I've seen it claimed. There's a lot of "Hey, the rules are fair, get off your butt and do something about it if you don't like the delegate" sentiment going around, but there are a few facts we have to face.

- Banning anyone who might look like he's thinking about getting close to you in endorsements is legal. Even if you have more people on your ban list than you have endorsing you (The TNP delegate is very close to that if not there already), it isn't conceivably griefing until you've banned nearly half the region. Which for the regions in question isn't even possible.

- Running scripts outside the game to count endorsements for each nation in a region is legal. And since the Pacific Delegates are considered founders, they are even allowed to run scripts that ban those nations for them, allowing them to dominate a region for weeks or months without ever being at the keyboard.

- Unendorsement campaigns are illegal.

- Any UN resolution attempting to fix any of this would fall under game mechanics and thus be non-binding if not deleted immediately along with the proposing nation.

What do you do against that? Not even the Raider-Delegate's own raiders could take the region from him under those conditions. I know the trend is to assume we're crybabies who are unwilling to do anything about the situation, but the simple fact is that even if we were allowed into our region there'd be nothing we could do.

This kind of power is in no way realistic. All organizations, international or otherwise, that elect a leader have checks and balances to that leader's power.

And since the Pacific Delegates are considered founders, they are even allowed to run scripts that ban those nations for them, allowing them to dominate a region for weeks or months without ever being at the keyboard.

1. It has never been said that Pacific delegates are considered founders.
2. Francos Spain is not using scripts.

1. It has never been said that Pacific delegates are considered founders.

From this thread:
3) In the Pacifics, the Delegate is the Founder and technically Owns the region (Melkor recently imparted this one to me)

2. Francos Spain is not using scripts.

I didn't say he did, and I wasn't even talking about him as he is not the delegate in TNP (Edit: He's also not a delegate anywhere else at the moment, technically). And I somehow doubt anyone would know if he were using scripts, it would just look like someone sitting here a long time as far as a server log would be concerned. And even if he weren't scripting, it would still be legal for him to do so, which was my point.

Loop is not a mod and cannot speak on behalf of one.

And we can indeed tell when a script is being used. Ask someone who actually knows about the subject, such as Ballotonia.

Loop is not a mod and cannot speak on behalf of one.

And we can indeed tell when a script is being used. Ask someone who actually knows about the subject, such as Ballotonia.
Are you saying that delegates of Pacifics are not treated as founders then, and if so, can you tell us why Melkor said that, and if Melkor did not say that, do you have any idea why Loop might've thought he did?

Are you saying that delegates of Pacifics are not treated as founders then, and if so, can you tell us why Melkor said that, and if Melkor did not say that, do you have any idea why Loop might've thought he did?

The delegate of a Pacific has power equal to the delegate of Europe, or any other resident-elected delegate. They may eject what can be judged as a fair number of nations without reason or warning, for example. They cannot, however, use founder-like privileges such as flooding their region's board to clear spam or ejecting the entire population of the region.

What Melkor said in his comments to Loop was that Pacific delegates are likened in status to a Founder, seeing as they are the 'leader' for want of a better word

So? If the admin wanted it to be used only in a certain way, guidelines would have been released when the features were added. Delegates and founders are given the powers whether they wish to use them to maintain civility or to maintain their own position.

I disagree. The FAQ says trouble makers ... it sounds like a moderation tool, not a political oppression tool.

I really wish you would consider the opinion that the FAQ could use some improvements:

- Add more about the ejection / ban tool and its accepted uses
- What is the Forgotten Realms and Why am I here?
- Why are the Pacifics (list them all) treated differently than other regions?

Acceptable uses of the eject/ban feature?
I already explained several times that it is up to the delegate as to how they use the eject/ban feature. Yes, it was put in to allow delegates to eject troublemakers, but if they want to use it as a political tool, fine.

Acceptable uses of the eject/ban feature?
I already explained several times that it is up to the delegate as to how they use the eject/ban feature. Yes, it was put in to allow delegates to eject troublemakers, but if they want to use it as a political tool, fine.

OK, this is wonderful.

Now that I know this, how do you expect to inform the rest of the players ... I have an idea ... maybe the FAQ.

My point: which you seem to not agree with or understand is that the FAQ really is written in a way that *many* of us understood that the eject/ban feature is for dealing with "troublemakers" ... i.e. trolls.

We thought we were playing a game with some thought to game balance ... not a game with built in dictatorship tools.

That is why you are seeing *so* many different solutions being suggested to help players get information about the consequences of their endorsements or decisions.

I'm specifically targetting the FAQ, because frankly if you guys aren't even willing to entertain the idea of modifying the FAQ, I really see no point in trying to convince the moderator team that other changes might improve game play.

I know this may be hard to comprehend, but a number of us really are less concerned with the current situation (you guys aren't going to do a darned thing), but would rather not see this REPEAT again. As much as we like to play the Political Simulation game ... we also like to build lasting things, not just stick with broken ideas.

EDIT: And yes, I know that when annoyed is not the best time to try and discuss things, but there are a number of us that believe that the NS moderation team is handling this situation very poorly. That could be my anger talking, and I'd like you to consider the possibility that communication on both ends is stressed right now.

If we put in everything you are allowed to do in the FAQ, things would get ridiculous. You will notice we put what you're not allowed to do in the FAQ. Such as griefing, swastika flags etc. If it's not in the Terms and Conditions or the FAQ, it's fairly safe to assume it's legal. No doubt there are exceptions to this rule which will of course brought to our attention at some future date.
Not to mention the fact that it would be damned near impossible to determine which ejections are 'troublemakers' and which are politically motivated.

If we put in everything you are allowed to do in the FAQ, things would get ridiculous. You will notice we put what you're not allowed to do in the FAQ. Such as griefing, swastika flags etc. If it's not in the Terms and Conditions or the FAQ, it's fairly safe to assume it's legal. No doubt there are exceptions to this rule which will of course brought to our attention at some future date.
Not to mention the fact that it would be damned near impossible to determine which ejections are 'troublemakers' and which are politically motivated.

Fair enough and thank you.

Now what about my other FAQ suggestion:

- What is the Rejected Realms and why did I end up here?


While you can say you shouldn't put things you are allowed to do in the FAQ, the FAQ is also a tool used to set the tone for the game. You *should* use it to set that tone and head off things that *are* frequently asked questions.

Since it is clear that the moderation team will not be discouraging political based ejections and bannings (which is IMHO an unrealistic game balance issue -- basically a total cheat), you are indirectly encouraging nations to drop more newbies into the Rejected Realms. Maybe the Frequently Asked Questions should address that topic and explain how they work differently than other regions.

XG asked me to pass this along (as he is having technical problems):

{start of message}

I've asked Mikitivity to post this for me as I can cannot post on these forums at the moment. The link from the NS page doesn't work for me and apparently my forum password differs from my NS password. So I can go to the domain for the forums and work my way here to read, but I can't post until this clears up. I TGed this to Mikitivity, so if this causes any problems I apologize and you can verify that this is my request.

While I'm sure you guys may have devised some method of script-detection, the legality of such scripts still leaves us in the same position. I'm not accusing any individual of running them, I'm merely stating that they are a legal tool at a Delegate's disposal. So while a Pacific Delegate can't have a ban script (assuming he's not considered a founder as well, no offense but I'm getting conflicting advice on that), he certainly can still run an endorsement-counting script if he chooses. This leaves the rules (which I still can't find actually listed anywhere) practically the same for the intents of region control:

- The Delegate can ban whoever he wants and as many as he wants, for as long as he wants, with or without reason.

- The Delegate can (emphasis on can, I'm not accusing anyone of doing it) run endorsement counting scripts to insure that he sees any and all who challenge him, even the most covert of attempts.

- Asking others to unendorse the Delegate is illegal.

- Attempting to use UN leverage to modify the situation is illegal.

This puts nearly unlimited power in the hands of an elected leader, which simply is not realistic. There are no checks and balances, there is little for a group to do against an invader except keep trading UN status around between puppets and trying repeatedly until you or the invader grows tired and gives up. There's no legitimate, remotely effective recourse for an invaded Pacific region, and for the sake of both game balance and the new players who learn to play from the Pacifics, it is my opinion that there should be.
{end}

And though I will post other people's technical / moderation opinions at times even if I don't agree with the said posts, I actually agree with XG completely here. -Michael

The final rules for scripts are here (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=5812823&postcount=59).

Also, a couple things to keep in mind:

1) We never claimed that the system was fair. Very few things are.
2) In Max Chat 2.0, Max expressed no small amount of amusement at the "Francos Situation", leading one to believe that the creator of the game has no problems with political ejections.
3) If I was a dictator trying to hold onto regional power, I'd consider anybody who neared me in endorcements to be a "troublemaker". Indeed, political rebels are often called "troublemakers" by those in power.

Is there a thread with the rules for the Pacifics? Since our delegates seem to have different rules....


It's irritating to try to argue points with people on regional boards but to not be able to reference what you're talking about.

3) If I was a dictator trying to hold onto regional power, I'd consider anybody who neared me in endorcements to be a "troublemaker". Indeed, political rebels are often called "troublemakers" by those in power.

My $0.02

"Regions" are a construct of this game ... in the real world, *Nations* can form unions and dictators don't have the power to break those unions.


The problem isn't allowing a dictator control over their own citizens. It is when they enter agreements / organizations as equals.

I'll use my NATO example. Poland leaves the Warsaw Pact and enters NATO. It collects endorsements in record numbers, and a week later kicks the UK, USA, Germany, and just for spite Luxembourg out of NATO. It retains power and bans these nations. NATO hasn't ceased to be ... the other powers would walk out on a power hungry Poland and NATO would meet in Luxembourg City or Paris instead of Brussels.

If you want to play a game where we are "freedom fighters" under a dictator or whomever, dump the UN and international bent. Turn this from NationStates into Federalism101.

- The Delegate can (emphasis on can, I'm not accusing anyone of doing it) run endorsement counting scripts to insure that he sees any and all who challenge him, even the most covert of attempts.

Neat how you don't even bother to read the rules stickied at the top of this forum.

No script may kick or ban nations (unless controlled by the region's founder).

And since we have already said that the Pacific delegates are not viewed as Founders, they are not permitted to run such scripts.

Dear Moderators,

I am not really qualified to post on the niceties of the Nationstates rules - most of the rules I did not even realise were there until this week.

But I do wonder whether you have been following the thread kindly started by Melkor on the North Pacific forum, and whether you realise the amount of grief (in the non-technical sense of the word) that Great Bight has caused this week?

And if you do realise it, do you think that there are deficiencies in the rules of NAtionstates?

And since we have already said that the Pacific delegates are not viewed as Founders, they are not permitted to run such scripts.

But in that script thread, it also says anyone is allowed to run scripts that collect facts, including the number of endorsements. So Mikitivity is not saying that the script is used to boot people, but could be used right before update to give everyone's count in endorsements. Then the delegate manually boots everyone he/she wants to according to the count given.

And that IS legal.

Isn't there some rule somewhere (I doubt it, actually, but this is worth a shot) that says someone can be warned for abuse of power? This constant banning is quite ridiculous, and since I can see that no one will act on that count, how about the World Factbook Entry? Here is today's (It does change daily):

The Frenchman and Don will flee from our path, and the Englishmen cower below at our wrath, And our sails shall be gilt in the gold of the day, And the sea robins sing as we roll on our way. A hundred shall serve - the best of the brave, And the chief of a thousand shall kneel as thy slave, And thou shalt reign queen, and thy empire shall last Till the black flag by inches, is torn from the mast.
Register at the NP forum: http://www.edu.pe.ca/springpark/pirates/abc


Note the line in bold at the bottom of the quote box.
Now, without copying it into your browser, look at the URL and ask yourself, "Would this have anything at all to do with NationStates or The North Pacific?"
Now copy it into your browser. What comes up?

An error message along the line of "This page cannot be found", or "This page does not exist."

Spam stands for Short Pointless Annoying Messages. If that line is not short, pointless, and annoying, I don't know what else is that makes sense.

I am also appalled that the mods would allow this to happen in one of the feeder regions. A new player comes in, has their region founded in The North Pacific, stays there for a day, and gets booted by good ol' Great Bight. What a great first impression, no?

As to the "no natives" thing, I find it odd that a nation which has been in the region for several months, and been very active in it, is not considered a native. But that's just my thought.

Sorry if I repeated any points in this post, especially if they were already covered and finished up. I didn't actually bother to read page 2.

In any case, I hope somebody decides to act on this, because in my experience, I have seen that the mods say they can do things, and make up rules to support those claims them, yet never enforce them.

Live Long and Prosper.

OK, I just read page two.

And I am a little confused about this line here:

They cannot, however, use founder-like privileges such as flooding their region's board to clear spam or ejecting the entire population of the region.


I just got named the founder of Part123 by whoever it is who controls The Most Gloriously Modified Puppet Nation of Region Unlockers, after a griefing invasion. According to this line, I can spam the message board all I want, and then claim I was clearing the board?

And this line here, also origionally said by a mod, and a very high-ranking one at that:

Originally Posted by SalusaSecondus
No script may kick or ban nations (unless controlled by the region's founder).

So I can also write up a script to ban everyone in the region and get away with it just because I happen to be the founder?

Why does this not make sense?

OK, I just read page two.

And I am a little confused about this line here:



I just got named the founder of Part123 by whoever it is who controls The Most Gloriously Modified Puppet Nation of Region Unlockers, after a griefing invasion. According to this line, I can spam the message board all I want, and then claim I was clearing the board?

And this line here, also origionally said by a mod, and a very high-ranking one at that:



So I can also write up a script to ban everyone in the region and get away with it just because I happen to be the founder?

Why does this not make sense?


A founder can spam their region's messageboard for the purpose of clearing advertisements, offensive spam etc. If you're caught out doing it for no reason, chances are you'll end up with a warning.

The Founder is the owner of the region hence why they can eject every nation in the region if they please.

- The Delegate can (emphasis on can, I'm not accusing anyone of doing it) run endorsement counting scripts to insure that he sees any and all who challenge him, even the most covert of attempts.

Neat how you don't even bother to read the rules stickied at the top of this forum.

No script may kick or ban nations (unless controlled by the region's founder).

And since we have already said that the Pacific delegates are not viewed as Founders, they are not permitted to run such scripts.

Mikitivity was referring to endorsement counter scripts, not kicking scripts. I have an endorsement counter script that I've run on the North Pacific before - it doesn't kick anyone, but it would aid a Delegate in knowing who to kick.

1. It has never been said that Pacific delegates are considered founders.


Melkor told that to me On IRC about a week, mayby two weeks ago.
and he is a game mod, so I took him at his word.

The North Pacificans should note that in every region other than the Pacifics or the Rejected Realms, there are extraordinarily strict rules imposed on invaders that make successful invasions incredibly difficult.

If you want real protection, you can create your own region and get yourself a founder, which, if s/he's reasonably competent, will make your region bulletproof.

I managed to invade The Pacific once, and I would have succeeded, if no mod interfered. That would have turned all the inhabitants of that Pacific into "natives", if I would have been allowed to win.Prove it. This 'interference' had better not be a reference to the time you got banned for spamming.

Fair enough and thank you.

Now what about my other FAQ suggestion:

- What is the Rejected Realms and why did I end up here?

It does give you this when you are ejected now.

Your nation was ejected from RegionXXXX by XXXXXX. It has been relocated to the Rejected Realms.

Prove it. This 'interference' had better not be a reference to the time you got banned for spamming.

I don't have to prove anything. All my friends know it was me. I still have the e-mail to leave the region, or be ejected by Neutered sputniks. If you don't believe my word on this, there is nothing I can do. I will not show the e-mail here. That would be betraying convidence, though I am not sure of that. I had more endorsements than Francos at that time, and it was still growing. I came back, after an "okay" from [violet] but lost by one endorsement, because my friends were forced to leave the region too, and went to bed. Most of us stayed up all night for this. The propaganda war was terrible, and Salusa gave me a warning for spamming.
Give me one day in The North Pacific, until 5 minutes after update, and I'll do it again.

Mind you, I didn't leave because of the friendly question, of a friendly moderator. I left because there was a promise to create something similar again, which proved not to be possible.

I don't have to prove anything. All my friends know it was me. I still have the e-mail to leave the region, or be ejected by Neutered sputniks. If you don't believe my word on this, there is nothing I can do. I will not show the e-mail here. That would be betraying convidence, though I am not sure of that. I had more endorsements than Francos at that time, and it was still growing. I came back, after an "okay" from [violet] but lost by one endorsement, because my friends were forced to leave the region too, and went to bed. Most of us stayed up all night for this. The propaganda war was terrible, and Salusa gave me a warning for spamming.
Give me one day in The North Pacific, until 5 minutes after update, and I'll do it again.

Mind you, I didn't leave because of the friendly question, of a friendly moderator. I left because there was a promise to create something similar again, which proved not to be possible.That was truly a tragedy. I went to bed a good couple of hours before, but the way things had been going, I was truely surprised that you lost

Prove it. This 'interference' had better not be a reference to the time you got banned for spamming.

That would be the time the glitch removed hundreds of Delegates from power, including "Francos Spain". While invaders were pouring into "The Pacific", we mods were scrambling to figure out whether or not to declare this legal because this was totally unexpected. The "interference" Carinthe is referring to was our decision to declare this illegal until it could be reviewed by [violet].

While I remember Corinthes spam attack on the forums, I don't know if that took place in the same incident.

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

That would be the time the glitch removed hundreds of Delegates from power, including "Francos Spain". While invaders were pouring into "The Pacific", we mods were scrambling to figure out whether or not to declare this legal because this was totally unexpected. The "interference" Carinthe is referring to was our decision to declare this illegal until it could be reviewed by [violet].

While I remember Corinthes spam attack on the forums, I don't know if that took place in the same incident.

--The Modified Democratic States of Cogitation
"Think about it for a moment."
The interferance cost Corinthe the delegacy, and it was ruled afterwards to have been legal by [violet]. While I'm sure the mods acted in the best intentions, it was a botched job. While hindsight is 20-20, it would've been better to allow Corinthe to keep going but tell her that it was liable to be overturned when [violet] got back.

Its also worth mentioning that Francos Spain is believed to have obtained the delegacy through a similar kind of glitch.

Hi everybody, long time no see.

I was just wondering how much discussion has happened with regard to the current ban limit in the Pacific regions.

Why is there a 200 ban limit, when in the history of nationstates, there has never been an army of 100 members?

To my knowledge, the biggest army is only around sixty members.

It seems to me that banning half of an army should be sufficient.

How about lowering the ban limit on the Pacific regions?

I don't see how a ban limit of fifty would impair the game.

Only NPO members need more bans than that. It seems to me, and I expect many others, that a ban limit of 200 which is quite extreme, is very shocking to new players (the residents of the Pacific regions). and is a rule which favors ONLY NPO type groups. A BIT OF A PARTIALITY HERE, PERHAPS?

In fact, a limit of thirty would probably suffice. Since only NPO and invaders/defenders need more than that, anything more than that would be giving the game away to one group of players- the NPO type.

This isn't merely a game. It is real people with real feelings. Giving an unfair advantage to mean people will lead to only mean people playing the game. How about at least leveling the playing field?

Just some deep thoughts from Jack Handey.

I appreciate your time and trouble.

While I remember Corinthes spam attack on the forums, I don't know if that took place in the same incident.

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

That was all about Monte Carlo, when a moderator decided that banning a native was okay, because my franctic attempts to return to my own region was ruled spamming. I got so mad, that I gave the forum a real spamming. I was just lucky, to be only banned from the forum :fluffle:

Hi everybody, long time no see.

I was just wondering how much discussion has happened with regard to the current ban limit in the Pacific regions.

Why is there a 200 ban limit, when in the history of nationstates, there has never been an army of 100 members?

To my knowledge, the biggest army is only around sixty members.

It seems to me that banning half of an army should be sufficient.

How about lowering the ban limit on the Pacific regions?

I don't see how a ban limit of fifty would impair the game.

Only NPO members need more bans than that. It seems to me, and I expect many others, that a ban limit of 200 which is quite extreme, is very shocking to new players (the residents of the Pacific regions). and is a rule which favors ONLY NPO type groups. A BIT OF A PARTIALITY HERE, PERHAPS?

In fact, a limit of thirty would probably suffice. Since only NPO and invaders/defenders need more than that, anything more than that would be giving the game away to one group of players- the NPO type.

This isn't merely a game. It is real people with real feelings. Giving an unfair advantage to mean people will lead to only mean people playing the game. How about at least leveling the playing field?

Just some deep thoughts from Jack Handey.

I appreciate your time and trouble.
A ban limit of 30 for the life of a region would not be appropriate. 201 puppets for spamming, annoying and flaming a region (especially one as large as a pacific) would be rather a lot, but 31 puppets wouldn't. High profile regions might also, over an extended period of time, want to keep a large number of people they dislike from returning to the region. Its also worth remembering that the cap of 200 was put in place because of the NPO, so further tightening of it would not only be overkill, but would also be manipulating game rules over the actions of a very small group of individuals.

I think that reducing it to 100 wouldn't be too bad though.

A ban limit of 30 for the life of a region would not be appropriate. 201 puppets for spamming, annoying and flaming a region (especially one as large as a pacific) would be rather a lot, but 31 puppets wouldn't. High profile regions might also, over an extended period of time, want to keep a large number of people they dislike from returning to the region. Its also worth remembering that the cap of 200 was put in place because of the NPO, so further tightening of it would not only be overkill, but would also be manipulating game rules over the actions of a very small group of individuals.

I think that reducing it to 100 wouldn't be too bad though.
Spamming, annoying and flaming gets nations deleted by the mods. I, as delegate, and even otherwise, have always dealt with such nations directly rather than making Kandarin approach the mods about them. That is not what a ban list is for.
High profile regions must always be alert, and typically are because they are exciting places to be. Very few regions have kept more than thirty nations on the ban list at any given time. Therefore, at this time a ban limit of thirty seems appropriate. If it ever happens that we start to see invader armies of more than thirty, then perhaps the number can be changed.

The cap of 200 was done in an emergency situation. The reasoning for the exact number to set the cap at has not been shown. I am hoping that a reasonable discussion of an appropriate cap can bring about a rules change that would create an improvement in the game.

I am not insisting on a particular cap, I am simply offering some reasoning that I would like to think that [violet] and the mods could consider helpful. I am also trying to provide an instigation for others to present reasoning along these lines.

Thus far, I do not see the reasoning for a ban list cap of 200. Perhaps some consider my suggestion of thirty too low, but I would like for everyone to be aware of the embarrassment in science known as the Miliken Oil Drop Experiment.

Professor Miliken was deeply respected, highly regarded, and much praised for his work in measuring the mass of the electron.
Yet, his experimental techinique was deeply flawed, and his measurement was therefore off the mark.
In the history of science is a history of the mass of the electron was continually changed just a little at a time to correct for this flaw. People were afraid to disagree with established thought. It took many, many years to arrive at an agreement on the accurate mass of the electron.

The cap on the ban list appears to be a response to the fact that the mods found that Francos Spain had banned well over 700 nations from his region. It appears that they thought, "That's too much, it should be less." Two hundred is less, but how long will it take to keep making the cap "less" unitil it is reasonable? I have offered reasoning supporting the conclusion that thirty is correct.
Perhaps thirty is too few, but certainly two hundred is too many.

I would not like to wait many, many years for a correct cap on the ban list.

If it ever happens that we start to see invader armies of more than thirty, then perhaps the number can be changed.
I believe the attempts to liberate The Pacific late last year qualified as invasions. That'd be an invader army of far more than thirty nations. And since the pacifics can't be password-protected, there was plently of "attack, get booted to the RR, switch UN status to another nation for the next attack" happening, meaning the banlist fills up fast (I was keeping track of the Pacific banlist in a spreadsheet for a while, and the turnover was pretty quick).

The cap on the ban list appears to be a response to the fact that the mods found that Francos Spain had banned well over 700 nations from his region. It appears that they thought, "That's too much, it should be less."
It's possible that the limit was implemented for performance reasons rather than gameplay reasons. Besides, if the limit had been much lower (so that if all the attackers were awake it'd be impossible to keep them all out), I doubt the attempts to take The Pacific would have been as much fun as they were.

Maybe the banlist should expire, like it does in Warzones. That will give a delegate a chance to eject endorsement swappers, just a few minutes before the update, and give them the freedom to return after it. It still leaves place for abuse, but dictators should have some fun too :p

I believe the attempts to liberate The Pacific late last year qualified as invasions. That'd be an invader army of far more than thirty nations. And since the pacifics can't be password-protected, there was plently of "attack, get booted to the RR, switch UN status to another nation for the next attack" happening, meaning the banlist fills up fast (I was keeping track of the Pacific banlist in a spreadsheet for a while, and the turnover was pretty quick).


It's possible that the limit was implemented for performance reasons rather than gameplay reasons. Besides, if the limit had been much lower (so that if all the attackers were awake it'd be impossible to keep them all out), I doubt the attempts to take The Pacific would have been as much fun as they were.
They were not an army, they were players from every corner of Nationstates who were upset to see the game go into the t*. Only the NPO is benefitting from the ban list cap. That makes the cap partial toward players whose sole purpose in playing the game is to own the pacific regions.
The reasons for the banlist cap could be anything, they are unknown. Your guess is just a guess.
The point is that the banlist cap was made in haste. A reasonable banlist cap would be good for the game.

I don't have to prove anything. All my friends know it was me. I still have the e-mail to leave the region, or be ejected by Neutered sputniks. If you don't believe my word on this, there is nothing I can do. I will not show the e-mail here. That would be betraying convidence, though I am not sure of that. I had more endorsements than Francos at that time, and it was still growing. I came back, after an "okay" from [violet] but lost by one endorsement, because my friends were forced to leave the region too, and went to bed. Most of us stayed up all night for this. The propaganda war was terrible, and Salusa gave me a warning for spamming.
Give me one day in The North Pacific, until 5 minutes after update, and I'll do it again.

Mind you, I didn't leave because of the friendly question, of a friendly moderator. I left because there was a promise to create something similar again, which proved not to be possible.

As I remember it, you only had a chance because of a glitch and then you got mad because you weren't able to exploit the glitch.

Maybe the banlist should expire, like it does in Warzones. That will give a delegate a chance to eject endorsement swappers, just a few minutes before the update, and give them the freedom to return after it. It still leaves place for abuse, but dictators should have some fun too :p

This is one of the best ideas I've heard concerning the banlists. And I also concur with Mr. Ledge concerning the "Glitch" invasion as I too was keeping a log of the number of nations banned. Perhaps an expiration time, such as 28 days or something could suffice?

Can't win the regular way so you want the rules changed to suit your needs? Why don't you just take all the fun out of it and have the mods declare you delegate?

Just a reminder to everyone: This discussion will remain civil.

--The Modified Democratic States of Cogitation

Spamming, annoying and flaming gets nations deleted by the mods. I, as delegate, and even otherwise, have always dealt with such nations directly rather than making Kandarin approach the mods about them. That is not what a ban list is for.
You're aware though naturally that mods are often busy and resolving these things takes time, right? Delegates want a stop-gap, and often don't care overly to get the mods involved but just want to get on with life in the region, so that the spamming doesn't disrupt more than is absolutely necessary (victory: spammer)


The cap of 200 was done in an emergency situation. The reasoning for the exact number to set the cap at has not been shown. I am hoping that a reasonable discussion of an appropriate cap can bring about a rules change that would create an improvement in the game.

I am not insisting on a particular cap, I am simply offering some reasoning that I would like to think that [violet] and the mods could consider helpful. I am also trying to provide an instigation for others to present reasoning along these lines.

Thus far, I do not see the reasoning for a ban list cap of 200. Perhaps some consider my suggestion of thirty too low, but I would like for everyone to be aware of the embarrassment in science known as the Miliken Oil Drop Experiment.
<snip>
An interesing and very appropriate analogy. I think you're quite right, there could be reassessment on this. I wasn't arguing against a drop in the cap either, I just though 30 was a bit low.

I recall a sigh of relief when the mods/admin placed a cap on the ban list. Why should there be a change? You can argue that 30 seems reasonable, but in the world of puppets and organizations that "support" so and so, I can't see a viable reason to change the list/ Good grief, some people take the time to have over 100 puppets. And they are astute enough to recycle them.

I personally think that the ban list at 200 is sufficient, but I really like Carinthe's idea of it having an expiration time.

You're aware though naturally that mods are often busy and resolving these things takes time, right? Delegates want a stop-gap, and often don't care overly to get the mods involved but just want to get on with life in the region, so that the spamming doesn't disrupt more than is absolutely necessary (victory: spammer)



An interesing and very appropriate analogy. I think you're quite right, there could be reassessment on this. I wasn't arguing against a drop in the cap either, I just though 30 was a bit low.
Dear Cogitation, It is nice to hear from you again. I hope you don't mind my little clarification:

This topic has a purpose. Those posts that do not address the purpose are not well received.

Perhaps some people will perceive that I am attempting to hijack this thread.
What I am doing is offering a possible solution to the problems in the Pacific.

Someone mentioned the fun of the game.
There is a disagreement among the players of this game with regard to why it is fun.

Some people, in fact a rather small minority, consider the fun of the game the taking of the Pacific regions so that they can then dominate the game and consider themselves "winners". They are concerned only with domination and behave in a very rude manner without consideration for a vast majority of the players of this game.

Some people enjoy the exchange of ideas with people from all over the world and the effort to arrive at an ideal political system given constraints.

I am sure that there are many other motivations for playing this game.

The current rules situation obviously favors a minority of the players. This situation is causing bad feelings among many players. It is also a significant reason why people leave the game.

Rules are typically decided upon with concern for the players. Rules always give advantage to certain types of game play and certain types of players.

The complaint I hear from all players except NPO members and supporters is that the rules favor an unpleasant sort of game play and an unpleasant sort of player.

What I am doing, and what I perceive many others to be doing is suggesting a careful consideration of the rules of the game.

In particular, I am asking that a careful consideration of the ban cap be undertaken. I realize that this cannot happen overnight. I also realize that this must have been done repeatedly, but I believe that it has not been done carefully; especially, I perceive that it has not been done with regard to all the many considerations that could be made. More importantly, I perceive the situation which I refered to earlier. Namely, a "better" cap has been introduced instead of "a carefully considered and good" cap.

I am saddened that I am seeing little effort to present constructive arguments. Perhaps my own case is quite strong. Certainly, I have considered this issue very carefully for quite some time. However, I did not include all of my reasoning, and purposefully so. I would like for others to participate here.

Addendum: In response to another post, the ban list has never been successful at stopping spamming of the civil hq. Therefore stopping spamming cannot be given as a reason for any sort of ban cap.

I remember telling the moderators that I was busy placing so many nations on that banlist (That was easy, because all it had to say was "down with Francos", or something similar, so it wasn't spam), that eventually it would screw up the game coding. I remember some very weard banlist error messages, these days. A few days later the banlist cap was placed. The cap was not meant to favor anybody.
Myrdinn, thank you for your support :fluffle: , but when I said "Just like the Warzones", I meant an expiring time of 24 hours, so banned residents can return to the place they are banned from. Nothing is stopping the delegate from simply banning them again. All s/he has to do is hold them in his/her dossier, so s/he always knows where they are. Works very well for me, and some ADN members swear by it.
I am so happy with the "ignore" button here :cool: :p

...but when I said "Just like the Warzones", I meant an expiring time of 24 hours, so banned residents can return to the place they are banned from. Nothing is stopping the delegate from simply banning them again.
That would make bans useless for keeping out recruiters and similar annoying people. If I was a Pacific delegate and I was alert enough to catch one of those little buggers before they jumped to the next region, I'd want them to stay banned. This applies to anyone who'd be likely to sneak back into the region while I was asleep, or do that "jump in, post message, jump out" thing. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to use a long-term ban.

That would make bans useless for keeping out recruiters and similar annoying people. If I was a Pacific delegate and I was alert enough to catch one of those little buggers before they jumped to the next region, I'd want them to stay banned. This applies to anyone who'd be likely to sneak back into the region while I was asleep, or do that "jump in, post message, jump out" thing. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to use a long-term ban.

And nothing is working, because it only encourages members to create a new nation. As long as the place can't be passworded, banning puppets is a waste of time. Actually it stimulates the post and run messaging.

Even having no banlist at all (making the ban-button 'only' an eject-button) would not overcome the inherent advantage for ruthless dictators in feeder regions.

Ballotonia

Honestly, I don't see the ban list limit changing, in all honesty. I don't really see the situations in the Pacifics change from an administration side either. Remember that in one of the MaxChats (the second, I believe) he expressed amusement at 'The Francos Situation'.

Call me miss negativity, but no matter how I look at it, I only see one thing: It is just a matter of time, and the ruthless dictatorships will dominate this game. Democratic, founderless regios, will eventually be eliminated from the game. The dictatorships will have a majority in the UN votes, and all other fields in this game. They can't be stopped. If you have a democratic system in your founderless region, eventually a ruthless leader will emerge, eliminating all oponents, and that's it.
The gamestructure is mostly in favour of the dictatorships. They probably don't have a majority yet, but I see no way to stop it. When the feeder regios are all dictatorships, this game is over. You can't force a democracy into a region, but forcing a dictatorship into a region is very easy. Grim future indeed. :mp5:

Remember that in one of the MaxChats (the second, I believe) he expressed amusement at 'The Francos Situation'.

... ship-wrecked by the laughter of the gods ... :)

The gamestructure is mostly in favour of the dictatorships. They probably don't have a majority yet, but I see no way to stop it. When the feeder regios are all dictatorships, this game is over. You can't force a democracy into a region, but forcing a dictatorship into a region is very easy. Grim future indeed. :mp5:

Not just any dictatorships per se. Only a sufficiently ruthless and efficient dictatorship can survive all assaults on it and thus irrevocably capture feeders. BTW, this does not mean all Pacifics will be NPO in due time. Other dictatorships may emerge. That is the end result of the current game implementation / rules as I see it. Whether or not this is perceived as a good or bad thing depends on ones perspective. The NPO is surely content with it, while others may be less happy. In the end, if this is what the game owner has in mind for this game to be, then so be it.

Balotonia

Ballo, I'm beginning to grow on your signature. :)

Anyway, the way things are going now, this game is not so 'open-ended' as Max told us it was. If you like democracy, and your founder is that way, you better be very nice to him/her :fluffle:

Even having no banlist at all (making the ban-button 'only' an eject-button) would not overcome the inherent advantage for ruthless dictators in feeder regions.

Ballotonia

Why should the pacifics even have a ejection-button? Kandarin is managing without it. Why would a delegate of a pacific even need an ejection-button? It doesn't stop spam, it's a very temporary solution; the spammer may be gone, but Kandarin is stuck with him, and he can't eject them. Hunting for spammers is a moderator job!Besides, within 30 seconds the spammer may create another puppet. The pacifics are "open" regions from nature... everyone can enter and leave.. they can't be pasworded.


Just like in Francos case, mods say: "we're not helping, just conquer it". But the current game mechanics don't allow this. Pacifics count several thousand of nations, some hundreds of them UN, not all of them are active, and only a fraction cares about what's happening in his region. It's just plain stupid to think one can assemble at least 300 UN-nations active at update-time. There is no such large army, never has been. There are only people from whole Nationstates willing to help out to restore democracy. But current game mechanics heavily favours the ones in power (be it an evil dictator or a democratically delegate). All the dictator has to do is eject some trouble makers who're gainging too much endorsments for his liking. But it is impossible to attempt every day a liberation attempt for ever... no army can keep that up. It's like running into a wall. Very frustrating this great game ends up being just another illustration of arrogance, stupidy and egoism


From the FAQ:
Once I've taken over a region, can I eject everyone else?
No. Region crashing by itself is a legitimate tactic to seize power, but ejecting large numbers of nations is griefing.
Well, technically, Francos and Great Bight took over a region and started mass ejection. This is the only game I know which has no clear rules whatsoever written out.. all rules are completely made up instantly, completely at the mercy of what some moderator comes up with.


Player: -How much nations can i kick?
Mod: -you can't eject a large number of nations
Player: -how much is large?
Mod: -about 40%
Player: -so, if i kick 39,99% you won't kick me?
Mod: -i haven't said that, it depends on the context, what region it is, who you are,...
Player: -hmm, i see..
Mod: -I’ll give you and example. If you kick out 4 in a region of 11 (=36,..%), there's a chance you get punished for griefing other players.
Player: -so, how much can i eject?
Mod: -it depends..
Player: -on what?
Mod: - Which mod's handling your case, and what mood he’s in, how much you're bribing them, the weather,.. all sorts of factors
Player: -so, we're at the mercy of the almighty power of the mods
Mod: -Yes!
Player: -OK then..
Mod: -it also depends if you're a founder or a delegate
Player: -OK, i'm a delegate.. so how much?
Mod: -are you an invader or a native delegate?
Player: -i dunno, you tell me..
Mod: -smart ass huh..
Player: -i’m a delegate of one of the pacifics, and as you know there are no natives, nor invaders. How much can i eject?
Mod: -Oh, right, now I remember that ruling I once made..
Player: -200 may not be large in comparison to the entire population of the pacific, but i think it's still a large number... and I wouldn't want to be DEATED.
Mod: - if you kick out several hundreds of nations out of a pacific, we won't mind, you're only spoiling the fun of those players, and it's not like they're paying me.. ughh.. the game, I mean
Player: -So, how many people can I thrown out?
Mod: -As many as you like, now leave me alone
Player: -But…
Mod: -End of discussion
Player: -Why..
Mod: -DEAT

That would make bans useless for keeping out recruiters and similar annoying people. If I was a Pacific delegate and I was alert enough to catch one of those little buggers before they jumped to the next region, I'd want them to stay banned. This applies to anyone who'd be likely to sneak back into the region while I was asleep, or do that "jump in, post message, jump out" thing. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to use a long-term ban.

Actually to the best of my knowledge the mystery rules dictate that Pacifics must accept recruitment ads.

I don't really see the situations in the Pacifics change from an administration side either. Remember that in one of the MaxChats (the second, I believe) he expressed amusement at 'The Francos Situation'.

While I can understand that Max may not want to see the rules changed, I think that's pretty weak to leave an obvious imbalance that obviously upsets a lot of players in place because the game creator got a giggle out of it one time.

I mean, we're trying to determine what would be fair, not what would be funny. It would be absolutely hilarious if everyone had the power to delete nations, you know?

Basically, someone comes into the region, plays by the rules, some people don't like that and they want to change the rules. That would be like a team winning the World Series on a stolen base to home and the losing team says, "Hey that's not fair! We weren't ready for that. We want a do over!"

The rules were established, and tweaked once already. Why is there this discussion? I'm sure if someone came into the Pacific and suddenly brought in a new government we would be quite upset, but I know we would not be crying about changing rules.

Basically, someone comes into the region, plays by the rules, some people don't like that and they want to change the rules. That would be like a team winning the World Series on a stolen base to home and the losing team says, "Hey that's not fair! We weren't ready for that. We want a do over!"

The rules were established, and tweaked once already. Why is there this discussion? I'm sure if someone came into the Pacific and suddenly brought in a new government we would be quite upset, but I know we would not be crying about changing rules.

Perhaps you haven't noticed the people complaining. If anything, Corinthe indirectly benefits from the NPO's success, as it makes more people pay attention to her, gets her respect, etc. I benefit directly from this, as it leads to the growth of my region and organization. Yet we're in opposition to this sort of thing happening.

I just find a horridly large pile of Humor in the fact that Some people cannot win, so they whine and petetion for the rules to be changed in thier favor.
You Are Not James Kirk,
This Is Not The Kobayashi Maru,
You Cannot Change The Rules To Suit You.

I have an idea. Anyone else heard of the Wisconsin Card Sort? It's a tool used by psychologists to see if people recognize rule changes to check some functioning of the brain. Anyway, maybe we can create an alternative universe where the rules are constantly changing in the game and see what happens! [/sarcasm]

Jump in, jump out tactics get nations deleted.

Everywhere in the world rules get changed.

When a rule is decided to be contrary to the benefit of the game, it is time to change it. It is better that rule changes be openly discussed in a reasonable fashion instead on the spur of the moment. Subsequent reevaluations of rules are only natural also.

Loop, you are starting to get on my nerves.

Criticism of a system of rules is often a prerequisite to the betterment of those rules.

[sarcastic remark]The only way to make people truely happy is if we all stop thinking. Than rules will never have to change, and everybody is happy. If you don't believe me, you can always ask my goldfish. [/sarcastic remark]

Why should the pacifics even have a ejection-button? Kandarin is managing without it. Why would a delegate of a pacific even need an ejection-button? It doesn't stop spam, it's a very temporary solution; the spammer may be gone, but Kandarin is stuck with him, and he can't eject them. Hunting for spammers is a moderator job!Besides, within 30 seconds the spammer may create another puppet. The pacifics are "open" regions from nature... everyone can enter and leave.. they can't be pasworded.

Well over a year ago, before anyone ever heard of Francos Spain, I suggested in the moderation forum that in *ALL* regions the Delegates should not have the power of ejecting players at all. Just the Founders. This makes the game go, partly, back to the way it was before these regional controls were put in place.

Those who want to live without the whole invader/defender game can still do so. Invaders won't have to worry about being ejected by Delegates, just about being outnumbered. And I can guarantee you there will be fewer defenders standing in their way. Neither side will be able to kick out natives or eachother though, but then again this should mean mods will have less to do. It should also mean bigger and longer battles. The update time suddenly doesn't matter as much anymore. I believe the gameplay would go back from being a technical excercise (currently) to a more political (gaining supporters, convincing others of your side's 'right') game.

Just like in Francos case, mods say: "we're not helping, just conquer it". But the current game mechanics don't allow this.

Well, not exactly, but an active delegate who plays as ruthless as the NPO does makes it nearly impossible to win against them. As long as they don't make mistakes the requirement for beating a feeder region is a number of invaders of at least 300 + the number of endorsements the delegate has. (that's 200 to end up in the banlist prior to the update, and an estimated 100 more who get banned as the update is running). All these wil have to be active at update. The number required drops only when the delegate plays less than optimal. With the current sizes of armies this means it's not a realistic option, as long as the delegate makes no major mistakes.

Perhaps a weird question, especially coming from me, but why would it be desirable for the above to be possible at all? The only thing I can think of is that in this game the pacifics count as the 'crown jewels' since they are both feeders (recruiting is essentially a battle to 'obtain' the new players for your side) and have a huge potential of influencing the UN (400 endorsements for a delegate is normal). Then again, while the feeders combine to be a very big swing in UN votes, they don't quite add up to a practical monopoly of the UN though. The effect is less when observing one single feeder region.

Pacifics count several thousand of nations, some hundreds of them UN, not all of them are active, and only a fraction cares about what's happening in his region.

The North Pacific (for many months now the largest feeder) has over 1300 UN nations in it. But yeah, mostly those nations are inactive. Inactivity for the 5500-6000 non-UN nations is even worse. That's why we see so many nations ceasing to exist in feeders, every single update. Quite the rate of player drop-off, or are these mostly abandoned puppets of active players? I don't know.

Ballotonia

And while we are all not thinking, we can forget the sarcasm smilie, can't we ?

:rolleyes:

[sarcastic remark]The only way to make people truely happy is if we all stop thinking. Than rules will never have to change, and everybody is happy. If you don't believe me, you can always ask my goldfish. [/sarcastic remark]

Point taken! :p

Point taken! :p

My goldfish, doesn't care :rolleyes:

And while we are all not thinking, we can forget the sarcasm smilie, can't we ?

:rolleyes:

Yeah, I have the forum with the most smilies on the internet, yet I forgot it this time :confused:

What does a sarcastic smiley look like, anyway?

Loop, this is for you because you've been posting similar rubbish on several forums all the while pretending you're not biased.

Thinking that we can't win is stroking your own ego just a little too much, your plan wasn't that great. Anyone can waltz into a democratic region, feed it lies, eventually take over, and ban everyone. Absolutely anyone. It requires no ingenuity or even very much thought.

The problem is that the rules prohibit anything but an equally underhanded response from being successful to any notable degree. In any other region, sure, a legitimate take-back wouldn't be all that hard. But for some reason in the Pacifics, a region where new players learn the rules, behavior such as that currently on display by your superiors in the NPO is not only tolerated but encouraged.

In short: This is not about changing the rules, this is about applying the rules uniformly; the rules already exist and we wish only to apply them in an unaltered state. If any discrepancy in enforcement should exist, it should be that the rules are more strictly enforced in regions where new players learn those rules. If you can only remember one paragraph from this post, make it this one.

Why anyone ever decided in the first place that regions full of hordes of new players learning the ropes should have no rules is absolutely beyond me. The fact that so many find the decision defensible at all is laughable (indeed, it seems only to be defensible by stating that Max laughed about it once), I won't even get into the fact that nobody can seem to see the logic in the opposing viewpoint.

In short: This is not about changing the rules, this is about applying the rules uniformly; the rules already exist and we wish only to apply them in an unaltered state. If any discrepancy in enforcement should exist, it should be that the rules are more strictly enforced in regions where new players learn those rules. If you can only remember one paragraph from this post, make it this one.

I'm all for that as well, but I fail to see where the rules were not being enforced uniformly regarding the North Pacific? This situation is exactly like the Pacific and many, many other regions who had a change in delegacy.

Honestly, if you can give me examples of where I am wrong here, please do. I am open-minded and open to truth, but I can also smell political rhetoric as well. I think you have given us an excellent point.

I can also smell political rhetoric as well.

If it walks like a duck...



I would also like to know what rules you think aren't being enforced equally.

Thinking that we can't win is stroking your own ego just a little too much, your plan wasn't that great. Anyone can waltz into a democratic region, feed it lies, eventually take over, and ban everyone. Absolutely anyone. It requires no ingenuity or even very much thought.


I'll give credit where credit is due ...

Anybody can do it, it isn't that hard, and given how broken the rules are, they actually make it fairly easy to maintain control.

But the skill in this sort of thing is: coordinating a bunch of nations -or- using a bunch of multis *and* waiting long enough to get in place.

That said, somebody will eventually take the North Pacific back. And then it will trade hands again.

Frankly, I consider that a bit of a bore, but hey whatever floats other people's boats is OK in my book ... so long as it also doesn't spoil other people's fun. At this point most of the parties involved in the North Pacific battle frankly have made the game rather "unfun" for me.

And while there is IMHO too much bad blood to salvage much from all the parties involved in the North Pacific, I'd like the mods to ask, just what sort of attitude do they want the game to take now?

Now we have people swearing at each other ...
UN Delegates asking for nations to be deleted for posting links to regional forums ...
Other nations bitter about a limited FAQ / rule set ...

I would think it would be an incredibly unfun time to be a moderator and I think this is due to the fact that the rules of the game aren't consistent with crediting a fun atmosphere anymore.

I'm all for that as well, but I fail to see where the rules were not being enforced uniformly regarding the North Pacific? This situation is exactly like the Pacific and many, many other regions who had a change in delegacy.

Honestly, if you can give me examples of where I am wrong here, please do. I am open-minded and open to truth, but I can also smell political rhetoric as well. I think you have given us an excellent point.

Fair question, but I think you misread me just a little bit. Allow me to expand on my uniform enforcement statement.

I'm not saying The North Pacific was treated less fairly or even any differently than The Pacific. One might make a case that the original mod intervention against Bight set off this latest round, but I really think we're beyond that. For all reasonable intents and purposes TNP and TP have been treated the same as far as the rules go. I'm pretty sure just about everyone can agree here.

My position is that the treatment that both have received is unfair when compared to the rest of Nationstates. It's like there's one set of rules for all of NS, and an entirely different set of rules for regions where new players start. That's the enforcement discrepency to which I refer. The ban cap, for practical purposes, doesn't exist in a Pacific. It isn't possible to ban 40% or 20% or even 5% of a Pacific, which makes griefing nonexistent while the FAQ (the document most newcomers will look at first) will tell them that this behavior is against the rules. There has to be some kind of human judgment on when behavior like this crosses the line into region harassment, it's entirely too difficult if not impossible to measure by an automated percentage procedure.

I do understand that the regions have no founders, but they're also the place where the vast majority of new players learn the game mechanics. It makes no sense to me to have players learn under a set of rules that won't apply to them once they leave the Pacifics. A player starting out right now in TNP is going to be very confused about the rules regarding a delegate's power to eject, I've personally seen and addressed (hopefully accurately) two such cases of this.

Don't get me wrong, I've founded my own region and Bight's delegacy isn't much my concern anymore. The rhetoric parts of my last post were an effect of Loop riling me up. I just feel like this, while technically in line with the precedents set by previous Pacific decisions, isn't a fair situation when you look at the entirety of NS and it likely leads only to more work for the moderators.

Yeah, I have the forum with the most smilies on the internet, yet I forgot it this time :confused:

Well I apologise, if it makes you happy, I'll even add you to my un-credible big list of people to stalk once I get the time freed up. ;)

I can finnally make it on to the forum!

If you ask me, it is not a case of the game naturally creating dictators, it is the nature of humans and of reality. Why do you think we went without democracies for thosands of years?

As for GB, he has like 100 nations endorsing him. Normal delagates have 400-500 nations endorsing them. With the ban list cap at 200 that means that you need 300 nations atleast to take him out.

What I would do is have term limits on the delagate posistions in the pacific, but hey, guess you have to take GB out the old fassion way. The Mods would seem very hypocritical if they did something now to get rid of GB, after they said they wouldn't interfer for the last two weeks. If they show that they could bow to pressure, their workload would explode.

Well, I for one am not arguing for retroactive application of the rules should they decide to apply a human-judgment-based griefing policy, such as that implied in the FAQ, to the Pacifics. That would be like asking police officers to go back in time and arrest anyone who violated a law that was just passed.

I do think that if this happens Bight and any others in his position should be given warning that they are in violation and given a grace period to come into compliance. In all reality there are about 10 people formerly of the NP that could have taken the delegacy from him if left unchecked, and maybe that many more outside sympathizers who could do the same. If he actually chose political targets instead of lashing out at random it wouldn't be difficult at all for him to keep his hold on the region with a reasonably truncated ability to ban.

The other thing to keep in mind is the updates. If a political opponent is outside the region during an update, his in-region endorsements vanish. This essentially means that, to hold the region, the ban list for any 24 hour period only needs to be made up of those who are actively seeking your delegacy on that particular day. His current ban list amounts to an average of about 10 a day if I'm not mistaken, so conceivably a region as embattled as the North Pacific could be held with as few as 15 bans. And since he already bans daily, he'd be doing no more work than he is already.

Mind you, I'm not suggesting the restriction should actually be that low, but just pointing out that holding the region with it that low is entirely within the realm of possibility.

Well, I for one am not arguing for retroactive application of the rules should they decide to apply a human-judgment-based griefing policy, such as that implied in the FAQ, to the Pacifics. That would be like asking police officers to go back in time and arrest anyone who violated a law that was just passed.

Exactly ... I think I should focus my thoughts on the feeder regions and not the individuals involved. If I had to sum up everything that I've asked for in the past month, it would be:

- For the nature and special rules about feeders and the rejected realms to be addressed in the FAQ sometime in the future,

- For decisions regarding any party in the current disputes take into account the fact that these rules were not widely know, and the situation did spin out of control on and off-site, and

- For everybody to keep a general discussion on what they'd like to see long-term happen in the feeders in order to make their game exerpience more pleasant.

I hope that is clear, and I'm hoping that the game can be fun again.

For decisions regarding any party in the current disputes take into account the fact that these rules were not widely know, and the situation did spin out of control on and off-site, and. . .

Anything that happens off-site can't be held accountable on site, regardless of the effects of what is planned off-site.

Not trying to be rude, but your entire argument sounds like sour grapes to me. Your delegate got outplayed by a superior player. He knew the rules and stayed within them to take over. Your delegate had the tools to make sure something like that didn't happen, but either wasn't smart enough or skilled enough to use them. That's not anyones fault but the people who elected him. I am sorry that some of you aren't enjoying the game right now, but I'm having a blast. It's exciting episodes like this that really keep me interested. You're argument that new players are hurt by the goings on in the region doesn't hold water either. What if that's the type of game-play they're looking for? What if they were recruited by players like me who don't roleplay? All the action in the region may really peak their interest and make them long term players of this game. I think you need to stop and realize that there are many types of players in this game. Not everyone playes it like you do. You're not gonna like all of them (I personally don't understand the thrill of role-play) but they are all valid forms of play in this game.

Of course invading is a valid form of play, so long as by valid you mean only that it doesn't by necessity violate any rules. Problems with this arise when the rules are not balanced.

Having differing invasion rules for Pacifics is going to keep new players in the dark about rules that are already hidden. You can't grief a Pacific at all because the definition of griefing has been restricted from the FAQ definition to banning a percentage of a region that isn't possible to ban in a Pacific. The end result is new players learning by example that they can ban whoever they want whenever they want, then going out into regions where they, in reality, can't even think about doing that. This is not balance, this is misinforming new players at the expense of the moderators who have to clean it up later.

I really feel like a broken record right now, but I don't know how else to say it.

Anything that happens off-site can't be held accountable on site, regardless of the effects of what is planned off-site.

That doesn't counter what Miki said.

I'm going to have to agree with some of my colleagues here that some of the rules are not extraordinarily clear. In my humble opinion, the FAQ should contain the following additional bits of information

1) How to play the game: There are four basic ways - Answering issues, regional politics/forum posting, invading/defending, and Role Playing. The noobs need to know all that the game has to offer, so they can choose their region and tailor their NS experience to their likes and dislikes. They need to know there is another world out there, (preferably before a recruiter tells them).

2) Rules of invading/defending: All of the rulings need to be condensed a la readers digest into a simple, easy to read document regarding these rules with links to the case histories. There should be a link from the FAQ to this thread, and it should be locked by the mods so that they (and only they) can post and amend. It should be easy to follow, and contain the definitive definition of all the NS buzzwords that even we disagree on, like Native, defender, invader, etc. I think it should look something like this...

Rules for Invading and Defending a Player-Created Region

Rules for Invading and Defending a Game-Created Region

All illegal tactics and methods should be mentioned, and this should be agreed and approved by all the 1337 mods. Once a golden standard has been adopted, documented, and linked to from the FAQ, I think we can all get back to the business of accusing each other of unspeakable evil. ;-)

cool, thats what I was thinking.

cool, thats what I was thinking.

Excellent.

Franken, I accuse you of unspeakable evil!

Excellent.

Franken, I accuse you of unspeakable evil!

Relax man. Nobody cares about The Pacific. :p

Nobody cares about The Pacific? Many of us do. Sure the NPO wants everyone to not think about The Pacific, but seeing as they are going through an administration change, they are vulnerable.

Loop is afraid that his region will be next once The Pacific has been liberated.

The rules of this game seem rather makeshift, and not very evenly applied, and it all depends upon the MOD taking the call, so to speak, to make a decision.

So the native/invader rules don't appliy to The Pacifics. Good to know.

I'd still like to see the ban button turned of in the Pacifics.

The native/invader rules apply to the feeder regions; I have not heard different from my fellow Moderators or any of the Admins. It's simply that Delegates of feeder regions are usually there by endorsement-swapping with natives and are therefore Internally-Elected. That's why invasion rules don't apply to them; they're not Invader Delegates.

--The Modified Democratic States of Cogitation

Not to beat this point but you are saying the Feeders DO have natives, right?

This runs counter to popular belief (only player regions have 'natives' while the Feeders are all considered transients by nature).

BTW I think the unthinkably evil Sir Paul has a good point about updating the FAQ (apparently only for section 1, however).

Earlier it was noted that the feeder regions do not have natives, but rather residents.

Earlier it was noted that the feeder regions do not have natives, but rather residents.
The point of this thread is that's not true. Neut said something about native rules not applying to the pacific a year ago, and everyone took that to mean no natives in feeders at all.

yeah, there's only a case of natives (vs. invaders) in case of an invasion.
and afaik, that goes for both player-created as game-created regions.

some people just read neut's post wrong.

It is all very easy; Since nobody is able to come up with an army of 300+ UN members (Who can invade in a splitsecond), most of them try to swap their ways to the delegate seat. That means that the delegate (If s/he wins) will be internally elected, thus there is no invasion. And since the term "native" will only be used in case of an invasion, the chance that it will be used in case of a feeder region, is slim to nil. It is simple; When you win the delegate seat of a feeder region, you may eject a reasonable ammount of UN members, and keep them banned as long as you wish.

I think Carinthe summed that up rather nicely.

Well over a year ago, before anyone ever heard of Francos Spain, I suggested in the moderation forum that in *ALL* regions the Delegates should not have the power of ejecting players at all. Just the Founders.

While I can’t recall exacts on the issue of founders, I can assure that myself and other invaders explained when these powers were first ruled out that they would create larger dictators and stronger invaders. While it might limit the number of those who are effective, it would give great tools to those who succeed. So, yeah, no big surprise to me that that’s what happened. Personally, I don’t see what is so wrong with this, though. If people were more intelligent about the issue (not all, mind you) and actually co-operated Francos would not have lasted in power so long. People want the game to be played for them. That’s sad (like they are trying to look for the cheat code instead of figure out the puzzle). Simply be smart and play the game. Talk to others. Even if you hit a brick wall, it is penetrable somehow.


Anyone can waltz into a democratic region, feed it lies, eventually take over, and ban everyone. Absolutely anyone. It requires no ingenuity or even very much thought.

Invaders can’t ban natives. You should read up on invader rules.



And while there is IMHO too much bad blood to salvage much from all the parties involved in the North Pacific, I'd like the mods to ask, just what sort of attitude do they want the game to take now?

Now we have people swearing at each other ...
UN Delegates asking for nations to be deleted for posting links to regional forums ...
Other nations bitter about a limited FAQ / rule set ...

Blaming rules for abusive attitudes is like killing the cow for moldy cereal. All parties need to take ownership of their own actions, regardless if they agree or disagree with the rules. Attempting to shame the mods in one direction or another because people are behaving poorly, I don’t think there is a lot of merit in that attempt. That is, of course, just my opinion though.




I do understand that the regions have no founders, but they're also the place where the vast majority of new players learn the game mechanics. It makes no sense to me to have players learn under a set of rules that won't apply to them once they leave the Pacifics. A player starting out right now in TNP is going to be very confused about the rules regarding a delegate's power to eject, I've personally seen and addressed (hopefully accurately) two such cases of this.


Unless the mods were to make the odd decision to have new nations spawn randomly in all player-created regions, there can be no consistency in any of these types of rules. It is simply a different sort of fruit altogether. Or, if you have an idea, what sort of consistent rules would you suggest?


Not trying to be rude, but your entire argument sounds like sour grapes to me. Your delegate got outplayed by a superior player. He knew the rules and stayed within them to take over. Your delegate had the tools to make sure something like that didn't happen, but either wasn't smart enough or skilled enough to use them. That's not anyones fault but the people who elected him.

I agree with this sentiment. Just as Bight was taken out of power by a superior offensive, this is indeed part of the game. Despite questions (and likely more answers then there should have been) about the legality of the tactic, I don’t think most involved with Bight’s rule have come close to complaining or crying un-fair about Bight’s demise. And to be fair, considering the tactics, Bight’s supporters certainly did have good cause to ask for mod clarification. Perhaps I will come across whining by those who supported Bight. And if I did, I will say the same to them, loss is part of the game. Without the possibility of losing sometimes, we are all playing the Special Olympics.


Earlier it was noted that the feeder regions do not have natives, but rather residents.

That’s what I have long heard as well.


It is all very easy; Since nobody is able to come up with an army of 300+ UN members (Who can invade in a splitsecond), most of them try to swap their ways to the delegate seat. That means that the delegate (If s/he wins) will be internally elected, thus there is no invasion. And since the term "native" will only be used in case of an invasion, the chance that it will be used in case of a feeder region, is slim to nil. It is simple; When you win the delegate seat of a feeder region, you may eject a reasonable ammount of UN members, and keep them banned as long as you wish.

Good explanation, as I understand it.

All this whining is boring, I got banned from The Pacific, just deal with it.

It is indeed amazing that such a great number of people can make such a great number of posts and communicate so little as this.

I am still looking for some reasoning for the present ban list cap.

Since THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO REASONING EXCEPT THE REASONING FOR A CAP OF 30

Then it stands to reason that the ban cap should be thirty.

Consequently, if the ban cap is not altered, then it is UNREASONABLE.

SHOUT, SHOUT.


PEACE, PEACE, PEACE.

So this is the "If People Don't Agree With You, Use Bold, Size, and Color Tags" school of argument?

that is the way it works, I like to use Underline too myself

I understand that people have their own likings.

Agreement is not having the same likings.

Agreement is accepting the same premises and recognizing that those premises logically support the same conclusion.

No one has mentioned any information which can be used in an argument.

I get tired sometimes of only hearing whining, either for or against.

I am glad to see you off my nerves, Loop.

To me, this is pointless. It's a game mechanic. Besides, what if an organization were to be able to amass an invasion of more than 30 (it's been done numerous times)? Why should a delegate be handcuffed because your reasoning dictates that the ban list can be 30? You are advocating a change in game mechanics the supports invaders rather than the region itself. I am not sure that you have thought about that point.

Regarding the feeder regions, I think a ban list of 200 is quite appropriate. Numerous nations like to post spam and grief the civil hq and the delegates are able to ban these people for a lengthy time because of the 200 list. If you have several spammers and griefers a day, the 30 ban list will be hardly useful and spammers will continue to haunt the civil hq. I know you are going to say that we can simply report them via the getting help page, but I foresee that the problem would get so bad that the mods would barely have enough time to deal with all of them.

This is merely applied chaos theory. You make one change in the game mechanics and you need to consider the possible outcomes that result. I don't like that scenario.

To me, this is pointless. It's a game mechanic. Besides, what if an organization were to be able to amass an invasion of more than 30 (it's been done numerous times)? Why should a delegate be handcuffed because your reasoning dictates that the ban list can be 30? You are advocating a change in game mechanics the supports invaders rather than the region itself. I am not sure that you have thought about that point.


I do agree. I just wanted to point out that part of the problem is that people don't really think the rules out. When the Del powers were added, I know of at least myself and 2 other invaders who argued how a dictator could use these to rule over a region. And, big-darn-suprise later, that's exactly what happened.

I think it has been proven that Feeders are not invincible, they can be liberated (as one reecently very cleverly was), it just isn't as easy as requesting a rule change.

While I understand people's frustrations on the issue, I don't think a lot of people are trying to make rules that make sense or that balance the power better. I think they are trying to make rules that invalidate invading. And even at that, as you point out, the ideas just don't measure up to a better dynamic.

To me, this is pointless. It's a game mechanic. Besides, what if an organization were to be able to amass an invasion of more than 30 (it's been done numerous times)? Why should a delegate be handcuffed because your reasoning dictates that the ban list can be 30? You are advocating a change in game mechanics the supports invaders rather than the region itself. I am not sure that you have thought about that point.

Regarding the feeder regions, I think a ban list of 200 is quite appropriate. Numerous nations like to post spam and grief the civil hq and the delegates are able to ban these people for a lengthy time because of the 200 list. If you have several spammers and griefers a day, the 30 ban list will be hardly useful and spammers will continue to haunt the civil hq. I know you are going to say that we can simply report them via the getting help page, but I foresee that the problem would get so bad that the mods would barely have enough time to deal with all of them.

This is merely applied chaos theory. You make one change in the game mechanics and you need to consider the possible outcomes that result. I don't like that scenario.
I thought of pointing out the lack of reasoning in this post, but then I realized that you are not going to be willing to notice. Tell me, do you wear bows in your hair? (This last comment has as much reasoning as your entire post quoted.)
Reasoning = Premises + logic + conclusion which follows logically from the premises.
The premises are missing, the logic is missing, and all that is left is opinion.
What color bows?

Numerous nations like to post spam and grief the civil hq and the delegates are able to ban these people for a lengthy time because of the 200 list. If you have several spammers and griefers a day, the 30 ban list will be hardly useful and spammers will continue to haunt the civil hq. I know you are going to say that we can simply report them via the getting help page, but I foresee that the problem would get so bad that the mods would barely have enough time to deal with all of them.

This is merely applied chaos theory. You make one change in the game mechanics and you need to consider the possible outcomes that result. I don't like that scenario.

A Pacific delegate is not moderator, and a banlist is not made to moderate the game, or a feeder region, for that matter. A banlist is made to defend the region against invaders and such. Moderators are to deal with rulebrakers. You are thinking way to high of a Pacific delegate. The Rejected Realms is not there to punish rule brakers. There are concequences for everything, but ejecting does not solve a gameproblem. It just changes its location. So your reasoning that the banlist is to deal with spammers and such, is flawed and a bit selfish.

A banlist is made to defend the region against invaders and such.

Max implies otherwise:

Tue, 29 Apr 2003

Regional Control

If your region is currently afflicted with unwelcome visitors, you'll be happy to hear that you can now do something about it. Each UN Delegate (and, from now on, the person who creates a region) can access a page called "Regional Control," which allows you to eject nations from your region. You can also password-protect regions, to effectively make them invitation-only.

"Unwelcome visitors" could easily apply to spammers and flamers. Indeed, that was the original reason for regional control being coded.

Founder controls were created because of Invaders.

Surely you don't believe everything the news page says..

Fri, 06 Jun 2003
Moderators are kind, noble players...

Max implies otherwise:



"Unwelcome visitors" could easily apply to spammers and flamers. Indeed, that was the original reason for regional control being coded.

Founder controls were created because of Invaders.

I didn't say it wasn't possible, but I am sure that it isn't made to solve a gaming problem. We all eject unwanted visitors, but that doesn't mean we let Kandarin deal with them from than on. The eject button is not made to replace a moderator's job. The banlist is very inefective agains all sorts of rule brakers. I am sure that Max didn't mean the banlist as a sort moderating function. Sufice to say that I agree with Twoslit. 30 is enough to keep endorsements low, and rulebrakers out. The most regios don't have so many on their banlists. My own region's banlist is mostly empty (until now :p ). 200 is just paranoid.

A founder doesn't need any tools against invaders :P