Strange Bedfellows: Raiders & Defenders Protest Regional Welcome TelegramsHELL FROZEN OVER -- The Black Riders, General Halcones' complaint regarding Welcome Telegrams has sparked wide interest and debate in the matter. Halcones argued,
"I am shocked to find that welcome telegrams can be set in Feeder regions. They effectively act as free recruitment telegrams, while everyone else is having to pay real money."Cerb, delegate for 10000 Islands, home to the famous Ten thousand Islands Treaty Organization (TITO), quickly supported General Halcones remarks.
"Now they [feeder regions] get to also have a first in line recruitment message which is ahead of any user created recruitment effort...Feeders can recruit from anywhere just as UCRs can, they just don't need to have a first shot at nations created within their own boundaries. It is an unfair advantage."Delegates of the offending regions were less impressed with the arguments. Delegate of the South Pacific, Belschaft, quickly pointed out Welcome Telegrams were operating exactly as intended,
"Further, I should point out that welcome telegrams only exist because we asked for them to be implemented so we could use them in this exact manner. This was what they were intended for." Other feederites quickly made similar arguments, also claiming that the Welcome Telegrams were a fair recompense for all the disadvantages feeders have compared to standard User-Created Regions.
Both sides seemed stalled at an impasse, with no compromises reached when The Black Hat Guy, delegate of
Versutian Federation, joined the debate armed with data gleaned from NSHistory's population census. In an album of graphs ( see:
http://imgur.com/a/ek60B ), he plotted the sharp rise in feeder growth and retention following the Welcome Telegram implementation. Armed with this new information, Cerb, Afforess, and others reiterated calls for reform and changes to the Welcome Telegrams.
At this time, it is unknown what plans, if any, the Site Administration have in regards to Welcome Telegrams and possible changes. Full discussion may be found here:
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=265767NS Confidential. Written by Afforess. Oct 17, 2013.