Comparing Regions; How do they stack up?

[The Runes]

Since first becoming delegate of Balder over a year ago, I have become increasingly interested in the dynamics of the World Assembly from an internal perspective of membership and endorsing. After all, Game Created Regions like founderless ones rely on a high endorsement count and as much influence as they can muster in order to maintain stability and security. These are the numbers that myself and many other delegates look at it in order to try do better. However, many regions do not focus on the World Assembly despite the potential to have a larger say in bodies such as the security council which very much matter to Imperialist and Independent regions.

World Assembly Stats: Game Created Regions

Region	Number of WAs	Endorsements	Endorsement %
Osiris	121	97	80.02
The North Pacific	616	476	77.27
Balder	164	123	75
The East Pacific	327	229	70
The South Pacific	339	219	64.6
The Pacific	330	212	64.24
Lazarus	259	165	63.7
The West Pacific	342	194	56.73
The Rejected Realms	368	150	40.76

There are many interesting points to take from this set of data. Firstly, I'd like to state a few disclaimers. Osiris' percentage is so high because of its mandatory endorsement policy of active World Assembly nations. Prior to this policy, Osiris held around a 69% endorsement rate. The West Pacifics is very low due to the recent delegacy transfer. The Rejected Realms has nearly always had a very low endorsement percentage due to its function. Finally, Lazarus' endorsement percentage is at least 2 or 3 points higher than normal because of the presence of many troops supporting the regime.

It is interesting to note that there are big differences in the endorsement percentages and that these are separate from the World Assembly nation totals. Despite having the largest World Assembly population, The North Pacific boasts the second best endorsement percentage out of all the Game Created Regions. The North Pacific, Osiris and Balder have very high endorsement rates and are all at least 5 percentage points above the next best Game Created Region; the East Pacific. From there we have another large gap before we reach The South Pacific, The Pacific and Lazarus. Most surprisingly is how low Lazarus is. Despite the re-enforcements into the region, it still boasts the lowest endorsement percentage for similar regions that have not changed delegacies lately.

Furthermore, what makes this surprising is that under Feux the region was first amongst all the Game Created Regions when it came to its endorsement percentage before being over-taken by Balder (who were then over-taken by The North Pacific) with a rate well into the 70s. This leads me to believe that the biggest indicator in how high an endorsement rate is comes from the delegate him or herself and how proactive they are in within their region. Unless there is something else going on there.

The other mystery in this set of data is why The North Pacific is operating at what seems to be another level entirely from its siblings. Its high endorsement rate can be easily explained, via the policies and activities of its current delegate. But why does The North Pacific have over 600 World Assembly nations when the other feeders all have similar amount of World Assembly nations in the 300s. In fact, the North Pacific has more endorsements on its delegate than any of the feeders have actual nations. Also, interesting to note is that despite the fact that Balder and Osiris were founded on the same day, Balder boasts over 40 more World Assembly nations.

Finally, since instituting its mandatory endorsement policy, Osiris has seen the total number of World Assembly nations in the region rise. I personally thought the solution to fix the regions low amount of endorsements would be through looking at improving the total amount of World Assembly nations. In my mind, a mandatory recruitment policy would have slowed growth down in terms of World Assembly nations and without more, it would have been impossible to get a fairly large amount of endorsements.

World Assembly Stats: User Created Regions

Region	Number of WAs	Endorsements	Nations Total	Endorsement Percentage
NationStates	44	41	335	93.18
Spiritus	57	49	203	85.96
Europe	170	143	387	84.12
Gatesville Inc	43	36	132	83.72
Texas	42	34	158	80.95
Europeia	201	154	697	76.62
Wintreath	103	69	445	66.91
10,000 Islands	382	251	979	65.71
The Land of Kings and Emperors	54	34	297	62.96
Wysteria	43	26	164	61.9
Democratic Socialist Assembly	119	68	283	57.14
International Northwestern Union	89	49	133	55.06
The New Inquisition	55	29	236	52.72
United Kingdom	63	33	277	52.38
Kingdom of Great Britain	35	17	263	48.86
Albion	49	23	391	46.94

Here, Gatesville Inc, NationStates, Europe, Texas and Spiritus are supreme with endorsement percentages well over 80 although NationStates is an interesting case as we will go into later. Generally, I'd say that to have an endorsement rate in the 60s tends to be average while an endorsement rate in the 70s tends to be very good to excellent. 80 is an insanely high number that is rarely if ever reached. It's interesting to note that Albion despite its very high post counts has a very low percentage rate. 10,000 Islands also has a lower endorsement rate than one would expect. However, it makes up for its lower endorsement rate in a variety of ways (the main one I'll get into later).

If 10,000 Islands had the same rate that Europeia has (its most similar region on this list), it would have 292 endorsements rather than 251. This is an extra 40 votes. So here, Europeia ranks up very favourably. Regions who were part of the four realms (The New Inquisition and The Land of Kings and Emperors ) and Albion which tend to have a similar sort of culture had rates that were the lowest amongst all of the regions I looked up. This demonstrates that culture amongst many gameplay regions of disinterest in the World Assembly and a lack of focus on it. Generally the World Assembly Delegate in these regions is not a position in which people aspire towards. This is something we saw in Europeia for a very long time and why they felt for a while disenfranchised in the World Assembly in addition to the heavy defender focus of the World Assembly (at least that was how it was perceived).

Similar to these regions are other gameplay regions like Kingdom of Great Britain and the United Kingdom which feature very low endorsement rates. Interestingly enough, Gatesville Inc features an extremely high endorsement count. Despite their hatred of the World Assembly, their culture of using the World Assembly against itself appears to have given them great success in endorsements. Interestingly enough, Wysteria and Texas the exact same amount of endorsements but while Texas boasts a very high endorsement count, Wysteria has a very average one. Furthermore, the three large and more roleplay type regions I choose had very different results from each other. While Europe boasted an extremely high endorsement percentage, the Democratic Socialist Assembly and the International Northwestern Union had less than average endorsement rates.

World Assembly Ratio to Total Nations

Region	Percentage of WAs to Nations
International Northwestern Union	66.92
Europe	43.39
Democratic Socialist Assembly	42.05
10,000 Islands	39.02
Gatesville Inc	32.58
Europeia	28.83
Spiritus	28.08
Texas	27.84
Wysteria	25.61
The New Inquisition	23.3
Wintreath	23.15
United Kingdom	22.74
The Land of Kings and Emperors	18.18
Kingdom of Great Britain	13.31
NationStates	13.13
Albion	12.53

I decided not to include Game Created Regions in this category because while it could be interesting in comparing them to each other there isn't as much value in comparing them to Game Created Regions because of the difference in scale and function. Interestingly enough here, the larger primarily role play regions did the best and were the top 3 in this category out of all the regions. International Northwestern Union is the only region which had over 50% of its nations in the World Assembly. This is no small region either, with 133 nations. Fourth, we had 10,000 Islands which had a very large percentage of World Assembly nations to ordinary nations of 39.02%. This feat allows it to have the most endorsements out of any non-Game Created Region despite only having an average endorsement percentage. Gatesville once again does extremely well here, as does Europeia and Texas. Unsurprisingly, regions that do not have a strong focus on the regional side of things and on the the World Assembly.

If Europeia had the same percentage of WAs to Nations and also held the same endorsement percentage it does now, it would have 271 World Assembly nations. The Land of Kings and Emperors and Albion would benefit greatly from a higher percentage. Albion could effectively double its amount of World Assembly nations and still only be in the middle of the pack when it comes to World Assembly Ratio to Total Nations. Now again, that clearly isn't Albions focus. NationStates, despite having the highest endorsement percentage on this list has the second lowest percentage of World Assembly nations to Nations.

The question becomes how can regions improve our World Assembly Ratio to Total Nations? How do we improve our world assembly endorsement percentage? The latter is the easiest in my opinion. By having a delegate who is always trying to endorse and telegram people right away, and who is willing to be innovate and active. That is why regions have such a high endorsement percentage. But to raise the World Assembly Ratio is something I am unsure of. In Balder, it is my goal to improve that ratio. It is my belief that with region which have pretty high endorsement percentages that the real gains lie in getting more World Assembly nations.

In Balder recently, we have been gaining World Assembly nations since becoming Delegate. However I am told that this is not an isolated incident and that the Game Created Regions had been on the World Assembly decline in terms of their total World Assembly nations before we started gaining them. So I am unsure if by focusing our welcome telegram on joining the World Assembly if I am improving the total number since it appears to be very dependent on the state of NationStates. But there must be something that separates regions. There must be a reason why 10,000 Islands, despite its great size has such a high ratio of World Assembly nations. Or why Lazarus prior to the war had about 70 more than Balder but Balder had 40 more than Osiris. Or why The North Pacific has more than The Pacific.

Given the strength of the more Roleplay type regions in this department it is my belief that is has to do with the focus on the region and on the nations itself. This surprised me. I did not expect them to be so strong in this regard despite having very large regions. With many gameplay regions and even in the Game Created Regions I think there is often times a bit of a disconnect between the forum population and the regional one. Forum players tend to view the gameside as something to be harnessed and something that will give the forums new members. In order to improve this ratio, it will require regions to form closer bonds with the game part of the region and to develop a culture that encourages people to join the World Assembly.

So in conclusion, there are many ways to look at the world assembly and the amount of endorsements delegates have. There are many ways to look for improvement. Primarily through increasing the amount of nations in total, increasing the amount of world assembly nations to nations and increasing the percentage of world assembly nations. It's a simple formula and one in which not all parts of it are calculated. Europeia has grown a lot. It is a World Assembly power greater than most regions. We have a lot to be proud of when it comes to our standing. Finally, I'd also like to state that I looked more at percentages and comparing them because I feel its a lot more useful to compare regions as if they were on a level playing field and I didn't really see the use in comparing simply brute numbers because they really don't say how a region is doing and how it can be improved.

[The Runes]

I greatly apologize for the gaps between the tables and the writing. I am working to get it fixed.

[The Sapientia]

How long did it take to gather this?

[Solorni]

How long did it take to gather this?

To gather the data, not too long. The long part for me was putting the data into the actual tables and dealing with the annoying forum code. I really enjoy getting the data, just not putting it up into tables

[McMasterdonia]

Very interesting. Well done Rach.

With the North Pacific and the raw number of WA's I would say that it is because of the fact that all Delegates following Eluvatar maintained a really strong involvement in the World Assembly - which includes recruiting WA members, campaigning for proposals, campaigning for endorsements, and using other cabinet and government members to support the Delegate & Security Council's bid for more endorsements. It has been a very succesful policy, but it does require a lot of work.

After my first term, where I reached a peak of 536 endorsements, we didn't manage to get over 500 endorsements for more than a short period (a couple of days) which again happened in my last term. With the rate that HMS Unicorn is going at around 475 and continuing to grow, I think it is very likely that we will again reach that number.

I do remember when Lazarus under Feux had a higher percentage. We were quite competitive about it at the time, if I recall correctly. I'm pretty sure that Milograd also had a very high percentage when he was first elected Delegate of the South Pacific.

[Solorni]

Interesting... I will have to blatantly copy that attempt to emulate that in Balder. The more World Assembly nations the merrier

[McMasterdonia]

It would be interesting to see how effective it would be in a sinker region. As we get a lot of new nations (by comparison to revived nations) and people seem to stick around. Plus we have quite a lot of old nations

Maybe when the WALL starts being rolled out in Balder, the raw WA numbers could increase as part of the promotion campaign.

[Onderkelkia]

A most important and informative analysis.

[Consular]

Albion's low number of WA nations is largely attributable to our strong focus on the regional military. The majority of citizens are encouraged to keep their WA mobile for operations, and we are nearly always deployed somewhere or another, so most don't bother returning their WA to Albion in between missions. As for the low endorsement percentage of the delegate, he was only recently elected and is still working on gathering endorsements from our permanent residents.

[Darkesia]

Culture is key. As McMasterdonia pointed out, TNP makes a point of maintaining a presence in the WA. Nations that might not have known about the WA otherwise have a means of understanding how endorsements enhance their voice in the WA. Empowerment is never wasted and everyone wants some of it.

Endorsement percentages are, IMHO a function of smart marketing. A good welcome telegram and a quick, personalized note when endorsing are simple and fantastically effective. And. It never hurts to engage players on the RMB (in a fun way).

I have a little experience in both areas to compare my own terms as TWP delegate.

Last time I sat in "the Big Chair" in TWP I maintained very good ratios at just under 70 percent. And the region had nearly twice the WA nations. This was because TWP was a whole different animal when it came to the WA. We were actively involved (much to the dismay of many) with conference hosting, proposal drafting and general debate of the happenings.

Needless to say, that's not how things are now.

I can't believe I typed all that on my phone. Someone get me a piece of cake.

[Xin Prussia]

The INWU's large number of WA nations can be attributed to our recruitment policy. Generally, up until this point a large portion of our population was hand picked and telegrammed by our recruiter, which looks into a bunch of different factors. WA Membership is a very large one. I suspect our endorsement rate to rise after we pick a more permanent delegation.

[McMasterdonia]

Culture is key. As McMasterdonia pointed out, TNP makes a point of maintaining a presence in the WA. Nations that might not have known about the WA otherwise have a means of understanding how endorsements enhance their voice in the WA. Empowerment is never wasted and everyone wants some of it.

Endorsement percentages are, IMHO a function of smart marketing. A good welcome telegram and a quick, personalized note when endorsing are simple and fantastically effective. And. It never hurts to engage players on the RMB (in a fun way).

I have a little experience in both areas to compare my own terms as TWP delegate.

Last time I sat in "the Big Chair" in TWP I maintained very good ratios at just under 70 percent. And the region had nearly twice the WA nations. This was because TWP was a whole different animal when it came to the WA. We were actively involved (much to the dismay of many) with conference hosting, proposal drafting and general debate of the happenings.

Needless to say, that's not how things are now.

I can't believe I typed all that on my phone. Someone get me a piece of cake.

*awards Dark with a large slice of chocolate mudcake*

Good point about culture. One needs only look at TNP's recent vote on the General Assembly proposal. We had a significant number of people vote & r3n was forced to change his vote, despite his own strong position on the subject and the author offering to answer questions. People are interested in it in TNP and want to be heard on the subject.

Liberation proposals can be even more contentious

[El Fiji Grande]

I can't believe my region (the INWU) made it to the top of the second list!

[El Fiji Grande]

The INWU's large number of WA nations can be attributed to our recruitment policy. Generally, up until this point a large portion of our population was hand picked and telegrammed by our recruiter, which looks into a bunch of different factors. WA Membership is a very large one. I suspect our endorsement rate to rise after we pick a more permanent delegation.

See, I would have attributed it differently. I would have said it is more stemming from the fact that we just merged, and each of the regions we merged with had high WA membership populations. Thing is, WA members are generally more active than the non-WAs, so when we merged, almost all of our WAs came over, with only a few non-WAs. I think that describes why our percentage is the highest. I would expect it to get lower as we become fully formed as a region.

[Solorni]

I can't believe my region (the INWU) made it to the top of the second list!

It has a pretty nuts percentage of World Assembly nations. I have found the answers on it to be very interesting.

@Darkesia: that was a very impressive phone post

[The Grim Reaper]

I greatly apologize for the gaps between the tables and the writing. I am working to get it fixed.

Use images of tables - BBCode tables are straight up broken and have been for a long, long time.

There's a way to fix it, probably, but it won't be worth your time.

EDIT: You have every new row on a new line, you can't do that with tables.

Code: Select all

[b]World Assembly Stats: Game Created Regions[/b][table][tr][td][b]Region[/b][/td][td][b]Number of WAs[/b][/td][td][b]Endorsements[/b][/td][td][b]Endorsement %[/b][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Osiris[/td][td]121[/td][td]97[/td][td]80.02[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]The North Pacific[/td][td]616[/td][td]476[/td][td]77.27[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Balder[/td][td]164[/td][td]123[/td][td]75[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]The East Pacific[/td][td]327[/td][td]229[/td][td]70[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]The South Pacific[/td][td]339[/td][td]219[/td][td]64.6[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]The Pacific[/td][td]330[/td][td]212[/td][td]64.24[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Lazarus[/td][td]259[/td][td]165[/td][td]63.7[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]The West Pacific[/td][td]342[/td][td]194[/td][td]56.73[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]The Rejected Realms[/td][td]368[/td][td]150[/td][td]40.76[/td][/tr][/table]

You need to have:

Code: Select all

[b]World Assembly Stats: Game Created Regions[/b][table][tr][td][b]Region[/b][/td][td][b]Number of WAs[/b][/td][td][b]Endorsements[/b][/td][td][b]Endorsement %[/b][/td][/tr][tr][td]Osiris[/td][td]121[/td][td]97[/td][td]80.02[/td][/tr][tr][td]The North Pacific[/td][td]616[/td][td]476[/td][td]77.27[/td][/tr][tr][td]Balder[/td][td]164[/td][td]123[/td][td]75[/td][/tr][tr][td]The East Pacific[/td][td]327[/td][td]229[/td][td]70[/td][/tr][tr][td]The South Pacific[/td][td]339[/td][td]219[/td][td]64.6[/td][/tr][tr][td]The Pacific[/td][td]330[/td][td]212[/td][td]64.24[/td][/tr][tr][td]Lazarus[/td][td]259[/td][td]165[/td][td]63.7[/td][/tr][tr][td]The West Pacific[/td][td]342[/td][td]194[/td][td]56.73[/td][/tr][tr][td]The Rejected Realms[/td][td]368[/td][td]150[/td][td]40.76[/td][/tr][/table]

For the first table

[Sichuan Pepper]

10K's numbers are skewed and always will be. We have TITO nations out and about. 30 or so are out of the region currently but this can increase / decrease. We also went through a Delegate change recently (by NS standards of recent)

[Solorni]

10K's numbers are skewed and always will be. We have TITO nations out and about. 30 or so are out of the region currently but this can increase / decrease. We also went through a Delegate change recently (by NS standards of recent)

Why do you feel the numbers are skewed?

[Othelos]

The INWU's large number of WA nations can be attributed to our recruitment policy. Generally, up until this point a large portion of our population was hand picked and telegrammed by our recruiter, which looks into a bunch of different factors. WA Membership is a very large one. I suspect our endorsement rate to rise after we pick a more permanent delegation.

See, I would have attributed it differently. I would have said it is more stemming from the fact that we just merged, and each of the regions we merged with had high WA membership populations. Thing is, WA members are generally more active than the non-WAs, so when we merged, almost all of our WAs came over, with only a few non-WAs. I think that describes why our percentage is the highest. I would expect it to get lower as we become fully formed as a region.

It's probably both.

[Sichuan Pepper]

10K's numbers are skewed and always will be. We have TITO nations out and about. 30 or so are out of the region currently but this can increase / decrease. We also went through a Delegate change recently (by NS standards of recent)

Why do you feel the numbers are skewed?

30 WA nations out of region...It is not a constant number but is subject to change. Certainly our percentage would be higher were we not a region that defends. The same could be said for other regions that have an active military.

[Solorni]

Why do you feel the numbers are skewed?

30 WA nations out of region...It is not a constant number but is subject to change. Certainly our percentage would be higher were we not a region that defends. The same could be said for other regions that have an active military.

Fair enough, I thought you meant that for example its extraordinarily high amount of WAs that it was skewed in a positive way. It is something that most regions barring the roleplay regions would suffer from though.

[Sichuan Pepper]

Nice work! I would love to see this revisited again every few months. I imagine it took quite a while to collect all that data so I realize it is asking a lot. Appreciate the effort put into it.

[Kazmr]

After talking with Funk last night, I think part of the low endorsement count for Lazarus has to do with laziness in regards to tarting. I was a bit slow about it myself, and Funk has been as well, so that explains at least a couple percentage points

Also, I do think you should take into account the current conflicts in Lazarus and Osiris a bit more. For Lazarus, keep in mind that a fair number of the rise in military WA endorsements on Funk are members of the LLA or joint LLA-FRA members. Generally they don't endorse the Lazarus delegate and are more likely to have their WA floating, but at the moment (I don't have an exact number since I'm not involved with that directly) they have returned to the region.

I would also imagine that a similar situation happened in Osiris that could explain some of the rise in number WA nations since the mandatory endorsement policy. How many Osirian military members that don't normally have their WA member there are now parked on the delegate, and have they had any allies themselves move in?

Overall though, cool analysis. I especially enjoyed the bit on the percent of WA nations for UCRs. Such a stark contrast between the various regions was a bit striking.

[Shizensky]

Region	Number of WAs	Endorsements	Nations Total	Endorsement Percentage
Renegade Islands Alliance	79	40	243	50.63

Passive aggressive jesting aside, this is all very interesting to observe. It might be more interesting in context over time, and when GCRs are not in a state of war and endorsements are at usual levels.

[Solorni]

Nice work! I would love to see this revisited again every few months. I imagine it took quite a while to collect all that data so I realize it is asking a lot. Appreciate the effort put into it.

I would like to see that as well and will endeavour to do so.

Passive aggressive jesting aside, this is all very interesting to observe. It might be more interesting in context over time, and when GCRs are not in a state of war and endorsements are at usual levels.

Yeah, I can't remember who I said this comment to but I said jokingly that it was annoying that Osiris and Lazarus were at war because they were screwing up my data