Illegal Script Usage

[Kaboomlandia]

Not sure if this would help, but maybe requiring express permission from the founder/delegate of a region to send script recruiting TGs would help. LKE has claimed that they had no knowledge of the script being run.

[Greater vakolicci haven]

Not sure if this would help, but maybe requiring express permission from the founder/delegate of a region to send script recruiting TGs would help. LKE has claimed that they had no knowledge of the script being run.

Possibly make it so the founder/delegate has to enable recruiting telegrams on certain nations?

[Onderkelkia]

Not sure if this would help, but maybe requiring express permission from the founder/delegate of a region to send script recruiting TGs would help. LKE has claimed that they had no knowledge of the script being run.

To be clear, Bob Moran didn't have access to our API key, which he would have needed to have sent legitimate automated recruitment telegrams (although certainly ensuring founder/delegate control of regional API keys is another issue which should be looked into, as I recall having to go through moderation back in mid-2013 in order to ultimately obtain the key from the individual who originally requested it for the LKE). As non-API script recruitment is banned, there would be little point to instituting a permission system for other script recruitment telegrams, as the point is that it was done outside the rules.

There's no way that regional leaders can enable/disable someone from performing an illegal in-game action that deliberately operates outside of the rules. It might be helpful to have something along the lines Shadoke proposed, certainly if the game is going to start holding regions collectively responsible - but insofar as the case of the LKE is concerned, no such thing existed and it is unreasonable to hold us accountable for Bob Moran's unauthorised actions.

[Greater vakolicci haven]

Not sure if this would help, but maybe requiring express permission from the founder/delegate of a region to send script recruiting TGs would help. LKE has claimed that they had no knowledge of the script being run.

To be clear, Bob Moran didn't have access to our API key, which he would have needed to have sent legitimate automated recruitment telegrams (although certainly ensuring founder/delegate control of regional API keys is another issue which should be looked into, as I recall having to go through moderation back in mid-2013 in order to ultimately obtain the key from the individual who originally requested it for the LKE). As non-API script recruitment is banned, there would be little point to instituting a permission system for other script recruitment telegrams, as the point is that it was done outside the rules.

There's no way that regional leaders can enable/disable someone from performing an illegal in-game action that deliberately operates outside of the rules. It might be helpful to have something along the lines Shadoke proposed, certainly if the game is going to start holding regions collectively responsible - but insofar as the case of the LKE is concerned, no such thing existed and it is unreasonable to hold us accountable for Bob Moran's unauthorised actions.

Can't we have a tick box which enables people to break the rules?

[[violet]]

With the benefit of hindsight, it is obvious that his illegal script must have been the cause of the population rise, but unexplained population rises (albeit usually of lesser magnitude) occur all the time across many regions for unexplained reasons - this could be related, for instance, changes in the global NS population or a change in the number or appeal of competitor regions. Regions have never been obliged to account for population changes.

From an admin perspective, I'm not especially interested in who knew what, or who should have known what. That will always be debatable. But when a region uses an illegal script like this, it requires correction. Allowing LKE to keep the benefits of cheating would be grossly unfair on all other regions and recruiters who follow the rules.

Population: The Land of Kings and Emperors

[The Republic of Lanos]

...wow. That is a noticeable increase.

[Kazmr]

[Violet], just since the Reddit bump has been brought up a few times, would it be possible to see something similar for the total game population?

[Kaboomlandia]

...wow. That is a noticeable increase.

A 300-nation increase that LKE didn't know about?

[Onderkelkia]

From an admin perspective, I'm not especially interested in who knew what, or who should have known what.

You should be interested in who is innocent and is guilty, especially if you are going to impose collective punishments.

That particularly applies if those punishments are in excess of what is necessary to correct the advantage caused by Bob Moran's rogue behaviour and, given the fact that the LKE and TBR periods are the same, and that the recruitment restriction has been extended to so-called proxy regions (i.e. beyond the region in which Bob Moran's cheatig distorted the population), are clearly motivated by more than seeking to correct the population growth you highlight.

Allowing LKE to keep the benefits of cheating

The LKE did not cheat - Bob Moran did, and in doing so deceived the LKE as much as anyone else.

What I concede is that his cheating had beneficial effects for the LKE, but that is distinct from the LKE itself having cheated.

Allowing LKE to keep the benefits of cheating would be grossly unfair on all other regions and recruiters who follow the rules.

1. We cannot quantify with any certainty how much of a population loss the LKE will endure as a result of the 3 month restriction. The resulting population loss could be greater than the population gain sustained - either in number or bearing in mind the prestige associated with certain benchmarks.

2. If the rogue recruitment of Bob Moran was consequential, then the cessation of his illegal activity should cause the LKE population to stabilise at a normal level if given time. Clearly, imposing a ban on the LKE recruiting would accelerate that process of stabilisation, but this has collateral consequences for the LKE - including a probability of greater population loss than can be quantifiably justified by the advantage created by Bob Moran's actions and a 3 month period in which we have no inflow of citizenship applicants, which are the life-blood of our forum community - having none for such a lengthy period will cause real damage. These major collateral effects are unnecessary if natural processes are allowed to take their course, eventually leading to a fair result.

3. Unless the illegal scripts in TBR and LKE were in operation for the same period of time and caused the same number of nations to be recruited, then it makes no sense for the period to be the same if the period has been selected with a view to correcting the aadvantage incurred by each region. Instead, this suggests that the restriction was motivated by the desire to inflict punishment on the LKE and deter future rule-breaking, not merely the desire to re-balance the population level. Considering that the LKE did not authorise Bob Moran's rogue behaviour, going beyond the steps which are strictly necessary in order to correct the disadvantage gained as a result of Bob Moran's rogue behaviour, is about more than removing the benefit gained, so is unfair.

[Violet], just since the Reddit bump has been brought up a few times, would it be possible to see something similar for the total game population?

No one is claiming that the Reddit bump can account for the rise in the LKE's population in hindsight - merely that, in the context of Bob Moran's appointment as interior minister on 8th March, and taken together with his claims of significant additional manual recruitment, it provided explanations for a rise in the LKE's population at the time, when we had no reason to even think that the operation of an illicit automated script was possible.

...wow. That is a noticeable increase.

A 300-nation increase that LKE didn't know about?

Of course we knew that the population had increased - as of course did foreign observers, none of which suggested that any illegal activity was occurring.

We did not know was that Bob Moran was operating an illegal script - and [violet] just said she's not interested in whether we should have known either - though while it may be obvious that Bob Moran's script caused that increase with hindsight, there's no reason for us to to have reached conclusion then.

[Kaboomlandia]

A 300-nation increase that LKE didn't know about?

Of course we knew that the population had increased - as of course did foreign observers, none of which suggested that any illegal activity was occurring.

We did not know was that Bob Moran was operating an illegal script - and [violet] just said she's not interested in whether we should have known either - though while it may be obvious that Bob Moran's script caused that increase with hindsight, there's no reason for us to to have reached conclusion then.

I meant, that you didn't know that BM was doing it illegally.

[Valrifell]

Question: If Player X uses an illegal recruitment script, Onder, how should they be punished and the damage undone? To simply let the region go without a period of inactive recruitment would let everyone know 'This is okay as long as I say I knew nothing about it. My region benefits, I get rid of Larry, it's a win-win' Which is bad.

[Kaboomlandia]

Question: If Player X uses an illegal recruitment script, Onder, how should they be punished and the damage undone? To simply let the region go without a period of inactive recruitment would let everyone know 'This is okay as long as I say I knew nothing about it. My region benefits, I get rid of Larry, it's a win-win' Which is bad.

April hasn't been a great month in general. Personally, I think there should be a mod investigation, and if it turns out that they actually didn't know anything about it, then let them go.

[The Republic of Lanos]

Question: If Player X uses an illegal recruitment script, Onder, how should they be punished and the damage undone? To simply let the region go without a period of inactive recruitment would let everyone know 'This is okay as long as I say I knew nothing about it. My region benefits, I get rid of Larry, it's a win-win' Which is bad.

This is the major problem. If LKE gets off with this incident and keep their recruitment gains, what could the mods do if it happens again?

[Valrifell]

Question: If Player X uses an illegal recruitment script, Onder, how should they be punished and the damage undone? To simply let the region go without a period of inactive recruitment would let everyone know 'This is okay as long as I say I knew nothing about it. My region benefits, I get rid of Larry, it's a win-win' Which is bad.

April hasn't been a great month in general. Personally, I think there should be a mod investigation, and if it turns out that they actually didn't know anything about it, then let them go.

'This is okay as long as I say I knew nothing about it! Just orchestrate the whole thing with Larry offsite, Larry retires permanently, region benefits. It's a win-win!'

[Onderkelkia]

Question: If Player X uses an illegal recruitment script, Onder, how should they be punished and the damage undone? To simply let the region go without a period of inactive recruitment would let everyone know 'This is okay as long as I say I knew nothing about it. My region benefits, I get rid of Larry, it's a win-win' Which is bad.

The player concerned should be made Delete on Sight - which should deter all those who don't want to be permanently banned from the site.

Punishing the innocent simply to ensure you punish all the guilty is hardly fair - especially when the innocent number far more than the guilty.

Where the region knew nothing, I'm not saying that no cooperative endeavour to remove the population growth should be ruled out - I have highlighted that with time the population growth would recede anyway, or that a lesser form of restriction could be imposed. The restriction imposed is about more than correcting the advantage gained in the region concerned - or else it would not be the same for the LKE and TBR (unless the scripts ran for the same time and recruited the same number of nations), it would not cover proxy regions and it would not last 3 months, which is a very long time indeed.

NES has illustrated that there are less than 200 nations in the LKE who joined before the last 90 days. So this 3 month restriction could push us below 200.

When the population take-off in [violet]'s graph began, we had 300-350 nations. After that point, we'd still had an API script in operation and might have enjoyed some legitimate growth arising from that, so the actual normal level for the LKE population might be a little higher than that.

So the punishment proposed is in fact likely to reduce our population below the level at which it would have been otherwise than for Bob Moran's cheating.

[Valrifell]

But the point of punishments is to make them imbalanced so you don't do them again. Also, I'm sure this analogy was used somewhere else in the thread but, in real life, if you buy something stolen, it's still stolen and liable to be taken back. Regardless of what it was. In this case, you received a bunch of 'stolen' players, and now they need to be taken back.

[Onderkelkia]

But the point of punishments is to make them imbalanced so you don't do them again. Also, I'm sure this analogy was used somewhere else in the thread but, in real life, if you buy something stolen, it's still stolen and liable to be taken back. Regardless of what it was. In this case, you received a bunch of 'stolen' players, and now they need to be taken back.

1. If " in real life, if you buy something stolen, it's still stolen and liable to be taken back", you don't then impose an additional fine on the innocent party who had the misfortune to purchase stolen goods. What we are talking about here will take the LKE below the 300-350 nations it enjoyed at the point when the LKE's population took off in [violet]'s graph and Bob Moran began his illegal script.

2. The LKE' knew nothing about Bob Moran's conduct. Making an example of us so other people "don't do them again" is therefore unfair.

3. This blanket policy also carries major risks of abuse if any individual was to use an illegal automated script to get a region punished in this way.

[The Republic of Lanos]

But your government sanctioned his actions and later made him a part of your government. Now he's not representative of your region?

What?

[Valrifell]

But the point of punishments is to make them imbalanced so you don't do them again. Also, I'm sure this analogy was used somewhere else in the thread but, in real life, if you buy something stolen, it's still stolen and liable to be taken back. Regardless of what it was. In this case, you received a bunch of 'stolen' players, and now they need to be taken back.

1. If " in real life, if you buy something stolen, it's still stolen and liable to be taken back", you don't then impose an additional fine on the innocent party.

2. The LKE's players knew nothing about Bob Moran's conduct. Making an example of them so other people "don't do them again" is unfair.

3. This blanket policy also carries major risks of abuse if any individual was to use an illegal automated script to get a region punished in this way.

1. How would you propose Admins take back the players LKE gained via illegitimate means other than stripping your recruitment abilities away? The only other option would be to banject any new nations that arrived when Bob Moran was in office, and that'd most likely be far worse.

2. *Insert original theft analogy here*

3. I think that the 'This is okay as long as I deny!' argument is far more likely and devastating than the overly complicated 'I can recruit for this region I really hate illegally so that they'll get banned from recruiting and die, ignoring the fact that once the ban expires, they could probably bounce back an all of this relies heavily on my ability not to get caught!'

[Kaboomlandia]

Again, maybe there could be a checkbox under "Regional Control" that states "[]Nations can use a Telegram API to recruit." This would make sure that regions know who is recruiting for them, and make them unable to deny if they did get caught.

[Southern Bellz]

Maybe we shouldn't need an IT degree to understand basic recruitment rules???

[Kazmr]

If I may build off of Val's analogy:

Bob Moran 'stole' something. His script essentially brought more nations to two regions, one of them being LKE, then would have arrived were he to have followed the game's rules, and thus deprived other regions of potential recruits.

LKE, at least according to their public admission (which I am willing to believe), had no idea that these recruits were 'stolen'. That, however, doesn't mean that they get to keep them. IRL this is possession of stolen goods. In general a party guilty of such possession will have to surrender said goods. It doesn't matter that they didn't know they were stolen; they simply don't have the right to the property.

The problem is, nations in this game are not exactly a liquid asset. Onder cannot simply tell the several hundred net nations 'go to some random region and leave LKE'.

If the mods simply allowed LKE to keep recruiting, it would be akin to allowing LKE to still 'spend' the stolen property while still receiving their usual income. Some of those additional 'stolen' recruits will likely become active in the region, while new ones will continue to arrive. While in the long term the numbers may stabilize, LKE is in the long term still better off than they would have been had Bob not committed his crime.

The mod punishment, in a sense, is a lean on LKE's future earnings. This is done to 'pay off' other regions who were the aggrieved party due to their disadvantage in recruiting against the script. The lean could, perhaps, be levied at the exact total of nations gained, were it not for the fact that, again, nations are a complex 'good'. Malicious individuals could pump in puppets, extending the duration, or Onder could flush out the region in order to make it go quicker. Thus a set time interval is the only reasonable way to go about this. Its not something that can be tampered with by either party.

[[violet]]

When the population take-off in [violet]'s graph began, we had 300-350 nations. After that point, we'd still had an API script in operation and might have enjoyed some legitimate growth arising from that, so the actual normal level for the LKE population might be a little higher than that.

Except that LKE's legal recruitment script wasn't operating as normal, because Bob's kept getting in first. That's what happens when you try to recruit the same nation twice for the same region: only the first TG gets through, while the rest bounce with "Previous Recruitment Too Recent."

So while Bob's script was bringing in recruits, LKE's legal script, which was properly throttled by the API, was mostly generating bounces. I'm not going to release numbers, but I can assure you that if we simply removed all of Bob's illegal recruits from LKE, the region's population today would be not be like you're suggesting.

[Onderkelkia]

But your government sanctioned his actions and later made him a part of your government. Now he's not representative of your region?

What?

No, this absolutely not the case. We did not sanction his actions - we had no idea he was running an illegal script.

He had no authority to commence automated recruitment of any kind on behalf of the LKE. We are shocked that he did do so.

1. How would you propose Admins take back the players LKE gained via illegitimate means other than stripping your recruitment abilities away? The only other option would be to banject any new nations that arrived when Bob Moran was in office, and that'd most likely be far worse.

There are multiple other options than the 3 month restriction imposed:

1. Increasing the limit on the number of API script telegrams we could send out for a set period, so we could still recruit but at a slower rate - possibly with a ban on stamps or manual recruitment alongside this.

2. A shorter recrutiment block which would bring the LKE's population back to 300-350 nations or so, rather than below 200 nations, and would not include "proxy regions" which have nothing to do with the region where Bob Moran's illegal activity distorted the population.

3. Allowing the natural process to take its course, which would see the LKE's population eventually decline back to a proper level - if Bob Moran's recruitment was what was making a difference, then its cessation would see a gradual decline set in - the recruitment block merely rapidly accelerates it.

Any of these three options would be fairer while ultimately providing an equitable resolution in bringing the LKE's population back into line.

None of these would have the additional effects of imposing punishment on an innocent party beyond what is necessary to remove the illicit gains.

2. *Insert original theft analogy here*

How does your original theft analogy, "in real life, if you buy something stolen, it's still stolen and liable to be taken back", have anything to do with the question of deterrence? The purpose of taking the goods back is not to deter anyone.n You can't deter people who don't know the goods they are purchasing are stolen, which is the LKE's position.

3. I think that the 'This is okay as long as I deny!' argument is far more likely and devastating than the overly complicated 'I can recruit for this region I really hate illegally so that they'll get banned from recruiting and die, ignoring the fact that once the ban expires, they could probably bounce back an all of this relies heavily on my ability not to get caught!'

Both are risks - and if disreputable individuals, the people who would not care about being made DOS (i.e. the sanction I propose for individuals involved in running illegal scripts), know they can use this as a weapon, they can do so. Bob Moran, in working with Anur-Sanur/Frak, a enemy of the LKE, may even have been doing so himself in this case - we cannot be sure of his motivations.

[Onderkelkia]

When the population take-off in [violet]'s graph began, we had 300-350 nations. After that point, we'd still had an API script in operation and might have enjoyed some legitimate growth arising from that, so the actual normal level for the LKE population might be a little higher than that.

Except that LKE's legal recruitment script wasn't operating as normal, because Bob's kept getting in first. That's what happens when you try to recruit the same nation twice for the same region: only the first TG gets through, while the rest bounce with "Previous Recruitment Too Recent."

So while Bob's script was bringing in recruits, LKE's legal script, which was properly throttled by the API, was mostly generating bounces. I'm not going to release numbers, but I can assure you that if we simply removed all of Bob's illegal recruits from LKE, the region's population today would be not be like you're suggesting.

Having looked, after Sedge raised the question of the API delivery information earlier, I'm aware that the LKE's legal API script had telegrams bounce - some proportion of 11,800 telegrams to precise, although that figure also includes "Previous telegrams too recent" going back to July 2013.

It should be assumed that Bob Moran's script did not exist and that the LKE's legal script would have operated as it previously did - meaning that the LKE's population would be at 300-350 nations. It is only fair to the LKE to discount all the effects of Bob Moran's script - if we are talking about correcting the population to remove the effects which benefited us, then the effects that prevented our legal script working should also be considered.

The fact is that, without Bob Moran having done anything, the LKE's population would likely have continued at 300-350 nations.

The consequence of the 3 month recruitment ban, as the LKE population has less than 200 nations that joined less than 90 days ago, is likely that the LKE population will fall below 200 nations. The recruitment restriction will therefore do more than merely correct the effects of Bob Moran's illegal script.

There are less drastic measures which would lead to a reduction in the LKE population, such as those described in my previous post:

1. Increasing the limit on the number of API script telegrams we could send out for a set period, so we could still recruit but at a slower rate - possibly with a ban on stamps or manual recruitment alongside this.

2. A shorter recrutiment block which would bring the LKE's population back to 300-350 nations or so, rather than below 200 nations, and would not include "proxy regions" which have nothing to do with the region where Bob Moran's illegal activity distorted the population.

3. Allowing the natural process to take its course, which would see the LKE's population eventually decline back to a proper level - if Bob Moran's recruitment was what was making a difference, then its cessation would see a gradual decline set in - the recruitment block merely rapidly accelerates it.