Puppet Flooding is still illegal

[Sedgistan]

Apparently some people have forgotten this rule - we've seen several invasions in the last few months where invaders have flooded their occupations with dozens or even hundreds of non-WA puppets. This remains against the rules.

[Liddell Hart]

Apparently This tag is pointless for a region, because Mods consider moving many puppets into a region marked as puppet storage as puppet flooding.

[Mad-eye Jack]

Or maybe the mods don't think that invading a region, tagging it puppet storage, and having 2 people flood a bunch of puppets into the region (80 by 1 person), not even 2 days after it was tagged a puppet storage region, is a legitimate reason to allow puppet flooding to give yourself an advantage while raiding. Just spit-ballin here.

[Sedgistan]

Mad-eye Jack is correct.

[General Knot]

Oh well, you gotta play by Moderation's rules. I was warned back in March for sending thirty puppets into St Abbaddon to deter possible future defender intervention, even after five months of occupation; for all intents and purposes, we were the owners of the region. It didn't violate the rules that stated that puppet flooding is illegal if it's harassing the native population... probably because there were no natives left. Unfortunately, I never received a response for a final appeal.

tl;dr: Life goes on. Notable invasions and fantastic suppressions of liberation attempts will continue!

[Tikor (Ancient)]

A bummer to be sure, my main was almost 7 years old.

That's life. Maybe Sedge will have mercy on my soul.

Just gonna have to fold em

[Cormactopia II]

Apparently some people have forgotten this rule - we've seen several invasions in the last few months where invaders have flooded their occupations with dozens or even hundreds of non-WA puppets. This remains against the rules.

Could have fooled me, what with Moderation's total lack of action in response to my GHRs regarding recent puppet flooding in Osiris for the sole purpose of repeatedly posting the exact same thing on our RMB. I suppose the rules now only apply to raiders you want to continue punishing and other players are exempt.

[Liddell Hart]

Or maybe the mods don't think that invading a region, tagging it puppet storage, and having 2 people flood a bunch of puppets into the region (80 by 1 person), not even 2 days after it was tagged a puppet storage region, is a legitimate reason to allow puppet flooding to give yourself an advantage while raiding. Just spit-ballin here.

So when is the puppet tag appropriate? For me to label a region that I am the founder of to store my puppets? If it's just for me, why would I need to label it? We were under the impression we had followed the rules by tagging the region as puppet storage, which would open the region to puppets for everyone. I also fail to see why the "not even 2 days after it was tagged a puppet storage region" matters. Is there a set time allotted that must pass for region tags to apply to a region?

[Bug-Eyed Jack]

Or maybe the mods don't think that invading a region, tagging it puppet storage, and having 2 people flood a bunch of puppets into the region (80 by 1 person), not even 2 days after it was tagged a puppet storage region, is a legitimate reason to allow puppet flooding to give yourself an advantage while raiding. Just spit-ballin here.

So when is the puppet tag appropriate? For me to label a region that I am the founder of to store my puppets? If it's just for me, why would I need to label it? We were under the impression we had followed the rules by tagging the region as puppet storage, which would open the region to puppets for everyone. I also fail to see why the "not even 2 days after it was tagged a puppet storage region" matters. Is there a set time allotted that must pass for region tags to apply to a region?

Well I think the distinction is necessary because it's not like you raided a puppet storage region. You raided a region and then after a little bit decided to tag it puppet storage to try and justify flooding puppets in it to do what if not enable the perpetual trolling of the regions through 100 sleepers even if the region was liberated. It's obvious that the region of Russia never intended to be a puppet storage region. Now I'm not a mod, so I don't know where they draw their distinctions here, but something about that doesn't seem right to me. It's certainly not good for the natives and I don't think it's good for R/D balance either.

[Tikor (Ancient)]

So when is the puppet tag appropriate? For me to label a region that I am the founder of to store my puppets? If it's just for me, why would I need to label it? We were under the impression we had followed the rules by tagging the region as puppet storage, which would open the region to puppets for everyone. I also fail to see why the "not even 2 days after it was tagged a puppet storage region" matters. Is there a set time allotted that must pass for region tags to apply to a region?

Well I think the distinction is necessary because it's not like you raided a puppet storage region. You raided a region and then after a little bit decided to tag it puppet storage to try and justify flooding puppets in it to do what if not enable the perpetual trolling of the regions through 100 sleepers even if the region was liberated. It's obvious that the region of Russia never intended to be a puppet storage region. Now I'm not a mod, so I don't know where they draw their distinctions here, but something about that doesn't seem right to me. It's certainly not good for the natives and I don't think it's good for R/D balance either.

Our thinking was not to have 100 sleepers, but rather to suck up influence away from defenders in the region.

We, incorrectly, thought adding the puppet storage tag made this a legal thing we could do.

[Severisen]

Regardless of that argument, I'd posit that there is probably an element of frequency involved in determining whether something is or is not puppetspam. The tag cloud itself helps other players identify what regions fall into which categories. It does not give a free-pass on the rules. The tag informs players that you're not really in a region with hundreds of unique people, but one or more persons who, for whatever reason, have many nations in the region. I think if this had been done over the course of days, weeks, or months, it may not run afoul of the rules, but I'm not a moderator. Dropping in large quantities of puppets, in a small interval of time, consitutes RH spam. That notwithstanding, RH spam shouldn't be an issue of such magnitude that it once was, when, say, the RH list only contained a finite number of items. RH spam was used to hide things from public view. Now, with the activity pages, this is less of an issue than it used to be. The annoyance, spamming and harassing a region certainly could and do apply.

I would suspect that a founder's ability to label a region as Puppet Storage would probably allow for a more expeditious movement of puppets into the region, but again, that's speculation on my part.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

For clarification, is the rarely used tactic of either finding or founding a region tagged "puppet storage" close before a hold updates and adding hundreds upon hundreds of puppets to marginally break a potential liberation trigger illegal as well?

[Sedgistan]

For clarification, is the rarely used tactic of either finding or founding a region tagged "puppet storage" close before a hold updates and adding hundreds upon hundreds of puppets to marginally break a potential liberation trigger illegal as well?

Founding - no. Finding - probably. Either way, it'll shortly be rendered useless with Ballo's change to update timings.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

For clarification, is the rarely used tactic of either finding or founding a region tagged "puppet storage" close before a hold updates and adding hundreds upon hundreds of puppets to marginally break a potential liberation trigger illegal as well?

Founding - no. Finding - probably. Either way, it'll shortly be rendered useless with Ballo's change to update timings.

Thanks, and Clcorrect, and it was of limited usefulness as is - half the time you gave yourself more time to eject, half the time you made someone who would have been late on time - but I wanted to be clear none the less.

How about those regions that are founded for the sole purpose of being filled with several thousand puppets to maintain one of the top few spots on the region's search list?

[Sedgistan]

How about those regions that are founded for the sole purpose of being filled with several thousand puppets to maintain one of the top few spots on the region's search list?

Irritating but legal.

[Liddell Hart]

Lesson learned on 'puppet flooding' though it still seems the definition is left to subjective interpretation on a case by case basis.

Hey Sedge, out of curiousity, why was this RMB post on the Hydra Command page suppressed by moderation? I'm 100% sure it didn't violate any rules, and it couldn't possibly have been considered offensive by any metric. It was welcoming a new member to Hydra, answering their question about our next invasion (mentioned Russia and advised to move a single WA nation to support), and it contained the link to Hydra's off-site forum; the only reason I can see for it to be suppressed is because I encouraged a new player to support Hydra's occupation of Russia. Am I reading that correctly?

[Ballotonia]

Lesson learned on 'puppet flooding' though it still seems the definition is left to subjective interpretation on a case by case basis.

Hey Sedge, out of curiousity, why was this RMB post on the Hydra Command page suppressed by moderation? I'm 100% sure it didn't violate any rules, and it couldn't possibly have been considered offensive by any metric. It was welcoming a new member to Hydra, answering their question about our next invasion (mentioned Russia and advised to move a single WA nation to support), and it contained the link to Hydra's off-site forum; the only reason I can see for it to be suppressed is because I encouraged a new player to support Hydra's occupation of Russia. Am I reading that correctly?

Looks to me like that had nothing to do with the contents of that one message. When Zombie Hordes was deleted all its RMB messages were mod-suppressed as well, in all regions made throughout its entire existence. What I do not know is why this was done.

Ballotonia

[Liddell Hart]

Lesson learned on 'puppet flooding' though it still seems the definition is left to subjective interpretation on a case by case basis.

Hey Sedge, out of curiousity, why was this RMB post on the Hydra Command page suppressed by moderation? I'm 100% sure it didn't violate any rules, and it couldn't possibly have been considered offensive by any metric. It was welcoming a new member to Hydra, answering their question about our next invasion (mentioned Russia and advised to move a single WA nation to support), and it contained the link to Hydra's off-site forum; the only reason I can see for it to be suppressed is because I encouraged a new player to support Hydra's occupation of Russia. Am I reading that correctly?

Looks to me like that had nothing to do with the contents of that one message. When Zombie Hordes was deleted all its RMB messages were mod-suppressed as well, in all regions made throughout its entire existence. What I do not know is why this was done.

Ballotonia

Huh.Thanks for taking a look, Ballotonia!

[Queen Yuno]

I'm afraid to move my puppets now.
What if you move 100 puppets to a native region NOT to invade but to have somewhere to place your puppets?

(I mean, ever since a nugut was deleted..)

[We Are Not the NSA]

I'm afraid to move my puppets now.
What if you move 100 puppets to a native region NOT to invade but to have somewhere to place your puppets?

(I mean, ever since a nugut was deleted..)

I don't think anyone's getting in trouble for moving their puppets to a region that is unquestionably a puppet storage region.

[Queen Yuno]

I'm afraid to move my puppets now.
What if you move 100 puppets to a native region NOT to invade but to have somewhere to place your puppets?

(I mean, ever since a nugut was deleted..)

I don't think anyone's getting in trouble for moving their puppets to a region that is unquestionably a puppet storage region.

I'd hope not.
Though I'm asking about native regions where the founder is OK with it, not puppet storages, soo..

[Liddell Hart]

I'm afraid to move my puppets now.
What if you move 100 puppets to a native region NOT to invade but to have somewhere to place your puppets?

(I mean, ever since a nugut was deleted..)

I don't think anyone's getting in trouble for moving their puppets to a region that is unquestionably a puppet storage region.

The problem is this whole concept of 'unquestionably a puppet storage region.' According to the NS FAQ:

Who's in charge of a region?

The person who created a region is known as its Founder. Founders usually have complete power over their region, being able to eject other nations, password-protect it, establish and cancel Embassies, suppress message board posts, and modify the World Factbook Entry (its main description). However, many regions have no Founder, many have inactive Founders, and a few have non-executive Founders, which means the Founder has relinquished power. In these cases, the nation in charge is the Delegate.

The region's Delegate is the nation with the most World Assembly endorsements. It usually has the exact same powers as Founder, but a Founder can strip the Delegate position of power (by making it non-executive), while the reverse is not true. For this reason, a region with an active Founder is effectively immune to serious invasion.

Founders can administer their region as they see fit, but Delegates must spend "influence" in order to perform some actions. This limits the power of invader Delegates.

This clearly says having an inactive founder nation means "the Founder has relinquished power. In these cases, the nation in charge is the Delegate."

My region's WA Delegate is an evil dictator who abuses her power! Make her stop!

Delegates are elected: If you don't like yours, it's up to you to get that nation unelected! Delegates are free to use and abuse their power as they see fit.

This section is out of date I guess. A delegate can't decide to make a region puppet storage.

[Severisen]

Again, puppet storage =/= free to puppetspam zone

[Flanderlion]

Apparently some people have forgotten this rule - we've seen several invasions in the last few months where invaders have flooded their occupations with dozens or even hundreds of non-WA puppets. This remains against the rules.

So what is the rule of thumb with this? In a few foundered small regions I've got a good number of the nations within them for the purpose of preventing the name being given to others if the founder CTE's, does that count as Puppet Flooding? If the happenings are not spammed (moved in over time), how many puppets can you stick in before it counts as puppet flooding? Is there differences between if the nations are contributing to the RMB etc. or just existing in the region? If I am in breach of this, do I move the puppets, as that'd be spamming the happenings more? Is there a soft sort of percentage of nations in a region that above it counts as flooding?

[The old wildlife pen pal]

This is the post I use as a guide (and link to) in any puppet flooding reports I make, which makes a few more clarifications.

The puppet flooding rules aren't there for your couple of puppets that you have and move around to different regions. They're there for when one, or more, players move large numbers of puppets into a region over a short period of time. I'd also hazard a guess that puppet flooding is almost only acted upon when it's player reported (or a mod was looking at the region for another report). So if other players don't notice it happening then it's likely going to be deemed non-actionable.