NationStates issue results

by **Trotterdam** » Sat Jan 19, 2019 1:10 pm

Betelgeuse Alliance wrote:Option 1 (which abolishes eminent domain), shows that the economy is more likely to go upwards, as well as the rudeness. But shouldn't economy go down, since the government can't build the big economically profiting shopping complex anymore?

The improvement to the economy is likely due to the increase in economic freedom. Sure, big businesses might sometimes profit from eminent domain, but they can also be victims of it, if the government decides this place needed a hospital more than a shopping mall. Eminent domain on residential buildings can still hurt the economy because it demoralizes employees, threatens house-renting companies, and so on.

The issue wasn't always this way, but it was revamped two years ago. I think we can agree that the old version - practicing eminent domain increasing economic freedom while abolishing eminent domain decreasing economic freedom - didn't make sense.

Betelgeuse Alliance wrote:And shouldn't rudeness go down instead of up due to the fact that the government asks explicit permission to take away private property, (which I think should lead to less insults per minute, since the government doesn't do it forcefully)?

Rudeness is a derived stat, which the editors probably don't often directly assign a value to.

While your logic makes sense that oppressing people would likely lead to them having some rude words for you, I think the idea is that greater freedom means people have more leeway to speak their minds. If the government can take away people's homes at will, they'll be afraid to criticize the government for fear of some bureaucrat deciding to fudge the paperwork so that new carpark has to be built right where they live.

I am confident that these numbers correctly represent how the game currently works. If you still believe this behavior to be incorrect, please take it up with the editors.

by **Sapnu puas** » Thu Jan 31, 2019 4:35 pm

Issue 224, option 3, is currently "???" and i have the option to answer it, but I'm very hesitant to confirm that option and risk losing any trout industry points.
Is it crucial to find out the fallout message?

EDIT: forgot to include the message that comes with it:

by **Trotterdam** » Thu Jan 31, 2019 5:20 pm

Well, the thing with that one is that since it's one of the issues that existed before I started tracking effect lines, it's hard to disentangle its effect lines from those on all the other old issues. It doesn't help that a fair number of issue options are unreported variants. Over time, I've pruned many of the unassigned lines as I figured out what they're from, but there's still about a dozen left.

Looking through those now, I see an effect line that's fairly likely to be it, but I'm reluctant to assign it without confirmation. Of course, it's up to you if you want to be the one to confirm it, I won't try to force you.

I'll throw you a bone, though: if I'm right about which effect line it is, then these are the results to expect:

Why are you worried about the trout industry specifically? I'm not seeing mention of any specific industry in this issue, not even with the @@MAJORINDUSTRY@@ macro. Are you sure you have the right issue?

by **Sapnu puas** » Fri Feb 01, 2019 6:38 am

Trotterdam wrote:Why are you worried about the trout industry specifically? I'm not seeing mention of any specific industry in this issue, not even with the @@MAJORINDUSTRY@@ macro. Are you sure you have the right issue?

Of course you know I'm obsessed with anything trout, and after answering many different issues and observing result patterns, I've determined that whatever your website lists that's positive, Eco-Friendliness and Business Subsidization usually tend to a higher trout industry boost chance…thing. If trout is not a positive mean for any of an issue's results, I ignore it altogether. In the case of the bone you threw at me, the data seems to be in my favor.
This observation might be technically unrelated in terms of internal game operation, it all makes logical sense to me because they all relate in some way.

UPDATE: …and nothing happens to my trout industry at all, it just decreased my black market. Here's the effect line for option #3:
Boot polish is the favourite lip gloss of entry-level corporate workers.

by **Trotterdam** » Fri Feb 01, 2019 10:26 am

Thanks!

by **Eaischpnaeieacgkque Bhcieaghpodsttditf** » Fri Feb 01, 2019 12:19 pm

Holy crap! I never knew this existed in the first place. I am forever indebted to you Trott. I mean, holy crap dude. How long did it even take you to get all this data??????

by **Trotterdam** » Fri Feb 01, 2019 12:53 pm

Eaischpnaeieacgkque Bhcieaghpodsttditf wrote:Holy crap! [...] I mean, holy crap dude.

I have to wonder about this expression. Just how many people worship crap? What kind of rites does such worship entail? It seems to be a common religion...

Eaischpnaeieacgkque Bhcieaghpodsttditf wrote:How long did it even take you to get all this data??????

Well, it's largely automated, so very little in terms of human-hours.

From what I recall, actually writing the program took around a month, although remarkably little of that was spent on the core result-gathering logic. Much of it was spent on fine-tuning the user-interface to allow me to do most things that still require a manual touch with just a few clicks, and on learning how to use a database library to actually store this much data reliably and conveniently.

The current data, with a few exceptions, dates back to the last global purge, two months ago.

by **Heluthsrew** » Tue Feb 05, 2019 2:48 pm

Hi, not sure if anyone else has noticed, but at the moment it seems like every answer to every issue in the database has "sometimes removes policy: State Surveillance" associated with it.

by **Trotterdam** » Tue Feb 05, 2019 4:11 pm

Heluthsrew wrote:Hi, not sure if anyone else has noticed, but at the moment it seems like every answer to every issue in the database has "sometimes removes policy: State Surveillance" associated with it.

Huh.

I took a look, and it appears that the State Surveillance policy has been removed from the game. No nations have it anymore.

As a result, whatever issue a nation that previously had the policy answered next was recorded as removing the policy.

The removal appears to have happened on 10 January, circa 6 o'clock GMT. 2019-01-10 05:52:21 is when any nation was last seen having it, while 2019-01-17 05:59:25 is when any nation was last seen "losing" it (which fits since old data on nations expires after one week, since that's as long as the happenings feed lasts).

Obviously I'm not the authority to ask on why it was removed, but I'm guessing it's because of the policy's narrative unreliability, as it was really a pseudo-policy assigned to nations with very low privacy rights (even if those low privacy rights were due to the ability of corporations or other citizens to spy on each other, rather than the government doing so).

So, I deleted the policy from my database. Boom. Gone.

If the deletion was unintentional, I'll automatically reacquire the policy if and when it's revived, though of course old data on which issues affect it has been irrevocably corrupted and would have needed to be reset anyway.

by **Candlewhisper Archive** » Wed Feb 06, 2019 5:55 am

Trotterdam wrote:Obviously I'm not the authority to ask on why it was removed, but I'm guessing it's because of the policy's narrative unreliability, as it was really a pseudo-policy assigned to nations with very low privacy rights (even if those low privacy rights were due to the ability of corporations or other citizens to spy on each other, rather than the government doing so).

Yep, was a long-requested change that the techs kindly implemented for us in January.

by **Sapnu puas** » Mon Feb 11, 2019 8:43 am

Option #3 actually says this:
~~loans are available for students from poor families~~ It's normal to start working life with crippling financial debt.
Also it had zero data for that choice number

by **Trotterdam** » Mon Feb 11, 2019 8:55 am

Thanks!

There being no data is a pretty good clue that it's an outdated effect line that's since been changed. So please do let me know when you find out what the current version is. There appear to be three other outdated effect lines: #79 2, #82 3, #98 1... plus two or three that I never managed to figure out which issue they were on before they were changed

by **Sapnu puas** » Thu Feb 14, 2019 6:03 am

~~research into artificial intelligence has been banned~~
"Computers have been banned." #82.3 re-confirmed!
Edit: Oops, I put 83 by accident. URL remains the same.

by **Trotterdam** » Thu Feb 14, 2019 7:35 am

Sapnu puas wrote:~~research into artificial intelligence has been banned~~
"Computers have been banned." #82.3 re-confirmed!

What about the issue text? That effect line doesn't make sense for the option as currently reported. I'd ask you to give Jutsa the new text, but since you already answered the issue, it's probably too late for that.

by **Sapnu puas** » Thu Feb 14, 2019 3:32 pm

Trotterdam wrote:
Sapnu puas wrote:~~research into artificial intelligence has been banned~~
"Computers have been banned." #82.3 re-confirmed!
What about the issue text? That effect line doesn't make sense for the option as currently reported. I'd ask you to give Jutsa the new text, but since you already answered the issue, it's probably too late for that.

I did a whole page search of "computers" and I didn't see any result containing that computers were banned... odd.
Edit: My national happenings does seem to show the new fallout properly.

by **Trotterdam** » Thu Feb 14, 2019 11:45 pm

No, I mean this part:

3. "This is craziness!" says @@RANDOMNAME@@, a resident interviewed by the popular news show 'Talk o' the Town'. "It's just blasphemy, plain and simple! We're, like, playin' God here! It's evil, man, evil! What if they turned against us? All forms of AI should be banned, dudes."

I suspect the option now says something else.

by **Candlewhisper Archive** » Fri Feb 15, 2019 2:23 am

Hope this helps:

“This is craziness!” says Rod Mozart, a resident interviewed by the popular news show ‘Talk o’ the Town’. “It’s just blasphemy, plain and simple! We’re, like, playin’ God here! It’s evil, man, evil! What if they turned against us? All forms of computer should be banned, dudes.”

computers have been banned

I changed it a year and a half ago, as the stat and policy effects weren't consistent with the narratives. Changing the ban was the most straightforward way to fix it.

by **Republica de Barin** » Thu Mar 07, 2019 7:15 pm

The issue 636 is ridiculous, is one of those extremes issues. How does beeing against cyberbulling destroy my social networks?? Someone just can say that the intervention of the state will reduce the traffic in those networks, but this is so surreal. I was trying to increase my information tech industry, and with only one issue it decreased 16%. This is unfair, I don't know why the issues have to be so extremist. Is moderation something bad here? So, in real life nobody cares about cyberbulling just because if the state try to do something, information industry will fall to the abyss?

by **The Free Joy State** » Thu Mar 07, 2019 9:03 pm

Republica de Barin wrote:The issue 636 is ridiculous, is one of those extremes issues. How does beeing against cyberbulling destroy my social networks?? Someone just can say that the intervention of the state will reduce the traffic in those networks, but this is so surreal. I was trying to increase my information tech industry, and with only one issue it decreased 16%. This is unfair, I don't know why the issues have to be so extremist. Is moderation something bad here? So, in real life nobody cares about cyberbulling just because if the state try to do something, information industry will fall to the abyss?

If you're asking about your personal issue results, and not Trotterdam's unofficial offsite resource, you should ask here (in the Unusual Effect Thread), where your query has a better chance of being promptly seen by an editor.

Only Editors and other appropriate site staff have access to the backstage data here at NS.

And there is a very small loss to your IT industry programmed, just because people will frequent IT less when they want to say unpleasant things (I suppose it'll be back to old-fashioned face-to-face communication for that).

However, in raw numbers, your actual change in the industry was very small. From -4.10 to -4.77.

If you have not yet done so, I suggest you go to Settings and turn on "Show More Stats". This shows the raw numbers (percentages are often alarming).

I assure you, the team works hard to think of the most proportionate stats for each issue, and constantly review for consistency with our system.

by **Trotterdam** » Thu Mar 07, 2019 9:30 pm

All I have to add is that my site did predict that the option Republica de Barin chose would reduce information technology (-637.29 to -0.18 Industry: Information Technology (mean -238.3289), -35.27 to -0.25 Scientific Advancement (mean -3.8830)), so any dissatisfaction with that result isn't my fault.

by **New Stormhamer** » Wed Mar 27, 2019 2:18 pm

There is a new Issue 1187

Name:Tipping Point

"While glancing down at your doughnut receipt and trying to calculate percentages in your head, you are reminded that many service-industry employees rely on tips to supplement their income. Recently, analysts have suggested that it is the tips themselves that create the low baseline wages."

1:“Look, us restaurateurs don’t like gratuity-based economics either,” complains Declan Kidman, proprietor of trendy inner-city eatery The молотокград Pyramid. “In fact, we trialed going tip-free and incorporating the costs of a decent salary into the bill. Do you know what happened? We lost customers! A higher visible menu price, and the loss of the diners’ feeling of power, meant patrons went elsewhere! The only way to fix this is government legislation, banning tipping and regulating the industry. A national approach will level the playing field, which will be good for workers, and good for our profits.”

2:“Hi, my name’s Jyn and I’m just tickled pink to be your coffee server today!” chirps a frankly stunning barista with a huge smile on her face as she hands you a perfect cappuccino with a marshmallow on top. “Glorious RichMan, I don’t get paid a lot, but I’m more than happy to do what I can to earn your tips! It’s a great motivation to keep me working hard to make you, my customer, super-duper happy! And if good-looking ethnic-majority twenty-something tight-trousered folk like me end up earning a bit more than most, well that’s the wonderful thing about the free market! Wow, Such Storm, Much Hamer!!”

3:“There’s definitely something in what she’s saying,” suggests your brother, tossing a few small denomination coins onto the counter, to the barista’s disappointment. “Maybe we could all learn from that. I reckon it’d be good if politicians had a tiny baseline wage too, but were allowed to earn tips by pleasing the people. Or at least, by pleasing the people that are willing to show their appreciation with cold, hard cash.”

by **Trotterdam** » Wed Mar 27, 2019 3:03 pm

Thanks, but please report new issues in this thread in the future.

by **Jahass** » Tue Apr 23, 2019 3:03 pm

Trotterdam: Great resource! Thanks for it! Would it be possible for you to update your result site HTML pages to have the viewport META tag, please?

Code: Select all: <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">

The above <meta name="" content=""> is HTML 4.01 Transitional-compliant, which your pages are set as currently. However, your Issue pages are HTML5-compliant with a few small tweaks:

Required: Replace your current 4.01 Transitional DOCTYPE with <!DOCTYPE html>
Required: Remove instances of align="____" on <p> tags as it's obsolete. Replace with inline CSS such as STYLE="text-align: ____;"
Recommended: add lang="en-US" to <html lang="en-US">
Recommended: Remove type="text/css" from the <style> tags in the head as it's not needed.

Here is Issue #0 with HTML5-compliance: https://pastebin.com/rhVMust1

Adding the viewport will increase compatibility with mobile browsers such as Firefox. Thanks for your consideration!

by **Trotterdam** » Tue Apr 23, 2019 3:16 pm

Can you link to some documentation on what that "viewport" thing does, and maybe some before/after screenshots to explain why it's necessary? I don't want to put in code that I don't understand.

The KISS approach to website design works pretty well on conventional computers.

by **Jahass** » Tue Apr 23, 2019 5:11 pm

Sure thing, Trotterdam, here are some authoritative resource links:

Mozilla Developer Network wrote:The browser's viewport is the area of the window in which web content can be seen. This is often not the same size as the rendered page, in which case the browser provides scrollbars for the user to scroll around and access all the content.

Narrow screen devices (e.g. mobiles) render pages in a virtual window or viewport, which is usually wider than the screen, and then shrink the rendered result down so it can all be seen at once. Users can then pan and zoom to see different areas of the page. For example, if a mobile screen has a width of 640px, pages might be rendered with a virtual viewport of 980px, and then it will be shrunk down to fit into the 640px space.

This is done because many pages are not mobile optimized, and break (or at least look bad) when rendered at a small viewport width. This virtual viewport is a way to make non-mobile-optimized sites in general look better on narrow screen devices. (...)

Google Developer Portal wrote:Without a viewport meta tag, mobile devices render pages at typical desktop screen widths, and then scale the pages to fit the mobile screens. Setting the viewport enables you to control the width and scaling of the viewport. (...)

By setting the viewport (which is a default and expected metadata value in today's web), you enable users viewing the results with mobile devices to expand on your site using Userstyles and even improve compatibility among the different mobile browsers which are also, by default, expecting that metadata value.

Here's an example of the current view on mobile:

And, after some minor CSS we can get something like this:

The key CSS is to use flex-boxes to allow the table to respond as responsive to mobile devices. However, it only works in emulation at the moment without the viewport declaration. I have a proof-of-concept Userstyle available here: Dark NationStates Results (note: do not use the Official Stylish user extension which has privacy concerns, instead, use the open-source Stylus extension in Firefox or Chrome) I'm attaching the CSS in the Userstyle:

Code: Select all: @-moz-document domain("www.mwq.dds.nl") { body { font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif !important; color: #ddd; background-color: #222 !important; } a { color: #608dff; text-decoration: none; } a:hover { color: #637ab5; text-decoration: underline; } h2 { font-family: 'Arial' !important; font-weight: 400 !important; font-size: 26px !important; color: #eee !important; text-align: center; } } @-moz-document regexp("http://www.mwq.dds.nl/ns/results/[0-9]{1,4}.html") { table { width: 100%; display: flex; flex-flow: row wrap; justify-content: space-around; } table td:first-child { font-weight: bold; } table td { padding: 0.25em; } table tr { background-color: #111; } table tr:nth-child(odd) { background-color: #333; } table td:nth-child(2) { text-align: right; } @media screen and (max-width: 800px) { table tr:first-child, table td:nth-child(3) { display: none; } table tr { display: flex; flex-direction: row; flex-wrap: wrap; margin: 0.5em 0; } table td, table th { flex: 1 1 150px; border: 0.5px solid rgba(255,255,255,0.2); } } } @-moz-document url("http://www.mwq.dds.nl/ns/results/") { body { column-count: 2; } }

If anything, it helps future-proof your code and improves overall compatibility for the many devices that expect a site to have a viewport declaration. There may be the additional need of some minimal stying on the tables once the viewport is set to ensure the best viewing experience, but it should be minimal unless you want to flex-box the table.

NationStates issue results

Issue 636

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