[PASSED] Condemn 'True North'

[The Colony Master]

I think I will support this condemnation. Puppet states are an instrument that should be available in the current meta-game setting, but just filling a region with puppets to score a number is stupid and damages the server speed.

A puppet should have a reason to exist, not being a number and period, you are also killing names that could be used in future by other users. So the practice must be condemned or stopped at least.

Maybe I've missed it, but where has anyone involved in True North said that they're doing it "to score a number"? The only people I've seen that have tagged it as that are the ones calling for a condemnation.

To be fair, among the two main contributors, including me, there was definitely the goal of being the largest region in the world. However, I for one enjoy creating nations in order to mess with categories, choosing government styles, and seeing how the introduction questions influence your nation initially. I like the process of creating a nation. To me, it's not all about the number or title of being best in the world at all. I enjoy making puppets.

In regards to scripting- The founder of the region actually logs in to every nation, I don't know if he uses a script. Sorry. The assertion that we use scripts to create nations is false, though. As I said before, I often enjoy manipulating national categories.

And in regards to time- As I said before, puppet making is a part of NS that appeals to me. But I get that is weird. I don't expect anyone else to understand, but to me, this is a fun part of the game. To me, people who stay up past midnight to raid and defend is crazy, but I'm not going to criticize anyone for participating in it.

Now, I think we're at about 5,100 nations. That's a little high to me. I've been less and less able to found nations with cool or interesting names, and instead, I've been pushing on to fill a quota. It's become less fun, so I've kind of sat back and really haven't been that active lately. That's where I guess I've kind of begun to care less and less about being #1. Once it's become all about that, it does seem like a waste of time and pointless. I guess there's a perception that this is all about the goal, but for me, it was very much about the fun of it. I guess it's weird, but it's true.

I can't speak for True and great north's motivations, though.

[Delegate Vinage]

There's a puppet-making quota?

That's a worrying, and actually kind of sad, though. Though thank you for confirming that you wish to become the largest region in NationStates. For the rest of your argument, how many puppets do you actually need to test all of this and.... why? Why even bother?

I actually feel bad for you guys now that we've learnt this is what you do in your leisure time.

[The Colony Master]

There's a puppet-making quota?

That's a worrying, and actually kind of sad, though. Though thank you for confirming that you wish to become the largest region in NationStates. For the rest of your argument, how many puppets do you actually need to test all of this and.... why? Why even bother?

I actually feel bad for you guys now that we've learnt this is what you do in your leisure time.

By quota I meant the goal of being #1... Not anything daily or something

As I said before, though, I find puppet making fun, so that's why I do it. I'm sure that that's the way you feel about politics or Europeia or any raiders or defenders feel about that game. It's just I enjoy something different from you guys.

For the number I'd need test- I don't know, but there're a lot of possibilities, surprisingly.

But you know, testing isn't the only thing I enjoy. I guess I like finding cool names, finding cool flags (Yukon Territory, Canada's is really awesome ) and that's another reason I enjoy it.

[Lyanna Stark]

There's a puppet-making quota?

That's a worrying, and actually kind of sad, though. Though thank you for confirming that you wish to become the largest region in NationStates. For the rest of your argument, how many puppets do you actually need to test all of this and.... why? Why even bother?

I actually feel bad for you guys now that we've learnt this is what you do in your leisure time.

We probably look just as crazy with R/D. Or even worse, think about recruiting. Just refreshing waiting for new nations to pop up to quickly send them telegrams to beat the other people then cheering if that 1 out of 50 nations you sent a telegram to moves to your region.. If they get personal pleasure out of it and it isn't actively harming anyone else, let them be, I guess.

I don't think it's deserving of a condemn, or really even the WASC's attention. Let 'em squat. Someday, like all the other puppet dumps like this, someone'll get bored and they'll all CTE. And then that region'll probably get raided. Unknown did that to a puppet dump a few years ago--the region I recall was condemned (can't remember if it was for this reason or not) but I can't remember the name of it. >.> <.<

EDIT: FOUND IT. "Ninja pirate awesome town". (Clicky). Seems more focused on harassment than the puppet flooding. The repeal has on the books that puppetflooding shouldn't be the concern of the SC.

[True and great north]

lol people are actually mad at this?

[Cromarty]

There's a puppet-making quota?

That's a worrying, and actually kind of sad, though.

*cough* Mandatory Recruitment Act *cough*

[Communist Eraser]

On the phone so can't quote:

Lyanna: As you said, many of us are madly obsessive about recruiting just to get that one hit. Surely then it must be very frustrating to know most nations being created are puppets? I means we have to waste more time doing more tgs before we even get to a real nation, let alone the tiny chance that nation joins our region.

[Cerian Quilor]

There's a puppet-making quota?

That's a worrying, and actually kind of sad, though.

*cough* Mandatory Recruitment Act *cough*

Puppets and recruitement are not the same thing, Georgie.

[Cromarty]

*cough* Mandatory Recruitment Act *cough*

Puppets and recruitement are not the same thing, Georgie.

I'm saying quotas are always bad on NS

[Cerian Quilor]

Nope.

[Skyrim Diplomacy]

While I like the idea of condemning regions that do this, I think that's just feeding the unwarranted attention they undoubtedly are seeking.

[Communist Eraser]

tbh i'm waiting when they break 8000 or so, that about when Lazarus broke forcing the creation of Osiris and balder

[Solorni]

I did not expect for there to be a debate on internal Europeian policy.

[Frisbeeteria]

lol people are actually mad at this?

Those of us who regularly scan the new nations list (looking for obscene names and fields) do indeed get annoyed at the half-dozen or so players who jam up the lists daily for no apparent purpose. I can understand 20-30 nations for testing nation types, or even 50+ for checking issues or participating in the R/D game, but I don't understand puppet generation as an end in itself. Mad? Not really. Puzzled? Assuredly.

[Delegate Vinage]

I did not expect for there to be a debate on internal Europeian policy.

We are just that good obviously

[Unibot III]

Lyanna: As you said, many of us are madly obsessive about recruiting just to get that one hit. Surely then it must be very frustrating to know most nations being created are puppets? I means we have to waste more time doing more tgs before we even get to a real nation, let alone the tiny chance that nation joins our region.

Sure, but Europeia's goal is a lot different than to be a region with a lot of puppet nations. It's to be a very large political region whose members actually contribute. Therefore, for Europeians to think that this puppet region takes anything away from them or undermines their goal, would be incorrect ... although broker-regions like Europeia want to be big and recruitment is a central virtue of broker-regions, they want to be more than something like True North, so the fact that True North exists as it does should not be taken as a "cheat".

Although I'll note that anything that makes it easier for niche-regions to challenge broker-regions in size is often seen as morally-wrong in NationStates (not just illegal) -- because popular mores in NationStates originate for the benefit of broker-regions, they often lose their popularity when broker-regions don't need them anymore (such as when broker-regions gained founders -- political invader regions slowly emerged out of that, larger defender UCRs declined). Rules against poaching and puppet flooding are simply rules of a moderation superstructure to reinforce the greater influence of broker-regions over niche-regions. It's not even clear if this kind of puppet flooding is illegal, since it isn't malicious to the region -- I think that was just a rumor made by players to spark outrage at these regions who do something like this.

[Topid]

Good lord, I'd not noticed that region. Scripting at its worst! Jeez, A Million Voices, that's a really low thing to do.

I'd vote for this*. Normally I think people get butthurt over puppet flooding for no good reason, but once it reaches the hundreds of nations level, it's a bit out of hand. Thousands of nations is just a dick move. Adding that many nations to the update just to have your name at the top is very inconsiderate and juvenile.

*Unless the text ends up not-understandable in order to get "puppet-flooding" past Rule IV.

Topid, Delegate of The States

[Delegate Vinage]

As per suggestion by the mods, I have removed the word 'Game Created Regions' due to a R4 violation and, instead, used 'the Pacifics'. Is that okay Mods?

The term 'puppet flooding' has not been marked as being a R4 violation as of yet and, since this has been up for a while and mods have commented on another part, I would assume is to therefore not be a R4 violation.

Frisbeeteria points it our right in regards to people being 'mad' about this. Personally I am not mad but puzzled and disappointed. It's a game and if I get mad over a game... I go play something else for a bit and come back to it in the future. For me this Condemnation stands to be an opportunity for us as a community to take a stand against these types of regions, you'll note there are several others including Galapagos (1,935 nations), The Imperial Palace of Fandom (790), Direwolves of the North (346) and The Society of Meshuggah Ducks (346) are on their way to following True North's lead by inflating their numbers through simple puppet flooding and storing them for little to no reason.

[Welsh Cowboy]

Firstly, I am sorry if this makes the job harder for moderators, that's of course not our intended purpose, and I really do not want to make their jobs harder.

However, I must say again that this is a part of the game that I for one enjoy. I'm sorry if no one else likes this part of the game, and maybe our region even gets condemned for it, but it's a part of the game I quite enjoy, as I'm sure raiding and defending are to many of you. We all like different aspects of this great game.

In light of this draft and all the heat we've been receiving, though, I've stopped creating nations for a week or so; I've been thinking about whether I feel the desire to continue. And to be clear, I really don't. My goal was originally to be number one in the world, but it wasn't to antagonize the whole community. It wasn't to just tick people off, and until I either think of some really interesting names or find an urge to tick people off for the sake of it (I probably won't, hopefully), I don't think I'll keep creating.

Some of your criticisms, to me, are misplaced-
Topid: We don't use scripts to create them, that would be illegal. I don't do the logging in, so I can't speak to whether we script there. We may, we may not. But I know for a fact that others use scripts to log into nations, so I don't think we're doing anything different there, albeit maybe on a different scale.

Oh, and AMV only moved in something like 10-12 nations. Really, I hope he doesn't end up getting blamed. It's all on me, because I really encouraged the buildup.

Delegate Vinage: Galapagos has been there for ages, and they control, I believe, hundreds of regions, so they're nothing new; I'm surprised no one noticed them, I certainly did. (Perhaps the competition helped that )

I do find it disingenuous for you to exclude Kyzikos and Epogennick from that list, because both are larger than the Direwolves and Meshuggah regions. Kyzikos has 741 nations, and that pushes Ainur, Region Inc, Mordor, and others down the ranks. While you might see a reason for the 700+ nations, I see that as something of a drag on update, and when those nations were created, I'm sure some recruiters sent them telegrams, not knowing they were puppets.

To be clear, I'm not saying R/D is bad, nor am I saying that you shouldn't keep puppets. I get your reasons, and you enjoy raiding and defending, which is great. I'm glad you have fun on NS. But puppeteering is one of my favorite parts of the game, too, and that's why I participate in things like True North.

[Delegate Vinage]

Delegate Vinage: Galapagos has been there for ages, and they control, I believe, hundreds of regions, so they're nothing new; I'm surprised no one noticed them, I certainly did. (Perhaps the competition helped that )

I do find it disingenuous for you to exclude Kyzikos and Epogennick from that list, because both are larger than the Direwolves and Meshuggah regions. Kyzikos has 741 nations, and that pushes Ainur, Region Inc, Mordor, and others down the ranks. While you might see a reason for the 700+ nations, I see that as something of a drag on update, and when those nations were created, I'm sure some recruiters sent them telegrams, not knowing they were puppets.

You've made the majority of these points before which have been replied to so I will focus on this new material instead. They have been noticed before by yours truly and, perhaps, the competition spurred them on a bit - if that is the case then perhaps a clause should be added saying:

WORRY, that if action is not taken then we will see similar actions undertaken by regions undertaking a similar goal

As for the other two regions that you disingenuously accuse me of missing, those two regions [from my understanding of them] serve a purpose to puppet store nations that have either recently been used in a Raid/Defend or will be used - they serve/served a purpose. As I am not involved in either of the two regions, their formation or their purpose I could not comment. The ERN doesn't undertake a mass-Puppet Storage program for our used nations and instead we dump them elsewhere - so there is little I can comment here. All I can say is that your claim that I have ignored them as utter bunk.

[Cormac Stark]

Frisbeeteria points it our right in regards to people being 'mad' about this. Personally I am not mad but puzzled and disappointed. It's a game and if I get mad over a game... I go play something else for a bit and come back to it in the future. For me this Condemnation stands to be an opportunity for us as a community to take a stand against these types of regions, you'll note there are several others including Galapagos (1,935 nations), The Imperial Palace of Fandom (790), Direwolves of the North (346) and The Society of Meshuggah Ducks (346) are on their way to following True North's lead by inflating their numbers through simple puppet flooding and storing them for little to no reason.

I think most of us can understand that True North and other Puppet Storage regions might be annoying or frustrating to other regions, particularly when recruiting. But I think the problem some of us are having is the translation from annoying/frustrating to condemnable.

There are basically two types of condemnations, roleplay and gameplay. This is a gameplay condemnation proposal. Previous gameplay condemnations that are still on the books include:

• Condemn Macedon, which condemned a notorious griefer region;
• Condemn Durkadurkiranistan II, which condemned Durk for couping and purging The North Pacific, ejecting hundreds of nations from the region;
• Condemn NAZI EUROPE, which condemned a Nazi region for a smorgasbord of heinous actions throughout its history;
• Condemn The Black Hawks, which condemned another notorious griefer region;
• Condemn the Greater German Reich, which condemned another Nazi region with a terrible history;
• Condemn Punk Reloaded, which condemned Punk for his renegade Delegacy in The West Pacific and his acts of aggression against The South Pacific;
• Condemn Allied States of EuroIslanders, which condemned the founder of the Red Liberty Alliance for the destruction of three raider regions' forums;
• Condemn Lone Wolves United, which condemned another notorious griefer region;
• Condemn The Black Riders, which condemned yet another notorious griefer region.

That's it. There are only eleven gameplay condemnations since the Security Council's inception that are still on the books. There are condemnations for griefing, condemnations for couping and purging, condemnations for insidious ideologies and acts of aggression against other regions and a condemnation for forum destruction.

Now, what -- aside from irritating Europeia's recruiters and bumping you down on the population rankings -- has True North done to deserve being condemned along with the above listed nations and regions? Unless you can provide hard evidence of the detrimental impact you claim this is having on the game's servers, I see nothing in this proposal or in the region's history that warrants condemnation. The Security Council doesn't exist to express other regions' petty annoyance with what appears to be a harmless aspect of the game that is even provided for by game mechanics (see the Puppet Storage tag).

We have been down this road before. Ninja pirate awesome town was condemned (link) and that condemnation was repealed a week later (link). In that repeal, Naivetry wrote and the nations and regions of the world agreed:

Asserting, however, that the simple presence of puppets in a region does not merit the world's attention nor a permanent entry into the legislative record of the World Assembly,

I couldn't agree more.

[Delegate Vinage]

You say it as if this is Europeia's individual crusade, we tend to not take moral arguments or even recognise moral arguments. But, please, feel free to not discuss the proposal here and instead personal grievances you have. This is merely myself, as a member of the World Assembly, raising up the point that monstrously large puppet storage regions are not good for the game and have a negative impact on the game so much so that more nations = more server hits/space being used = more game lag.

If you do not see something here that is Condemn-worthy and disagree with this proposal, that is fair enough and I respect your reason to disagree. There is likely no convincing you on the merits and I am unlikely to be swayed by your own points, so why prolong our 'debate' on the matter any further. There's no convincing either one of us the other way here.

Since this proposal has been on the floor for a short while now, be there any other points to be raised in regards to the proposal prior to me seeking approval from other Delegates and so that we may vote on the matter.

[Cromarty]

You say it as if this is Europeia's individual crusade

Whilst i don't agree that this is a crusade or similar, this has been authored in the Citizen's Assembly in Europeia, and when you're using phrases like 'bring to international prominence' then there is some degree of this being a Europeian campaign.

Not that I disagree with the resolution, I'm actually pretty meh on the whole thing, but still.

[Delegate Vinage]

Written by myself, someone who isn't a member of the Citizen's Assembly, in order to get a brief [unofficial] R4 check-up by some of our SC-savvy citizens.

[Cormac Stark]

You say it as if this is Europeia's individual crusade, we tend to not take moral arguments or even recognise moral arguments. But, please, feel free to not discuss the proposal here and instead personal grievances you have.

Just to be clear, there was literally one sentence fragment from my entire rather lengthy post that even mentioned Europeia:

aside from irritating Europeia's recruiters and bumping you down on the population rankings

Snarky? Yes. My entire argument? Hardly. The rest was about this proposal and how it compares to other gameplay condemnations. You can of course choose to dismiss that argument, though I was hoping it would convince you to aim for something more worthy of your time and everyone else's. As it stands I'll just have to hope that others are convinced that this is a silly condemnation unworthy of the Security Council's attention and vote accordingly.

Since you're so convinced this is about my personal grievances, though, I wouldn't want to disappoint you: If the Security Council is bored, rather than condemning a harmless Puppet Storage region it might instead aim for a region that puts on a show of supporting peace, freedom and equality but instead invades random regions and has provided diplomatic cover and at times military support for imperialists and griefers. I wonder where we could find one of those...