NS History: You've Got Questions, We've Got Answers!

[USS Monitor]

I think I heard about that. I think most NSers consider NS2 to be some sort of demon spawn. Is that true? And why would Jolt try to tell you how to run a site that they don't own? Maybe Jolt is plotting world domination.

More like sleazy, shitty business practices. Debates on NSG for instance can get into topics that a lot of other forums would prohibit outright (look at how many games or sites outright bar political debate for instance), and since Jolt's model entailed "sucker in as many people as possible to sell shitty games to", the fact our slice of the Jolt forums weren't hyper-sanitized caused them concern.

Fortunately these days, Jolt no longer exists.

The way NSG used to be, it's understandable. We had waaaaaayyy too many threads debating the age of consent.

[Pax Nerdvana]

More like sleazy, shitty business practices. Debates on NSG for instance can get into topics that a lot of other forums would prohibit outright (look at how many games or sites outright bar political debate for instance), and since Jolt's model entailed "sucker in as many people as possible to sell shitty games to", the fact our slice of the Jolt forums weren't hyper-sanitized caused them concern.

Fortunately these days, Jolt no longer exists.

The way NSG used to be, it's understandable. We had waaaaaayyy too many threads debating the age of consent.

Why would there be so many threads on the same topic?

[USS Monitor]

The way NSG used to be, it's understandable. We had waaaaaayyy too many threads debating the age of consent.

Why would there be so many threads on the same topic?

No clue, but they really got out of hand. Eventually the mods had to shut them down.

This was long before I was a mod. I was still a n00b running around posting Holocaust jokes and Nazi fetish kink. Actually, I never used the Jolt forums, but I'm going by what NSG was like in the early years after the move to the current forum.

[Luna Amore]

If you look at the old Jolt/pre-Jolt archives, the standard for NSG threads was much lower overall.

[Pax Nerdvana]

If you look at the old Jolt/pre-Jolt archives, the standard for NSG threads was much lower overall.

There are archives?! I thought Jolt had kept them.

Why would there be so many threads on the same topic?

No clue, but they really got out of hand. Eventually the mods had to shut them down.

This was long before I was a mod. I was still a n00b running around posting Holocaust jokes and Nazi fetish kink. Actually, I never used the Jolt forums, but I'm going by what NSG was like in the early years after the move to the current forum.

To be honest, I don't know how much more mature the forums have gotten.

[The Blaatschapen]

If you look at the old Jolt/pre-Jolt archives, the standard for NSG threads was much lower overall.

I was not yet a regular of NSG most of that time.

I'll claim it

[USS Monitor]

If you look at the old Jolt/pre-Jolt archives, the standard for NSG threads was much lower overall.

There are archives?! I thought Jolt had kept them.

No clue, but they really got out of hand. Eventually the mods had to shut them down.

This was long before I was a mod. I was still a n00b running around posting Holocaust jokes and Nazi fetish kink. Actually, I never used the Jolt forums, but I'm going by what NSG was like in the early years after the move to the current forum.

To be honest, I don't know how much more mature the forums have gotten.

They are more PG-13 than they used to be. Whether that is more mature depends on your definition of "mature."

[Pax Nerdvana]

There are archives?! I thought Jolt had kept them.
To be honest, I don't know how much more mature the forums have gotten.

They are more PG-13 than they used to be. Whether that is more mature depends on your definition of "mature."

By mature, I meant as in acting like little children, which is quite commonplace.

[Luna Amore]

If you look at the old Jolt/pre-Jolt archives, the standard for NSG threads was much lower overall.

There are archives?! I thought Jolt had kept them.

No clue, but they really got out of hand. Eventually the mods had to shut them down.

This was long before I was a mod. I was still a n00b running around posting Holocaust jokes and Nazi fetish kink. Actually, I never used the Jolt forums, but I'm going by what NSG was like in the early years after the move to the current forum.

To be honest, I don't know how much more mature the forums have gotten.

There’s an incomplete archive. It’s mostly jolt but there are some posts from the 2002/3 forum in there.

https://nationstates.ermarian.net/jolt/

[Pax Nerdvana]

There are archives?! I thought Jolt had kept them.
To be honest, I don't know how much more mature the forums have gotten.

There’s an incomplete archive. It’s mostly jolt but there are some posts from the 2002/3 forum in there.

https://nationstates.ermarian.net/jolt/

That is really cool. I thought Jolt had deleted everything.

[Luna Amore]

There’s an incomplete archive. It’s mostly jolt but there are some posts from the 2002/3 forum in there.

https://nationstates.ermarian.net/jolt/

That is really cool. I thought Jolt had deleted everything.

Unfortunately, there's a good bit missing.

And they did delete the old forums, without much warning if I recall.

[Pax Nerdvana]

That is really cool. I thought Jolt had deleted everything.

Unfortunately, there's a good bit missing.

And they did delete the old forums, without much warning if I recall.

That's about what I heard, although I thought everything had been lost. I didn't know there were archives.

[Lenlyvit]

I have a well, noobish question. I've been playing for over a year now, and I've been working on Commend Texas. I still don't know the Lazarus coups, such as who did them and what years they happened. Can anyone help me? (Please, for the love of god, don't start an argument about Funk.)

[Canton Empire]

I have a well, noobish question. I've been playing for over a year now, and I've been working on Commend Texas. I still don't know the Lazarus coups, such as who did them and what years they happened. Can anyone help me? (Please, for the love of god, don't start an argument about Funk.)

Funk Coup started on July 24th, 2017

As for the NLO coup, the UDL WFE says the NLO was established April 12th, 2015, though the WFE was changed from the PRL theme on the 8th.

[The Bruce]

More like sleazy, shitty business practices. Debates on NSG for instance can get into topics that a lot of other forums would prohibit outright (look at how many games or sites outright bar political debate for instance), and since Jolt's model entailed "sucker in as many people as possible to sell shitty games to", the fact our slice of the Jolt forums weren't hyper-sanitized caused them concern.

Fortunately these days, Jolt no longer exists.

The way NSG used to be, it's understandable. We had waaaaaayyy too many threads debating the age of consent.

It was to the point where you got two talks:

1) The Birds and Bees Talk from your parents

2) The Talk about the NationStates General Forum from friends or regional leaders

[Pollaetorian]

Did we ever find out who hawked Gatesville. One of the most prominent regions in the game, snipped at the refound by an anonymous person and still holding almost 7 years later.

[Darkesia]

I thought it was Grub's crew (10KI) who got it, but honestly, it's been so long I don't remember any more.

[Unibot III]

THE ANATOMY OF THE COUP
How did Francos Spain take over the Pacific?

Many people have asked "why" Francos Spain couped the Pacific, but few ask "how." I wanted to research the details of Francos Spain's coup (August 28 2003) and find out, just how was it done?

(I promised Kazmr IRL that I'd get around to doing this, so here it is! Belatedly.)

This was not the first time that the Pacific had been couped. Over the course of 2003, the Pacific was home to frequent instability. ¹ Sudetenland, InfernoIce, and -Ukraine-, former delegates (indeed it was supposed they might be the same individual) all had a reputation for despotism. When -Ukraine- was deposed on May 21 after a short reign of terror, Olongapo and the "Free the Pacific movement" believed they had secured the region's future as an open and independent democracy. TheDoc was the winner of the first elections hosted by Olongapo and rose to office in June. His 'vice,' The Savage Lands took the delegacy on TheDoc's behalf twice in August due to TheDoc's absences, a server error, and to respond to a threat to the delegacy posed by Nextarian. TheDoc's unreliability later became a central theme of the NPO's propaganda to justify the August Revolution.

During this time, a community forum and an active defender force, the Pacific Army operated.

A careful projection based on the account's population figure, suggests the account, "Francos Spain" was created sometime near July 6, 2003. It seems likely that this was not the player's main account, but rather a puppet nation stashed in Spain for the time being during July/August - a region that the player controlled. ² Wayback Archives suggests that the puppet, Francos Spain was not not relocated to the Pacific nor did it trade endorsements there until sometime between August 14-August 19. Unistrut cites a very similar timeframe when he writes Francos Spain "was the founder of the region "Spain"* and was residing there just three weeks before he rose to the delegacy." An additional corroborating voice is a Pacific native at that time who noted Francos Spain began trading endorsements on Aug 18 after a server crash.³ During his brief time in the Pacific before his coup, Francos Spain did apparently join the community forum and post once - but only once.

This means that in the span of just a few weeks (2-3), this latest resident was able to tart and swap endorsements to become delegate of the Pacific. The events of August 27, however, decided the fate of the region.

August 27

18:00 GMT: Players first note that Francos Spain is encroaching on TheDoc's endorsement levels. At this time, Francos Spain was leading TheDoc, 387-385. A two endorsement margin.
21:39:10 GMT: TheDoc ejects Francos Spain, but does not ban Francos Spain - which was a crucial mistake on his part.⁴
23:13:46 GMT: Francos Spain leaves the Rejected Realms for the West Pacific. ⁵
23:32 GMT: The Rejected Realms updates.
23:41:29 GMT: Francos Spain moves back to the Rejected Realms from the West Pacific. We call this tactic, "update surfing."

August 28

See here, an image of the Pacific - mere moments (fifteen minutes) before the Pacific's democracy is ended forever.

08:00 - 08:14 GMT: Francos Spain probably moved into the Pacific from the Rejected Realms in this short span of time before update.**
08:14 GMT: The Pacific updates. Subsequently, Francos Spain takes the delegacy from TheDoc.
10:20:29 GMT: The Pacific's WFE is updated by Francos Spain. ("Tyranny has been deposed. Let a new era of peace, freedom, and justice for the Pacific be rung in.") The new World Factbook Entry's celebratory tone and the absence of a link to the Pacific's forum is an initial source of concern and frustration with natives. ⁶
14:36:19 GMT: With the endorsement margin currently sitting at 391-382 for TheDoc, natives widely assumed that TheDoc will retake the delegacy. This proves overly optimistic. ⁷

August 29

Just prior to update in the Pacific, Francos Spain bans three key high endorsers...

08:02:06 GMT: Francos Spain bans and ejects TheDoc just prior to update.
08:11:06 GMT: Francos Spain bans and ejects Amanda Angel just prior to update.
08:14 GMT: Francos Spain bans and ejects Morcoland just prior to update.
08:14 GMT: The Pacific updates.

________

I think it's worth noting that until this point, the Pacific didn't really seem to appreciate the significance of Francos Spain's rise to power.

At the time of Francos' usurping of the delegacy, the Pacific Army was busy with a deployment in Glen Falls against Empire of Power. They appeared naive to his intentions and slow to respond. Provided he was ruthless (and he was), Francos Spain had all the means he needed to maintain a hold on the Pacific indefinitely after August 28 - there should have been "alarm bells" ringing days prior to and after then, but it's striking to see just how little urgency there was on the RMB regarding the situation until after the first round of ejections of high-profile members began. But by that point, it was mostly too late already.

What we know of the player behind Francos Spain is that prior to the events in August, he was a "mid-level" invader (Farker/Puddist) and an associate of the USSR community. To me, this is consistent with this player's behaviour - his methodical tarting, his 'update surfing', and the anonymity he cultivated - all activity that suggests a professional: someone with considerable experience with game mechanics.

________

August 30

The nation, Poskrebyshev was founded on this date. He quickly amassed a ton of endorsements and served as Francos Spain's second-in-command. Given the timing, this leads a lot of credence to the theory that Poskrebyshev was a real life friend or dorm-mate of the player behind Francos Spain.

Its at this point that Francos Spain begins communicating on the Regional Message Board, mostly to demonize the Pacific Army as meddlers and spammers. Until then, he had been dead silent - never responding to complaints of his action. The recent deletion of the Savage Lands for rules violation added fuel to the propaganda fire, giving Francos Spain something to claim as representative of the Pacific resistance's credibility.

August 31

At this point, it appears as though Francos Spain had banned either 103 residents or 4. While the Pacific Army claimed a hundred and three, Francos Spain claimed four in a NetworkRadio interview he did on this date.

It was also on this date that [violet] refused to intervene in the crisis in the Pacific. ("If the Pacific leaves Francos Spain in power, that is their choice.")

September 01

The New Pacific Order is founded on this date, although the forum does appear to have been linked on the Pacific's WFE till Sept 02. The NPO's earliest members were InfernoIce, Poskrebyshev, and BertramStantrous. ⁸ I must admit it surprised me to learn how intimately InfernoIce was involved with the August Revolution. He was one of the first players to create an account on the NPO forum, before even Poskrebyshev. Given the association between Francos Spain and Ukraine (a region he later founded) and the supposed association between InfernoIce and -Ukraine-, I often wonder if the player behind -Ukraine- may have been the same player behind Francos Spain.


* I don't think The Angry Spaniard is Francos Spain. I believe The Angry Spaniard refounded Spain, Sept 15 2003. That would be after Francos Spain's time in Spain. The Wayback Archives' records for Spain are spotty, so unfortunately I haven't been able to corroborate Unistrut's statement that Francos Spain was housed in Spain, nor have I been able to identify the founder nation at the time of Francos Spain's residency. Read more about Spain here.
** There's gap in the Wayback Archives for both TRR and TP during this time period. What I can say for sure is either Francos joined the Pacific more than two hours in advance of update or less than fifteen minutes. I believe the latter is far more consistent with his methodology which showed considerable knowledge of how update operated.
*** Reploid explained that TRR probably updated as late as it did due to server errors.

[Nakari]

This makes me most curious about how update worked back then. In August 2002, at least, "Daily updates happen automatically (at 1AM Los Angeles time, and at 1PM if you request two updates per day)," which explains the oddity of 8am GMT, but what's up with the Rejected Realms updating at 23pm GMT, 4pm in LA time? Is it recorded strangely through these methods, or did update last through the whole day?

(ETA: I know I've got the timezone conversion a bit wrong here, but the point still stands in GMT.)

[Reploid Productions]

This makes me most curious about how update worked back then. In August 2002, at least, "Daily updates happen automatically (at 1AM Los Angeles time, and at 1PM if you request two updates per day)," which explains the oddity of 8am GMT, but what's up with the Rejected Realms updating at 23pm GMT, 3pm in LA time? Is it recorded strangely through these methods, or did update last through the whole day?

With how badly the server was struggling to cope with the load back then, I honestly wouldn't be that surprised to have had broken updates take several hours as a fairly routine occurrence.

[Nakari]

This makes me most curious about how update worked back then. In August 2002, at least, "Daily updates happen automatically (at 1AM Los Angeles time, and at 1PM if you request two updates per day)," which explains the oddity of 8am GMT, but what's up with the Rejected Realms updating at 23pm GMT, 3pm in LA time? Is it recorded strangely through these methods, or did update last through the whole day?

With how badly the server was struggling to cope with the load back then, I honestly wouldn't be that surprised to have had broken updates take several hours as a fairly routine occurrence.

The idea of a 15+ hour update is making me feel slightly queasy.

[Vulturret]

With how badly the server was struggling to cope with the load back then, I honestly wouldn't be that surprised to have had broken updates take several hours as a fairly routine occurrence.

The idea of a 15+ hour update is making me feel slightly queasy.

Same yeah, would be horrible. Great lesson, Uni!

[Unibot III]

I must admit TRR's update time was the one thing that really had me scratching my head. I wasn't sure if it was a result of a creaky server or a planned arrangement.

For August 27's update time I based the time off this bunch of CTE's. TRR is difficult to find update times since there aren't many CTE's each update. It's always possible that this was a mod culling instead, but I figured it was probably update since Francos knew to surf around it.

Seconds ago: The Queendom of Of Liberal Fag-hags ceased to exist.
Seconds ago: The United Socialist States of The Marxist Haven ceased to exist.
Seconds ago: The Republic of Asdfas ceased to exist.
Seconds ago: The Republic of Freaky frogs ceased to exist.
Seconds ago: The Free Land of Artificialintelligence ceased to exist.
Seconds ago: The Armed Republic of Welshpool fc ceased to exist.
1 minute ago: The United Socialist States of Drone 20 ceased to exist.
1 minute ago: The Incorporated States of Total Kaos ceased to exist.
2 minutes ago: The Allied States of The eagl and the oliv ceased to exist.
3 minutes ago: The Armed Republic of Windward Armed Forces ceased to exist.

Here's some rough estimates of update times for TRR near the event, but again it's just based on CTE's which could be moderator-caused.

August 23 23:43 GMT
August 25 23:17 GMT
August 27 23:32 GMT

It kinda looks like TRR updated at 09:32:09 GMT on August 30. And 09:17 GMT, way back, on August 06. These incidents are the only evidence I can see of TRR updating at a time outside of 23:00. However if we accept these times are all TRR's update times, it kinda pairs nicely with what Reploid said because it suggests TRR was near the end of the update order and often got caught with major delays day-to-day.

EDIT: I've figured how to confirm that all these observed update times were in fact update times using the nations' time of CTE. And yes, they're all legitimate. Which means TRR's update time bounced around from 23:32 to 09:30 in the same week.

[Vulturret]

I must admit TRR's update time was the one thing that really had me scratching my head. I wasn't sure if it was a result of a creaky server or a planned arrangement.

For August 27's update time I based the time off this bunch of CTE's. TRR is difficult to find update times since there aren't many CTE's each update. It's always possible that this was a mod culling instead, but I figured it was probably update since Francos knew to surf around it.

Seconds ago: The Queendom of Of Liberal Fag-hags ceased to exist.
Seconds ago: The United Socialist States of The Marxist Haven ceased to exist.
Seconds ago: The Republic of Asdfas ceased to exist.
Seconds ago: The Republic of Freaky frogs ceased to exist.
Seconds ago: The Free Land of Artificialintelligence ceased to exist.
Seconds ago: The Armed Republic of Welshpool fc ceased to exist.
1 minute ago: The United Socialist States of Drone 20 ceased to exist.
1 minute ago: The Incorporated States of Total Kaos ceased to exist.
2 minutes ago: The Allied States of The eagl and the oliv ceased to exist.
3 minutes ago: The Armed Republic of Windward Armed Forces ceased to exist.

Here's some rough estimates of update times for TRR near the event, but again it's just based on CTE's which could be moderator-caused.

August 23 23:43 GMT
August 25 23:17 GMT
August 27 23:32 GMT

It kinda looks like TRR updated at 09:32:09 GMT on August 30. And 09:17 GMT, way back, on August 06. These incidents are the only evidence I can see of TRR updating at a time outside of 23:00. However if we accept these times are all TRR's update times, it kinda pairs nicely with what Reploid said because it suggests TRR was near the end of the update order and often got caught with major delays day-to-day.

Again, very useful, this probably deserves its own thread! Looks like the one with strike through could've been mod based, but they also could've just missed it.

[Roavin]

NewTexas has a bunch of data dating back to May 2003. Maybe they have a nation list from Spain from August 2003.