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

[Minskiev]

There ought to be a list of important figures that you kind of need to dig up info about. A few weeks ago I was trying to figure out who the hell Milograd was. TSP Delegate self-couped, relevant on forums or something, WA stuff, 2012, right?

Also...when exactly was the sudden boom in issues? In like 2008 or so there were maybe 250 issues I think, and then in perhaps 2013-2015 there were 400...but 1366(7)? now? Seems like a steep climb.

[SherpDaWerp]

Also...when exactly was the sudden boom in issues? In like 2008 or so there were maybe 250 issues I think, and then in perhaps 2013-2015 there were 400...but 1366(7)? now? Seems like a steep climb.

I'll answer this as best I can, and probably try to compile an abridged history of GI in the process.

The original 30 issues remained in place until the 15th of July 2003 when Max began editing player-submitted issues into the game himself. Only 2 Authors from this time period remain - Snowcat and Sentient Peoples.

8 issues later (#31 to #38), Max decided that the job was too much for one person to handle, and began work on a system for Game Mods to edit player issues into the game. This was completed on the 16th of October 2003. Some controversy^{another source} arose when the first issue added through this system was a self-edit - #39: Scandal Rocks @@NAME@@'s Government! [The SLAGLands; ed: The SLAGLands].

The SLAGLands, Reploid Productions, SalusaSecondus and Enodia edited issues up until #97, where Sirocco made their first appearance. From here on out, they dominate the editing of new issues, with occasional input from other Game Mods. They are credited in the Issue 1K news post as "the editing team in the early days". This went on for about 6 years - 2003 to 2009 - when the very first Issues Contest was held. The result of this competition was the introduction of Issues Editors as an informal role, with the first three title-holders being Responsible, Kandarin and Glen-Rhodes. Their first issues came in at #251, #253 and #255.

As far as I can tell; these three Issues Editors predate Issues Control, so they never manually added any issues to the game. Instead, they provided all the spell-checking and final touches that editors do nowadays, without the process of actually adding the issues, which was left to Admins.

This era of few Issues Editors, and Game Mods largely doing most of the work, lasted from 2009 through to 2014, when Issues Control was added. In this time, Sanctaria, Luna Amore, Sedgistan, and Lenyo (all relatively well-known figures) started in GI.

Sometime in early (pre-june) 2014, Issues Control was added, allowing Game Mods and Issue Editors direct access to the issues instead of going through Admin.

Sedgistan was the main figure of the Editing team during this period (2014-2016) where the editing team remained rather small, though it did expand towards the end. Sedgistan is credited as having "remodeled and championed it [the Editing Team] as a professional organization". 2015 saw the end of the Third Issues Contest, which led Golgothastan (a recent returnee) and Raurosia join the Editing team, and Luna Amore get modded. At this point, the number of issues was around 400-450.

In late 2015-2016, following some foreshadowing ("we've got some ambitious plans for expanding the Issues Editing team") by Sedgistan, the Editing Team gained Gnejs and Nation of Quebec in one contest, as well as Sleep, Logophilia Lyricalia (better known as Sierra Lyricalia, of GA Secretariat fame) and Candlewhisper Archive. Sanctaria took a bit of a break here, though they did return by 2017.

2016 also marked the end of an era, with Sedgistan retiring and another Issues Contest, bringing the team total to 13 including such names as Pogaria, Ransium, Zwangzug, The Grim Reaper, The Free Joy State, Caracasus, and Helaw, all of whom remain active today. Since then, no significant expansion has occurred. A recent Issues Contest brought Electrum and Noahs Second Country into the fold, but retiring members have kept the total around 15 for several years.

No significant expansion is planned for the future (that I'm aware of) - during the 5th Issues Contest, it was revealed (NB: discord link, leads to the Got Issues Discord) that the contest was to attempt to spur activity rather than significant demand for more editors. Nevertheless, 2 new editors have joined the ranks as part of this contest, bringing the total back to 15.

The 2003-2009 period predates the Spoiler Thread (in it's current form) so I can't easily find more dates to fill out that time period. Additionally, the 2009-2011 period was actually pretty inactive, as the graph shows. Sirocco retired in 2009, which led to a slump in issues until Sedgistan et al. reinvigorated the process.

As of late (September) 2017, the issues total was ~800. With the expanded team of 13 and Candlewhisper Archive in the lead, Got Issues became significantly more active. This is likely where the "boom" came from.

Using posts in The Writers' Block as a metric; 2017 had the stickied thread at 82 pages, in the 3 years since then it's gained nearly 200 more pages. Over that same time period, there's been approximately a 75% increase in the number of published issues, from ~800 to ~1350.

TL;DR Most of GI's activity (including published issues) has been since 2016, when the Editing Team underwent significant expansion.

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If I've gotten anything wrong in my abridged history, please let me know - it's as accurate as I can make it, but there's significant gaps where I just can't find detailed info because no-one who was there at the time did a full write-up!

[Honeydewistania]

controversy arose when the first issue added through this system was a self-edit - #39: Scandal Rocks @@NAME@@'s Government! [The SLAGLands; ed: The SLAGLands].

Ironic.

Since then, no significant expansion has occurred - there was a

Come on, don’t leave us hanging!

[SherpDaWerp]

Come on, don’t leave us hanging!

fixed, thanks!

[Noahs Secret Country]

There ought to be a list of important figures that you kind of need to dig up info about.

That's what I've always interpreted c/c resolutions as, though they obviously still miss some important figures due to the politics of GP.

[Tinhampton]

Sherp might be interested in the three Jolt-era SPOILER ALERT threads - covering Issues 37-149 (July 2003-August 2004), Issues 151-173 (August 2004-March 2005) (note that Issue 150 was also added in August 2004), and Issues 175-235 (April 2005-April 2009... is Uxorem meam's name "My wife" in Latin?) - if he wishes to update his graph. Issue 237 was, of course, the first reported in the new thread (by the original Unibot in June 2009).

[SherpDaWerp]

Sherp might be interested in the three Jolt-era SPOILER ALERT threads - covering Issues 37-149 (July 2003-August 2004), Issues 151-173 (August 2004-March 2005) (note that Issue 150 was also added in August 2004), and Issues 175-235 (April 2005-April 2009... is Uxorem meam's name "My wife" in Latin?) - if he wishes to update his graph. Issue 237 was, of course, the first reported in the new thread (by the original Unibot in June 2009).

Thanks for linking these, I've also read through a significant portion of Jolt-era GI, though there's a lot less interesting detail out there to be found. I've updated the graph, although with deliberately less frequent datapoints - there's not much point in having incredibly many points when the graph is pretty flat around that time anyway.

It's unfortunate, albeit understandable, that this search turns up nothing relevant; I would love to link a primary source on the controversy surrounding The SLAGLands' edit.

[Reploid Productions]

Thanks for linking these, I've also read through a significant portion of Jolt-era GI, though there's a lot less interesting detail out there to be found. I've updated the graph, although with deliberately less frequent datapoints - there's not much point in having incredibly many points when the graph is pretty flat around that time anyway.

It's unfortunate, albeit understandable, that this search turns up nothing relevant; I would love to link a primary source on the controversy surrounding The SLAGLands' edit.

As a first-hand witness, I can summarize it pretty well:

"OMG NOT FAIR SLAG SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED TO EDIT HIS OWN ISSUE MOD BIAS MOD BIAS MOD ABUUUUUUUSE HOW DARE HE THE REST OF US HAVE TO WAIT FOR MONTHS FOR OUR ISSUES TO BE LOOKED AT NOT FAIR HE GETS TO SKIP THE LINE!"

I mean... granted, given it could take months and often over a year for a submitted issue idea to even get looked at, it wasn't very fair, and in hindsight self-editing back then when we had so few hands on deck for issue editing/writing was something of a dick move. Still, you'd think he'd gone and done something like meddled in R/D from all the screaming about it.

[SherpDaWerp]

Thanks for linking these, I've also read through a significant portion of Jolt-era GI, though there's a lot less interesting detail out there to be found. I've updated the graph, although with deliberately less frequent datapoints - there's not much point in having incredibly many points when the graph is pretty flat around that time anyway.

It's unfortunate, albeit understandable, that this search turns up nothing relevant; I would love to link a primary source on the controversy surrounding The SLAGLands' edit.

As a first-hand witness, I can summarize it pretty well:

"OMG NOT FAIR SLAG SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED TO EDIT HIS OWN ISSUE MOD BIAS MOD BIAS MOD ABUUUUUUUSE HOW DARE HE THE REST OF US HAVE TO WAIT FOR MONTHS FOR OUR ISSUES TO BE LOOKED AT NOT FAIR HE GETS TO SKIP THE LINE!"

Gotta admit, I chuckled at that one.

Anyway, that post is technically a primary source, right?

[Sedgistan]

Some clarifications / additions to SherpDaWerp's history:

Sirocco's initial go at Issues Editors was largely non-effective - they were managed via email, rather than a private subforum, had little in the way of additional information to regular players (e.g. had no stats knowledge), and it coincided with the period when his activity was reducing prior to his retirement in September 2010. None of those original 3 IEs made it on to the team proper when it was remodelled.

Virtually nothing happened in the world of issues until Reppy held the 2nd Issues Contest in October 2010, resuslts coming in December. We had a private subforum set up for the team ("The Editing Room") and that contest saw Lenyo and Sanctaria join (plus a couple of others who didn't last long). Luna Amore was added soon after. The three Game Mods involved in running the team were Reppy, Fris and myself. Reppy stepped back from involvement not too long after, and Fris 2013-ish.

There was a precursor to Issues Control that Game Mods had access to (Issues Editors did not). It was a horrible tool to use, but functioned (more or less). The team initially worked with IEs editing text, and then myself and Fris adding stats in the old Issues Control then adding the issues in-game; these involved long IRC discussions as we ironed out details. Fixing old issues and introducing new stats was a nightmare that involved sending files to admins.

This horrible process burned us out and is part of the reason adding issues was so slow in those days. In December 2012 IEs got stats knowledge, which helped massively (making things less reliant on GMs, who now just had to add the completed issues). In March 2014 we finally got the new Issues Control that allowed IEs full involvement in the process. Things took off from there.

We expanded the team over the following years as we looked to massively up the amount of issues added now there wasn't the bottleneck of GM involvement. There were a few waves of expansion, including a couple of Issues Contests. The 4th one (December 2016) was the most significant in terms of numbers added, where we more or less reached our current size. My retirement came after that in May 2017 when I no longer felt guilty about stepping back, as the team was fully active and more than capable of running itself without me.

[Mallorea and Riva]

There ought to be a list of important figures that you kind of need to dig up info about. A few weeks ago I was trying to figure out who the hell Milograd was. TSP Delegate self-couped, relevant on forums or something, WA stuff, 2012, right?

April 20, 2013. Good times were had by all.

[The Blaatschapen]

There ought to be a list of important figures that you kind of need to dig up info about.

That's what I've always interpreted c/c resolutions as, though they obviously still miss some important figures due to the politics of GP.

Also, it doesn't highlight other parts of the game. NSG/A&F/F7 are hardly mentioned at all, even if some posters there, through the quality of their posts and insights they'd probably do deserve a c/c.

[Minskiev]

Wow, seems like I’ve spurred a whole bunch of..answers. Thanks Sherp, that was a really in-depth..lesson? about the history of issues and issue editors. I really have to stop fumbling around with words. About? Damn it!

[Honeydewistania]

Which WA authors were in Eastern Islands of Dharma?

[Gorundu]

Which WA authors were in Eastern Islands of Dharma?

I'm sure one of those authors will be around to answer that question shortly

[Unibot III]

Which WA authors were in Eastern Islands of Dharma?

Oh god. Um. I can't imagine this is a complete list at all, we had a lot of WA authors (it's been many years!!):

Myself (Unibotian WA Mission), Glen-Rhodes, Belschaft, Sionis Prioratus, Quelesh, Bergnovinaia, Topid, Embolalia, Ainocra, Darenjo, Mahaj, Sanctaria (Sanc was there and IDU right?), Ossitania, Connopolis

I think Mall had an account with us?

It was at one time, the who's who of a generation of WA Authors. Many of us got into Gameplay after the WA because Dharma was a defender region and briefly was a member-region in the FRA. Then Dharma left the FRA when the UDL was formed.

Many of its members got involved with TSP because we assisted TSP during the Devonitians coup and the FRA Assembly's terms of impeachment against me as Arch-Chancellor included intervening against Devonitians. So Dharma was for a period quite close to TSP as a result.

[Mallorea and Riva]

I think Mall had an account with us?

Indeed, that's how I got brought into gameplay - the Dharma -> UDL -> TBH recruitment pipeline!

[Tinhampton]

Wasn't Jakker (aka Jakker City, two-time SC author) involved in the 2012 raid on Dharma? That might count

[Goobergunchia]

Wasn't Jakker (aka Jakker City, two-time SC author) involved in the 2012 raid on Dharma? That might count

Yes he was.

[Unibot III]

I think Mall had an account with us?

Indeed, that's how I got brought into gameplay - the Dharma -> UDL -> TBH recruitment pipeline!

These were good times.

[Rost Dreadnorramus]

Has there ever been a Nationstates World War?

[Mathuvan Union]

Has there ever been a Nationstates World War?

We don’t really have ‘war’ in name, but we do have roleplay wars, and to the bear of my knowledge no, not really.

[Pierconium]

Has there ever been a Nationstates World War?

We don’t really have ‘war’ in name, but we do have roleplay wars, and to the bear of my knowledge no, not really.

I think the closest thing might have been the ADN-NPO conflict. Especially with the spill over into multi-regional places like The Meritocratic Senate and the development of counter alliances like the Union of Sovereigns. But that was a long time ago now.

Spoiler - NPO won.

[Jar Wattinree]

Has there ever been a Nationstates World War?

Raiding/Defending are a type of wargame that uses the "move + endorse + seize delegacy" mechanics of the WA. Completely unintentional. Now, I'm sure way back in the day there were "world wars" when NS was smaller. There you have alliances like the Alliance Defender Network.

We don’t really have ‘war’ in name, but we do have roleplay wars, and to the bear of my knowledge no, not really.

I think the closest thing might have been the ADN-NPO conflict. Especially with the spill over into multi-regional places like The Meritocratic Senate and the development of counter alliances like the Union of Sovereigns. But that was a long time ago now.

Spoiler - NPO won.

And ninja'd.

[North Cromch]

What was the first nation to be terminated?