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

[Unibot III]

I recall a very strong generational clash between the UNOG/AO faction of the WA and the Eastern Islands of Dharma authors. Most of Dharma's legislators were IntFed - and very fiercely liberal - so we were advocating for a WA that was well integrated and more liberal internationalist, more along the lines of the EU than the UN. The UNOG had a lot more traditional National Sovereigntists.

One generational difference is most of Dharma's players were post-NSUN, so we were approaching the WA as the WA, not the UN. While the UN clearly doesn't involve itself too much in the actual governance of its member-nations, there was no reason to think that the WA needed to echo the RL UN.

I think a lot of our debates were around the ruleset, because the old GA set was ... kind of arbitrary. There was a lot of content in the ruleset that was about limiting the WA to what its elder players wanted it to be, rather then any kind of ruleset that made sense. Why ban WA peacekeeping? Why ban discussing committee selection rules? That vanguard of the WA was raising a lot of questions about why things in the WA were supposed to be the way they were. The fact that the SC ruleset was rather minimalistic accelerated this debate.

The GA#2 repeal attempt was a watershed moment because GA#2 was the "framework" for how the veteran UNers wanted the GA to be run - and the perception that moderators (linked to AO/UNOG) had cancelled the repeal to stop it from passing, created an enormous uproar and lead to the creation of the WA Secretariat.

The WA Secretariat and the new ruleset forever changed the culture of the WA. The old IntFed/NatSov debates ended with that seismic development, at least as far as I'm concerned. I see today's GA as a product of the WA Secretariat development. I think that passed a lot of the rules, moderation, and the cultural gatekeeping of the institution to a new generation which, although that generation was largely post-Dharma, it was a generation that was liberal, internationalist, and sympathetic with what "we" (e.g., Glen, SP, me, Quelesh, Berg, Mall, and many others) had been trying to do.

[Graintfjall]

I recall a very strong generational clash between the UNOG/AO faction of the WA and the Eastern Islands of Dharma authors. Most of Dharma's legislators were IntFed - and very fiercely liberal - so we were advocating for a WA that was well integrated and more liberal internationalist, more along the lines of the EU than the UN. The UNOG had a lot of more traditional National Sovereigntists.

UNOG was an apolitical social club.

I think a lot of our debates were around the ruleset, because the old GA set was ... kind of arbitrary. There was a lot of content in the ruleset that was about limiting the WA to what its elder players wanted it to be, rather then any kind of ruleset that made sense. Why ban WA peacekeeping?

Those rules weren't the creation of "elder players". The line about peacekeeping was entered into the ruleset years later by Kryozerkia, without any player input.

Why ban discussing committee selection rules?

Because of the mess that was TPP.

The GA#2 repeal attempt was a watershed moment because GA#2 was the "framework" for how the veteran UNers wanted the GA to be run - and the perception that moderators (linked to AO/UNOG) had cancelled the repeal to stop it from passing, created an enormous uproar and lead to the creation of the WA Secretariat. The WA Secretariat and the new ruleset forever changed the culture of the WA. The old IntFed/NatSov debates ended with that seismic development, at least as far as I'm concerned.

The Secretariat wasn't created until years after the Discard of Rights & Duties. Bizarre to try to link the two.

[Socialist Macronesia]

Has anyone else, other than me, made the F7 movie, and if so, how many iterations?

Because if I'm the first... there needs to be some SERIOUS discussion.

[Unibot III]

I recall a very strong generational clash between the UNOG/AO faction of the WA and the Eastern Islands of Dharma authors. Most of Dharma's legislators were IntFed - and very fiercely liberal - so we were advocating for a WA that was well integrated and more liberal internationalist, more along the lines of the EU than the UN. The UNOG had a lot of more traditional National Sovereigntists.

UNOG was an apolitical social club.

I think a lot of our debates were around the ruleset, because the old GA set was ... kind of arbitrary. There was a lot of content in the ruleset that was about limiting the WA to what its elder players wanted it to be, rather then any kind of ruleset that made sense. Why ban WA peacekeeping?

Those rules weren't the creation of "elder players". The line about peacekeeping was entered into the ruleset years later by Kryozerkia, without any player input.

Why ban discussing committee selection rules?

Because of the mess that was TPP.

The GA#2 repeal attempt was a watershed moment because GA#2 was the "framework" for how the veteran UNers wanted the GA to be run - and the perception that moderators (linked to AO/UNOG) had cancelled the repeal to stop it from passing, created an enormous uproar and lead to the creation of the WA Secretariat. The WA Secretariat and the new ruleset forever changed the culture of the WA. The old IntFed/NatSov debates ended with that seismic development, at least as far as I'm concerned.

The Secretariat wasn't created until years after the Discard of Rights & Duties. Bizarre to try to link the two.

Hardly bizarre, the Discard of the Rights and Duties was a major flashpoint that hurt the credibility of the moderation team in relation to the GA. Discussions quickly arose about replacing the WA Moderation team with a player-led initiative and discussions related to a new ruleset popped up after that. It was a natural evolution but the GA#2 repeal was the straw that broke the camel's back.

I strongly disagree about what you've said about peacekeeping. The prohibition of any kind of "WA Army" of any kind was an element of both the ruleset and the player guides for years. GA#2 attempted to spell out the ban on peacekeeping and the "militarization" of the WA. We had many, many arguments over peacekeeping in the GA. Kyro was one of many moderators to interpret the "WA Army" rule and the GA#2 as generally and as wide in scope as possible.

[Graintfjall]

Hardly bizarre, the Discard of the Rights and Duties was a major flashpoint that hurt the credibility of the moderation team in relation to the GA. Discussions quickly arose about replacing the WA Moderation team with a player-led initiative and discussions related to a new ruleset popped up after that. It was a natural evolution but the GA#2 repeal was the straw that broke the camel's back.

It really wasn't. The Discard went down in early 2014. The Secretariat was created in late 2016. Things like Nuclear Arms Accord and Non-Interference in Elections were much bigger factors in turning players against the moderation standards, plus the failed attempt to stop enforcing the Honest Mistake rule. The main issue was the lack of participation on the forums.

I strongly disagree about what you've said about peacekeeping. The prohibition of any kind of "WA Army" of any kind was an element of both the ruleset and the player guides for years. GA#2 attempted to spell out the ban on peacekeeping and the "militarization" of the WA. We had many, many arguments over peacekeeping in the GA. Kyro was one of many moderators to interpret the "WA Army" rule and the GA#2 as generally and as wide in scope as possible.

Nope. The word "peacekeeping" was added unprompted to the rules by Kryozerkia in about 2014 (as it's a new post the edit date hasn't been preserved, but I remarked on it happening "recently" in a post made in 2015). For years the rules allowed a much more expansive understanding of what was permitted, but a lot of institutional memory got chucked out when [violet] forced her SC shit on the WA.

[Unibot III]

Hardly bizarre, the Discard of the Rights and Duties was a major flashpoint that hurt the credibility of the moderation team in relation to the GA. Discussions quickly arose about replacing the WA Moderation team with a player-led initiative and discussions related to a new ruleset popped up after that. It was a natural evolution but the GA#2 repeal was the straw that broke the camel's back.

It really wasn't. The Discard went down in early 2014. The Secretariat was created in late 2016. Things like Nuclear Arms Accord and Non-Interference in Elections were much bigger factors in turning players against the moderation standards, plus the failed attempt to stop enforcing the Honest Mistake rule. The main issue was the lack of participation on the forums.

I strongly disagree about what you've said about peacekeeping. The prohibition of any kind of "WA Army" of any kind was an element of both the ruleset and the player guides for years. GA#2 attempted to spell out the ban on peacekeeping and the "militarization" of the WA. We had many, many arguments over peacekeeping in the GA. Kyro was one of many moderators to interpret the "WA Army" rule and the GA#2 as generally and as wide in scope as possible.

Nope. The word "peacekeeping" was added unprompted to the rules by Kryozerkia in about 2014 (as it's a new post the edit date hasn't been preserved, but I remarked on it happening "recently" in a post made in 2015). For years the rules allowed a much more expansive understanding of what was permitted, but a lot of institutional memory got chucked out when [violet] forced her SC shit on the WA.

Is this Gruen?

Any attempt to introduce peacekeeping was met with resistance from the rules, even prior to the Kryo decision. The WA Army rule was always held as including peacekeeping by both regulars and moderators when the discussion came up.

What was new about Kryo's ruling was the logic she used in the decision, tying it the GA#2 wording and expanding its impact. It more or less killed attempts to try to circumvent the WA Army rule.

I disagree that the Discard incident didn't spark the WA Secretariat reform: that was a major blow to the credibility of the WA Moderation team and that was the incident that started a number of forum discussions regarding revising the WA ruleset.

[Graintfjall]

Yes.

Any attempt to introduce peacekeeping was met with resistance from the rules, even prior to the Kryo decision. The WA Army rule was always held as including peacekeeping by both regulars and moderators when the discussion came up.

*shrug* This is just going to come down to us acting out Monty Python's Argument Sketch, so I guess I'll leave it at: that is simply not my memory. The strongest advocate of an extremely strict No Army rule was OMGTKK. Here he is arguing peacekeepers should be allowed (albeit using a narrow definition of the term). The idea that the ban on peacekeeping came from the players just isn't true. It was always Fris's hobby horse alone.

What was new about Kryo's ruling was the logic she used in the decision, tying it the GA#2 wording and expanding its impact. It more or less killed attempts to try to circumvent the WA Army rule.

I don't know what you're referring to here. Can you link to the ruling? I never saw any ruling from her. I'm talking about her one day editing the word "peacekeeping" into the rules, nothing more. There was no explanation or link to Rights & Duties.

I disagree that the Discard incident didn't spark the WA Secretariat reform: that was a major blow to the credibility of the WA Moderation team and that was the incident that started a number of forum discussions regarding revising the WA ruleset.

No, the Discard led to absolutely no changes. A few months later Mall started a topic that led to the Rules Consortium. A couple of years later Sedge, rather than enforce the Honest Mistake rule, tried to abolish it altogether, met with resistance, and eventually the Pink Power Rangers were born. Discarding Rights & Duties led to zero changes.

---

In conclusion: the "NatSov v IntFed" debates, as we've acted out above, were more about people who liked to argue doing so, than about any sort of real politics!

[Sedgistan]

My recollection was "peacekeepers" were always seen as a Games Mechanics (sub-rule: No WA Army) violation. You can find rulings back to the early days of this forum stating as such: viewtopic.php?p=3641952#p3641952 -- repeated in 2014: viewtopic.php?p=19326972#p19326972

If Kryo clarified that in the ruleset in 2014 it must have been because we were working on re-writing the rules back then (from vague memory this was more to clarify them than sweeping changes - those came in 2016ish). I know we had an internal discussion about the WA army rule in June/July 2014, since I brought it up; peacekeeping was part of that debate.

The immediate prompt for the Secretariat to be set up was CD's whole Repeal "Stopping Suicide Seeds" thing, and the Honest Mistake ruling (note: it wasn't just me ditching that rule; it was a team thing). However, disatisfaction with how GA moderating was operating on complex rulings was a long-standing thing internally, and that furore just happened to be the final straw - and when a "GA Council" idea was first put forward internally.

Partly what enabled it it was also generational change in the mod team, particularly with Hack having retired and Ard going inactive.

[Graintfjall]

That's fair. To continue to beat that drum, though, kind of proves that it was just OOC/meta stuff dictating the changes, not some vast political debate.

[Indusse]

Is there any tool to find when was a region found? Like When was India founded

[Xoriet]

Is there any tool to find when was a region found? Like When was India founded

This version of the region was founded 9 years 249 days ago, in 2011. If there was a founderless one before it, there might be written records on it.

[Shy Guyia]

Is there any tool to find when was a region found? Like When was India founded

Xoriet already answered this, but the history page works but only for the current region. If it has been refounded before, it is not kept. The first India region was apparently founded in antiquity, as seen in this wayback machine screenshot.

[Daytime to Night]

Is there any tool to find when was a region found? Like When was India founded

Xoriet already answered this, but the history page works but only for the current region. If it has been refounded before, it is not kept. The first India region was apparently founded in antiquity, as seen in this wayback machine screenshot.

Usually the NS History Search Engine would give an idea of the week that a region was founded - http://nsdossier.texasregion.net//histo ... tart=&end=

However, India predates our historical records and didn't have a named founder so it would have been created before 29th April 2003.

[Baloo Kingdom]

Something I wonder about a lot is what the size of the site was early on, and which features weren't available back then.

[Daytime to Night]

Something I wonder about a lot is what the size of the site was early on, and which features weren't available back then.

Regarding size, the site took off pretty quickly and 500,000 nations were created in the first 12 1/2 months of its existence (bear in mind that there was little reason for puppets then, so most would have been unique players and not card farming or r/d puppets!). A similar amount were made in the second year of its existence too. Has been around 380,000 nations created a year on average since, with lots of peaks and troughs. The total nation count over time is probably recorded somewhere.

In terms of features, a lot of features came in either early in the game's development or after Nationstates 2 failed (c.2008/09) and there was more investment and player/moderator input into how the game should develop. Between 2006 and 2009 there were hardly any new features and barely any News posts on the site as the expectation was the game would be replaced by NationStates 2 (which turned out to be terrible and Max never received any of the money that the company making it promised him).

Have tried to list some of the key feature changes:

News page created (is that a feature?) - 30th March 2003
Border Control, Named Founders, Passwords, Ejection and Ban Powers - 29th April 2003
New Issues Added for the first time (originally only 30!) - 16th June 2003
Player Submitted Issues Added - 15th July 2003
Custom Nation Titles - 5th November 2003
Regional influence added - 11th April 2006
World Assembly Created (Replacing the 'UN') - 1st April 2008
Commend and Condemns Added - 27th May 2009
Liberations Added - 26th July 2009
Regional Flags - 7th September 2009
Graphs Added to Nation Pages - 20th February 2011
Message Board limit removed (was ten messages only) and suppression added - 28th February 2011
Regional Embassies - 17th March 2011
Region Tags - 10th May 2011 (with new additions since)
Balder and Osiris created to deal number of refounded nations/size of Lazarus - 19th October 2011
Factbooks and Dispatches - launched publicly on 4th June 2012
Telegram changes including Sent Items and Archive, Bulk Messaging, Telegram Filters and Telegram Stamps - 1st February 2013
Polls - 4th January 2014
Regional Officers - 12th October 2015
Trading Cards added to the game permanently - 21st December 2018

[Goobergunchia]

Something I wonder about a lot is what the size of the site was early on, and which features weren't available back then.

Hasn't been updated in a while but the Changelog is helpful for especially the early changes.

[Baloo Kingdom]

Something I wonder about a lot is what the size of the site was early on, and which features weren't available back then.

Hasn't been updated in a while but the Changelog is helpful for especially the early changes.

Something I wonder about a lot is what the size of the site was early on, and which features weren't available back then.

Regarding size, the site took off pretty quickly and 500,000 nations were created in the first 12 1/2 months of its existence (bear in mind that there was little reason for puppets then, so most would have been unique players and not card farming or r/d puppets!). A similar amount were made in the second year of its existence too. Has been around 380,000 nations created a year on average since, with lots of peaks and troughs. The total nation count over time is probably recorded somewhere.

In terms of features, a lot of features came in either early in the game's development or after Nationstates 2 failed (c.2008/09) and there was more investment and player/moderator input into how the game should develop. Between 2006 and 2009 there were hardly any new features and barely any News posts on the site as the expectation was the game would be replaced by NationStates 2 (which turned out to be terrible and Max never received any of the money that the company making it promised him).

Have tried to list some of the key feature changes:

News page created (is that a feature?) - 30th March 2003
Border Control, Named Founders, Passwords, Ejection and Ban Powers - 29th April 2003
New Issues Added for the first time (originally only 30!) - 16th June 2003
Player Submitted Issues Added - 15th July 2003
Custom Nation Titles - 5th November 2003
Regional influence added - 11th April 2006
World Assembly Created (Replacing the 'UN') - 1st April 2008
Commend and Condemns Added - 27th May 2009
Liberations Added - 26th July 2009
Regional Flags - 7th September 2009
Graphs Added to Nation Pages - 20th February 2011
Message Board limit removed (was ten messages only) and suppression added - 28th February 2011
Regional Embassies - 17th March 2011
Region Tags - 10th May 2011 (with new additions since)
Balder and Osiris created to deal number of refounded nations/size of Lazarus - 19th October 2011
Factbooks and Dispatches - launched publicly on 4th June 2012
Telegram changes including Sent Items and Archive, Bulk Messaging, Telegram Filters and Telegram Stamps - 1st February 2013
Polls - 4th January 2014
Regional Officers - 12th October 2015
Trading Cards added to the game permanently - 21st December 2018

Good to know, thanks.

[Tinhampton]

When did the Thaecian tradition of using images of real-world politicians in election campaigns begin?

[Indusse]

Is there any tool to find when was a region found? Like When was India founded

Xoriet already answered this, but the history page works but only for the current region. If it has been refounded before, it is not kept. The first India region was apparently founded in antiquity, as seen in this wayback machine screenshot.

This is what I wanted. Thanks for the help guys.


https://web.archive.org/web/20030820044 ... gion=india

The first known founder is Kathiawar

[Titanne]

When did the Thaecian tradition of using images of real-world politicians in election campaigns begin?

As a Thaecian here, I can tell you the first instance of this was way back in February of 2019 when Norhaim ran a House of Commons campaign as an Icelandic politician, if I’m remembering correctly, and Xernon as Joe Biden. This became popularized in September of 2019 though, and now is pretty much mainstream.

[Sail Nation]

When did the Thaecian tradition of using images of real-world politicians in election campaigns begin?

As a Thaecian here, I can tell you the first instance of this was way back in February of 2019 when Norhaim ran a House of Commons campaign as an Icelandic politician, if I’m remembering correctly, and Xernon as Joe Biden. This became popularized in September of 2019 though, and now is pretty much mainstream.

Pretty much everyone does it nowadays. I found it a bit odd when I first joined the region and ran for election, but now I think it's a relatively nice tradition, and it is mainly official now, as the candidate dispatch lists now contain pictures of the RL politicians in them. Also a new tradition is that each of the pictures will have a caption '[Insert nation name here] addressing supporters at rally/explaining policy on X/Y/speaking in the Senate etc.

I do wonder what would happen if one of the RL politicians we use somehow stumbles upon the region, and what they would think to see someone else effectively RPing as them.

[Mallorea and Riva]

The Honest Mistake rule always rustled my jimmies. It's not an honest mistake if I'm lying to deceive you that's just politics.

[WayNeacTia]

The Honest Mistake rule always rustled my jimmies. It's not an honest mistake if I'm lying to deceive you that's just politics.

That will be contested until the end of time.

[Warzone Codger]

How did Rebirth, a normal 2011 Mid-Largish UCR eventually morph into unsavoury region of Genua we have today?

iirc Rebirth -> The True Rebirth -> The Genuan Rebirth -> Genua.

[Unibot III]

The Honest Mistake rule always rustled my jimmies. It's not an honest mistake if I'm lying to deceive you that's just politics.

It's an honest mistake if you honestly didn't intend to get caught lying.