[SPLIT] Issues issues

[Sedgistan]

I honestly don't understand sometimes why I either qualify or not for certain banners. For instance, two of my puppet states

I can't see why those nations haven't unlocked particular banners unless you tell me their names.

There's more: I have earned the banner which states that I have dealt with 200 issues, but that was about a month ago, so should I now not qualify for the 250 issues banner or does the counter reset itself?

Duplicate issues don't count: you need 250 unique issues. This will change in time, though, as we've started tracking this better.

And one more thing... Why so many duplicate issues? Over and over again? It starts to become a little dull.

[Northrop-Grumman]

I can't see why those nations haven't unlocked particular banners unless you tell me their names.


Duplicate issues don't count: you need 250 unique issues. This will change in time, though, as we've started tracking this better.

And one more thing... Why so many duplicate issues? Over and over again? It starts to become a little dull.

Eh, there's about 370 unique issues overall, so you could run through those in about a half a year if you were doing the two issues a day. Besides, look at real world politics, doesn't it feel like everyone rehashes the same issues over and over again? See! Authenticity!

[Sanctaria]

And one more thing... Why so many duplicate issues? Over and over again? It starts to become a little dull.

Eh, there's about 370 unique issues overall, so you could run through those in about a half a year if you were doing the two issues a day. Besides, look at real world politics, doesn't it feel like everyone rehashes the same issues over and over again? See! Authenticity!

To add to this, there is about 375 issues, and obviously you won't be eligible for them all, so maybe that brings down your total to say 250. At two issues a day, that is 125 issues which is about 4.5 months worth.

We would love more issues in-game, but the only way that's going to happen is if people write them. So if you want more issues, have a go at drafting on in the Got Issues? form and then submitting it in game.

[Unibot III]

I've never really understood the slowness of the Issue bureaucracy (shall we call it?). Seems to me, the system should be able to pump out an issue a week, not a bunch of them every few months. The problem seems to lie with there not being an editor who bridges the editing and the coding (someone who does both) and the inefficient round-table copy-editing that goes on.

I don't see why you should need more than an editor and a chief editor working on an issue, not a round of editors. It doesn't appear to improve the quality of issues; they're not literary masterpieces or anything, they're supposed to be funny soundbites conveying political opinions on issues.

At about 35 releases per year, if the Issues department were a Media department in a UCR, they'd be sacked. There's got to be something systemic that goes on that slows down the whole process unnecessarily.

[Jinwoy]

I've never really understood the slowness of the Issue bureaucracy (shall we call it?). Seems to me, the system should be able to pump out an issue a week, not a bunch of them every few months. The problem seems to lie with there not being an editor who bridges the editing and the coding (someone who does both) and the inefficient round-table copy-editing that goes on.

I don't see why you should need more than an editor and a chief editor working on an issue, not a round of editors. It doesn't appear to improve the quality of issues; they're not literary masterpieces or anything, they're supposed to be funny soundbites conveying political opinions on issues.

At about 35 releases per year, if the Issues department were a Media department in a UCR, they'd be sacked. There's got to be something systemic that goes on that slows down the whole process unnecessarily.

A lack of people submitting Issues?

[Luna Amore]

I've never really understood the slowness of the Issue bureaucracy (shall we call it?). Seems to me, the system should be able to pump out an issue a week, not a bunch of them every few months. The problem seems to lie with there not being an editor who bridges the editing and the coding (someone who does both) and the inefficient round-table copy-editing that goes on.

I don't see why you should need more than an editor and a chief editor working on an issue, not a round of editors. It doesn't appear to improve the quality of issues; they're not literary masterpieces or anything, they're supposed to be funny soundbites conveying political opinions on issues.

At about 35 releases per year, if the Issues department were a Media department in a UCR, they'd be sacked.

All of us bridge that gap. We all have access to the game stats. Sedge, Sanc and myself all have the ability to issues into the game. An issue doesn't have to be signed off by every editor or even a majority of editors, but it does have a certain standard to meet. Sometimes that can take awhile. Sometimes not. I've only seen a handful that got knocked out in less than a week.

What's being glossed over in your criticism is the massive positive changes that have occurred over the past couple years which you may or may not be aware of. IEs now have stat access. Two IEs can now add issues to the game. There's a new Issue CP that allows for more organization of the process. The issue backlog has been hacked from over 5000 drafts to 75. All these things have streamlined the process. The goal however has never been get as many in as fast as possible (Ok yes, that's Lenyo's personal goal :p); it's always been get the best quality possible.

Pure numbers wise, this team has the highest issue per year that I can figure. Something like 109 of the games 378 issues have been added in the last 3 years.

There's got to be something systemic that goes on that slows down the whole process unnecessarily.

That something is life basically. Real life commitments will always come first. I ain't getting paid to do this. I like doing this. If ever I stop liking it, I'll quit the next second.

[Sanctaria]

Seems to me, the system should be able to pump out an issue a week, not a bunch of them every few months.

I wish we got enough adequate submissions that allowed us to do this, but we simply don't. And that's just the first problem.

The issues process is a lot more cumbersome and tiring than people realise. There's a certain standard we have to aim for, and that's even before we contemplate stats, which can be a real headache.

We sometimes have to write an issue from scratch. Other times we could be almost finished and a new idea pops up which requires fleshing out. Plus, we all have day jobs. We can only give an hour or two tops to issues a day. All of this draws out the process. Editing isn't a one night job, it requires thorough scrutiny of not just words, but numbers, stats, options, consequences etc.

Real life sometimes gets in the way, and then some of us suffer burn out. Every editor has! Except Lenyo

We are working quite efficiently and the process has been streamlined thanks to improvements in recent years. I like to think we're doing rather well.

[Unibot III]

I'm not so sure - the product of issues never reflects the soul-crushing weeks of editing that keeps being suggested. They're not exactly the driving creative cultural projects of NationStates - they're tidbits of political opinion - and the lack of frequent updates means issues become a boring practice for many older players. I just don't understand why the code and variables would be so complex as to cause issues of implementation which I keep hearing about, or why these mysterious standards that Issue Editors reflect upon restrict and limit their process so much?

Issue culture seems to be more or less borrowed from Sirocco's age-old traditions, which were baseless editorial decisions he just made up and bitched enough about that he was given the space to edit and implement issues as the "Issue God" for half a decade. Issues would be stronger products if the aim was less on editorial consistency (following the same formula) and more on the artistry and tastes of the individual authors. For saying the "Issue machine" inherently outsources the brainstorming and creation of issues; the style and structure of issues is conceived in-house with one editorial style slowly reproducing the same issue over and over again.

This would suggest a switch from the current bananas system of reviewing thousands of submissions and heavily editing (if not fully rewriting) them around their central ideas -- as if editors ever needed the submissions to come up with the ideas that they attributed to their submitters -- to a new system where issues were produced by an open community of regular issue writers (like the WA) and lightly edited. The latter would be less time-consuming, more efficient and more decentralised.

[The Great state of Atlantis]

Another thing which I have noticed is that not only do the same issues keep repeating themselves, but the system also doesn't keep track of the ones which are dismissed. Not just once, but multiple times. For example, I always dismiss the "Whips, Chains and Leather" issue because I don't agree with any of the options. Another example would be the noise pollution issue and I'm sure that countless other players dismiss others. Therefore, regardless if one qualifies for an X number of issues, should the issues which are continually dismissed by a given player not be scrapped for that player and cease to appear? Just a thought...

[The Great state of Atlantis]

I'm not so sure - the product of issues never reflects the soul-crushing weeks of editing that keeps being suggested. They're not exactly the driving creative cultural projects of NationStates - they're tidbits of political opinion - and the lack of frequent updates means issues become a boring practice for many older players. I just don't understand why the code and variables would be so complex as to cause issues of implementation which I keep hearing about, or why these mysterious standards that Issue Editors reflect upon restrict and limit their process so much?

Issue culture seems to be more or less borrowed from Sirocco's age-old traditions, which were baseless editorial decisions he just made up and bitched enough about that he was given the space to edit and implement issues as the "Issue God" for half a decade. Issues would be stronger products if the aim was less on editorial consistency (following the same formula) and more on the artistry and tastes of the individual authors. For saying the "Issue machine" inherently outsources the brainstorming and creation of issues; the style and structure of issues is conceived in-house with one editorial style slowly reproducing the same issue over and over again.

This would suggest a switch from the current bananas system of reviewing thousands of submissions and heavily editing (if not fully rewriting) them around their central ideas -- as if editors ever needed the submissions to come up with the ideas that they attributed to their submitters -- to a new system where issues were produced by an open community of regular issue writers (like the WA) and lightly edited. The latter would be less time-consuming, more efficient and more decentralised.

I'm sorry, but I'm not under the impression that a great number of players currently throw in an equal number of issues. Granted, I myself am equaly culpable of that fact, but I agree with Unibot here that the issue editing system -if there is such a thing- has, over time, developed into something which the editors themselves have turned into something so complicated and so elaborate that it has started to become a bore to those self same editors. However, if this process is so tedious as the editors claim that it is, why not turn it into something less elaborate and less time consuming? For instance, if a player throws in an issue, could it not be merely checked for things such as typos and tweak the effects a bit? The editors might also decide to ditch the proposal altogether for reason X or Y and subsequently inform the author of their decision, but this also grants the authors a greater degree of responsibility and freedom to alter their initial product until it suits the game. This would take away a large chunck of editing out of the editors' hands and give a greater degree of responsibilty to the authors / players who submit issues for review.

Moreover, I also agree with Unibot that the given number of approx. 370 issues in total are not exactly rocket science but rather blurbs of options of which older, more influential players have grown tired of updating.