NationStates issue results

[Trotterdam]

What happens when your website is temporarily in a 502 error? I noticed that it always comes back up; what is the website (or you) doing?

I have no idea. The website is run by my ISP, not me. I just upload the files.

Nothing I do should be able to cause a 502 error, and the extreme simplicity of the site (just static HTML) should mean there's not much that can go wrong in general. If you do get an error, it probably means a temporary glitch at my ISP. Simply try again in a minute and it'll probably have cleared up.

[Eztobrughri]

***casually bookmarks***

[Techolandia]

I'd like it if percentage changes were also listed. Would it be possible for you to add those?

[Lord Dominator]

I'd like it if percentage changes were also listed. Would it be possible for you to add those?

Percentage changes mean squat, as they are entirely tied to existing nation stats. Hard numbers are always more useful

[Minoa]

I wonder if the the causes of death have been considered for inclusion before? It hasn't been asked here before now.

[Trotterdam]

I wonder if the the causes of death have been considered for inclusion before? It hasn't been asked here before now.

Considered and rejected.

One major reason is that the causes of death need to always add up to 100%, so pretty much every issue that increases/decreases any death cause will also affect all the others, even if it has nothing directly to do with them, which would lead to a lot of clutter. Actually this turns out to happen for included stats too (particularly industries and government departments - and you can see that this does already cause a lot of inconvenient clutter), but at least those are more meaningful, and come with the other stuff I'm doing.

[violet] herself admitted that the current causes-of-death model is poorly-designed, and doesn't concord well with the Lifespan / Death Rate scores (borne out by my personal experience: selection options that purport to fix the primary cause of death in your nation can easily end up raising your Death Rate). While there is a possibility of an update to the model at some point (though the admins clearly don't consider it important enough to make that a priority either), until then I largely advise ignoring it.

Every separate type of data I want to include (accessed via a different API shard) takes additional coding, while including more of the same type of data (any new census scores that get added, given that I'm already following census scores) is almost effortless. Tracking some legacy code that the game's editors and admins themselves admit isn't worth much wasn't a priority.

[Sapnu puas]

http://www.mwq.dds.nl/ns/results/409.html
Option 1 says "???", but it says for me "the nation thirsts for new freedoms."
Also, I couldn't get a copy of the results, but it made my bottling go up >100% (101.74 to 415.75)
and sadly, my trout industry went down 0.20%

[Chan Island]

http://www.mwq.dds.nl/ns/results/409.html
Option 1 says "???", but it says for me "the nation thirsts for new freedoms."
Also, I couldn't get a copy of the results, but it made my bottling go up >100% (101.74 to 415.75)
and sadly, my trout industry went down 0.20%

That probably means you're the first person to choose option 1.

[Jutsa]

Well, not necessarily; just means that Trot's thing hasn't come across a nation that has.

[Bedetopia]

Well, not necessarily; just means that Trot's thing hasn't come across a nation that has.

And didn't answer another issue quickly, else it voids the data. Now that's more likely.

[Trotterdam]

That probably means you're the first person to choose option 1.

Not quite.

The effect line used to be "the nation has a counterculture of sobriety", but I suspected a while ago that it had been changed to "the nation thirsts for new freedoms" but wasn't sure, so I left the entry blank for now. With your confirmation, I can now formally enter the new effect line, and it'll show up on the next site update. Which I have now triggered a few hours early to show this off

You'll see that I in fact had a fair amount of data on that effect line, which is now retroactively visible as soon as I assigned it to an issue option.

If it were a matter of nobody choosing it, then you would see the effect line rather than "???", but there would be no data on what it does. For example, #285 option 1 or #301 option 2.

When you see a "???" and you find out what the effect line is, please tell me in this thread (just like you just did). Same if you got a different effect line than my site predicted.

If my effect line is correct but there's simply no data on it, don't bother posting about it here. Instead, use the guidelines in the NAQ to maximize the chances of your answer getting captured.

[He Qixin]

no economic output

[Trotterdam]

no economic output

Please speak in sentences.

Economic Output is not listed because it scales with your population, and so can change even without answering issues. Thus, attempting to track it would result in seeing changes that aren't really due to the issue you answered, but rather due to your population increasing at update time. Furthermore, even when an issue does change Economic Output, the magnitude of the change would depend on the size of your nation, despite this having nothing to with the issue.

However, Average Income is simply your Economic Output divided by population (this is an oversimplification of how real-life economics works, but fair enough), and is tracked. So if you want to know how an issue will affect your Economic Output, just look at how it's predicted to affect your Average Income, and multiply by your population.

Unfortunately, an analogous Black Market per Capita stat does not currently exist, and I didn't want to code a special exception to calculate it myself instead of using official census scores, so my site does not currently allow you to predict how an issue will affect the black market. I've tried asking for one to be added (and am by no means the only person who would appreciate this), but...

[He Qixin]

Please speak in sentences.

Alright.

Economic Output is not listed because it scales with your population, and so can change even without answering issues. Thus, attempting to track it would result in seeing changes that aren't really due to the issue you answered, but rather due to your population increasing at update time. Furthermore, even when an issue does change Economic Output, the magnitude of the change would depend on the size of your nation, despite this having nothing to with the issue.

oh really? no wonder i have seen nations who didn't answer issues yet still see increase in economic output.

However, Average Income is simply your Economic Output divided by population (this is an oversimplification of how real-life economics works, but fair enough), and is tracked. So if you want to know how an issue will affect your Economic Output, just look at how it's predicted to affect your Average Income, and multiply by your population.

i actually didn't know that until now! thanks for telling me!

Unfortunately, an analogous Black Market per Capita stat does not currently exist, and I didn't want to code a special exception to calculate it myself instead of using official census scores, so my site does not currently allow you to predict how an issue will affect the black market. I've tried asking for one to be added (and am by no means the only person who would appreciate this), but...

i think we all have to use common sense here to predict. anyway, thanks for the explanation!

[Chan Island]

That probably means you're the first person to choose option 1.

Not quite.

The effect line used to be "the nation has a counterculture of sobriety", but I suspected a while ago that it had been changed to "the nation thirsts for new freedoms" but wasn't sure, so I left the entry blank for now. With your confirmation, I can now formally enter the new effect line, and it'll show up on the next site update. Which I have now triggered a few hours early to show this off

You'll see that I in fact had a fair amount of data on that effect line, which is now retroactively visible as soon as I assigned it to an issue option.

If it were a matter of nobody choosing it, then you would see the effect line rather than "???", but there would be no data on what it does. For example, #285 option 1 or #301 option 2.

When you see a "???" and you find out what the effect line is, please tell me in this thread (just like you just did). Same if you got a different effect line than my site predicted.

If my effect line is correct but there's simply no data on it, don't bother posting about it here. Instead, use the guidelines in the NAQ to maximize the chances of your answer getting captured.

Fair enough.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Please speak in sentences.

Alright.

Sentences!

Him no understand.

[Lord Dominator]

Alright.

Sentences!

Him no understand.

To my uneducated mind, a word and a period is still technically a sentence

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Yes.

Suppose.

Still, it was a fun observation.

[Trotterdam]

Which, as a side effect, means that I will never have data on the two issues in the game that require you to be in the WA as a prerequisite... unless you jump through the hoops of getting the issue, resigning from the WA while leaving it unanswered, and then waiting long enough for my program to notice that you're not in the WA anymore before answering another issue first to update my stored snapshot of your stats and only then answering the original issue it was all about. Yeah, I didn't think you'd be thrilled.

I stand corrected, by the way. I now have at least one data point on every option of #132 and #837.

[Chan Island]

Which, as a side effect, means that I will never have data on the two issues in the game that require you to be in the WA as a prerequisite... unless you jump through the hoops of getting the issue, resigning from the WA while leaving it unanswered, and then waiting long enough for my program to notice that you're not in the WA anymore before answering another issue first to update my stored snapshot of your stats and only then answering the original issue it was all about. Yeah, I didn't think you'd be thrilled.

I stand corrected, by the way. I now have at least one data point on every option of #132 and #837.

I'm guessing those data points jumped through those hoops.

[Trotterdam]

I'm guessing those data points jumped through those hoops.

Well, obviously. Though probably not deliberately - I guess that particular sequence of events just happens to be more common than I thought it would be.

"Common" being relative, of course, because one data point after all this time isn't much. Definitely better than nothing, though.

If someone has been deliberately doing that after reading this thread, I'd like to know who!

[Chan Island]

I'm guessing those data points jumped through those hoops.

Well, obviously. Though probably not deliberately - I guess that particular sequence of events just happens to be more common than I thought it would be.

"Common" being relative, of course, because one data point after all this time isn't much. Definitely better than nothing, though.

If someone has been deliberately doing that after reading this thread, I'd like to know who!

And give them a salute.

[He Qixin]

I'm guessing those data points jumped through those hoops.

Well, obviously. Though probably not deliberately - I guess that particular sequence of events just happens to be more common than I thought it would be.

"Common" being relative, of course, because one data point after all this time isn't much. Definitely better than nothing, though.

If someone has been deliberately doing that after reading this thread, I'd like to know who!

do what?

[Chan Island]

Well, obviously. Though probably not deliberately - I guess that particular sequence of events just happens to be more common than I thought it would be.

"Common" being relative, of course, because one data point after all this time isn't much. Definitely better than nothing, though.

If someone has been deliberately doing that after reading this thread, I'd like to know who!

do what?

Which, as a side effect, means that I will never have data on the two issues in the game that require you to be in the WA as a prerequisite... unless you jump through the hoops of getting the issue, resigning from the WA while leaving it unanswered, and then waiting long enough for my program to notice that you're not in the WA anymore before answering another issue first to update my stored snapshot of your stats and only then answering the original issue it was all about. Yeah, I didn't think you'd be thrilled.

^It turns out somebody did do that.

[He Qixin]

do what?

Which, as a side effect, means that I will never have data on the two issues in the game that require you to be in the WA as a prerequisite... unless you jump through the hoops of getting the issue, resigning from the WA while leaving it unanswered, and then waiting long enough for my program to notice that you're not in the WA anymore before answering another issue first to update my stored snapshot of your stats and only then answering the original issue it was all about. Yeah, I didn't think you'd be thrilled.

^It turns out somebody did do that.

oh so that's how you get stats which issue validity requires you to be in the WA...