[Suggestion]: Make RMB regional Adverts Illegal

[Leutria]

Let's posit for a moment that the Mods agree with you in principle, but want to keep the option of regional advertising open. What could we do that might have better success that we could propose as a replacement?

We all know about TG advertising (and the current controversies about that) as well as the relatively ineffectual Regional Recruitment threads in Gameplay. What else might work?

How about a new recruitment page where a random selection of character limited regional advertisements, similar to WFE's, are displayed? Newly re/founded nations can be directed to that as part of the process (between the point where they create their nation and are brought to their nation page), as well as having it on the sidebar to be clicked upon by anyone looking for a new region.

I am not sure how effective this would be, but most likely more effective then ADSpam. The adds should need to be renewed every day or so. That way you wouldn't have the adds from a barely active region staying on the list indefinitely.

[Charaxlandistan]

Let's posit for a moment that the Mods agree with you in principle, but want to keep the option of regional advertising open. What could we do that might have better success that we could propose as a replacement?

We all know about TG advertising (and the current controversies about that) as well as the relatively ineffectual Regional Recruitment threads in Gameplay. What else might work?

How about a new recruitment page where a random selection of character limited regional advertisements, similar to WFE's, are displayed? Newly re/founded nations can be directed to that as part of the process (between the point where they create their nation and are brought to their nation page), as well as having it on the sidebar to be clicked upon by anyone looking for a new region.

Wouldn't this make feeders and sinkers effectively obsolete?

[Leutria]

Wouldn't this make feeders and sinkers effectively obsolete?

Huh? How would it do that? New and refounded nations would still need a region to start in. All that idea would do is create a regional advertisement page.

[Charaxlandistan]

Maybe I'm misinterpreting. I thought Bel was suggesting that nations select a region via a special page before they actually appear in the game.

[South Pacific Belschaft]

How about a new recruitment page where a random selection of character limited regional advertisements, similar to WFE's, are displayed? Newly re/founded nations can be directed to that as part of the process (between the point where they create their nation and are brought to their nation page), as well as having it on the sidebar to be clicked upon by anyone looking for a new region.

I am not sure how effective this would be, but most likely more effective then ADSpam. The adds should need to be renewed every day or so. That way you wouldn't have the adds from a barely active region staying on the list indefinitely.

I see it as being fully randomized; every time someone go's to that page they see a new random selection of adverts.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting. I thought Bel was suggesting that nations select a region via a special page before they actually appear in the game.

Nope. It would probably lead to a serious reduction in GCR population regardless, put the pay off from that would be no more ad-spam immediately and (possibly, if it works a lot better than TG recruitment) and an end to TG recruitment long term.

[Leutria]

Randomized, but would still need to be refreshed. Do you really think I should be able to make a region and advert, and then have it displayed forever, no matter how active I am?

[Frisbeeteria]

Randomized, but would still need to be refreshed.

The thought I've been kicking around would be something like a Twitter feed.

• Each region that wanted to participate would get a chance to create a short message, perhaps on the same 140 characters limit, in the same way that they currently create Welcome telegrams.
• Those message go into a pool, and a new message pops to the top of the list every so often, probably on a 30/60 second cycle. It might look something like the new Activity Page, auto-refreshing with each new addition.
• Each message is automatically tagged with the sending region, which is also a link to that region.
• Assuming about 3000 regions chose to participate (out of 16,000 or so) with a 30 second cycle, you'd cycle the entire list in a little over once a day.

Where we put it and whether we monetize it are both considerations still to be sorted.

• I thought that putting an embedded section below the Featured Region on the Change Region page might be a good choice.
• Perhaps putting on The World might make more sense.
• Perhaps we could do both, but charge Stamps for appearances on The World.
• Perhaps we could increase the frequency of your ad appearing by charging stamps, with a logarithmic increase to prevent someone from outright buying all the ads (one extra insertion per cycle = 10 stamps, 2 extra = 40 stamps, 3 extra = 160 stamps, etc.) You'd probably pay for about 10-20 cycles at a time - no way to make a permanent buy.
• Perhaps there should be other restrictions, such as prohibiting passworded regions, or requiring a minimum 2-3 nations. Maybe there should be an activity requirement, in that every message is auto-deleted after 28 days unless refreshed by an appropriate Regional Administrator.

Ideally, I'd love to have the list work with Tags, so that you could eliminate region ads based on the Tags on that region, much the same as the Activity page does with different types of activity. However, that may be more coding trouble than it's worth. Let's leave that off the table for now, as I think a simple feed is doable, but a sorted feed is probably a deal breaker.

So, based on that possibility, any thoughts? What have I missed?

[Hobbesistan]

Not to be a buzzkill, but I think we should stick to the topic of removing the RMB adverisements before doing anything else, or the topic will be lost and never accomplished.

[South Pacific Belschaft]

My understanding of the situation is that adspam will not be banned outright without a replacement Hobbes. If so, then Fris' idea sounds a lot better than mine.

[Hobbesistan]

My understanding of the situation is that adspam will not be banned outright without a replacement Hobbes. If so, then Fris' idea sounds a lot better than mine.

If thats the case (Kind of lost track of the thread), then yeah, I agree with Fris's suggestion.

[Tyler Kazakov]

This is stupid.

GCR have a huge advantage over the UCR, and now you're trying to take a tool of that away? And you wonder why Userites don't like GCR's?

I think its pretty obvious.

[Milograd]

This is stupid.

GCR have a huge advantage over the UCR, and now you're trying to take a tool of that away? And you wonder why Userites don't like GCR's?

I think its pretty obvious.

It's a tool that pisses everyone off and achieves nothing.

[Hobbesistan]

This is stupid.

GCR have a huge advantage over the UCR, and now you're trying to take a tool of that away? And you wonder why Userites don't like GCR's?

I think its pretty obvious.

If adspam was even the remoteliest of effective, i might see your point, but it achives nothing but pissing the natives off.

Plus, it backfires in that new nations joining see the adspam, then see 3-4 people posting about how that region sucks for adspamming us and ect. If anything, adspam gives new players a NEGATIVE view of your region -- Which is why most major ones simply don't do it.

[Luxembourg]

But in all seriousness I've nothing against this.

[Astarial]

If adspam was even the remoteliest of effective, i might see your point, but it achives nothing but pissing the natives off.

To be fair, I know a couple people - myself included - who were first recruited via RMB ads.

[Unibot III]

If adspam was even the remoteliest of effective, i might see your point, but it achives nothing but pissing the natives off.

To be fair, I know a couple people - myself included - who were first recruited via RMB ads.

I know at least ten too.

However, RMB ads aren't effective anymore - not with suppression. It also backfires on the regions who ad-spam, because they often get invaded for it. I think all around it would be better to have a new system that was less intrusive, but equally as accessible for the newbiest of regions (who are the ones recruiting using this method, minus people like GGR who just do it to annoy).

[Mahaj]

If adspam was even the remoteliest of effective, i might see your point, but it achives nothing but pissing the natives off.

To be fair, I know a couple people - myself included - who were first recruited via RMB ads.

I'd be out of the game in all likelihood if not for an RMB ad.

[Milograd]

Has there been any further progress or consideration about this thread's proposals?

[The Angry Clown]

We all know about TG advertising (and the current controversies about that) as well as the relatively ineffectual Regional Recruitment threads in Gameplay. What else might work?

How about a separate page especially for Regions to Advertise? Recent ads would go to the top of the page and older ones would go down. Regions could have an official ad to be created by the founder/WA Delegate, similar to the welcome telegram. Each region with an ad would get one daily advertisement posted without extra effort (at random times) and up to two more ads that can be posted manually by the founder/Delegate every day.

Links to the regional adverts page could be placed in
*Regional pages ("Tired of life in...")
*The World
*Individual nation pages

[Cerlon]

Going to bump this again. I think that the world idea was well received and am curious to hear whether or not it will be pursued.

[Bodobol]

I say we just ban GGR.

[The greater Vakolicci Haven]

For goodness sake. GCRS already are the centre of much of gameplay, have a well-flowing river of new members (without even having to pay for tg stamps, which is something I believe they should have to do but is unrelated), are effectively guaranteed very powerful delegates in the WA, atract a lot of the more notable players, and are effectively unbreakable to tradditional update raiding. A few adds, surely, is the price you need to pay for all these little perks.