NS World Adjustment : Regional Moderator

[Unibot]

First of all, no - this is not the 'Regional Moderator' concept that you remember from April Fools.
But it was a idea that Fris brought into the discussion on the Feeders thread, which I've added to, and wish to discuss a bit further.

How Would A Regional Moderator be Elected?

Through a democratic vote between either all of the members of a region, or all of the WA members of a region (haven’t decided yet). But unlike a delegate, the candidate would not wait until the next game update to be elected – but instead would have to wait several days.

To clarify - it would have a visible countdown. When someone has the highest mod endorsement count in the region a countdown would begin beside the WFE. Let’s say counting down from 5 days or something like that (10 updates). At the fifth day, the candidate would gain the position. At any time before the countdown was done, if someone gained a higher endorsement count than that candidate – the countdown would be interrupted and a new countdown would start for them.

Transitions between new Regional Moderators would always take at least 5 days.

Powers of the Regional Moderator

• The Regional Moderator cannot be banned or rejected from the region they are moderating, whilst being Moderator.
  
• They’d have the ability to delete, or blank RMB posts.
  
• The password would always be viewable to the Regional Moderator.
  
• The Regional Moderator could increase/lower regional influence costs (with limits of course).

What’s the Advantage of having a Regional Moderator?

Well, for starters, it gives a region a trusted native that can’t be banned or rejected in the event of an invasion – and could provide the password to outsiders in the event of griefing. There would be a couple days before the RM could be banned and replaced – giving a window of time for liberators, defenders and/or natives to strike arms with the grievers.

Also there have been a lot of disputes over bad ‘sportsmanship’ when raiders ‘talk trash’ of the citizens of regions they just grieved. Now the Regional Moderator would be there to delete the posts of the victors, to squash their bragging rights.

[Crazy girl]

I'm not sure if there is a saying for this in english, but the dutch saying "van de regen in de drup" comes to mind here.

[Black Kids]

How about giving those powers to a founder?

[Marcuslandia]

How about defining what it is that you're trying to accomplish? I can see the ability to cleaning up the RMB, given how much c*** can show up there. I'd even add the power to temporarily suspend a region member's ability to post (a "timeout") because the member in question makes a habit of posting c***.

What you're basically suggesting is a majority rules elected regional official. If you limit it to WAs only, then you're talking about the Delegate. If you allow puppets to vote, then you're opening the floor to letting people stuff the ballot box. If a low-pop region is currently being invaded, you're offering them yet another tool for suppressing the native population. In particular, you would be giving them a mechanism to quickly build enough Influence to flush the region of defenders and slap a password lock down on the region.

It seems to me that this proposal would be creating more problems than what it cleans up.

[Erastide]

I'm sorry, but this could remove all dissent from a feeder essentially. Delegacy changes can take a lonnnng time to happen in a feeder if the current delegate is unavailable, so the usurpers could potentially just elect their own moderator and silence all dissent on the RMB. Given the ability to capture problematic posts on a RMB via the Getting Help page and that the delegate can ban nations that spam their regional ads, I'm not sure there's a huge need for something like this.

[Unibot]

The real objective of the Regional Moderator is to be a security net in case of an invasion by password grievers. With a period of time that he/she can't be banned, or replaced - and access to seeing the password - this makes a Regional Moderator essential to giving a much needed window for Defenders and Liberators in cases like Belgium.

And possibly there would be no Moderator for GCE regions.

[Marcuslandia]

The real objective of the Regional Moderator is to be a security net in case of an invasion by password grievers. With a period of time that he/she can't be banned, or replaced - and access to seeing the password - this makes a Regional Moderator essential to giving a much needed window for Defenders and Liberators in cases like Belgium.

And possibly there would be no Moderator for GCE regions.

But it strikes me that the invaders would take control of the Regional Moderator the same way they take over the Delegate position. It's just a matter of flooding in voters just when the RM position voting is about to close. And take over the Delegate slot at the same time.

[Unibot]

But it strikes me that the invaders would take control of the Regional Moderator the same way they take over the Delegate position. It's just a matter of flooding in voters just when the RM position voting is about to close. And take over the Delegate slot at the same time.

Ah, but it would still take them 5 days to gain control of the RM officially because the countdown would restart.

[Marcuslandia]

So the slow route that is available to them is to secure the RM position first. Won't be a blitzkrieg. More like a slow infiltration. Which has the side benefit of having the infiltrator amass a good amount of Influence. Wins the RM position. Five days later, he can actually do stuff. He now knows the password, which gets distributed to his invader buddies. He tweaks the Influence charges so the cost of changing passwords, making it secret, and doing ejections cost the absolute minimum. Just before update, the invaders pour in. One of their own gets elected Delegate (probably a second infiltrator with amassed Influence), which goes into effect immediately after update. The secret password gets slapped down (at minimal cost) and by morning nearly all of the region's WA members have been ejected.

I think the potential for taking what we consider a bad situation now would be made MUCH worse.

[The Most Glorious Hack]

Dear god no. This is a horrible idea.

[Unibot]

Dear god no. This is a horrible idea.

Okay.

I go now....

*Flees*

So the slow route that is available to them is to secure the RM position first. Won't be a blitzkrieg. More like a slow infiltration

That's why making sure the Regional Moderator of your region is someone you trust would be important.

[Erastide]

Scenario:

"Hi! I'm new to NS and I saw your region and thought it was sooooo cool. May I join?" Repeat many times over

All newbies "endorse" 1 nation (a new one) for regional moderator. 5 days later, invaders have control of that position, plus they've gained some influence, they endorse each other and become delegate. Now, there will be no talking on the RMB, the WFE will be controlled by invaders and the nations who were originally there can only TG each other to discuss things.

[Gl0wing Men]

Pointless. If there were such a position, it couldn't be elected. And there's really no need for one. If you want someone to be able to delete RMB posts, promote that for the founders/delegates(if they can't already). Adjusting RIC unbalances the game.