NSWiki.org - successor to NSWiki.net

[Vladisvok Destino]

If that for some reason offends you so deeply, log in and blank your nation's page (or redirect it to the homepage) and never think of it again.

Just out of interest, according to Afforess OP:

NSWiki features an automated service that generates basic templates with information for all regions and nations, and keeps basic stats up to date, every day.

Are you saying that this process will only happen the once, then only update stats where they haven't been cleared? I had assumed the daily update would likely re-create blanked pages.

[Of the Quendi]

Wow, who would have thought something like the revival of a wiki could be so controversial?

Having nothing or worth to contribute to the debate about the pros and cons of this debate I would just like to get my lost NSWiki data back and have some place to put it. Could we maybe focus on that?

This man gets it.

Thats odd since this discussion is increasingly making me feel clueless.

[Jenlom]

If that for some reason offends you so deeply, log in and blank your nation's page (or redirect it to the homepage) and never think of it again.

Just out of interest, according to Afforess OP:

NSWiki features an automated service that generates basic templates with information for all regions and nations, and keeps basic stats up to date, every day.

Are you saying that this process will only happen the once, then only update stats where they haven't been cleared? I had assumed the daily update would likely re-create blanked pages.

Afforess will answer that - I could answer but I'd rather give you no information than wrong information. Certainly if you modify the page and start adding your own content the bot will ignore your page and move on.

Most of users simply wanted their work from NSwiki back and now this revival is going into mass spamming of automated articles about regions that are either not yet involved or non-notable.

As I understand it, bringing back old NSWiki data is a more recent event than the starting of a new NSWiki. And what might be a tiny non-notable region for you is probably very notable for its inhabitants. If people aren't interested in certain regions, they can be ignored like articles on Wikipedia nobody in their right mind could be interested in, like this article on Widzino railway station in Poland, for example.

[Charlotte Ryberg]

Then explain this please. We are in a totally different ball park: an article like Widzino railway station in Poland exists because it actually exists in real life. NationStates is one where anyone can bend reality to their liking. As such, it is only fair that this should be opt-in.

[The Blaatschapen]

Just a note, the file I received from Afforess does not include structured user data(so no lists of users and their emails). The tables relating to users are either empty or not in the database. Like I noted last night, there are email addresses in the database though, scattered around various content.

[Charlotte Ryberg]

Just a note, the file I received from Afforess does not include structured user data(so no lists of users and their emails). The tables relating to users are either empty or not in the database. Like I noted last night, there are email addresses in the database though, scattered around various content.

I think they are likely to be about articles in the "User" namespace rather than the main article namespace.

[The Blaatschapen]

Just a note, the file I received from Afforess does not include structured user data(so no lists of users and their emails). The tables relating to users are either empty or not in the database. Like I noted last night, there are email addresses in the database though, scattered around various content.

I think they are likely to be about articles in the "User" namespace rather than the main article namespace.

You would be correct.

[Jenlom]

Then explain this please.

I have blanked your article. I hope whatever concerns you have (and I still don't really understand what they are) have been assuaged.

Just a note, the file I received from Afforess does not include structured user data(so no lists of users and their emails). The tables relating to users are either empty or not in the database. Like I noted last night, there are email addresses in the database though, scattered around various content.

They'll be removed before the file is uploaded though. I'd imagine all the user stuff can be, they weren't the meat of the original NSWiki that people want to get their hands on.

[Omigodtheykilledkenny]

To be honest, NSwiki is becoming like New Coke.

OHHHHHHHH BUUUUUURRRRRN!!!

As the discussion of this project has veered wildly into paranoia and confusion rather than constructive feedback, I'd suggest that only content that the authors have given the admin permission to use should be imported into the new NSwiki. Moreover, as some users have taken to vandalizing the site in order to "opt out" of allowing region data to be used, I assume that requests for deletion on the part of the region's owners will be honored? It would be a much more tidy way of sorting matters than vandalism. (Not that it matters: the bot is not doing anything more significant than sites like NSDossier or NSEconomy already do with publicly available nation/region data.)

[Vladisvok Destino]

Moreover, as some users have taken to vandalizing the site in order to "opt out" of allowing region data to be used,

Yes, how dare people follow the advice of the wiki administrators on how to opt-out

[The Peoples of Xaer]

I think the concerns about data are two separate issues.

The first is the contents of NSwiki pages. An article on Scolopendra, an article on Northrup-Grumman, an article on tanks, an article on R/D, an article on the World Cup, etc. All of that material was submitted to NSwiki under the GFDL. This material could also be retrieved by archiving (Google cache, Wayback machine, anyone who happened to save page archives).

The second is the user data of NSwiki: emails and login details of people who had accounts (my account on NSwiki was "User:Gruenberg2"). This is personal data, and was only accessible to the NSwiki admin, who has now chosen to share this with other people, and this data was not previously publicly accessible.

Those are two wholly separate issues, and perhaps some of the alarm is confusing the two?

There is a third issue that has no doubt caused some of the consternation with users, and that's a trust issue sparked by the recent 'botnet behavior' issue [violet] reported on regarding NS++. That's the sort of thing that's going to very seriously damage trust (or consumer confidence if you care to use marketing jargon,) especially given that the initial public report did not come from the author of the software. It's something that hinges entirely on the user trusting the software creator- trusting that creator to not only handle their data responsibly, but also to promptly notify the end users when there has been a problem that violates that trust. In this case, while setting up a dev blog for the software is more time consuming, some users would no doubt be looking askance as to why there was no notice whatsoever, not even a forum post until [v] said something several days later. That's the sort of trust that once lost is very hard to regain, and no doubt that issue is reflecting very poorly on how people are perceiving this project, especially those who did not want to trust any of their data to this particular coder who have since had their choice in the situation taken away.

Before, those people still had the choice- they could opt not to use it, ignore the bot-generated pages, no problem, none of their old data involved. With the NSWiki archive being bandied around, suddenly they have to sit up and pay attention, at least enough to remove the data once its posted. The programmer's attitude and reliance on the licensing thing does not do much of anything to prove that those wary users can trust him with that data. Arguably, given the responses in-thread, it's managed to do the exact opposite. Purely from a PR standpoint, a better approach would have been to take steps to assuage those concerns and cooperate more to ease concerns expressed from the outset instead of the more confrontational tone and seemingly uncooperative "I have the right, tough cookies!" attitude demonstrated. As evidenced in the thread, that approach only escalated the situation and drove that wedge of distrust in even deeper.

Given I had no material on the old Wiki and no interest in NS++, I really have no stake in this particular thing, but I hope my commentary was at least useful for cutting through how wound up the thread's gotten about the entire thing.

[Jenlom]

There is a third issue that has no doubt caused some of the consternation with users, and that's a trust issue sparked by the recent 'botnet behavior' issue [violet] reported on regarding NS++. That's the sort of thing that's going to very seriously damage trust (or consumer confidence if you care to use marketing jargon,) especially given that the initial public report did not come from the author of the software. It's something that hinges entirely on the user trusting the software creator- trusting that creator to not only handle their data responsibly, but also to promptly notify the end users when there has been a problem that violates that trust. In this case, while setting up a dev blog for the software is more time consuming, some users would no doubt be looking askance as to why there was no notice whatsoever, not even a forum post until [v] said something several days later. That's the sort of trust that once lost is very hard to regain, and no doubt that issue is reflecting very poorly on how people are perceiving this project, especially those who did not want to trust any of their data to this particular coder who have since had their choice in the situation taken away.

Firstly, I can assure you that no botnets have been used during the development of NSWiki.org. All the data used in calculations is stored on Afforess' servers, and does not contain any personal data, only statistics taken from nations and regions. The results of the calculations are then used by the bot to write articles on NSWiki. The process is as secure as it is possible to make it, and at any rate, the information is not confidential or damaging (it's flags and leader's names and national animals, not bank details). No API rules were or are broken.

Before, those people still had the choice- they could opt not to use it, ignore the bot-generated pages, no problem, none of their old data involved. With the NSWiki archive being bandied around, suddenly they have to sit up and pay attention, at least enough to remove the data once its posted. The programmer's attitude and reliance on the licensing thing does not do much of anything to prove that those wary users can trust him with that data. Arguably, given the responses in-thread, it's managed to do the exact opposite. Purely from a PR standpoint, a better approach would have been to take steps to assuage those concerns and cooperate more to ease concerns expressed from the outset instead of the more confrontational tone and seemingly uncooperative "I have the right, tough cookies!" attitude demonstrated. As evidenced in the thread, that approach only escalated the situation and drove that wedge of distrust in even deeper.

The data from the old NSWiki has been provided to us and will be hosted seperately from the new NSWiki. Users can choose whether to copy their articles from the old NSWiki to the new. Making available the raw data is no different a situation than we would be in had the old NSWiki spontaneously flickered back to life. Afforess has offered to delete data as and when people ask to, but it's unfair on the majority of users who wish to access data to simply not allow them to should they want to. No passwords or sensitive data will be released, and I can assure you email addresses from the old NSWiki will be removed from the data before it is uploaded.

[Omigodtheykilledkenny]

Moreover, as some users have taken to vandalizing the site in order to "opt out" of allowing region data to be used,

Yes, how dare people follow the advice of the wiki administrators on how to opt-out

Sorry, I wasn't aware that admins had encouraged users to vandalize the site in order to opt out. Most wikis handle this sort of request with the use of a template challenging the inclusion of content. Allowing users to blank pages just because they don't like their region's data being used (for whatever reason I don't understand) is encouraging vandalism.

[Commerce Heights]

Is there any direct relationship between Afforess’s new wiki and Afforess’s hosting of the NSwiki.net archive, other than that they have confusingly similar names and the same person happens to be doing both? If not, perhaps the discussions of each would be much clearer if they were in separate threads?

[The Dark Star Republic]

Is there any direct relationship between Afforess’s new wiki and Afforess’s hosting of the NSwiki.net archive, other than that they have confusingly similar names and the same person happens to be doing both? If not, perhaps the discussions of each would be much clearer if they were in separate threads?

I absolutely agree with this. The conflation of the "NS-bot" region summaries, with the hosting of the NSwiki archive, is confusing.

[Jenlom]

Is there any direct relationship between Afforess’s new wiki and Afforess’s hosting of the NSwiki.net archive, other than that they have confusingly similar names and the same person happens to be doing both? If not, perhaps the discussions of each would be much clearer if they were in separate threads?

There's a relationship in that I would imagine that eventually on NSWiki.org there will be a link to the NSWiki.net archive that you can search for your old articles and copy/paste over. The contents of NSWiki.net (as has been pointed out a number of times) are a) out-of-date and b) not properly formatted. They will be available to retrieve should people want to, but not added automatically to NSWiki.org.

[Shadow Afforess]

There is a third issue that has no doubt caused some of the consternation with users, and that's a trust issue sparked by the recent 'botnet behavior' issue [violet] reported on regarding NS++. That's the sort of thing that's going to very seriously damage trust (or consumer confidence if you care to use marketing jargon,) especially given that the initial public report did not come from the author of the software. It's something that hinges entirely on the user trusting the software creator- trusting that creator to not only handle their data responsibly, but also to promptly notify the end users when there has been a problem that violates that trust. In this case, while setting up a dev blog for the software is more time consuming, some users would no doubt be looking askance as to why there was no notice whatsoever, not even a forum post until [v] said something several days later. That's the sort of trust that once lost is very hard to regain, and no doubt that issue is reflecting very poorly on how people are perceiving this project, especially those who did not want to trust any of their data to this particular coder who have since had their choice in the situation taken away.

This is not the thread for that discussion. That was not botnet-behavior, it was a software bug, and a very short lived one. If you want to discuss the particulars, use the appropriate thread.

Before, those people still had the choice- they could opt not to use it, ignore the bot-generated pages, no problem, none of their old data involved. With the NSWiki archive being bandied around, suddenly they have to sit up and pay attention, at least enough to remove the data once its posted. The programmer's attitude and reliance on the licensing thing does not do much of anything to prove that those wary users can trust him with that data. Arguably, given the responses in-thread, it's managed to do the exact opposite. Purely from a PR standpoint, a better approach would have been to take steps to assuage those concerns and cooperate more to ease concerns expressed from the outset instead of the more confrontational tone and seemingly uncooperative "I have the right, tough cookies!" attitude demonstrated. As evidenced in the thread, that approach only escalated the situation and drove that wedge of distrust in even deeper.

I have offered several compromises and attempts at calming the outcry here, but apparently nothing short of my head on a pike will do for some.

[Shadow Afforess]

I want to thank everyone for making suggestions, comments and concern about the NSWiki revival and NSWiki project. I am taking all the feedback under consideration and will make announcement when the site goes live.

For those just now joining the conversation, yes, I do have a copy of the previous NSWiki content. No, I do not have access to your old account details, I do not have access to your passwords, IP addresses, or other identifying materials. There are some email addresses included in the revision logs, and I will remove them from any public visibility when the archives become available.

My current plan is to keep the old archives and new NSWiki separate, but both visible. The old archives will not be editable, but you will be able to see and view the wiki markdown. When this is available I will make an announcement.

Thanks for caring about the project. If you have private concerns or questions, telegram me.

I will not respond to further questions in this thread.

[The Peoples of Xaer]

Firstly, I can assure you that no botnets have been used during the development of NSWiki.org. All the data used in calculations is stored on Afforess' servers, and does not contain any personal data, only statistics taken from nations and regions. The results of the calculations are then used by the bot to write articles on NSWiki. The process is as secure as it is possible to make it, and at any rate, the information is not confidential or damaging (it's flags and leader's names and national animals, not bank details). No API rules were or are broken.

Yes, you know that, and I know that, but Afforess' recent issue with the NS++ bug can't help but reflect on his involvement with this project, that's what I'm saying. Just like people who got burned in Target's data breach are going to be understandably leery of shopping there again, some people are bound to see the botnet-like incident with NS++ and be leery of trusting another project that programmer is part of. That's just how people and trust issues work.

The data from the old NSWiki has been provided to us and will be hosted seperately from the new NSWiki. Users can choose whether to copy their articles from the old NSWiki to the new. Making available the raw data is no different a situation than we would be in had the old NSWiki spontaneously flickered back to life. Afforess has offered to delete data as and when people ask to, but it's unfair on the majority of users who wish to access data to simply not allow them to should they want to. No passwords or sensitive data will be released, and I can assure you email addresses from the old NSWiki will be removed from the data before it is uploaded.

And this is a world of difference in conveying that reassurance; Afforess' comments earlier in the thread were considerably less clear and inconsistent, which no doubt helped further foster the confusion and worry. This clearly states that the material will be kept separate and that data from the old one will be deleted on request. The earlier posts by Afforess were ambiguous enough that I can understand why people were taking it as "Your data is going into the new wiki, period!" While it's still understandable that people are not particularly happy that the old data is in the hands of someone new that they may or may not trust, you've spelled out neatly that the process to remove their data is much more simple and straightforward than it sounded earlier.

[Reploid Productions]

Afforess has offered to delete data as and when people ask to, but it's unfair on the majority of users who wish to access data to simply not allow them to should they want to.

My current plan is to keep the old archives and new NSWiki separate, but both visible. The old archives will not be editable, but you will be able to see and view the wiki markdown.

Ur... now I'm mildly confused. Will stuff be deleted from the old archive if requested or not?

I have seriously not had enough caffeine today.

[Kajal]

...I do not want to have anything to do with this project given your lack of respect for intellectual property...

With all due respect, this is almost libelous. So long as Afforess abides by the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, you cannot say that he isn't respecting your intellectual property rights.

That the new wiki us described as requiring users to verify via a third party, non-mediawiki API could be argued to be a form of DRM intended to restrict access to the content.

Such a scheme de facto violates the terms of both the GFDL and CC licenses content was originally licensed under, and, by extension, the rights of the contributors.

Incidentally, the auto generated region pages come off as surprisingly derogatory in tone. Interesting interpretation of the statistics, there. Descriptors such as "universally appalling", for example, those are bound to touch on some nerves... Especially since changing it requires letting your site steal cookies and theoretically opens the door for xss injection attacks.

[Tiberian Destiny]

Is there any direct relationship between Afforess’s new wiki and Afforess’s hosting of the NSwiki.net archive, other than that they have confusingly similar names and the same person happens to be doing both? If not, perhaps the discussions of each would be much clearer if they were in separate threads?

Apparently, the two got conflated simply because this thread happened to be the most recently active NSWiki Revival thread, so when someone (Unibot) managed to get their hands on the NSWiki archive, they opted to post it here. Had this thread not existed or been abandoned, we might have ended up with a separate thread along the lines of "Ohai! I got the NSWiki database! Come get your stuff!", but instead, it ended up being posted in this thread and the data sent to Afforess.

I agree that there should be a separate thread in which the NSWiki data is publicly accessible (because, yes, it WAS all written under free distribution), and whoever wants to (re-)create a NationStates wikipedia, or whatever else, should get it from there.

[Auralia]

That the new wiki us described as requiring users to verify via a third party, non-mediawiki API could be argued to be a form of DRM intended to restrict access to the content.

Such a scheme de facto violates the terms of both the GFDL and CC licenses content was originally licensed under, and, by extension, the rights of the contributors.

Except it doesn't, because you're not required to log in to access the content.

Incidentally, the auto generated region pages come off as surprisingly derogatory in tone. Interesting interpretation of the statistics, there. Descriptors such as "universally appalling", for example, those are bound to touch on some nerves... Especially since changing it requires letting your site steal cookies and theoretically opens the door for xss injection attacks.

What does this have to do with respect for intellectual property rights?

[The North Polish Union]

Your botpage on Poland Lithuania has been removed. I do not appreciate it when my creations, which are therefore my intellectual property, are written about without my consent. You have no right to do this and your acts are, in my opinion, tantamount to intellectual piracy. Please do not restore the page to its original state.

Thank you.

[Ikania]

Your botpage on Poland Lithuania has been removed. I do not appreciate it when my creations, which are therefore my intellectual property, are written about without my consent. You have no right to do this and your acts are, in my opinion, tantamount to intellectual piracy. Please do not restore the page to its original state.

Thank you.

I seriously don't see why everyone's making such a big fuss; it's been explained over and over again that there is nothing wrong with this. It's just you guys attacking Afforess because why not?