Regional Officers

[Vancouvia]

Is there any possibility of every separating the border control powers? Suppressing posts and banning nations are two very different things

Anything is possible, make an argument as to why it ought to be.

I would definitely have some utility from letting certain nations suppress posts, since this is a no-risk measure; I could unsuppress them later if it was wrongly suppressed. However, banning is less reversible because the nation is out of the region and this might occur around an update and cause them to lose endorsements.

[NewTexas]

Working well in Texas! (well, except the part about pushing the custom button and going to the Boneyard thing Misely reported, but that is fixable by selecting Modify after the nation has been appointed)



Thank you [violet]!

[Topid]

Thank you for pointing that out Misley, yes maybe people will start to catch on President > WA Delegate since the name of the position is listed too. I'm still sad that we have to "demonstrate" our ability to destroy regions before that will be fixed (the power, not the region, admin won't fix the unfortunate community DEN nukes for lulz and just cuz). But I'm now positively giddy over the use I can get out of these. Might be enough to keep me around for a bit!

[Valrifell]

Thank you for pointing that out Misley, yes maybe people will start to catch on President > WA Delegate since the name of the position is listed too. I'm still sad that we have to "demonstrate" our ability to destroy regions before that will be fixed (the power, not the region, admin won't fix the unfortunate community DEN nukes for lulz and just cuz). But I'm now positively giddy over the use I can get out of these. Might be enough to keep me around for a bit!

Well, if a region makes use of ROs good and proper, that's more eyes looking for piling going and all that snazzy jazz. It would make occupations of competent regions more of a nuisance, if only slightly.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Is there any possibility of every separating the border control powers? Suppressing posts and banning nations are two very different things

Anything is possible, make an argument as to why it ought to be.

Suppression powers can be an effective anti-spam or RMB control method, which should not necessarily be tied to Border Control. It would allow regions to appoint their own RMB chat monitors of a sort, without throwing the full towel in and giving them ejection ability.

[Kaboomlandia]

Has any region fired an RO yet?

[[violet]]

Has any region fired an RO yet?

This is a way to see what people are up to:

http://www.nationstates.net/page=activi ... lter=admin

[Topid]

Anything is possible, make an argument as to why it ought to be.

Suppression powers can be an effective anti-spam or RMB control method, which should not necessarily be tied to Border Control. It would allow regions to appoint their own RMB chat monitors of a sort, without throwing the full towel in and giving them ejection ability.

Also the ability to remove text from a region page seems more related to changing the region's appearance than to border control. Suppressions have nothing to do with borders or changing regions, the name itself makes no sense to me.

[Misley]

A region's own ROs cannot post to the RMB of a region they are an officer in if the region that they are currently located in does not have embassies with the region they're an officer of.

It seems to me that ROs should always have RMB posting rights in the region(s) they are an officer for.

[[violet]]

Maybe I'm looking at things wrong, but is it no longer possible for outsiders to view a region's control settings - i.e., look at WFE code to borrow some cool formatting, see what embassy posting settings, look who is banned, etc?

EDIT; bad example in embassy posting and banned, we can still see that

Correct. I might need to find new ways to restore some of that, like WFE formatting via a Raw link, since I understand it can be useful. But Region Control is now component-based, so that Officers can be shown only those controls they have authority to use.

[Humpheria in the Commonwealth]

You'll have to excuse my ignorance because I'm sure this has already been clarified but there are 16 pages on this forum.

What exactly are all of the Regional Offices and what can they all do?

[Alustrian]

Glad to see the that the bugs are being fixed The non-execs almost gave a few players heart attacks

Due to preparing for the roll-out, I understand the lack of technical replies to many points raised in this thread (points that are not related to bugs, but the heart of the argument that was presented by various defenders and feederites). I hope that those concerns will be addressed soon.

Is there any possibility of every separating the border control powers? Suppressing posts and banning nations are two very different things

Anything is possible, make an argument as to why it ought to be.

There have been a dozen, perhaps more, posts making good arguments for such a separation in this thread

[Misley]

Also, despite being appointed as a Communications Officer, I do not have the ability to send region-wide telegrams, even if the officer is in the region.

You'll have to excuse my ignorance because I'm sure this has already been clarified but there are 16 pages on this forum.

What exactly are all of the Regional Offices and what can they all do?

16 pages is not that much. Read the FAQ, poke around in the regional controls, figure it out.

[Kaboomlandia]

You'll have to excuse my ignorance because I'm sure this has already been clarified but there are 16 pages on this forum.

What exactly are all of the Regional Offices and what can they all do?

From what I've seen from playtesting in my region (incomplete list):
Appearance: edit WFE
Border Control: punt nations, set password
Embassies: request/deny/approve embassy requests:
Communications: send mass TGs
Polls: create/delete polls

[Kazmr]

Glad to see the that the bugs are being fixed The non-execs almost gave a few players heart attacks

Guilty

Additionally, in support of decoupling RMB control from Border Control, every other action that would presumably fall under the auspices of Border Control has the potential to cost influence, and in fact are the only regional actions that do, whereas RMB control doesn't. Not as solid as some of the others put forward, but just something else to think about.

[Cormac Stark]

Glad to see the that the bugs are being fixed The non-execs almost gave a few players heart attacks

Guilty

Additionally, in support of decoupling RMB control from Border Control, every other action that would presumably fall under the auspices of Border Control has the potential to cost influence, and in fact are the only regional actions that do, whereas RMB control doesn't. Not as solid as some of the others put forward, but just something else to think about.

Just to add to all of this, it would make more sense for RMB suppression to fall under Communications than Border Control. The RMB is a form of communication and has no relation to regional entry/exit.

[Trinnien]

Has anyone checked to see if a RO with Border Control but is Non-Executive can Eject another RO. They shouldn't be able to, I believe, but that's a good thing to test for.

[[violet]]

Also, despite being appointed as a Communications Officer, I do not have the ability to send region-wide telegrams, even if the officer is in the region.

Is there an error message? Region-wide telegrams are only available when you've held office for 26 hours, I believe (same as Delegates).

[Misley]

Also, despite being appointed as a Communications Officer, I do not have the ability to send region-wide telegrams, even if the officer is in the region.

Is there an error message? Region-wide telegrams are only available when you've held office for 26 hours, I believe (same as Delegates).

It just says that I don't have authority if I try to send it via the Regional Control page, and says I need stamps if I try to send it to region:The Internationale in the Telegram panel.

There is no indication that there is a delay for regionwide TGs. Should there be one?

Also, is there any possibility that we could have renamed Founders/WA Delegates in vanilla? Perhaps append "(Founder)" and "(WA Delegate)" to the end of the officer title to make it clear what they are, or just use the flag and WA symbol to show it?

[Flanderlion]

Is there an error message? Region-wide telegrams are only available when you've held office for 26 hours, I believe (same as Delegates).

It just says that I don't have authority if I try to send it via the Regional Control page, and says I need stamps if I try to send it to region:The Internationale in the Telegram panel.

There is no indication that there is a delay for regionwide TGs. Should there be one?

Also, is there any possibility that we could have renamed Founders/WA Delegates in vanilla? Perhaps append "(Founder)" and "(WA Delegate)" to the end of the officer title to make it clear what they are, or just use the flag and WA symbol to show it?

There should be a delay, otherwise RO's would be a way to get around the 26 hour restriction, which is in place for a reason.

[Islamic Meritocratic Transoxiana]

From the news thread:

"To identify the power a nation holds in its region, you'll begin seeing new icons on nation pages beneath the region, signifying their authority: Executive, World Assembly, Appearance, Border Control, Embassies, Communications, and Polls"

What are Executive and WA doing on there? Do they exist? If they don't why are they on there?

I will post this again and again until someone replies. (Violet's rather vague answer doesn't answer my third question.)

[Misley]

From the news thread:

"To identify the power a nation holds in its region, you'll begin seeing new icons on nation pages beneath the region, signifying their authority: Executive, World Assembly, Appearance, Border Control, Embassies, Communications, and Polls"

What are Executive and WA doing on there? Do they exist? If they don't why are they on there?

I will post this again and again until someone replies. (Violet's rather vague answer doesn't answer my third question.)

Yes, they exist. Executive is for Executive founders and delegates. WA is only for WA Delegates.

[[violet]]

Due to preparing for the roll-out, I understand the lack of technical replies to many points raised in this thread (points that are not related to bugs, but the heart of the argument that was presented by various defenders and feederites). I hope that those concerns will be addressed soon.

I think where we're at now is we've got a lot of agreement on how difficult it's likely to be to pull off liberations, since when even raiders are saying, "Whoa, this is a bit much," that's pretty clear. Which is good, at least from my perspective, because agreement is easy to code for; it's hard when nobody agrees what's needed.

Next we need to see it in practice. This isn't just to prove there will be problems, but also to see what's worth surrendering to fix the problems. We have a lot of different options for fixes--timers and influence costs and limits and separation of powers--and we need to figure out which will work best. That's just really hard to do in theory, when everybody tries to imagine hypothetical scenarios. There was no Summit consensus on it and I didn't want to guess.

Hopefully from chaos will emerge clarity, and we can get something like a consensus around the best changes, from people who have seen it in practice. Regional Officers has been a player-driven feature from start to finish, and it's only launching in this particular form because there wasn't agreement on what else it should have. Once we get that, we can continue.

[[violet]]

Just to add to all of this, it would make more sense for RMB suppression to fall under Communications than Border Control. The RMB is a form of communication and has no relation to regional entry/exit.

Yes, good point.

[Cormac Stark]

I think where we're at now is we've got a lot of agreement on how difficult it's likely to be to pull off liberations, since when even raiders are saying, "Whoa, this is a bit much," that's pretty clear. Which is good, at least from my perspective, because agreement is easy to code for; it's hard when nobody agrees what's needed.

Next we need to see it in practice. This isn't just to prove there will be problems, but also to see what's worth surrendering to fix the problems. We have a lot of different options for fixes--timers and influence costs and limits and separation of powers--and we need to figure out which will work best. That's just really hard to do in theory, when everybody tries to imagine hypothetical scenarios. There was no Summit consensus on it and I didn't want to guess.

Hopefully from chaos will emerge clarity, and we can get something like a consensus around the best changes, from people who have seen it in practice. Regional Officers has been a player-driven feature from start to finish, and it's only launching in this particular form because there wasn't agreement on what else it should have. Once we get that, we can continue.

Do you have a plan for what you're going to do if there are no further liberation attempts, leaving you unable to test? This isn't more complaining, I'm genuinely curious if you have some idea of what to do if, as I expect, defenders basically pack it and call it quits now as a result of this new feature. Will you make changes without any testing, in order to boost defender morale and interest in the game again, or just leave it as-is?