Holy Mackerel! Errinundera is devout?

[Errinundera]

In the current WA report my nation, Errinundera is the 108th most devout nation in Forest (out of 108 nations). We are the 131,461st most devout nation in the NationStates multiverse (out of 131,569, ie 109th least devout. Yet our nation page says:

The compassionate, hard-working, democratic, cheerful, devout population of 23.543 billion Errinundrians...

How is this so?

[Valrifell]

Yeah, I've got the same issue. How can Valrifell be devout with a -27 religiousness score?

[[violet]]

The main reason is that the World Census "Most Devout" ranking considers government spending, but the label on your nation page doesn't. It also doesn't consider how many people are atheist, only how many are religious.

Errinundera opposes government spending on religion and has a sizeable atheist populace, but its citizens are a little more religious than normal. That's a fairly curious combination and I'm not sure how you got it. So I'm not sure if this is an error or not.

Valrifell looks more like a bug, because not only is the government adamantly opposed to spending on religion, but its atheist population is much bigger.

I've adjusted the label to consider atheism but will need to discuss with Issue Editors whether we want to consider government spending as well.

[Trotterdam]

While you're at it, could you do something about the fact my nation is listed as "democratic" even though I have no elections?

Errinundera opposes government spending on religion and has a sizeable atheist populace, but its citizens are a little more religious than normal. That's a fairly curious combination and I'm not sure how you got it. So I'm not sure if this is an error or not.

That's a relatively logical consequence of religious freedom (the government doesn't encourage religion, but doesn't discourage it either, so it may happen a lot anyway).

For that matter, it's even possible for the government to openly support religion without spending much money on it (say, depicting simple religious symbols like crosses on government property you were going to build anyway, without spending taxpayer money on purpose-built churches or intricate stained-glass windows).

I've adjusted the label to consider atheism but will need to discuss with Issue Editors whether we want to consider government spending as well.

Based on the description of the "Most Devout" / "Religiousness" census (the name, and "World Census experts polled citizens from nations worldwide to determine which seemed to be the most religious."), it sounds like overall religiousness of the citizens is a more relevant metric than the amount of religious spending by the government, so I would say it's more likely to be the census that needs to be recalibrated, rather than the nation label. Possibily with a separate census added for religious spending, much like we have Eco-Friendliness versus Environmental Beauty or Law Enforcement versus Safety from Crime.

[[violet]]

could you do something about the fact my nation is listed as "democratic" even though I have no elections?

Done.

[Errinundera]

Thanks. Most curious. I like to think we are just a bit weird. Trotterdam's explanation seems reasonable. Errinundera doesn't support religion in any way but doesn't prohibit it either. Given how old we are perhaps there's a sizeable enough religious population to be considered devout.