“RESERVED. That name was used by a former nation.”

[[violet]]

We can't send email notifications, because we're talking about accounts that haven't been used for at least a year. If I start emailing somebody who last visited this site in 2003, we'll get in big trouble.

The code we already have (but hasn't been activated yet) categorizes all nations as Active, Deleted, or Archived. Then it works like this:

• Deleted nations that meet a certain criteria (not currently defined, but something like: deleted more than a year ago and population less than 500 million) are moved to Archived status.
• A Deleted or Archived nation can be restored by the owner, if there is no Active nation of the same name. (Exception: mod-deleted nations cannot be restored by players.)
• A name can be used for a brand new nation if there is no Active or Deleted nation with that name.

This means that if you have an Archived nation and somebody else uses the name, you can't restore your nation--at least, for as long as that new nation remains Active.

While I'd like people to be able to restore their old nations, I don't want to deny perfectly good names to current players just because they were used once in 2005 by someone who will probably never visit us again. It's easy enough to keep your nation if you want it; you just need to use it once in a while.

That said, I suspect that even if we have quite generous criteria about Archiving nations -- e.g. only when deleted for 2 years or more, with population under 100M -- we would free up a million or more names.

[Jeuna]

the most famous example from gameplay is Francos Spain

Who?

Anyway, hasn't it already been accepted that there is no ontological inertia in NS? Once a nation dies, or is carpet-nuked, people forget about it and its effects are just gone.

[Erastide]

Old names live on in histories and stories among players. There are Generalite names, RPer names, WA nation names, and Gameplayer names that I'm sure people would find very odd seeing again.

Honestly, taking people who have a population lower than 500mil preeetty much guarantees you won't get people who made much of an impact on NS overall. There's not much need to involve players beyond that, if you play for a decent length of time that would automatically save you.

[Barringtonia]

Can we reserve names that might come up, I wanted a name when I first joined but it was already taken, could there be a thread where players can reserve potential names - it may be a lot of unnecessary trouble for Moderators I suppose...

I'd even be happy to reserve a name for a nominal fee if you lot are low on pies and chips.

[Naivetry]

Since we have this new integrated forum now, perhaps another good idea would be to include post counts as a criterion for people whose nations are more forum oriented. Then again, that leads to it's own problems, so maybe it should only include posts above a certain amount of words (or maybe use some kind of weighted system) to stop people from spamming to get their name retired. Making all of the different values secret (like new south hell suggested) would help with that too. When it comes to the Jolt forums, perhaps before the names of nations are released there could be a period where people could get their names retired via nomination by other players, by request (like resurrection used to be) or maybe something similar to that.

Connecting it to these forums would leave most of the Gameplay crowd in the lurch. Most of us do not come here, despite post counts in the thousands on our own boards.

the most famous example from gameplay is Francos Spain

Who?

viewtopic.php?p=6646#p6646

Anyway, hasn't it already been accepted that there is no ontological inertia in NS? Once a nation dies, or is carpet-nuked, people forget about it and its effects are just gone.

Historical amnesia is an elective disease.

[Naivetry]

This means that if you have an Archived nation and somebody else uses the name, you can't restore your nation--at least, for as long as that new nation remains Active.

Sorry for the double post, I was just thinking...

So Archived (=non-reserved) nations would still be saved even if a brand new nation used the name? If so, and the new nation subsequently CTE'd, would both nations' information be saved? And if so, how long would it be until the original owner of the nation name could revive their Archived nation?

And because this could be an issue for my side of the game, depending on the criteria used... would these brand new nations retain the Founder status of the Archived nation?

[[violet]]

So Archived (=non-reserved) nations would still be saved even if a brand new nation used the name? If so, and the new nation subsequently CTE'd, would both nations' information be saved? And if so, how long would it be until the original owner of the nation name could revive their Archived nation?

Yes, yes, and any Deleted or Archived nation could be restored any time there is no Active nation using the name.

And because this could be an issue for my side of the game, depending on the criteria used... would these brand new nations retain the Founder status of the Archived nation?

Uhhh... crap, yes.

Hmm, another reason to abolish Founders...

[Bears Armed]

So Archived (=non-reserved) nations would still be saved even if a brand new nation used the name? If so, and the new nation subsequently CTE'd, would both nations' information be saved? And if so, how long would it be until the original owner of the nation name could revive their Archived nation?

Yes, yes, and any Deleted or Archived nation could be restored any time there is no Active nation using the name.

So if two or more nations with the same name are both Deleted or Archived, and somebody tries to revive one of these but can't remember its password and therefore asks for a new password to be sent out, to which of those versions' separate email addresses would that new password then be sent?

And because this could be an issue for my side of the game, depending on the criteria used... would these brand new nations retain the Founder status of the Archived nation?

Uhhh... crap, yes.

Hmm, another reason to abolish Founders...

Nooooo!!!

[Unibot]

Uhhh... crap, yes.

Hmm, another reason to abolish Founders...

How many regions were created by nations that died before three months -and yet still exist today after years? Surely their could be a "History Preservation" thread to give the names of those paticular cases a historic nation status- because they can't be in that high of volume, or can they?

Yours
Unibot

[Liventia]

Old names live on in histories and stories among players. There are Generalite names, RPer names, WA nation names, and Gameplayer names that I'm sure people would find very odd seeing again.

It would certainly cause a heck lot of confusion.

Honestly, taking people who have a population lower than 500mil preeetty much guarantees you won't get people who made much of an impact on NS overall. There's not much need to involve players beyond that, if you play for a decent length of time that would automatically save you.

In favour of this. My old nation was around from 2003-2008 before I let that die and started over (for IC and OOC reasons) with two new nations, with an RP bridge between the old and two new ones. I'd hate for anyone to come in and take my old nation, so the 500 million milestone is probably a very good cut-off point.

[Anumia]

That's a good idea: nations reaching a particular milestone get to own their name permanently.

By the way, it occurs to me that one sign that old names are about to be released would be the resurrection of Maxtopia...

Curses, foiled again.

the most famous example from gameplay is Francos Spain

Who?

Anyway, hasn't it already been accepted that there is no ontological inertia in NS? Once a nation dies, or is carpet-nuked, people forget about it and its effects are just gone.

Bah, accepted where?

Uhhh... crap, yes.

Hmm, another reason to abolish Founders...

:O

Uhhh... crap, yes.

Hmm, another reason to abolish Founders...

How many regions were created by nations that died before three months -and yet still exist today after years? Surely their could be a "History Preservation" thread to give the names of those paticular cases a historic nation status- because they can't be in that high of volume, or can they?

Yours
Unibot

Can regions with dead Founders be auto-searched to make this easier?

[Bears Armed]

There are probably players who've given their nations easy-to-remember passwords, rather than passwords of the more random sort that are recommended for the purpose of security. If two Archived/Deleted nations that share a name also share the same identical password -- say we have two versions of 'America', for each of which the password is 'G Washington' , for example -- then how would the revival mechanism decide which of them an attempted revival was aimed at?

[Numero Capitan]

Some great ideas flying around, I reckon the recycled symbol would be a good one and would bypass the issue of imitation. I don't imagine it would be too hard work to put some image code in to a record if the moderators are having to create a system that keeps separate records for two nations that have had the same name.

[Charlotte Ryberg]

As per this post, allowing nation name re-use is one of the main reasons for this forum.

I added the code to handle this years ago, but couldn't implement it because of compatibility issues with Jolt. That's no longer a problem.

Just to point out in my opinion it is not wise to release nation names that were moderator-deleted.

[Flibbleites]

As per this post, allowing nation name re-use is one of the main reasons for this forum.

I added the code to handle this years ago, but couldn't implement it because of compatibility issues with Jolt. That's no longer a problem.

Just to point out in my opinion it is not wise to release nation names that were moderator-deleted.

If I remember correctly, mod-deleted nations were never going to be released.

[[violet]]

They can't be restored. But unless I change something, there's nothing preventing creation of a new nation with the same name.

I don't really like the idea that you could ensure nobody else ever gets to use your nation name by getting yourself deleted. I think I'd rather have a separate name blacklist that mods could maintain.

[UnitedStatesOfAmerica-]

Perhaps, while the time for deleted nations to become available sounds like it will be 2 years, the time for mod deleted nations should be longer, maybe 5 to 10 years. If those nation names are going to be released at all.

I'm assuming deleted nations did not do anything significant during their time on NS?

[Numero Capitan]

Surely the person who was deleted from the game could potentially just create another nation under the same name which overrides the whole point in deleting them.

[[violet]]

Surely the person who was deleted from the game could potentially just create another nation under the same name which overrides the whole point in deleting them.

Well, they can do that a year or two later. I think that's insignificant nuisance value compared to the fact that they can create another nation with a different name, straight away.

[UnitedStatesOfAmerica-]

Isn't that preventable with IP address checking?

[Erastide]

There's a difference between having a nation deleted for rulebreaking and being DOS, which means never welcome again.

There are plenty of people in the game who have had one nation (at least) deleted for rulebreaking before. They create another one and start using that instead. If they learn their lesson they can stay on as long as they like.

[Avalaun (Ancient)]

It occurs to me that a lot of the questions regarding duplicate nations’ names, whether as regional founders or because they were deleted for bad behaviour, etc. would be moot if each unique nation either is assigned a unique numerical identity or if that already happens within the code of the game. If, from the game's perspective Crapheadopia is really nation 001 312 924, then when a new player founds a new nation called “Crapheadopia” but the game sees it as nation 002 129 365 there would be no “double identity” problem. The new Crapheadopia can begin playing and will never be recognized as the founder of the region of Numbskull by the game, and a mod, doing a query, would immediately know that the new Crapheadopia was not the same person (by whatever means the game detects this) as the idiot who got deleted back in 2005 for posting all those racist photos of Bigtopians saying the darnedest things (or what ever the original Craphead did.)

I also have a question. If the sequestered names are to be released, what timeframe are we looking at for that. I have been considering creating a couple of new nations, but holding off because the names I want are "reserved by a former nation". I would just like to know whether to create ersatz names, which I don't want to do, or whether I can wait to try to get the names I want. I expect that there is no exact date, but time-frame wise, are we talking two months, six months, a year, or what? If someone inside the loop can just give an approximate time-frame, that’s all I want. Thanks.

[[violet]]

If, from the game's perspective Crapheadopia is really nation 001 312 924, then when a new player founds a new nation called “Crapheadopia” but the game sees it as nation 002 129 365 there would be no “double identity” problem.

That would have been a good thing to do when the game was first created, but could only be accomplished now with a huge rewrite.

what timeframe are we looking at

Hard to say; it depends on how easily the Founder problem can be solved. I wouldn't recommend waiting, because you never know, it might never happen. But if it does, I would hope it will be within the next two or three months.

[Avalaun (Ancient)]

If, from the game's perspective Crapheadopia is really nation 001 312 924, then when a new player founds a new nation called “Crapheadopia” but the game sees it as nation 002 129 365 there would be no “double identity” problem.

That would have been a good thing to do when the game was first created, but could only be accomplished now with a huge rewrite.

what timeframe are we looking at

Hard to say; it depends on how easily the Founder problem can be solved. I wouldn't recommend waiting, because you never know, it might never happen. But if it does, I would hope it will be within the next two or three months.

Thanks very much for the update. I will keep my eyes on this thread for further announcements, so if you could please post it here as the plan becomes more concretised, I would very much appreciate it. I thought someone said, earlier in this thread, that the game had a numerical reference for each nation. I guess that they were mistaken. That’s too bad. I don’t know enough about how the game works to make any good suggestion about retroactively introducing a number code. I expect that putting one in the database would be fairly easy, but I can’t begin to guess how the game would need to be tweaked to use such a numerical referent effectively. I wonder if there are technically skilled people on the forums who might have some suggestions or time to help with that. Just a thought. Thanks again, [violet], for your hard work and attention to these issues.

[Starblaydia]

Population over (X)
Time played over (X) (for times that can’t be recorded the other factors would have to be used)
Issues responded to over (X) (if you tack that, I’m not really sure if you track things like that or not)

Adding a suggestion box for nation names to keep on the 'reserved' list would be great, too. If we can manage to justify keeping them dead with a sprinkling of forum links, wiki articles and heart string-pulling prose

From the Sports RPing (and particularly the World Cup's) perspective*, there are a number of nations (or rather their users) who have done notable things in the past (we've been keeping records for six years, dammit!) and have since CTE'd that it would be odd to see running around again, even if it was nothing to do with the new forum seven's antics.



* Yes, it's true. Now you've given us our own forum, there's no stopping us sticking our oar in and bringing up our particular style of play in discussions whenever humanly possible!