Suggestion: Better management of ties in World Census Ranks

[He Qixin]

https://www.nationstates.net/nation=he_ ... censusid=1

Right now, I seem to be part of a very large tie for first place in economy (100 in the economy index). I wonder if this could be better management of such ties, like putting "=(top rank for that index)" in the world ranks, or something else.

[Frisbeeteria]

Exactly how to you propose "better management" for ties? Having a score of 100 seems pretty obvious to me. Why would we need to explain that further?

[Aclion]

Exactly how to you propose "better management" for ties? Having a score of 100 seems pretty obvious to me. Why would we need to explain that further?

In one of the recent betas Authoritarianism was changed from Stalins to Millistalins to make it harder to have a value of 0. Could the stats for enonomy(and the ideocube stats as well) be changed to measure to the hundredths, so instead of a bunch of people tied at 100 you'd have a range from 99.00-100.00?

[Pencil Sharpeners 2]

Authoritarianism still has a large tie at the top (170+ nations). I doubt any scaling or precision changes to economy would help, because most of the nations at 100 are solidly at that value.
Maybe the best way to do it would be to continue to track economic improvements past 100. Kinda like tax rate, but the visible stat stops at 100 and any improvements beyond that are hidden but still affect World ranking. I think that's how it used to be, since prior to the big 2016 update, the nations which ranked the highest for economy were those who also had high industrial ranks, like The Grendels, Nak Nak, and Little Flowers, even though all were shown to have a value of 100.

EDIT: This is the last time it was ranked prior to the 2016 change: https://web.archive.org/web/20160123192 ... page=world
As you can see, those at the top are there because they are economic powerhouses, rather than because they've got a low ID number. I've no idea how that ranking was tracked though (beyond 100), or whether it's possible to go back to that method.

[[violet]]

Wow, that's quite a logjam!

I've added Beta 016: Extended Economy, which allows your Economic Efficiency rating to exceed 100 for tie-breaking purposes. Nations with scores below 100 are unaffected.

e: This is a return to what we did before, as described above by Pencil Sharpeners 2. During the big rankings overhaul in 2016, we started using the displayed value, which is capped at 100, instead of the underlying value, which can go higher.

[He Qixin]

Wow, that's quite a logjam!

I've added Beta 016: Extended Economy, which allows your Economic Efficiency rating to exceed 100 for tie-breaking purposes. Nations with scores below 100 are unaffected.

e: This is a return to what we did before, as described above by Pencil Sharpeners 2. During the big rankings overhaul in 2016, we started using the displayed value, which is capped at 100, instead of the underlying value, which can go higher.

But then, at the nation descriptor, we need to create higher levels of economy beyond "Frightening". Also, what would be the limit after the beta?

[[violet]]

Why would we need a new descriptor?

There would be no theoretical limit, but in practice it's super difficult to exceed 103.

[He Qixin 2]

Wow, mine would increase from 100 to 100.01!

[He Qixin 2]

Wow, mine would increase from 100 to 100.01!

Why would we need a new descriptor?

There would be no theoretical limit, but in practice it's super difficult to exceed 103.

Really? Like how difficult?

[[violet]]

Super.

[Azurius]

Authoritarianism still has a large tie at the top (170+ nations). I doubt any scaling or precision changes to economy would help, because most of the nations at 100 are solidly at that value.
Maybe the best way to do it would be to continue to track economic improvements past 100. Kinda like tax rate, but the visible stat stops at 100 and any improvements beyond that are hidden but still affect World ranking. I think that's how it used to be, since prior to the big 2016 update, the nations which ranked the highest for economy were those who also had high industrial ranks, like The Grendels, Nak Nak, and Little Flowers, even though all were shown to have a value of 100.

EDIT: This is the last time it was ranked prior to the 2016 change: https://web.archive.org/web/20160123192 ... page=world
As you can see, those at the top are there because they are economic powerhouses, rather than because they've got a low ID number. I've no idea how that ranking was tracked though (beyond 100), or whether it's possible to go back to that method.

This is definitely false. If so nations like mine would have been long in the top 1%. My economy rating always dumps around 4700. Previously around 5000 maybe... it never changes much no matter what. happens and how much income and industrial output I amass.

Industrial output is high thanks to a first medium and now a relatively small government, timewise taxes were radically lower too, and yet my economic rating stayed the same. Re-introducing high levels of business subsidation made no change either.

Economy past 100 in the world census index remains a mystery to me(now as well as before 2016), not like I ever paid too much attention to it, rather to other stats especially average income and industrial output.

Also to my understanding, it´s capped at 100 because it marks 100% of theorethical output, that is how it worked in the older systems. It definitely uses a similiar sheme too even now, since as economy goes up so does average income rise or fall drastically with it too. This stops once you reach the upper levels and finally 100(%).

An overhaul like that is indeed much needed. Although it does nothing else then more accurately display the economy and statwise shouldn´t change anything else either. Unless we want to tackle that issue at some point. Also, a new name distributor would be uneccessary too in my opinion, frightining aka 100 points is pretty much the maximum you can expect to get in a theorethical multiverse.

[Hyosung]

Authoritarianism still has a large tie at the top (170+ nations). I doubt any scaling or precision changes to economy would help, because most of the nations at 100 are solidly at that value.

Authoritarianism ties will never be broken like this method presented because you use to be able to create nations with the max level of authoritarianism, like this nation. Ever since the change to nation creation I am not sure if one is still able to however.

[He Qixin]

Okay, then you should also create:
Extended Civil Rights and
Extended Political Freedom.

[[violet]]

Beta has been updated to address tie-breaking on the bottom end of the scale as well.

Proposed Change: Allow Economic Efficiency rating to exceed 0-100, reverting to the system used pre-2016. Nations with scores between 0-100 are unaffected. This fixes a problem with very large numbers of nations hitting either extreme and not tie-breaking sensibly. There will be no theoretical lower/upper limit, but the plausible min/max is around -5/105. Nations' Economy rating on their front page and default Trend page are unaffected.

[He Qixin]

Beta has been updated to address tie-breaking on the bottom end of the scale as well.

Proposed Change: Allow Economic Efficiency rating to exceed 0-100, reverting to the system used pre-2016. Nations with scores between 0-100 are unaffected. This fixes a problem with very large numbers of nations hitting either extreme and not tie-breaking sensibly. There will be no theoretical lower/upper limit, but the plausible min/max is around -5/105. Nations' Economy rating on their front page and default Trend page are unaffected.

For the beta, is there a way to supersede the corruption beta because I have very high levels of corruption.

Also,

Proposed Change: Normally, less political freedom is associated with greater government corruption. This beta reverses that effect for legislation that specifically restricts the influence of money in government. It also includes Renormalization (beta 013), which monotonically increases all nations' scores that lie between 1.2 and 40.0.

Do you mean 100% reversed? No. I believe it should be just 50% reversed, because I have seen some nations with high political freedom AND high corruption at the same time. And some nations who supposedly have low political freedom and low corruption at the same time. I feel that's partially unfair.

I believe, yes, it should have been implemented, but you should state "to let corruption also be affected by the restriction of the influence of money in government as well as political freedom". I'm happy with that. Will you set up a new beta to address that problem eventually?

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Okay, then you should also create:
Extended Civil Rights and
Extended Political Freedom.

Violet will correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that the underlying calculations here actually DO cap out at 0 and 100, so there's no extension of displayed values possible without changing the underlying number.

The difference here is that while Economic Freedom is a 0-100 like political freedom and civil rights, Economy =/= Economic freedom.

[Aclion]

Okay, then you should also create:
Extended Civil Rights and
Extended Political Freedom.

Violet will correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that the underlying calculations here actually DO cap out at 0 and 100, so there's no extension of displayed values possible without changing the underlying number.

The difference here is that while Economic Freedom is a 0-100 like political freedom and civil rights, Economy =/= Economic freedom.

That's unfortunate

[Esmerel]

I’m just stating my support for this beta. It grows tiring to wake up to a list of nations ranked by conomic strength and see the better part of 10,000 of them tied for first.

[[violet]]

Violet will correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that the underlying calculations here actually DO cap out at 0 and 100, so there's no extension of displayed values possible without changing the underlying number.

The difference here is that while Economic Freedom is a 0-100 like political freedom and civil rights, Economy =/= Economic freedom.

Yep, this is correct.

It would be possible to extend Civil Rights and Political Freedom (and Economic Freedom) by doing something similar to Beta 008a and tie-breaking on relevant policies. But that would be a new system, whereas this Beta is simply not truncating extreme values any more.

[Pencil Sharpeners 2]

Beta has been updated to address tie-breaking on the bottom end of the scale as well.

Proposed Change: Allow Economic Efficiency rating to exceed 0-100, reverting to the system used pre-2016. Nations with scores between 0-100 are unaffected. This fixes a problem with very large numbers of nations hitting either extreme and not tie-breaking sensibly. There will be no theoretical lower/upper limit, but the plausible min/max is around -5/105. Nations' Economy rating on their front page and default Trend page are unaffected.

Ooh, it works for nations at 0 too? Interesting. I've found a couple of nations above 105 (Little Flowers and ABU AMMAR), now let's see if there are any below -5...

[He Qixin]

It seems like this beta is already in the "Final Call" status.

1) When will this beta be implemented?
2) When will the other current betas be implemented?

[Candlewhisper Archive]

It seems like this beta is already in the "Final Call" status.

1) When will this beta be implemented?
2) When will the other current betas be implemented?

Violet is a busy goddess.

I understand she approves of human sacrifice though, so if you have any schoolmates that you don't like anymore...

[[violet]]

It seems like this beta is already in the "Final Call" status.

1) When will this beta be implemented?
2) When will the other current betas be implemented?

Betas get implemented once there's been enough time for review and it seems like all issues & concerns have been addressed. In most cases, I will also save them up until I can implement a batch at once, so there's only a small number of particular days when your stats might change due to a beta.

For this one in particular, though, it's very simple and just returns to our previous ranking system, so it will probably drop soon.

[Azurius]

Okay, then you should also create:
Extended Civil Rights and
Extended Political Freedom.

I personaly object here because:

1: Civil rights and political freedom when maxed out, are "corrupted" literaly, to the core, already. Makes sense too, absolute freedom, aka no laws at all, allows for pure and primitive anarchy. In pure and primitive anarchy the freedom of each person easily overrides and intereferes with their freedom and vice versa... Also quite a chaotic situation too. Anyway, that then is literaly corrupted and maxed out in my oppinion. Whilst, especially in a multiverse, economies can keep growing and so should their economic rating as well. Whilst with civil rights and political freedoms... at some point there is total anarchy, aka no laws at all, and it cannot go any further then that. By then it only affects other parameters with every further option you take, but it cannot create more anarchy then already absolute anarchy in 1 or both areas.

And even in a non-mulitiverse scenario economies could keep growing, albeit slower, more environmentaly taxed etc. or with rising technologies like transmutation where you can theorethicaly if perfected turn enough amount of any waste element into a desired one(not easy and costly though mind you, raw mining of resources still remains cheaper then any attempts of large scale transmutation, this of course will change over time, but right now that´s how it is)... Anyway even in a projected world as ours we could sustain economic growth and keep piling it up, if done and executed properly and albeit of course slower then our current, destructive and exploiting manner of economic growth, which will sooner or later come to an end anyway but that´s a diferent topic... It makes sense for economic output, growth rate etc. to possibly ever go up, but not for civil rights or political freedoms which are simply maxed logicaly out at some point, you cannot go beyond 100% pure anarchy, that´s an impossibility. You can however pretty easily extend your economy beyond your current 100% in historical achievement.

2: Also, I have only seen few nations ever reach 100 points in these areas, let alone their ability to go beyond that... But okay maybe merely for ranking purposes if one fancies such a thing, I get that totally. The problem is it makes really no logical sense at all, vice versa, it becomes illogic at this point. Understand that NS tries to keep the simulation as logical and acurate as possible, this simply directly goes against what NS team and staff try to accomplish(who overall, do a really great job)

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Okay, then you should also create:
Extended Civil Rights and
Extended Political Freedom.

I personaly object here because:

You don't need to object. Read the posts that follow, and you'll see that Violet and myself have confirmed that these things can't be implemented anyway.