Time to stop approval raiding.

[WayNeacTia]

has approval raiding become a big enough issue to meet admin's normally-lofty requirements for something to be done about it?

i doubt it.

No, but it is something to whine about, because someones proposal was targeted. Approval raiding is politics and nothing more. I am guessing the whole "Political Simulation" is lost on some people. Anywho, I somehow don't foresee the mods intervening in it. Of course I have been wrong several times.

[Unibot III]

I understand the frustration with this but an easier solution would be to punish those who disregard the fair and democratic nature of the World Assembly and its institutions by freezing them out of its processes.

You would need a defender-oriented alternative to WALL, which nobody seems interested in creating.

[Comfed]

The WA is a political institution, not a democracy.

[Wallenburg]

I'm not comparing the organizations, I'm comparing their actions. I welcome positive change, but I'm sure you're smart enough to understand that the more acceptable Approval Raiding becomes to the public eye, the worse off the World Assembly at large is.

I think you give the World Assembly far less credit than it deserves. Additional factors like so many other political aspects of the GA/SC add challenges to any author. This is just another one and I am confident of players' ability to overcome them. I have already noted fairly straightforward, doable solutions to limit the effects. If and when quorum raiding regularly stops proposals from reaching vote, then I would say a conversation would be warranted. Until that point, there is opportunity to think through accessibility as a whole.

Now that approval raiding is apparently a weekly occurrence, it's time to have an actual conversation about this, instead of intentionally burying the conversation in a half-dead Technical thread?

[The Python]

I think you give the World Assembly far less credit than it deserves. Additional factors like so many other political aspects of the GA/SC add challenges to any author. This is just another one and I am confident of players' ability to overcome them. I have already noted fairly straightforward, doable solutions to limit the effects. If and when quorum raiding regularly stops proposals from reaching vote, then I would say a conversation would be warranted. Until that point, there is opportunity to think through accessibility as a whole.

Now that approval raiding is apparently a weekly occurrence, it's time to have an actual conversation about this, instead of intentionally burying the conversation in a half-dead Technical thread?

First, quick bump since I agree that this is an important discussion (even though it is already the first post on the Technical Forum)

Second, I do agree with Honeydewistania that the best solution would be a technical solution, such as where delegates who lose their delegacies have their votes last for 12 hours. A rules-type solution would take longer to enforce.

[Jakker]

Now that approval raiding is apparently a weekly occurrence, it's time to have an actual conversation about this, instead of intentionally burying the conversation in a half-dead Technical thread?

Anyone is welcomed to continue the conversation at any time. Having a variety of perspectives is good with technical discussions.

The mods have been talking about this. One idea that has gained traction to increase accessibility across the WA would be after authors submit a proposal, they would be prompted to be able to send a campaign telegram for free. This would hopefully reduce some of the financial burden that can be involved with campaign telegrams as well as help new authors who may not have the cultural capital to know that they need to send a telegram to get approvals or may not understand the API, etc. There would hopefully be a template that walks through the content to include like an option to share the link of the forum thread (which would hopefully also encourage more forum threads to be posted/engagement in the forum area).

We would want to make sure that it does not lead to spammy telegrams. Probably would make sense for this to not trigger until the proposal is ruled as legal. Other considerations are to require a certain number of approvals before they can send the telegram or after a certain period of time after submission. Any thoughts/ideas of how best to reduce the possibility of spam while still ensuring an increase of accessibility would be appreciated.

[Parxland]

What needs to happen is the people running the feeder regions need a solid boot up the ass for making approval raiding popular, especially the west pacific and the pacific, besides the latter just doing sketchy shit in general.

Punish the people that made this griefing acceptable, and set an example that few are going to ignore.

[The Python]

Now that approval raiding is apparently a weekly occurrence, it's time to have an actual conversation about this, instead of intentionally burying the conversation in a half-dead Technical thread?

Anyone is welcomed to continue the conversation at any time. Having a variety of perspectives is good with technical discussions.

The mods have been talking about this. One idea that has gained traction to increase accessibility across the WA would be after authors submit a proposal, they would be prompted to be able to send a campaign telegram for free. This would hopefully reduce some of the financial burden that can be involved with campaign telegrams as well as help new authors who may not have the cultural capital to know that they need to send a telegram to get approvals or may not understand the API, etc. There would hopefully be a template that walks through the content to include like an option to share the link of the forum thread (which would hopefully also encourage more forum threads to be posted/engagement in the forum area).

We would want to make sure that it does not lead to spammy telegrams. Probably would make sense for this to not trigger until the proposal is ruled as legal. Other considerations are to require a certain number of approvals before they can send the telegram or after a certain period of time after submission. Any thoughts/ideas of how best to reduce the possibility of spam while still ensuring an increase of accessibility would be appreciated.

That is a good idea, Jakker. I've never authored a WA resolution before but I can imagine that having to buy stamps to promote a resolution would be annoying for WA resolution authors, and especially for people such as Honeydewistania who write WA resolutions quite often.

I still think that there should be a limitation or automatic control that makes it harder to approval raid (as well as the idea of free campaign tg's). From a defender perspective, it can also be harder to stop approval raids than say, tag raids, because for example via chasing, one doesn't know whether the native delegate was for or against the WA proposal.

On free campaigning and spam: My idea is that there could be a button or a link or something that automatically appears when sending campaign telegrams (similar to the "Move (nation) to (region)" button that appears on recruitment telegrams). It would not rule out the possibility of using free campaign telegrams for spam, but would make it easier for example, for spam campaign telegrams to be reported to the mods.

[Comfed]

Now that approval raiding is apparently a weekly occurrence, it's time to have an actual conversation about this, instead of intentionally burying the conversation in a half-dead Technical thread?

Anyone is welcomed to continue the conversation at any time. Having a variety of perspectives is good with technical discussions.

The mods have been talking about this. One idea that has gained traction to increase accessibility across the WA would be after authors submit a proposal, they would be prompted to be able to send a campaign telegram for free. This would hopefully reduce some of the financial burden that can be involved with campaign telegrams as well as help new authors who may not have the cultural capital to know that they need to send a telegram to get approvals or may not understand the API, etc. There would hopefully be a template that walks through the content to include like an option to share the link of the forum thread (which would hopefully also encourage more forum threads to be posted/engagement in the forum area).

We would want to make sure that it does not lead to spammy telegrams. Probably would make sense for this to not trigger until the proposal is ruled as legal. Other considerations are to require a certain number of approvals before they can send the telegram or after a certain period of time after submission. Any thoughts/ideas of how best to reduce the possibility of spam while still ensuring an increase of accessibility would be appreciated.

I would definitely support this - it would make the WA more accessible to newcomers/people who don’t have money for stamps.

What needs to happen is the people running the feeder regions need a solid boot up the ass for making approval raiding popular, especially the west pacific and the pacific, besides the latter just doing sketchy shit in general.

Punish the people that made this griefing acceptable, and set an example that few are going to ignore.

As far as I know, nothing about this is illegal. People doing “bad” things IC has been happening for almost all of NS.

[Xoriet]

What needs to happen is the people running the feeder regions need a solid boot up the ass for making approval raiding popular, especially the west pacific and the pacific, besides the latter just doing sketchy shit in general.

Punish the people that made this griefing acceptable, and set an example that few are going to ignore.

Sorry, but who are you exactly? Other than someone who on this nation has no understanding of us - or any standing in general.

The Pacific only hit proposals by or in support of fascists and tries to target regions that are sketchy themselves when possible, which is consistent with our general military policy. We also hardly were responsible for it gaining traction.

[Unibot III]

So first Jakker was denying it's a problem. Now he is saying it is a problem, and the way to resolve it is to make it cheaper to spam WA Delegates (which will just encourage more WA Delegates to deselect WA Campaigning when the WA Campaigns increase). I can't help but think this is the worst possible outcome of this forum thread. It's a completely indirect way of responding to approval raiding and undermines the WA.

Is the goal here to protect approval raiding or limit it is as a nuisance? Jakker's goal seems to protect approval raiding at any cost - first denying it's a problem, then proposing a non-solution with obvious negative side-effects. The more campaign ads there are, the less they'll be read, and the more WA Delegates will switch off from following them altogether.

What about putting an influence cost on reversing approvals? The Influence System is always how we've limited invading in the past. This way a tagging group would need to be large enough (or the leads would have to be plants) to overcome the intial influence cost of reversing an approval. It also limits how many proposals you could impact in one update by approval raiding with each delegacy, because each reversal would drain your influence.

EDIT: The admins would ask, what size of invader force is unusually large for a tagging operation these days? Five? Six? And then you reverse engineer an influence cost for reversing approvals that is slightly above the influence that such a delegate would be expected to have.

Or you could change the queue's rules so that once a proposal is in the queue, it's permenantly in the queue (approvals locked in)...

There's lots of ways that haven't been discussed that could be pursued to reduce the effectiveness of approval raiding, but NS Moderation seems to want to avoid limiting approval raiding in favour of answers that would have deleterious effects on the WA.

A spam-based solution isn't an actual solution, it'd just be a new problem.

[The Python]

So first Jakker was denying it's a problem. Now he is saying it is a problem, and the way to resolve it is to make it cheaper to spam WA Delegates (which will just encourage more WA Delegates to deselect WA Campaigning when the WA Campaigns increase). I can't help but think this is the worst possible outcome of this forum thread. It's a completely indirect way of responding to approval raiding and undermines the WA.

I disagree, there would be more users who would benefit from free campaigning than spammers. Spam campaigns would probably be reported to the mods, so I'm not too worried about that.

What about putting an influence cost on reversing approvals? The Influence System is always how we've limited invading in the past. This way a tagging group would need to be large enough (or the leads would have to be plants) to overcome the intial influence cost of reversing an approval. It also limits how many proposals you could impact in one update by approval raiding with each delegacy, because each reversal would drain your influence.

Yes, that would also be a good solution. The only issue with that is that bigger raider groups would find it easier to do that, but as you said, as long as the influence cost is high enough, then that would not be a problem.

[Jakker]

So first Jakker was denying it's a problem. Now he is saying it is a problem, and the way to resolve it is to make it cheaper to spam WA Delegates (which will just encourage more WA Delegates to deselect WA Campaigning when the WA Campaigns increase). I can't help but think this is the worst possible outcome of this forum thread. It's a completely indirect way of responding to approval raiding and undermines the WA.

Is the goal here to protect approval raiding or limit it is as a nuisance? Jakker's goal seems to protect approval raiding at any cost - first denying it's a problem, then proposing a non-solution with obvious negative side-effects. The more campaign ads there are, the less they'll be read, and the more WA Delegates will switch off from following them altogether.

What about putting an influence cost on reversing approvals? The Influence System is always how we've limited invading in the past. This way a tagging group would need to be large enough (or the leads would have to be plants) to overcome the intial influence cost of reversing an approval. It also limits how many proposals you could impact in one update by approval raiding with each delegacy, because each reversal would drain your influence.

EDIT: The admins would ask, what size of invader force is unusually large for a tagging operation these days? Five? Six? And then you reverse engineer an influence cost for reversing approvals that is slightly above the influence that such a delegate would be expected to have.

Or you could change the queue's rules so that once a proposal is in the queue, it's permenantly in the queue (approvals locked in)...

There's lots of ways that haven't been discussed that could be pursued to reduce the effectiveness of approval raiding, but NS Moderation seems to want to avoid limiting approval raiding in favour of answers that would have deleterious effects on the WA.

A spam-based solution isn't an actual solution, it'd just be a new problem.

Jakker is sharing an idea that was brought up during the conversation about this topic that several mods thought was solid. This idea goes beyond quorum/approval raiding and seeks to increase accessibility for proposal authors when it comes to the process. Doesn't mean that this is the end-all be-all with this discussion, but wanted to share something that has come up.

[The Python]

Jakker is sharing an idea that was brought up during the conversation about this topic that several mods thought was solid. This idea goes beyond quorum/approval raiding and seeks to increase accessibility for proposal authors when it comes to the process. Doesn't mean that this is the end-all be-all with this discussion, but wanted to share something that has come up.

It was a good idea, Jakker. I think it would be best if done together with a feature like an influence cost or a timer that makes it harder to approval raid.

[RiderSyl]

If there is going to be a solution to this, please don't have it affect other types of raiding.

[Sweeze]

tbh if anything approval raiding should be made easier to even better simulate RL politics where a small group of people can prevent any resolution from ever being passed, sounds like a good time to me

[The Python]

If there is going to be a solution to this, please don't have it affect other types of raiding.

Well an influence system might affect raiding if doing an occupation at the same time as an approval raid as the raiders will have less influence to eject natives if also approving/de-approving a WA proposal.

tbh if anything approval raiding should be made easier to even better simulate RL politics where a small group of people can prevent any resolution from ever being passed, sounds like a good time to me

I disagree. The WA is meant to be as democratic as possible and approval raiding undermines this nature (my views are biased as a defender, however)

[Kenmoria]

tbh if anything approval raiding should be made easier to even better simulate RL politics where a small group of people can prevent any resolution from ever being passed, sounds like a good time to me

That would be a hard pass from me. The issue is that the GA players in particular have no recourse unless they want to suddenly branch into Gameplay, which isn’t healthy for the state of the GA as a community. Unibot’s solutions seem reasonable, though they would mitigate the impact of standard counter-campaigns somewhat.

Although Jakker’s idea would make it easier to campaign, I don’t think the difficulty of campaigning has been an issue. I’ve always used API, and I don’t see how this would solve approval raiding. It might even make it harder to get approvals, if lots of delegates end up blocking WA telegrams because of an influx.

[The Python]

tbh if anything approval raiding should be made easier to even better simulate RL politics where a small group of people can prevent any resolution from ever being passed, sounds like a good time to me

That would be a hard pass from me. The issue is that the GA players in particular have no recourse unless they want to suddenly branch into Gameplay, which isn’t healthy for the state of the GA as a community. Unibot’s solutions seem reasonable, though they would mitigate the impact of standard counter-campaigns somewhat.

Although Jakker’s idea would make it easier to campaign, I don’t think the difficulty of campaigning has been an issue. I’ve always used API, and I don’t see how this would solve approval raiding. It might even make it harder to get approvals, if lots of delegates end up blocking WA telegrams because of an influx.

Good point, it is definitely true that the GA should not be too mixed with R/D. I still think that one should get free campaign telegrams after writing resolutions (even though it still wouldn't solve approval raiding on its own)

[Comfed]

tbh if anything approval raiding should be made easier to even better simulate RL politics where a small group of people can prevent any resolution from ever being passed, sounds like a good time to me

I disagree. The WA is meant to be as democratic as possible and approval raiding undermines this nature (my views are biased as a defender, however)

Uh... no it’s not, because if it were then we wouldn’t have this delegate vote system we have now, despite repeated suggestions for change.

[The Python]

I disagree. The WA is meant to be as democratic as possible and approval raiding undermines this nature (my views are biased as a defender, however)

Uh... no it’s not, because if it were then we wouldn’t have this delegate vote system we have now, despite repeated suggestions for change.

But delegates are at least supposed to be elected (though these days they're not always). Yes the election system is not perfect, and it could be more democratic, but approval raiding make the system even less democratic.

[Kenmoria]

Uh... no it’s not, because if it were then we wouldn’t have this delegate vote system we have now, despite repeated suggestions for change.

But delegates are at least supposed to be elected (though these days they're not always). Yes the election system is not perfect, and it could be more democratic, but approval raiding make the system even less democratic.

The delegate system isn’t generally opposed by GA players, because delegates still vote on the content of the proposal, barring exceptions that vote against everything. The issue with approval raiding is that there is, from a GA perspective, no counter. It doesn’t matter how good a piece of legislation is, it will still require the same amount of effort from raiders in order to known it down.

Why I, and a lot of other GAers, oppose approval raiding is not because it makes the game less democratic, but because it has the potential to make the GA game less fun. The point of the metagame is to write good proposals, not to try to build ties with defenders. Although NS is a game built around innovation, for example the entire R&D metagame, approval raiding has the potential to render a key aspect of the game irrelevant, since quality doesn’t impact raiding.

I am, of course, being hyperbolic. However, the message I’m trying to convey is that approval raiding harms the state of the GA, which isn’t good for the players of that game. Likewise, there isn’t much being added to R&D by this, since defenders have not been able to prevent approval raiding. Even if they are, that would just make the GA another organ of R&D, which doesn’t particularly benefit the GA. Hence, I do think a solution is necessary.

[Makdon]

tbh if anything approval raiding should be made easier to even better simulate RL politics where a small group of people can prevent any resolution from ever being passed, sounds like a good time to me

"Let's introduce filibustering to the WA"

The WA is a political institution, not a democracy.

idk if you are aware, but being democratic and being political are not opposing things or mutually exclusive. The WA is obviously political, and that's entirely irrelevant to discussion of whether it's democratic.

More seriously, I do think that approval raiding could do with some sort of nerf. All of the suggestions listed seem to have some sort of consequence that makes it much easier to force a proposal to queue or otherwise hinders the approval system from functioning well. The only one that doesn't do this in my opinion is the most recent one, by and Unibot. Jakker's proposal (and I don't mean to insinuate that's it solely his idea, that he's somehow trying to push some agenda, or anything else, just that he's the one who voiced it) doesn't really seem to solve the problem, and I think the reality is that it will lead to more spam and less attention from delegates to campaign tgs, potentially actually making it harder to get a proposal to queue, without actually addressing approval raiding at all. Unibot's proposal solves the problem without any unintended consequence without making it completely impossible to quorum, in my opinion a reasonable suggestion, and it's hard to see any way in which it could be abused or affect anything outside of approvals.

[Comfed]

I think that approval raiding is a perfectly legitimate tool to use - against SC proposals.

I'm less sure about the GA - the GA is supposed to be about writing good proposals, not politics. I think that a system where delegate approvals are locked in for GA proposals is a good idea, but not for SC proposals.

[Jakker]

More seriously, I do think that approval raiding could do with some sort of nerf. All of the suggestions listed seem to have some sort of consequence that makes it much easier to force a proposal to queue or otherwise hinders the approval system from functioning well. The only one that doesn't do this in my opinion is the most recent one, by and Unibot. Jakker's proposal (and I don't mean to insinuate that's it solely his idea, that he's somehow trying to push some agenda, or anything else, just that he's the one who voiced it) doesn't really seem to solve the problem, and I think the reality is that it will lead to more spam and less attention from delegates to campaign tgs, potentially actually making it harder to get a proposal to queue, without actually addressing approval raiding at all. Unibot's proposal solves the problem without any unintended consequence without making it completely impossible to quorum, in my opinion a reasonable suggestion, and it's hard to see any way in which it could be abused or affect anything outside of approvals.

The idea I shared is more intended to increase accessibility as a whole as I said. There are a lot of proposals that come through and are legal, but do not have a chance of making it to vote because newer players likely do not know that you basically have to send campaign telegrams to get approvals nowadays. Furthermore, a lot of proposals are submitted that have not been posted on the subforums. The idea would hope to help both of those entities (more so the former). As we are discussing WA dynamics, there is value in considering big picture elements that could benefit authors as a whole which I think this would do.

With that said, it may not directly address some of the impacts of approval/quorum raiding, but it does help a bit with the financial burden. Authors will get to send a campaign telegram that is essentially set up for them for free. I'm not sure of the statistics but I imagine several authors send campaign telegrams via stamps. I imagine it might even be possible to give authors the agency to decide when they want to use that free telegram. So they can decide to do it early on the process or hold off in case approvals drop because of quorum raiding and then use it later.

In regards to the concern about delegates receiving more telegrams, I would say that by making the process of sending campaign telegrams more accessible, it will naturally lead to a bit more. I don't suspect that it will be so much that a significant number of delegates will decide to block the messages. I think many of the delegates who receive campaign telegrams appreciate getting them and the role they, as delegates, play in the WA process. From my experience, telegram fatigue/pushback has more so happened with WA:all telegrams since you don't anticipate receiving campaigns just because you are in the WA.