Issues/Nation Management Tech Development

[Bears Armed]

An update: the current project is images related; we've just added around 350 images to our pool to select from - these are being added as "Headline" images to some of our issues to give more variety. We've just started work on increasing the number of unlockable banners too; that will likely take a few weeks as we all come up with and refine ideas for them, but once that's complete, implementation is simple.

If anyone has suggestions for achievements that could unlock further banners, feel free to make them in this thread.

There are already banners for having answered [at least] certain numbers of different issues, but AFAIK the largest number of issues currently commemorated in this way is 300: Bearing in mind the increased size of the issues pool since that was introduced, maybe it's now time to add another e.g. "Answer 500 Issues"?

[Lord Dominator]

An update: the current project is images related; we've just added around 350 images to our pool to select from - these are being added as "Headline" images to some of our issues to give more variety. We've just started work on increasing the number of unlockable banners too; that will likely take a few weeks as we all come up with and refine ideas for them, but once that's complete, implementation is simple.

If anyone has suggestions for achievements that could unlock further banners, feel free to make them in this thread.

There are already banners for having answered [at least] certain numbers of different issues, but AFAIK the largest number of issues currently commemorated in this way is 300: Bearing in mind the increased size of the issues pool since that was introduced, maybe it's now time to add another e.g. "Answer 500 Issues"?

Incidentally, is that a total issues or unique issues?

[Dabarastan]

An update: the current project is images related; we've just added around 350 images to our pool to select from - these are being added as "Headline" images to some of our issues to give more variety. We've just started work on increasing the number of unlockable banners too; that will likely take a few weeks as we all come up with and refine ideas for them, but once that's complete, implementation is simple.

If anyone has suggestions for achievements that could unlock further banners, feel free to make them in this thread.

There are already banners for having answered [at least] certain numbers of different issues, but AFAIK the largest number of issues currently commemorated in this way is 300: Bearing in mind the increased size of the issues pool since that was introduced, maybe it's now time to add another e.g. "Answer 500 Issues"?

Happy for this to be split into a separate thread if we're going to start discussing it but I'm also wondering if all the images used by the site for the banners/newspapers need to be copyright/royalty-free? Must be difficult to source big enough images with these constraints.

[Sanctaria]

There are already banners for having answered [at least] certain numbers of different issues, but AFAIK the largest number of issues currently commemorated in this way is 300: Bearing in mind the increased size of the issues pool since that was introduced, maybe it's now time to add another e.g. "Answer 500 Issues"?

Happy for this to be split into a separate thread if we're going to start discussing it but I'm also wondering if all the images used by the site for the banners/newspapers need to be copyright/royalty-free? Must be difficult to source big enough images with these constraints.

Max has very generously told the editing team if we ever come across a couple of images from somewhere like Shutterstock where we absolutely have to have them, he'd be happy to help us there. As it happens though, we're generally able to find what we need on engines that return free images, so it's not a problem that's overly concerning.

[Bears Armed]

There are already banners for having answered [at least] certain numbers of different issues, but AFAIK the largest number of issues currently commemorated in this way is 300: Bearing in mind the increased size of the issues pool since that was introduced, maybe it's now time to add another e.g. "Answer 500 Issues"?

Incidentally, is that a total issues or unique issues?

Unique.

[Paffnia]

If anyone has suggestions for achievements that could unlock further banners, feel free to make them in this thread.

Completing each major issue chain? ("Completing" defined however)

[Indusse]

If anyone has suggestions for achievements that could unlock further banners, feel free to make them in this thread.

I don't know if this exists, what about a banner which can be unlocked when a nation is in the top 1% of all industry sectors?

[Krusavich]

If anyone has suggestions for achievements that could unlock further banners, feel free to make them in this thread.

I was always surprised there wasn't a banner for handing over the economy to the AI. A SAL 9000 eye for a banner would be quite ominous

[Sedgistan]

Banners for more issues answered is on the agenda already. One for chains we're looking into - it's not as simple as you would hope, but I think it should be doable. AI economy sounds like a good idea too.

[Lord Dominator]

If anyone has suggestions for achievements that could unlock further banners, feel free to make them in this thread.

I don't know if this exists, what about a banner which can be unlocked when a nation is in the top 1% of all industry sectors?

If you mean by individual industries, I’m not sure any nations actually have that (or of there are, it’s vanishingly few I’d bet)

[Paffnia]

If anyone has suggestions for achievements that could unlock further banners, feel free to make them in this thread.

- Place #1/in the top 10/in the top 100/etc. for any census ranking (not suggesting a banner for each ranking, to be clear)
- In lieu of this suggestion: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=489934, a banner for each Easter egg issue (I know there's one for answering a certain number of Easter eggs issues, but maybe one for each particular issue?)

[Lizzy Grant]

Is it just me or have some of the "headline" images been replaced with new images...? I feel as if I've seen at least two new ones when answering issues this morning

[Sedgistan]

Is it just me or have some of the "headline" images been replaced with new images...? I feel as if I've seen at least two new ones when answering issues this morning

Not just you:

An update: the current project is images related; we've just added around 350 images to our pool to select from - these are being added as "Headline" images to some of our issues to give more variety. We've just started work on increasing the number of unlockable banners too; that will likely take a few weeks as we all come up with and refine ideas for them, but once that's complete, implementation is simple.

If anyone has suggestions for achievements that could unlock further banners, feel free to make them in this thread.

[Sedgistan]

Is it possible to have your ranking on a stat display on more than just your page and the first page?

IE, for instance I sometimes do comparison of my very low stats to the other lowest ones, and it’d be nice if my rank/score would display on those pages.

I didn't miss this, was just hoping for some more feedback on it. I can see how it would be useful; I'd certainly make use of it when looking at some of my my extreme stats. Would others find it useful? Are there any downsides to it?

[Sacara]

I didn't know if this warrants its own thread or not, so I'm putting it here and a mod can split if it should have been in the first place.

I've had my capital set on this nation as 'Westrock Station' for a long time, but just today I realized the title of my dilemma paper does something rather strange... I've put a screenshot of it in the spoiler below.

The font used for the title of the dilemma paper is UnifrakturCook. The lowercase k of the font doesn't really look like a 'k' at all, imo. And, when it is behind a 'c', it merges together and almost looks like the letter d squared. This is no fault of NationStates; that's just how the font is.

My question is: is there a way we can change the font? While I like the current one, there are other blackletter fonts that could be used without the messy look. A couple I found on Google Fonts include: Germania One, New Rocker, and Pirata One. There are other commercial-free ones online that could be added as well, but I just wanted to point this out and see if it is even feasible that admins address this.

[Dabarastan]

I didn't know if this warrants its own thread or not, so I'm putting it here and a mod can split if it should have been in the first place.

I've had my capital set on this nation as 'Westrock Station' for a long time, but just today I realized the title of my dilemma paper does something rather strange... I've put a screenshot of it in the spoiler below.

(Image)

The font used for the title of the dilemma paper is UnifrakturCook. The lowercase k of the font doesn't really look like a 'k' at all, imo. And, when it is behind a 'c', it merges together and almost looks like the letter d squared. This is no fault of NationStates; that's just how the font is.

My question is: is there a way we can change the font? While I like the current one, there are other blackletter fonts that could be used without the messy look. A couple I found on Google Fonts include: Germania One, New Rocker, and Pirata One. There are other commercial-free ones online that could be added as well, but I just wanted to point this out and see if it is even feasible that admins address this.

It's so funny you mention this - I'm not sure if the font has always been like this or not but I only noticed it myself for the first time yesterday. I saw one of my puppets (Sabalenka) has The Sabalenfa Leader:

https://i.imgur.com/OdhjFE8.png

I just assumed it's always been like this, is a quirk of the font, and I'd simply never noticed before.

[Tinhampton]

As an aside, I would note that the Latin capital letter A in the actual newspaper headlines (the ones written in serif, not in blackletter) looks an awful lot like the Greek capital letter Λ - partially because the horizontal line in the letter A is barely visible.

[Merni]

As an aside, I would note that the Latin capital letter A in the actual newspaper headlines (the ones written in serif, not in blackletter) looks an awful lot like the Greek capital letter Λ - partially because the horizontal line in the letter A is barely visible.

I really doubt anyone is making that mistake -- there aren't many English words that start with lambda.

[Flanderlion]

I don't this warrants a thread given the number of requests in this thread, but feel free to split it out if you disagree. Give population a tiny effect on stats, so ties are broken easier, and also prevent new nations who haven't answered a single issue being #1 on a census, e.g. authoritarianism.

There are 160 nations who are all #1 for Authoritarianism. https://www.nationstates.net/page=list_ ... ensusid=53

Not all nations there have answered no issues, but the majority have (thanks to Val's analysis proving what I'd observed). One has answered over 2k, another 1.4k so the stat seems more capped than anything, but I don't think a nation should be tied for #1 in a stat if they've answered literally 0 issues. Also, I assume there will be similar issues where every nation that answered the default questions the same way all share the same exact stats.

[12:33 AM] Dearest Leader Samantha-Higgs: Ahh, okay. So here's some info, I hope this helps. :3

- As of Feb 2021, there were total of 232271 nations from my list.
- Out of these nations, 159 tied for the highest score for Auth.
- Out of these 159 nations, 97 nations never answered a single issue.

[Haganham]

come to think of it, should nations even get ranked if they haven't answered issues? I feel like a ranking is something you should need to earn.

[Sedgistan]

I haven't checked the code for it, but I'd think the neatest/easiest solution would be to tweak the results of the nation creation questions so that it's impossible to max out those scores without answering an issue.

The rankings have to include every nation; anything else sounds too complex/messy.

There's a separate question on tie-breaking when nations are level. I don't want stats tweaked on population, or that'll have to be processed every major update. At the moment, the tie-breaker is the nation's database ID number, which some lucky nations (like myself - #6) who have low numbers benefit from. I don't feel that population is a better tie-breaker, as that just favours old nations. Maybe we could query the number of issues answered first - that'd reward issues-answerers, and the rest would be split by DBID as before. Thoughts on that?

[Flanderlion]

I haven't checked the code for it, but I'd think the neatest/easiest solution would be to tweak the results of the nation creation questions so that it's impossible to max out those scores without answering an issue.

The rankings have to include every nation; anything else sounds too complex/messy.

There's a separate question on tie-breaking when nations are level. I don't want stats tweaked on population, or that'll have to be processed every major update. At the moment, the tie-breaker is the nation's database ID number, which some lucky nations (like myself - #6) who have low numbers benefit from. I don't feel that population is a better tie-breaker, as that just favours old nations. Maybe we could query the number of issues answered first - that'd reward issues-answerers, and the rest would be split by DBID as before. Thoughts on that?

1. Sounds ideal, exactly what I wanted.

2. Yeah, didn't think that was a realistic ask when others said it.

3. Fair. I think population is the only thing that makes IC sense as a split. I also think it rewards older players, but it could also reward younger nations instead, with a flat +0.00something based on when the nation was founded. Old nations would have near 0, while newer ones would have significantly more but still nothing noticeable. That way no processing would need to be done on inactive nations as the stat for that specific nation would remain static, just once during creation (to check the modifier).

Giant ties of nations with the same exact value I'm not a fan of. Obviously with influence in GCRs the cap exists, and other stats like endoes/DV will always have unavoidable giant ties, but otherwise I think big ties should be avoided.

--

Separately, does Authoritarianism have a hard cap? If so, could it be adjusted/made soft, as caps just result in problems like the Black Market had until the Beta fixed it and it looks like several legit nations have reached it.

Edit: Might be a CWA question more, I can ask in Writers Block if better.

[The Blaatschapen]

3. Fair. I think population is the only thing that makes IC sense as a split. I also think it rewards older players, but it could also reward younger nations instead, with a flat +0.00something based on when the nation was founded. Old nations would have near 0, while newer ones would have significantly more but still nothing noticeable. That way no processing would need to be done on inactive nations as the stat for that specific nation would remain static, just once during creation (to check the modifier).

Issue-answering makes IC sense as well as a split. A government that is actually actively engaged with governing the country should score higher. In the case of authoritarianism, more actively suppressing the population So I'm happy with the way sedge proposes it

[Flanderlion]

3. Fair. I think population is the only thing that makes IC sense as a split. I also think it rewards older players, but it could also reward younger nations instead, with a flat +0.00something based on when the nation was founded. Old nations would have near 0, while newer ones would have significantly more but still nothing noticeable. That way no processing would need to be done on inactive nations as the stat for that specific nation would remain static, just once during creation (to check the modifier).

Issue-answering makes IC sense as well as a split. A government that is actually actively engaged with governing the country should score higher. In the case of authoritarianism, more actively suppressing the population So I'm happy with the way sedge proposes it

I agree, but my concern with giant ties is more in the nations that don't answer issues. Ties in nations that do answer are a lot less frequent/don't clog up the rankings in the same way as the walls of nations with the exact same stat purely from the starter q's. The only super large ties in censuses of nations that do regularly answer issues are when the site imposes a hard limit on a stat that is too low, like how the black market used to be before it was fixed.

So like, Sedge's solution isn't a bad one, as it helps with small ties, but I don't think small ties are really an issue that need to be fixed. It's not unrealistic for 10 or so nations to have the same exact stat value. When it does become unrealistic is where it gets to hundreds of nations. Then it is pages and pages of nations with the exact same stat. Both circumstances where this occurs I mentioned above, but either from starter q's and no issues answered, or artificial caps on stats.

[Sedgistan]

It doesn't change that there might be a few hundred nations with the same stat. But at least at the top of the rankings in those measures, it'd be the issues-answerers in the first (many) spots. Also, if we can get that tweak done on starting questions, most of those "never answered issues" nations would be somewhere less significant in the rankings, rather than at the top/bottom ends.