Beta: Recreational Drug Use

[The Marsupial Illuminati]

New Drug Use Model

The Issues Editing team has come up with a new model for the Recreational Drug Use ranking. The current ranking is uncompetitive and has many nations tied for first place at the top, with older nations being ranked first by default. The new model seeks to avoid these ties. It is public knowledge that the current ranking is only based on civil rights, and the new 420 scale will also take civil rights into account. But crime is also a big part of the ranking now, along with other factors that are thought to contribute to higher or lower drug use. For example, high employment decreases drug use. Having the Prohibition policy decreases drug use, while having the Cannabis policy increases drug use.

[South Pacifican Kilendjj]

New Drug Use Model

The Issues Editing team has come up with a new model for the Recreational Drug Use ranking. The current ranking is uncompetitive and has many nations tied for first place at the top, with older nations being ranked first by default. The new model seeks to avoid these ties. It is public knowledge that the current ranking is only based on civil rights, and the new 420 scale will also take civil rights into account. But crime is also a big part of the ranking now, along with other factors that are thought to contribute to higher or lower drug use. For example, high employment decreases drug use. Having the Prohibition policy decreases drug use, while having the Cannabis policy increases drug use.

Woah good idea
NS shouldntve added that since da beginning

[Panagouge]

Good thinking, looking forward to it.

[Ankuran]

My rating's going to drop almost 60%, but that's the price you pay for top 0.3% Employment and almost no Crime.

[Comfed]

Mine will stay exactly the same but with an extra superfluous zero after the decimal point and the "4".

[Flanderlion]

Down by 81.7%. Looks good, and more betas/things happening with stats is always good. Not a stat I often pay attention to, but that tie for 1st place is atrocious and glad to see it's being addressed.

[Fhaengshia]

The Recreational Drug Use stat is one of the stats that feature the oppressive "Womble Wall". For those unaware, there are over 14000 Womble nations all created as anarchies with extreme stats that come solely through the nation creation process. The nations are not created for stats but for increasing the nation count of the region "Chicken Overlords". The Womble nations currently have a score of 116.40 and take up almost all the ranks from (as of writing) #3814 to #18689 (that is between 2% and 7%). Looking at the sample feature of this beta shows the new score for the Wombles as 371.37. As my score moves from 118.2 to 348.2, I would have quite some work to do to regain a 1% stat I thought I had been able to surpass the Wombles in previously. Is it possible there could be alterations so as not to provide a bias towards these extreme Womble nations that have never answered a single issue?

[Panagouge]

The Recreational Drug Use stat is one of the stats that feature the oppressive "Womble Wall". For those unaware, there are over 14000 Womble nations all created as anarchies with extreme stats that come solely through the nation creation process. The nations are not created for stats but for increasing the nation count of the region "Chicken Overlords". The Womble nations currently have a score of 116.40 and take up almost all the ranks from (as of writing) #3814 to #18689 (that is between 2% and 7%). Looking at the sample feature of this beta shows the new score for the Wombles as 371.37. As my score moves from 118.2 to 348.2, I would have quite some work to do to regain a 1% stat I thought I had been able to surpass the Wombles in previously. Is it possible there could be alterations so as not to provide a bias towards these extreme Womble nations that have never answered a single issue?

One idea that I've suggested in the past is that you must answer x number of issues before unlocking stats. Setting the bar at 6, which comes with Windswept banner, seems a reasonable number to me.

It'll solve future Wombles being created, but being retroactively applied would be a nightmare that might not happen.

[Bears Armed]

Huh. Mine, @ +257%, jumps right past the Wombles' new value... and it was slightly lower than theirs on the original/current scale: 114.8 => 410.00.

[The Orwell Society]

So... forcibly drugging my citizens will no longer make my civil rights go up?

[Comfed]

So... forcibly drugging my citizens will no longer make my civil rights go up?

I am pretty sure, as someone who has abused that issue on multiple occasions, that it does not make civil rights go up.

[The Orwell Society]

So... forcibly drugging my citizens will no longer make my civil rights go up?

I am pretty sure, as someone who has abused that issue on multiple occasions, that it does not make civil rights go up.

You are talking about option three of #878, right?

[Socialist Ancomistan]

This is a good start and I’m in full support of the change on Recreational Drug Use. I feel like the Political, Economic, and Personal Freedoms should also use a rework because the top nations in those categories have only done so by cherrypicking issues to get the 100% for said stats (Element of Surprise and Big Muddy of Please Walk Forward are good examples). Once they hit 100%, the nations have stopped answering issues altogether in fear of disrupting the max level. Maybe nations who haven’t answered enough issues can’t exceed a certain score for those stats, so nations that have religiously answered every single issue can get those top placements, like with most other stats.

[The Cordian Isles]

Like the improvement. Use doubled, which is interesting.

[Socialist Ancomistan]

One idea that I've suggested in the past is that you must answer x number of issues before unlocking stats. Setting the bar at 6, which comes with Windswept banner, seems a reasonable number to me.

I like that proposal, not just to make nations less uncompetitive, but to also provide a sense of accomplishment by unlocking new stats each time you answer issues, after starting a nation.

[Sedgistan]

Please don't use this thread to suggest other technical changes.

[Pencil Sharpeners 2]

Oh good, I like this idea. I briefly held world #1 under the pre-2018 model, so I have a soft spot for this ranking. However, since 2018 I've pretty much ignored it as a top ranking is unattainable for issue-answers. Not sure if I'll be anywhere near the top under this new model, but at least it will be put back on my list of stats to aim for.

[Czardas]

Tested a few of the (likely) highest-scoring nations (cashdeer, sedgistan, pencil sharpeners, etc) under the new beta and couldn't help noticing that they were all in the 420s. Cute.

Not sure if I'll be anywhere near the top under this new model, but at least it will be put back on my list of stats to aim for.

424.03 is the second-highest score I've seen when plugging in a random assortment of nations on the first two pages for Crime and Youth Rebelliousness and the 100th-110th pages for Civil Rights (first 99 pages all being people who've never answered more than one or two issues). Obviously haven't looked at every possible nation but I'm guessing you'd return to the top five-ish. There are not many people above 423.00, and then it apparently starts to get very crowded in the 422.00-422.99 range; I doubt I'd get anywhere above 250th for example.

[Valentine Z]

I'm not sure if this will be deemed very relevant, but will this beta drop alongside the other two betas / new stats?

[Sedgistan]

Probably not. The Marsupial Illuminati has done all the work for this one, so it's his own project that will go through when he's satisfied with it and it's signed off behind the scenes.

I don't recall off the top of my head who is championing the other two - their progress would be up to them.

[Valentine Z]

Probably not. The Marsupial Illuminati has done all the work for this one, so it's his own project that will go through when he's satisfied with it and it's signed off behind the scenes.

I don't recall off the top of my head who is championing the other two - their progress would be up to them.

Aye, that's fair enough. Thanks, Sedge!

[The Finntopian Empire]

amazing

[The Marsupial Illuminati]

Thank you all for your comments. Any more comments?

The Recreational Drug Use stat is one of the stats that feature the oppressive "Womble Wall". For those unaware, there are over 14000 Womble nations all created as anarchies with extreme stats that come solely through the nation creation process. The nations are not created for stats but for increasing the nation count of the region "Chicken Overlords". The Womble nations currently have a score of 116.40 and take up almost all the ranks from (as of writing) #3814 to #18689 (that is between 2% and 7%). Looking at the sample feature of this beta shows the new score for the Wombles as 371.37. As my score moves from 118.2 to 348.2, I would have quite some work to do to regain a 1% stat I thought I had been able to surpass the Wombles in previously. Is it possible there could be alterations so as not to provide a bias towards these extreme Womble nations that have never answered a single issue?

I sympathize, but the Womble problem is not a problem I am interested in addressing with this one particular stat. The ultimate fix for the Womble problem would probably require other technical changes, which are outside the scope of this project.

[Refuge Isle]

Thank you all for your comments. Any more comments?

I've run the sample test a few dozen times and see that there always seems to be a solid bar of results at 126.07 and 371.37. Out of the hundred results that are returned from these samples, some 25% may be in one of these two bars. Since the beta is focused on making the stats more competitive, is this of particular concern?

[Old Hope]

I made some "random nation" runs and my nation seems to be one of very few nations to actually lose stat points by this change.

And yes, there is some weird clustering; I see much less 200-300 nations but also very very few 40-100 nations