[Discussion] Onsite Internal Region Affairs/Management Forum

[RiderSyl]

This would also expand the more helpful side of the Gameplay forum (i.e. Advice Thread, Flag Thread), helping to reduce its toxicity.

That alone means this has my support. The Gameplay forum's activity relies on drama. Removing this rule will allow it to rely on something else. Something better.

[Blitzkeig]

I agree with this ntirely.

Their are regions that recruit with the phrase 'we have no offsite forums.' This would let them still do this while allowing them more space to conduct their activity.

[Finswedeway]

I have never in my year of being here have not even touched the gameplay thread. Perhaps something like this would get me interested.

And my axe!

[Warwick Z Codger]

In light of current discussion, I am bumping this thread.

It's worth noting that too, that the official gameplay explanation thread posted by a former NS staff member promotes offsite forums as a way to engage in gameplay.

So, basically, NS staff is encouraging people to create/join offsite forums, get harassed, and then are claiming they have no responsibility for the predators who are unrooted because those properties are not related to NS (??).

I'd say more, but I think it's all been said.

If you want to host a huge party at my house, but I tell you I can't accommodate you and point you in the direction of a Best Western, is the bill going to come to me if someone at the party trashes the hotel room? No, that's ridiculous.

We point to offsite specifically because it would be a logistical nightmare to allow 21k (ok, I know reasonably not every region would use the feature, it would still be large enough to be unfeasible) separate regional forums on site.

*ninja'd by Fris

I begin to question this, the more I think about it. Most regions would still find the RMB more convenient than these forums. All RL and Spammy topics are covered by NSG, F7 etc and there is no need for "regional ownership" of these discussions . All RP is handled on the RP forums and there is already thread ownership. This leaves WA/SC, Issues and Internal Regional Affairs.

For the WA, I don't see why debates would require regional ownership. We have on site regional vote counting and in-game polls. This leaves those who want to run a forum-vote which could either be in a WA subforum or in the Internal Regional Affairs forum.

The same logic also applies for Issues where is no need for thread ownership and forum votes for issue answering are rare enough that it can go into a Internal Regional Affairs forum.

The biggest use for this would be for Internal Regional Affairs. This includes regional administration, legalisation, courts and elections. A region that is complex enough, needs privacy etc would still go offsite. In my original idea I for creating this forum but keeping the no thread ownership rule (to promote interaction/interest/learning of other region's internal affairs and a means to give feedback) but I think even if allow thread ownership, it is logistically feasible.

[Frisbeeteria]

I don't like the idea of changing the rule in the Gameplay forum, but I'm entirely in favor of adding an "Internal Region Affairs" subforum under "National and Regional Gameplaying". I think it's an excellent partial solution to the offsite problem, as well as a place for all those regional recruitment threads.

Let the Gameplay forum go back to its original intent, "a place to talk about inter-regional politics, raider/defender gameplay, and other game-related matters". Nation management is doing quite well in Got Issues these days, so we could drop that from the Gameplay description. Maybe leave the Flag thread there for old times sake.

[USS Monitor]

I don't like the idea of changing the rule in the Gameplay forum, but I'm entirely in favor of adding an "Internal Region Affairs" subforum under "National and Regional Gameplaying". I think it's an excellent partial solution to the offsite problem, as well as a place for all those regional recruitment threads.

Let the Gameplay forum go back to its original intent, "a place to talk about inter-regional politics, raider/defender gameplay, and other game-related matters". Nation management is doing quite well in Got Issues these days, so we could drop that from the Gameplay description. Maybe leave the Flag thread there for old times sake.

I'd be on board with this.

[Luna Amore]

I don't like the idea of changing the rule in the Gameplay forum, but I'm entirely in favor of adding an "Internal Region Affairs" subforum under "National and Regional Gameplaying". I think it's an excellent partial solution to the offsite problem, as well as a place for all those regional recruitment threads.

Let the Gameplay forum go back to its original intent, "a place to talk about inter-regional politics, raider/defender gameplay, and other game-related matters". Nation management is doing quite well in Got Issues these days, so we could drop that from the Gameplay description. Maybe leave the Flag thread there for old times sake.

I'd be on board with this.

Given the uptick in Got Issues, +1 from me.

[Reploid Productions]

Something to this effect was one of the things I was talking about backstage as well. I'd be down with it, too.

[Ransium]

I'm also on board with this. I think it could make several forums stronger and more organized, as well as being useful at the regional level.

[Kylia Quilor]

It would be a fucking nightmare, organizationtionally and politically for all involved. This solution is attempting to crack a walnut with a sledghammer.

[Reploid Productions]

It would be a fucking nightmare, organizationtionally and politically for all involved. This solution is attempting to crack a walnut with a sledghammer.

Well, the alternative of "Make a subforum for every region" doesn't exactly seem very plausible either. That was another idea I threw at the wall backstage, but it was not very well received there:

What about creating a Regional Business subsection of the forum, and regions can request their own regional subforum there? Maybe set some minimum requirements (X number of nations, region has existed for Y span of time) for a region to request one so that every Dick, Jane, and Joe doesn't just flood us the hell out with requests for tiny one-off regions that don't last a week? When/if a region CTEs, we kick them to a Graveyard section of the Archive. Set up a "Regional subsection" management thread in Moderation for creation/archive requests. Unfortunately, such a system would still be open and viewable by the public and we would not be able to grant founders/delegates/ROs any sort of mod powers over their section (workload/can't do it with the forum software without also giving players access to mods-only info). Due to the fluid nature of delegacies and ROs we couldn't really grant something akin to the thread ownership that we extend to RP thread OP, they would be akin to RP thread co-OPs which we do not acknowledge; such rights could in theory be given to founders, but not every region has one of those.

[Luziyca]

I'm also on board with this. I think it could make several forums stronger and more organized, as well as being useful at the regional level.

Agreed.

It seems much more feasible than "every region a forum" or the application process as suggested by Reppy, especially since it would be less of a burden on our newly-minted server hamsters.

[Sleet Clans]

I see no reason as to why this rule should even exist, really. I support this removal of the rule

[Unibot III]

I really don't get why Gameplayers would see this as a solution to the current problem being discussed. Only a few months ago, NS Gameplay was semi-seriously contemplating leaving the Official Forums because of how poorly NS Moderation was doing at moderating Gameplay - why would we want to see more of Gameplay being moderated by NS Moderation?

[Tim-Opolis]

While I don't particularly care about this proposal one way or another, as the regions typically described as "relevant" are large enough and multi-faceted enough that they wouldn't downgrade themselves to using this as a primary forum avenue, I do have one worry with it.

This feels like it's being painted as a way to cut down on the harassment prevalent within the Gameplay Community and I just don't see how that's going to happen. These issues don't happen in the minnow regions that would find value from this. They happen in the major regions and their surrounding communities that do use and will continue to utilize significantly more versatile, organized, and customizeable venues like ofsite forums and Discord.

I'm incredibly concerned that this, if employed, will be used by Moderation to say that they took action on the harassment happening whereas the reality is that this is isn't going to do anything to make that situation any less a problem.

[Corindia]

It would be a fucking nightmare, organizationtionally and politically for all involved. This solution is attempting to crack a walnut with a sledghammer.

What about creating a Regional Business subsection of the forum, and regions can request their own regional subforum there? Maybe set some minimum requirements (X number of nations, region has existed for Y span of time) for a region to request one so that every Dick, Jane, and Joe doesn't just flood us the hell out with requests for tiny one-off regions that don't last a week? When/if a region CTEs, we kick them to a Graveyard section of the Archive. Set up a "Regional subsection" management thread in Moderation for creation/archive requests. Unfortunately, such a system would still be open and viewable by the public and we would not be able to grant founders/delegates/ROs any sort of mod powers over their section (workload/can't do it with the forum software without also giving players access to mods-only info). Due to the fluid nature of delegacies and ROs we couldn't really grant something akin to the thread ownership that we extend to RP thread OP, they would be akin to RP thread co-OPs which we do not acknowledge; such rights could in theory be given to founders, but not every region has one of those.

I like this idea

[Drasnia]

It would be a fucking nightmare, organizationtionally and politically for all involved. This solution is attempting to crack a walnut with a sledghammer.

All the organization that we need is to create that one sub-forum. Let regions have to keep track of linking the thread to it's members. It's not that hard to find it or anything. And to Reppy's proposal, that would effectively cut out smaller regions who want to set up a government in order to attract new members.

[Flanderlion]

I'm liking this idea.

So all the questions about 'my nation's stats aren't increasing' etc. would finally go where they belong?

There are a few of the misc threads like the flag one in GP but they aren't harming anyone as such, and I'm not sure where they'd be moved to.

[Mount Seymour]

I definitely like this idea-- in no way as a response/solution to the offsite evidence/harassment problem in GP right now, but separately as a way of clearing up the purpose and setup of the Gameplay forum. Quite a few middle-sized regions have forums that are only used for one or two regional government and legislation threads (I know Forest is one of them) and creating a thread or two in an Internal Regional Affairs board here would be a much more compact and clean solution. You wouldn't have to link the offsite forums for the government, the NS forums for the roleplay, but just one, onsite forum for everything. It sounds better and better the more I think about it.

Again, it has absolutely nothing on the harassment debacle, but nonetheless is a good idea.

[Eluvatar]

We're aware that this is almost completely orthogonal (meaning has almost no overlap with) the discussion on serious misconduct offsite, but we've been considering it for some time and welcome input on the subject now and in the future.

[Aclion]

I don't like the idea of changing the rule in the Gameplay forum, but I'm entirely in favor of adding an "Internal Region Affairs" subforum under "National and Regional Gameplaying". I think it's an excellent partial solution to the offsite problem, as well as a place for all those regional recruitment threads.

Let the Gameplay forum go back to its original intent, "a place to talk about inter-regional politics, raider/defender gameplay, and other game-related matters". Nation management is doing quite well in Got Issues these days, so we could drop that from the Gameplay description. Maybe leave the Flag thread there for old times sake.

I'd quite like this simply because it would help prevent those aspects of gameplay being overshadowed by update fuckery.

as for offsite harassment side I can see how it might alleviated it a bit if more content was onsite, but it's still something that needs to be addressed.

[Enfaru]

Have you considered expanding RMBs? Allowing regions to pay for the priviledge of having more 'space' or at least thread/tag organization?

For example if we could tag RMB posts and then search for posts on that tag in date order I think we would solve the problem already? (With a reply to tag feature of course). Wishful thinking on my behalf.

I don't actually think we need to remove the rule, I think we just need to educate people on what we mean by "Gameplay" because it's certainly not regional management even though it seems a large part of what we do when we're on here. Maybe changing the word away from gameplay to something else might alleviate the pressure and expectations of newbies. Personally I would call it "Nationstates" and change the "Nationstates" forum to "Role-play" because that tends to be more of what happens there.

[Consular]

Could be a good idea.

Though it's maybe worth noting one of the many reasons players use offsite forums is to hide their devious plans from their opponents.

[Frisbeeteria]

Have you considered expanding RMBs?

Sure, we'd love to see mini-forums or something as RMBs. The difference is that adding a forum can be done by any Senior Mod in about 5 minutes, but building more functionality into the RMB would involve unknown amounts of coding time from [violet].

I think we just need to educate people on what we mean by "Gameplay" because it's certainly not regional management

The problem isn't the definition of "gameplay", it's the fact that we don't have a forum for regional management. And we don't hear much about that from players, because they're effectively shut out of the forums from the one thing they want to do.

one of the many reasons players use offsite forums is to hide their devious plans from their opponents.

We're not thinking of this as a complete replacement for offsites. It's more about the "let's build a constitution" and "where can we hold regional elections" stuff that we hear from regular players all the time. Privacy seekers can find their own dark corners of the web without our help.

[Almonaster Nuevo]

I like the idea of finding a place for (mostly small) regions to conduct OOC business on-site.

I don't think the current gameplay forum would be the right place. It's already quite diverse, and this would add clutter there. I think the idea of creating a new section ("Regional affairs"?) under National and Regional Gameplaying would probably be best.