[Discussion] regional telegram spam

[Cormactopia Prime]

For the time being, I would like to make clear that nations are free to send telegrams requesting endorsement / unendorsement and should not mark those telegrams as WA campaigns, but should not telegram the same nation more than once in a reasonable timeframe such as 28 days.

This is really problematic. That would require users to manually track to whom they've sent telegrams and when. As a resident of The North Pacific, you must know how difficult that would be in the case of sending telegrams regarding endorsements in game-created regions. It will be particularly difficult for other GCRs that don't have you or r3n to design a script for them that will automate such tracking.

I'm going to register my objection to any special rules related to endorsement telegrams -- including unendorsement telegrams -- as well as my objection to any "Endorsements"/"Regional Politics" telegram categories. There are so many ways this could be a problem for GCRs in particular:

• If "28 day" or really any time limit rules are enacted without a telegram category, it will require user tracking, which is impractical without scripted automation. Given admin's frequently stated desire to reduce the need for scripts, that seems less than optimal.
• If a telegram category is created, it will require the user sending the telegrams to either use a telegram template, which will eliminate the possibility of personalization in endorsement campaigns, or to remember to click the "Endorsements"/"Regional Politics" box with every telegram if they do want to personalize their endorsement telegrams -- increasing the risk they'll accidentally send unmarked spam.
• If a telegram category is created, all a WA Delegate will have to do is send a mass telegram to the region instructing them to block all "Endorsements"/"Regional Politics" telegrams in their telegram preferences, and any users who follow those instructions will be rendered unreachable by anyone trying to unseat the Delegate. This will make counter-coups in GCRs much more difficult, and will also make coups that rely on endorsement gathering and unendorsement campaigns more difficult -- though these types of coups are now rare, which makes this less of an issue. The most severe impact will be on counter-coups.

I think there is something important we're missing when we're discussing these telegrams and whether they constitute spam. These telegrams are not the same as recruitment telegrams and campaign telegrams, which can be sent to anyone, anywhere in the game. These telegrams are regional, which means that anyone who doesn't want to receive them has a very simple option: They can vote with their feet, so to speak, by relocating to another region. If users in Lazarus, for example, don't like all the telegrams they're receiving, they can leave Lazarus and they won't receive them anymore, which is not an option for other types of telegrams such as recruitment and campaign telegrams.

It seems like telling users that if they don't like their region's politics and the number of telegrams being generated due to their region's politics, they should simply relocate to another region, is a lot simpler and a lot more reasonable than essentially restricting game-side regional politics by allowing telegram campaigns to be blocked. Staying in a region is always a matter of free choice, and if you stay you're opting into that region's politics. If there is a region going through a period of political upheaval resulting in many telegrams that a user doesn't want, they can move to a more tranquil region. If there is a region like TNP that is enthusiastic about endorsement exchange and a user doesn't like all the endorsement telegrams, there are many regions that don't care at all about endorsement swapping for that user to choose. It's as simple as that and I don't see why the game-side political game should be made more complicated and restricted in order to reduce "spam" for users who choose to remain in a region subject to a lot of telegrams.

[Th Empire of Wymondham]

Snip

Snip

As a resident of Osiris and Lazarus I concur with Cormac as it would make coups and counter coups in GCRs extremely difficult and seeing as coups are a fundamental part of GCRs culture and one of the joys of being in a GCR I feel that such restrictions would ruin on of the things which make GCRs different and fun to be in. There may be some people that say:"coups destroy community" however if you don't realise that the unique nature of GCRs mean there will be coups and that is a fundamental part of being in a GCR. In the end as a resident of Osiris and Lazarus I disagree in the strongest terms with this proposal and urge all fellow GCR residents to do the same.

[HMS Unicorn]

Another problem with both the current temporary 28-day rule and the proposed solutions is that it's not clear what an "endotarting telegram" is.

Here are two telegram examples for which the rule would be problematic:

• In TNP we telegram all nations joining the WA within TNP, to inform them about various opportunities available to WA nations, like voting on our forumside polls and the WADP. In these telegrams. Many nations, especially those from new players, say that they find these automated telegrams helpful. These telegrams include a line that says "please endorse the delegate".
• We also telegram TNP nations every time there is a WA vote, with a vote recommendation and resolution analysis (these telegrams are marked as WA campaign, for the record). In multiple gameside surveys we have run, we have consistently found that this is a program our nations welcome and encourage us to continue running. In those telegrams, we also include a line asking them to endorse the delegate.
• There are also telegrams that do not explicitly encourage nations to endorse any specific nation, but they ask them to take part in TNP's WADP. The WADP is a regional program about endorsing as many nations in the region as possible.

Do the above count as endotarting telegrams? Does the sending of these telegrams mean that the delegate cannot directly telegram these nations to ask for their endorsement for 28 days? For the WADP telegram, would the rule mean that those nations may not be contacted by anyone for an endorsement for another 28 days?

If "endotarting telegram" is interpreted very broadly, then this new rule will completely decimate the programs that, not just TNP, but many other large regions use to boost their WA and endorsement numbers. At least in the regions where I help run things, those programs rarely produce any spam complaints in the several years that they have been running.

The above seems like it would be quite a severe "side" effect for rules that are supposed to address one isolated set of spamming incidents coming from Lazarus.

[The Sygian]

snip

This this this x100.

Too many restrictions on endo tarting is a terrible idea.

[Syberis]

There's also a world of difference between routine operations of a government and what's occurring in Lazarus right now; there, you're also dealing with a problem where people are using dispatches to get around that system anyway, and it's an active war zone. 28 days in such a situation seems problematic, as that's a huge amount of time during a coup; spread it across players both foreign and domestic, and you make regional defense insanely difficult.

Basically, this system favors individuals outside the government looking to interfere with regional affairs over the standing government, in the vast majority of cases. There will always be more players outside a GCR's government than inside of it. It's simple mathematics.

[Davelands]

Let me add my opposition to this.

I agree 100% with Cormac and the comments below his. There is no need to limit endotarting TGs. It's part of the game under normal circumstances and more important to the Coup game. It is a regional issue that can be solved at that level by having the annoyed users either complain on the RMB, block the users, or leave the region. There is also no requirement that they read the TGs anyway.

I know it is a PITA for the mods to have to read the GHRs on tart TGs but don't let that result in a change to the rules that would strip an important aspect of the game of it's power.

[Davelands]

-snip- It's also my experience that players tend to use exactly the same text in each repeating telegram. They put their best arguments in the first telegram, and then just copy it over and over again. There may be exceptions to that observation, but I suspect they're quite a bit less common than the copypasta brigade.

What, nobody has ever heard of A/B testing?
:-P

[Eluvatar]

I will be replying to the comments made here at the earliest available opportunity.

In other words, I care about what's being said and would like to clarify some points.

[Big Bad Badger]

There needs to be some common sense here with this. Asking for endorsements is the lifeblood of holding/maintaining the delegacy or establishing a coup. However, flooding people's inboxes with requests is annoying. What if there was a restriction of one telegram per WA per week (or per two weeks), but this category cannot be blocked by WA nations?

[Neenee]

I agree with Cormac on this one. And, frankly, everyone else expressing disagreement for this idea. Coups aside, the day-to-day in a region for the delegate, or anyone the delegate designates to do so, will require some tarting, which should be done with a TG.

This seems like an overreaction to a problem, which will punish the whole class because a few people misbehaved.

[Queen Yuno]

Neenee's post sums up my stance as well. It's unnecessary.
People who ask not to be telegrammed will simply not be telegrammed. I think that's a reasonable enough compromise, in comparison to implementing "only ask once per 28 days" which is dumb.

Exchanging endorsements is an important part of the game, and not just to GCR Delegates/Guardians/SecurityCouncillors, but to the average player too. The type of average NSer who only answers issues and tries to collect endos. It's too complex for them, to figure out all these regulations, how many days they have to wait, and which boxes to check, and 60 seconds before each TG gets through, and whether or not it should be checkboxed if they've got a sentence asking for an endo in the middle of a long conversation/textwall talking about some other topic. It should only matter to people who don't want the TGs. Sometimes normal NS players get flooded with recruitment TGs and miss an endorser's TG and wouldn't mind being resent it, I know I do. In fact, sometimes I ask players to resend me their telegram because it got buried underneath my other ones. These scripts just seem to be further complications, and shouldn't be making the decision for a player's TG frequency, that's the choice of the player; if a player wants to stop a TG so bad they can just ask the composer to stop telegrammimg them and to tell their superior add them to the do-not-TG megalist, or block them.

[Roavin]

I'd also like to challenge the notion that 1-2 TGs a day constitutes spam. >_>

[Cormactopia Prime]

I'd also like to challenge the notion that 1-2 TGs a day constitutes spam. >_>

So much this. How long does it take to get your inbox filled with 20 recruitment telegrams if you spawn or respawn in a Feeder or Sinker and don't know to block the telegrams, but we're worried about 1-2 endorsement-related telegrams per day constituting spam? Give me a break.

And the 1-2 telegrams per day situation is a special circumstance in Lazarus right now. Under normal circumstances it would be far less. Let's not overreact.

[Mousebumples]

People who ask not to be telegrammed will simply not be telegrammed. I think that's a reasonable enough compromise

I have no idea who is on which side, so I can't speak to whichever side you're representing Yuno (if any) - but that is not what we're seeing. We have received reports of individuals who asked not to be telegrammed, were told they would not be telegrammed ... and then they were telegrammed by a different individual with basically the same telegram text. They were also added to dispatches to get notifications with, again, essentially the same text.

Great way to handle things in theory, but it's not being followed by the players during this standoff.

I still remember the days of WA Campaigning (or UN Campaigning) before the new TG system. If I was coordinating a TG campaign with other individuals, we had to split up the list of Delegates because we were told that we could only send 1 telegram to each Delegate to argue For/Against a given topic. If I had sent a message to a given Delegate and a friend/colleague had also TG'd them, warnings, etc., could have followed. For that reason, we intentionally split up the list of Delegates - and that was before things like Google Docs were as widespread as they are now.

Now, we have an upgraded TG system that lets you specifically exempt individuals from telegrams with the -Nation option. I've seen some nations included (or, well, excluded) in those TG headers ... but there doesn't seem to be a collaborative copy since these issues are persisting. You can also look at Delivery Reports to see which nations have blocked messages from a given nation. We have a rule that you can't use a puppet to get around someone's telegram block on your main nation. Given that the content of the messages here is largely the same (*from what I've seen reported via GHR), it could be argued that even if the telegrams are being sent by nations owned by different individuals ... it's messaging someone around a block, which is a warnable offense.

Additionally, I'd like to suggest that those sending out these Dispatches and Telegrams (on both sides) to include a message to readers that if they're interested in being unsubscribed from further messaging to please "Contact [nation]" - and then actually unsubscribe them from your updates.

[Galiantus VII]

In the case of coups, we're talking about a situation where the rules are different for both sides. See, the delegate gets to send mass-TGs for absolutely free and without the burden of having it being called spam, even though he's essentially doing the exact same thing. If the delegate is losing endorsements they could easily start sending daily pleas for more - it's not like they lack the tools or anything, or control the WFE. Also, if someone wants to live in a GCR, they are going to have to deal with the fact they are in a place rife with coup politics

If you really want to start cracking down on people sending endorsement request TGs, please only do so if you are willing to create another way for people to campaign against a sitting delegate. For example, you could require marking endorsement request TGs, even if sent by the delegate or an RO via the regional messaging system. That way everyone is on equal footing when it comes to who can actually get their messages.

[Mousebumples]

In the case of coups, we're talking about a situation where the rules are different for both sides. See, the delegate gets to send mass-TGs for absolutely free and without the burden of having it being called spam, even though he's essentially doing the exact same thing. If the delegate is losing endorsements they could easily start sending daily pleas for more - it's not like they lack the tools or anything, or control the WFE. Also, if someone wants to live in a GCR, they are going to have to deal with the fact they are in a place rife with coup politics

If you really want to start cracking down on people sending endorsement request TGs, please only do so if you are willing to create another way for people to campaign against a sitting delegate. For example, you could require marking endorsement request TGs, even if sent by the delegate or an RO via the regional messaging system. That way everyone is on equal footing when it comes to who can actually get their messages.

If the Delegate were sending out the exact same TG to the exact same group of people - after they politely request not to be telegrammed on that subject in the future - we would be having this same conversation with them, yes.

Yes, this is a game. Yes, the individual who holds the Delegacy has an advantage. That's the way the system is setup. This isn't newsworthy or a change from the status quo.

Spam is spam is spam is spam. Making excuses for spam is just that - making excuses.

[Th Empire of Wymondham]

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I agree with the vast majority of this statement however exempting sitting delegates from it would make trying to coup or counter coups very hard in a GCR which as I shave already stated removed one of the best things about being in a GCR coups or at least makes them bloody difficult to do.

[Cormactopia Prime]

Spam is spam is spam is spam. Making excuses for spam is just that - making excuses.

But in what universe are 1-2 telegrams per day spam?

The bottom line is that you're overreacting to a problem that largely does not exist, no matter how many GHRs you're receiving. This overreaction will lead to gameplay in game-created regions becoming much more difficult. Any GCR community that is couped in the future might as well just give up and move on rather than bothering to fight back if these draconian endorsement measures are put in place and everyone has to worry about a downpour of red text if they try to campaign to unseat a rogue Delegate. This is not even to mention the effect on ordinary, day-to-day endorsement tarting. And we're doing this why, precisely? Because Moderation is tired of dealing with GHRs from nations in Lazarus? Can we not make significant and abrupt changes to how things have been done in gameplay for the past fifteen years because Moderation is aggravated? Thanks. We'd appreciate it.

[Syberis]

If the Delegate were sending out the exact same TG to the exact same group of people - after they politely request not to be telegrammed on that subject in the future - we would be having this same conversation with them, yes.

Except, and here's the kicker... that's not at all the situation that's being rectified by the proposed 28-day wait period between endotarting telegrams. If someone requests it to stop, absolutely, yeah. That's the same as literally every other telegram in the game. Instead, there's a rule created to solve a problem that doesn't exist because other rules actually prevent it.

[Galiantus VII]

If the Delegate were sending out the exact same TG to the exact same group of people - after they politely request not to be telegrammed on that subject in the future - we would be having this same conversation with them, yes.

Yes, this is a game. Yes, the individual who holds the Delegacy has an advantage. That's the way the system is setup. This isn't newsworthy or a change from the status quo.

Spam is spam is spam is spam. Making excuses for spam is just that - making excuses.

If someone is sending essentially the same TG over and over again, and trying to subvert the system, I agree. That is spam, I am NOT making an excuse for that. Moderate them, please.

Where I disagree is this idea of placing arbitrary limits on how much campaigning one side of a conflict is allowed to do, especially when it actually requires either money or effort for their side, but not for the other. I am also against filters that the delegate is essentially allowed to get around.

What I would be in favor of is some system that helps groups of people to run and manage campaigns together and allows individuals to choose to block TGs sent from specific campaigns. It wouldn't even have to be used just for endorsement campaigns - it could be used for political parties, newspapers, etc. and you could have a subscription system where it wouldn't cost stamps to send TGs to people subscribed to the party/newspaper/campaign.

Edit: And yes, the current system gives an advantage to the delegate on many fronts. And I agree that for the most part, the sitting delegate should have the advantage. I do not, however, think the delegate should have an advantage on every front - that will make for boring gameplay.

[Cormactopia Prime]

I am also against filters that the delegate is essentially allowed to get around.

The Delegate wouldn't be able to get around it. If, as Delegate, you send a region-wide telegram that asks people to move to another region, you still have to mark it as Recruitment. If you send a region-wide telegram that asks people to vote for or against a WA resolution, you still have to mark it as Campaign. Presumably, were this new category to be implemented, if you sent a region-wide endorsement or unendorsement telegram, you would have to mark it with the new category. So I'm not seeing how the Delegate would be able to get around this filter, unless I'm missing something.

[The Glorious Hypetrain]

People who ask not to be telegrammed will simply not be telegrammed. I think that's a reasonable enough compromise

I have no idea who is on which side, so I can't speak to whichever side you're representing Yuno (if any) - but that is not what we're seeing. We have received reports of individuals who asked not to be telegrammed, were told they would not be telegrammed ... and then they were telegrammed by a different individual with basically the same telegram text. They were also added to dispatches to get notifications with, again, essentially the same text.

Great way to handle things in theory, but it's not being followed by the players during this standoff.

I still remember the days of WA Campaigning (or UN Campaigning) before the new TG system. If I was coordinating a TG campaign with other individuals, we had to split up the list of Delegates because we were told that we could only send 1 telegram to each Delegate to argue For/Against a given topic. If I had sent a message to a given Delegate and a friend/colleague had also TG'd them, warnings, etc., could have followed. For that reason, we intentionally split up the list of Delegates - and that was before things like Google Docs were as widespread as they are now.

Now, we have an upgraded TG system that lets you specifically exempt individuals from telegrams with the -Nation option. I've seen some nations included (or, well, excluded) in those TG headers ... but there doesn't seem to be a collaborative copy since these issues are persisting. You can also look at Delivery Reports to see which nations have blocked messages from a given nation. We have a rule that you can't use a puppet to get around someone's telegram block on your main nation. Given that the content of the messages here is largely the same (*from what I've seen reported via GHR), it could be argued that even if the telegrams are being sent by nations owned by different individuals ... it's messaging someone around a block, which is a warnable offense.

Additionally, I'd like to suggest that those sending out these Dispatches and Telegrams (on both sides) to include a message to readers that if they're interested in being unsubscribed from further messaging to please "Contact [nation]" - and then actually unsubscribe them from your updates.

Hi Mousebumbles,

Our team has started putting together an unsubscribe list that we'll be enforcing into use on all of our future campaigns. We'll have a disclaimer on all of our future messages as well.
https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=877666 is the list we're going off of at this time, and plan to keep up to date.

[The Glorious Hypetrain]

I TGed the people sending these mass TGs and asked them to stop sending me TGs and tagging me in dispatches 4 days ago (looking at TG timestamps). Until today I hadn't received any messages, but today I got tagged in another dispatch about the situation (again asking me to unendorse the sitting WAD and that "You can join the resistance today").

My question is does this continued contacting of me after I requested this org to stop run afoul of spam/harassment rules? Note that the nation that tagged me in a dispatch was not the same one that I TGed to stop but is affiliated with the same GP org.

Again, I can file a GHR if need be, I just wanted to check here first.

Hi The North Polish Union,

I've gone ahead and added you to our unsubscribe list for telegram campaigns. You should stop receiving those telegrams from our team going forward.

If you run into this problem again, please telegram me the nation name who's not using our block list for resistance messages, and I'll see to it that it's taken care of.

//KWV

[Unibot III]

For the time being, I would like to make clear that nations are free to send telegrams requesting endorsement / unendorsement and should not mark those telegrams as WA campaigns, but should not telegram the same nation more than once in a reasonable timeframe such as 28 days.

This is really problematic. That would require users to manually track to whom they've sent telegrams and when. As a resident of The North Pacific, you must know how difficult that would be in the case of sending telegrams regarding endorsements in game-created regions. It will be particularly difficult for other GCRs that don't have you or r3n to design a script for them that will automate such tracking.

I'm going to register my objection to any special rules related to endorsement telegrams -- including unendorsement telegrams -- as well as my objection to any "Endorsements"/"Regional Politics" telegram categories. There are so many ways this could be a problem for GCRs in particular:

• If "28 day" or really any time limit rules are enacted without a telegram category, it will require user tracking, which is impractical without scripted automation. Given admin's frequently stated desire to reduce the need for scripts, that seems less than optimal.
• If a telegram category is created, it will require the user sending the telegrams to either use a telegram template, which will eliminate the possibility of personalization in endorsement campaigns, or to remember to click the "Endorsements"/"Regional Politics" box with every telegram if they do want to personalize their endorsement telegrams -- increasing the risk they'll accidentally send unmarked spam.
• If a telegram category is created, all a WA Delegate will have to do is send a mass telegram to the region instructing them to block all "Endorsements"/"Regional Politics" telegrams in their telegram preferences, and any users who follow those instructions will be rendered unreachable by anyone trying to unseat the Delegate. This will make counter-coups in GCRs much more difficult, and will also make coups that rely on endorsement gathering and unendorsement campaigns more difficult -- though these types of coups are now rare, which makes this less of an issue. The most severe impact will be on counter-coups.

I think there is something important we're missing when we're discussing these telegrams and whether they constitute spam. These telegrams are not the same as recruitment telegrams and campaign telegrams, which can be sent to anyone, anywhere in the game. These telegrams are regional, which means that anyone who doesn't want to receive them has a very simple option: They can vote with their feet, so to speak, by relocating to another region. If users in Lazarus, for example, don't like all the telegrams they're receiving, they can leave Lazarus and they won't receive them anymore, which is not an option for other types of telegrams such as recruitment and campaign telegrams.

It seems like telling users that if they don't like their region's politics and the number of telegrams being generated due to their region's politics, they should simply relocate to another region, is a lot simpler and a lot more reasonable than essentially restricting game-side regional politics by allowing telegram campaigns to be blocked. Staying in a region is always a matter of free choice, and if you stay you're opting into that region's politics. If there is a region going through a period of political upheaval resulting in many telegrams that a user doesn't want, they can move to a more tranquil region. If there is a region like TNP that is enthusiastic about endorsement exchange and a user doesn't like all the endorsement telegrams, there are many regions that don't care at all about endorsement swapping for that user to choose. It's as simple as that and I don't see why the game-side political game should be made more complicated and restricted in order to reduce "spam" for users who choose to remain in a region subject to a lot of telegrams.

As a former GCR delegate, basically I just wanted to say I agree. I'm a bit puzzled how a former GCR Delegate like Eluvatar could think a twenty-eight day policy is a workable idea - except to say Eluvatar had access to a lot of scripts and automated spreadsheets to keep track of stuff like a twenty-eight day routine (which is reminiscent of TNP's old Assembly restrictions); scripts which other delegates don't have.

A region will remove a delegate if they're tired of his or her telegrams. It might be fair to call it spam, but let's leave it the region in question to handle this kind of spam, not the site administration. An administrative intervention on the subject risks intruding on critical events in Gameplay (IE: an ongoing coup) and the day-to-day activities of GCR governments.

In short, there's a grey area surrounding spam. Not all spam needs to be tackled by the site administration. This is just one of those cases where the admins need to back off and let Gameplay, gameplay.

---

My suggestion would be to limit what you want to limit automatically with technically-imposed limitations on the use of stamps and delegate-telegrams to the same people on the same week or whatever. And take a laisse-faire approach to manual tarting campaigns. That gives certainty to all sides in the GCRs that they can contact people manually without fear of moderation reprisal - but should, after the limitation on stamps are imposed - slow down the flow of telegrams in cases that the moderators consider actionable spam.

[Eluvatar]

It's very apparent that I should clarify my earlier post.

While the main point of my post was that players should not expect mods to come down on endorsement/unendorsement telegrams that are not marked as WA campaigns, it would do well to better explain what else I intended to communicate.

It's unfortunate that I used the word "should" in two subtly different ways.

nations are free to send telegrams requesting endorsement / unendorsement and should not mark those telegrams as WA campaigns

In the first case, it would be less ambiguous to say that it is incorrect to mark endorsement or unendorsement telegrams as WA campaign messages. Such telegrams are not related to a campaign for or against a WA resolution. The WA campaign tag is for WA resolutions. Do not mark telegrams that are not about WA resolutions as WA campaign messages.

nations are free to send telegrams requesting endorsement / unendorsement ... but should not telegram the same nation more than once in a reasonable timeframe such as 28 days

In the second case... I will briefly digress.

This topic has a posted notice this is a matter under discussion behind the scenes, with implied promise of further communication. My post beginning with "For the time being" was intended to get across that this was not the end of it, but a brief update regarding what I saw as an urgent matter. Specifically, not to use the WA Campaign tag. I needed, however, to note that the license I was effectively offering was not unlimited. It is spam to send a nation the same message over and over again, even though they can block you.

In general, there are few clear-cut objective black and white lines in moderation. As has been said before, so I am saying again: if you dance close to the line, you will eventually be found on the wrong side. Historically, many players have played defensively regarding the rules, staying well clear of the lines, and this has served them well.

My intention, here, was to outline the fact that repeatedly sending essentially the same message to the same nation could be infracted, and offering at least temporary guidance on defensive behavior to be absolutely sure you don't cross the line. As this is a matter undergoing active discussion and there isn't a great degree of precedent, the safe guidance I offered was pretty conservative. It's not a ruling but it's certainly not a proposal: it's guidance.

Nonetheless, the more important part of that phrase is "reasonable timeframe", not "28 days": 28 days is given as an example of a (definitely) reasonable timeframe. 7 days might be reasonable, too. But it's certainly closer to the line, close enough that I wouldn't recommend it at this time. Furthermore, what timeframe is reasonable may be affected by circumstances. Ultimately, telegrams that are not reported as spam are not going to be infracted for. "Would a reasonable nation report this as spam" might be a useful mental test.

I intentionally said nothing about organized campaigns involving multiple players. A ruling may soon be officially laid down that addresses that subject. As it is, until then I can only hope that good faith efforts to be rule-abiding will be sufficiently apparent.

All this being said, I want to reiterate that site staff are not going to let Gameplay be gameplay if that means leaving it unmoderated. The rules will be enforced. Finally, this is still under discussion behind the scenes. I hope that what guidance I've offered will be useful, but it can and likely will be superseded.