Question and Possible Suggestion

[Dread Lady Nathicana]

Alright. For weeks now, the NS forum has been inundated by threads pretending to be legitimate rp, but mainly consisting of endless lists, one-sentence responses, and most of that not even in character. The players in them tend to post rapidly given the lack of real effort or writing being put into them, and they tend to drown out the actual role-playing going on there.

Yes, I realize. That forum moves much more slowly than a number of the others, and thus this sort of thing might just seem more noticeable on account. But the point stands - those of us who've rp'd there for years now do not view it as a dumping ground for things that 'just don't fit' anywhere else, any more than any of the other forum regulars do for their preferred forums.

And comments, tg's, constructive posts don't seem to be getting through.

SO ...

Can we get a ruling on some of this, or get some clarification, or can they be moved to the Sports (given this rash of 'music tour' threads that have been cropping up like weeds, and are competitions), or moved to the Factbooks and National Information forum (given it is pretty much just talk about what people are doing with their nations/people in them), or even - and this is the stretch - have a New Forum dedicated to Entertainment - if that's the way folks want to run these things anyway.

I've got absolutely no problem with music, or any other event being actually PLAYED out and written about, and role-played to whatever ends folks want. It isn't the topic - its the manner in which its being carried out.

And the 'alliance vote' threads, which I can't help but think ought to be out of NS and onto either private boards, or the National Info forum.

And the advertisements to go with all that.

And the requests to 'vote for me'.

And all the other crazy things that have been popping up that tend not to make a lot of sense.

Anyways. Now that I've tossed out my decidedly elitist thoughts and opinions ... anything to be done, or am I just being overly sensitive?

[Dread Lady Nathicana]

I thought talk of new forum options and the like belonged elsewhere - as is, any thoughts, opinions, input?

[Tanaara]

I agree completely with the Dread Lady - I'm damned tired of seeing this stuff that is NOT roleplay put in NS. Drives me nuts - as I too have TGed players to try and explain and have been roundly ignored.

I do not think these music competetions, 'vote for me' etc. threads -which are not being roleplayed out in any meaningful sense of the term belong in NS!

[Dread Lady Nathicana]

Now, mind folks like Slag back in the day DID do a music competition thread and such things, several times - but it was ROLEPLAYED out. As in each player posted what their band was doing. There were interviews. There were concerts. There were details and bios listed in the ooc threads for them so as to not clutter.

And they were awesome. Got no problem with any particular sort of RP - so long as it actually IS RP. Not some listing, one-sentence-response thing masquerading as RP. Just to head off that little argument.

[Valipac]

NS isn't the only forum plagued with this - people can hardly take note of threads such as Götterdämmerung and The Tiger and the Eagle on II because of all the frenzied "roleplaying" of the newcomers.

From what I can discern, Euroslavia (who has lent his voice to similar issues in this thread) would be against such proposals.

And comments, tg's, constructive posts don't seem to be getting through.

Same thing runs rampant among the newbies in II.

I definitely agree about "alliance votes" and the like. Invisionfree, zetaboards, freeforums, they all exist for a reason. Conduct private alliance business elsewhere. Alliance recruitment threads, however, should stay (where else could you find new recruits?), but you should only have one - no "So and So alliance charter thread" and "So and So alliance recruitment thread" and "So and So alliance home thread".

I would be very much against moving the music threads to sport though. Music is not "sport", and furthermore I'm sure most of the other NSSporters can agree that we don't want Nationstates' trash dumped on us. If you don't want it so badly, why would we ever want it?

[Dread Lady Nathicana]

Well granted, the Sports was only suggested as one possible alternative should none other be viable. We 'put up with' the sports rp's for years on NS after all. (No, not condemning - was just a very much different sort of thing overall than what a good many participated in, and it did overrun now and then.)

Agreed on alliance recruitment - in fact, as I said above, A Good Many Things Can Be Role-Played. But that's just it - I don't think its too much to ask that a recruitment thread actually be presented as, and continue to be, ic in the ic forums.

For example:

Good: We the nation of Fury-Worshipping Nublets propose the formation of an alliance to provide mutual defense, the protection of our ideals, and economic stability.

Bad: Hey guys, I'm making an alliance. Post your stuff.


Not asking for perfection, not asking for things to be written exactly the way I would write them. Just an effort at actually role-playing rather than commenting on this, that, or the other, and resisting the temptation to respond to any such attempts as 'lol' or 'n00b' or 'you suck' or 'we declare war, post losses' and the like.

Sounds like at least 2 of the IC forums could use a good scrubbing. (Your confirmation, and reading through so many of the complaints from II in here over the past couple months, yep.)

EDIT: BEHOLD - AN EXAMPLE of what I was referring to there. All very much IC. Doesn't have to be fancy, doesn't have to be a novel. Idea put forward, in character, and asking for in character responses. Excellent.

[Skeelzania]

I've tried writing up a reply 2 or 3 times now, so apologies if this is a bit muddled.

I agree that there's been a lot of bad roleplay threads in NationStates lately, but I don't really think they're worth getting worked up about. I've been dealing with stuff that doesn't meet my own standards for years now, and I've found that the best strategy is to simply ignore stuff you don't want to see. In NationStates this is compartively easy; we can generally tell what threads we want to read from the first few lines, the title or even the poster itself. After that there's nothing forcing us to continue reading. Yeah, it's elitist to not bother clicking on someone's thread because you think their name is stupid, but that's the worst you have to subject yourself to.

In regards to the threads some of us have been groaning at lately, the trend that I think I' m observing is people having trouble differentiating between OOC and IC. This can get especially confusing when things like Gameplay or Regional Politics come in to play, which are notoriously muddled when it comes to deciding which mask someone is wearing (if they're wearing any mask at all). While I do think that Gameplay and Regional Politic threads belong elsewhere, like the Gameplay forum or regional message boards and offsite forums, I'm not entirely convinced threads where OOC/IC is muddled require some sort of mod ruling. I'm comfortable with calling it bad roleplay, but I'm not with calling them bad threads. As I said before, if I don't like a thread for whatever reason, I don't follow it.

[Novar Ohan]

I completely agree with the Dread Lady and support her wholeheartedly. There is far too much of these alliance voting threads and whatnot around the place.

[Reploid Productions]

I suspect part of the issue is we've traditionally tried not to enforce one particular set of RP ideals; so people can post garbage RPs and get away with. When they do, they don't get told its crap, and think it's okay- as do newer players that may look around for ideas.

A new subforum for stuff like WorldVision is right out; we don't want to divide the community up too much. However there is a point that sports and entertainment stuff have some things in common. Would recategorizing NS Sports to be "NS Sports & Entertainment" be unbearable? Some of the competitions are badly played, but some aren't, and the two types might go well together. (Song contest halftime show spectacular during the World Cup finals? )

I agree there is a lot of crap, but enforcement becomes tricky; how far should the mods meddle? What standard to enforce? That sort of thing. I've got a discussion going in the sekrit forum, but it is a tricky thing to deal with.

[Goobergunchia]

In regards to the threads some of us have been groaning at lately, the trend that I think I' m observing is people having trouble differentiating between OOC and IC. This can get especially confusing when things like Gameplay or Regional Politics come in to play, which are notoriously muddled when it comes to deciding which mask someone is wearing (if they're wearing any mask at all). While I do think that Gameplay and Regional Politic threads belong elsewhere, like the Gameplay forum or regional message boards and offsite forums, I'm not entirely convinced threads where OOC/IC is muddled require some sort of mod ruling. I'm comfortable with calling it bad roleplay, but I'm not with calling them bad threads. As I said before, if I don't like a thread for whatever reason, I don't follow it.

Regional Politics should absolutely go in the Gameplay forum. That's why it was created, after all.

[Tanaara]

Would recategorizing NS Sports to be "NS Sports & Entertainment" be unbearable? Some of the competitions are badly played, but some aren't, and the two types might go well together. (Song contest halftime show spectacular during the World Cup finals? )

This is an idea I can support whole heartedly. Those song contests are a form of competetion after all.

[Quintessence of Dust]

Would recategorizing NS Sports to be "NS Sports & Entertainment" be unbearable? Some of the competitions are badly played, but some aren't, and the two types might go well together. (Song contest halftime show spectacular during the World Cup finals?

Look, I know maybe it got annoying on Jolt with how much sports RPing there was in the NS forum, but WorldVision and the World Cup don't really bear any relation. They're not even conducted in the same way: almost all Sports RPing is, essentially, a game using some form of scorinator. These song contests, however, are completely subjective judgment: "I vote for you" or, more usually, "I vote for my puppet".

Associating "Entertainment" with "Sports" doesn't seem any less arbitrary than associating it with "General Roleplaying". I can understand the frustration with the way things are right now, but a lot of it is coming from a small number of users, many of whom will probably burn out relatively soon.

I recall NS having some well-written RPs that were based at balls or family parties: isn't that really more similar to the Entertainment RPs, anyway?

Also, to respond to DLN's initial post more closely, it's important to differentiate between two different things:

1. New players (potentially very young IRL, new to the Internet, completely new to roleplaying, thinks an OOC is something from Lord of the Rings) posting substandard RPs, or posts that mix IC or OOC, or aren't clear on their IC status, or are generally Not Good.

2. Players (whose names I won't say, but I think I know the guys you're talking about - they've done the same in the Sport and WA forums, too) who do the above and repeatedly continue to do the same despite having been told multiple times that there is A Problem.

I agree it's difficult for the mods to do much about the former. But, to judge by recent threadlocks, and stiffly worded Knock It Offs, that I've seen, they are already doing something about the latter, and will probably do more if people continue not to learn.

I just wonder if the problem will become more bearable once the novelty of the new forums wears off, the summer holidays end, and a few particular posters lose interest or welcome.

[Euroslavia]

Would recategorizing NS Sports to be "NS Sports & Entertainment" be unbearable? Some of the competitions are badly played, but some aren't, and the two types might go well together. (Song contest halftime show spectacular during the World Cup finals?

Look, I know maybe it got annoying on Jolt with how much sports RPing there was in the NS forum, but WorldVision and the World Cup don't really bear any relation. They're not even conducted in the same way: almost all Sports RPing is, essentially, a game using some form of scorinator. These song contests, however, are completely subjective judgment: "I vote for you" or, more usually, "I vote for my puppet".

Associating "Entertainment" with "Sports" doesn't seem any less arbitrary than associating it with "General Roleplaying". I can understand the frustration with the way things are right now, but a lot of it is coming from a small number of users, many of whom will probably burn out relatively soon.

I recall NS having some well-written RPs that were based at balls or family parties: isn't that really more similar to the Entertainment RPs, anyway?

I'm not so sure that I understand your post. Sports itself are generally known as entertainment. Yes, I realized that song contests aren't related to sports, but they are under similar categories, in terms of what they are towards us.

The frustration itself is definitely not from a small number of users. It goes above and beyond this thread alone, and into multiple threads, posts, and telegrams speaking of the same sort of thing. Even so (if they were to burn out), the concern remains.

[Quintessence of Dust]

I'm not so sure that I understand your post. Sports itself are generally known as entertainment. Yes, I realized that song contests aren't related to sports, but they are under similar categories, in terms of what they are towards us.

But couldn't you say the same about Global Economics and Trade? A nation sends its singers on a tour to raise money, and it holds a music festival to sell tickets, and it promotes a contest to boost album sales. I'm not particularly disagreeing with you: I just don't think the problem is with the forum location. Put it this way: do you honestly believe that if all these terrible threads were dumped into NS Sport, they would magically improve in quality? And if the answer is "no", then isn't this really just about clearing about NS? Which, while worthwhile in its own right, would surely just mean in two months' time you'd have a procession of sports roleplayers complaining about the same thing.

If poorly worded alliance invitations and copycat spam and endless permutations of song/dance/lumberjack-impersonation contest threads were posted in the NS Sport, or the II, or the Lala Pixieland forum, they would still be crap.

And NS Sport has a distinct RPing code, largely enforced by users. Although the mods step in occasionally, most users accept the World Cup Committee or the Olympic Council, even if it means their roleplaying is affected. Just today we had an issue in a baseball RP where a user broke a sports roleplaying rule: it was all resolved amicably, because we all basically speak the same "language". We would be no more capable of reining in (if that's the intention) players who have no conception of in-character or RP decorum than would the NSers.

(Please note: I'm not being territorial! There's been way too much internecine sniping lately on account of the Security Council clusterfuck, and I'm not trying to "defend" NS Sport - I just don't think moving these types of threads would actually help at all. It'd just annoy a different set of users.)

Edit: I forgot a key "not"! Not not not!

[Skeelzania]

Dumping bad Contest Threads from NS to Sports does seem like a caddish sort of thing to do, I have to say.

[Euroslavia]

I'm not so sure that I understand your post. Sports itself are generally known as entertainment. Yes, I realized that song contests aren't related to sports, but they are under similar categories, in terms of what they are towards us.

But couldn't you say the same about Global Economics and Trade? A nation sends its singers on a tour to raise money, and it holds a music festival to sell tickets, and it promotes a contest to boost album sales. I'm not particularly disagreeing with you: I just don't think the problem is with the forum location. Put it this way: do you honestly believe that if all these terrible threads were dumped into NS Sport, they would magically improve in quality? [/i].

The key part of your question is the word 'terrible'. Bear in mind that if a thread is spammy (which a lot have been, as of late) or really, has the great possibility of diving into that category, it won't be moved to that forum in the first place. Also, threads such as "Who wants to be a millionaire", and others like that, that are against the rules on the first place. We're not going to toss every thread that doesn't belong in Nationstates over to the NS Sports forum.

[Quintessence of Dust]

Ok - perhaps it's my fault, I've conflated the two things. Nathi's (if that form is ok) complaint was about a rash of stuff that is variously low-quality RPing, to not RPing at all. Some of this, in fact quite a bit of it, is music-related.

But if you're saying only the good-quality music RPs (e.g. the WorldVision itself, which at least used to be of a reasonably high standard, featuring IC interviews, lyrics, descriptions of performances - much of the form Nathi later described herself having taken part in) get moved to Sport, it won't solve the core problem, which is uninventive/unoriginal/thoughtless RPing/OOC spam. The cheap alliances won't for example, get moved to Sport.

And in a sense, wouldn't it worsen the problem? If we get all the "good" RPs, and only the trash is left in NS, then it's even more likely to go on unabated! The presence of a few token well-conceived music-based RPs is the only possible hope of salvation for that style of RPing. So, in terms of Nathi's original complaint, I actually feel merging "Sports and Entertainment" might be quite productive: the average quality of NS RPing, outside that done by the established bunch, would be even lower!

[Reploid Productions]

An alternative suggestion from Scolo in the sekrit mod chat is to take the really bad RPs and dump them in Forum 7 to sink and disappear in the autoprune

[Tanaara]

Call me bitchy tonight, but I'm not laughing...

[Dread Lady Nathicana]

Ok - perhaps it's my fault, I've conflated the two things. Nathi's (if that form is ok) complaint was about a rash of stuff that is variously low-quality RPing, to not RPing at all. Some of this, in fact quite a bit of it, is music-related.

But if you're saying only the good-quality music RPs (e.g. the WorldVision itself, which at least used to be of a reasonably high standard, featuring IC interviews, lyrics, descriptions of performances - much of the form Nathi later described herself having taken part in) get moved to Sport, it won't solve the core problem, which is uninventive/unoriginal/thoughtless RPing/OOC spam. The cheap alliances won't for example, get moved to Sport.

And in a sense, wouldn't it worsen the problem? If we get all the "good" RPs, and only the trash is left in NS, then it's even more likely to go on unabated! The presence of a few token well-conceived music-based RPs is the only possible hope of salvation for that style of RPing. So, in terms of Nathi's original complaint, I actually feel merging "Sports and Entertainment" might be quite productive: the average quality of NS RPing, outside that done by the established bunch, would be even lower!

*nods* I don't have a problem with music threads at all - you nailed it with the 'low-quality non-rp' stuff being the real problem.

And Skeelz - you're right, which is why I tried to indicate that no one wants threads 'dumped' in any of the forms they participate in. That isn't fair to any forum regulars, hence the preferred 'new forum' or 'find the appropriate forum' if any exists.

What's more frustrating is taking the time to try and point things out, to tg and make suggestions, to bring threads that need moving or locking to the mod's attention which generally gets the attention of the players posting them.

We shouldn't discourage new players - which unfortunately happened with Filbertiana, bless his lil enthusiastic-yet-not-understanding heart. The people getting on his case were only 'better' in the sense that their English was better. They spammed and ooc'd and everything else just as much or more, and then continued to harass the poor kid.

I'd rather see folks make USEFUL suggestions, CONSTRUCTIVE criticisms, and have the players in need of them pay attention when they're made, but this is a forum, and none of us are perfect that way. I know there's no easy answer, but given all the complaints from the IC forums, it seems to be enough of a problem to warrant some discussion, hence the original post.

[Liventia]

I don't think it'd be very nice — or fair — to dump non-sporting events which NS doesn't like into NS Sports, where we won't like it either. You probably won't find too many fans of those willing to merge sports and entertainment from within the current sports community. As QoD said, it might be better to keep the good music (and suchlike) events in NS as an example. The other bits of poorly-run almost-non-RP competitions, NS Sports would hate as much as the NS crowd. There's no justification for dumping those on us. As Nathi says, those are better off solved by having a word with their participants.

I'm all for Scolo's idea ¬_¬

[Valipac]

An alternative suggestion from Scolo in the sekrit mod chat is to take the really bad RPs and dump them in Forum 7 to sink and disappear in the autoprune

[Newmanistan]

Would recategorizing NS Sports to be "NS Sports & Entertainment" be unbearable? Some of the competitions are badly played, but some aren't, and the two types might go well together. (Song contest halftime show spectacular during the World Cup finals?

Look, I know maybe it got annoying on Jolt with how much sports RPing there was in the NS forum, but WorldVision and the World Cup don't really bear any relation. They're not even conducted in the same way: almost all Sports RPing is, essentially, a game using some form of scorinator. These song contests, however, are completely subjective judgment: "I vote for you" or, more usually, "I vote for my puppet".

Associating "Entertainment" with "Sports" doesn't seem any less arbitrary than associating it with "General Roleplaying". I can understand the frustration with the way things are right now, but a lot of it is coming from a small number of users, many of whom will probably burn out relatively soon.

I recall NS having some well-written RPs that were based at balls or family parties: isn't that really more similar to the Entertainment RPs, anyway?

I'm not so sure that I understand your post. Sports itself are generally known as entertainment. Yes, I realized that song contests aren't related to sports, but they are under similar categories, in terms of what they are towards us.

The frustration itself is definitely not from a small number of users. It goes above and beyond this thread alone, and into multiple threads, posts, and telegrams speaking of the same sort of thing. Even so (if they were to burn out), the concern remains.

Should you decide to combine "sports" with "entertainment", you will inherit another group of users lodging complaints which won't be small, either, that you probably don't have right now. In the sports forum, we are dealing with as much poorly thought out sports roleplays and "copycat" tournaments of established events as there may be spam in other places. This is equally frustrating to us, but we do our best to deal with it. Case in point, the "Cup of Harmony 39" thread fell to page 2 yesterday with about 16 or so hours going by without a post. You may not know what this tournament is, but it is quite a significant tournament which is seeing action. There was only a slight lull because said date was a scheduled off day in tournament. It fell under at least four useless threads concerning tournaments which sports regulars know from experience will never have a prayer. The World Cup XX Results thread falls to the very bottom of page 1 and sometimes to page 2 as well. This is a very valuable thread, but since only hosts post in it to tell us the scores, it doesn't actually get posted in as much. My point is, we see the spam too. It is not only in the NationStates forum. Merging entertainment, and then dealing with the similarly poor thought out roleplays or "copycat" events will further spam the sports forum, which get you more complaints from regular users of the sports forum who you may not be that familiar with at the moment.

Create a new forum for entertainment if you must, but please don't dump it on the sports crowd. You'll be opening a new can of worms.

[Reploid Productions]

Well, at the moment the consensus in the sekrit forum is leaning toward getting lock-happy on the particularly crappy crap.

[Starblaydia]

And comments, tg's, constructive posts don't seem to be getting through.

Welcome to NS Sports for the last few months. Oh wait, Nathi, you already came and yelled at us, the Sporters, for our attitudes to these people who simply and continually Do. Not. Get. It.

[float=right][/float] The list of enthusiastic newcomers who arrive in a blaze of one-liner near-spam posts and who end up being long-term, constructive members of the community is very small indeed, perhaps counting on the fingers of one finger. Youth and a poor grasp of English does, often, play a part. As does not listening, not reading the stickies and not taking the advice (though I admit it's not always polite advice, depending on the poster). We know who the culprits are, and they make us throw our hands in the air and headbutt our desks in despair (you have to be really supple, or double-jointed, to do both at once).

Lock 'em all.

EDIT: Fixing a typo of 'English'. How ironic.
EDIT2: Is naming and shaming illegal? Can't remember, so I won't (any more).