RomeW wrote:Here's my take regarding the non-participation issue:
For me, what it really boils down to is the sense that, if it doesn't directly involve me then, simply put, I just won't bother with it. The reason for this is that I've got my own stuff to take care of in RL as well as focusing on the issues affecting my nation right now- e.g., my "super claim thread"- that I just don't feel like I have much time to read and reply to someone else's thread when the story going on in the thread won't matter much- in the long run- to my nation. Yes, it is lazy of me, but look at it from this perspective- even though our threads are well-written and engaging, many of our threads ask for a large time commitment just based on the sheer volume of words and posts to read through. If I had nothing to take care of, I'd be more than happy to read through that, but since I have my own stuff to take care of, I'm just not willing to get involved unless I need to.
I did some thinking about why this is happening and concluded that since I've got a claim thread and lots of territory to reconcile that it's more important for me to focus my energies on finishing the claims than getting involved in a story that may only have a cursory interest to me. Realizing this, I wonder if I am the only one who thinks in this way- something tells me that I'm not.
I can't be sure of that line of thinking in others, but what I do know- after perusing the active threads- is that, of the 20 active threads that Earth II has, 11 are either introductory threads or claim threads (including my own). To me, that's a high number, and if others share my line of thinking, then we've got one big reason why others are not participating in others' threads- they're too busy concluding the threads that actually matter to them.
Sure, there's nothing to stop people from jumping into someone else's claim thread- at least, from what I can tell, nothing in the E2 rulebook- but my perception is that there's an unwritten rule here that says we do not interfere with someone else's claims, respecting pending claims as if they were established ones. This isn't a bad thing at all- in fact, I think it's a VERY good thing, since it's fostered a relatively hospitable environment where we can post freely without worrying about someone trying to swipe our land from under our noses, so long as we respect our fellow users. One of the worst things about other NS RPs is that you get a "competition" aspect to them and, ultimately, it's just not fun at all. No one likes to lose- especially if it keeps happening- and in environments where there's "winners and losers", there tends to be divisions rather quickly between the "winners" and the "losers" and the community stops working together, if not falling apart outright. While it's true that E2 has its "more dominant" members, at least here no one feels like there are actual bullies pushing people around- we work to include, not exclude and that's something I hope never stops.
Having said that, it makes me wonder if we need to fix the claiming rules in general. It always seemed silly to me that only "pending" claims can be contested- technically speaking, there isn't a claim on this map that isn't contestable, since to take land from someone else you need to RP for it (and against them) anyway. I also think that if people didn't worry about having to craft epic RP's just so the land they've claimed truly becomes theirs it might ease their minds to get involved in other things. I mean, it's hard for me to want to get excited about a world leader getting executed on live TV when I'm worried about resolving my mountain of claims as fast as possible. If I knew that I *had* them, without worry, then it would be different, since the fear of "losing" the land (relatively speaking) wouldn't be there.
So I'm thinking that the claim rules should go back- somewhat- to the way they were many moons ago, where a successful RP wasn't required to be completed so your claim got registered. Here's how I'd work it:
-You make a claim. The rest of the world gets seven (7) days to register contests to that claim. If no one contests after that time, it becomes yours, no questions asked.
-If someone does contest a claim, the two parties get seven days from that point to negotiate in good faith an equitable exchange, after which they've got to RP for it or someone drops their claim
-A claim still needs an accompanying RP post for it to be officially registered, and this can come before (but not after) the initial seven day period is done. Absent a post, the claim gets invalidated. The post can come in a "national activity thread" instead of a claim thread, but the post still needs to come. As per regular RP convention, they also need to be realistic- i.e., Fort Knox (or Rome) can't be built in one post, nor can an ethnic group be cleaned in one post or a leader get elected in one post- and whatever doesn't get RP'ed doesn't happen, in addition to normal general E2 activity requirements
-Upper limits can be established on how much someone can claim in a month or a three month period, so that no one "hoards" land.
Hope it makes sense. I'm *way* past my bedtime, but this was too important for me not to weigh in.
Thank you for the non-curt reply, there's a lot of stuff in this. Now, I am going to take some offense to it but not in a malignant way, so bear with me here.
I want to remove this stigma of "well that doesn't concern me, I don't care" because in truth, everything concerns everyone to some degree. If say, Byz's regime just executed their President and split ties with Hi No Moto that could mean a warming to other nations. Perhaps this will increase the levels of trade. As your nation is a large and influential one, it's certainly plausible that you'd be affected. I know Brink would be affected, he trades with everyone and the possibility of more trade coming his way would be a big booster. It's these kinds of scenarios that spider web out that show just how influential some small events are.
Laziness, for lack of a better word, just won't suffice as a good excuse. I know we have some lengthy posts but few of our threads move quickly - and what few did just collapsed because someone got lazy - which is detrimental to our RP. Our RP itself does ask for a large time commitment, it always has (far more so in the past as you know than nowadays). Of course, we're all older, we work, we have lives, et cetera but I want to instill that even so, everyone here is mostly in the same boat and everyone deserves some recognition for their efforts. Even something simple as a post from an embassy as a response to another nation's troubles could give some comfort of, "Hey at least people are reading all this that I am writing." We face a lot of come-in and go-out players and yes that's a major sore but I want to encourage them to stay. Involvement in an RP might just be one day - we certainly have to try, in order to know for sure. I do hope this isn't a prevalent sentiment.
As far as an unwritten rule not to interfere with someone else's claims, that's entirely false. If it were these little spats between yourself and Western Averi, and Itailian Maifias and Brydog would not have happened. Simply put, anyone can screw with anyone else's claims, period. That's why the contestation thing was added, so that two people could legitimately make a claim to the same piece of land and then fight it out through RP. It's meant to encourage one-on-one back-and-forth RP. The drawback is this hospital environment you're calling out is actually just a boring non-intervention environment. We should worry about making a claim and if someone is going to swipe it, that creates tension and tension creates growth. Competition belongs here, in fact the lack of competition is a major problem. We need more of it. In previous times you had stated you weren't in favor of the versus RP whereby two people RP for one nation, it's why you and Western Averi were working things out over TG and what not. Frankly, and I am guilty of it too, story RPs should not be the dominant RP here. We need interactive RPs with player-on-player involvement. If we're just going to be an RP where we all write our own stories, we might as well close down Earth II and just let people write what they want where they want.
Now as far as only pending claims can be contested, another falsity. The term "contestation" just means two people are contesting the same tract of land. In truth, if someone wanted, say Sicily from you, they could invade you to take it. It wouldn't be a contestation, it'd be the traditional RP, player-on-player. Let me put that to bed immediately. Contestation specifically covers unclaimed or pending claim land to prevent godmodding and wanking (i.e. - well I made the claim so I have 4,000,000 troops there and you don't). There's literally no rule that says, for example, Itailian Maifias can't invade and attack the Azores with the intention of seizing said islands for himself and if he did and the RP ensued, and I was defeated, that land would change hands to him.
The requirement for RPs for land claims is essential to us. It's to avoid people from going, "I claim so-and-so land," do a single post, and move on, thus boring the crap out of everyone. Thus the proposals you gave I have to immediately question. It's easy enough to claim land, in fact though we require a complete RP, no one has had their land denied to them after they completed an RP. I might have said "Hey do one more wrap-up post" because it was left open ended but nothing was ever denied. So we don't need to make claiming any easier, in fact it's fine the way it is. I won't put a timer on contestations either, that's silly, what if a new nation comes in and the RP is still going but it's a long way away from getting there, yours for example. That would ruin it for new people coming into the RP and we need to bring in more members, not shy away the ones coming in (save for those who absolutely can't read).
Also, there's no timer on claims. The only requirements are that posts go in on a timely manner. A claim RP could last four years, it wouldn't be against the rules, so long as it was kept active. We don't want to rush RPs here, that's not going to end well for anyone. We do encourage people to complete them quickly only so that they can get on the map, get recognized, get their history in, and become full members. If someone wants to take a year to do an RP, that's fine. Look at some of mine, they've taken a long time to do, my story on Cyprus (again story, sorry folks) took over a year to write.
Your point at limits does bring something to mind. However, if we were to have limits, your super claim through would be invalidated because you've claimed probably more land in one shot than anyone in a very, very, very long time. I would call it hoarding depending on the definition but at the same time, it's all legal so it wouldn't be hoarding, it's the name of the game. But you have to understand, as well as all players, that such dominance will step on a lot of toes thus resistance will form and the tension that it breeds will lead, hopefully, to player-on-player, traditional RP, whereby people vie for land and RP like they do everywhere else on NationStates.
I am truly glad you wrote as in-depth as you did, I hope everyone's responses are like this, so please people, write away, I just want to clear up falsities and what I see is a dangerous line of thinking that has likely caused the stagnation of our RP. Is any one person to blame? Hardly, but I must share much of the burden myself and I want to rectify that pronto.
