The Writers' Block

[Tokuopolis]

Here's my issue thread.

[Sedgistan]

Long overdue, as ever!

Got Issues Update no.4

• Issues added since last update: 41. We're now up to #476 and closing in on 500 issues, which is a great achievement.
• We're aware that amongst those, there have been a quite a few issues authored by team members. We're looking to put a process in place to limit that, so we remain primarily an Issues Editing team (albeit with exceptions for Chains and other "specials" that require a team member to author).
• Issues fixed since the last update: most of them. Of note, Sanc has been moving commas around before realising perhaps he didn't need to. A discussion on adopting US English was chucked out by an alliance of UK and Irish staff members, plus the ghost of Sirocco.
• Queue of submitted issues: 0. We've got 149 in our "Pool" of ones that we may work on in the future.
• Dismissal rates have been falling as Lenyo's project to re-work a number of the less popular issues has borne fruit.
• The notorious Issue #221 (Outdated Tax Code Crushing @@NAME@@?) has attracted controversy of late for its potential to implode your nation's economy (despite the fact it's been doing that for a good 5+ years). It was out of circulation for a while, as we make... wait, we did this last time. And yes, we did an even more thorough re-write of the text, to make clear it's about tax rates, not government spending. The stats have been modified accordingly, meaning we now get complaints about it not doing enough damage to nations! Issue #370, which was a follow-up to the original #221, is obviously going to have to be changed too.
• The issues team has expanded with the addition of Nation of Quebec and Gnejs, and then shrunk with Raurosia being stepped down and Golgothastan going missing while exploring the depths of the Issues Pool. We have another potential Editor taking their Editing Baccalaureate at the moment, and we're still looking out for future Editors, with the plan being to continue our expansion of the team.
• We're still teasing Industry reform, though you're probably all tired of it now. It will happen. We have a plan.
• Obesity has been rejiggerated. You should see this change on nation pages, with a new world average closer to 0, making this both a more accurate and more useful measure.
• We've got some more effective tools for modifying stats. These aren't going to be immediately obvious, but will help us give more accurate results.
• Another Easter Egg has been spotted in-game, though perhaps "Easter" isn't the best way to describe it...

[Sanctaria]

Of note, Sanc has been moving commas around before realising perhaps he didn't need to. A discussion on adopting US English was chucked out by an alliance of UK and Irish staff members, plus the ghost of Sirocco.

In case anyone is curious:

In American English/US Style, in written dialogue the comma goes inside the quotation marks i.e. "I can't believe that happened," said Sedgistan.

Some of the issues in the issues base (mainly those edited by me) had the comma outside the quotation marks i.e. "I can't believe that happened", said Sedgistan.

I had thought this was an American English/British English difference but a few noted grammarians told me otherwise, so I went back and fixed it. Until I was doing some googling a little later and found out that the way I had been editing, with the comma outside the punctuation mark, was indeed a British English way of writing.

So I only wasted about an hour of my time going through the issue base fixing them for no reason. That said, it is now consistent, so moving forward we'll stick with the American English on that particular rule, but us loyal practioners of the Queen's English have successfully resisted attempts to force us to drop the u in colour and favourite and to spell organise with an ize. You'll still see British English words and spellings used.

[Chan Island]

So I only wasted about an hour of my time going through the issue base fixing them for no reason. That said, it is now consistent, so moving forward we'll stick with the American English on that particular rule, but us loyal practioners of the Queen's English have successfully resisted attempts to force us to drop the u in colour and favourite and to spell organise with an ize. You'll still see British English words and spellings used.

Keep up the good work defending the Queen's English. o7

In other news, so a high rate of the issues implemented into the game have been authored by the editors themselves? I will have to hurry up my postings now!

[Bears Armed]

I don't really mind about the editors penning a significant proportion of the new issues, bearing in mind that the ability to write good ones was one of the factors involved in their selection, but maybeso if one of them writes an issue they should get one of the others to edit it -- just in case -- instead of doing the job themselves?

[Sanctaria]

I don't really mind about the editors penning a significant proportion of the new issues, bearing in mind that the ability to write good ones was one of the factors involved in their selection, but maybeso if one of them writes an issue they should get one of the others to edit it -- just in case -- instead of doing the job themselves?

We collaborate as a team on every issue, so pushing through your own issue won't happen. But as a rule, it's really only usually editors who have tenure or are senior status who edit their own issues. To be put in-game, it has to be signed off by 2/3 senior editors too (Sedge/Luna/Me). So we have a lot of safeguards.

[Bears Armed]

I don't really mind about the editors penning a significant proportion of the new issues, bearing in mind that the ability to write good ones was one of the factors involved in their selection, but maybeso if one of them writes an issue they should get one of the others to edit it -- just in case -- instead of doing the job themselves?

We collaborate as a team on every issue, so pushing through your own issue won't happen. But as a rule, it's really only usually editors who have tenure or are senior status who edit their own issues. To be put in-game, it has to be signed off by 2/3 senior editors too (Sedge/Luna/Me). So we have a lot of safeguards.

Okay, thanks for explaining.

[Kaboomlandia]

Would it be a good idea to write a follow-up to #471.1 (Red Sleigh Down) about accidentally shooting down Santa and the ensuing issue?

[Trotterdam]

Easter eggs aren't supposed to be taken that seriously.

[Sedgistan]

We're not looking for more Easter Eggs or follow-ups to them.

[Kaboomlandia]

Fair enough.

[Nation of Quebec]

If anyone else is still looking for new issue subjects to tackle, any of the following topics would make good potential issues:

Copyright trolling
"Affluenza"
Trial by media
People of @@FAITH@@ complaining that other religions are being taught in schools
Martin Shkreli/hiking the price of lifesaving drugs

[Drachmaland]

If anyone else is still looking for new issue subjects to tackle, any of the following topics would make good potential issues:

[...]
Martin Shkreli/hiking the price of lifesaving drugs

Wouldn't that be covered by existing issue #107?

[Nation of Quebec]

If anyone else is still looking for new issue subjects to tackle, any of the following topics would make good potential issues:

[...]
Martin Shkreli/hiking the price of lifesaving drugs

Wouldn't that be covered by existing issue #107?

I think this would be more about buying existing drugs and hiking up the price, rather than a creator profiting from their drug.

It could be a good follow up for that issue however - showing the consequences of what would happen if you picked the option that allows for private enterprise to take over pharmaceuticals. You could then use this issue to potentially reverse that choice.

[Chan Island]

If anyone else is still looking for new issue subjects to tackle, any of the following topics would make good potential issues:

Copyright trolling
"Affluenza"
Trial by media
People of @@FAITH@@ complaining that other religions are being taught in schools
Martin Shkreli/hiking the price of lifesaving drugs

Waaaay back in June or sometime around there, I actually did post and submit an issue about trial by media.... clearly it wasn't up to standard and has been consigned to the dustbin of issue draft hell. Will get to writing another one then.

[Nation of Quebec]

If anyone else is still looking for new issue subjects to tackle, any of the following topics would make good potential issues:

Copyright trolling
"Affluenza"
Trial by media
People of @@FAITH@@ complaining that other religions are being taught in schools
Martin Shkreli/hiking the price of lifesaving drugs

In addition to these, the following topics are also good ideas to cover for issues:

The @@NAME@@ Parliament buildings are in serious need of repair, but it's expensive
An issue tackling "wasteful government spending"
@@LEADER@@ accidentally spoils an insanely popular movie in a speech, upsetting millions. Could be a fun pop culture and free speech issue.

[Flanderlion]

#247 could do with an insurance bit, insurance from fires seems like something for option 1.

Bar Wars, or Car Wars could be the movie name.

[Sanctaria]

#247 could do with an insurance bit, insurance from fires seems like something for option 1.

I feel the Door-to-Door Insurance Industry is vastly underused in NS issues It's a pity, really.

[Tokuopolis]

I'm thinking of doing a few more issues. One's going to be based around the Saint George vs Saint Edmund as the Patron Saint of England controversy. Is doing an issue on patron saints acceptable?

The other is "The Internet is for monitoring citizens!" which will be a parody of Sesame Credit.

[Sedgistan]

I'm thinking of doing a few more issues. One's going to be based around the Saint George vs Saint Edmund as the Patron Saint of England controversy. Is doing an issue on patron saints acceptable?

Yup.

[Tokuopolis]

I'm thinking of doing a few more issues. One's going to be based around the Saint George vs Saint Edmund as the Patron Saint of England controversy. Is doing an issue on patron saints acceptable?

Yup.

Oh thanks. I figured it wasn't that offensive even though it's about religion, but I just wanted to double check

[Nation of Quebec]

Yup.

Oh thanks. I figured it wasn't that offensive even though it's about religion, but I just wanted to double check

Issues that mention religion typically use either Violetism or the @@FAITH@@ macro. It's been a while since a specific real world religion was used in an issue.

As Sedge said, the topic is perfectly acceptable. Speaking as an atheist, I don't find it offensive at all.

[Trotterdam]

I haven't heard of this patron saint controversy before, so I don't know what it's about or how it would apply to other countries or religions, but I'll wait and see your draft for that.

Any such issue would probably have to be written to use @@FAITH@@, since it's hard to see why a nation would care that much about how it's represented in the theology of a religion it doesn't even believe in. (Well, except when foreign religions are just mocking you godless heathens, which I understand isn't what this is about.)

Issues that mention religion typically use either Violetism or the @@FAITH@@ macro. It's been a while since a specific real world religion was used in an issue.

The very recent #467 Saving Your Own Foreskin manages to somehow completely avoid mentioning Judaism by name while obviously implying to it with the second speaker's heavy accent. (How many Jews even speak Yiddish? I think Hebrew is far more common nowadays.)

And the opening description describes someone having been circumcised for "aerodynamic purposes" rather than religion reasons, which I'm... pretty sure wouldn't make a difference. (Though it does speak to my convictions: if people have a right to do somethin for religious reasons, they should have a right to do it for non-religious reasons too.)

[Eastminister Isle]

#247 could do with an insurance bit, insurance from fires seems like something for option 1.

I feel the Door-to-Door Insurance Industry is vastly underused in NS issues It's a pity, really.

Hm... would dangerous deficit spending make people want to buy more insurance? Or perhaps cutting all taxes and letting the market control everything?

I ask because those are two effects of an issue I have as a draft on the forum; maybe insurance could work its way in.

[Tokuopolis]

I haven't heard of this patron saint controversy before, so I don't know what it's about or how it would apply to other countries or religions, but I'll wait and see your draft for that.

Any such issue would probably have to be written to use @@FAITH@@, since it's hard to see why a nation would care that much about how it's represented in the theology of a religion it doesn't even believe in. (Well, except when foreign religions are just mocking you godless heathens, which I understand isn't what this is about.)

Issues that mention religion typically use either Violetism or the @@FAITH@@ macro. It's been a while since a specific real world religion was used in an issue.

The very recent #467 Saving Your Own Foreskin manages to somehow completely avoid mentioning Judaism by name while obviously implying to it with the second speaker's heavy accent. (How many Jews even speak Yiddish? I think Hebrew is far more common nowadays.)

And the opening description describes someone having been circumcised for "aerodynamic purposes" rather than religion reasons, which I'm... pretty sure wouldn't make a difference. (Though it does speak to my convictions: if people have a right to do something for religious reasons, they should have a right to do it for non-religious reasons too.)

I'm thinking of using the @@FAITH@@ Macro (and assuming all nations with religion have patron saints), or making it exclusive to nations with Christianity as the religion. BTW, is there any way to get specific names instead of using the @@RANDOMNAME@@ macro?