Suppression War?

[Enfaru]

Just... throwing an idea out there as a kind of RMB game and possibly also as a regional management tool for when the officers aren't around.

Would it be possible to allow everyone to have the ability the "suppress" a message? Lets say:

Bob makes a post on the RMB. This post is given a score of "Liberated: 1, Suppressed: 0".
Kate comes along and decides they don't like it, so they "suppress" it, giving it the score "Liberated: 1, Suppressed: 1". This would do nothing however...
Jack comes along and, feeling a bit mischievous also decides to click "suppress" giving it the score, "Liberated: 1, Suppressed: 2" so the message gets suppressed until enough people vote the other direction.

It would give "raiders" a new tool in their arsenal and defenders would have something more to do, outside of the usual update periods.

Of course, the officers should be allowed to over-rule these and declare things "liberated" or "suppressed" as desired. (Giving the Comms Officer something more to do).

Not only that, this would also serve democratic regions well, who don't have "officers" or "executives" and allow regions to self censor themselves by democratic oversight. I could imagine it being very entertaining...although equally for some, very frustrating. It would however add a new interesting dynamic to keep people sticking around. (Especially those in the R&D game).

Edit 1:
One tool to guard against puppets, would be to make this a "WA dependent" feature. That would also reduce potential server load as well.

[Switzo-Polish Republic]

Interesting concepts.

[Galiantus VII]

Interesting idea.

This would probably be best as a feature for founderless regions without a delegate or ROs. I also see no reason not to also apply a similar concept to other regional powers in the absence of a founder, delegate or RO (not border control or executive, of course). If smaller regions could combat tag-raiding on their own or keep the region at least looking nice that would be a desirable feature.

[Noahs Second Country]

Support.

[Enfaru]

Interesting idea.

This would probably be best as a feature for founderless regions without a delegate or ROs. I also see no reason not to also apply a similar concept to other regional powers in the absence of a founder, delegate or RO (not border control or executive, of course). If smaller regions could combat tag-raiding on their own or keep the region at least looking nice that would be a desirable feature.

The reason I haven't excluded Founder Regions, is because most regions are Founder led or have ROs and given how it wouldn't "permanently" harm the region in question (no real loss of data) then I feel that it's unnecessary to exclude them. However, a region with Founders and ROs will have a much easier time undoing the work by Raiders.

[Mallorea and Riva]

Just... throwing an idea out there as a kind of RMB game and possibly also as a regional management tool for when the officers aren't around.

Would it be possible to allow everyone to have the ability the "suppress" a message? Lets say:

Bob makes a post on the RMB. This post is given a score of "Liberated: 1, Suppressed: 0".
Kate comes along and decides they don't like it, so they "suppress" it, giving it the score "Liberated: 1, Suppressed: 1". This would do nothing however...
Jack comes along and, feeling a bit mischievous also decides to click "suppress" giving it the score, "Liberated: 1, Suppressed: 2" so the message gets suppressed until enough people vote the other direction.

It would give "raiders" a new tool in their arsenal and defenders would have something more to do, outside of the usual update periods.

Of course, the officers should be allowed to over-rule these and declare things "liberated" or "suppressed" as desired. (Giving the Comms Officer something more to do).

Not only that, this would also serve democratic regions well, who don't have "officers" or "executives" and allow regions to self censor themselves by democratic oversight. I could imagine it being very entertaining...although equally for some, very frustrating. It would however add a new interesting dynamic to keep people sticking around. (Especially those in the R&D game).

Edit 1:
One tool to guard against puppets, would be to make this a "WA dependent" feature. That would also reduce potential server load as well.

I don't like it. Random posts from a week ago which aren't easily visible could be suppressed en masse, and no one would even notice. Additionally if one player decides "I don't like these posts" they could suppress them all, and then require some other player to have to go through them all.Currently only those with delegate/RO power can do so, I don't like the idea of opening it up to anyone with a WA nation.

[Enfaru]

I don't like it. Random posts from a week ago which aren't easily visible could be suppressed en masse, and no one would even notice. Additionally if one player decides "I don't like these posts" they could suppress them all, and then require some other player to have to go through them all.Currently only those with delegate/RO power can do so, I don't like the idea of opening it up to anyone with a WA nation.

One person no, two people yes.

Random posts from a week which aren't easily visible could be suppressed on mass...but then, no one will care and if they have an RO then it can be fixed...or if enough people vote liberate, then it's fixed at any rate.

[Lockdownn]

Against. I see no reason for people to be allowed to legally spam anymore than they can currently.

[Enfaru]

No spamming involved. Assuming spamming is defined as the "submission of irrelevant content for purposes of publication" e.g. additional RMB messages or forum posts of which this idea would do neither.

[Lockdownn]

No spamming involved. Assuming spamming is defined as the "submission of irrelevant content for purposes of publication" e.g. additional RMB messages or forum posts of which this idea would do neither.

You're forgetting about "Regional Happenings." I happen to rely on that for a lot of my notifications and random people with WA accounts clogging up both the RMB and Regional Happenings with useless activities pushes the useful information out.

[Enfaru]

Ah, there'd be no need to include this in the regional happenings notifications. It would require a particular option, which I am sure could be turned off at any rate for it to be included. Thus getting rid of the spam element entirely.

[Socio Polor]

So let me get this straight, this is basically a feature that'll allow the rmb suppression system to be democratic

[Natapoc]

I love the idea. This would could be one of the few tools that natives have against raiders.

Since raiders often adopt the tactic of suppressing all posts from "natives", natives could have a chance to "resist" in a way by unsuppressing the posts of fellow natives and suppressing the posts of the invaders. But it should not be possible to disable. Eject and ban could be used for those who would abuse it.

[Frisbeeteria]

So far most of the 'pro' votes are from people in the R/D game. Perhaps you haven't noticed, but 99+% of RMB posts have nothing to do with R/D. Until you address the impact on that aspect of the game, you've not even scratched the surface.

No spamming involved.

We have a very different definition of spam. It's anything disruptive, from puppet flooding to posting the entire script of "Bee Movie", and everything in between.

I think this is a terrible idea. Giving everyone suppression and unsuppression power will result in thousands upon thousands of unnecessary page reloads. I don't have stats to back this up, but I'm betting that the majority of RMB posts are in regions set up by schoolkids, who use the RMB as a chatroom during classes. Several of those regions have thousands of pages of posts. A tool like this would be massively disruptive.

Remember always that R/D is just a tiny portion of the game. People who participate in this forum are an even tinier percentage. Whatever we do, game balance needs to address 100% of the players.

[Tinhampton]

AGAINST. For all I know, Officer Peter could come along and declare all posts either suppressed or unsuppressed. And then, for all I still know, Officer Jane could come through, nullify Peter's choices, and do the opposite of what he did.

[Flanderlion]

As someone who has dabbled in R/D a couple of times, doesn't seem like a good plan at all. Lot of work for spam. Anything anyone cares about being suppressed would be suppressed or unsuppressed by the RO's when they arrive (work), and it'd just allow every random to mess with the old RMB. Fratt would come back and suppress this post (https://www.nationstates.net/page=rmb/postid=3901235), and no one would know to take action until some person reading our RMB notices three years later. Making R/D not a full-time job is a good thing, lowers barriers to entry (like update times was meant to), there isn't a need to create things for R/Ders to do in between updates, the smart ones already know there is stuff, and the others either chat, dabble in other aspects of NS, or do other things.

[Enfaru]

In order then

Socio Polor:

Yes...in as much sense as two sides going to war could be seen as democratic

.

Natapoc:

That is indeed precisely the point, at no point have I advocating a disablement feature, but there should be a way to disable the notifications generated from it.

Frisbeeteria:

R/D is just a tiny portion of the game.

*breaks down in laughter*

Okay, time to answer the points you have raised seriously.

The last I checked, moderation of posts has nothing to do with Regional Management and therefore the "suppression" is not a tool for regional management. It is a way of exerting will, which is easily subverted through using simple tools such as NS++. So the "Suppression" thing itself is entirely a R/D feature or the feature of dictatorial regional management (suppression of the freedom of speech rather than monitoring rule breaking), not a community management feature, although many regions try to co-opt the "Suppression" facility into something that achieves the same objectives. Nowadays it is primarily used by Raiders and if there are no regional officers around, there's no way to defend against it.

In that case, raiding and defending == Spam. Quick, ban it, it's against the rules. Any use of the suppression feature is spam. Quick to the ban hammers. There's a fine line Frisbeeteria between receiving unsolicited messages and disruption. So far your argument renders half the game moot because it is largely based on being disruptive and challenging.

As for thousands upon thousands of unnecessary page reloads: There will be more reloads yes and possibly thousands given how many users are members of Nationstates, however as a proportion I still expect this to be low. It would operate in a similar fashion to how the "like" and the current "suppression" features currently work and I can't see, except in the case of a particular battle of page refreshes being necessary and scripting is already banned in those respects so far as I can tell.

I'd wager, that the majority of Raiding Defending regions are set up by those same school kids. Classroom regions are general kept separate and largely those that are being used as a chatroom during class...(strikeshouldbeshutdownanywaybecausetheyshouldbelearningnotchattingstrike) will generally find themselves operating too quickly to be affected by this in a meaningful way. As for a region having thousands of pages of posts...yes...but you don't see raiders getting banned for suppressing as many messages as they can find, in fact it's encouraged...routinely and it is largely why NS++ allows messages to be unsuppressed by default because raiders do stuff like that, hence rendering the Suppression feature a fun game rather than a useful tool. Thus this would have no more disruptive impact than the R&D game currently has (well, it'll have a little more).

As for R/D being just a tiny portion of the game, it has been routinely stated that R&D is to be encouraged. If the R/D's didn't want it, we wouldn't have "Regional Officers" for example (useful though they are) and R/D is widely given priority when it comes to considering how the game is to be developed in the future. Now... if that's changed (and I would welcome such a change, returning R/Ding back to Griefing) please, lemme know. Until then, saying it's just a small part of the game moots the entirety of how the game has evolved over the last few years.

Tinhampton:

Not all posts, just one post at a time, but then, another officer could come through and undo all his hard work. Though that's a matter for regional officers and how they manage their region. It's not actually a critique of the system being proposed here.

Flanderlion:

That's precisely why I proposed limiting it to WA members to prevent puppets but it would allow everyone to have a vote in what is and is not suppressed on the RMB. Remember posts can be suppressed by raiders even three years back should they win. If one raider goes in and decides to "suppress" a post that's a vote that'll be offset by the original poster so won't have an affect. If two people say it should be suppressed, then it'd be suppressed.

As for barriers to entry, for some people, those update periods ARE a barrier for entry due to timezones.

Though thanks for your comments. I do understand that not everyone would agree with the proposal but there are some checks and balances built in and I'd certainly be open to considering a few more to balance it out and allay some of the legitimate concerns about spam and possible tools to make it easier to defend against.

Thanks all.

[Lockdownn]

The whole point of suppression is to hide unwanted RMB posts. Why should regions that want nothing to do with raiding/defending have to submit to yet another form of legalized trolling?

[Enfaru]

The whole point of suppression is to hide unwanted RMB posts. Why should regions that want nothing to do with raiding/defending have to submit to yet another form of legalized trolling?

You're preaching to the choir. If it were up to me, I'd making griefing a bannable offence but apparently the powers that be want otherwise and who am I to argue with what they want? In truth I suspect that this proposal will have very minimal effect in the R&D world but instead be a useful tool in regions that don't have regional officers or are largely left to manage themselves with no or little protection.

[Dytarma]

I'm against. Founders, Delegates, and Officers with Communications should be the only one who should be able to suppress. And how would this method of "suppressing" be used in only defending you region? Couldn't a player just "suppress" whenever he wants?

[Bears Armed]

The whole point of suppression is to hide unwanted RMB posts. Why should regions that want nothing to do with raiding/defending have to submit to yet another form of legalized trolling?

Agreed.

[Aclion]

Once a message is suppressed how are nations meant to determine if they should vote to unsuppress it? The content of suppressed messages can't be seen.

[Leutria]

Once a message is suppressed how are nations meant to determine if they should vote to unsuppress it? The content of suppressed messages can't be seen.

They can by pressing the plus on the right side. Only mod suppressed messages cannot be seen.

[Enfaru]

Once a message is suppressed how are nations meant to determine if they should vote to unsuppress it? The content of suppressed messages can't be seen.

They can by pressing the plus on the right side. Only mod suppressed messages cannot be seen.

Of course I think that requires NS++ or a similar mod, but the truth is, it is a war, a political one between whether information should be free no matter its content or whether others should have the right to prevent another from expressing their views. The ultimate expression of ideals on the spectrum of the Freedom of Speech.

Leutria is correct only mod suppressions cannot be avoided.

[Leutria]

Of course I think that requires NS++ or a similar mod

Nope, can do it without any add-ons. Currently I am just in my phone which as far as I know you cannot add extensions to even if you wanted to.

Go look at a region like Anarchy where lots of posts are being surpressed and look at the right side. You should see the plus to expand the post and read it.

Really, suppressions are not significant as it only puts the content one click away. It is more of an inconvenience then actually silencing someone.