[Discussion] Why is "Userite" a Dirty Word?

[Gibraltarica]

As someone who has worked primarily in UCRs, I resent the phrase "userite." It negates my regions' success, their accomplishments, and my role in them as unnecessary and minor. I understand GCRs are larger, and that in the past, external coups have been an issue, but no more than internal coups have been an issue. However, I also understand it's a matter of traditional ideology for many regions that profess to be Francoist.

Therefore, I'm genuinely curious as to why feeders have recently been using the term so often. It's definitely seen a resurgence since I started following NSGP two years ago. To those of you in feeders/sinkers, do you see members of UCRs as innately inferior? Do you despise UCRs for certain traits, or are you indifferent to them? Why is there such a focus on UCR coups of GCRs as opposed to GCR coups of GCRs? If you despise UCRs, what can we in UCRs do to improve our image with you?

If you mainly reside in UCRs, how does the term "userite" make you feel? What do you think of GCRs, overall? Are they justified in being cautious of a "userite menace"? Is your region seeking/has it sought positive relations with a GCR?

[Glen-Rhodes]

There's an uptick in using the word because the game is currently going through another period where ambitious players are trying to accumulate power across GCRs. These players tend to have extensive UCR affiliations in the past, or are currently part of non-GCR organizations (like R/D orgs). "Userite" is used in the context of the assumption that these players don't care about the GCRs they're in, but rather have loyalties elsewhere or to only themselves. If your main attachment in NS is to a UCR (including R/D orgs), but you're really trying to make moves in GCRs, some people find that pretty suspicious.

It doesn't mean that your UCR accomplishments don't mean anything, or that the region(s) you've made are useless and less than. It's all about the belief that players lacking loyalty to GCRs, yet maneuvering politically within them, are nefarious, usually up to no good more often than not.

As Unibot likes to point out, the better term is "entryist." But Userite is a term unique to NS, so people like to use it.

[Sea Lion]

There's an uptick in using the word because the game is currently going through another period where ambitious players are trying to accumulate power across GCRs.

Or perhaps more superficially, these "ambitious players" happen to be the ones that are the most vocal in this community, which leads to newer players adopting such beliefs, even (especially) if it means twisting these buzzwords to fit their own modi operandi.

[Glacikaldr]

It's a bit of silly ain't it? If a player wants to make or join a UCR, they probably wouldn't be contributing that energy to GCRs anyway. They have the choice to make a new region with their friends or to make new ones.

Then again, I'm not sure where I stand on the term 'userite', as I definitely oppose the UCR occupation of TRR's sister region, Lazarus.

With all this said, I don't really see the appeal in UCRs.

[Salvarity]

It's a bit of silly ain't it? If a player wants to make or join a UCR, they probably wouldn't be contributing that energy to GCRs anyway. They have the choice to make a new region with their friends or to make new ones.

Then again, I'm not sure where I stand on the term 'userite', as I definitely oppose the UCR occupation of TRR's sister region, Lazarus.

With all this said, I don't really see the appeal in UCRs.

Well for me, I am in my UCRs because I started this game in a UCRs and this is the community I am most comfortable with. I do not really see a place for myself in the GCR communities. (Not saying UCRs or GCRs are monolithic, there a lot of UCRs where I don't belong lol)

Back the topic of the thread, I just think Francoism became 'cool' again and this is combined with most of the game revolving around the GCRs now and Userites are the new boogeyman. The UDL just isn't as much of a menace anymore. I don't feel very strongly about being called a Userite, the fad will pass out eventually.

[Evolu Tanis]

This is from a non-GP-participant outside observer,¹ so take with a grain of salt; on the other hand, I'm not an idiot.

It doesn't mean that your UCR accomplishments don't mean anything, or that the region(s) you've made are useless and less than. It's all about the belief that players lacking loyalty to GCRs, yet maneuvering politically within them, are nefarious, usually up to no good more often than not.

The rhetoric of both the manifesto screed entitled "Proper Francoist Thought" and recent comments by some of the longtime GCR players suggests otherwise. Very few people mention this remarkable fact, but it's the most important and telling piece of the entire puzzle: PFT uses the phrase "means of production" to describe the innate attribute of Feeders (that is, this game ideology uses the same terminology to talk about players joining the game that real-life communists use to talk about the entire basis of human civilization and the first object of proletarian revolution). In this view literally the only position that is worth anything at all, across the entire Nationstates.net website, is GCR politics. Anyone who uses the site for anything besides GCR jockeying is either missing the point or lying as part of some plot to lull unsuspecting GCR citizens into... well, something, anyway - you know those damned userites are blindly insane with jealousy over TNP's endo count! If there weren't so many people here apparently committed to some form of Pacifica Uber Alles I'd think the whole idea was intended as satire.

So, to the OP - I wouldn't take too much offense at all this nasty rhetoric. It's the result of two things: 1) a particularly batshit form of blindness as to the entire rest of the website, or 2) a particularly tasteless commitment to playing the endo-count based portion of the political game in a certain way. You know and I know there's more to life NS than the indoctrination of new players into believing your birth region is more important than any choices you make; the fact that others don't get this is well beside the point.

¹ Please note that so-called "outside observers" are simply Userite spooks according to orthodox NS-Francoism. Anyone who is not a GCR partisan, especially people like me, fundamentally doesn't get it.

[Yuno Surveillance System]

Yeah, I'm not a fan of the word Userites either
Just saw TEPchat ban the word (used derogatively) from the mainChat (which is nice)
makes everyone more comfortable

[Cormactopia Prime]

I don't think the term "userite" really applies to everyone in UCRs, but rather to those who are trying to accumulate power in GCRs with the interests of their UCR(s) or userite ideology in mind, as Glen-Rhodes said. In that sense, I don't think it really has anything to do with UCRs being inferior.

That said, I think we have to acknowledge at this point that there aren't many UCRs relevant to gameplay. Beyond the purely R/D UCRs, the only ones I can think of that are gameplay-relevant are 10000 Islands, Europeia, and The Land of Kings and Emperors. I guess maybe you could throw Europe and International Democratic Union in that list since they're members of WALL, but I think IDU at least is very much the junior partner in that situation. Beyond that, it seems in recent years that there is an absence of strong leadership in various gameplay UCRs. Many of them seem to be afflicted with a perpetual n00bish vibe, which of course is a turn-off for more experienced players, many of whom are in GCRs. So I think that may contribute a bit to the sense you have that GCR players look down on UCRs. I don't think we look down on UCRs for any inherent characteristic, but rather because so many UCRs these days just aren't cut out to be real gameplay powers, and their dealings with GCRs almost always seem to be wholly opportunistic. They want the notoriety and influence that relations with GCRs can give them, without contributing much to GCRs in return. Again, this just applies to the more n00bish UCRs, not to the UCRs that are gameplay powers in their own right, like XKI, Euro, The LKE, TBH, TGW, etc., which sometimes present their own issues.

[RiderSyl]

It was originally (and still is) part of Francoism, but it's been bastardized due to the spread of GCR Elitism.

There are players that view GCRs as the ivory towers of NationStates, and once they're well known in one (or more) of them, they look down on others as dirty "Userites". These players aren't truly subscribed to the Francoist ideology though. They're just jerks.

[Flanderlion]

I don't think being a Userite is a good thing, nor has it ever been a good thing. Feederite/Userite means many different things for many different people, but the core concepts are the same. Most people have the best intentions, and not many go around trying to destroy regions/hurt communities etc.

Personally, with GCRs (Feeders specifically), from my experience dealing with the less than savoury people around NS, generally people who have only been in a feeder turn out alright, while those who are from UCRs often seem to bring histories with them, from the IC treason to OOC creepy shit. Like, obviously not all people from feeders are good, nor are all people from GP UCRs bad, but like, out of my personal experience, people who would be classed as a userite are like fourfold or more likely to have dodgy shit with them.

Its probably just the type of person that is attracted to leaving their home region, or that people that didn't have the motivation to go through and click through recruitment TGs are less invested in the game, so less dodgy stuff comes out, but honestly, I personally associate userites with sometimes IC, but mostly OOC bad shit, from the past 3 years or so I've been involved in GP.

MS excluded (haven't done a proper background check on him, but guessing he's probably from a Feeder rather than a UCR and would probably dodgy shit aside would have been classed as a Feederite), I can't think of a single recent dodgy person who I'd have classed as a Feederite. Conversely, literally every dodgy person I can think of (bar MS), I'd have classed as a userite (pre and post dodgy stuff coming out).

I could spend all day theorising why this is, how they could be helped etc. but that's my view.

Someone who is in a UCR obviously is most likely to be a good person and all that, and there are so many good UCRs with great communities. But the Feederite/Userite thing, in my (obviously not representing any region I'm in or was in) opinion, is just an easy way of figuring out who is less likely to be dodgy, and who we want to encourage to stick around vs those who we'd prefer to either leave the game, get help and/or stay in their corner away from others.

There is no magic bullet anywhere that says from a series of stats or facts about a person/player how they'll turn out. But, as in real life, there are certain predictor variables that make a person more likely to be a burden to a region.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/201 ... says-study
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/camp ... rs-obesity
https://sia.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/SIA- ... y-2017.pdf

[Roavin]

I pretty much agree with Glen's analysis here, with one addendum: I think the preference for "userite" over "entryist" isn't necessarily because the former is a NS-specific term, but rather because "userite" is much better to propagandize with than the boring, bland "entryist".

[Aclion]

I don't think the term "userite" really applies to everyone in UCRs, but rather to those who are trying to accumulate power in GCRs with the interests of their UCR(s) or userite ideology in mind, as Glen-Rhodes said. In that sense, I don't think it really has anything to do with UCRs being inferior.

Thing is the only successful subversion we've seen recently is in Lazarus, which was done by a UCR with the backing of several GCRs, and opposed by both UCRs and GCRs.
Chalking it down to Userites is distortionist, and just alienates GCRs to subversive GCRs who we've seen have no scruples about working with UCRs to topple their fellows.

[Cormactopia Prime]

I don't think the term "userite" really applies to everyone in UCRs, but rather to those who are trying to accumulate power in GCRs with the interests of their UCR(s) or userite ideology in mind, as Glen-Rhodes said. In that sense, I don't think it really has anything to do with UCRs being inferior.

Thing is the only successful subversion we've seen recently is in Lazarus, which was done by a UCR with the backing of several GCRs, and opposed by both UCRs and GCRs.
Chalking it down to Userites is distortionist, and just alienates GCRs to subversive GCRs who we've seen have no scruples about working with UCRs to topple their fellows.

That's true, to an extent, but if the LWU userites hadn't been allowed into power in Lazarus in the first place, this wouldn't have occurred.

A case can also be made that Balder, which is the only GCR still supporting LWU, is run by userites. Most of its government officials are in UCRs. The previous misguided support for LWU by other GCRs was driven in large part by the actions of defender userites who ran Lazarus in the past. There really is no way to look at the situation in Lazarus and not see the negative impact made by userites of varying alignments over the years, which makes a compelling case against userite presence in GCRs. I've never much been one for Francoism, but the recent situation in Lazarus, and the domination of Balder's legislature by the royal family of a UCR, has me rethinking the wisdom of allowing userite presence in GCRs -- at the very least in the higher levels of government.

[Gibraltarica]

Snip

I would argue that people who interact with you from UCRs in GCRs are more likely to be people on the run, or with ego complexes, for the simple fact that once they know what GCRs are, they want to coup one, and if they've been banned from other regions, that gives them more incentive to try. In other words, you don't have a userite problem, you have a sample consistency problem. UCRs have run into similar problems with cosmopolitans with shady histories.

[Cormactopia Prime]

Snip

I would argue that people who interact with you from UCRs in GCRs are more likely to be people on the run, or with ego complexes, for the simple fact that once they know what GCRs are, they want to coup one, and if they've been banned from other regions, that gives them more incentive to try. In other words, you don't have a userite problem, you have a sample consistency problem. UCRs have run into similar problems with cosmopolitans with shady histories.

Much of this is due to a distortion of the classical definition of a userite. A userite, according to the classical definition, was not simply an individual residing in a UCR, but rather an individual seeking to exploit the resources (i.e., people and power) of a GCR for UCR interests.

According to the classical definition, even someone residing exclusively in GCRs could be a userite if seeking to exploit a GCR for UCR interests. Classical Francoists regarded those who resided exclusively in Feeders but who pushed defenderism as userites, regardless of their exclusive residence in Feeders. So, in modern terms, someone who resides exclusively in, say, Balder, but who exploits Balder's resources for the imperialist ideology that originated in and benefits UCRs, would still be a userite. It's not so much about residence in a UCR as it is about exploitation of GCRs for UCR interests.

Granted, there are plenty of people who now use the term userite to refer to all UCR residents. But that's a) incorrect, and b) not everyone. And some of those who do incorrectly use the term in that way don't necessarily have a negative view of all such "userites," just the ones who exploit GCRs.

[Unibot III]

I pretty much agree with Glen's analysis here, with one addendum: I think the preference for "userite" over "entryist" isn't necessarily because the former is a NS-specific term, but rather because "userite" is much better to propagandize with than the boring, bland "entryist".

'Entryist' is a neutral term in my mind, 'userite' is loaded with propaganda.

I'll also add that entryism is possible in both GCRs and UCRs. I think this is an important counter-argument to Francoist doctrine. Francoism assumes two classes, one oppressive of the other. But the reality is that entryism and infiltration of a political nature occurs in both GCRs and UCRs. GCRs are not particularly special in these regards. Entryism is an NS-wide phenomenon.

Two classic cases of UCR entryism that come to my mind are United Kingdom, which was a political football in the FRA-UIAF war, and British Isles which was essentially cannibalized by entryists - one of the political flashpoints of defender-imperialist clashes. Europe is a glorified colony of NPO. The Internationale kept a strong arm on all leftist regions etc.

Class analysis is tosh and useless, it's best to analyze NationStates in terms of a network society - power exercised through networks. Each region is a bit different, they're more or less asymmetrical in its distribution of power. Individuals within these regions, swarms of players, hold connections to powerful networks that have ambitions of containing their opposition and furthering their reach.

[Roavin]

I pretty much agree with Glen's analysis here, with one addendum: I think the preference for "userite" over "entryist" isn't necessarily because the former is a NS-specific term, but rather because "userite" is much better to propagandize with than the boring, bland "entryist".

'Entryist' is a neutral term in my mind, 'userite' is loaded with propaganda.

Pretty much. And I argue part of the reason "userite" is so loaded with propaganda is precisely because it is so good at being used for that purpose. That's not always a bad thing! This is a game of politics afterall, and much of politics is rhetoric.

[Solorni]

'Entryist' is a neutral term in my mind, 'userite' is loaded with propaganda.

Pretty much. And I argue part of the reason "userite" is so loaded with propaganda is precisely because it is so good at being used for that purpose. That's not always a bad thing! This is a game of politics afterall, and much of politics is rhetoric.

Wait, I thought you hated Sophists...

[Roavin]

Pretty much. And I argue part of the reason "userite" is so loaded with propaganda is precisely because it is so good at being used for that purpose. That's not always a bad thing! This is a game of politics afterall, and much of politics is rhetoric.

Wait, I thought you hated Sophists...

As I said elsewhere:

Yes, it's propaganda. No, it's not all sophistry.

[Unibot III]

'Entryist' is a neutral term in my mind, 'userite' is loaded with propaganda.

Pretty much. And I argue part of the reason "userite" is so loaded with propaganda is precisely because it is so good at being used for that purpose. That's not always a bad thing! This is a game of politics afterall, and much of politics is rhetoric.

I think you'll find propaganda is a bad thing if it's ever used against you or your friends to justify booting you from your own region.

You're a defender in the South Pacific. You're the reason why they have the word, "userite." Don't think for a second they won't use it against you too. You might be friends with a certain Senator and Tim might be friends with a certain ex-Senator, but let me assure you from experience they don't give a damn about friendship - and if they get their opportunity to slander you and make a power-grab, they will.

[Roavin]

I think you'll find propaganda is a bad thing if it's ever used against you or your friends to justify booting you from your own region.

I argue a hammer is also a bad thing if used against me to break my kneecaps or my skull, but that doesn't mean it's not a useful tool if I need to put nails into something.

You're a defender in the South Pacific. You're the reason why they have the word, "userite."

Comparing 2018 Roavin to 2004-2005 era ADNers is highly silly.

[RiderSyl]

I really dislike TSP and I'm partly worried about Roavin being treated badly

I'm also partly intrigued about the possibility of Roavin being treated badly so I can jump and shout "SEE? THEY'RE AS BAD AS I SAID"

I'm not a good person
I must be a USERITE

[Unibot III]

Comparing 2018 Roavin to 2004-2005 era ADNers is highly silly.

THEY DON'T CAREEEEEEEEEE.

It was a stupid accusation to make in 2004 against guys like Twoslit and it'll be a stupid accusation to make in 2018. They don't give a single fuck. Disputable character assassinations are still effective.

[Marilyn Manson Freaks]

Oh no, I know a dirty word!

---

But seriously, I believe that userite is an outdated, overused, and just a plain ignorant term.

[Devi Vytherin]

Oh no, I know a dirty word!

---

But seriously, I believe that userite is an outdated, overused, and just a plain ignorant term.

Found the Userite sympathiser.