NS History: You've Got Questions, We've Got Answers!

[Minoa]

Tomorrow (3 November 2018) will mark the fifth anniversary of the last known Web Archive snapshot of NSwiki.net (3 November 2013) being online.

The last Web Archive snapshot is unfortunately, linkspam, and at that time NSwiki.net was losing the battle against the increasing deluge of spam and server issues. NSindex has yet to confirm the exact date when the site failed, but Web Archive records show that NSwiki.net was down by 9 November 2013.

I think the question from my end is when exactly did NSwiki.net go offline?

[Ghost Land]

Tomorrow (3 November 2018) will mark the fifth anniversary of the last known Web Archive snapshot of NSwiki.net (3 November 2013) being online.

The last Web Archive snapshot is unfortunately, linkspam, and at that time NSwiki.net was losing the battle against the increasing deluge of spam and server issues. NSindex has yet to confirm the exact date when the site failed, but Web Archive records show that NSwiki.net was down by 9 November 2013.

I think the question from my end is when exactly did NSwiki.net go offline?

Can't confirm an exact date either; my last memory of editing it was on 20 October 2013 or thereabouts, as I was actually a frequent editor of the Hall of Ex-Nations in 2012-2013 after I discovered it, spent substantial amounts of time giggling at many of the names and descriptions listed, and created an NSwiki account so I could add a recent mod-deletion; it only spiraled from there, with my edit count eventually reaching over one hundred. The Hall of Ex-Nations was the only page I ever edited on there, heh.

I do miss that page, though, and while there is an archived version, that's from 2007 and thus doesn't feature anyone who's been booted since then; I do have a highly incomplete revival featuring some newer characters in a Word document on my computer, just as something I created out of curiosity and liking a good juicy story. I miss NSwiki as a whole; there was lots of cool information about people's nations and regions on there, and the newer NSwiki created by Afforess just doesn't compare.

[Tinhampton]

Tomorrow (3 November 2018) will mark the fifth anniversary of the last known Web Archive snapshot of NSwiki.net (3 November 2013) being online.

The last Web Archive snapshot is unfortunately, linkspam, and at that time NSwiki.net was losing the battle against the increasing deluge of spam and server issues. NSindex has yet to confirm the exact date when the site failed, but Web Archive records show that NSwiki.net was down by 9 November 2013.

I think the question from my end is when exactly did NSwiki.net go offline?

"On November 16th, 2013, NSwiki.net went down without any prior warning or justification. When the site went down, the data went with it."

[Minoa]

Tomorrow (3 November 2018) will mark the fifth anniversary of the last known Web Archive snapshot of NSwiki.net (3 November 2013) being online.

The last Web Archive snapshot is unfortunately, linkspam, and at that time NSwiki.net was losing the battle against the increasing deluge of spam and server issues. NSindex has yet to confirm the exact date when the site failed, but Web Archive records show that NSwiki.net was down by 9 November 2013.

I think the question from my end is when exactly did NSwiki.net go offline?

"On November 16th, 2013, NSwiki.net went down without any prior warning or justification. When the site went down, the data went with it."

I understand, although it is hard to verify 16 November 2013 as the closure date, since the Internet Archive suggests that NSwiki was down by 9 November 2013. See https://nsindex.net/wiki/NSwiki.net#Closure, which has references to what we know so far.

[Frisbeeteria]

I was actually a frequent editor of the Hall of Ex-Nations in 2012-2013

Speaking both as one of the original authors of that NSwiki page and a Senior Game Moderator, I can state authoritatively that the Hall didn't begin to cover the list of mod-deleted nations. It's probably less than a month's worth by modern standards. We delete a lot of bad names, DOS puppets, and schoolkids who don't understand that reloading offensive content isn't all that smart.

when exactly did NSwiki.net go offline?

I seriously doubt that anyone, including site owner Gooobergunch, actually knows. The site died because Goob couldn't devote any time on maintaining it. Maybe it went off the air because he stopped paying for the site, maybe it collapsed in a maintenance failure. We'll probably never know.

[Minoa]

I was actually a frequent editor of the Hall of Ex-Nations in 2012-2013

Speaking both as one of the original authors of that NSwiki page and a Senior Game Moderator, I can state authoritatively that the Hall didn't begin to cover the list of mod-deleted nations. It's probably less than a month's worth by modern standards. We delete a lot of bad names, DOS puppets, and schoolkids who don't understand that reloading offensive content isn't all that smart.

The huge amount of moderator-deleted nations is largely why NSindex ruled against having their own Hall of Ex-Nations, in addition to notability (the latter being the policy for the English Wikipedia). If there is a good reason for covering such nations by nation name, we would determine whether it is notable enough to have their own article or be referenced by an appropriate article covering events that they were involved in.

when exactly did NSwiki.net go offline?

I seriously doubt that anyone, including site owner Gooobergunch, actually knows. The site died because Goob couldn't devote any time on maintaining it. Maybe it went off the air because he stopped paying for the site, maybe it collapsed in a maintenance failure. We'll probably never know.

I have reason to believe that it was likely a database failure. The image server remained online until the expiry of the domain, and this IA snapshot indicates so.

[The Notorious Mad Jack]

So this topic still exists huh? I've been... away for like 4 years... did I miss anything good?

[All Wild Things]

So this topic still exists huh? I've been... away for like 4 years... did I miss anything good?

No

The "good old days" are called that for a reason

Were you here for the introduction of polls? The Sands runs some of the best ones (admittedly I'm very biased)!
https://www.nationstates.net/region=the_sands#poll

[Grater Tovakia]

What was the largest raid in terms of nations involved?

[Cosmopolitan borovan]

What was the largest raid in terms of nations involved?

By updaters or highest endo count reached

[Grater Tovakia]

What was the largest raid in terms of nations involved?

By updaters or highest endo count reached

updaters

[Kawaii Schoolgirl]

By updaters or highest endo count reached

updaters

I'm not sure if it was the highest ever, but the raid in The NSIA hosted by CAIN had 80 updaters, myself included. Again, not sure if that was the record breaker, I'll let someone correct me if it wasn't.

[Unibot III]

I thought I would share this log of the most populous regions (dated Jan 10 2003, 07:15).

One of the things that most interests me about this list is the absence of the North Pacific.

1. The Pacific 9760
2. The South Pacific 3383
3. Europe 318
4. PvP Nation 279
5. Offtopica 207
6. Klavern States Alliance 160
7. Shugashack 157
8. Pyoko 140
9. Capitalist Alliance 139
10. Eutopia 130

...

Meritocratic Isles 127
Sluggtopia 122
Cornered Rat Off Topica 112
GameFAQs 111
Massassi Jungle 110
What 106
Secularia 105
Hell 102
West Central Asia 96
The Utopian Empire 94
Alliance of TimeBomb States 91
Apolyton 90
Palladium 89
The Atlantic Island Chain 88
The Black Rose Garden 88
Tangency Coalition 87
MetaRegion 80
FurNation 79
Utopia Politics 77
Potland 74
Pacific 73
Progress 72
Prexus 71
TUSitude 71
TTH Zone 70
Black Isle 69
BSSM 69
CnC Universe 67
Jatraquero 65
Safehouse 65
MUSHpark 64
ComicBoards 62
Sea of Cecil 62
Stratics 61
The Heights of Azure 61
Land of BnG 60
Joyerquan 59
Scandinavia 59
Anandtechia 57
Anticapitalist Alliance 57
The Allspark 57
The Eyrie Union 57
EverNight 56
Ussr 56
Atlantis 55
AWAGshire 55
Quartz 55
Liberated Offtopica 54
All Your Base 53
North America 53
The GSF Commonwealth 53
Unholy Alleigance of Nations 53
Bermuda Triangle 52

And some folks here might enjoy some notes on the ancient Nazi Wars (the first NS World War!) from RedCommunist:

The Alerican Wars were not, in fact, the first NS World War. That I will add soon. In fact, the first NS World War was the USSR-Nazi war. Little info now is that it involved little under 300 UN nations, maybe reaching 500 nations if you count non-UN. Many regions were involved, the major ones are: USSR, Ireland, Germany, Axis, The Motherland, Poland, and a large part of the forces from AntiCapitalist Alliance unofficially. There were about 10 other smaller regions in the war as well. I will post that info later. I have been meaning to do a whole report for NS on the First NS World War.

https://nationstates.ermarian.net/jolt/1223/275181

"Trolled, raided, occupied. This region has been safe since they made the founder option. The only time this region has ever fallen was during the first NS world war, the region traded hands several times during the course of two weeks in December 2002 to January 2003. We finally won, obviously, and the Red Army marched and occupied Germany. Germany was occupied by the USSR for nearly a year after that." [https://www.nationstates.net/page=rmb/postid=702996]

"Allied States of EuroIslanders, although small, has been one of the founders of major political alliances and movements with the USSR in NS history as well as one that came to our rescue when we were invaded in the First NS World War." [https://www.nationstates.net/page=rmb/postid=6696116]

[Darkesia]

I will draw attention to two things in the above post from Unibot.

First: the mention of 300 UN (WA) nations in such an off hand manner should put things into perspective about why there existed alliances and how feeders were vunerable. Necessity is the mother of invention and regulation.

Second: Dalimbar was an important player with ASE and the RLA. Think about that for a bit. How young he was. How much of a diplomatically smooth 4u@#er he was...
I think I might be afraid of him now. Lol

[Unibot III]

First: the mention of 300 UN (WA) nations in such an off hand manner should put things into perspective about why there existed alliances and how feeders were vunerable. Necessity is the mother of invention and regulation.

Hmmm.

The other thing is that the Pacific was often a sitting duck prior to its democratization.

This is dated Jan 01 2003.

The Delegate for The Pacific has only 11 Endorsements (20 at next Update), out of over 2000 Pacific Nations. [...] I have not yet done a full evaluation on The Pacific, but I estimate that only around 2-4% of the Nations inside The Pacific are in fact UN members.

On Jan 01 2003, a player records the Pacific as having 2000-ish nations and 11 endorsements on its sitting delegate. Nine days later, on Jan 10 2003, a player records the Pacific as having 9000+ nations. On March 20 2003, the Pacific had 358-429 endorsements. On May 08 2003, the Pacific's sitting delegate had 10 endorsements according to observers. On May 10 2003, the Pacific's delegate was recorded as having gained a hundred and fourty endorsements.

My understanding is that all of these records are honest and accurate. It's just a case that few residents were endo-tarting, a lot of purging had occurred in April, NS was booming in January (perhaps due to Fark finding NS?) and political turnover was common in the Pacific's anarchic culture at the time.

[Bears Armed]

I thought I would share this log of the most populous regions (dated Jan 10 2003, 07:15).

One of the things that most interests me about this list is the absence of the North Pacific.

[blocktext]1. The Pacific 9760
2. The South Pacific 3383
3. Europe 318
4. PvP Nation 279
5. Offtopica 207
6. Klavern States Alliance 160
7. Shugashack 157
8. Pyoko 140
9. Capitalist Alliance 139
10. Eutopia 130

Presumably that's from before TNP (or TWP or TEP) was created, and so there were only the two feeders that are in the list?

[Nevv Vegas]

How big was DEN at its peak?

[Unibot III]

I thought I would share this log of the most populous regions (dated Jan 10 2003, 07:15).

One of the things that most interests me about this list is the absence of the North Pacific.

[blocktext]1. The Pacific 9760
2. The South Pacific 3383
3. Europe 318
4. PvP Nation 279
5. Offtopica 207
6. Klavern States Alliance 160
7. Shugashack 157
8. Pyoko 140
9. Capitalist Alliance 139
10. Eutopia 130

Presumably that's from before TNP (or TWP or TEP) was created, and so there were only the two feeders that are in the list?

Yes, it's significant because it tells us TNP must have been created after Jan 10, which is more than we knew previously. TNP's dating is one of the fuzziest alongside Lazarus. TRR/TSP dates are bang on, they're the best documented.

Rough dates of creation...

• November 12 2002 - The Pacific. (Hilariously enough there's some dispute over the NS founding date.)
• December 31 2002 - The South Pacific.
• Between January 10 2003 and March 2003 - The North Pacific. (Nastic believed he had been delegate for "6 - 7 months" before ZeroPositive, but that's impossible,
  it had to be a much shorter period of time because ZeroPositive was delegate by June 09 and Mikestonia was still delegate at March 20.)
• April 19 2003 - The West Pacific. (The date of AA's occupation which was very early in TWP's history if not the very beginning.)
• April 27 2003 - The Rejected Realms.
• Perhaps May 8; at least, July 07 2003 - Lazarus. (This is the first recorded date for a mod-resurrection plus the earliest observed date of Lazarus - Lazarus is very challenging to date;
  Orangesky CTE'd in Lazarus after 30 days of inactivity beginning on July 07; Inept spotted moving from Lazarus on July 14. )
• May 15 2003 - The East Pacific. (A close, educated approximation of the date of TEP's GCR'ification.)

I've colour coded the dates by my confidence in them. Green = Very confident, Gold = Within a day at max, Brown = Ehhhh, Burgundy = *shrugs*, Red = "Pick a date, any date."

[Kuriko]

Unibot, you have TEP being founded 8 months before NS was opened . It should be 2003, not 2002.

[Solorni]

So could nations not refound or could they not cease to exist prior to Lazarus? Or it something different than that...

[Greater vakolicci haven]

So could nations not refound or could they not cease to exist prior to Lazarus? Or it something different than that...

Didn't they emmerge from 'unknown' as the game used to helpfully put it?

[Ghost Land]

-snip-
November 12 2002 -[/b] The Pacific. (Hilariously enough there's some dispute over the NS founding date.)

I prefer to use 7 August myself.

December 31 2003 - The South Pacific.

2002, you mean?

So could nations not refound or could they not cease to exist prior to Lazarus? Or it something different than that...

Didn't they emmerge from 'unknown' as the game used to helpfully put it?

I believe this is correct; note that refounding had to be done by a moderator until 2008.

[Frattastan IV]

So could nations not refound or could they not cease to exist prior to Lazarus?

Likely could not refound. Reppy should show up in this topic and tell us the truth, though.

Didn't they emmerge from 'unknown' as the game used to helpfully put it?

That was only because the region where they had ceased to exist wasn't recorded, I think (so the refounding happening was shown as "Nation relocated from Unknown to Lazarus"). It happened until relatively recent times too. I want to say until Activity page?

EDIT: Unknown to Lazarus was only displayed if the region where they had CTE no longer existed.

I believe this is correct; note that refounding had to be done by a moderator until 2008.

Lazarus still existed.

[Greater vakolicci haven]

So could nations not refound or could they not cease to exist prior to Lazarus?

Likely could not refound. Reppy should show up in this topic and tell us the truth, though.

Didn't they emmerge from 'unknown' as the game used to helpfully put it?

That was only because the region where they had ceased to exist wasn't recorded, I think (so the refounding happening was shown as "Nation relocated from Unknown to Lazarus"). It happened until relatively recent times too. I want to say until Activity page?

I believe this is correct; note that refounding had to be done by a moderator until 2008.

Lazarus still existed.

I believe that, at least since I joined in 2009, nations have just said 'was refounded.'

[Greater vakolicci haven]

Max promised in 2004 we'd be able to use the nation names of nations which CTE'd 18 months ago, isn't that promise still in effect?