[Suggestion] Economic Freedom on the Homepage

[Former Citizens of the Nimbus System]

Those top three stats don't measure the morality of a nation. They measure freedom.

Two of them measure social liberties, and one measures economic strength (which, as you know, is different from economic freedom).

Ah, yes. That is the point that we are making, no?

[VoVoDoCo]

There’s an important difference between the social liberties (Civil Rights and Political Freedom) and the Economic Freedom stat. The social liberties are based on protecting the ordinary citizen or “little guy”. Economic Freedom, on the other hand, is often a measure of how much the rich are allowed to ride roughshod over the poor. In other words, it’s more or less the moral opposite of the social liberties. Giving it the same kind of red-to-green ranking system would, therefore, make little sense.

Those top three stats don't measure the morality of a nation. They measure freedom.

Two of them measure social liberties, and one measures economic strength (which, as you know, is different from economic freedom).

I know that. And I've said that a few times. But I wasn't talking about the three stats currently advertised on our homepages, I was referring to the stats I was advocating for.

I was responding to the bolded and underlined part of your thing I quoted. You didn't even bring up economic strength, so that's not what I was referring to.

[VoVoDoCo]

Also United New England, whenever I mention a leftist bias in the chosen stats, this is what I meant. The right wing probably views civil rights as being inverted, as having too many would mean your nation enables or encourages decadent behavior. Since red is bad, they'd probably (if they were interested in being selfish about homepages) prefer that higher civil rights leads to a darker shade of red.

There is a large variety of moral sentiments and philosophies out there, the left doesn't get to decide for the rest of us.

Clearly the green to red is a measure of freedom, not moral sensibilities. You can legalize terrorism and increase your political freedom. You wouldn't say that's more moral would? Doing so would make your stat more green, signifying an increase in freedom, not a step in the right direction from an objective moral standpoint.

[Ghost Land]

yeah, I prefer the 2nd option and I reckon that would work the best.
What If we had: the region above the influence marker in the left hand corner, and the economy on the right, and civil, political, and economic freedoms in the middle?

Not a bad idea.

I decided to give 'Economy' it's own little section. Not absolutely necessary but it seemed right seeing as it was cut off from the section that it was already a part of and would have looked rather out of place on its own.

Moreover, I'm somewhat prejudiced against the 'Economy' stat, as its not very descriptive given we now have real data on GDP, income, industries, etc. and because it sometimes runs contrary to these. So, I figured being a bit more informative wouldn't hurt!

edit: region should probably be above influence really

Just let me state for the record that I am in full support of this idea as illustrated in the post quoted for the Century and Rift themes. On Antiquity (which I use), that box containing average income and where the economy indicator would go is not present, meaning the below, earlier draft would work better:

Alright then. Where would it go on the page?

That's the main problem I'm having with this. We can't put it next to the other three, because there isn't enough space, and it would look much to cluttered.
Moreover, it would make the Economy indicator seem out of place. One non-freedom-related indicator just sort of shoehorned in there next to three freedom indicators.

Where else could we put it?

Edit: Then again, this doesn't look too terrible.
(Image)

[Candlewhisper Archive]

I like the idea of Economic Freedom replacing strength in those three featured stats. However, if such a change were to take place I think it'd also be good to change the colour-coding, from red-green to colours with fewer value judgement implications. After all, it'd be unfair to planned economy nations for them to be flagged as "red" if they consider restriction of economic freedom to be a positive thing, and the source of their strong economy.

Dunno what colours though. I mean, for us in the UK, blue is the colour of right wing economic laissez-faire approaches, and red the colour of socialist big government, but I understand that in the US, blue means liberal and left wing, and red means conservative and right wing. Likewise, other colours have different meanings too,

[Former Citizens of the Nimbus System]

I like the idea of Economic Freedom replacing strength in those three featured stats. However, if such a change were to take place I think it'd also be good to change the colour-coding, from red-green to colours with fewer value judgement implications. After all, it'd be unfair to planned economy nations for them to be flagged as "red" if they consider restriction of economic freedom to be a positive thing, and the source of their strong economy.

Dunno what colours though. I mean, for us in the UK, blue is the colour of right wing economic laissez-faire approaches, and red the colour of socialist big government, but I understand that in the US, blue means liberal and left wing, and red means conservative and right wing. Likewise, other colours have different meanings too,

That's a good point... That would have to be balanced, of course, with preserving the ability to derive meaning from those colours. Something like a purple to yellow scale, for example, might be hard to interpret precisely because we (speaking from a Western cultural bias) don't assign such values to them. The traffic light-type connotations that the green to amber to red spectrum has does convey restriction to lack of restriction nicely, even with its undesirable moral elements.

It's a hard circle to square, that's for sure. I personally wouldn't let it get in the way of the larger issue but I'd also very much welcome anyone who has suggestions.

[Trotterdam]

I like the idea of Economic Freedom replacing strength in those three featured stats. However, if such a change were to take place I think it'd also be good to change the colour-coding, from red-green to colours with fewer value judgement implications. After all, it'd be unfair to planned economy nations for them to be flagged as "red" if they consider restriction of economic freedom to be a positive thing, and the source of their strong economy.

...Communists use red all the time?

Seems more fitting here than for the other two categories, really, since as VoVoDoCo points out, not everyone would agree that lower civil rights are worse, either.

Of course, by that logic it's the high end that would need to be recolored, since green typically means environmentalists and they don't like unregulated capitalism much either.

I guess for low political freedoms it might represent the "red carpet" that gets rolled out for royalty? That leaves civil rights as actually the only ones where I can't come up with an excuse right now.

Also note that a similar color thing applies to the issue results page, where green always symbolized an increase in a census score and red always symbolized a decrease, even if the census in question is, say, Crime or Death Rate.

but I understand that in the US, blue means liberal and left wing, and red means conservative and right wing

I think that's due to focussing more on the parties' different stances on civil rather than economic rights, though, so red still corresponds to less freedom here. The US is pretty capitalist overall, so even the liberals are only relatively-left-wing compared to the opposition, not anywhere near true socialist.

That's a good point... That would have to be balanced, of course, with preserving the ability to derive meaning from those colours. Something like a purple to yellow scale, for example, might be hard to interpret precisely because we (speaking from a Western cultural bias) don't assign such values to them. The traffic light-type connotations that the green to amber to red spectrum has does convey restriction to lack of restriction nicely, even with its undesirable moral elements.

It's a hard circle to square, that's for sure. I personally wouldn't let it get in the way of the larger issue but I'd also very much welcome anyone who has suggestions.

Personally, if I had to pick any color to associate with the concept of "freedom", irrespective of what kind of freedom is being talked about or whether it's actually a good thing, I'd go with sky-blue.

Not so sure what corresponding color would represent restriction. The red-green scale doesn't simply have inverted RGB values on opposite ends.

[Former Citizens of the Nimbus System]

That's a good point... That would have to be balanced, of course, with preserving the ability to derive meaning from those colours. Something like a purple to yellow scale, for example, might be hard to interpret precisely because we (speaking from a Western cultural bias) don't assign such values to them. The traffic light-type connotations that the green to amber to red spectrum has does convey restriction to lack of restriction nicely, even with its undesirable moral elements.

It's a hard circle to square, that's for sure. I personally wouldn't let it get in the way of the larger issue but I'd also very much welcome anyone who has suggestions.

Personally, if I had to pick any color to associate with the concept of "freedom", irrespective of what kind of freedom is being talked about or whether it's actually a good thing, I'd go with sky-blue.

Not so sure what corresponding color would represent restriction. The red-green scale doesn't simply have inverted RGB values on opposite ends.

Grey, perhaps? A scale of a dark grey to increasingly saturated and light blues might work. Then again, even if on its own it's pretty much neutral by definition, when juxtaposed against most colours - sky blue included - I'm pretty sure that grey would be perceived as negative.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Probably not something that'll happen anyway, replacing Economy with Economic Freedom. I had a discussion in the past about it with the powers-that-be, and I think (I am paraphrasing from memory of course) that it is design intent that you can do "well" in Economy while adopting an approach that is pro- or against- economic freedom.

To me that's not a good design choice OR a bad design choice, it's just a design choice. And that basically is up to the game designer.

I definitely see there's pros and cons to changing that design choice, but I think that in the absence of an obvious superiority to change, the momentum of status quo will prove stronger. There's basically bigger fish to fry.

[Aclion]

I like the idea of Economic Freedom replacing strength in those three featured stats. However, if such a change were to take place I think it'd also be good to change the colour-coding, from red-green to colours with fewer value judgement implications. After all, it'd be unfair to planned economy nations for them to be flagged as "red" if they consider restriction of economic freedom to be a positive thing, and the source of their strong economy.

Dunno what colours though. I mean, for us in the UK, blue is the colour of right wing economic laissez-faire approaches, and red the colour of socialist big government, but I understand that in the US, blue means liberal and left wing, and red means conservative and right wing. Likewise, other colours have different meanings too,

In the US the red/blue is really party, not ideology. The only difference in the US is that free market capitalism is more associated with green, from the dollar, and yellow from the gadsden flag, while red remains the symbol of the left. So by coincidence the color scheme is sort of appropriate, but only for this one stat.

Probably not something that'll happen anyway, replacing Economy with Economic Freedom. I had a discussion in the past about it with the powers-that-be, and I think (I am paraphrasing from memory of course) that it is design intent that you can do "well" in Economy while adopting an approach that is pro- or against- economic freedom.

To me that's not a good design choice OR a bad design choice, it's just a design choice. And that basically is up to the game designer.

I definitely see there's pros and cons to changing that design choice, but I think that in the absence of an obvious superiority to change, the momentum of status quo will prove stronger. There's basically bigger fish to fry.

I've noticed the powers that be seem to be pretty hostile to this stat.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Eh, they're not hostile people, generally.

Me, on the other hand, I'm positively cantankerous.

[Trotterdam]

Probably not something that'll happen anyway, replacing Economy with Economic Freedom. I had a discussion in the past about it with the powers-that-be, and I think (I am paraphrasing from memory of course) that it is design intent that you can do "well" in Economy while adopting an approach that is pro- or against- economic freedom.

The ability to do well in Economy has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not how well you are doing is displayed in that particular spot.

If anything, that idea is just one reason why Economy doesn't fit in alongside the other two stats, because a lot fewer people would disagree that having a strong economy is good and having a weak economy is bad, than would disagree that maximizing any of the free freedoms is a desirable goal. Civil rights and political freedoms aren't things you can do "well" at in the same sense that you can do well at having an economy.

Really I think the entire Economy stat is something of an obsolete legacy. It's unclear what it really represents, and we now have more concrete stats, particularly Economic Output / Average Income, to display how well your economy is doing. (The highest Economy stat doesn't always translate to the highest Economic Output stat or vice versa, and I have little idea what a high Economy stat does mean.)

One minor hitch in including Economic Freedom as an "equal" partner to Civil Rights and Political Freedom is that, as currently reported by the World Census, these scores are on different scales. The Civil Rights and Political Freedom scores are "smooshed" ([violet]'s word) from the internal values they're based on, whereas Economic Freedom lacks this smooshing. (Also, the Social Conservatism score is the unsmooshed civil rights set in reverse.) Most people would never notice or care, though, and it's not like the scales can't be changed.

[Former Citizens of the Nimbus System]

If anything, the question is that of how much effort such a change would take, since, at least in my view, it would make the front page significantly more informative regarding what some might argue is the single most important defining factor of a NationStates nation - its national descriptor - essentially singlehandedly harmonising it. If the benefits of doing so (making the game easier and less confusing for all players and especially so for newer ones, which in turn would make it less likely for them to drop it) outweigh the cost in time taken away from other projects (which, though I will admit that I am no coder, I would imagine would not be sizeable), then I would argue that there is a compulsion to do so. (I do like being a utilitarian.)

[Aclion]

Eh, they're not hostile people, generally.

Me, on the other hand, I'm positively cantankerous.

To avoid derailing the tread i've split the rest of my response into another thread. (I really must stop posting on the forums when i'm supposed to be updating)

However I agree with Trotterdam, this isn't really an issue of player choice, but intuitive UI design. I liked this change before because it made the relationship between the stats more clear, I like it even more now that it's been paired with an infobox that better summarizes the economic state of the nation. The most serious objection i've seen is that it would means socialist nations would have some red on their nation page, but I really don't understand why they'd be adverse to it. They chose to have low economic freedom, presumably because they are opposed to it, so why would it be an issue that that's displayed on the nation page?

As for the issue of limited resources, that's something we acknowledge every time we request a change. Though hopefully this one isn't too difficult. It doesn't require changes to the mechanics after all.

[Ghost Land]

Tangentially related, I've always wondered why economic freedom is on a -100 to +100 scale, unlike the other two, which are on a 0-100 scale. Also, let's revise the government type coding so that the scale is more evenly distributed between low, medium, and high:

0-33.33: Low
33.34-66.66: Medium
66.67-100: High

For example, looking at page 4800 of the political freedom rankings, a political freedom value of 72/100 is still considered medium (how?), though a political freedom value of 72.1 is high, as can be seen by going back ten pages, which means the "high" category of political freedom only encompasses 28% of the scale.

[Trotterdam]

Tangentially related, I've always wondered why economic freedom is on a -100 to +100 scale, unlike the other two, which are on a 0-100 scale.

Internally, it's really on a 0-100 scale. However, nations which have banned private enterprise receive an artificial -100 for sorting purposes, which is ignored for all internal calculations.

Also, let's revise the government type coding so that the scale is more evenly distributed between low, medium, and high:

0-33.33: Low
33.34-66.66: Medium
66.67-100: High

For example, looking at page 4800 of the political freedom rankings, a political freedom value of 72/100 is still considered medium (how?), though a political freedom value of 72.1 is high, as can be seen by going back ten pages, which means the "high" category of political freedom only encompasses 28% of the scale.

That's the smooshing I mentioned above.

Currently, the ranges for unsmooshed freedoms are:
[0,33>: low
[33,67]: middling
<67,100]: high
(This is mathematical interval notation, where a square bracket means "up to and including" and an angle bracket means "up to but excluding".)
This is almost the balanced distribution you suggested, but very slightly favoring the middling category. (This canot quite be explained by the fact that freedoms used to be integers and were only later expanded to allow non-integer values, since even among the integers the numbers 33 and 67 exactly would have to be treated differently to match the equal division.)

And the corresponding ranges for smooshed freedoms are:
[0,34.66>: low
[34.66,72]: middling
<72,100]: high
(Where 34.66 should be more accurately understood as 34+2/3, although I don't think a value of exactly that much is possible anyway.)

[Merconitonitopia]

Really I think the entire Economy stat is something of an obsolete legacy. It's unclear what it really represents, and we now have more concrete stats, particularly Economic Output / Average Income, to display how well your economy is doing. (The highest Economy stat doesn't always translate to the highest Economic Output stat or vice versa, and I have little idea what a high Economy stat does mean.)

Yea, I've long thought this. If anyone in the real world made an index of economic development that was as sketchy as NS's one, they'd be laughed at.

Tzo, Economy: 14/100 ('Fragile'), average income: 172,928 SMU (244% of average)
Melbergia, Economy: 96/100 ('Thriving'), average income: 61,472 (87% of average)

[VoVoDoCo]

However, if such a change were to take place I think it'd also be good to change the colour-coding, from red-green to colours with fewer value judgement implications.

There are two ways to look this:

• Why? Why does economic freedom need to be treated as if it has fewer value judgement implications? Because we wouldn't want people with a free market mindset to have a nation with a stat with visual appeal? Because having only green stats on top is a privilege that should be available only to the left?
• How? Can you come up with a color scheme that won't offend everybody? That won't offend 25% of users? Can you guarantee it? The best suggestion I've seen would be to use a gray scale, with white meaning more freedom and black meaning less freedom. While I kind of dig this (I like neutral colors) black can still be interpreted as having "bad" stats.

After all, it'd be unfair to planned economy nations for them to be flagged as "red" if they consider restriction of economic freedom to be a positive thing, and the source of their strong economy.

With that logic, it's also "unfair" to nations that hold conservative views on gay marriage, homosexuality, the right to protest, and elections that their respective beliefs are shown in red (which can be interpreted as "bad"). Why not rewrite the whole system?

Dunno what colours though. I mean, for us in the UK, blue is the colour of right wing economic laissez-faire approaches, and red the colour of socialist big government, but I understand that in the US, blue means liberal and left wing, and red means conservative and right wing. Likewise, other colours have different meanings too,

I couldn't have said it better myself. Red could refer to the Republican party in the US or Communism, both have polar opposite economic positions. The current color system is fine because changing it would cost time and ultimately end up insulting some other group of people.

[Trotterdam]

Mind you, a scale that ranges specifically from red to green has some connotations beyond what either of the colors red or green imply by themselves.

[VoVoDoCo]

Oh, and someone described the freedom stats using a stoplight analogy. Green means go, less restrictions. Red means stop, more restrictions. That is a seemingly universal color coordination that we should be able to get around well enough with.

[Aclion]

Come think of it planned economy nations wouldn't necessarily be red, that would only be true if the color reflected the backend value of the stat, which goes negative for planned economies, but to make it intuitive you'd want the color and description to reflect the value as used for the WA category.

[Stoklomolvi]

Maybe at the 0 mark, the colours flip? So, at 0, the stat can be named economic freedom, but the colour would basically be grey. From 0 to 100, the stat would go from grey to green and be titled "Economic Freedom". From 0 to -100, the stat could be called "Economic Planning" or something. That'd be if the colour "green" is a concern.

Another colour scheme could range from blue to green, where blue is high economic freedom, and green is high economic planning, or vice versa. I personally think that the economic freedom stat is pretty pointless. Maybe we ought to replace the economic stat with a per capita income sort of thing, e.g. economic output divided by population or "Highest Average Income" or "HDI" or something.

[Ghost Land]

Maybe at the 0 mark, the colours flip? So, at 0, the stat can be named economic freedom, but the colour would basically be grey. From 0 to 100, the stat would go from grey to green and be titled "Economic Freedom". From 0 to -100, the stat could be called "Economic Planning" or something. That'd be if the colour "green" is a concern.

Another colour scheme could range from blue to green, where blue is high economic freedom, and green is high economic planning, or vice versa. I personally think that the economic freedom stat is pretty pointless. Maybe we ought to replace the economic stat with a per capita income sort of thing, e.g. economic output divided by population or "Highest Average Income" or "HDI" or something.

I think the "economic freedom" vs "planning" would just cause too much confusion, especially among new players. And by the way, economic output is average income multiplied by population.

For the record, I see nothing wrong with the green-red colour scheme, and without meaning to sound like an old man yelling at a cloud, those colours didn't always use to be there, being added as part of the Rift theme in 2015.

[VoVoDoCo]

Maybe at the 0 mark, the colours flip? So, at 0, the stat can be named economic freedom, but the colour would basically be grey. From 0 to 100, the stat would go from grey to green and be titled "Economic Freedom". From 0 to -100, the stat could be called "Economic Planning" or something. That'd be if the colour "green" is a concern.

Another colour scheme could range from blue to green, where blue is high economic freedom, and green is high economic planning, or vice versa. I personally think that the economic freedom stat is pretty pointless. Maybe we ought to replace the economic stat with a per capita income sort of thing, e.g. economic output divided by population or "Highest Average Income" or "HDI" or something.

One of the critical arguments for having economic freedom as one of the major stats at the top of our homepages is our WA classifications. Our WA classifications are made of three central stats: civil rights, economic freedoms (NOT ECONOMIC STRENGTH), and political freedoms. Our WA classification is on our homepage, but only 2 out of the 3 stats that decided that classification are. This is important, for as we've discovered in this very thread, two nations can have the same classification, but can have very different degrees of economic freedom.

Also, nations that want a green to red scale for civil rights and political freedoms, but not for economic freedoms almost 10/10 times simply want to avoid having a red stat (often viewed as a "bad" stat) at the top of their page. They'll argue, "Well, we should avoid a red to green scale because it's no so much an evaluation of morals like the other two, but more so an evaluation of economic structure." What they ignore is the plight of the right wing (economically right, socially right) who would say the same thing about civil rights. The right wing believe in less civil rights. So for them, more red (they typically aim for orange or a very light green tbf) is actually a GOOD thing, and would therefore argue that their interpretation of civil rights should be rewarded with the "good" looking green stat.

• Not to mention that when looking at how our stats increase and decrease, green always means up (even if it's a "bad" stat, like crime) and red always means down (even if it's a "good" stat, like cheerfulness). This would should apply to ALL three stats seamlessly.
• Also the red and green scale for the three freedoms can be appreciated universally with the simple analogy of the stoplight.
  1. Red means stop. More regulation. Not necessarily bad, for if you didn't listen you'd hit someone and hurt them. Not necessarily good, because red for too long means you have no freedom.
  2. Green means go. Not necessarily bad, for it you were never allowed to move what would be the point of driving? Not necessarily good, because if you were allowed to go too soon (without proper coordination) you could hurt someone.

[VoVoDoCo]

For the record, I see nothing wrong with the green-red colour scheme, and without meaning to sound like an old man yelling at a cloud, those colours didn't always use to be there, being added as part of the Rift theme in 2015.

Really? I had no idea. I started playing at about that time. Musta looked weird. You wouldn't happen to have a pic of it saved for some odd reason would you?

EDIT: I think the nation I was using was made in 2016 but idk