[Suggestion] Economic Freedom on the Homepage

[VoVoDoCo]

My preference would be that the three bars be freedom indicators.

Economic Freedom: Blue is freest, Red is most planned. New adjectives with no value judgement. Importantly, the red and the blue equal in brightness.
Civil Freedom: Yellow is freest, dark green is most regulated.
Political Freedom: Light purple is freest, black is most regulated.

Economic strength would then be mentioned in the text, in the same way many other stats help build front page text (like crime does now). For example "The nation has a powerhouse free market economy, thought to be due to a combination of high economic freedoms and business-friendly government."

I can, however, see that these aesthetics will offend many!

I definitely agree they should all indicate freedom but I feel like it would be best to keep green to red just for simplicity. Or at least have all three be the same color scheme not three different one.

I've always viewed the color scheme from the context of a stoplight:

• Green=Go. You're free to just go on through. No slowing or anything.
• Yellow=Caution. If you're already at the intersection, go ahead. Otherwise slow down.
• Red=Stop. Until given permission, you are not permitted to leave.

That provides the perfect color scheme/metaphor for the freedoms.

[Club Lux]

I've always viewed the color scheme from the context of a stoplight:

• Green=Go. You're free to just go on through. No slowing or anything.
• Yellow=Caution. If you're already at the intersection, go ahead. Otherwise slow down.
• Red=Stop. Until given permission, you are not permitted to leave.

That provides the perfect color scheme/metaphor for the freedoms.

That makes a lot of sense. I've definitely thought about it similarly but I hadn't actually come to that metaphor

[Techgrade]

still no reply. :/

[Club Lux]

still no reply. :/

That seems to be the standard

[SherpDaWerp]

Well, since I brought this up, it's probably only fair that I have to do the necroposting...

I'm of the opinion that red->green will be fine, just for consistency and ease of reading. If anything, I'd stand to lose from that scheme, IMO, because the middling baby-vomit-green colors around 60ish in the current stats look frankly disgusting, compared to nice, lively combinations of bright reds and greens. Maybe that'll finally be the motivation for me to commit to keeping my EF high. The ranking page also always displays colors on the red-green scale, no matter what stat; it's not a value judgement there, just a design choice.

As for Socialism/Capitalism: use the "absolute" value that goes into WA classifications (i.e. before the -100 "socialism penalty" gets applied). The homepage has other indicators of whether a nation is socialist or capitalist, and if they aren't enough then a little icon in/on the bubble would work to distinguish the two at a glance.

Finally, I don't think keeping any Economy indicator is necessary, as one of the homepage paragraphs directly indicates a nation's economic strength.

The frighteningly efficient SherpDaWerpian economy, worth a remarkable 3,241 trillion werps a year, is dominated by the Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Tourism, Retail, and Book Publishing. Average income is an amazing 297,604 werps, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 2.1 times as much as the poorest.

[Former Citizens of the Nimbus System]

You know, given the recent news, the timing of this thread's renewal seems ideal! Of the Development Managers there isn't specifically one for 'Homepage' or somesuch but Sedgistan, as Issues Manager, seems closest; if he were able to see this, that would be wonderful!

Since we're getting things going again, I'll repost Merconitonitopia's superb mock-up of what a homepage with the Economic Freedom stat alongside the other two stats that affect WA classification might look like:

As Ghost Land pointed out, this would only be applicable to the Rift and Century themes in its current form; nonetheless, I think it is a striking concept that not only brings Economic Freedom into parity with its sibling stats and removes the confusion of placing raw economic power alongside those siblings but actually uses the opportunity to add information about the nation's economy rather than simply replacing one stat with the other and calling it good.

[Sedgistan]

The issues-derived info on the nation page (i.e. most of it) is very much under the Issues portfolio.

I'm broadly supportive of this idea. I disagree with CWA's views on colours; the idea of flagging socialist hellholes as being unfree definitely appeals to me

I do think it would cause further confusion with the trend lines on nations, where the old Economic Strength figure would still be.

[Former Citizens of the Nimbus System]

I do think it would cause further confusion with the trend lines on nations, where the old Economic Strength figure would still be.

This is a point... One resolution to the difficulty might be to add Economic Freedom there, too! After all, that's just as much of a disparity as the homepage having Economic Strength but not Economic Freedom is.

[SherpDaWerp]

Yes, I reckon it would be a lot better if the trend page was changed to the three freedoms as well, to bring it inline. You'd have to use the "original" EF on those trend pages (similarly to how the "original" EF would go into determining the descriptor and color of the indicator), which I guess could cause some confusion, but it would be better overall IMO. It might also be difficult to add in, depending on whether it's easy to reconstruct the "original" EF graph from the current one or not; it wouldn't be good to have 4-year civil rights and political freedom trendlines and then a one-week EF line at the very end. That would go away over time, but it would still be visible for quite a while.

With regard to Merconitonitopia's mockup, I don't think keeping the Economy indicator is terribly necessary at all - I'd be fine if it was just completely replaced by EF, instead of moved over to the right.

Finally, I reckon it would also be good to have a little image or note somewhere on the homepage indicator so that you can tell at-a-glance whether a nation that's "unregulated" is socialist- or capitalist-unregulated, as those two have pretty different meanings.

[Former Citizens of the Nimbus System]

Yes, I reckon it would be a lot better if the trend page was changed to the three freedoms as well, to bring it inline. You'd have to use the "original" EF on those trend pages (similarly to how the "original" EF would go into determining the descriptor and color of the indicator), which I guess could cause some confusion, but it would be better overall IMO. It might also be difficult to add in, depending on whether it's easy to reconstruct the "original" EF graph from the current one or not; it wouldn't be good to have 4-year civil rights and political freedom trendlines and then a one-week EF line at the very end. That would go away over time, but it would still be visible for quite a while.

With regard to Merconitonitopia's mockup, I don't think keeping the Economy indicator is terribly necessary at all - I'd be fine if it was just completely replaced by EF, instead of moved over to the right.

Finally, I reckon it would also be good to have a little image or note somewhere on the homepage indicator so that you can tell at-a-glance whether a nation that's "unregulated" is socialist- or capitalist-unregulated, as those two have pretty different meanings.

I suppose that you could argue that the indicator of unregulated socialism vs. unregulated capitalism is WA classification, since such nations would likely have different political and civic priorities as well! Unsure on my own part.

I will say that I'm fond of keeping the Economic Strength (Let's be honest, if we're looking to make this change it should really be renamed something like that, since just 'Economy' is far too confusing - "What about the Economy does it measure?" a new player might reasonably ask.) indicator for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it means there are unlikely to be as many people unhappy with the change - people, presumably, like their prized economic might (or prized economic self-immolation) on display, so keeping that in some form will ruffle the fewest feathers. Secondly, it's just nice to have! We may as well take the opportunity to display what is still fundamental information about a nation in an elegant and appealing way, which is precisely what Merconitonitopia's proposal (and similar homepage designs) would do.

[Sedgistan]

I should clarify, because I misspoke in my previous post. The measure currently on the nation home page / trend line is "Economic Efficiency" not "Economic Strength".

[Merconitonitopia]

Hmm. There's a lot to talk about here.
First, there's the problem of which version of economic freedom to use; or, of distinguishing between capitalist and socialist nations. As it presently stands, the game uses two varieties of economic freedom.
The first is used to reckon the nation's category. The second takes that first value and, if the nation is flagged as socialist, slaps a -100 penalty on top. This 'socialism penalty' exists so that all socialists rank below all capitalists. This system does lack something in both elegance and consistency. It can lead to a scenario where a socialist country is a 'Capitalist Paradise' that ranks below a capitalist country that is given the label 'Democratic Socialists.'
All this tolerable enough on its own, but when it comes to the matter at hand, this simply won't do.

In light of all this, I do wonder if a revision would be in order. The penalty does serve a purpose: a socialist nation should indeed have lower economic freedom. It should not be done away with, but I do wonder if there is a better solution.
I thus propose an alternative: the penalty, rather than adding a flat -100, would half the original value. This halved value would be used both for reckoning categories and for ranks. This would, it must be said, suitably fulfill the purpose of the present system, while also sorting out a few problems.

First, no more disagreement between rankings and categories.

Second, socialist countries would be limited to the low and middling EF categories, while capitalist countries would be able to fall into any category. This means that you can't have a socialist Capitalist Paradise,--it's quite evident from the descriptions of the high EF categories that they should be reserved for capitalist nations--but a socialist country can have some freedom.
One could interpret this middling freedom as the socialist economy involving market-based alternatives to Soviet-style central planning, ala the market socialism of Tito's Yugoslavia, Proudhon's mutualism, or what have you; while those in the lower categories would have a more traditional centralised system.

Third, it would mean that there could be overlap between capitalist and socialist countries in EF at the lower and middle levels (Rank Index under 50). I hold that this would make sense It's not beyond imagination that a nation could retain all the formal trappings of the capitalist system while so thoroughly regulating it that it comes to resemble the centralised systems of the socialists--dirigisme on 'roids, if you will--and so finds that it ranks among the reds.

And, not least of all!--whereas I cannot speak with authority on the discipline of programming, I do very much suspect that this change would be rather easy to code into the game.

Alas, 'tis now my bedtime, but do trust that I'll subject you to more of my ramblings tomorrow.

I should clarify, because I misspoke in my previous post. The measure currently on the nation home page / trend line is "Economic Efficiency" not "Economic Strength".

On that point... Sedgistan, what in the world happened to your Anarchy's economy?

[SherpDaWerp]

I should clarify, because I misspoke in my previous post. The measure currently on the nation home page / trend line is "Economic Efficiency" not "Economic Strength".

Right, so the "economy" line on the trend page is identical to to the "Economy" stat line and so the "Economy" stat is Economic Efficiency. I (and probably others) have been under the impression that that was just a general measure of economic health, given the vagueness - and could basically be called whatever you want, as long as it was clear you were referring to that and not Economic Output. In that case - an immediate change that could and should be made is to rename that stat on the ranking page, because "Economy" on its own is horrifically vague.

I suppose that you could argue that the indicator of unregulated socialism vs. unregulated capitalism is WA classification, since such nations would likely have different political and civic priorities as well! Unsure on my own part.

Last time I checked (which, admittedly, was a while ago) there were 13 socialist countries that nevertheless maintained a high enough degree of freedoms to be classified as "Anarchy". It's not many, but it's enough that you can't really rely on just the classification to distinguish the two - especially when there are 8 other high-EF classifications that I haven't counted for socialists.

prized economic might (or prized economic self-immolation) on display

The homepage still includes a paragraph directly referencing the economic strength of their nation, so it's on display - just not to the same degree as before. I personally feel like having three indicators for the "main freedoms" is the best option, and another indicator for economy just seems superfluous when the economy is also directly mentioned on the homepage. None of the other freedoms actually get any reference, except for in the WA Classification description sentence.

It can lead to a scenario where a socialist country is a 'Capitalist Paradise' that ranks below a capitalist country that is given the label 'Democratic Socialists.'

This is an issue that could be solved by re-jigging the WA classifications themselves, rather than changing the EF score ranking method. The WA classifications have a host of other problems (which I did very briefly touch upon here), including what you mention, and I think at this point the best option for them is to think of some new names for a couple categories and some new description text for a couple others.

[Merconitonitopia]

The colour issue.
It seems that, no matter what way you cut it, there’s no way to make the categories have different colours in a way that:
(a) isn’t discordant, e.g. considerable overlap between colours, or CL and PF given the red-green treatment while EF gets blue-red, or categories covering noticeably different lengths of the colour spectrum, etc.; and
(b) is meaningful to the categories that the colours are applied to.

It seems to me that we ought to stick to green-red all around.
The rub is that this suggests value judgements; i.e., seems to favour laissez-faire and pooh-pooh communism.
But as others have pointed out, NS does consistently use red and green in value-free ways; e.g. on the census ranks, or in denoting stat changes.
So one might assume that most players would get the idea that green doesn’t necessarily mean good, red bad, in this context.
Still, that implicit value judgement does sort of jump out at you IMO.

It can lead to a scenario where a socialist country is a 'Capitalist Paradise' that ranks below a capitalist country that is given the label 'Democratic Socialists.'

This is an issue that could be solved by re-jigging the WA classifications themselves, rather than changing the EF score ranking method. The WA classifications have a host of other problems (which I did very briefly touch upon here), including what you mention, and I think at this point the best option for them is to think of some new names for a couple categories and some new description text for a couple others.

Hm. I do agree that the category system could be revised, but I do feel that it is something of a sacred cow.
Anyhow, changing up categories isn't going to solve the problem of two freedoms (which is relevant if we're going to put EF on the homepage).

[SherpDaWerp]

This is an issue that could be solved by re-jigging the WA classifications themselves, rather than changing the EF score ranking method. The WA classifications have a host of other problems (which I did very briefly touch upon here), including what you mention, and I think at this point the best option for them is to think of some new names for a couple categories and some new description text for a couple others.

Hm. I do agree that the category system could be revised, but I do feel that it is something of a sacred cow.
Anyhow, changing up categories isn't going to solve the problem of two freedoms (which is relevant if we're going to put EF on the homepage).

I think just using the "backstage" or "original" economic freedom (i.e. without the -100 socialism penalty) should be fine - provided there's a little icon somewhere on the indicator to show whether the nation is capitalist or socialist.

The only problem I can foresee with that is if it's too difficult to reconstruct a graph of that stat (from this graph given it's presumably not already stored somewhere.

[Merconitonitopia]

Personally that strikes me as a terribly duct tapey solution.

[SherpDaWerp]

Personally that strikes me as a terribly duct tapey solution.

I guess, but it's also working with exactly what we have. There's not really two EF scales, there's just the one, and then a "visual" penalty so that the actual gold-badge-ranking doesn't have Socialist nations sitting above capitalist ones. Presumably, backstage, the individual sub-freedoms (like... worker protection, consumer safety regulation, whatever) are the same and can have the same values between the two economic systems.

It just seems odd, to me, that they'd have to invent a whole new ranking system (or rejig the existing one) for what should be a purely cosmetic change. The WA classifications are, essentially, just labels. If the label on a nation is wrong, you would just rewrite the label, rather than mess with people's stats to make the existing labels fit better.

And changing the WA classifications is something that should happen for more than just Economic Freedom classification reasons, too - for example, the Anarchy description text doesn't really represent any Anarchy nations that well. For the short period of time this nation was an Anarchy, I had top 10% for compliance and a 90%+ tax rate, neither of which gel well with "a complete breakdown of social order" or the "rise of biker gangs".

[Merconitonitopia]

This is the problem as I see it. Country A has an EF of 40. Country B has an EF of -40. Country A ranks above Country B and has 80 points on it.
But when you look at their pages, you see that Country A's EF is classified as low, and B's as high.

[SherpDaWerp]

This is the problem as I see it. Country A has an EF of 40. Country B has an EF of -40. Country A ranks above Country B and has 80 points on it.
But when you look at their pages, you see that Country A's EF is classified as low, and B's as high.

That's why you have an icon, or text - somewhere on the indicator - that shows you whether they're capitalist or socialist. You wouldn't be interpreting a green "Excessive" box the same if it was visibly, obviously, flagged as socialist vs flagged as capitalist.

Country B would also be best described as freer in terms of whatever backstage stats are out there, as well. They would have a higher ranking in (*pulls names out of a hat*) freedom of unionisation, or freedom to buy/sell different stuff, or whatever the actual stats are. So it would be fairer to describe them as freer, because in that sense, they truly do have more economic freedom than Country A.

also technically country A doesn't really have 80 points on country B, it just looks like that if you directly compare census 48 scores

[Former Citizens of the Nimbus System]

Curious as to what progress this has attained on the technical side of things, if any! Would it be possible to hear if there's been any movement on that front? No rush, obviously; just interested!

[Frisbeeteria]

Curious as to what progress this has attained on the technical side of things, if any!

None that I'm aware of. There are probably close to 100 ideas currently under consideration, and admins are probably only spending time on the top five or so. I don't think this one is close to the top at this time.

[Sedgistan]

Yeah, this hasn't gone from "nice idea" to "definitely part of the plan, it's been requested of admin". I was hoping for a bit more discussion on it. I haven't pushed the idea, as I don't see it as a big deal.

[Former Citizens of the Nimbus System]

Yeah, this hasn't gone from "nice idea" to "definitely part of the plan, it's been requested of admin". I was hoping for a bit more discussion on it. I haven't pushed the idea, as I don't see it as a big deal.

That's a shame... I would contest the idea that it isn't a big deal. From what I can tell from a glance at the forum, many of the different proposals request missing features and quality of life fixes, with the exceptions of major systemic overhauls such as those to R/D gameplay. Those are great, and should absolutely be looked at, but they aren't something that a new player is necessarily confronted with at the start of their play. This proposal, on the other hand, looks to resolve an element of the game's core UI that is immediately confusing to anyone who joins NationStates and may continue to hamper their experience indefinitely until it is pointed out or noticed. I would call that important!

With regard to discussion... Hmm. Well, we've already gone through a number of the main concerns with the proposal, notably the value-neutrality or otherwise of red/green and how that plays into economic freedom. Perhaps it may be worth looking further into the precise form that the new UI should take - I'm still really fond of Merconitonitopia's mock-up higher up the page but, as Ghost Land identified, we still haven't found a potential visual identity for themes other than Rift and Century that actively increases the homepage's informational usefulness, as Merconitonitopia's proposal does. If anyone who regularly uses those other themes (or is able to check them out and do some analysis and image editing; may do so myself if I can find some time in the next few weeks) has any ideas, I'm sure they would be welcome!

[Umbratellus]

I'd like to make one small suggestion in line with this one if the admins ever get around to adjusting the main page for the economy stat; make All Consuming the highest tier of economic strength. I don't know if I'm the only one who feels that way, but if you asked me if a frightening economy or all consuming one sounded stronger I'd go all consuming 100% of the time. It's such a minuscule fraction of the total economy stat, too. I don't know precise numbers but it seems to be something akin to 96.25-96.75 or at least very close to that. I don't know any other label that has such a narrow range. It'd be entirely possible for a normal player to skip right over it and never know it was there if you got a boost of even 1 point from powerhouse. If anything I feel like it should be frightening from the 96.25 cutoff until either 98 or even 99, with the very strongest 99+ economies being all consuming. Just a small tweak (I think) but I feel like it'd be much better labeled.

[Flanderlion]

I personally like status quo, where I often have two red and one green, rather than this suggestion which would give me two reds and a brown.

It is just a easy replication of the trends graph. The game does call it freedoms, which makes OPs suggestion make sense (as economic freedom seems to fit better than economy for a freedom stat), but I'm against as it'll make my nation page worse. I don't see it as worth doing at all, even if there were 0 trade offs of admin time for it.