General Assembly Tech Thread

[Goobergunchia]

I'm going to shamelessly plagiarize the intro post of some of my colleagues - Read this News post first: https://www.nationstates.net/page=news/ ... index.html

I'm now running the development for the General Assembly. I sift through the ideas to improve the GA on the tech side and triage them for admin to implement.

This thread is not meant for back and forth discussion debating the merits of any given idea - each idea should have its own thread in technical, this thread is meant to provide me with a central repository of ideas that I can work off of.

Before we go any further, I want to make clear that the Bad Faith standard is being imposed in this thread. You are expected to post in good faith. If your post is in bad faith, it will be removed. In particular, the following is not welcome - questioning why I'm running it (I am, deal with it), dismissing this all as a waste of time, sniping between players, taking me listing any idea below as "under consideration" as a sign that I (or the rest of the staff) are hell-bent on destroying the GA, etc. Don't pick a fight here, you'll lose.

The purpose of this thread is to gather views on:

1) What the current issues are within the General Assembly.
2) Brief suggestions on what tech changes can be made to address them - I would prefer links to existing threads. If an idea doesn't have a thread, make one and link it here.

Keep your posts brief - they should follow the following simple format: tell me what the issue is, tell me what your solution is, link me to the thread where I can find a detailed discussion.

Current list of ideas under consideration (in no particular order):

• Hard coding co-authors (Implemented!)
  
• Improving the At-Vote page with additional information
  
• Improving GA campaigning (anyone have a good thread for this?)
• Saving failed GA resolutions
• Industry reform (I welcome thread examples)
  
• GA Reset
  
• Remove Compliance telegrams/allow opt out
• Allow voters to abstain
• Overhaul the WA code to address memory issues

Ideas considered but not currently being pursued

• Downvote system in the WA
• Split the GA from the SC
• Allow non-delegates to vote in quorum phase

[Hulldom]

Off the absolute top of my head: might be worth figuring out a way to pull challenged and illegal posts from vote. We had a situation regarding a proposal that went to vote while under challenge which was marked illegal while at vote and then discarded. A way to discard while at vote would essentially be a good fix, even if rarely used.

[The Hazar Amisnery]

Maybe you could put the co-author at the top of the thing next to the author so they can get more recognition.

[Mallorea and Riva]

Maybe you could put the co-author at the top of the thing next to the author so they can get more recognition.

Suggestions like this should go in the thread to discuss the specific idea.

Off the absolute top of my head: might be worth figuring out a way to pull challenged and illegal posts from vote. We had a situation regarding a proposal that went to vote while under challenge which was marked illegal while at vote and then discarded. A way to discard while at vote would essentially be a good fix, even if rarely used.

Go forth and make a tech thread - though I'm not entirely clear on what you're asking for different from the current system (spell it out in a separate thread).

[The Blaatschapen]

[*]Improving the At-Vote page with additional information (anyone have a good thread for this?)

This is too broad for me. What kind of additional info would be wanted?

[Mallorea and Riva]

[*]Improving the At-Vote page with additional information (anyone have a good thread for this?)

This is too broad for me. What kind of additional info would be wanted?

I'm working on fleshing out some ideas - I'll probably discuss with that rascal SC development manager as well since there are some natural synergies (*shudders*).

[Unibot III]

I think it’s kind of crazy that the game never had an automatic system for archiving failed votes or their vote totals — it would be nice for that information to be saved rather than it being at the mercy of archivists. You could even have a badge for failed resolutions hahaha.

My suggestion would be to reform the Environment category in the same style as the new Health & Regulation categories (which are quite good? ).

Having industry specific categories never made much sense from a user’s perspective. “All business” is just weird phrasing.

Pollution reduction, land and water protection, biodiversity etc. — would be helpful areas of effect. Or you could just run with mild/moderate/significant — but the current system is just a bit odd.

[Sedgistan]

I think it’s kind of crazy that the game never had an automatic system for archiving failed votes or their vote totals — it would be nice for that information to be saved rather than it being at the mercy of archivists. You could even have a badge for failed resolutions hahaha.

I raised this with Violet before DMs were a thing - her response here: viewtopic.php?p=38450219#p38450219

[Unibot III]

I think it’s kind of crazy that the game never had an automatic system for archiving failed votes or their vote totals — it would be nice for that information to be saved rather than it being at the mercy of archivists. You could even have a badge for failed resolutions hahaha.

I raised this with Violet before DMs were a thing - her response here: viewtopic.php?p=38450219#p38450219

Hmmm.

I wonder if we’re overcomplicating things by assuming the data needs to be piped through the same existing system? It doesn’t have to be presented as nicely as passed resolutions — it’s just archival information mostly for senior WA followers.

For instance, the end of a WA resolution could trigger a single scrapping of the WA page as an XML file, with a XML entry saying “Passed”/“Failed”/“Deleted”/“Vetoed”, and then the Archive page on NS could list & save the generated XML files, sorted by category “Passed”/“Failed”/“Deleted”/“Vetoed”

[Mallorea and Riva]

I raised this with Violet before DMs were a thing - her response here: viewtopic.php?p=38450219#p38450219

Hmmm.

I wonder if we’re overcomplicating things by assuming the data needs to be piped through the same existing system? It doesn’t have to be presented as nicely as passed resolutions — it’s just archival information mostly for senior WA followers.

For instance, the end of a WA resolution could trigger a single scrapping of the WA page as an XML file, with a XML entry saying “Passed”/“Failed”/“Deleted”/“Vetoed”, and then the Archive page on NS could list & save the generated XML files, sorted by category “Passed”/“Failed”/“Deleted”/“Vetoed”

Go ahead and make a tech thread to flesh it out and see if there's interest/other ways of getting the result. Link me to it once you've got it up.

My suggestion would be to reform the Environment category in the same style as the new Health & Regulation categories (which are quite good? ).

Having industry specific categories never made much sense from a user’s perspective. “All business” is just weird phrasing.

Pollution reduction, land and water protection, biodiversity etc. — would be helpful areas of effect. Or you could just run with mild/moderate/significant — but the current system is just a bit odd.

Category reform has always been (and may always be) on the list of GA items to consider. As above, go ahead and make a thread to flesh out your thoughts and invite player feedback.

[Separatist Peoples]

add war to the game.

Nah but seriously, hard coding coauthors would be a good idea. Also, I think this was discussed before, and I think the tech issues are insurmountable, but giving gensec sticky power over other threads to assist in posting at vote threads and removing old ones.

I'll look for the thread on the latter but it may not be in a public forum.

[Sedgistan]

Nah but seriously, hard coding coauthors would be a good idea. Also, I think this was discussed before, and I think the tech issues are insurmountable, but giving gensec sticky power over other threads to assist in posting at vote threads and removing old ones.

I'll look for the thread on the latter but it may not be in a public forum.

It's in the private GenSec forum: viewtopic.php?p=37992429#p37992429

[Quintessence of Dust]

I don't see the point of this thread if it's just to play Chinese Whispers with actual suggestions, but here's one: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=506629&p=38761164#p38761164

[Mallorea and Riva]

I don't see the point of this thread if it's just to play Chinese Whispers with actual suggestions, but here's one: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=506629&p=38761164#p38761164

Mainly so that I can keep things organized and so that the players know what issues are on being considered. I'll update the OP as we go along (currently on my phone so I won't be doing so now).

[Separatist Peoples]

Nah but seriously, hard coding coauthors would be a good idea. Also, I think this was discussed before, and I think the tech issues are insurmountable, but giving gensec sticky power over other threads to assist in posting at vote threads and removing old ones.

I'll look for the thread on the latter but it may not be in a public forum.

It's in the private GenSec forum: viewtopic.php?p=37992429#p37992429

OK I thought I remembered that being the problem, but genuinely couldn't recall. Alas.

[WayNeacTia]

Nah but seriously, hard coding coauthors would be a good idea.

It is a good idea. Would it come with a co-authorship badge?

[Mallorea and Riva]

Nah but seriously, hard coding coauthors would be a good idea.

It is a good idea. Would it come with a co-authorship badge?

I think that's probably a sensible part to add. The thread for that suggestion is linked in the OP, feel free to peruse and suggest.

[Wallenburg]

I suppose big fixes like splitting chamber membership are not being considered? Well, I suppose one big issue is that WA campaigns have become extremely wasteful thanks to how many people have blocked them. The WA never really recovered in that regard from the last Secretary-General election. I don't know how it would work, but some way or another to quickly exclude the hundreds of delegates who block WA TGs from a campaign would be nice.

[Sanctaria]

I suppose big fixes like splitting chamber membership are not being considered?

I would love this. Maybe Delegates (if we're not changing that) would have to be members of both automatically, but it'd be brilliant if we could opt out of one chamber we don't use (i.e. maybe GPers don't care about RP'd legislation, and I know many GAers don't care about the SC.

I see various downsides that probably go against some lofty ideals in that we probably want to encourage cross-community participation and now make further changes to erode that, but it'd be nice to have a discussion on it at the least. There's also a considerable deal of work in determining how one chooses to be in what chamber and how the architecture and UI changes to accommodate that.

[Lord Dominator]

The “simplest” method I can think of is to allow opt-outs on both individually (probably on the WA page), and if possible any associated delegates lose the associated votes from those opted-out (how this is tracked, no idea)

[Imperium Anglorum]

Hmmm.

I wonder if we’re overcomplicating things by assuming the data needs to be piped through the same existing system? It doesn’t have to be presented as nicely as passed resolutions — it’s just archival information mostly for senior WA followers.

For instance, the end of a WA resolution could trigger a single scrapping of the WA page as an XML file, with a XML entry saying “Passed”/“Failed”/“Deleted”/“Vetoed”, and then the Archive page on NS could list & save the generated XML files, sorted by category “Passed”/“Failed”/“Deleted”/“Vetoed”

Go ahead and make a tech thread to flesh it out and see if there's interest/other ways of getting the result. Link me to it once you've got it up.

Well you don't need to store it in the WA program. Create a separate database called "WA_archive" or something like that, then write all your archival information to that. If it had to be tightly connected to the WA database, my website's GA functionalities couldn't exist lmao.

[Sanctaria]

It's been asked for loads but: add an abstain option. Please.

Whatever about wanting to get rid of the warning fatigue, from an RP perspective delegations might realistically be asked to formally abstain from a motion.

[Bears Armed]

I suppose big fixes like splitting chamber membership are not being considered?

I would love this. Maybe Delegates (if we're not changing that) would have to be members of both automatically, but it'd be brilliant if we could opt out of one chamber we don't use (i.e. maybe GPers don't care about RP'd legislation, and I know many GAers don't care about the SC.

I see various downsides that probably go against some lofty ideals in that we probably want to encourage cross-community participation and now make further changes to erode that, but it'd be nice to have a discussion on it at the least. There's also a considerable deal of work in determining how one chooses to be in what chamber and how the architecture and UI changes to accommodate that.

It would probably make commending people for their GA work more difficult...

It's been asked for loads but: add an abstain option. Please.

Whatever about wanting to get rid of the warning fatigue, from an RP perspective delegations might realistically be asked to formally abstain from a motion.

Full agreement.

[Quintessence of Dust]

I'm not going to post a separate thread because these aren't worth an entire thread but I do have a couple small suggestions:

Disable, or at least allow people to opt out of, TGs about repeals targetting their resolutions. I get so many notifications that someone has submitted a repeal of Prevention of Torture, and it's an annoying waste of a TG.

Bigger suggestion, disable, or allow people to opt out, compliance commission TGs. They're completely pointless to anyone actively engaged with the WA and completely pointless to anyone who doesn't care about the WA.

Support adding an abstain option.

It would probably make commending people for their GA work more difficult...

Good. The SC is for gameplay stuff.

[Wallenburg]

It would probably make commending people for their GA work more difficult...

In what way?