NationStates issue results

[Trotterdam]

In that case, I might wait for one of the other three no-abortion-enacting issues (#426, #452, #1142) before I commit to answering #136 or #638, so that I can see whether the internal numbers change on those two with no abortion active. Currently my copies of both issues show 0, 1, 2, and 3, as per the spoiler thread, but that might change with an abortion-ban active.

With such an exceptionally-rare issue, I want to try and get as much information about it as possible from the copy I'll receive. (Well, hoping that I receive it at all!)

I'd like to take a moment to thank you for the amount of work you're obviously putting into this!

[Trotterdam]

I do note that the draft says "should come as an immediate issue", which I don't think is how chain issues work (they're not supposed to be able to have additional validities, unless the original issue was edited to have variant options where one gives the followup and one not). I reactivated tracking to check whether this is actually the case, but that may take a while, since this seems to be a really rare issue. My tracker currently lists only 20 data points (1 for the first option, 12 for the second option, 7 for the third option). Though oddly, the one data point for the first option is reported as being from just four days ago (which means that before then, it must have been in my database for a long time without successfully collecting any data points, since the effect line itself has been known for a while), while the other options are around a month ago.

Looks like I got lucky - that didn't take nearly as long as expected! Someone just happened to answer the issue not long after I started tracking it.

reference: @@smitopbot110@@, trashy talk shows that declare "You ARE the father!" are back on the air
5 hours earlier: @@smitopbot110@@, politicians who vacation in East Lebatuck lose their jobs upon their return
11 hours earlier: @@smitopbot110@@, autopsies often involve only cursory examination
17 hours earlier: @@smitopbot110@@, students learn how to disarm mines before understanding basic arithmetic
23 hours earlier: @@smitopbot110@@, destitute athletes are forced to train in the street

Note that none of these earlier effect lines look like they have anything to do with either one-child policies or abortions. The most recent one is #923. It's unlikely that this is a matter of banking an issue and answering it later, since the timing suggests a pretty consistent "answer each issue as soon as you get it" pattern (being 6 hours apart each).

Therefore, I conclude that, contrary to the draft thread, this is not a chain issue.

Tracking turned back off.

[SherpDaWerp]

Hm. Westinor reported that the two reported validities (no abortion + one-child-policy) in combination weren't enough for them to receive the issue (in the GI discord), though they didn't remember the order - leaving the possibility open that it was a chain, needing you to have No Abortion then try a one-child-policy option.

But, if it's not a chain, then Westinor might have missed something, or else there's a third validity that we don't know about. That nation you caught didn't answer either of the two potential chain options in the full 2 days before that effect line showed up, let alone the most recent five, and all of effects you can see are easily attributable to existing, known options of old issues.

As much as I hate to say it, I'm definitely hoping Westinor missed something, otherwise this hunt is gonna be a lot more annoying.

I'd like to take a moment to thank you for the amount of work you're obviously putting into this!

Eh, I'm just operating one extra puppet and dismissing everything except a few known issues. Not really that much work, but thanks for your thanks anyway!

[Trotterdam]

Keep in mind that since a one-child policy isn't visible on the policy page, it's theoretically possible to accidentally turn it back off without realizing it.

And also that if it isn't a chain issue, then its assignment is semirandom, so you might just get unlucky.

[Trotterdam]

I purged Civil Rights and Tourism in accordance with their recent changes, as well as other scores that seem like they depend on those. Can't be sure I got absolutely everything relevant, though. Maybe it's about time I do a full nuke one of these days.

[Rocain Founder]

My own researches have found that Charmlessness is rather severely impacted.

I have statistics on 63 nations and what stats changed values for them (to 2 decimal places) without an issue being answered between about 11:00 AM Eastern time yesterday and now. Let me know if the list of stats which changed in one or more of them would be of use to you. It will probably take writing a bunch of code for me to take the union of all the changed fields, so I probably can't get it done before tomorrow some time, but it still might be of use.

[Rocain Founder]

Actually, it was considerably easier to generate this list than I thought it would be.

At least one of my puppets had the value of this stat change without answering an issue (none in the WA) between yesterday mid-morning, and the time of this posting.

Authoritarianism
Average Disposable Income
Average Income
Average Income of Poor
Average Income of Rich
Business Subsidization
Charmlessness
Civil Rights
Crime
Death Rate
Defense Forces
Eco-Friendliness
Foreign Aid
Human Development Index
Ideological Radicality
Ignorance
Industry: Arms Manufacturing
Industry: Automobile Manufacturing
Industry: Basket Weaving
Industry: Beverage Sales
Industry: Book Publishing
Industry: Cheese Exports
Industry: Furniture Restoration
Industry: Gambling
Industry: Information Technology
Industry: Insurance
Industry: Mining
Industry: Pizza Delivery
Industry: Retail
Industry: Timber Woodchipping
Industry: Trout Fishing
Intelligence
Law Enforcement
Lifespan
Nudity
Pacifism
Public Education
Public Healthcare
Public Transport
Recreational Drug Use
Safety
Sector: Agriculture
Sector: Manufacturing
Social Conservatism
Taxation
Tourism
Welfare

[Trotterdam]

That's a lot more than I thought, including some that I don't see any logical reason for.

Probably not worth sifting through all those individually. I'm just going to wait a few days (in case the admins make any last-minute fixes now the scores are live), then hit the big red button.

[The Python]

Post deleted

[TalAkMaChen]

Just a weird thing I noticed,
in the MAD chain the link from #1388 to #1389 is missing, some others as well that I can't fully reconstruct. OptionOners had luckily chosen option 1 in each of the MAD chain issues, leading to 1389 so far, 1390 will come with the next batch of issues.

[Trotterdam]

in the MAD chain the link from #1388 to #1389 is missing, some others as well that I can't fully reconstruct.

Yes, the reason for that is that #1388 (for capitalists) and #1403 (for socialists) have the same effect line, so my program can't tell them apart, but still have different followups (#1389 and #1404, respectively).

I was going to kludge in an ad-hoc solution when the chain was fully mapped, but then we never found #1380 and the chain never got fully mapped.

[Marxist Germany]

I was answering an issue on a puppet earlier today, and I noticed that issue #962 has two effect lines that look too similar to be separate, especially because they have similar stat effects as well:

1. the NHS is snowed under by requests for crisper ciabatta and tenderer tagliatelle

2. the Department of Health is snowed under by requests for crisper ciabatta and tenderer tagliatelle

Would this be an option that is altered by having the universal healthcare policy? If so, would it not be appropriate to have the two results merged into the 1/2 format used in other issues?

[Trotterdam]

Would this be an option that is altered by having the universal healthcare policy?

Yes.

If so, would it not be appropriate to have the two results merged into the 1/2 format used in other issues?

What good would that do? They're different options that may be coded to have different results. If you know which option you'll be getting, it's better to have more specific information on what to expect given that, rather than a combined and less precise record.

I only use the "1/2" format when multiple options have the exact same effect line, meaning that my code can't tell them apart. It's not an intended feature - I'd rather display the differences between such options if I could - it's just the best I can practically do without access to secret backstage data.

[Trotterdam]

I'm just going to wait a few days (in case the admins make any last-minute fixes now the scores are live), then hit the big red button.

As threatened, I erased almost all of my result data (with the exception of policy gains/losses). This is a good idea to do from time to time anyway, since it cleans out ancient stale data. This does mean that the site will be less useful than usual for the next few days as I reacquire the lost data, or longer for rarely-answered issues.

Please try to keep the running in a circle panicking about how the sky is falling to a minimum.

For some good news, though, there's also a new feature that you'll see soon!

[Azyl]

Nice! http://www.mwq.dds.nl/ns/results/notables.html

EDIT: I was wondering why my "absence of drug laws" disappeared from notables, now I see which choices removed it!

EDIT2: Is there a way to see all notables that doesn't involve refreshing the nation or preferences pages? Found this: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=45424&p=38757157&hilit=notables&sid=3cf8a5e0c4582e1733e8d95f6a004273#p38757157

Example: https://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/ap ... s+notables

[The Holy Quran]

I'm wondering if, since the latest data reset, something is not calculating correctly in regards to civil rights.

I am maxed out on Authoritarianism: my civil rights, political freedom and economic freedom are all at the lowest possible value. Before the reset, any issue whose spoilers even indicated an outlier increase in civil rights, with still a very negative mean score, would boost the civil rights of my nation and wreck my maxed out authoritarian stat (my stat graph shows the couple of times that this inadvertently happened).

Since the data reset, issues that I believe previously indicated absolutely zero increase to civil rights from any data point now show outlying boosts to civil rights and, in turn, outlier decreases to authoritarianism. I can't be certain about this because I do not have a photographic memory. But now, after reading issues, I am taking a gamble with some options and still seeing absolutely no boost to my civil rights. An example from today is Issue 3, option 1.

The only other explanation I can think of is if the way civil rights are calculated behind the scenes has very recently changed.

[Trotterdam]

I didn't change anything about how my program works, so if there are any new quirks, they're in the NationStates code itself. It's possible that there are lingering glitches associated with the recent update, but I'm really not in a good position to diagnose those.

However, as it happens, I do have some backups of older versions of the database. A backup from late 2019 records the option you refer to as "-20 to 0.53 (mean -3.0940)". So I think it's your memory that's faulty here.

[The Holy Quran]

I didn't change anything about how my program works, so if there are any new quirks, they're in the NationStates code itself. It's possible that there are lingering glitches associated with the recent update, but I'm really not in a good position to diagnose those.

However, as it happens, I do have some backups of older versions of the database. A backup from late 2019 records the option you refer to as "-20 to 0.53 (mean -3.0940)". So I think it's your memory that's faulty here.

Thanks for the info. I'll collate a small list of a few of the issues I encounter that I think might have changed and report back, then if I'm just imagining things, we'll know.

[Trotterdam]

Digging through the backups is somewhat tedious, I'm not going to check all of them.

[Amelic]

I want to know what the 'notability' is and where it is.

[SherpDaWerp]

If you're talking about the "notables" that were recently added to Trotterdam's website: they're a short sentence-fragment that can describe your nation. You can find them on your nation page, here (bolded and in blue):

The Republic of Amelic is a massive, environmentally stunning nation, ruled by Joe Biden with an even hand, and remarkable for its compulsory military service, fear of technology, and free-roaming dinosaurs. The hard-nosed, hard-working population of 1.221 billion Amelicians have some civil rights, but not too many, enjoy the freedom to spend their money however they like, to a point, and take part in free and open elections, although not too often.

They recently got added to Trotterdam's website after the site admin [violet] made them retrievable through the API. What Trotterdam tracks is which options of issues make you eligible for different versions. For instance, not every nation is going to have "free-roaming dinosaurs" - whether you do or don't depends on the issues you answer.

[Trotterdam]

I want to know what the 'notability' is and where it is.

This part of your nation page:

The Republic of Amelic is a massive, cultured nation, ruled by Joe Biden with an even hand, and remarkable for its infamous sell-swords, irreverence towards religion, and enforced nudity. The hard-nosed, hard-working population of 1.221 billion Amelicians have some civil rights, but not too many, enjoy the freedom to spend their money however they like, to a point, and take part in free and open elections, although not too often.

Alternatively, retrieved through the API: http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/api.cgi?nation=amelic&q=notables

[Bears Armed]

For instance, not every nation is going to have "free-roaming dinosaurs" - whether you do or don't depends on the issues you answer.

Although, technically speaking, every nation with wild birds does have "free-roaming dinosaurs"... [/zoologist]

[The Holy Quran]

Digging through the backups is somewhat tedious, I'm not going to check all of them.

I decided to do my own check using the wayback machine, because I had a sneaking suspicion I wasn't imagining it. I haven't done a thorough check - I only selected two issues based on their name alone, but found what I was talking about in both of them.

Date: July 12 2020
Issue 853, Options 1 and 2
The same issue's current data

July 12 2020 Issue 775: Options 1 and 3
Current data

As you can see, the old data for these options had no recorded boosts to civil rights, yet the new data does. I think there are many issues like this. Since nothing in the background of your helpful site has changed, I'm guessing this could be related to the Nationstates changes to civil rights last month.

[Minoa]

I wish to ask which of the notables (e.g. absence of drug laws, restrictive gun laws, etc.) are based on World Census scores?

EXTRA: I'd like to see you compile a full list of admirables too, to go with the notables.