Change to Script Rules for HTML Site

[Bassiliya]

It applies to all types of telegrams. But we've been looking at recruitment bots more than campaign tools, so please do feel free to provide feedback on what those do /should be permitted to do.

My campaigns (and I know some others) basically operate by collecting dump data, parsing it, getting lists of endorsements from members of a particular region, figuring out who is not endorsing who, compiling that, and making a list of telegram URLs with pre-populated To and Content boxes, one nation at a time with a list of nations they need to endorse. Then whoever wants to from a region can get that list and send personalized, specific campaign telegrams to each and every WA member with a convenient list of fellow WA members to endorse. I don't really see a convenient way to do this process without fillable URLs; otherwise, there would have to be a process like Open the nation page > Scroll to the telegram > HIt send telegram > Copy-paste the template text > Copy-paste the nations name, if you want to > Hit send instead of Copy-paste or click link > Hit send.

I don't see why tools shouldn't be able to do this, especially considering there is no way to do this via the telegram API.

I don't quite understand the above

It's a double-edged thing. Manual recruiters cannot compete with the constant, around-the-clock performance of API, and thus will get less spread. However, the API is dreadfully slow and inefficient. 180 seconds is forever for a single telegram to send and that user generally doesn't end up getting it in time.

I think the other big thing is that neither API nor manual can compete with stamps at any level. This nerf feels less like a "we want to level the manual playing field" and more like a "we want to make it harder to not use stamps". The complaint was made that manual recruiters not using these auto-URL systems can't keep up with those who already use them, which is odd because there are some publicly available tools that do this very thing. It's no different than API recruitment; either you go and find it and use it (most of these systems are much simpler than using an API), or you don't.

I guess my point is what is the reason? If it's to help the site handle things, then that doesn't make any sense because, as pointed out before, it's not increasing any load on the site. If it's to help level the playing field, that also doesn't make any sense because the playing field is level if you go and actually look around. If it's to stop card farmers, then surely there's a way to get around it without nuking all URLs. If it's just so that stamps get a higher usage, that sort of makes sense, but I was also told before that stamps don't make the site that much money, so that doesn't make sense. If it's just to make manual more difficult for people to deploy, why? It's hard enough to start and run a community around here with the power imbalance between UCRs and GCRs and the internal power imbalance between UCRs without adding extra red-tape just cause. If there is any reason I'm missing, I think those of us who are against the proposed change would like to hear it.

[Not A Plant]

I was wondering if someone could explain what this means like they're explaining it to a 5 year old? I've been a recruiter for a few regions over time in NS, but I am not tech savy in the least and just want to make sure not to make a mistake moving forward.

[Eluvatar]

I was wondering if someone could explain what this means like they're explaining it to a 5 year old? I've been a recruiter for a few regions over time in NS, but I am not tech savy in the least and just want to make sure not to make a mistake moving forward.

Don't use a script/tool if, when used, you don't have to press "Send" (realbad!), you don't have to check the "recruitment" box, you don't have to fill in the "to" field, or you don't have to fill in the telegram body. Copy+pasting a provided list of recipients or provided telegram text or template reference is okay.

[Not A Plant]

I was wondering if someone could explain what this means like they're explaining it to a 5 year old? I've been a recruiter for a few regions over time in NS, but I am not tech savy in the least and just want to make sure not to make a mistake moving forward.

Don't use a script/tool if, when used, you don't have to press "submit" (realbad!), you don't have to check the "recruitment" box, you don't have to fill in the "to" field, or you don't have to fill in the telegram body. Copy+pasting a provided list of recipients or provided telegram text or template reference is okay.

Thank you so much! This helps tremendously and clarifies exactly what I wondering.

[New Astri]

I guess my point is what is the reason? If it's to help the site handle things, then that doesn't make any sense because, as pointed out before, it's not increasing any load on the site. If it's to help level the playing field, that also doesn't make any sense because the playing field is level if you go and actually look around. If it's to stop card farmers, then surely there's a way to get around it without nuking all URLs. If it's just so that stamps get a higher usage, that sort of makes sense, but I was also told before that stamps don't make the site that much money, so that doesn't make sense. If it's just to make manual more difficult for people to deploy, why? It's hard enough to start and run a community around here with the power imbalance between UCRs and GCRs and the internal power imbalance between UCRs without adding extra red-tape just cause. If there is any reason I'm missing, I think those of us who are against the proposed change would like to hear it.

this exactly. manual recruitment with this rule in place is frankly downright insufferable. the change isn't even levelling the playing field between manual recruiters who use the aid of a bot and those who don't, because the latter group doesn't really exist. manual recruitment is just so draining and unfulfilling without bot aid, and i say that as someone who still did it for hours on end for very little benefit. people were willing to put the work into it using the bot-aided method, but without that as an option, manual recruit rates are already dropping severely. this change places GCRs and people who are willing to pay to win at a huge advantage and demoralizes people who would otherwise be recruiting for their region. what reason is there to make manual more difficult again? no one in the community had a problem with the way it was working.

[Canyamel]

Hi!

I don't know much about scripts and HTML but I use this script to auto log in:
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=401352

Is it still legal or is it prohibited with the new rules?

Thanks!

[Luziyca]

I like the idea to clarify the rules, and I do think it would work very well in maintaining the balance between those who have bots and everyone else, because it levels the playing field to where it should be. I do not have any objections to the suggestion.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Hi!

I don't know much about scripts and HTML but I use this script to auto log in:
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=401352

Is it still legal or is it prohibited with the new rules?

Thanks!

As currently proposed, I'm pretty confident the new rules change ONLY notable differs from the old rules in regards to "prohibited" actions that involve sending a telegram or answering/dismissing an issue. If you complied with the other rules on "Restricted" actions prior, you still will be.

[United Calanworie]

I like the idea to clarify the rules, and I do think it would work very well in maintaining the balance between those who have bots and everyone else, because it levels the playing field to where it should be. I do not have any objections to the suggestion.

There are publicly available bots, and as prior stated in this thread, bots do not increase speed. They simply make it less of a crappy and morale draining experience to conduct manual recruitment. And even if there weren't publicly available bots, that doesn't mean that something needs to get restricted. The API requires that you download and install a client, or be able to write software, in order to use it. We haven't removed the telegrams API.

"Leveling the playing field" is also a long-gone concept, ever since stamps ruined recruitment. Now you don't need any form of skill or technical ability in order to conduct recruitment, you simply need deep enough pockets. There is no way to consider the "playing field," as it were, to be level these days. It's been decimated by stamp hordes producing next to no result for your money, and spamming the inboxes of new players. We should not make changes that increase the number of stamps used, because that will only worsen the situation. It's not restoring a status quo, it's decimating it.

tl;dr until we make significant changes to the recruitment system to remove the spam and outsized influence of people who have limitless stamp budgets, we shouldn't damage manual telegrams any more.

[Wymondham]

Snip

Gotcha, thanks [v]. Just in case my 2nd question got missed, has any specific event/report/opinion suggested via GHR caused these changes to be proposed or has this been an ongoing discussion within the administrative team for some time?

Additionally, would the administrative team consider reducing the API TG ratelimits so as to mitigate some of the impact these new rules will have?

[Diarcesia]

If I understand this correctly, can we create scripts that perform restricted actions (in my case, auto-generating a forum post for a maintenance thread) if it performs exactly one action per one instance of user input?

[Guess and Check]

I like the idea to clarify the rules, and I do think it would work very well in maintaining the balance between those who have bots and everyone else, because it levels the playing field to where it should be. I do not have any objections to the suggestion.

There are publicly available bots, and as prior stated in this thread, bots do not increase speed. They simply make it less of a crappy and morale draining experience to conduct manual recruitment. And even if there weren't publicly available bots, that doesn't mean that something needs to get restricted. The API requires that you download and install a client, or be able to write software, in order to use it. We haven't removed the telegrams API.

"Leveling the playing field" is also a long-gone concept, ever since stamps ruined recruitment. Now you don't need any form of skill or technical ability in order to conduct recruitment, you simply need deep enough pockets. There is no way to consider the "playing field," as it were, to be level these days. It's been decimated by stamp hordes producing next to no result for your money, and spamming the inboxes of new players. We should not make changes that increase the number of stamps used, because that will only worsen the situation. It's not restoring a status quo, it's decimating it.

tl;dr until we make significant changes to the recruitment system to remove the spam and outsized influence of people who have limitless stamp budgets, we shouldn't damage manual telegrams any more.

Generally agreed with this and other similar opinions in this thread.

[Refuge Isle]

There are publicly available bots, and as prior stated in this thread, bots do not increase speed. They simply make it less of a crappy and morale draining experience to conduct manual recruitment. And even if there weren't publicly available bots, that doesn't mean that something needs to get restricted. The API requires that you download and install a client, or be able to write software, in order to use it. We haven't removed the telegrams API.

"Leveling the playing field" is also a long-gone concept, ever since stamps ruined recruitment. Now you don't need any form of skill or technical ability in order to conduct recruitment, you simply need deep enough pockets. There is no way to consider the "playing field," as it were, to be level these days. It's been decimated by stamp hordes producing next to no result for your money, and spamming the inboxes of new players. We should not make changes that increase the number of stamps used, because that will only worsen the situation. It's not restoring a status quo, it's decimating it.

tl;dr until we make significant changes to the recruitment system to remove the spam and outsized influence of people who have limitless stamp budgets, we shouldn't damage manual telegrams any more.

Generally agreed with this and other similar opinions in this thread.

Seconding this, as the "levelling the playing field" idea is a false narrative.

Losing open-access tools is not necessarily a net gain for small regions. Regions that are established and have infrastructure, functioning government, regional programs, active gameside communities, etc. will always perform better than smaller regions. Restricting bot-assisted recruitment in this way is in the same vein as saying that theoretically banning Discord servers for regions would "level the playingfield" for regions without them -- no, not really, you're just axing the former.

You are never going to be able to give regions equal footing and starting positions, because the very act of region-building is the development and creation of practices and processes that function as infrastructure. None of which would be created if it were not useful or enticing, and all of which give one region a leg up over the other. That is how development works.

Dot was made publicly available for that reason: To provide tools for people to build their regions, regardless of whether or not they were socially or politically close with one of the pre-established superpowers. That tool is now going to have to work through markedly more inconvenience, particularly for mobile users. It is unfortunate that this change is being pushed instead of literally anything that would help the recruitment situation (and not just the stamp revenue), such as the region finder idea I floated months back, which seems unlikely admin will pursue.

But I guess that's why everyone is crossing their fingers that f/s will fix everything.

[[violet]]

Seconding this, as the "levelling the playing field" idea is a false narrative.

I do think it's indisputable that today's recruitment tools are offering users much more automation than ever before, while API bots and Stamps work the same as always. So there definitely has been creep. Which has happened before, and we've pushed back on before, for the same reasons as today.

Regarding manual recruitment in general, while it's true that stamps will always be the easiest way to send high volumes of telegrams -- otherwise there wouldn't be any point to them -- we really do want to support manual recruitment, and in particular to reward recruiters who put in time & creativity to their campaigns.

We are looking at rebalancing how the different channels -- stamps, manual, and API -- are treated. But this requires that manual recruitment actually resemble something like manual recruitment, and not be people clicking & closing links generated by Discord bots without even knowing who they're messaging or what the message says. If it's that, it's hard to justify treating manual recruitment much differently to a region that builds an API bot.

Another type of rebalancing we could do is to raise the price of TG stamps, which hasn't changed for eight years, and which is honestly long overdue, given the congestion in the Stamps channel. This would lead to less competition from Stamps users for all recruiters. The downside, of course, is people don't like prices going up, even if each stamp becomes more effective afterward.

[[violet]]

Just in case my 2nd question got missed, has any specific event/report/opinion suggested via GHR caused these changes to be proposed or has this been an ongoing discussion within the administrative team for some time?

Additionally, would the administrative team consider reducing the API TG ratelimits so as to mitigate some of the impact these new rules will have?

We've been discussing how to balance recruitment TGs for a long time, and have had a particular focus on various bot-related issues from the start of this year, when they were causing some pretty major technical problems.

We will consider adjusting API ratelimits, yes. From experience, it's hard to have a non-shouty discussion about it, even in Technical, but there's nothing magical about the current number.

[United Calanworie]

Seconding this, as the "levelling the playing field" idea is a false narrative.

Regarding manual recruitment in general, while it's true that stamps will always be the easiest way to send high volumes of telegrams -- otherwise there wouldn't be any point to them -- we really do want to support manual recruitment, and in particular to reward recruiters who put in time & creativity to their campaigns.

If we're looking at rewarding recruiters who put time and creativity into their campaigns, and you want to support manual, and you still want to go through with this change, perhaps a queue rebalance could be in order? Improve the visibility of manual telegrams? (Notwithstanding that this is just a bandaid fix to the recruitment problem.)

We are looking at rebalancing how the different channels -- stamps, manual, and API -- are treated. But this requires that manual recruitment actually resemble something like manual recruitment, and not be people clicking & closing links generated by Discord bots without even knowing who they're messaging or what the message says. If it's that, it's hard to justify treating manual recruitment much differently to a region that builds an API bot.

I want to specifically think about the "who they're messaging or what the message says" bit. Telegram templates (the most commonly used method because of the ability to track stats) have been in the game for a very long time. They're especially good for recruiters because they let us avoid the mistake of forgetting to mark a telegram as recruitment, and believe me when I say, trying to explain to a new recruiter that they need to mark things as recruitment is difficult enough when it's only once. I can't imagine trying to convince them to do it every single time they send a telegram. So they're really never going to know what the message says, because regardless of whether or not it comes via a link or not, all the recruitment aids these days use templates for the express purpose of minimizing the amount of mistakes that can be made. They'd have to read the recruitment message that their region wrote a long time ago and pinned in the Discord channel, or put in a Google Doc, or whatever. Also, on "who they're messaging," the "true manual" version has always had people call the new nations shard from the API, because it gave you a comma separated list. I honestly can't remember a time I recruited purely off the activity feed. I've always either done it via calls to the activity shard, and then .join() a string of nations, or pulling directly from the new nations shard.

Another type of rebalancing we could do is to raise the price of TG stamps, which hasn't changed for eight years, and which is honestly long overdue, given the congestion in the Stamps channel. This would lead to less competition from Stamps users for all recruiters. The downside, of course, is people don't like prices going up, even if each stamp becomes more effective afterward.

I think virtually every single recruiter out there (except stamp-exclusive recruiters, of course) would be amenable to this. Stamps by far drown out every single other channel of recruitment, and have made us resort to building manual tools, etc, to even be able to compete with stamps.

Just in case my 2nd question got missed, has any specific event/report/opinion suggested via GHR caused these changes to be proposed or has this been an ongoing discussion within the administrative team for some time?

Additionally, would the administrative team consider reducing the API TG ratelimits so as to mitigate some of the impact these new rules will have?

We've been discussing how to balance recruitment TGs for a long time, and have had a particular focus on various bot-related issues from the start of this year, when they were causing some pretty major technical problems.

We will consider adjusting API ratelimits, yes. From experience, it's hard to have a non-shouty discussion about it, even in Technical, but there's nothing magical about the current number.

Please. Please, please, please increase the ratelimit, especially if you're dead-set on making this change. Even something around 1:30 recruitment/15s non-recruitment would be amazing. Still roughly 50% slower than manual from a freshly founded nation for non-recruitment, and roughly 3x slower than much older nations. I have no idea how fast stamps are sent out, but I'd imagine it's faster than 1/15s anyway.

[Guess and Check]

ninja'd by UC but I'm mostly in agreement with them again

Just wanna add that since I believe most recruiters use the same template for their region's entire recruitment effort, there probably isn't much difference in "campaign creativity" between pure manual recruiters and bot recruiters.

[New Astri]

We are looking at rebalancing how the different channels -- stamps, manual, and API -- are treated. But this requires that manual recruitment actually resemble something like manual recruitment, and not be people clicking & closing links generated by Discord bots without even knowing who they're messaging or what the message says. If it's that, it's hard to justify treating manual recruitment much differently to a region that builds an API bot.

multiple button-clicks from users every 1m and 30ish seconds is certainly Manual Enough to be considered manual. users still have to pay attention, work actively, and click a solid few buttons to make it happen. anything more manual than that and you start getting people who are burnt-out and irritated. and, unlike api, it's primarily driven by teams of people cooperating. i'm not really sure where the idea that people don't know who they're messaging or what their message says comes from, either. all regions use specific templates for all of their recruitment, which are customized to add each specific recruiter's nation name at the bottom. anyone can read the template at any time to see what they've been sending. nation names are also visible in the 'to' box, and anyone can remove nations they don't want to be messaging. if there are going to be any changes to the current manual system regions have worked out, they need to make it easier in an admin-supported way, not formally decrease the level of help we're allowed to give manual recruiters. because i cannot stress enough that until these recent changes the userbase figured out manual was so time-consuming and frustrating that i personally don't know of any regions which were able to do it consistently.

(edit: screwed up and then fixed quote bbcode)

[Flanderlion]

Another type of rebalancing we could do is to raise the price of TG stamps, which hasn't changed for eight years, and which is honestly long overdue, given the congestion in the Stamps channel. This would lead to less competition from Stamps users for all recruiters. The downside, of course, is people don't like prices going up, even if each stamp becomes more effective afterward.

This is something that should happen - players receive far too many messages to cope with, and it's not good for new players, nor recruiters. A true tragedy of the commons situation. Ideally manual would return to unassisted manual (so there would be less manual TGs queued, but each one would be more effective), API TGs would be the same or a longer time between recruitment messages (contributes nothing to the site as the users are often not the creators of the tools) and stamp costs would be higher (or auction based like google ads).

Even better would be an option to use stamps while sending via API, so you could skip the 180+ second timer, as stamp filters can never be as imaginative as players can be. This would let you automatically choose the best TG template for a nation, rather than just hoping the TG sent is the right one for them.

[Bassiliya]

Regarding manual recruitment in general, while it's true that stamps will always be the easiest way to send high volumes of telegrams -- otherwise there wouldn't be any point to them -- we really do want to support manual recruitment, and in particular to reward recruiters who put in time & creativity to their campaigns.

We are looking at rebalancing how the different channels -- stamps, manual, and API -- are treated. But this requires that manual recruitment actually resemble something like manual recruitment, and not be people clicking & closing links generated by Discord bots without even knowing who they're messaging or what the message says. If it's that, it's hard to justify treating manual recruitment much differently to a region that builds an API bot.

I would be amenable to these kinds of changes if they would take place at the same time as the proposed change of this thread. I know all too well that changes to things around here can take forever. I understand that the devs don't have a whole lot of personal time to spend on developing the site, but I don't see why those of us who are trying our best to compete with the current state of things should be held back from anything based on a future possibility. If you were to say "Yes, auto-generated URLs will go away at the same time as when we fix other aspects of recruitment", that would be far more palatable. Then, our recruiters can rest easy that they will still have good results for objectively more work. It's a difficult process to get recruiters to recruit these days because of the terrible returns and the complication of the process. Removing something that has the only function of making it easier (I mean, all these do is compile the list. There's no real "speed" factor since the TGs are still rate-limited by the spamfilter) without actually committing the changes that such a removal would necessitate... well, that just leaves us all high and dry and communityless. For example, in the short time that we have been discussing this change, my recruiters have stopped recruiting because I'm unsure of when the rule will come into effect and all the gains we had made are gone. Running on API in the background has not made anything better. I cannot imagine the issues the proposed change would cause without the balancing features implemented. My region grows incrementally as is; no need to dash our margins.

[PotatoFarmers]

Sorry, I don't know if I misunderstood. I am assuming scripts this rule change is intended to affect scripts that are required to interact with the server. If this is implemented, does it mean client-side scripts that help me, for instance, autofill the telegram box would also not be allowed? How is the admins intending to verify that a user isn't flouting the rules if there aren't logs server-side?

[United Calanworie]

Sorry, I don't know if I misunderstood. I am assuming scripts this rule change is intended to affect scripts that are required to interact with the server.

Not sure what you mean by "interact with the server." It's affecting any script that could interact with page=telegrams or page=dilemmas.

If this is implemented, does it mean client-side scripts that help me, for instance, autofill the telegram box would also not be allowed?

Correct, which is why anyone with a manual recruitment tool that uses URL parameters to pre-fill the boxes is a tad bent out of shape over this.

How is the admins intending to verify that a user isn't flouting the rules if there aren't logs server-side?

No idea.

[PotatoFarmers]

If this is implemented, does it mean client-side scripts that help me, for instance, autofill the telegram box would also not be allowed?

Correct, which is why anyone with a manual recruitment tool that uses URL parameters to pre-fill the boxes is a tad bent out of shape over this.

How is the admins intending to verify that a user isn't flouting the rules if there aren't logs server-side?

No idea.

No, if it is URL parameters, there are logs server-side on any decent server implementation. What I mean is js scripts that, in this example, detect that a telegram box is open, and then fill in a standard input. Then we can just have a keybind to send telegram

[United Calanworie]

Correct, which is why anyone with a manual recruitment tool that uses URL parameters to pre-fill the boxes is a tad bent out of shape over this.


No idea.

No, if it is URL parameters, there are logs server-side on any decent server implementation. What I mean is js scripts that, in this example, detect that a telegram box is open, and then fill in a standard input. Then we can just have a keybind to send telegram

Presumably yes, they would be prohibited.

A tool is performing a prohibited action if it interacts with the HTML site in any way during the execution of the action, including pre-filling form fields and auto-generating HTML links containing embedded information.

[[violet]]

my recruiters have stopped recruiting because I'm unsure of when the rule will come into effect

We haven't announced a date as we're still gathering feedback. When this is complete, then we'll announce the finalized rule and an implementation date -- which won't be, you know, right that second. Expect a week or two's notice from that time.