“RESERVED. That name was used by a former nation.”

[Avalaun (Ancient)]

I have noticed that the pages often carry a motto “over two million nations served”, yet there are about 50,000 nations in the game currently. If the two million number isn’t merely hyperbole, then there are 40× more former nations than current ones (4,000%)! When one tries to set up a new nation, however, one often receives the message “RESERVED. That name was used by a former nation.” I understand that sometimes players accidentally are deleted or wish to otherwise resurrect nations from the dead, but it seems kind of unfair that names that have not been actively used for a long time are permanently reserved so that new players are forbidden from using them when they create active nations. If someone hasn’t played their nation since 2006, they probably aren’t coming back. I would like to propose to the powers-that-be that after a certain period, names of deleted nations become available again. This could be a generously long time, say six months to a year, or even two, if the nation was active for a long time before sinking into inactivity and deletion, but the names should be able to return to availability eventually. Another way that names could return is if the game featured a delete function, so that if a player really, really wishes to quit playing, they could activate such a function and delete their nation, and the name would immediately become available again. It would, of course, need appropriate warning prompts before finalising, so that no one could accidentally delete their nation without either deliberation or uncommonly excessive stupidity, but still, I think such a feature would be useful. If both these ideas were implemented, then the 39/40 names that were once used and are no longer being so would be available to new nations in the game. (Sorry if these ideas are not as new to the game as I am.)

[Naivetry]

This has indeed been suggested in the past.

One of the concerns was in how the connection between the official forums and the nation would work. Releasing nation names could be awkward, if a nation that had been absent for a long time suddenly reappeared and began posting again here, but was a different player. (Nations may cease to exist, but the forums are forever we hope.)

Now, since these forums are new, it wouldn't seem to be such a problem to release the names of nations that Ceased To Exist before these boards were created. But there is also the problem of history in a larger sense. Certain ex-nations are so famous or infamous that to release their names would cause great consternation among current players. I don't know who those names are in the RP culture here on the forums, but perhaps the most famous example from gameplay is Francos Spain, who was delegate of The Pacific years ago. The regime that he inaugurated changed the face of politics in NationStates - he's the reason there's a 200 nation limit on the regional ban lists, for example. When he Ceased To Exist in The Rejected Realms, hundreds of nations moved to TRR as a sign of respect for his passing. The mods have said that the names of nations like that will continue to be off-limits even if others are released; which means before names can be released, they need to be vetted for historical significance by... someone.

So, there are rumors that a name release is coming, but it hasn't happened yet, and it's not quite as simple as it sounds. Patience.

[Scolopendra]

We have been looking into it for A Long Time (TM) and I think the current plan is that should these forum servers pass stress tests we'll start putting in place the release mechanisms we've developed. I'm not a Perl codemonkey, but my understanding is that the issue isn't so much releasing the nation names as mostly details as "how long do we go for?" and making sure that the archiving function for ex-nations whose names have been released work properly.

[Avalaun (Ancient)]

Thank you for your replies.

I understand that there are technical problems with the coding of the website, but I believe that most of these can somehow be overcome.

As to a specific point of Scolopendra’s “but my understanding is that the issue isn't so much releasing the nation names as mostly details as ‘how long do we go for?’”, this would indeed have to be decided, I merely made a pair of suggestion on this in my earlier post, and I think that it should be discussed as thoroughly as possible among the community. I personally favour a “sliding scale” approach, wherein the longer and more active a nation was before it ceased to be played, the longer the period of suspension (for want of a better term) the name is placed in before it becomes available again.

Regarding Naivetry’s point, “Certain ex-nations are so famous or infamous that to release their names would cause great consternation among current players.” While I believe that my variable period of suspension mostly addresses this, if, indeed, there are nations who the community feel should have their names “retired” in perpetuity, I submit that for these nations (which, I think, should be severely limited in number), the practice from professional sports in North America be adopted. In the major (and some other) leagues in professional sports on this continent, teams have come to customarily “retire” numbers that were worn by truly outstanding players, and this usually amounts to less than a handful in the history of each team (some of which have existed for over a century). While I am not familiar with specific examples like the cited Franco’s Spain, it seems that such a practice might be appropriate for some, as long as it is limited to the truly outstanding.

I should also point out that there is an opposite, and probably far more common, example to Franco’s Spain type nations. These would be nations founded and abandoned early in the game’s history which never amounted to much but permanently sequestered names from further use. I wasn’t around here then, so I don’t know, but I did a couple of experiments with the create a nation page. I tried to create a new nation using the names of the UN security council permanent members, the nations of the G-8, some of the most populous nations not in either group (like India), and alternative and previous names for certain well known nations (ie: America/United States, Russia/Soviet Union, and United Kingdom/Britain/Great Britain). All are “reserved for former nations”. I cannot imagine that all of these now out-of-circulation names belonged to nations as influential as Naivetry’s averes Franco’s Spain was. I will even guess (in complete ignorance) that at least some of these nations were played unremarkably and for a short time early in NationStates history and have since fallen into forgetfulness. I expect that a vast number of players would like a chance to play these nations in the game (I suspect that a majority of NationStates players hail from a country that fits into the categories I used for my test), and it seems as unfair that none of them should have the chance since someone played a nation with that name for a couple of months in 2002, as it is unfair that someone should ride upon the coat tails of a legendary nation from the game’s history.

Finally, to the point of the illimitable nature of the forums and the reappearance of names long since inactive, I have noticed that elsewhere in this section of the forum, there is a thread regarding a symbol to use for former nations (I commented there myself, endorsing a greyed out version of the default flag). I would recommend that such a symbol be used in the forum beside the posts of nations who no longer exist. That way anyone reading the forums would be aware that posts from Genericland from 2005 would in no ways be connected with Genericland as a new nation founded in 2009. (Apparently there was once a Genericland...I have no idea when they existed or what they did or didn’t accomplish).

I wanted to address the comments written so far, and I hope that, at least in part, I have. Please forgive my wordiness. I hope that, at least, excessive length at least adds to the clarity and completeness of my thoughts. To all, please comment further, if that would be of help in resolving whether disused names become available again, and how, technically, this could be made feasible. Thank you all for your attention to this issue.

[Cameroi]

i think it is very good that names formerly used are "reserved" forever. the players who'se nations they were, or at least i anyway, greatly prefer the former names not being recycled by players with no sensitivity to the perspectives and outlooks that gave those former nations whatever reputations they may have had.

not to mentions, isn't a game like this, or at least if it isn't what the heck am i doing here, supposed to be about IMAGINATION anyway?

i know it can be difficult at times, but there are a number of randomizers free on the net, if a would be player can't think of a NEW name for a new nation.

nation names need to be MORE imaginative not less. (and here i am with one ripped from some author's story. but hell, there's LOTS of names of nations from stories that are NOT IN the everybody's heard of them mainstream, that HAVEN'T been used yet too. i don't mean to be callus, but if people want to bitch about their own lack of literacy or imagination, i really don't think ns as a whole has any real shortage of participants.)

[Jovian Empire]

I see no problem with SOME names being released. I suspect the majority of "lost" names are from nations that CTEd 27 days after creation and did nothing in the game. I can see how someone would want a specific name, possibly because they use it elsewhere. Certainly it's possible to come up with an alternative; I tried several Jupiter names before finding an unused one, and it's just as good as the names I couldn't use. But I couldn't help but wonder if any of the nation names I couldn't use were ever active.

[Bears Armed]

I tried to create a new nation using the names of the UN security council permanent members, the nations of the G-8, some of the most populous nations not in either group (like India), and alternative and previous names for certain well known nations (ie: America/United States, Russia/Soviet Union, and United Kingdom/Britain/Great Britain). All are “reserved for former nations”. I cannot imagine that all of these now out-of-circulation names belonged to nations as influential as Naivetry’s averes Franco’s Spain was. I will even guess (in complete ignorance) that at least some of these nations were played unremarkably and for a short time early in NationStates history and have since fallen into forgetfulness. I expect that a vast number of players would like a chance to play these nations in the game (I suspect that a majority of NationStates players hail from a country that fits into the categories I used for my test), and it seems as unfair that none of them should have the chance since someone played a nation with that name for a couple of months in 2002, as it is unfair that someone should ride upon the coat tails of a legendary nation from the game’s history.

That seems a fair point to me, although ("of course") many of those names are now in use for 'regions' and so letting nations have them as well might make things [slightly] more confusing...

There are three categories of names that I've seen Mods list as "never to be released", in addition to those of a few really few 'famous' nations _

Names that were used by Mods;
Names of nations that successfully submitted NSUN or WA resolutions, or issues;
Names of nations that were Mod-deleted for breaches of the rules...

And these exclusions seem perfectly sensible ones to me.

(And presumably there's not much chance that the name 'Maxtopia' will be made available, either... )

[Erastide]

Finally, to the point of the illimitable nature of the forums and the reappearance of names long since inactive, I have noticed that elsewhere in this section of the forum, there is a thread regarding a symbol to use for former nations (I commented there myself, endorsing a greyed out version of the default flag). I would recommend that such a symbol be used in the forum beside the posts of nations who no longer exist. That way anyone reading the forums would be aware that posts from Genericland from 2005 would in no ways be connected with Genericland as a new nation founded in 2009. (Apparently there was once a Genericland...I have no idea when they existed or what they did or didn’t accomplish).

The very fact that the Ex-Nation discussion is happening is *because* we're going to be attempting to release names if the forum tests out well.

We have not been able to release names while using Jolt for the past 4 years (out of NS's total 6+) as the forum. Before we moved to Jolt, NS hadn't really been around long enough to think about releasing old names. At Jolt, we had no control over the names on the forum. Therefore no way to deal with the forum accounts of nations that suddenly had new owners. Here, the admins are NS admins, so they can make appropriate changes.

We're well aware that most of the reserved nations have no significance to anyone aside from their original creators, we're pretty eager to release nation names too.

[Avalaun (Ancient)]

Just a couple of responses to your further input.

Regarding Erastide’s statement “...the Ex-Nation discussion is happening is *because* we're going to be attempting to release names...” Actually, no. I had no idea that you or anyone was considering releasing old names when I posted this thread yesterday. In fact it is something that bothered me since I began playing, but I only got around to bringing it up last night. Last night was the first time that I even realized there was a new forum.

To Bears Armed’s points: I really don’t see a problem with a nation having the same name as a region. It happens now. In order to play NationStates at all, a person must be able to distinguish between a region and a nation. As to the other categories of “never to be released”, personally I would not be as restrictive as that...I think people are clever enough to tell the difference between a former nation and a current one, but even so, if those categories of names remain frozen, still the vast majority of the “2 million” names should become available then.

Jovian Empire, essentially I concur with your point.

I am afraid that we must disagree Cameroi. I think that we must see the game differently, or at any rate, have different opinions on this issue. You may think that nations should require new and completely original names, but not everyone agrees with you or plays for that reason. Creating a nation whole cloth is not the only valid exercise of the imagination, imo. I think it is just as valid an exercise of the imagination for someone who looks at Tanzania, or Switzerland, or the USA, and thinks “if it were up to me, I would run my country this way; we’d be better off.” As to your final statement, to me it does indeed sound callus. I am certainly not “bitch about their [my] own lack of literacy or imagination” — I think I am plenty imaginative and literate, thank you very much — and to say “really don't think ns as a whole has any real shortage of participants” is, imo, rather selfish. Essentially that comes off to me as you suggesting people who don’t think the way you do have no place playing this game. Sorry, but that’s just not fair. As it stands now, anyone who has an internet connexion, is willing to accept the TOS and follow the rules is allowed to play, and personally I hope that it stays that way. There is no reason why someone who wants to play a sequestered name has any less right to be involved than someone who wants to create a name new. Whether they will be allowed is the question we are discussing, but they certainly have every right to both be here and have their opinion in the mean time. At least that is what I believe.

[Anumia]

I am loath to see any old names restored, but perhaps those that lasted say, less than six months (to reach the magical 500 million title-changing figure), and were not Mod/Deleted/Famous nations (though, anyone that becomes "all-time" famous in less than six months of total gameplay, excluding perhaps the early nations, is either extremely lucky or truly great), could be restored without causing me much personal consternation. Perhaps that indeed could be the cut-off point - any nation that did not last six months probably did not last two, and I imagine many, if not most of the nations in NS history fall into that category - releasing those names would do no harm while still preserving those who were with us for at least enough time to possibly be remembered (at which point having someone else with their name would be an issue).

I am unsure of the logistics of this, but perhaps when in the process of creating a nation name, if one either clicks the test link or attempts to found and is told the name is already taken, it could give a list of names similar to that one that are also taken, for both inspiration and to help speed up the process of choosing a name (as they would have a better idea which names not to choose). This would be a novel spin on those games and forums that instead give a few available names, that are often rubbish (Anumia_34124 anyone? No thanks). That said, I have over thirty living nations myself, and while many of them are based on the Anumian name, I cannot think of any time I have ever had an issue with a name I have thought of already having been used.

I can see the wishes of those that may wish to play as a nation named for a RL nation, but presumably there are going to be plenty of them out there for the particularly major ones (who would not jump at the chance to control "United States" or "America" for example?), and to throw them back out there now would simply mean a case of first come, first served, which would be snapped up very quickly, and likely everyone else (or at least most) that wanted those nations would be more upset than under the current situation. Cries of "why weren't the names released in my daytime timezone?" could rise loud and furious.

[Avalaun (Ancient)]

<snip>That said, I have over thirty living nations myself, and while many of them are based on the Anumian name, I cannot think of any time I have ever had an issue with a name I have thought of already having been used.

Well, for the record, I have, including real life nations, satirical/humourous name nations, nations from works of fiction, and even names that I had made up myself for fiction, RPGs, or whatever.

I can see the wishes of those that may wish to play as a nation named for a RL nation, <snip> and to throw them back out there now would simply mean a case of first come, first served, which would be snapped up very quickly, and likely everyone else (or at least most) that wanted those nations would be more upset than under the current situation. Cries of "why weren't the names released in my daytime timezone?" could rise loud and furious.

At least one person would get the name they wanted, and if they abandoned it, then yet another player.

As to the timezone thing, I hadn’t thought of that. The dratted thing being round and constantly spinning just has to be dealt with. Hmm. I guess if NA were in early to late afternoon, Europe would be in mid evening, and Australia/Japan would be morning though probably really early. That would probably be most convenient for most players, but the folks who maintain the server can track IP numbers and determine where, if anywhere, most players are clustered and make it easiest for that group. The other option would be for the great rush of names being first re-released, some kind of lottery where all the people who want a name put in a request for it and then one winner is chosen via the computer’s random number function, though that might be too much work to set up.

If I were starting a game like this from scratch I would assign each nation created a unique ID number and let people play as many names as they want, with only the limit that there cannot be more than one nation of the same name in the same region at any given time. That way for things like the forum, users would know that the nation was “Gondor” in “Middle-earth” and not “Gondor” in “Middle Earth” or whatever. And they could check the ID number if they really wanted to. Too late for that now, I suppose, though.

I do think the mistaken identity thing is overblown some as a problem, especially if names were still given a “time-out” before being recycled. How difficult would it be for, say, “Cimmeria” on being accused of saying some rubbish or other back in 2005 (which I doubt would even happen that often) to simply respond, “Hey, that wasn’t me. I didn’t get the name ‘Cimmeria’ until 2009.”

[New Onyr]

If I were starting a game like this from scratch I would assign each nation created a unique ID number and let people play as many names as they want, with only the limit that there cannot be more than one nation of the same name in the same region at any given time. That way for things like the forum, users would know that the nation was “Gondor” in “Middle-earth” and not “Gondor” in “Middle Earth” or whatever. And they could check the ID number if they really wanted to. Too late for that now, I suppose, though.

The thing is, that would require
a) continents to be not chooseable or only once
b) people to always mention the continent next to the name, or at least where the mentioned might not write in that thread

Aside from that, I believe we already Have unique IDs, since the game is probably built atop a database. Unless the name is used as index, which is unlikely.

----
I was going to say about better not giving out RL nation names, looking at the WA name issue, but since apparently there are alive NS countries with such names it may be fine.

[Kele]

I suppose the lottery idea would be okay I guess, if we had to do it. There is another problem with that though - which nations would be put into the lottery? Real life nations obviously, but there would probably be other popular ones that people might like to create. Who might want a "MicroSoft" or "Google" nation? Should those be on the lottery? If they are, what about "Yahoo!" "Baseball" "Trigonometry"? "Trigonometry" going too far? Where is the line drawn?

...etc.

The dratted thing being round and constantly spinning just has to be dealt with.

Our round Earth screws us once more!

[Erastide]

I would be very against people having one nation name in one region and then someone else being able to have the same name in a different region. But that's not really an option on the table here.

[Vault 10]

Since deleted nations' stats are still kept, I presume we can check for how long the nation has existed and when it was deleted?

Then, while reserving long-lived nations makes perfect sense, nations that were deleted for inactivity two months after being founded, i.e. had just a month of life, can be safely freed up.

It would also be a good idea to email all nations before clearing the reservation, providing a month to restore their nation. Since the automatic restore feature is pretty recent, most inactive people don't know about it. Some might well opt for restoration, not many, but it's enough that some will.

[Avalaun (Ancient)]

[
The thing is, that would require
a) continents to be not chooseable or only once
b) people to always mention the continent next to the name, or at least where the mentioned might not write in that thread

Aside from that, I believe we already Have unique IDs, since the game is probably built atop a database. Unless the name is used as index, which is unlikely.

In response:
a) Right now I believe that region names can must be unique, though unlike nations, they can be refounded. I suppose that someone could still be confused if a region were refounded and a nation was likewise, but people have to use their common sense with this, at least a little.
b)This could be automated for the avatar section. It doesn’t seem to me too much trouble to type America(North America) in a post, especially if one uses a find/replace feature.

If there are IDs separate from names, then a large part of the problem is already easily gotten around.

[Avalaun (Ancient)]

I know that what I’m suggesting is a change to the way the game has worked hitherto, and there is always a certain friction by the status quo that resists change, that’s human nature. I know that there would be difficulties both technical and from the personal perspectives of some players. While I understand there would be problems and not everyone will be satisfied, I must ask, “please don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” The fundamental point I make is that based on the number of active nations and the “over two million nations served” statement, there are approximately forty defunct nations to every active one. All forty of those nations for each of ours can’t have had long, storied histories. Is it really reasonable that all those nation’s names be forever sequestered? 40 to 1

[Naivetry]

From the side of the game that I play, allowing multiple players to have the same nation name so long as they were in different regions would be disastrous. My nation name serves as my handle in political discussions across multiple regional forums. If someone else were to take my name, or an obvious variation on my name, I would consider it to be impersonation. There is also the problem of mobility; many nations do not simply stay in one region.

I think the point the mods have brought out is that they are working on this. The move to these new forums (only two weeks old or so under load) has just made it possible. Again... patience.

[Bears Armed]

to throw them back out there now would simply mean a case of first come, first served, which would be snapped up very quickly, and likely everyone else (or at least most) that wanted those nations would be more upset than under the current situation. Cries of "why weren't the names released in my daytime timezone?" could rise loud and furious.

Maybe they could specifically be released at suitable times for the RL places whose names they share?

[Anumia]

From the side of the game that I play, allowing multiple players to have the same nation name so long as they were in different regions would be disastrous. My nation name serves as my handle in political discussions across multiple regional forums. If someone else were to take my name, or an obvious variation on my name, I would consider it to be impersonation. There is also the problem of mobility; many nations do not simply stay in one region.

Agreed.

to throw them back out there now would simply mean a case of first come, first served, which would be snapped up very quickly, and likely everyone else (or at least most) that wanted those nations would be more upset than under the current situation. Cries of "why weren't the names released in my daytime timezone?" could rise loud and furious.

Maybe they could specifically be released at suitable times for the RL places whose names they share?

That's a fair enough solution, though I think the lottery would be better - what about an American living in Australia who might want the nation name, "America"? Still, it's not a bad idea.

[[violet]]

As per this post, allowing nation name re-use is one of the main reasons for this forum.

I added the code to handle this years ago, but couldn't implement it because of compatibility issues with Jolt. That's no longer a problem.

[UnitedStatesOfAmerica-]

Some of those nation names would probably be available if you put a dash or a number or some other punctuation after the name. Of course its not the same but it would be similar. Also, while modern nation names are not availabe, if you are intent on using actual nation names, there are still a lot of historical names left if you are willing to do a google search of historical nations.
Wasn't there a fellow a while back who had a lot puppets with historical names?

For example, I found that Cherokee Nation was available. But it expired because I have not been using it. I'm willing to bet that apache nation is also available. If you do twists on a name you'll find them available. You just need to use your imagination. This game should not be about using the original names.

[Golden Triangle Tout]

I've known cases of nations long dead being refounded, especially after self-restoration became possible. I think we should stick with the current arrangement.

[Murra]

I've known cases of nations long dead being refounded, especially after self-restoration became possible. I think we should stick with the current arrangement.

I've refounded a few long-dead nations. Nonetheless, I support reusing nation names that have been abandoned for a while anyway. It doesn't make much sense to have over two million names permanently out of commission, even if the problem is more often than not lack of imagination. :P

[Kele]

Hmmm...if this does go through, what should we do with any dead puppets of ours? I have a list of all of my puppets for all time (hidden in a vault ), with the ones that are still alive in bold. Some of the dead ones I might have use for in the future, particularly those based on the Anumian name - should I revive them before this happens, to make sure they cannot be taken by someone else, or will there be an opportunity for currently active players to save some/all of their known dead puppets that they might want to reuse?