Prohibit Welcome Telegrams in Feeders

[General Halcones]

I am shocked to find that welcome telegrams can be set in Feeder regions. They effectively act as free recruitment telegrams, while everyone else is having to pay real money. The feeders already pull in hundreds of nations without any effort. They really don't need this feature themselves.

I suggest removing the possibility of setting welcome telegrams in feeders.

[King Topid]

Strong disagreement here. It's a good feature.

[General Halcones]

And completely unfair.

I have just been informed this was previously raised, and [violet] believed there was no problem. Well, there is a problem.

[King Topid]

Primarily, I think if the feeders were not meant to have an advantage nations would spawn randomly in all regions.

Secondly, feeders can't, for political reasons, use the same recruitment scripts as other nations. It is a major disrespect for one feeder to recruit from another. I'm pretty sure that's how they got welcome TGs in the first place. My memory may be off, but someone from a feeder asked for a separate feed so they could welcome only nations from *their* feeder with a script. And Violet just decided to do this.

Finally, it was never fair. Even when I was delegate of TSP, it was legal for me to welcome a nation to the region even if three other TSPers did so too. The same 1-per-nation rule didn't exist for 'welcoming' messages as opposed to recruitment messages.

[Andacantra]

Why shouldn't feeders get this again? They are already fighting a losing battle to actually keep active nations and there is no good reason why a feeder shouldn't be able to do this - especially when technically they're not different from a recruitment legality perspective.

[South Pacific Belschaft]

Further, I should point out that welcome telegrams only exist because we asked for them to be implemented so we could use them in this exact manner. This was what they were intended for.

[Vakolic]

Strongly agree.

I pay money to get recruitment stamps, so I can make my region grow, while feeders get to ask someone to stay in their region for free.
At the very least, the welcome tg should be sent 2 minutes after joining the region, and have to fight its way in the recruitment queue.

Also, it's a major direspect to do a lot of things.
It's possibly a major disrespect to tg entire regions and compare your region to theirs, highlighting and exagerating their regions bad points.
That's what I like to do though.

[Cerb]

I'm not sure the feeders have really had that much of a problem, considering they have never been out of the top 10 in most populated regions. Now they get to also have a first in line recruitment message which is ahead of any user created recruitment effort.

Here are my personal efforts for the last day or so:
148 Delivered
0 Recruits (conversion rate: 0.00%)
24 Blocked by Category
84 Inbox Full
13 Queued

The recruitment system which was already broken by the sheer number of TGs that a nation might receive are now completely bypassed by the fact that the GCRs get first crack at recruiting them, when they already have the benefit of getting new blood every few minutes automatically.

So not only now does it come down to just how fast you can get the recruitment TGs out, but whether you can persuade a nation to leave the feeder that they are in, knowing full well they have a compelling "retention" message which they received within a second of creating.

Let's look at one of these supposed welcome messages:

Welcome to The Pacific, <anonymous>! I realize that you've probably received a lot of telegrams already, so I've tried to keep this telegram's content limited to information that is relevant to you. You'll only receive this telegram once.
Your nation has been lucky enough to have been founded in The Pacific, which is the oldest and most storied region in the game. Many other regions will approach you about leaving your home region in favor of them, but it's my personal hope that you'll stay with us in your home region: you're already a Pacifican, and we want you here. I myself was a new nation at one point and left my region thinking that there were better places for me elsewhere, but at the end of the day, I realized that The Pacific offers the full NationStates experience, that it was where I was meant to be, and that it had a welcoming community. I ended up coming back, but in retrospect I wish I hadn't bothered leaving in the first place; I'm sending you this telegram because I'd like to save you from the trouble.

Anyway, The Pacific's government was founded in 2003 after an inactive and lethargic tyrant was overthrown by a group of revolutionaries. The revolutionaries, who then created the government that we call the "New Pacific Order" (NPO), established institutions in our region that stand to this day and that YOU can get involved in if you want to do more on NS than simply answer issues. These institutions are listed and described below.
• The Praetorian Guard: The Praetorian Guard is the elite security team of The Pacific. As a Praetorian, you protect the region by upholding the regional Civil Code and by reporting violations (i.e. inappropriate nation names/mottos, spam on the regional message board, people with a lot of endorsements) to the Guard's headquarters. You can learn more about this by contacting Senator Laws and Bylaws if you think you might enjoy it.
• The Pacific Expeditionary Forces: The Pacific's military is known as The Pacific Expeditionary Force (PEF). It is tasked with protecting our region from invaders and userite usurpers, protecting our allies abroad, and attacking our enemies. Participating in the PEF is one of the most fulfilling and enjoyable activities you can do in The Pacific, and if you think it might suit you, you should ask me about it via telegram.
• The Pacific News Network: The Pacific News Network (PNN) reports regional and international happenings of importance to the region and the world. As a PNN staff writer, you get to practice your writing while also acting as a trusted source of news for many NationStates users. You can learn more about PNN from A mean old man.
• Community Chatroom: The Pacific also has a live, instant messaging chatroom that you can get involved in if you'd like. It's a place to communicate with your fellow Pacificans and talk about anything you want. You can also receive advice about playing NationStates there from our more experienced players. If you have a Skype account, feel free to add na.polzin (Feux), who will then add you to the membership list for our main room.

Any Pacifican can participate in these aspects of our region, and those who work the hardest and show the most skill rise can and will be trusted with the torch that is leading Pacifica. You can be the next person to take on that torch, and the first step on that path is to introduce yourself on our regional message board and register for our forums. Our forum can be found here: http://ns.npowned.net/forum/index.php?showforum=15 . All you have to do to start is put that URL in your web address bar and introduce yourself on our boards.

Lastly, nations are also encouraged to help protect the region by joining the World Assembly, which is yet another way to expand your NationStates experience past answering issues. If you are wondering how you can participate in the WA, Senator Feux can assist you.

I hope you'll stay here, <anonymous>. Feel free to ask me any questions that you may have about getting started. I'm more than happy to personally help you. Good luck!

Yours,
Krulltopia

That is a recruitment message. Sure it starts out "welcome" but it is simply recruitment. I have seen similar messages from other feeders so I'm not just picking on the Pacific.

Though I am making this statement it is not on behalf of my region, though I suspect every one of the recruitment team would agree with it. I'm making the statement as a player who has seen the majority of user created regions suffer, and that they will continue to suffer until changes are made.

I revisit the idea voiced a long time ago. Let the feeders and sinkers compete as user created regions compete. Let nations pop randomly throughout the NS world. Then the feeders can recruit the same way everyone else does.

That is the only fair solution to this that I can see. Nobody gets a stacked decked and we all work towards the same goal on an even playing field.


Look, I find myself in agreement with Halc. Something has to be wrong.

[Andacantra]

There's one fundamental assumption you make - that raw nation numbers equate to actual regional activity. I'd be willing to bet although I'm not in the position to test it, that a really significant proportion of nations in feeders just sit and answer issues because they don't know what else to do. So the fact that they're rarely out of the top 10 is a bit of an irrelevancy. Just because they're the main recruiting ground for everyone else, it shouldn't mean that feeders have to pay where nobody else does in order to retain nations.

Recruiting is a messy bloodbath at the minute but this won't help that. Nor will one fewer tg in these nations inboxes do your success rates that much good if the situation is as bad as I understand it to be.

[Communist Eraser]

We should be able to bid how much $ we want to send each recruitment. Tg for. If I offer to pay 10cents per recruitment tg and that's the highest bid then my tg should be on top andguareenteed send through . 2nd highest for 2nd etc.

[Frisbeeteria]

We should be able to bid how much $ we want to send each recruitment. Tg for.

I'm pretty sure that any "whoever is richest, wins" plan will be discarded unread.

[Cerb]

Regional activity encouragement is fine. I don't object to feeders trying to encourage the idle nations in their regions to get active. Every region has to do that, either through the RMB or by sending telegrams to remind folks of their options. Show me a region which doesn't have to work its rear end off to keep their member nations interested.

The objection is that the feeders now have a recruitment message, for that is what it is, that is not bound by the bogged down recruitment system that user created regions have to deal with.
They get the nations automatically and they can bolster that with an instant recruitment telegram to try and retain them.

The user created regions get.... wait, they don't get anything do they?

And as for pay per play, I'm totally opposed.

Feeders can recruit from anywhere just as UCRs can, they just don't need to have a first shot at nations created within their own boundaries. It is an unfair advantage.

Send the welcome message through the recruitment telegram heap at the very least. I think most UCRs would be fine with having their welcome messages treated the same.

[[violet]]

Previous discussion is here (mainly on page 2):

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=257817

The way I see it, the structural bias is that new nations get placed into Feeders. Other regions have to prise them out; Feeders don't. That's a huge advantage, recruitment for free, but it's always existed. It's the blessing and curse of being a Feeder.

I don't see the Welcome TG as recruitment. No doubt it can be used to combat recruitment from outside, but you can't recruit somebody you already have. It's common for Delegates & Founders in both game-created and player-created regions to TG their residents to combat recruitment, and I don't think Feeders should be denied the same opportunity.

Also, from a practical point of view, Feeders can send TGs to newly founded residents via the API, with or without the Welcome TG feature, and these will usually arrive ahead of any recruitment TGs. It's easier and faster with Welcome TGs, but only by degrees.

Bottom-line, while I accept that the Welcome TG helps Feeders to the detriment of recruiters, I don't think it's a large difference, and it doesn't change anything fundamental. The fact is that Feeders get nations for free.

Thus far I haven't seen evidence that Feeders are retaining a significantly more new nations than they used to. If they were, though, I would be inclined to change something.

[Afforess]

Previous discussion is here (mainly on page 2):

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=257817

The way I see it, the structural bias is that new nations get placed into Feeders. Other regions have to prise them out; Feeders don't. That's a huge advantage, recruitment for free, but it's always existed. It's the blessing and curse of being a Feeder.

I don't see the Welcome TG as recruitment. No doubt it can be used to combat recruitment from outside, but you can't recruit somebody you already have. It's common for Delegates & Founders in both game-created and player-created regions to TG their residents to combat recruitment, and I don't think Feeders should be denied the same opportunity.

Also, from a practical point of view, Feeders can send TGs to newly founded residents via the API, with or without the Welcome TG feature, and these will usually arrive ahead of any recruitment TGs. It's easier and faster with Welcome TGs, but only by degrees.

Bottom-line, while I accept that the Welcome TG helps Feeders to the detriment of recruiters, I don't think it's a large difference, and it doesn't change anything fundamental. The fact is that Feeders get nations for free.

Thus far I haven't seen evidence that Feeders are retaining a significantly more new nations than they used to. If they were, though, I would be inclined to change something.

I have established regional population graphs. Please note that all GCR's have grown, or remain at a constant population. The entire population of NS, at the same time, has declined by about 8000 nations. So the GCR's ARE growing, despite the pool of nations shrinking.

[[violet]]

Please note that all GCR's have grown, or remain at a constant population. The entire population of NS, at the same time, has declined by about 8000 nations.

Which timeframe is that? Your numbers don't square with mine over any timeframe I can figure out.

I do love the Regional Population graphs! Though I would probably put them inside Administration rather than on the main page.

[Afforess]

Please note that all GCR's have grown, or remain at a constant population. The entire population of NS, at the same time, has declined by about 8000 nations.

Which timeframe is that? Your numbers don't square with mine over any timeframe I can figure out.

The last 30 days.

Now that I look more closely, in the last 30 days, the population has declined ~2500 nations, not the 8000 I mentioned. The regional population figures are accurate.

[Vakolic]

The way I see it, I would be willing to pay a tg stamp, which on my founder nation I have 42000, to send a welcome tg.
Since we're all paying silly money to nationStates, and if you think about it I am paying stupid amounts and really should stop, shouldn't our messages get priority over someone who's not paying anything at all?

Also, the 'small proportion are actually active' line is irrelevent. UCR's have the exact same problem.

[Afforess]

Honestly this has just brought to light how broken the whole recruitment system is broken in my eyes. There are a bunch of problems and I'm going to try and outline them:

Thousands of dollars are wasted on puppet nations.
Because NationStates has never set up an adequate puppet nation system (please don't tell me it's fine, because my 2k NS++ users say you are wrong) stamps are wasted on TONS of puppets. I know for a fact certain nations who will remain nameless have created lots of new puppets for the purpose of wasting paid-for stamps. This massive waste is a problem and discourages nations from using the system the way it was designed, and encourages abuse.

In addition to wasted stamps, I also fear lots of my free API recruitment gets wasted too. It's hard to determine if a nation is a puppet unless there are obvious tells. With only 480 free telegrams, it is easy to have many of them be wasted.

Paid stamps a bad band-aid for a broken messaging system
I know I initially embraced stamps. I now hate them, but not for the commonly cited reasons. The fact is that all use-cases for stamps are better handled by a more flexible system for messaging. Stamps show that there is a big problem with communicating in NS. No amount of band-aid fixes will make these problems go away.

Unwelcoming Atmosphere
The entire stamp system is complicated. Imagine you are a new nation. There is no clear guide to starting your own region, and the easiest way is completely pay-to-play. People talk about this hidden thing called an "API Key" and recruitment scripts, but you don't really get what that is, or how to use them, and moderators yell at you when you ask questions in technical. This is all wrong. People wonder why so many nations quit NS... How about an unwelcoming atmosphere, for starters?

Instead of stamps and API recruiting, delegates/founders should simply be able to enable a recruitment TG for new, and refounded nations in their regional control. No more complex barriers to entry and leaving your PC on to run software (as an aside: how much CO2 has NS recruiting software caused as a result of wasted electricity?).

To solve recruitment tg flooding issues, recruitment tg's are in a separate inbox, holding the 10 latest telegrams only. Nations can choose to archive telegrams they wish to save.

Welcome Telegrams ARE Recruitment
Regarding welcome telegrams, the game treats them the same as recruitment telegrams, and so they are put in the recruitment telegram queue, and are sent according to the same queue as the rest of recruitment telegrams. This is for all regions, GCR's and UCR's alike. Problem solved.

World Assembly Matters
Obviously I am leaving out a big use of stamps. WA Missives to sway nations for or against a vote. For WA messages, there should be a separate inbox for WA missives. Only WA nations should receive them, and you can only send 1 message per legislation at vote.And obviously, Only WA members can use this inbox. Since puppets can not be in the WA, intentional spam of WA missives would be impossible.

Organization & Et. Al
For organization recruiting, you can send up to 1000 telegrams per organization, per day. You can not retelegram a nation until after 28 days.

For other telegrams, simply allow users to send normal telegrams to up to 50 nations at a time. 8 is too few.

Finally,
Abolish stamps and the recruitment/wa API for telegrams (telegram API for normal tg's only).

10-SECOND SUMMARY:

• Total of 3 Inboxes for Telegrams, Recruitment, and WA Missives
• Free Recruitment, Available in Regional Controls
• Welcome Telegrams ARE Recruitment
• No More Stamps

I realize this is a huge undertaking. I am happy to donate my time/sanity/expertise to fully realizing this.

[Topid]

Oh goodness Afforess. And what happens when literally hundreds of regions use the same free recruitment? That sounds even more broken.

[Sedgistan]

Secondly, feeders can't, for political reasons, use the same recruitment scripts as other nations. It is a major disrespect for one feeder to recruit from another.

They can recruit from each other, and it's entirely their fault that they choose not to.

[Sovreignry]

Secondly, feeders can't, for political reasons, use the same recruitment scripts as other nations. It is a major disrespect for one feeder to recruit from another.

They can recruit from each other, and it's entirely their fault that they choose not to.

It's foreign relations suicide to recruit from each other. I think your time in TRR, where people are literally kicked to, has muddled the waters.

[Vakolic]

They can recruit from each other, and it's entirely their fault that they choose not to.

It's foreign relations suicide to recruit from each other. I think your time in TRR, where people are literally kicked to, has muddled the waters.

Maybe they'll just have to bite the bullet and trade foreign relations for recruitment?

[Eist]

After Parhe's ridiculous nation farms and such, nations are a really poor measure of activity or population shifts. WA nations would be much better.

[Mad Jack]

The user created regions get.... wait, they don't get anything do they?

They get to steal our nations.

They get to not have their influence tanked by admin experiments designed to make our regions less stable.

They get the stability of founders and passwords.

They have huge advantages over the GCRs in the way they are treated by the admin team.

If anyone should be complaining, it's the GCRs.

[The Most Glorious Hack]

Previous discussion is here (mainly on page 2):

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=257817

Thank God. I was having the worst case of deja vu.