1. Are two simultaneous non-API non-restricted queries based on a single user action permissible?
To give a trivial example, suppose I wrote a browser extension that compared two nations side-by-side. Now let's suppose the user wants to change to another tab (from "People" to "Government", for example) - in this case, both halves would require a request, though intuitively it would be based on a single user input.
To give another example: Suppose I'm building a special happenings page with one filter for the world, but a wider filter for a specific region or nation; as an example, maybe I want to see worldwide moves but only see endorsements coming from The North Pacific. This could be implemented by making two queries to the ajax-feed and interleaving the result data based on the happenings ID. If that page included a manual "refresh" button, would it be permissible that this button then queries the ajax-feed twice based on that single click?
2. Is API-usage "per-organization" allowed as opposed to "per-user", and how should this best be reflected in the User-Agent?
Context: My cloud server hosts 5 different Discord bots spanning 16 different Discord servers, with 5 regions represented and 3 of those servers being NS-interregional (such as the NSGP Discord Server). All four of these bots include an extension for pulling up information on a nation or a region using an API-call (either using Darcania's cogs or one I rolled on my own a while back before Darcania wrote his). Now obviously, these together are rate-limited as a unit as they all come from the same server, and that's okay (and they all identify as "Roavin" in the User-Agent at this time). But my worry is something like this - suppose in one of the Discord servers, several individuals begin showing off their nations to each other (not an infrequent occurrence), leading to something like 10-15 requests being made in a minute. At the same time, I'm using the API at home in some capacity, such as querying the last 12 hours of happenings or running the tool 20XX which makes a request once a second. This combination won't hit the rate limit imposed by the NationStates server, as their origin is different, but they both identify as Roavin and would in sum exceed the limit for me personally. The API documentation says "Do Not Sneakily Exceed Rate Limits"; while the intent surely isn't to sneakily exceed the rate limits, given the explanation in the API documentation, technically this could lead to a situation where I de facto exceed the rate limit (albeit unintentionally).
3. The simultaneity rule applies to restricted actions. Do any similar restrictions exist for non-restricted actions (beyond "be reasonable with our server")?
I don't intend to start flooding NationStates with a bunch of simultaneous requests - rather, I'd handle non-restricted actions as if the simultaneity rule applied anyway. This is just out of personal curiosity.
4. Is logging in a restricted action?
While it doesn't generate a world happening, it does update the "Last Government Activity" rating, so intuitively I would think yes. On the other hand, login scripts are permissible, so the precedent seems to be no.
5. Is it permissible to satisfy the script simultaneity rule by manually spacing out user actions?
Now, by a strict legalistic reading of viewtopic.php?t=371830&p=28094530 it's not permissible, but to explain what I mean: Suppose I make a page with several buttons that perform restricted actions that the user wishes to perform sequentially. To give a realistic example relevant to R/D, suppose there are three buttons for move to a specific region, resign from WA, apply to WA (a standard procedure amongst defenders). Now, as it's written, the simultaneity rule states that when clicking one of the buttons, the other two buttons must be disabled until the current request has fully completed. My question is - what if instead, the other buttons remained clickable, and the page internally places those actions in a queue with a timestamp of that click. Whenever a request completes, the next request from the queue is then issued, with the appropriate userclick-parameter (as described by Eluvatar here) to identify when the actual click was. So the workflow for the user would just be clicking those three appropriately labeled buttons in succession however fast they are physically able; the backend code makes sure only one request sends at a time, in each case with when the actual click was performed given as parameter.
6. Is editing a dispatch a restricted action?
At this time, only the author nation can edit a dispatch. So when a dispatch contains something like operation logs, the burden currently falls upon that one individual to keep these logs up to date, unless the nation is shared (and I know mods don't like that). An idea I had was to keep these records on our offsite forum, where we can set fine-grained permissions on who can edit the operation logs. Those of us who would be editing and adding to these operation logs would be on the off-site forum anyway. It's important to us that our regional nations that are on-site only can see these logs too, so the idea entails writing a script to run on a trigger or timer or such which reads the forum, does the appropriate changes wrt BBCode-incompatibilities, and then POSTs that into a pre-created dispatch.
Creating a dispatch creates a happening, so the target dispatch would have to be manually created (as this counts as a restricted action). Meanwhile, editing a dispatch does not cause a a happening, so a strict legalistic reading of the rules would allow this.
Thanks
-- Roavin
but I can change that. How about something like:
