Beta 009: Authoritarianism Rescaling

[The Land Between Places]

Will this proposal (or any of the others), if implemented, alter our nation's trend lines? Right now, both our political freedoms and civil rights are "World Benchmark," and we have striven for many years to achieve/maintain those designations. It would be most frustrating, to say the very least, to have to re-achieve those designations if these proposals throw them off.

I am also curious about this change. I was at essentially Zero and while I agree that the rescaling is necessary (due largely in part to the vast number of nations who revel in their authoritarian status) I would be very disappointed to see a dip in my trend.

[Winterstar]

Looks like a good change to me.

[Druga Republika Srpska]

Can't wait to have 13,700 milliStalins.

[Merconitonitopia]

Will this proposal (or any of the others), if implemented, alter our nation's trend lines? Right now, both our political freedoms and civil rights are "World Benchmark," and we have striven for many years to achieve/maintain those designations. It would be most frustrating, to say the very least, to have to re-achieve those designations if these proposals throw them off.

no. this change will not affect those stats. this change will affect the authoritarianism stat by changing its unit of measurement, and nothing else.

[[violet]]

Will this proposal (or any of the others), if implemented, alter our nation's trend lines? Right now, both our political freedoms and civil rights are "World Benchmark," and we have striven for many years to achieve/maintain those designations. It would be most frustrating, to say the very least, to have to re-achieve those designations if these proposals throw them off.

no. this change will not affect those stats. this change will affect the authoritarianism stat by changing its unit of measurement, and nothing else.

^^^ Correct.

[Martigues]

Bit unrelated, but how do you actually test it?

[Merconitonitopia]

Bit unrelated, but how do you actually test it?

https://www.nationstates.net/page=beta

this page will show all current betas and demonstrate how they will alter your nation's stats
selecting "Sample-Test" on any of them will yield a random sample of nations and show how they will be affected

[Martigues]

Bit unrelated, but how do you actually test it?

https://www.nationstates.net/page=beta

this page will show all current betas and demonstrate how they will alter your nation's stats
selecting "Sample-Test" on any of them will yield a random sample of nations and show how they will be affected

Oh, I thought it affects yourself.

[Phydios]

https://www.nationstates.net/page=beta

this page will show all current betas and demonstrate how they will alter your nation's stats
selecting "Sample-Test" on any of them will yield a random sample of nations and show how they will be affected

Oh, I thought it affects yourself.

It will affect your own nation, as well as all other nations. Go to the page and push "Test" to see how all current betas would alter your nation's stats if implemented.

[Dragonisia]

Buahahah.. 153,000% increase. I'm all for this since it's only a renumeration.

[Mushet]

I like it, make nations that want absolutely 0 on authoritarianism have to really earn it

[Sirajganj]

Hi! I'm the same person as Martigues but I switched my WA.

Anyways, I'm all for this! Greater granularity = more significant changes.

[Vivolkha]

I agree with scaling more strongly when approaching 0. However, currently Authoritarianism seems to jump to certain values, at least if it is pretty high (like 12.12, 12.89, 13.7, and 14.55 which is max). So the question is, would this change if we re-scale the stat? Otherwise, it seems like there is no point on switching from Stalins to milliStalins.
Unless there's something I'm missing.

[[violet]]

I agree with scaling more strongly when approaching 0. However, currently Authoritarianism seems to jump to certain values, at least if it is pretty high (like 12.12, 12.89, 13.7, and 14.55 which is max). So the question is, would this change if we re-scale the stat?

A little bit, yes. Authoritarianism is derived from your average freedoms, which are measured internally from -100 to +100, and those steps you see correspond to average values of 97, 98, 99, and 100. This beta uses floating-point values instead of integers, so a nation with an average value of 98.4 will no longer be truncated to 98, and the steps should mostly disappear. (97 will probably still be common, as it's a frequently chosen starting value.) The maximum value of 14.55 Stalins / 14,550 milliStalins will remain.

[Vivolkha]

Actually, according to a series of beta tests that I ran on the world's currently most authoritarian nations, the new cap is exactly 14,551.92 milliStalins.

[Triangle And Square]

Hard to argue with this one other than saying I'll miss having 0.00 Stalins.

same here.

[Xmara]

This is good. At least now there will be greater distinction between nations that have very similar levels of authoritarianism.

Also looking forward to the other betas being implemented (especially the religion/science one).

[G-Tech Corporation]

This sounds excellent.

As the Dictator once said: “One Stalin is a tragedy. milliStalins are a statistic.”

[First And Only Archive]

Thinking again on this stat today, and went through the census to find some nations with authoritarianism of 1000 milliStalins, which I suppose means they're just as authoritarian as Stalin, no more or less.

Lot of cool looking nations in that category. On the world census page they start around 38682.

No point to this, just saying that the scale seems more or less well calibrated, and there's some great nations at this level.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

(above post was from me, by the way, forgot to switch accounts)