A "short" guide on telegram campaigns
18 June 2018
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Let's be honest. To get anything to vote these days, you need a campaign. And while some people tell me of a time when you could somehow build up approvals in the long run through resubmission, that (1) doesn't seem plausible today and (2) seems like way more effort than just doing a campaign.
Telegram campaigning is basically your telling delegates that your proposal exists. Most delegates don't check the proposals list (hell, I'm a delegate and I rarely do so, except when stuff gets exciting). Thus, you're not going to get the six per cent of delegates necessary to snatch your proposal from the proposals list to the voting floor.
Most people also combine some telegram campaigning with campaigning for your proposal itself. Plus, doing so also increases the chances that people would approve your proposal. This is most certainly a good thing.
In my experience, proposals sans campaign do not make it to vote before expiring. Proposals with a full campaign (ie to all delegates) will basically always make it to vote. Whether this means the delegate approval process is little more than a technicality, then, is really a matter of opinion. However it is, there are many kinds of delegate campaigning, and it is possible to do so for or against a proposal. And also in my experience, counter-campaigns (ie campaigns against a proposal) are extremely effective. And generally cheaper than some kind of full-WA campaign that's necessary to win at vote.
Writing a campaign telegram
The most basic campaign telegram is obviously the one which is essentially 'Hey, approve this'. I've seen it work. But it's also quite weak. Because when you're sending a campaign telegram, you can also use that time (or money) to send a telegram which does a better job at conveying your message. Thus,
1. Include arguments for your proposal.
You should include arguments for why a delegate should approve and vote for the proposal in the body of the telegram. To be pretty lazy, the easiest way of doing this is basically to paraphrase your preamble, with some extra elaboration or fluff, into the telegram body. I would also recommend that you order the reasons why you should vote for the telegram from most important to least important. The first thing someone reads should be a really good reason to approve now.
2. Give reasonable opportunities to find the link to approve the proposal.
I would recommend putting the link to the proposal in at least two places. But never more than like four or five. Then it becomes too obvious that you're fishing for them. First, at the top, when you introduce yourself (little more than "Hi, we submitted a proposal" or something like that is necessary) and the reason your proposal is here, you can include a link using the kind of bbCode URL encoding here:
- Code: Select all
[url=PROPOSAL_LINK_HERE]proposal[/url]
Then, at the end, you can either give a link like "Approve Here" or the link itself (the link itself is relatively long and also green, so it sticks out visually) so there are two options to approve. The general tone of the telegram is usually something reasonably deferential, because you are asking a favour of the people to whom you are writing.
Now, you can get this link by looking at the top of the proposal when you submit it. There's a big thing below "General Assembly Proposal" prefixed with "ID". Right click on that and copy it's URL. That is a URL that links directly to your proposal. Delegates can see a button where they can approve it.
3. An example of a telegram.
Below is an example of a telegram I wrote. I won't claim it's perfect or that this is the only way to do it. Obviously, there are different ways. This is just something I found relatively useful. This is the telegram which accompanied my resolution "Reducing Statelessness". It has been slightly adapted for this format.
I wrote this telegram in a relatively formal and deferential style. That's not strictly-speaking necessary. Lots of resolutions were backed with informal telegrams. Basically, you do you. Just, recognise when you are writing that you are asking a favour of someone.
Also, in mass telegrams, you can use a macro – %NATION% – which introduces into that telegram the name of the nation. This is some level of personalisation. However, it's (1) obviously a macro and (2) doesn't work in individual telegrams. So, if you are manual campaigning via copy-and-paste, it will not work.
You can write telegrams in the form of a roleplay. Above is an example of that. Or you could write it as a nation-player addressing another. I've not really felt any major difference in response rates between the two. Altogether, I don't think it matters.
5. A few warnings.
Realise that campaign telegrams are effectively public. They are distributed to over 1000 players. You should have absolutely no expectation that they do not leak. Attempts to shame someone publicly or drop shade don't usually work because he or she will hear about it. And then, you'll be stuck with a possible counter-campaign thorn in your side.
Don't claim for yourself titles or positions you don't have. It's very embarrassing if you do and get found out. If you claim you're – say – the East Pacific's WA minister or highly involved in their WA ministry, and you're not actually involved (or you are overstating your involvement), don't. It becomes embarrassing if you were then to get dismissed or something like that.
Make sure that you mark your campaign telegram as a campaign telegram. If it isn't so marked, it will be removed from recipient inboxes. Also, it is spam. So, make sure you mark it.
Double check that you in fact put a link to your proposal. No link, your proposal becomes hard to find, and you won't get many approvals since you made it difficult to get those approvals.
Really long, really boring, really poorly argued telegrams? They're not worth the bytes. Make them shorter, easier to read, and better argued.
Sending telegrams
Now that you have your telegram. You want to send it. There are multiple ways to do this. I've organised it by, basically, the amount of effort one would require to understand it. Manual campaigning is intuitive. Stamps is relatively intuitive. API campaigning requires some technical prowess. Anyway, read the section you want to read.
Manual campaigning
This is, to be honest, a waste of your time. Well, unless you don't want to spend anything and you also happen to have like 6 hours of your time open. There are two kinds: copy-pasta campaigns or telegram templates.
Copy-pasta campaigns are self-describing. You copy and paste the same telegram over and over again. You will need to mark every single one as a campaign telegram. I don't recommend doing this. (1) Because it's time consuming and you almost certainly have better things and do, (2) macros like %NATION% do not work, and (3) you're going to make mistakes in marking every single one as a campaign telegram. Better to not have that risk and...
Telegram templates are pretty simple. You write it, you encode it as a campaign telegram using the drop-down menu, you send it to tag:template and you get link that you can drop into a telegram which will transmit that template. Then, you simply copy your template code to the recipients. Even this, however, is really slow. And the site's rate limits on telegram sending don't make it any easier.
You will have to send a telegram to people who you think are active. If you're down to choosing who to send to, this may be helpful:
- Unless you know them, ignore the GCR and large UCR delegates. They don't really approve proposals but for political reasons or from appeals originating from their constituencies.
- If you have a list of delegates which approved the last proposal, that is helpful. They are active and demonstrably willing to approve proposals.
- If you have a list of delegates for a proposal that is totally unlike yours (like, if you are repealing a proposal that just passed), then that list won't altogether be very helpful. Most small-town delegates make their choices based on personal policy beliefs.
Stamp campaigning
Stamp campaigning costs money. You buy telegram stamps, which come at the rate of about 1000 to one USD. The cost of this really depends on what value you attach to money. Each stamp guarantees delivery to the recipients. This is pretty simple for delegates, because delegates have their own telegram tag: tag:delegates.
Right now, there are around 1 700 delegates, so you will need around that many stamps. You write the telegram, mark it as a campaign telegram using the drop-down menu, and send the telegram to the delegates tag.
This is really fast, extremely straight-forward, and it will send all of your telegrams in a matter of seconds. But with convenience comes cost. It is not altogether extremely expensive, but for someone without access to an income, it can be a bad thing altogether to have to spend money on a game for fleeting convenience.
And in seconds, you campaigning shall be complete.
API campaigning
There exists an API, or application programming interface, for the NationStates site. This is a fancy way of saying that computer programs can interact with the website. In the API, you can send telegrams. However, to do this, you need something called a client key. Client keys are issued by region. And each region only gets one. If you live in a region that already have a client key (eg Europe, The North Pacific, most large regions), then you will need to procure for yourself a region and a client key.
This isn't hard. Just make a region. Have your founder nation request that an API key be issued for that region. You can do so in via a Getting Help Request. You should do this before your campaign, because delays are bad.
When you submit that request, you need to provide information: (1) the purpose of the issuing of the key, (2) the region to which the key is linked, and (3) the nation responsible for the key. If you just made a region, then the two latter questions are the region you founded and the founder nation, respectively.
Next, you wait a bit. After receiving a response, and if your client key is issued, then you simply need to get yourself a telegram client. There exist many different ones. But I happen to code one, and I'm most familiar with my own, so I'll just use that as a basis. They all work relatively similarly (unless the interface is atrocious) so it should not be difficult to replicate this on a different client.
Depending on the client, you need to acquire it.
- For my client, Communiqué, you need to download it. You can do so here. I also have a forum page for the client here. And you can file bug reports with the repository on GitHub here. It also requires Java 8, so you would have to install that dependency too. Different programs have different dependencies.
- In Communiqué, to do this, in the coding box, put in tag:delegates and hit send. You should then see a dialog saying that you want to send over a thousand telegrams. That number should correspond to the number of Delegates the game reports in the World page. Hit send.
Waiting
Your proposal, if it has enough approvals, will be pulled to the floor at two possible times: midnight and noon, Eastern Standard Time (UTC–5). If you're short a few approvals, you may want to see if you can find yourself some delegates to plea for assistance. I've made it work before, but it's difficult to find the right nations in the stream of happenings. Normally, explaining that the proposal must meet some deadline and asking for help is enough for most people.
Counter-campaigns
If you're just waiting, then there's not really much to do. Just wait for it to reach the number. If it doesn't, then you'll have to try again. And if you ran a full campaign and you don't make quorum, you should suspect a counter-campaign against your proposal. Ask some people who are Delegates if they received one (especially the people who approved your resolution: copy a list of them and ask) and for a copy of the counter-campaign.
You may want to send a second campaign refuting that telegram. Or, on resubmission, you may want to refute that telegram in your telegram. Whatever floats your boat. Counter-campaigns can be difficult to deal with, but they are possible to overcome.
