Greetings all,
This announcement is regarding nations along the naming conventions of "S1 Soops", "S3 Chan Island", "S3 Annihilators of Chan Island", "S3 Morover" and so on -- those intended to mimic aspects of another nation, purporting to be parts of them for meme purposes, or to troll other players when they find their card.
Although we have been aware of S1 Soops for several years, the expansion of nations along this theme has made it more pressing to reach a stronger conclusion about how we address this topic. In November, we deleted S2 Nervun, a nation created to represent the valuable Season 2 card of a former staff member. That it specifically was a former staff member was the primary reason that we removed the nation, out of concern that a player could use S2 Nervun to misrepresent themselves as a moderator and spread disinformation or manipulate others.
Our impersonation policy, sourced by the FAQ, does not allow for "employing a similar name ... i.e. ... Examp13stan, and pretend to be the player Examplestan". This is pretty easily the category of event that's taking place here; however, because our policy generally requires a report to originate from the impersonated party, S2 Nervun's removal left untouched an increasingly uncomfortable status quo of founding imitation nations with impunity unless that first-party report takes place. When it comes to players like Chan Island and Soops, it is possible if not certain that they will never return to the game and, therefore, may never be reported. Consequently, there is a compelling reason to make an exception.
We cannot realistically maintain an expectation that players remain on the site indefinitely in order to file reports about their impersonators due of the fortune or misfortune of being depicted in high-profile trading cards. Therefore, after an extended period of discussion, we have reached a determination where we will no longer be permitting these nations unless they are operated by the nations that they depict. I have removed all of the nations that I've mentioned here, their respective cards from all seasons where applicable, and advise players to not found any more of these nations in the future.