The Rejected Times -- Issue XI

[Unibot]

Issue XI, January 06, 2014

Your Mid-NS-World Fair-Week Round-Up!

Editor's Note

A big round of applause to the journalists here in The Rejected Times - they managed to pitch together this edition in a very small window of time. I'm really proud of it - I think it's got a little something for everyone. NS World Fair stuff, imperialist drama and intrigue, poll raiding and Macedon-bashing! What else do you want in a newspaper? Don't answer that. It was purely rhetorical.

>>> 2014 NS WORLD FAIR


Interview with Todd McCloud

INTERVIEW | TRR STAFF

The Rejected Times managed to snag a quick interview with NS World Fair Co-Founder, Todd McCloud to discuss the NS World Fair, Osiris and Ugly Forums...

How's the Fair going? Is it living up to your expectations?

So far it's going quite well. People seem to be rather active and exuberant, which is definitely a good thing. The lectures are interesting and plentiful; the booths are fun and diverse. Really, it's a great place to write down a "who's who" as far as regions are concerned.

You're doing a highly anticipated lecture for the NS World Fair on Jan 10 called "Osiris: Past and Future" - what can we expect from that?

Expect some explanations from the past, my own thoughts during said past, and what I believe is the best recipe for success in a region that is hopefully beginning the process of recovery. I do not believe everyone will agree with me, but frankly if they did it would make for a boring game. As discussed in my last lecture on chaos, that's kind of what makes the game fun. But it's a tightrope walk between chaos and drama. We must be cognizant of that, cognizant of those who have yet to be brought back into the fold, and careful to develop a plan that will last not three months, not one year, but long enough where a healthy community can flourish and grow.

Speaking of Osiris, you've recently been made admin on OFO's boards - congratulations. How did this appointment come about?

I assume it was done in order to tie up loose ends between the old forums and new forums, in addition to providing some guidance on security.

You argued earlier for a compromise that would have brought the OFO and The Empire together once more and returning to the old forums - has your opinion changed on that compromise idea?

It has... slightly. I am still convinced that success should be defined by how much of the region remains intact during this process, and how many are eventually brought back into the fold in some manner. I do believe this OFO group has good intentions and honestly wants to see the community recover for the good. But we can't stop here. Though fragmented, we are still a community. However, it was that fragmentation, that disconnect, that was one of the underlying causes of the barrage of coups and takeovers from last year. We have to make sure that won't happen again. Much like what TEP went through, a time will come where people are able to step back and reflect. I believe in time sentiments will change, but for now, the biggest issue is getting a government that works and increasing stability.

TRR News did a piece on the ugliest forum skins in NS - you were mentioned a few times. I must ask: which region had the ugliest forum skin in NS?

I voted for TITO, but it was only because I experienced that forum on a first-hand basis. Theirs is legible, but the blue on white is hard on my eyes. I'd choose Macedon, but their site isn't really a forum, it's just a website that looks like it was created on angelfire or geocities. A close second for me is The Internationale. Rule #1 of forums skins should be that the background where the post text is should either be a nondescript pattern or a solid color. I'd imagine if I had to be on that forum a bunch of times I'd probably change my vote.

Thanks for the interview, Todd. Good luck on the upcoming lecture!

_______________________________________________________________________

Review: “Hot off the Press”

REVIEW | UNIBOT

It was 12:55 – sweat was rolling down my forehead. This was the first planned lecture of the 2014 NS World Fair. Sink or Swim. For the past ten hours, I had been preparing for the lecture through the night with questions and an introduction. At this point, Sir Paul hadn’t appeared yet or given a sign he would appear – I was counting on a player that I had never met before (beyond one brief chat) to make an appearance. The mind raced with possibilities. Perhaps, he got the time wrong? Perhaps, California got hit by a massive ice storm? There had to be… oh, thirty, nay forty people in #auditorium_one. I hadn’t seen a channel that full at noon before, except for maybe a “Maxchat”. Then, with only moments to spare, Sir Paul joined the channel – I relaxed, now the only concern was whether the lecture would be any good, but the biggest hurdle (his appearance) had already been surmounted.

Communist Quinntopia and I introduced ourselves as editors of contemporary newspapers in NationStates and massive fans of Sir Paul’s work – we were serving as the lecture’s coordinators.

We offered Sir Paul the opportunity to speak and, frankly, I had no idea whether he had the chance to prepare anything. What followed was outright remarkable.
Sir Paul began his lecture on journalism – he sees journalism as about the context of the situation. Bad journalism, he would argue fails, to place stories into context. He gives a nugget of advice to budding journalists along the way that is not only relevant to NationStates but Real Life, as well. As Founder of the PNN, Sir Paul was very frank with the audience: he acted as a propagandist for years. But what was the secret of the NPO’s propaganda machinery? He brings in various colorful anecdotes to discuss how ridicule, truth, and absurdity are the main features of propaganda. In his view, you have to ridicule the target, subvert their authority with humor and then you compound your ideas with both some truths and some absurdities.

From there, Sir Paul answered questions from the audience, and in good honour and depth, we were given a rare window into the inner workings and the political culture of the early PNN and Francos Spain’s government (which Sir Paul sat on as a senator). Like everything else in this fine lecture, the material was original, refreshing and also thought-provoking. I couldn’t help but to think of parallels between early NPO and the OFO, as both of those regimes focused on attaining legitimacy.
I don’t think the NS World Fair could have begun with a bigger bang – I consider this lecture a once-in-a-lifetime event to have attended.

Review: ★★★★★

_______________________________________________________________________

Review: "Democracy in NationStates"

REVIEW | RATATEAGUE

As observed from the reception of Glen-Rhodes' discussion last night, I could only assume the material went over a lot of heads. I had expected standing ovations, but by the time it was over, I was disappointed by almost dead silence. In contrast, previous talks about personal conquests or histories of famous organizations barely made it over the audience chatter. Anyway, it was about the nuances of democracy. Not the whole spectrum, but the second-highest form that NationStates can logistically support: "delegative democracy" and its deceptive evil twin, "managed democracy". I realize not everyone on NationStates is an advocate of democracy, boggling as that is, but with respect to mechanics, that's what we're operating under. So it'd be wise to give it props, and to pick up some pointers from his essay.

Understandably, the topic delved into unfamiliar territory for most: rationalism, power structures, cosmopolitanism, and other socio-political influences underlying ethics and social theory. All that aside, I felt there were a lot of obstacles to democracy that the average layperson could relate to. Characteristics such as regional loyalty, status quo, political tenure, or personal connections trumping fair elections. Everyone is an outsider at some point, and to find your voice among a well-oiled machine is testing, to say the least. Keeping that in mind, this is the perfect opportunity to ask ourselves: "Why make it hard to integrate? And is change so bad that we can't just try it and revert it later?" A new approach might surprise you.

While some might have found Glen-Rhodes' delivery a bit too formal, his understanding of the subject was impeccable. And a very personable debater, I might add. I can't speak for the rest of you, but I personally found his analysis enlightening and enthralling, and I give it 5 stars.

Review: ★★★★★

_______________________________________________________________________

Review: "Diversity Under One Umbrella"

REVIEW | LIBERTARIAN REPUBLICS

Milograd's lecture about diversity in NationStates was indeed an interesting and captivating one. Although a sizable portion of his lecture was based off the Roleplayer-Gameplayer conflict, he provides both insights as a gameplayer and a former roleplayer himself on how the relationship is stressed in many ways that aren't easily as seen from one or the other's perspective.

Diversity is what makes the game dynamics; albeit not everyone plays in Gameplay but the fact that there's a whole lot more than answering issues and voting on WA resolutions is a testimony of that diversity; whether you want to debate in General, roleplay, author resolutions, raid/defend, and etc. Everyone is under the same gameplay mechanics, but ironically one can argue that Gameplay's population is the smallest compared to other communities in NationStates.

Whether you love him, hate him, or whether you're a defender, raider, imperialist, neutral, generalite, roleplayer, gameplayer, bi-gameplayer, independent, and all other labels that I can't think of, this lecture deserves lots of praise. This concise, simple lecture helps explain, if not provide general insight into how complicated the issue is and how the answer is, indeed, not favorable for either Gameplay or Roleplay.

Review: ★★★★

_______________________________________________________________________

Fairgoers and Faithful Readers Vote Macedon for Worst Forum Skin!

COMMENTARY | UNIBOT

It all began with a simple joke proposal to The Rejected Realms’s Private Assembly to prohibit The Rejected Realms from ever adopting an InvisionPro Board.

[big][big]Prohibition of Ever Adopting Invisionpro Boards Ever Act of 2014[/big][/big]

Recognizing that there are handy free alternatives to Invisionpro,

Noting the insidious spread of Invisionpro boards like a bad fashion fad,

Finding Invisionpro boards to be...

• Generally ugly - with fewer skins available.
• Sluggish. Just plain sluggish.
• Infinitely daft - just try copying anything from anywhere and see how handy it is to have the white background transferred along with the content.
• Limited BBCode with less accessibility for the User.
• A buggy quote system that puts the quote on the same line as the useless "quote" by-line without a well involved investigation into the BBcode's nuts and bolts.
• Almost inoperable on Google Chrome with the "log in automatically" feature often not working - as of its last software update.

Believing The Rejected Realms should KILL IT WITH FIRE (this should not be legally construed as advocating forum destruction, spamming, phishing or any malfeasances).

And furthermore, bans The Rejected Realms from ever adopting an Invisionpro Board ever - with no chance for appeal, amendment or circumvention. Nada, zip, zilch. Deal with it. This prohibition is doing you a favor.

Amen.

The proposal was widely popular among the citizens of The Rejected Realms and discussion then turned to the worst forum skins in NationStates history – from there, The Rejected Times pursued a list of the worst forum skins that we could find. We searched high and low – exposing ourselves to the most unpleasant array of mixes and mashes of colours. Eventually, a list was composed and unveiled in our venues at the 2014 NS World Fair.

A composite score between the various polls running in NationStates shows that fairgoers and our faithful readers found Macedon’s red and gold monstrosity to be the worst forum skin …

• Macedon: 19
• 10000 Islands: 17
• San Francisco Bay Area: 13
• The Internationale: 3
• One Big Island: 3
• Confederacy of Free Regions: 1

We expect a response from Macedon – sorry, I mean, Macedonia, in about fifty days. Until then, see you later!

_______________________________________________________________________

>>> OTHER NEWS


Slavic Imperialists condemn UIAF; Onder disputes Slavia's imperialist credentials

COMMENTARY | FRATTASTAN

Four days into the occupation of Slavia – captured on January 3 by an invader coalition led by the United Imperial Armed Forces – natives keep disputing the justification offered for the action.

Officially, the raid was carried out by UIAF as part of their long-standing war effort against the Founderless Regions Alliance.

However, Slavia's unclear membership status and degree of practical involvement in the FRA at the time of the takeover has been cause for confusion. On December 23, less than four weeks after joining the organisation, Bolguria (one of the official representatives) posted announcing the intention of his region to leave the alliance, only to be contradicted shortly after by the other representative, Albul.

The issue remained unsolved by the time Slavia's founder nation was deleted by NS moderators for rulebreaking, leaving the region vulnerable to attack.

North Polish Union (also known invader and NS forum regular) and other natives have been attempting to distance Slavia from the FRA, stating that membership never enjoyed the support of anything more than a minority and that while the FRA administration had been unwilling to seek clarification and to accept Slavia's departure, the region had left the alliance well before the raid happened.

In the mean time, the Slavic Co-operation Pact, a small collection of Slavic-themed imperialist regions, released a statement condemning UIAF for the invasion, claiming that Slavia had withdrawn from the FRA upon becoming a member of the SCOP and that UIAF was acting in breach of raider unity by continuing the occupation of an imperialist region.

So far, LKE Emperor Whiskum has dismissed all the opposing arguments saying that – notwithstanding any intent to leave the FRA – the region technically was a member at the time of the invasion and that the occupation will continue due to Slavia's past affiliation with the defender organisation, accusing the natives of merely "trying to have it both ways" and the SCOP of not possessing "any genuine conception of imperialism".

At the time of the writing the invader pointman in Slavia has 89 endorsements, a support which has prevented any liberation attempts.

How far they will go, it's not clear yet.

_______________________________________________________________________

Controversy surrounding the inclusion of “Native" in new “Poll” feature

COMMENTARY | TRR NEWS

Admins caused a firestorm in Gameplay this week with the hasty inclusion of “Native” as a category in NationStates’s new polling feature. The category recognizes “natives” based on Regional Influence – natives can, in this system, be both past and present residents of the region. The use of the term, “native” is contentious because it’s generally regarded that natives are entitled to their regions and Regional Influence does not recognize whether the subject is invading their residence – which means the game definition could be used to further legitimize invading.

Not everyone was so concerned with this issue, however.

“I don't see an issue with this,” says notable invader, Evil Wolf, “other than it screws with the Defender's accepted definition”.

[violet] said the term, “native” was chosen to identify a category of past and present residents, because of the lack of words to otherwise describe that concept. [violet] has also, however, asked for alternative suggestions and has been discussing various proposals on the Gameplay subforum. Some of the suggested alternate terms have included: “Influential Residents/Nations”, “Locals”, “Citizens”, “Powerbrokers”, “Primary Residents”, "Domiciled" ,"Denizen" ,"Inhabitant", "Resident", "Assimilated”, “Affiliate” and Aligned”.

Unibot’s proposal to remove category names altogether and use more specific (and modifiable) voter eligibility criteria, has so far been the only proposal to engender some support for [violet]. The added feature would allow users to toggle criteria on/off needed to meet to vote, like whether residency is required and minimum thresholds of influence and population.

“That may indeed be the solution,” says [violet], “since it supports a lot more voter eligibility criteria, which is something I would like to do, without getting into fights over the names of each one”.

_______________________________________________________________________

Poll Raiding - The new invasion game!

OPINION | WARZONE CODGER

In what seemed to fill a void in our previously meaningless lives, the admins introduced the 'Polls' feature for regions. Avaliable to founders and delegates, polls have many nifty uses -- a handy way to gauge opinions of issues to a much wider audience, directly in the game (not everyone likes to join offsite etc and/or see the forum or thread). One could also set limit polls to particular audiences - residents, WA, large, influential and the controversial 'native' setting.

But where there's good there is always room for mischief and polls are no exception, with the introduction of Poll Raiding - a organised attempt to influence or just mess up a region's polling results. Like delegacy raids, poll raids exploit flaws in the game mechanics to produce outcomes not intended by the region (Delegacy decided by endorsements from natives). However unlike delegacy raids, poll raiding can be a one man operation; With the exception of WA and influential, puppets can do the job -- barring illegalities with "puppet flooding".

Poll raiding also provides new mechanics to consider. There is a now a tangible value in growing and maintaining nations as exclusively those nations can be use for large-nation poll raids. There could even be a revived market for puppet trading besides desirable names. For the politically inclined (since rushing a ton of puppets makes a rigged poll too obvious) there is also a new type of sleeper operation - slowly bring in more and more puppets and increase your influence over polls.

Poll raiding is much easier to counter then delegacy raiding. The region could just decide to exclude certain nation's votes, or impose a stricter set of polling requirements. But the former invariably brings discussions of arbitrariness and the other disfranchises possible genuine nations. Another option is to bring the poll offsite - but it then destroys the entire point of the game giving regions the poll option in the first place. Not that it eliminates poll raiding, a much more sophisticated form of poll raiding already occurs for a long time, if the common accusation that certain 'citizens' are inactive until a strategically important vote, then suddenly pop up to support one side for anything to go by.

Another consideration for poll raiding is that so far, in-game polls are used for more frivolous matters compared to offsite polls. Whether regions would use them for more serious matters remains to be seen (and there are polls to ask that right now in several regions!). Would you care if your poll has been crashed? Nobody was taking it seriously anyway. Even in more serious matters, if the poll raid has been obvious... it's still just a poll raid and any level of damage is *much* less than a delegacy. Though some might still poll raid for the lulz, and viewed that way, could it be a 'win-win' form of raiding? The target region is hardly damaged, and the raiders still have something to brag about.

So poll raiding, the next big thing for gameplay? Would you want to try it, and how would you feel if you are targeted? Share your thoughts.

Warzone Codger / "Pollzone Raider" (Unless you can think of something more witty, Al Capone, Al POLLone? )

_______________________________________________________________________

WA keeps its New Year’s Resolution...

COMMENTARY | TRR STAFF

“Commend Harmoneia” passed over the New Year in the hallowed halls of The WA Security Council.

The focus of the resolution, authored by Milograd, was on Harmoneia’s positive career in Lazarus and Jethnea, in addition to her contributions to defenderdom, including the UDL, the LLA and the FRA. Harmoneia, the resolution notes, was a founding member of the FRA and a leading lieutenant and early member of the UDL.

The Rejected Realms, Lazarus and The South Pacific were early supporters of the resolution – with The East Pacific, The West Pacific and The North Pacific followed soon after.

Imperialists protested the resolution. Aetrina, member of Land of Kings and Emperors told the Security Council he would not vote for a nation with such strong “Anti-imperialist” leanings. Meanwhile, North-East Somerset told the Security Council it was a “total lie” that he had tried to control Lazarus.

“This vote is proof of the power of feel-good language in the lemming lobby,” says Cerian Quilor, notable imperialist.

Europeia also voted against “Commend Harmoneia”, with its delegate, Moronist Decisions calling for the rejection of the resolution. He cited several reasons to reject the resolution, including Milograd’s persona non grata status in Europeia, the FRA’s history of spying on Europeia and Lazarus’s disagreements with Balder.

The resolution however was warmly received elsewhere in The Rejected Realms, Lazarus and The North Pacific – also, Escade, delegate of The South Pacific, told TEP News that Harmoneia was a “wonderful person” and encouraged voters to support the commendation.

“Commend Harmoneia” eventually passed with an impressive margin of 8,095 to 1,932.

_______________________________________________________________________
 

[Westwind]

The Red Factions

My MSN is : axelpersson48@hotmail.com

[Unibot]

I talked to him last fall actually. I don't think that email is valid however. I did consider inviting him but I had thought that it would be unfair to EuroSoviets and Blackbird, because it would have ensured the seminar would have been consumed on the topic of forum destruction and The Red Factions.

[Westwind]

TRF is why ES hates me, but it has nothing to do with forum destruction

[Westwind]

Session Start: Wed Sep 22 13:51:48 2004

Session Ident: TheRedFactions

Session Ident: TheRedFactions

<TheRedFactions> You there?

 

 

Sorry, the rest of the log I cannot share.

[Charax]

What is that on Uni's head?

[Westwind]

Ummm......I'm afraid to guess.

[Unibot]

TRF is why ES hates me, but it has nothing to do with forum destruction

Since you were ADN, I'm guessing TRF betrayed RLA to some extent for ADN?

[Westwind]

No, ES claims I was trying to recruit TRF from him.  Which was never the case.  TRF and I were simply debating socialist/marxist/democratic concepts on IRC, a common occurrence among players.