Post Archive

Hey, to each their own. There's someone who's voted in our referendum to keep me as delegate for life XD

But really, WA votes last so long because some people only log in once or twice a week, so it takes some time to collect everyone's thoughts on a resolution vote.

As much as I disagree with her decision to send out a mass telegram on the subject, Kuriko is correct in that raiding is where a foreign army enters a region en masse to seize control of the WA Delegate’s post and destroy the regional government.

Typically, most User Created Regions have an executive founder (hello) and they assign the regional officerships (elections) by hand. As long as there is an executive founder, the region is safe from outside powers. When the founder ceases to exist, or elects to set the WA Delegate to executive, that nearly-limitless power is given to whomever commands the most WA endorsements. Consequently, a foreign army (a group of players in another region) can storm into a region and endorse one of their own to quickly seize control of that region.

What they do from their is anyone's guess. They can "tag" the region, which is just messing up the WFE and changing the flag, or (if they're powerful enough) they can utterly destroy it by kicking out the native members, passwording the region and either killing it permanently, or locking it up until it's liberated by the Security Council. Even in cases where the region isn't technically killed or locked up in the game's mechanics, a lot of regions don't survive the raid's damage in the long term. Six years ago, the raid on the first incarnation of our region was basically what killed us then. In short, there is no form of raiding that is good for regions and good for NationStates beyond giving activity to the raiders.

The North Pacific's position is that the resolution's named individual, COE, has done more for the game than just raiding (despite them still using the banner of The Black Hawks as their own). The problem with TNP's position on things is that it's always very them-centric. If it's for the good of TNP, glorifies them, adds to them, adds to their power and influence, they will support it almost mindlessly because they are a machine. And because the regional legislation that COE has developed happens to be for TNP, they have a vested interest in seeing this pass, despite a commendation for raiding being relatively unprecedented. But that's my personal political opinion there ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Thank you for the explanation. I gotta be honest I had no idea what raiding even was until now lol

Right? And there's been two rounds of TGs campaigning For and it just has no effect on people's voting :p

You do you Polis Diamonil. I'd say ever since Jakker sent their telegram to try and get people to vote to commend COE the amount of support for it has been steadily decreasing slowly. Jakker's telegram to me just annoyed me and made me roll my eyes. It would've decreased my support for something even if I was for it if I received a telegram from the person who authored the resolution, so I think that might be happening--people changing their vote just in spite of the dude or deciding to vote "Against" just for the telegram.

Jakker's telegram didn't do a good job at defending COE for what he is being criticized for anyway. To me it was just "Hey he used to do this and heck he is even in the same group that he used to do the raids with but I swear he doesn't do it or support it in some way anymore!" and then "Hey check out these 2 NationStates themed parody songs that he made, one was even based on me! :D". Didn't do a thing for me besides making it look worse.

And nice! I guess Mars-Miners is the closest thing I'll get to a neighbor. Hello down there! Thank you Refuge for your work and yours too Sylh Alanor. ^.^

Dragons are cool and all, but have you considered rabbits?

I don't know what to make of this mammoth of a response but I just meant what I said as "Dragons are cool, rabbits are cooler". xd

It's alright, I like rabbits too :p

I'm glad that you feel comfortable here, but I think this might be overly heavy as a response to "do you like rabbits"

Well that was really something! Hugs all around <3

Polis, I read your dispatch about your asexuality and the bad things you've had to face in the past :c and I'm sorry you had to deal with that. It sucks so bad to be around people who don't understand you and don't appreciate your needs (or lack thereof, in this case). I think you're neat and I'm glad you're sticking around with us.

On a tangent from that, I got lost in some political compass memes today ( https://preview.redd.it/3zgngkskqcb41.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=cde5b28a28d978ab88e39a26b40e4b172a477603 ), and I was wondering if it might be interesting to see a breakdown of where everyone in the region is on the compass map! Does anyone here want to try it out? I'd probably put it up as the next poll after the amendment proposal either does or doesn't go through. For those interested in looking it up, my score was -7.5, -10.0.

I've taken it a few times myself. Just now I got -8.88, -8.77. I mean, given my flag I probably didn't need anyone to me I was an essjay-doubyah anarkiddie. Obviously, the polComp isn't that great at actually showing how different ideologies work. People in real life don't have a certain number of left/right points and a certain number of authoritarian/libertarian points. It's still fun, though, especially when you start getting into 3-axis or 8-axis versions. And the memes are some of the best I've seen.

I got: https://www.politicalcompass.org/chart?ec=-1.5&soc=-5.08

mine is: https://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2?ec=-2.75&soc=-5.13

All of Refugia is a good neighborhood, that's why I have all Refugian languages as officially recognized in my nation to show my openness to my neighbors and all of Refugia. I also saw your Factbook entry with me in it and that's really cool! Score 2 for being mentioned in a Refugian Factbook!

I started my Refugian card collection a couple days ago but I wanted to ask if anyone had any Refugian member cards they'd be willing to give up or duplicates they'd be willing to give me to make it easier on me. https://www.nationstates.net/page=deck/collection=19667

Thank you so much Refuge! I really appreciate it! :D I don't know if you meant to do this but you sent me 2 cards! If not I'll gladly gift them back to you once I reach .50 bank again (I'm at .30 right now I've been spending it all on Refugian cards). And that kinda sucks, but since they're not a current member of Refugia I won't worry about it too much since I will definitely not be tracking down every member of Refugia ever.

Oh I didn't know you sent it too! It doesn't say or maybe it does and I just don't know where to look. Thank you! :D I'll send it back to you because I have the one Refuge sent me (again once I reach .50 bank). And that's very sweet of you for you to do and say, not only just to me. :) Thank you!

I am prepared to take on more responsibilities for the group and also promise not to endorse silly meme proposals even if they make me laugh.

Also if there are any WA nations in Refugia that I haven't yet endorsed, please let me know! I want us all to gain influence together.

Do not worry, Stonerton, I would sooner harm myself than Refuge :P

It is true, though. Of all of the things that we've done, this has had the most normalcy :p

Doublepost!

Hi friends, I'm your new delegate for the World Assembly (it will be official in a few hours at the next update). I've made an official statement on this passing of the torch here:

https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1314046

You're all beautiful and I hope your days are going well ^-^

We can keep bolstering Sylh Alanor's endorsement count, but at this time, the delegate transition is complete. Hooray!

As it is now February, I'm again looking for any legal Member State who might wish to fill the vacancy for the Councillor of Operations, defined in RRS 6(d), I believe. If interested, please let me know in a telegram or here on the RMB.

I’m a little confused on how the Councillor of Operations works. I understand the responsibilities, but how would they be carried out? How does the Councillor identify internal and external threats and what would be some ways to increase Refugia’s influence?

Come one, come all, and look upon me as I delegate out this responsibility:

I think that, most of the time, I'm going to be ambivalent on Security Council votes. I've only recently really started looking outside the region and getting a feel for the wider game world of Nationstates, and that wider world is where the SC resolutions are based. Until I've more of a handle on NS history and the historical interactions between different regions, I don't think I'm qualified to make an educated recommendation. That being said, I'm going to try and summarise the situation as best I understand it.

There is a new SC resolution at vote, Condemn Gatesville Inc (https://www.nationstates.net/page=sc). According to the resolution, Gatesville, Inc. (though moreso its predecessor region Gatesville) has committed many raiding-centric atrocities across the breadth of NS in its past. It provides six examples of these actions, varying in seriousness from influencing a delegate to go inactive to destroying the entire culture and infrastructure of one of the major game-created regions (The North Pacific). Condemnations for raiding are pretty common, so there's no obvious issue with the resolution as written.

That being said, there are various counter-arguments given in the discussion thread (https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=480079&sid=d5bc9947d1a86488626caf2e05d0e088) that resonate with me. The first, and most obvious, is that this Gatesville, Inc. isn't Gatesville. Though it's obviously connected and many of the old members who were in charge in the old region have moved over to this one, it's weird assigning actions to a place that didn't commit them. The other argument, and the one that speaks a little more to me, is that the most recent of these actions was committed in 2013, and many of the others listed occurred over a decade ago. While Gatesville, Inc. as a region isn't itself clean, the argument could be made that the people in charge dropped their old, raidy ways and created an entirely new region to escape the association with their pasts.

So I come to you, friends, to ask if you all have any arguments for or against. I'm entirely ambivalent on this one, and will vote either with the majority or with whichever argument is the most persuasive. Thanks so much for reading <3

-Em

Even though it's a condemnation and not a commendation? Seems the better way to try and reawaken old pride would be to appeal to it through praise, I'd think.

How do we know they're still combatants if they haven't actually done anything in seven years?

My vote is against because since they did all these things so long ago and in a past region I don't think they should be punished for it. If there is evidence that they continue to do these things today with the current region I will vote "For".

People really don't like Gatesville. I wonder if there is some history that we don't know. Or perhaps condemnations are a lot easier to get than commendations? I haven't been around long enough to know.

Oh nice there's a map? I should get my Nation added, my delegates keep forgetting where we live...

Issue #626 is terribly primitive, in that kidnapping people to try to force them into simulations against their will is one of the greatest strikes against scientific trust possible in a nation. If scientists can't be trusted, they'll begin to present a community that attracts people who are unafraid of untrustworthy environments. I wrote up a reaction to it.

https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1315094

I was going to read and make an argument on the resolution at vote in the General Assembly, but it seems like everyone is pretty unanimously against the measure 😂 it's currently sitting 0-10.

I would like to point out that reading through the thread where they're discussing this (https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=479701) is enlightening, save the bickering between Araraukar, Giants Hill, and Imperium Anglorum. I especially liked this quote:

"Support, assuming that the replacement proposal you have brought to the table - this 'Ban On Judicial Murder' - is actually revived and is ready to go at the time of submission. Otherwise, I don't think I can vote for this. There must be minimal time between the passage of the repeal and the passage of the replacement." (Ban on Judicial Murder can be read here https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=468099 - my main concern regarding it is that it hasn't had a post or any other activity since July of 2019.)

There is a replacement idea being drafted right now, and the person who wrote this proposal is trying to get what's blocking it (regulation on the death penalty as exists) out of the way so that they can push the replacement. Here's the replacement that Tinhampton is working on, "Convention on Abolishing All Forms of Unfair Punishment" (https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=480099).

Overall, I think that the arguments around this issue are interesting, and when viewed in context sway me toward supporting the repeal. My only wish is that Tinhampton had worked on the repeal in conjunction with his replacement idea, so that support could have been rallied for the replacement and been in place before getting rid of these protections. Any arguments from the group?

One of the unfortunate things about the WA, at least in my experience (and I hope Refuge will correct me if I'm wrong) is that, since you can only have one resolution at vote at any given time, you can't line something up perfectly. Furthermore, you have to reach quorum on both the repeal and the thing you're replacing it with, which requires some vote wrangling from delegates who would often aren't paying attention to what's in queue as much as they're paying attention to what's at vote. Standard operating procedure (again, to my understanding) states that the repeal has to go through before the replacement can be on the books. It can get a bit awkward at times if things don't line up perfectly.

So after an interested telegram conversation regarding Polis' now-deleted RMB post, I've invited him to "Be elsewhere" and "Not return."

The contents of the RMB post regarded misrepresenting a card that he had bought from another player as an unwanted gift. Allegedly, investigating the supposed unwanted gift revealed that it was likely from a person he had been sexually harassed by. Accompanying the conclusion was a treatise on every decision and stat change made by the player over recent history and their mental rationale for doing so. All of this is based on a fabrication because, thankfully, all cards have transaction logs.

That's not the type of thing that belongs in Refugia and creeps me the buck out.

What exactly happened? I'm so confused.

Given recent events, and also my enhanced awareness of the things going on in the NS world around me as delegate, I would like to see if there is anyone interested in Councillor of Culture, so that I can fill the vacancy for Ops Councillor. I'm happy to give the new Culture Councillor all the job training they could want. I was ready to switch to Ops for the last election but people voted me back in as Culture, lol.

Wouldn't I just be unable to return to Culture for the next election? I thought it was an all-time limit of four terms, and only being able to serve two terms in a row.

God the one day I forget to go on Nation States and all this happens...

Anyway, thanks Sylh Alanor for clarification about the WA. Since there is a discussion about replacement legislation in the forums, I have changed my vote to for, but with the way people are voting I’m not so sure it will matter 😂

Hello, just joined region!

Thanks, I used to have a country a year ago or so, I may want to check out the game in more detail though. I'll be looking through some stuff on here...

K thanks

Ahoy!

Hi Stonerton :P how have you been?

all is well here my friend

Probably not, but I'm a hopeless optimist XD