ForestBoard

Einswenn wrote:

-snip-

If you don't mind I would pay just above junk price for all your season 1 & 2 forest cards if your going to delete them anyway

Valentine Z wrote:

On that note, my apologies if I am also causing the problem of needing to close the embassies. I have read through a few pages of why this is happening, but I am not very sure as to if I was the causing factor along the way.

Admittedly, I realised that I did not post a lot of content as well, and it's on average 2-3 lines at best per post.

Even acknowledging bias stemming from the fact that I like your interactions, I’d be willing to say I can speak for most or all of Forest in saying that no. You do not.
Your posts are not “on average 2-3 lines”, they’re at minimum 2-3 lines, and those shorter posts are almost exclusively promos for your photography or (what looks to me) fairly involved data stuff. When it’s not, it’s been acknowledgements of responses/requests by members of Forest.
In all cases, your short posts have been stuff (I imagine) we enjoy seeing or posts in line with the topic of conversation. I think most people’d probably agree that short posts that add to a current conversation aren’t spammy.
The “spammy” posts we’re debating are the ones that drop in and completely derail conversations (and then don’t stop. The ‘hello Forest’ posts we occasionally get might fall under “spammy” but the region seems to not rlly mind them?)
Basically: Notice how not a single one of your posts stretching back more than a year haven’t been suppressed by mods? That’s a fairly good indicator that you’re not contributing to spam.

Just want to pop in to confirm that no matter what, TNP residents are still encouraged to submit photos to the contest! I haven’t messaged about it on the TNP forum or discord, but have been meaning to reach out to regions offsite in the past few days.

Student Loan Debt wrote:

Hi all, I was hoping that some of you might be able to help me with an issue.
Forest is a region that manages to somehow have both an active discord server and active RMB. That is something my region is currently struggling with. We used to have an active RMB, but ever since we started having discord servers back in 2017, majority of that activity is now entirely confined to our servers. Our RMB, as result, has suffered. We’re currently in a high point of RMB activity and I want to try to keep that, but can’t do it by myself and need others in my region to join me.

How have you all managed to do both? To have an active discord server but also an active RMB? How have you managed to have one be active without neglecting the other? Is it just a regional cultural thing? Is it some kind of Forest government action? Are people actively promoting both? How would you all suggest I go about trying to bring activity to the RMB, or, better, encourage Discord users to also post things to the RMB?

I'm not really the right person to answer this, but I would say it comes from mostly separating the more personal or shorter chatting to the discord and having other discussions in progress on the RMB, with it mostly coming down to the longer-form posts on the RMB just being more interesting to most residents (probably, don't let me speak for people).

Really though, we are mostly an RMB region, as our latest debate on this embassy closure shows, but our Discord is primarily just people spamming that vibrating peach gif thing whenever somebody joins it.

Prusmia wrote:

I apologize for any problems my interactions may've caused.

Noo, Prusmia, you're trying to engage with TNP like you're supposed to. Even if it (admittedly probably) did lead to more folks coming here you shouldn't apologize for doing exactly what you were supposed to do ;p

And, for what it's worth, I've even seen you mention on the TNP RMB that we have a different policy now (I think I was pinged via you quoting me lol); but, alas, that's sort-of the place where it'd most get drowned out (which is ironic given it's probably the only place it'd have been seen in the first place).

It could also be worth putting into our WFE something about quality in the RMB, but in fairness I doubt folks who'd post the most absurd stuff even read WFEs, so that would probably moot. I guess we'll just have to somewhat change how you go about interacting with TNP if the poll is any indication ;p (you could always stick an alt there with information about being a Forest ambassador stickied somewhere, if you really wanted.)

Sean fiobha wrote:

I second this, i would also like a general rmb ruleset as i know i got caught in the crosshairs of the mods when i first posted on the rmb as a nationstates noob.

Totally agreed, and I do think a distinction must always be made between those who are actually acting in bad faith, versus those who simply do not know better. Obviously we still want a clean, orderly RMB, so we can't give too much clemency ever, but I think more can be done to help new members understand the proper etiquette that we look for on the RMB. I know when I first started NS I was a bit over-eager in my attempts to participate in the chitchat and discource, which led to some unforunate happenings regarding Elmo (I'm sure Uan remembers what I'm talking about, still sorry about that). But with some constructive feedback/reprimanding and a clear explanation of the RMB expectations I was able to progress much more respectfully, eventually serving multiple major roles in the Shelf. So while obviously we need to be strict in our commitment to a clean RMB, we can still try to be more understanding and helpful for those who really just want to engage without knowing how to do so in accordance with Forest expectations

Now I must confess I do not have much knowledge about this whole TNP issue, so this very well may not apply at all in this case. But I do third Jutsa and Sean Fiobha's calls for an RMB Etiquette Notice of some kind, to help new members understand the expectations and be able to engage thoughtfully and respectfully without losing any of their enthusiasm for the game

Edit:

Uan aa Boa wrote:

I wouldn't overthink that too much. if you scroll back over the past few weeks and look at the suppressed posts I don't need you'll need a ruleset to see why they're out of place. We're not talking about a complex set of requirements that are difficult to meet and I really don't want to be set up as Mr Witch-hunt again. I actually think we manage to be fairly inclusive about this. I'm not going to name names, but there a number of people in Forest who I initially thought didn't get it, but who stuck around and found their place here, in some cases making me reconsider what "it" is that people are supposed to get and making me feel they've really added something new and valuable. I don't want everyone to post the same or feel they have to absorb some massive draconian rulebook. I just don't want quite such a volume of obvious spam.

Thank you for this assessment Uan, and just to clarify I do not think anyone is trying to cast you as "Mr. Witch Hunt". I understand and agree with your viewpoint, and I want to stress that I'm not the most knowledgeable about this curent TNP issue, seeing as I only returned yesterday from my hiatus from NS. I just mean in general, a simple statement (like a few sentences long) of what we expect would be good, and to prominently post it so that new people know how to behave and engage. I agree that a long rulebook would be bad and constraining, and indeed some people post very uniquely in ways that would not work well with that, but a general Content Advisory or something like that would be good just to give a more direct example of what we want and what we don't want re RMB ettiquete.

Uan aa Boa wrote:

I wouldn't overthink that too much. if you scroll back over the past few weeks and look at the suppressed posts I don't think you'll need a ruleset to see why they're out of place. We're not talking about a complex set of requirements that are difficult to meet and I really don't want to be set up as Mr Witch-hunt again. I actually think we manage to be fairly inclusive about this.

...

I don't want everyone to post the same or feel they have to absorb some massive draconian rulebook. I just don't want quite such a volume of obvious spam.

I agree with this fully. Our RMB feels like a conversation. It feels like a cosy area of our region, not an extension of it. If we put rules on it, we risk taking away that feeling. We are already moderated pretty well, in my opinion. I almost never see the suppressed posts before they get suppressed, and I generally check the site a couple of times throughout the day when I'm on my break at work.

It's just been this spammy issue lately that needs to be addressed. But that doesn't necessitate the creation of new rules every time.

Sean fiobha wrote:

Right I know we have not come to the conclusion of whether or not we will have a RMB guide so this might seem rude but i did the leg work and made a draft just to push the issue a little further.

I don't think it's rude. You come across as someone who really responds well to having set directives so you know you won't do anything that could be perceived as incorrect. But these guidelines are incredibly restrictive.

For example, I don't understand why we should have to put Spoiler tags on longer messages. We have a pretty good mix of long and short posts in my opinion, and I think hiding longer posts behind spoiler tags will either lead to people avoiding writing longer messages, or they'll avoid reading longer messages. On the other end, there's plenty of times where one or two sentence posts are totally fine. Literally the first thing that popped into my mind was Kuraiva, who sometimes likes to post about their Basket Weaving stat. (Sorry to call you out, Kuraiva, but it was the first post I could think of that was that short). I don't have a problem with that, because they're talking about a part of the game, and then generally a war breaks out amongst those nations here who really care about Basket Weaving, when clearly Book Publishing is the superior industry.

Almost everything else is fairly common sense that could be picked up by participating in the community. Something like, "Do not post illegal content" or "Do not violate the NationStates terms of service" is completely pointless as a rule, and only serves to give the community an attitude. As Uan aa Boa (I think it was Uan) said, we can generally tell the difference between someone who just doesn't know and somebody who is acting in bad faith.

I think if somebody new joins the community, a gentle nudge of, "Hey, you've moved here, and that's great. Just for the record: <nudge in the right direction>" gives a much better feel to the community.

The reason I'm so staunchly against this is because I've been a part of online communities before where stuff has happened and "community guidelines" have been created, and the community was effectively divided, and the only people who ended up remaining in the community were the people whose actions caused the new rules to be created. It changed the vibe too much.

I like that we're discussing it to this degree. We're a community who listens to everyone's voice, and like I said at the start of this, I can appreciate that you seem to be the kind of person who likes these kind of guidelines, but I don't want to see Forest become something where we have to post official rules that end with something like, "Failure to adhere to these guidelines may result in the suppression of posts, ejections or bans without warning." That's not the communal atmosphere I see here on a day to day basis. It certainly isn't the attitude I get from Garbelia or Ruinenlust or any other member of our government.

And as others have stated, anybody acting in bad faith isn't going to read the rules anyway, so guidelines really won't be effective except to change things for those of us who really do want to belong here.

Sean fiobha wrote:

You reference your own experience of community guidelines, could you please elaborate?

A creative writing forum I used to be really active in (many years ago now) had a situation with two specific users who were so overly eager that the entire community was super divided over how to deal with it. On the one hand, they weren't doing anything against the rules. On the other hand, they were constantly spamming posts asking questions with incredibly broken English, and it was mostly just annoying.

The aftermath of dealing with it was that a few moderators ended up needing to take a break from the site, and then a few new users were the only ones really interacting with stuff after a while. The rest of us hated all the new rules and guidelines that we'd had to create so much, and it changed the way that actually talking to people felt.

To me, this issue should be kept as an issue of how people from other regions interact on our message board. They're not from our community, so they should behave appropriately. We all know what appropriate behaviour looks like. But if we start policing our own citizens on our own message board to this degree, then we're less of a forest and more of a logging camp. We don't tell the trees where to grow or how to grow. We just ask that they don't make it harder on the other trees.

We're keeping Valentine Z ;) if the embassy goes

Conditional divorce ;)

Ruinenlust wrote:

politik

I very, very seldom say something along these lines (for several reasons: tRump is probably a has-been, idiots are a dime a dozen, he craves attention and this gives it to him, in however small a manner, I enjoy not having high blood pressure, etc...), but I just feel like I would be remiss as a citizen and as an aspiring-normal human if I didn't call out this bullish!t.

So on Saturday, the orange blob that some have called the president crapped out this turd on his plastic knockoff of a social media site:

"Do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Our great 'Founders' did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!" (emphasis mine)

The point being that this, along with the near-unanimous silence from the spineless people who claim to be leaders in the Republican Party shows that they have absolutely no worth as a political or civic entity. Gee, do we placate the 76-year-old orange baby, or do we preserve the 250-year-old republic? It's like if Julius Caesar were a thin-skinned moron who lived on cheeseburgers instead of a brilliant general who conquered Gaul for the Roman state. At least he toppled the Roman Republic with intelligent maneuvers.

I just feel morally obligated to point out that Donald Trump, the wider Trumpist movement, and by extension, the current iteration of the Republican Party are collectively a cancerous tumor on the United States of America. We really won't be out of this particular woods until Trump has been euphemistically gathered into the bosom of Abraham (or Satan, more likely), until Trumpism as a movement has exhausted itself, and until the Republican Party reinvents itself and becomes something that once again supports the basic systems and infrastructure of the country or ceases to exist. At this point, Donald Trump, Trumpism, and the Republican Party (collectively "DTTRP," you might say) constitute the greatest threat to the United States, in my view. Its outranks external threats/enemies like China, North Korea, Russia, etc., and it outranks the much-larger-but-also-more-distant-and-gradual tsunamis of climate change and environmental destruction. This is a deep, stupid, one-dimensional poison that nonetheless has been drunk by a sufficiently large number of people (a minority, but a big minority) or politically-active people so as to create a real, proximate threat to the country. It makes my blood boil, frankly. If Americans were united and sober about some basic things, we'd have a country that could live for 1,000 years.

On this issue alone, even if everything else were wrong with them, I would still be a categorically Democratic Party voter. It's a new version of the Cold War, but now it's "USA vs. D.S.O.D. (Disunited Stupid Orange Dictatorship)" when you go to the ballot box.

I have final projects to work on, but this is too interesting not to post on, so if you'll tolerate a filthy Canuck's opinion on things, I've been giving this some thought myself. I feel like I have a vested interest in American politics, as they are a massive cultural exporter to Canada, and I have a lot of relatives who consume only Fox News and nothing else. Ideas are very good at permeating borders.