Cultural Protocols: A Broader Discussion

[Liu Che/Zhuli]

The example of Poland reminds me of the Chinese example.

China is actually a very recent concept developed under the late Qing Dynasty in an attempt to modernize the state and transform it into a European-like nation-state. The people of China, before that, really didn't have as strong of a conception of ethnicity. I mean, they did, but cultural values were viewed to be greater than ethnicity. Basically, if you adopted Chinese ways of life and pledged fealty to the emperor, then you were Chinese. This meant adopting Confucianism (and its perversions) in governance and adapting to the ways that characterize the Chinese people. Both the Mongols and the Manchus (and their previous incarnations) had to do this to consolidate their rule over the Chinese. If they had not conformed to the people they ruled, chances are, they would have faced rebellion after rebellion.

Obviously, the nomadic invaders brought in some influences, like food, clothing and hairstyle (the Manchu qipao and queue, Tang dynasty female clothing was heavily influenced by Central Asian attire), sport (Tang dynasty love of polo), among others. However, the point is that the important cultural values were maintained, intermarriages occurred, and ethnic groups blended to create the modern Han peoples.

Thus, I could definitely see a language and values protocol while leaving ethnicity out of the picture, but I do see how it could become an assumed factor. The people speak X and value X so they must be X, when in fact they are really Y.

[Lucca]

If I may, please ....

Further to this, as the lack of Open nations has been identified in other comments, would it be acceptable to you to limit nations to being able to lock one or two of the three (Demographics/Ethnicity, Language and Culture) to leave some breathing space for other parties to be creative?

I'm afraid I would be very strongly opposed to that, sorry.
Wasn't, and isn't, the whole point of the Protocols, to protect nations from vandalism?
Now, we're faced with the situation where there are players who want to change cultural facets of nations, and who are complaining that there are too few "open" nations where they can do so. I certainly agree that having more nations that are "open", would be a very good idea.

But, taking this and then applying it as an excuse to cripple all nations' protection into being merely partial and incomplete, would be the worst of both worlds, I feel.
Players who want to re-mould a nation and then actually play there, would still be frustrated that almost all nations still have several aspects set in stone and untouchable.
While on the other hand, vandals who seek to mean-spiritedly torment a nation's long-term and current players, could gleefully exploit the unprotectable facet in every nation in order to do just that.

By contrast ...
Letting a handful more nations become "open" -- and/or reviseable -- would let the (many remaining) protected nations continue to be safe from any vandals; while letting the players who want to re-mould a nation, and/or to play some wildly different minority party, have quite a few nations available where they could do so. A much, much better approach in my opinion.

and I would dread the process of selecting which nations lost their cultures to liberate new "open" nations.

As for the task of "selecting" which additional nations would become open and/or reviseable?
I agree that that would be a weighty responsibility.
But I feel I have the solution: simply, please don't make that choice.
Instead, please let the players themselves decide.

My opinion:
As long as there is at least one player in that nation who is interested and willing to defend the current culture of the particular nation in which they play, then that nation's Protocols/protection should continue to be absolutely sacrosanct, please. In full.
But if by contrast, there's a nation where nobody is playing there; or if, of the players who are there, there are none who are interested or willing to defend the latent culture (and of course with there being at least one who wants to change it, or else this matter wouldn't have arisen in the first place); then, what good does standing in the way of the latter do? Who benefits, from obstructing and denying the latter their opportunity, their preference?

This concept, then naturally flows into the closely related one of, allowing the overall cultural landscape to be a little more fluid, please, based upon (and crucially solely upon) player demand.
If there's a particularly popular culture among the players' preferences, we should look into considering letting that culture spread to more nations.
And on the other hand, if some culture is particularly unpopular (nobody wants to play there / uninterested), let's please free up some such nations for more popular cultures and/or for "open" nations as per the original request.

If Particracy wants more players ... well then, why not arrange a more culturally-welcoming new home "nest" for them, in order to help attract them in this way? "Catch more flies with honey", etc., as it goes.

... Although, it's probably better to have players, instead of having flies.

In order to participate in political discourse, this is perhaps expectable. However, which acculturation (is this protologistic?) steps should be required? What about minority parties who are actively opposing the existing culture in RP yet respect its existence OOC?

I'm afraid I don't understand this, sorry.
I can see the opposite -- that is, how a situation could arise where people would object to some arrangement or layout OOCly but would grudgingly go along with it ICly -- but, the reverse I just can't figure out, sorry.
How could a party ICly object to the blatantly obvious IC demographic facts on the ground ("why yes, we do see all of these people around us speaking Vietnamese, with nary an Urdu-speaker in sight, yet we still maintain and loudly proclaim that this nation is an overwhelmingly Urdu-speaking one") -- and further, why would they ever do such a weird thing if the player OOCly happens to have no OOC complaint about it?

Objecting to political opinions is one thing (and without which we wouldn't have much of a game...); objecting to set demographic facts is something else entirely, no?

(again, of course it's certainly possible to object to the latter, but such would be OOCly; doing so ICly without also doing so OOCly, I'm afraid just doesn't make any sense to me)

I agree that most players should stick to the main culture's names and phonology, but for minority party players, perhaps of regional or migrant cultures, where do you draw the line: should the names be transliterated regardless of their origin or to what extent are other languages/orthographies permissable?

Seems straightforward to me. If any existing player complains, then the migrant should be asked to transliterate (at least); whereas if none of the existing players mind, then just let things be, please.




Just my ideas

[errant sperm]

I think the same rules should apply to all nations. Having some open and some closed seems kinda unrealistic to me. I would like to see the game emulate real life as much as possible, while still having the players in control and Moderation preventing the ridiculous. If a nation is abandoned and someone comes along and wants to change the CP then I think its should be allowed. IRL cultures change over time and in some instances can change quickly with extreme events. Particracy has over 2000 years of history. Should most nations be the same culture 2000 game years from now? I don't think so. Moderation should be able to moderate how fast things change but change should be allowed. Maybe some RP banning a certain church, mass migration, or maybe even some kind of Holocaust should be able to effect any CP. I think the scale of changes should be determined by how many players are involved in the RP for such change. The more players involved, the quicker CPs can be change. But I think that even a single player should be able to make slow and reasonable changes to the CP. RP from foreign players should have effect also. On my 'Overmoderation' thread, I complain about having to change my names because of the CP. I broke the rules, I know. But I had RP to back up what I was doing. I referenced things that were going on in other countries. Also, to the best of my knowledge, I don't think any player complained about my party names before I was asked by Mod to change them. I would like to see things relaxed a bit. Everyone is going to have different opinions on what is realistic RP and what isn't but I think if a player presents a case for their RP, and it is not drastically effecting other players' enjoyment of the game, then it should be allowed. The results of the vote so far is very interesting and I think the results so far support some relaxation of the rules.

[Polites]

I would support a renaming of Cultural Protocols to something like "Demographic Protocols", since the document does not (and should not) enforce a particular political culture, style of politics, or political regime. Cultural Protocols enforce the underlying cultural demographics of a nation, but I don't think they've ever been taken to mean that a certain constitutional arrangement is to be locked in place. Political regimes should be allowed to change because they do, IRL, change, sometimes drastically and practically overnight, but the cultural (i.e. ethnic, linguistic, and religious) demographics should only be amended if there is realistic RP justifying the change. To give a RL example, between 1789 and 1958 France went from an absolute monarchy to a revolutionary constitutional monarchy to a revolutionary republic to an empire to an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy to a second republic to a second empire to another republic to a German occupation regime to a parliamentary republic and finally to a semi-presidential republic, within a rather short timespan (169 years, a few RL months in Particracy terms). These regime changes were accompanied by demographic changes, themselves rather drastic, but which took a longer period of time, such as the rise of the French language from its status as the native language of less than half of the population to the most widely spoken native language by far, or the large decline in Catholic practices, beliefs, and self-identification. The case of the US, given as an example several times on this and the Overmoderation thread, is a bit of an anomaly with its long-standing constitution and relatively stable political regime, but even there significant political and cultural changes have occurred during the same timespan, just more gradually.

Applied to the enforcement of Cultural Protocols, I largely agree with errant sperm's latest post. Cultural change should be allowed to happen, and internal as well as external RPd events should be accepted as justifications for changes, for the simple reason that it is difficult to get all nations likely to be affected by an event to RP its impact. For instance, any war is likely to result in an exodus of refugees to nearby countries, but few nations are willing to RP a refugee crisis (and I may add that was precisely the justification for increasing the number of Majatran minorities in Selucia, although that nation had not, until the Barmenian Refugee Crisis, RPd immigration from other war-torn nations from the continent). I admit I don't have much knowledge on errant's Valruzian and Mordusian RP, but if he can justify a large exodus from Valruzia to Mordusia then I don't see why his Polish cabinet names should not be allowed, especially since he has made no attempt to establish a Valruzian minority/apartheid regime or alter the demographics, and even if he had, he could have done so by creating RP.

I think CPs should be enforced as they are now, with perhaps more leniency on how cultural changes are justified, provided that the original culture is not altogether eradicated (leaving a small 5-15% of the original dominant group as common courtesy for the original creator should be enough), and that stronger protection is given to more unique cultures (I would be strongly opposed to any move that would try to Germanize Ibutho, for instance). And in addition to internal RP, players should be able to provide external RP as justification for cultural changes and their IG actions.

[Doc]

Applied to the enforcement of Cultural Protocols, I largely agree with errant sperm's latest post. Cultural change should be allowed to happen, and internal as well as external RPd events should be accepted as justifications for changes, for the simple reason that it is difficult to get all nations likely to be affected by an event to RP its impact. For instance, any war is likely to result in an exodus of refugees to nearby countries, but few nations are willing to RP a refugee crisis (and I may add that was precisely the justification for increasing the number of Majatran minorities in Selucia, although that nation had not, until the Barmenian Refugee Crisis, RPd immigration from other war-torn nations from the continent). I admit I don't have much knowledge on errant's Valruzian and Mordusian RP, but if he can justify a large exodus from Valruzia to Mordusia then I don't see why his Polish cabinet names should not be allowed, especially since he has made no attempt to establish a Valruzian minority/apartheid regime or alter the demographics, and even if he had, he could have done so by creating RP.

I think CPs should be enforced as they are now, with perhaps more leniency on how cultural changes are justified, provided that the original culture is not altogether eradicated (leaving a small 5-15% of the original dominant group as common courtesy for the original creator should be enough), and that stronger protection is given to more unique cultures (I would be strongly opposed to any move that would try to Germanize Ibutho, for instance). And in addition to internal RP, players should be able to provide external RP as justification for cultural changes and their IG actions.

I agree with Polites on this- I would say that cultural change should be recognized both based on internal and external RP. Not to kick the US dog again, but for example- cultural infusion in the United States has led to a hybrid sort of culture which is not Old World, and yet not entirely New World either. Many of our political traditions are straight out of Britain, and yet, the modifications we have made to our political system make it distinct, and a new source of inspiration (to put it melodramatically) to newer democracies around the world which came into being after our War of Independence. (Argentina, for example, has a constitution which is more or less cribbed from the US Constitution, circa like 1827 or something). Meanwhile, culturally, Americans are just as likely to eat European cuisine as they are American cuisine, as they are Mexican cuisine, and they are East/South Asian cuisine. Tacos and Burritos are eaten even by ardent nationalists in the US. All those sorts of infusions came because of demographic changes which occured in other countries and flavored our culture here, so that they are seen as probably more American than Mexican or Chinese (I am sure General Tso's Chicken is WAY more popular in the US than it is on the street in China, and tacos even in Tijuana are WAY different than the tacos we buy at Taco Bell.)

External events do change local culture, and should at least be recognized, especially if it is part of a larger, multi-national RP, which domestic players have recognized and participated in. And, by the way, if anyone wants to RP a refugee crisis, please be sure to contact Kalistan. We have a long tradition of encouraging refugees to come to our country, and would theoretically have an infrastructure set up to provide assistance.

[TheNewGuy]

Stand strong, fellow "Scrap them!" voter, whoever you are!

[Polites]

Stand strong, fellow "Scrap them!" voter, whoever you are!

Scrapping them is an interesting idea, but I fear that would give us older players more chances to bitch about new players not respecting our RPs. Cultural Protocols are a good way to provide a summary of a nation's overall character to all newcomers, whether old or new players.

[TheNewGuy]

Stand strong, fellow "Scrap them!" voter, whoever you are!

Scrapping them is an interesting idea, but I fear that would give us older players more chances to bitch about new players not respecting our RPs. Cultural Protocols are a good way to provide a summary of a nation's overall character to all newcomers, whether old or new players.

What would PT be if not older players bitching about how terrible newer players are, and without newer players bitching about what tyrants older players are? Long live the Old Guard vs. Noob war in PT!

In seriousness, though, I've become more and more convinced that if you like something you've built you should have to protect it yourself or else convince others to protect it. There's an actual argument to be made that CPs are overmoderation, and the idealist in me would much prefer that people realize on their own that the work you've done (for instance) all over Terra is better for consistency and the game as a whole than them just doing whatever the hell they want - I don't think Aquinas / Amaz should be given the task or the ability to just come down hard on new kids because they're idiots, I genuinely believe the community as a whole should come down hard on new kids because they're idiots, and we should allow nation raiding etc., to restore cultures as was common in the Good Old Days(tm). Shit was more fun then. I'm a bit jaded, though.

[Liu Che/Zhuli]

I would be all for Moderation only allowing CPs that make logical sense for a region, continent, area, etc. Having things make sense is surely something most people could agree with. I mean, largely, only a few nations would be affected by such a change.

[errant sperm]

Instead of CP, lets call it a Census. That would give it more of an in character feel. Time between the last census, combined with amount and quality of RP, should be factors in how much it can be changed.