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[Siggon Kristov]

Particracy does not have a Nation States system where, when you first join, you answer a few questions to help set your political positions.

Particracy Classic doesn't, but the new Particracy will have something similar to this idea.

[Choice Party]

That's all fair enough. Still, thought I'd just mention my ideas.

While we're on the topic of ideas, how about opinion polls? Right now the best we can do is RP ones, but I was wondering if we could perhaps make some as indicators of which parties may win the election. Or in the least, is there any suggestions for how an effective opinion poll for the wikis could be created?

[Aquinas]

That's all fair enough. Still, thought I'd just mention my ideas.

While we're on the topic of ideas, how about opinion polls? Right now the best we can do is RP ones, but I was wondering if we could perhaps make some as indicators of which parties may win the election. Or in the least, is there any suggestions for how an effective opinion poll for the wikis could be created?

I'd love to see opinion polls of party standings too, but they're very unlikely to be mechanicaly added to Particracy Classic.

It is possible to form an educated guess on how well a party will perform at the next election. You can look at each party's positions and compare them to the positions of each region. If a party which won seats at the last election has inactivated, you can also do polling from your party page to gain an estimate of how their voters are likely to switch at the next election.

Now one for the real Particracy nerds ... About a year ago, a player had a go at predicting the outcomes of elections before they happened (see here). Presumably he was going through the Electoral Calendar page to see which elections were coming up. A lot of the time his forecasts were remarkably accurate. I think it would be interesting if anyone wanted to revive the idea of trying to predict election results across Terra. The forecasts could be treated as "opinion polls", I guess.

[Choice Party]

That's all fair enough. Still, thought I'd just mention my ideas.

While we're on the topic of ideas, how about opinion polls? Right now the best we can do is RP ones, but I was wondering if we could perhaps make some as indicators of which parties may win the election. Or in the least, is there any suggestions for how an effective opinion poll for the wikis could be created?

I'd love to see opinion polls of party standings too, but they're very unlikely to be mechanicaly added to Particracy Classic.

It is possible to form an educated guess on how well a party will perform at the next election. You can look at each party's positions and compare them to the positions of each region. If a party which won seats at the last election has inactivated, you can also do polling from your party page to gain an estimate of how their voters are likely to switch at the next election.

Now one for the real Particracy nerds ... About a year ago, a player had a go at predicting the outcomes of elections before they happened (see here). Presumably he was going through the Electoral Calendar page to see which elections were coming up. A lot of the time his forecasts were remarkably accurate. I think it would be interesting if anyone wanted to revive the idea of trying to predict election results across Terra. The forecasts could be treated as "opinion polls", I guess.

Yeah, on the wiki I usually add small opinion polls and predictions after the elections. I'm pretty bad at predicting some pre election results though.
http://particracy.wikia.com/wiki/Kalistan_General_Election_3880
I might try making a graphical chart too next time.

[J4C0B65]

Brilliant! It would be interesting to put an educational tinge to the game to help it prosper...this game actually is very good as a simulator for those who study government and want to learn how to get stuff done, especially in coalition governments.
And we would get the caliber of person we are looking for as well to play the game...

Yup! They'd be interested enough, and educated (or willing to be educated in the direction) enough to make use of the game's awesome mechanics. I've never found any other game like it (except when I modified Tropico with multiplayer to function like Israel or Trinidad/Tobago).

I assume you mean offering universities their own installation of the game? I doubt they'd put up with the shit that goes on here,

Yes, I mean each school would have its own server.
I can barely put up with the crap that goes on here.

I see some value for universities but I'd be more inclined to suggest it for late Secondary School, I'd hope that anyone applying for Political Science or similar courses would already be familiar with democracy at the level Particracy is at.

Not sure about you, but from 4th form to 6th form, I don't recall myself (or any of my friends) having any time for this.
I don't see why a secondary school would pay to maintain this... "Oh, here kids. Play this for fun if you want to do Political Science" as opposed to a tertiary institution "Here's something you can probably be a part of, during your studies of Political Science" - tell me which makes more sense.

When we played in my school, the Mods suspected multiing because there was like 13 accounts being used, some were multis I think and I threatened to report them. However, we were all inactivated and sent a message saying we needed to sign up to a meta group. One person decided to tell the librarian about the message even though I had told everyone what to do. The librarian then contacted the IT technician, who looked at the message and blocked particracy because he thought the mods were trying to phish our details?????

[Aquinas]

There is nothing more encouraging than when someone introduces a real-life friend to Particracy. This is why, as a Moderator, there is nothing more disheartening that when I realise I've inactivated people for doing precisely that, on suspicion of multiing. Rules are rules, though. Multiing goes on in Particracy, just as it does in other games, and if two or more accounts log in using the same IP address, we have to be tough.

Here is the advice offered in our proposed FAQ:

Q: Is it okay for a real-life friend of mine to join the game?

A: Absolutely! Particracy always needs new players!

There are some important things to be aware of, however. It is against the rules for players to run more than one active player account at a time, and Moderation may inactivate accounts if it suspects this is happening. In order to avoid suspicion, it would be best to avoid logging in from the same IP address as your friend. This would mean, for example, that you should not log in to Particracy from the same computer or mobile device.

If you know you have both logged in from the same IP address or are likely to log in from the same IP address in future, each of you should inform Moderation, giving details of your user name, party name, nation name, internet access point (eg. home, school, university) and an email address which you check with reasonable regularity. You should also update us if you create a new user account.

It is also important that you should both play the game independently, should not share your passwords and should not access each other's accounts.

As you can see, there is nothing sinister about the process of adding players to Meta Groups. We're not asking for bank details or anything like that.