All interesting stances. Just to get some further insight:
EEL Mk2 wrote:My view is that cultural protocols are necessary for retaining some degree of variety and realism in Particracy. However, I accept that it is the view of many newer players (and those who would like to speak on their behalf) that they may be restrictive. As a consequence I believe that there must be more culturally open nations. This means that if you want to play a generic Anglophone liberal democracy, you are free to do so without need for undoing any player's work. Moreover, the largely implicit/haphazardly-enforced restrictions against minority parties are not justified because they conflict with what I believe to be the fundamental purpose of cultural protocols (i.e. variety and realism).
There is probably an argument for more culturally open nations, but I doubt any more nations will created in P1 (Wouter would need to) and I would dread the process of selecting which nations lost their cultures to liberate new "open" nations.
In the absence of more open nations, would you relax the penalties and reach of the Protocols to increase accessibility for new players, or would you see this is too much of a risk to RP?
Doc wrote:Well, my problem is that the term "culture" is functionally equivalent to "ethnicity" when applied through the CP.
Very good point. Perhaps "Demographic Protocols" would have been a better name.
Doc wrote:So our problem was pretty much the opposite of the one described by IdioC. We didn't have a problem with people coming to our country wanting to wipe out our {retconned Hindi/Punjabi} ethnic identifiers. We had a couple of Parties who came to Kalistan specifically to ESTABLISH those things, and then ensure that they were set into concrete in our CP, all the while completely ignoring the RPed history of the country.
This is true of a lot of nations. Many cultures came and went before the set ones. In Jelbania, for example, there were Christian democracies and Francophone Kingdoms before the Jelbic project. Ignorance of existing RP with a tool designed to protect the very same is a problem I did not foresee in their creation, presuming a complaint would be lodged if it happened to investigate.
Do you feel, therefore, that Cultural Protocols are too unilateral, often disregarding the previous cultural creations? Should there be a protection of older cultures as suitable minority cultures for RP purposes to allow for more flexibility?
Doc wrote:I have pointed out in the past that Kalistan's Culture is political- we have our own way of doing things in Kalistan which will keep us from being a generic Anglophone social democratic republic... ethnicity is not now, nor was it ever salient in Kalistan. We had a "ethnic background" per se, but it was not a salient feature of Kalistan... Our perennial problem with with the introduction of specifically non-social democratic features like extreme nationalism or elimination of civil liberties by Parties who were interested in turning Kalistan into a police state. But as for culture, we were no more western European than we were Northern Indian, or more correctly, we were exactly as much, because Kalistani is an ethnicity in itself. In the CP, we had to basically pick one part of our overall ethnic makeup to characterize our country, and that was completely artificial and was new, rather than something which needed protection from new players. So the CP wasn't the best thing for Kalistan.
Pegging Particracy ethnicities absolutely to RL cultures was certainly not the intention when they were created, more to use RL cultures as a guideline or analogy. Fusions were always important to novel cultures in the game (from a Jelbic point of view, the language at least is a Japanese/English hybrid with a Eastern European inspired phonetic approach, which has given rise to a Steppe peoples identity that works well to my mind).
Doc wrote:I lobbied, at the beginning of September for a culturally open Kalistan. Initially, I was told no, but then Aquinas and I agreed that Kalistan was more correctly open, with regard to culture, specifically because culture is defined as ethnicity (and language as the greatest part of those ethnic identifiers) as far as the CP goes, and other meanings of the word don't fit the spirit of the CPs. As for other nations having a protected culture, I can see that too- Culture as ethnicity, where it has long been an important roleplaying element, should be enforced by moderation. Where it makes sense to do so. People who chafe at that might find their way to Kalistan or one of the other open countries, and our countries may, in turn become interesting again, for different reasons than the protected countries. I think it actually expands playing options, and that is a good thing.
It seems an extension of your previous points that Cultural Protocols are being used as Demographic Protocols, Linguistic Protocols and/or genuine Cultural Protocols under one set of rules, where countries have different things imposed or protected. This does mean things get equivocated as you say (Ethnicity as Culture) and perhaps makes enforcement of a blunt instrument over a perhaps vaguely defined ethnicity/culture melange a contentious issue.
Would it benefit the game, to your mind, to have Cultural Protocols split into these three concept protocols for clarity and allowing the undeclared sections to remain "Culturally Open"?
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?
utoronto wrote:In Valruzia, the position I have is that it's been less about ethnicity, and more about linguistics and cultural mindset.
This fits conveniently with what I've just proposed to Doc: Would it benefit the game, to your mind, to have Cultural Protocols split into three concept protocols (Demographic/Ethnicity, Linguistic and truly Cultural) for clarity and allowing the undeclared sections to remain "Culturally Open"?
utoronto wrote:In terms of ethnicity, it would be no problem for me for there to be members of different groups, but names should, IMO, conform to a particular manner of spelling and, in the case of first names, the usage of Polish equivalents if possible.
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?
After all, a transliterated/translated name could be put in brackets, such as "Fluzgumo Frjsrl (Rivermouth Ash)". Such a concession isn't much on the parts of all involved.
utoronto wrote:My position on CP's is that it should a sort of tool to protect an active culture from drastic changes. While I also believe that cultures not listed in the culture protocols should be allowed to participate, they should acculturate to a certain degree to the primary culture.
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?