Cultural Protocols: A Broader Discussion

[IdioC]

As many of you are aware, we had a case recently were a player was blocked under Cultural Protocols for having names out of step with a nation's Cultural Protocol after several warnings.

This thread is not to criticise or exonerate the moderation decision or the player involved; this discussion is broader.

It seems that Cultural Protocols attract a range of opinions, decisions based on them usually court at least a little controversy so I'd like to test the water with a non-binding poll and discussion on them. Viewpoints might help inform community feeling on moderation decisions or suggest improvements, etc. etc. Aquinas followed the letter of the law and attracted criticism, which makes it a bit of a no-win situation for moderators enforcing them at the moment.

Full disclosure: Cultural Protocols were my fault. They're at least six years old, but have been amended since.

Why they were brought in: They were brought in to protect nations with strong RP cultures from default anglophile social democratic republic parties steamrolling the variables and/or having the same players for unnatural lifespans. This was especially to protect those nations with foreign languages as primary languages (there was at least an Italian (Istalia) and Portuguese (short-lived) during the project's lifetime but I'm not sure about now).

As for when moderators can intervene to protect a nation: Catching violations of the variables is either by reports/moderator observation in the early instance. Even if it escalates unabated to a change in nation variables, the final one -- the nation name change -- would have to be done through a moderator, whereupon it would be caught. Nation Variables would be easy to restore by returning parties of the culture protected under protocol and a player blocking said return would get what is coming to them. Of course, nations evolve and have their variables change anyway.

What was done before: The time-honoured tenet of The System Comes First came into effect. Whatever the game system permitted was allowed, just like invasions, inactives affecting other nations, treaty lockings, early election tactics and all the other mischevious bastardry that was possible with the system at the cost of being unfair on hapless victims who didn't understand the mechanics.

For my part, I'm concerned that they don't consider minority or regional parties and might protect nation cultures from being changed by the very system of play they came from, but the correct approach would require community assent.

Nation variables, languages for bills and RP names are usually covered, but the RP stuff differs from nation to nation as per culture.

So, broadly, I want to ask: How would you improve the Cultural Protocols and what should they cover within the game mechanics? (revoting is on)

Also, please let us know what you feel penalties should be for violations and any thoughts on when Cultures expire from inactivity (as well as how long that should be).

[EEL Mk2]

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).

[Doc]

Well, my problem is that the term "culture" is functionally equivalent to "ethnicity" when applied through the CP. In Kalistan, this meant that our Parties and names had to be in Indian or in English, despite us never having played any Indian characters before. When it was announced that CP would be enforced, this essentially meant we had to retcon our entire history to bring in this Indian business with Sanskrit as our script and so forth. This was in the interest of a couple of visitors to Kalistan (who have since left) but for the old players in the country, of course it was weird at best. But it appeared as if the Hindu/Punjabi business was a fait accompli b/c of the cultural protocol, and there was nothing we could do about it. Furthermore, that culture was not preferred by players who had played and RPed there for RT years. 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 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.

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. As Aquinas mentioned in PM, every nation with long standing players claims the same thing. But 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. It never was, at least as long as I played there, and if the record of the pre-me RPs are any indication. 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.

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.

[utoronto]

In Valruzia, the position I have is that it's been less about ethnicity, and more about linguistics and cultural mindset.

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.

For instance, Mary Macleod would be Maryja (or Maria) Machlejd, Joseph Smith would be Dżozef (or Józef) Szmit, Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang jieshi) would be Czang Kaj-szek, Deng Xiaoping would be Den Szałpin, Bashar al-Assad would be Baszszar al-Asad, etc. Or in the case of errant sperm's long time character Harvey Potsworth would be Harwej Pocłert (In my honest and professional opinion, during ES's tenure in Valruzia, the name was poorly transliterated to Harvez Potzwurzitch, which looked more hispano-franco-germanic than Polish.)

Mindset-wise. Stubborn. Very stubborn. Well as a society. Outside influences and "outsiders" are often met with suspicion. While RL Poles are Catholic, the position of the Catholic faith is replace with secularism in Valruzia.

On the issue of outsiders, let's take Mormons for instance. They number only 2,000, and yet, they've been in Poland since the 19th century. Even today, people avoid talking to Mormon missionaries (And they do have have a very visible missionary presence, proselytising on the streets of Warsaw). The only people I've observed speaking to the missionaries are old Polish ladies, whose ulterior motive when talking and listening to these folks is to convert them to Roman Catholicism.

But there's also an anti-establishment tendency, esp. when the "establishment" was created by outside/foreign forces: constant uprisings in the 19th century against Russian, Prussian/German, and Austrian authorities, and constant unrest against the communist authorities who were seen as stooges of Moscow/Soviets/Russians.

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.

[utoronto]

Oh and btw, a RL example of a cultural protocol, Québec's language laws (La charte de la langue française / French language charter) and the formerly proposed Charte des valeurs québécoises/Charte de la laïcité (Quebec Values Charter / Secularity Charter) are very good examples in the sense that it defines what is possible and what isn't possible in the public sphere in Québec.

[IdioC]

All interesting stances. Just to get some further insight:

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?

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.

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?

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).

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?

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"?

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.

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?

[EEL Mk2]

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?

No, this may undermine the quality and continuity of RP. I still reckon that more open nations are the best solution. I think that moderation should be able to (i.e. not obliged to - that would a step too far) declare a nation culturally open if they satisfy one of two criteria: a) their culture is poorly developed (i.e. if all you've got is cultural protocols and a generic liberal democratic Anglophone democracy with a paper-thin veneer of foreign names) and b) the player(s) primarily responsible for developing a country's cultural protocols are first consulted and give their consent to having a nation declared culturally open.

[Doc]

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.

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?

Well, this is hard to say: I can easily see the other side too- A lot of times, these old RPs were run by people who aren't either playing in that country anymore or playing all together. I can see a case for newer players coming to an empty country, retconning a culture there, and that being the new culture. In Kalistan's case, that wasn't what happened, because Pentalarc was still there at the time, and I returned in the middle of this business. I think that was where the friction in our situation came in- the old players had not abandoned the country, so the retcon was doomed from the start. In completely abandoned countries, I suppose the fate of the CP should be different. But I think if there is significant evidence of an older, RP culture which is not the same as the one in the CP's there should be an acknowledgement made in the CP to allow that to be an option... That can be added at any time, I suppose, if people are interested in picking it up, and the criteria for permitting it should be simply the fact that "artifacts" of the older culture were discovered in the forums of in old bills, so it is safe to say that that culture never really went away (as cultures occasionally hang on and reappear later.)

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?

Oh, I don't know- The ethnic breakdown of the country was a big one. Given that our original CP made it clear that most Kalistanis consider their culture "Kalistani" and not one of the constituent parts of that cultural identity, we adopted what was eventually called "Cultural quantum" meaning that there weren't easily identifiable cultural communities in Kalistan- everyone was all the parts which made up Kalistanis except recent arrivals who have always been encouraged to assimilate into Kalistan. In short, though our CP said Kalkali- 56%, that didn't mean that Kalkalis made up 56% of the population. It means that roughly 56% of Kalistani culture comes from that origin, but basically 100% of Kalistanis (minus recent arrivals, who were in the process of mixing their own cultures into ours) celebrated that culture. When culture is defined as ethnicity, Aquinas correctly informed me that cultural quantum is problematic.

And none of it touched what I saw as the main culture of Kalistan, which was entirely political- The main cleavages in Kalistan were always between those who wanted more and those who wanted less civil liberties, and other related political topics. They have never been over ethnicity or language or religion. Other countries, obviously this is not the case, and so a culture as ethnicity probably will work better for them. We aren't special in Kalistan, but as you say, the CP on all is a blunt object.

At any rate- I wouldn't say that we need three different protocols. You can just deal with these issues in the same document, and have moderation enforce them separately. A Language guide, a demographic guide and a cultural guide which may or may not represent the same thing. For example- if I want to have Kalistanis eat Indian food primarily, appear as predominantly Blonde Hair, Blue eyed Russians, worship in the Protestant Religion and exclusively speak Jamaican Patois, why would that be a problem? I know some players would claim "Well, that just doesn't make any sense! In the real world, that would never happen!" But why not? Why are the marriage of Northern Indian culture, Brown Skin, Hindu Religion and Punjabi language a necessary thing? And anyway, this is Particracy, not the real world, and so it should be even easier to put an arrangement like this in place. Some folks wanted me to account for HOW all these different groups got to Kalistan, given our neighborhood, but our population was made up of the people who lived there first (related to the other surrounding countries) AND all the other groups who came there later. By Sea, overland, what difference does it make? It happened before the game started for the most part, so it happened because we said it happened. And it has always been that way, since Pentalarc started keeping track of the history of the country. If other countries did things differently and were more culturally homogeneous, well, how does that affect Kalistan?

I would make those things variables for the CP, which players, as long as they agree to them, can set in the CP, and then those things can be enforced by Moderation in culturally protected nations until the players in that country change them. They would have to RP the change under the old CP, probably the using RP conflict rules where the majority of the players have to agree to the RP, but otherwise, Moderation can keep an eye on the RP to ensure that it continues under the old CP, and the end of the RP will be the revision of the CP.

That seems like a nice compromise.

[Doc]

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?

No, this may undermine the quality and continuity of RP. I still reckon that more open nations are the best solution. I think that moderation should be able to (i.e. not obliged to - that would a step too far) declare a nation culturally open if they satisfy one of two criteria: a) their culture is poorly developed (i.e. if all you've got is cultural protocols and a generic liberal democratic Anglophone democracy with a paper-thin veneer of foreign names) and b) the player(s) primarily responsible for developing a country's cultural protocols are first consulted and give their consent to having a nation declared culturally open.

Or this: perhaps it would be good to require a cultural opt-in rather than prefering an opt-out. That would make most of the countries in the world generic and cultureless, conducted in English (as per the rules of the game) and the select few that want to be culturally closed the opportunity to be so.

[utoronto]

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"?

Perhaps. But it would obvious that the categories would need to be well defined. At the same time, is it really possible to segregate the three? In some cases, I find that all three are very much intertwined with each other. Take France for example. For someone to be considered "French" by a good proportion of the French(and really ethnicity is often hard to define here in France), is to believe and defend the ideals of the République; that is, liberté, égalité, fraternité et laïcité. That being said the last one, however, is extremely controversial. I actually find it interesting how one could be Catholic and atheist at the same time (and I don't mean agnostic), but as we say in France, « Bienvenue en France ! ».

In the case of Poland, there is no state religion and there are significant native religious and ethnic minorities: Orthodox, Jews, and Muslims (primarily the Lipka Tatars, who have been in Poland/East-Central Europe since the 14th century). However, Catholicism is a significant part of Polish culture and significantly impacts almost every aspect of Polish society since the so-called Baptism of Poland in 966: Religious holidays are taken seriously and nearly everything is closed on those days (I nearly starved once because I forget to get groceries before the Christmas holiday, and Poles celebrate Christmas for almost 3 days. Now Christmas Eve was Monday, Christmas was Tuesday, and "Second" Christmas was Wednesday that year, and most stores are closed on Sunday...that's basically almost 4 days without a proper meal. Luckily, I had a pack of biscuits in the cupboard, so I survived that one...barely), doughnuts are plentiful on Fat Thursday (Thursday before Ash Wednesday/Lent), the image of THE Pope (i.e. JP2) is almost everywhere in some cities, there are nuns all around (some of whom I've seen with the latest smartphones and Prada/Gucci/LV handbags...like, didn't they take a vow of poverty or something, but anyways...), and most politicians often make it a point to go to mass, esp. during an election season.

In addition to the cultural Catholicism, language has been a significant part of the identity and what defines one as being Polish. Many members and generations had lost the tongue of their forefather because Polish had become their primary language. The Szlachta (a unique Polish concept of nobility; i.e. a constitutional class, rather than a socio-economic class) in geographical/historical Lithuania (which distinct from the modern state called Lithuania) were either ethnically Lithuanian, Belarusian, Tartar, Ukrainian, German, Latvian, etc. But over time, many of these families had Polonized, and saw themselves as part of the Polish "nation" and as Polish patriots. Some of the most significant magnate families (so, extremely wealthy, politically influential, and part of the nobility) in Poland's history were Lithuanian (either ethnically or geographically), such as the Radziwiłł family, House of Czartoryski, etc.

Basically, it would be a nice idea to have separate protocols, and it would be plausible in some cases, but not in others.

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?

In RL and if we limit ourselves to languages that use primarily latin alphabets, the French and, esp. the Poles had a tendency to do this. This is why Russian leaders' names are different in French and in Polish than a lot of other languages that use latin letters. Only recently and with the rise of the internet and dominance of the English language has it slightly changed, though not completely. Though, this is still a "work in progress"...and the Poles continue to polonise even "English" words, e.g. Facebook is now fejs, lajkować is to describe liking something online (lubić is the actually Polish word for "to like"). So something that should be "Polub nas na Facebooku" (Like us on Facebook) has transformed into "Lajkuj nas na fejsie"...

So, I would say it depends, esp. on how the main culture deals with names and terms that are foreign to that culture.

However, which acculturation (is this protologistic?) steps should be required?

Bare minimum, which is, in the case of Valruzia, Valruzianised names (again, could be minority or foreign names, but transliterated).

What about minority parties who are actively opposing the existing culture in RP yet respect its existence OOC?

I think as long as its existence is respected OOC-wise, I'm ok with it.