Cultural Protocols: A Broader Discussion

[Doc]

Response: (and thanks to IdioC for breaking the discussion down like this and to Polites for the response as well- good food for thought)

1. Tiering- Perhaps the forcing of a good many nations into the current system demonstrates that it was not organic but imposed. If there was a general demand for enforced CPs across the game, few would have had to be "forced" as Polites says, into the current structure. Definitely suggests a need for the question to be revisited by interested Parties. And if nothing else, this thread demonstrates that the matter needs to be revisited. That said, the current structure is now in place, which means it is the status quo until revision is completed. And inertia being what it is, the status quo is difficult to change.

2. I proposed my version of different protocols, for the purpose of al la carte culture. If we want just language, we use the language protocol. If we want more, we adopt more. And Moderation then enforces the ones we want- if we want just language, or just religion, or just ethnicity, or any combination, we ask Moderation to enforce those, and that is the level of culture we have in our country. And if we want none- well, that's what we get enforced. That would make it more centered on the players who live there.

3. Cultural opt-in: Agreed- that would have to come as part of a revision, and is likely not on the table at the moment, I imagine. A a la carte system proposed in 2 would function just the same way- Countries would opt in by passing particular protocols.

4. Formulas- I think cultural decay is a variable calculus- you can't come up with a liner function for that. A lot of Roman culture still hangs on in many places, (especially in Language and in law, and we love roman architecture) while other cultures which were around at the same time have faded (like Assyrian... What is that?! ) I think Polites' idea of a life span of 200 years or whatever, with option for renewal, is much better. That will allow moderation to easily ascertain whether Parties still want it defended.

5. Regional Protocols- If they were merely guides and not enforced by Moderation, I would support regional protocols too, to give people who were nationbuilding a clue as to the GENERAL flavor of the region. I would add the caveat that all countries covered by the protocol would have to participate. These certainly cannot be established outside of the region.

6. Accessibility can be managed in country. What we need is a way to ensure that when new players come to our countries, they read our freaking house rules! The cultural flavor can be located there, but refusal to acknowledge house rules is far more problematic, I think than not RPing the right culture. And besides- what is "Austrian culture"? I have a PhD in Political Science, with an emphasis in International Relations, Comparative Politics and Political Theory, and I couldn't tell you, if you paid me, what "Austrian culture" is outside of accented German Language, Catholicism, a history under the Hapsburgs, and Wienerschnitzel. I don't mean to be flippant, but CPs mean nothing if the players who join don't know what they are joining, and then get in trouble right off the bat for being ignorant and violating the CP. I can see that as FAR more alienating to new players than in country policing.

We should instead focus on our House Rules for New Players. And those of us who are old players who are interested in enforcing the rules (including CPs, if that is the case) have a responsibility to welcome new players and invite them to familiarize themselves with the history of the country that they are going to be voting in. Otherwise, the new player will immediately run into Moderation for being ignorant. In other words, equivalencies are probably not nearly enough to accurately RP in most of these countries- instead it just reinforces this notion that this or that IG culture IS this or that RL culture, rather than "It is supposed to look something like this or that RL culture, but not be it exactly"...

7. Agreed with Polites.

8. I would make the Expiration date in empty countries as follows: If the country remains vacant for a generation, the CP expires. Should we say a generation equals 25 years? When a player returns then, they can simply apply for renewal of the old CP, or they are totally free to rewrite it.

9. I maintain that the CPs are actually ethnic protocols. We had to give the breakdown of ethnicities in our Countries, as well as religion and language. But theoretically, if I said 50% Hindustani and 35% French, what I am really saying is that 50% of the population is darker skinned than the 35%. Ethnic Protocol is much more accurate, because it talks about the folkways as well as the physical characteristics of the people.

10. We can start with a few curators and investigators. There are clearly several among us who put in a LOT of time trying to reconcile what is and what they think SHOULD be in Particracy. Obviously they would be the people who would join first and conduct the first investigations.

These are all good suggestions. I am happy to continue to participate in this discussion.

[Polites]

Bit off topic here, but ...

while other cultures which were around at the same time have faded (like Assyrian... What is that?! )

Tell that to an Assyrian

[Aquinas]

There have been some good points raised in this thread. By the way, let me assure everyone we do follow these kind of discussions - even when we're not directly participating. Feedback is always valuable, and every one of you here are valuable players.

IdioC, I've found it particularly interesting to hear your account of how the system of cultural protection in Particracy first evolved. As you can doubtless testify, a lot has happened since then. It is no secret that Cultural Protocols have been a hot topic. Some have thought them too strict, some have thought them too lax, some like the idea of Cultural Protocols but think particular nations have the "wrong" Cultural Protocols. There have been calls for a reset or partial reset of the game in order to make the geographical arrangement of cultures "make more sense".

One of the things that has changed over the years is just how invested individual players are about such a large number of nations besides the one they are playing in (if they are even playing in any nation at all). The interest in the "meta game", if you will, has increased. Today, you will find players have strong opinions not just about what people are doing in their nation, but what people are doing in other nations too - sometimes nations they have never played in or not played in for a long time. Even a nation which has been empty or nearly empty for a long period of time can, all of a sudden, become a focus of controversy.

In some ways this interest in the "meta game" or the "game-beyond-one's-nation" is great because it encourages role-play (especially international RP), a sense of community and communication between players. In other ways, well... there are areas where it is impossible to meet all of the expectations in a fair and practical way. Impossible.

There have been suggestions for introducing different levels and/or different forms of cultural protection for different nations. Since this has been raised, I think it would be worth mentioning some of the background to the changes introduced in late August. Before then, nations had 4 different cultural statuses: Culturally Void, Culturally Dormant, Culturally Active and Culturally Protected. There seemed to be some ambiguity and confusion about what the precise expectations were for playing in dormant, active and protected nations. More generally, there were complaints that Cultural Protocols were not working and even (wrongly) that Moderation disregarded them.

Due to the confusion surrounding the cultural statuses, we decided there should be only 2 types of status: Culturally Protected and Culturally Open ("Culturally Open" = a more positive-sounding term for the old "Culturally Void" status). This meant some nations were designated as Open, and others which were Culturally Active were required to adopt formal Cultural Protocols. Some nations were also required to adopt Cultural Protocols which were more detailed than the ones they already had, so as to reduce the room for ambiguity and arguments. We also clarified the rules surrounding Culturally Protected nations and what the requirements are for playing in them.

My view is that if Particracy was ever to introduce some form of multi-tiered approach to cultural protection, like some have suggested, then the requirements involved would need to be clarified very clearly and communicated effectively. Frankly, I'm inclined to think it could be challenging to do, because the array of different systems would lead to confusion and possibly resentment. Simpler rules tend to work best.

There have been calls for more Culturally Open nations. I would point out that we have actually increased the number of these. There had been only 1 left (Lodamun). With the recent changes, this has been increased to 4. Not much, I know, but that does mean an increase from 8 to 32 player spots.

IdioC is absolutely right about the difficulty of selecting nations to make Culturally Open, because something like that can be very sensitve. I won't give details, but I don't mind sharing that our list of nations to designate as Culturally Open got altered several times in the run-up to the reforms being announced, as a result of changing situations within the game. The list we had at the beginning was longer than the list we had by the end.

The system of cultural protection is less restrictive than some are fearing it is. There is a tremendous amount of role-play you can do in any nation, whether it is Open or Protected. The rules surrounding culture are there to set the background framework, so players know basic details about what kind of society their party is operating in. They're there to focus and enhance role-play, not to hinder it. Also, we need to remember it is possible for the demographics of a nation to change over time. The only thing is, it needs to be within reason and to be role-played convincingly. If you have the time to go through the records of the Cultural Protocol approvals (see here), you'll find examples of very substantial changes being made, sometimes over longer periods but sometimes actually quite suddenly. At times, it has been complained that Moderation has been too generous in allowing changes.

Overall, the requirements of the Cultural Protocols themselves are not that onerous. Party names do not have to be translated into native languages; they can be in English, although they are presumed to be a translation of the native name.

Constitutional titles like the legislature do not have to be in native languages; they can also be in English, although again, they are presumed to be a translation of the native name. Under the previous rules regime, there was some degree of ambiguousness over this point. So the new rules are actually more relaxed in this area.

The spread of a party's character names is required to take realistic account of a nation's culture, but even here, we are hardly absolute about them. A small number of character names from minorities perhaps not even listed in the Cultural Protocols will be allowed, so long as the broad spread of names is realistic. We are allowed to grant exceptions "where a strong case has been presented", and there have been a few cases where this has happened already. Often, when this happens, the player is asked to use their party description to clarify certain points, to make it clear why their character names are the way they are and that they are role-playing realistically within the culture of their nation.

Nation names are now generally in the native language (sorry Mike!). It was felt that the nation name is one of the key instruments at our disposal to communicate to players that a nation has a particular (non-English) culture. But again, there is flexibility when the language is difficult to translate, and we can make exceptions in response to RP considerations.

The enforcement of Cultural Protocols has been firmer since the changes announced on 26 August. Parties are not reactivated or given early elections if they are not in compliance with the rules. For example, if they are playing in Valruzia (a Polish-themed nation) and their candidates list is filled with English names and their party description contains references to Christianity and America, then they will be asked to make the changes before their request is fulfilled.

It is also true that I have personally been monitoring the game to ensure players - especially those who have just joined non-English nations - know about the rules and are following them. The most awkward situations with players I have experienced have been when a player has already been playing the game for a while and has not followed the rules, but has not been challenged about this before. Usually this is not complying with the Cultural Protocols, but it can be other things as well, like the rules on real-life/ridiculous variables and the rule on English being the language of communication in the game. Since I became a Moderator, I have become increasingly of the view that it is best to "catch them early". If you explain the rules to a player just after they've broken them, they're much more likely to be accepting of that than if the situation has gone on for a long time.

There is, of course, a positive spiralling effect from this. The players who know about the rules are much more likely to follow them when they move to their next nation, as well as much more likely to help other players understand them and, where it is appropriate, to report violations.

It will take time for the positive effects of the changes to filter down, but I do believe it is working. Before, we had a situation where players were regularly complaining Cultural Protocols counted for nothing and were not being complied with. After I became a Moderator, I came under great pressure, both on and off the forum, to enforce the Cultural Protocols more vigorously. Players were complaining that most of Terra had become "generic English" and that the Cultural Protocols did not work.

That era is over. If anyone doubts me, go on a tour through the nations of Terra. There has never been a time in the game's history when Cultural Protocols have been as clear, as well understood and as widely adhered to as they are now. If we continue along the present path, I believe we will have a situation where a larger and larger core of players understand the Cultural Protocols and follow them in whichever nation they move to.

But my view is not the only one that is important here. I do put time and effort into making sure Cultural Protocols and other rules are being followed. It's far from the most enjoyable way I could be spending my time, but I have been doing it out of a sense of duty, because I believed it was necessary to restore confidence in the Cultural Protocols and that it was what the community wanted. If anyone thinks it would be best if I ceased doing this, then I would ask them, if they have not done so already, to tell me so - either here or in private. I do not want to be spending time doing all of this if that is not wanted.

There is probably no perfect answer to the challenges facing the game. Whatever we do, not everybody is going to be happy. The beleaguered thought going through my mind right now is that I have totally worked my butt off and done my best to deliver what I was asked to deliver, and yet still nobody is satisfied! But I've been around long enough to know that was always going to be the case, so I can't complain.

The rules as they stand now are a best effort, not a miracle solution. They are not set in stone and there could end up being changes. To be honest, when I was working on the new rules, I had a sense that I was unleashing something significant and that I did not know for sure where the end point of the journey would be, but that the general direction upon which we were embarking was the right one. This reflects even in the title of the rules. It was called "Rules of the Game (interim version)". Another document, the "Game Rules", was (and is) meant to come later.

My last word will be about the Culturally Open nations and the English majority nations. I know they're not fashionable amongst some of us, but we do need them. Many players very understandably prefer to play in a nation with a culture similar to their own, and this means we need for these nations to be available to them. It is also my belief and my experience that to some extent, the success of the development of the non-English nations depends upon there being English nations available. The desire to play in a nation with a different culture so often comes after having first played in an English nation for a long time and then developing a curiosity to try something new. I know; I was one of those players.

[Doc]

Bit off topic here, but ...

while other cultures which were around at the same time have faded (like Assyrian... What is that?! )

Tell that to an Assyrian

I would, if I could find one... How the mighty have fallen...

[Doc]

Aquinas,

I would say that the rules have been put in place, they are being enforced, and they should be given the opportunity to work. I would hope you would be willing to commit to a revisitation of this topic in maybe six months or so, to see what the effects of this policy are, and then be open, if they are not working as intended to changing the rules. I understand a LOT of work has gone into both the rules and the protocols, but at the same time, pragmatism should be adhered to as well.

Who knows? Maybe someday people will not remember the day before there were CPs, and they will seem as natural in their place as they don't seem today to some of us. Luckily for me, I won't ever move out of Kalistan (I tried once for a couple months, and it didn't stick...) So we will offer up a nice comparison, and be an open place for people who don't care for moderation enforced CPs to come in and play. But I would be happy to continue this discussion too...

[EEL Mk2]

I'm grateful for IdioC's work in condensing this lengthy and at times chaotic discussion into a clear and comprehensible set of proposal. In response:

Tiering - This is a good idea and I have supported it as soon as it was raised. Polites does raise legitimate concerns about different tiers of cultural protection being confusing and indistinguishable. However, this can be easily resolved if moderation were to spell out exactly what each tier means. For example, splitting protocols into three categories of a) pro-actively enforced (i.e. moderation will enforce them on its own initiative), b) responsively enforced (moderation will act only if there's a complaint) and c) advisory only would add clarity to a system wherein the old labels of 'culturally dormant' etc. did not really indicate the implications with regards to RP.

I would also suggest that moderation extend more flexibility in regards to the detail in cultural protocols. For example, it should be permissible for a country to have protocols that simply say "[Insert country here] is populated by a mixture of German and French-speaking people". On the other hand, if the players in a country desired to do so, they could specify, to the nth decimal place, the exact proportion of people who speak Swabian as opposed to Alsatian. The one-size fits all approach imposed by current moderation is neither necessary nor productive (sorry Aquinas).

Splitting of protocols - There is no need for this to be formalised, in my view. However, if my proposal that moderation should be more flexible in terms of the specificity of approval cultural protocols, then in effect players would be allowed to protect cultural elements without protecting ethnological elements or whatever.

Rate of change formula - I would suggest that changes of more than 5% a decade in ethnic proportions would be seen as excessive. This number could be lowered at moderation discretion if the country operates a highly restrictive immigration policy or is RPed as deeply xenophobic or something. Linguistic change might occur at a faster pace - 10% maybe would be seen as a reasonable limit - as would other factors such as religion (which could change even more quickly). Again, moderation discretion would apply. Moderation discretion could also be used to increase those limits if the RP justification exists - e.g. if there's a genocide, then obviously 5% a decade would be too restrictive.

Name - "Census" is, I think, an inappropriate term for something than can be enforced OOC by moderation.

(BTW, if there's a proposal which I haven't responded to, that should be taken to imply that I agree with IdioC's recommendations and have nothing further to contribute on the issue.)

[IdioC]

Thanks all for the further input: just a fleeting reply tonight as I will read more in time (and I'm sure more ideas will come in). I feel an obligation to put these right as I clearly didn't get them right when I first introduced them...

Firstly, Aquinas, thanks for chipping in and explaining the history behind recent events. I understand enforcing them is quite tedious at times and hope that if we continue this discussion, we can come up with a policy that is more practical for moderation than the current one as well as one that is more community-approved. I agree that "void" was a poor choice of word and was negatively nuanced to encourage people at the time to make new cultures.

I think having two types of Cultural Protocols -- iron-cast Protocols and relaxed Protocols -- allows for the benefits of tiering without over-complication. I suggest there should be a trade-off though: considering the stricter protocols will need players of that set culture to be enforcable, I would recommend that iron-cast protocols expire sooner than the relaxed ones if no-one is around to play the culture. Would this be an acceptable compromise to those who are concerned about overcomplication, yet sufficient diversity for those who support tiering?

I personally feel that 200 in-game years is a too long (certainly for strict ones) as you'd have a lot of dead nations. Tiering would also allow a relaxation of cultures to encourage people to play alongside them and/or develop them if strict ones were relaxed after, say, 50 years and then completely open after 100. As much as IRL terms this isn't sensible, I would argue that having nations locked down for 300 days (200 in-game years as proposed) is excessive for OOC reasons if no-one comes back to revive the culture. I could reactivate once every 9 months for one day only and keep a culture alive in a nation I didn't actively play in. 50 years would be 75 days and 100 years, 150 days. I still personally feel that having a nation locked out of play for even this long with no-one in for the culture's sake is a waste of playing space, but submit this suggestion to the community to reach an agreement on. I want to find the balance between protecting cultures and preventing dead nations.

I welcome any other formula ideas or solutions to this problem in particular. I can see the player-years idea may be complicated but I think we need some sort of fast-tracking idea to minimise dead nations.

[Kubrick]

I've skimmed through the last six pages and read a bit here and there but in the end.. TL;DR. You guys are big on the walls of text. So please, forgive my ignorance as I will reply to IdioC's first post in this thread. What do I think of the CP's and how would I improve them?

First off, I think the CP's are vital for the integrity of the game. The 'bland' nations are welcome, but unique nations should be protected and, taking it a step further, unique nations should be encouraged. Real life is full of different nations, yet the creativity of many people go no further than President, Prime Minister and Federation.

I also believe the CP's form a big part of keeping 'Terra' a realistic place, the History of Majatra page on the Wikia is a great example of how believable and indepth Particracy has become (in a big part thanks to Polites, the cultural mastermind).

With the above conclusions the ideal CP should allow the following:

- encourage unique nations
- protect those unique cultures
- offer the possibility to retcon for the sake of realism (Ibutho, Vanuku's history)

Are the CP's too limiting? I honestly don't think so. Should players be given free reign in constructing the weirdest nations? I don't think so either, even though I have a soft spot for IDR's Satanic empire we can all agree it doesn't fit the 'pure realistic perspective' that a select few of us like.

Personally I'd like a tight CP established by the players in that nation with some outside input of interested people. In 2011 I came to Vanuku because it was a Dutch nation. A lonely Dutch nation on a continent of Arabic, Mongol and Latin cultures. Stuffed in between a Byzantine America, a Mongolia and a cat-loving Shahdom there was this Dutch nation. And I played it as a Dutch nation until a few years later I learned more about the Jelbic cultures and realized that Vanuku made no sense. Now the Dutch cultural aspect is a development of Jelbek + Dorvish, because the Dorvish once colonized the coasts of Vanuku. Now it's 50/50 Dutch/Jelbic and it makes more sense in the game. Essentially it's been retconned for realism and now it's a unique nation, I think. I wont judge my own work.

I realize this post is a bit rambling and moving all over the place and I get that Particracy is for fun but realistic cultural development is enjoyable too for many of us. Let us not only please the loud minority (that thread about overmoderation is a great example, I think many of us appreciate the hard work Aquinas does and disagree with the sentiment there) but let us look at the fact that there are 'Culturally Open' nations to welcome the players who don't care about realism and just want to create fantasy scenarios or pull off nigh-impossible things for the sake of fun. That's fine! But it shouldn't happen in every nation, over the years a few nations in Particracy have turned into absolutely beautiful cultural creations and we should cherish and protect that.

[IdioC]

Before I begin, Aquinas, I just want to clarify something. I believe you have acted with good intentions throughout but I admittedly disagree with some of your decisions. I'm glad you're putting out a robust justification for your actions -- I guess the occasional crappy remarks Moderators in their Inboxes get has made this good practice (!) -- but I worry that you might be getting offended and I want to point out that when I try to constructively criticise your decisions and actions -- not from any superior position I might add -- it is in no way a personal attack.

I could be completely wrong but I still want to hear your viewpoint if I've misread your intentions. I want to understand what made you pursue some things over others and use it to help us put CultPro right.

There have been calls for a reset or partial reset of the game in order to make the geographical arrangement of cultures "make more sense".

I believe I saw some of these traipsing through the threads during the ill-fated Inquisition period. For what it's worth, I believe we cannot entirely impose RL ideas nor presume that continental homogeneity is present there (e.g., look at the Hungarian language compared to its Slavic neighbours). The lack of clean slates is regrettable but solving the cultural problem by nuking the planet is the trivial answer to this perplexing equation.

One of the things that has changed over the years is just how invested individual players are about such a large number of nations besides the one they are playing in (if they are even playing in any nation at all). The interest in the "meta game", if you will, has increased. Today, you will find players have strong opinions not just about what people are doing in their nation, but what people are doing in other nations too - sometimes nations they have never played in or not played in for a long time. Even a nation which has been empty or nearly empty for a long period of time can, all of a sudden, become a focus of controversy.

In some ways this interest in the "meta game" or the "game-beyond-one's-nation" is great because it encourages role-play (especially international RP), a sense of community and communication between players. In other ways, well... there are areas where it is impossible to meet all of the expectations in a fair and practical way. Impossible.

Role Play and -- I would even say -- Moderating are meta plays as they transcend the game engine in terms of policies, but I think strong opinions on other players and cultures are fine provided they are respectful and not god moding. We've had the Terra Nullis mapping project; we came up with a thread (old forum, I believe) where we came up with a partial Terran ethnic history based on migrations and conquests; War RP was dominated by two major alliances who essentially fought over the loyalties of third nations through various Civil War scenarios... There is a strong contingent of "Internationalist" meta-players if you will.

I emphasise entirely with the impossibility of expectations. A lot of Moderation metapolitik was drawn from threads such as this discussing perceived problems and defining solutions: the 4-day early inactives rule, original 7-day inactives rule, duplication of RL variables... essentially every stick in the Mod board came from such discussions as well as the Rildanor accords and CultPro) and finding the right compromise between OOC fairness and IC sense is a hard tightrope to tread. Pax Cyn was merely a record of such decisions that had previously been passed by word of mouth. A majority is difficult and quoracy is impossible to attain in the game, but if you obtain a quorum of forum goers, you get a quorum of people who invest enough in the metagame to care to help guide policy...

...which is also an apt opportunity to thank everyone again for contributing.

There have been suggestions for introducing different levels and/or different forms of cultural protection for different nations. Since this has been raised, I think it would be worth mentioning some of the background to the changes introduced in late August. Before then, nations had 4 different cultural statuses: Culturally Void, Culturally Dormant, Culturally Active and Culturally Protected. There seemed to be some ambiguity and confusion about what the precise expectations were for playing in dormant, active and protected nations. More generally, there were complaints that Cultural Protocols were not working and even (wrongly) that Moderation disregarded them.

Due to the confusion surrounding the cultural statuses, we decided there should be only 2 types of status: Culturally Protected and Culturally Open ("Culturally Open" = a more positive-sounding term for the old "Culturally Void" status). This meant some nations were designated as Open, and others which were Culturally Active were required to adopt formal Cultural Protocols. Some nations were also required to adopt Cultural Protocols which were more detailed than the ones they already had, so as to reduce the room for ambiguity and arguments. We also clarified the rules surrounding Culturally Protected nations and what the requirements are for playing in them.

...

There have been calls for more Culturally Open nations. I would point out that we have actually increased the number of these. There had been only 1 left (Lodamun). With the recent changes, this has been increased to 4. Not much, I know, but that does mean an increase from 8 to 32 player spots.

IdioC is absolutely right about the difficulty of selecting nations to make Culturally Open, because something like that can be very sensitve. I won't give details, but I don't mind sharing that our list of nations to designate as Culturally Open got altered several times in the run-up to the reforms being announced, as a result of changing situations within the game. The list we had at the beginning was longer than the list we had by the end.

With regards to the linked thread, I feel I should put on record that I'm glad new rules are being drafted to replace the over-bloated Pax Cyn and acknowledge that my unilateral repeal forced this hand to a certain extent. Pax Cyn turned from a list of protection for players from inconsistent decisions to a list of player demands without them necessarily understanding the reasons; rather than being a quick record of good governance it became something to be invoked for convenience for its own sake. It took over 4 manhours/day to implement the requirements with several incredibly short-tempered and ungrateful remarks being hurled into the inbox. 16-year-old schoolkid me had the time to invest in that and defuse situations with words. 26-year-old full-time researcher me had no record of the original reasons for the rules (forum had changed) nor the time to bat away a lot of the abuse.

So my advice is this: Keep the reasons next to your rules and keep them short and effective. The forum can act as your Hansard for the obscure cases to link to the plaintiffs you'll face.

Returning to topic, I can understand the simplification desire and why certain nations were kept permanently "Open" due to the shortage of "Open" nations at the time.

As much as you acknowledge the great difficulty in selection, I have to admit that I perceive the permanent opening of set nations as a mistake, as cultures come and go. Consequently, any great RP creation in Davostan, Kundrati and Lodamun would never be afforded the very protection that other nations could apply for, which -- especially considering not all players are on the forum to see these changes yet are on the game engine to see the existence of CultPros in other countries -- would be perceived as a gross unfairness on players for merely choosing the wrong nation at start-up. Even if there is a facility to mass-message all players in the game, the selection of the nations could only appear arbitrary other than the convenience of the situation when the decision was made to simplify things.

The problem of a lack of "Open" nations is caused by the large number of "Protected" nations with a dearth of players in there (Disclosure again: I happen to be in one), therefore, the solution is not to force the remainder to be "Open" but in line with RL cultural rises and falls, reconsider the conditions under which "Protected" cultures expire through a lack of support. That way, you encourage more to open up over time by an agreed framework, whilst giving players fair chance to invest in their existing cultures if they remain to do so.

Without forcing more permanently "Open" cultures arbitrarily in future against a current protocol, you will not see any new ones open up unless we amend these expiry conditions. Even then, players would likely take to raiding "Protected" nations in groups in frustration to impose a culture and argue strength in numbers.

It's clear you agonised terribly about chosing which nations to throw "Open", but sadly it is only a short term solution to do so.

My view is that if Particracy was ever to introduce some form of multi-tiered approach to cultural protection, like some have suggested, then the requirements involved would need to be clarified very clearly and communicated effectively. Frankly, I'm inclined to think it could be challenging to do, because the array of different systems would lead to confusion and possibly resentment. Simpler rules tend to work best.

...and I willingly concede that the original approach to CultPro was unnecessarily convoluted. Any amendment needs to be understandable but the consensus is that we need the strong deterrant of "Protected" cultures, the relaxed attitude of "Open" nations and yet a middle way is still needed.

This is the challenge this thread has been tasked with by the community's opinion and with the community's help in this thread, we can define this middle way.

More importantly, we can define it in a way that someone can complain about if it's excessively phrased.

The system of cultural protection is less restrictive than some are fearing it is. There is a tremendous amount of role-play you can do in any nation, whether it is Open or Protected... Overall, the requirements of the Cultural Protocols themselves are not that onerous. Party names do not have to be translated into native languages; they can be in English, although they are presumed to be a translation of the native name.

Constitutional titles like the legislature do not have to be in native languages; they can also be in English... The spread of a party's character names is required to take realistic account of a nation's culture, but even here, we are hardly absolute about them. A small number of character names from minorities perhaps not even listed in the Cultural Protocols will be allowed, so long as the broad spread of names is realistic... Nation names are now generally in the native language (sorry Mike!). It was felt that the nation name is one of the key instruments at our disposal to communicate to players that a nation has a particular (non-English) culture. But again, there is flexibility when the language is difficult to translate, and we can make exceptions in response to RP considerations.

The nature of CultPro is that sometimes it can be very restrictive and sometimes it can be lax. The problem is more its restrictiveness in the meta-game you refer to earlier: you can have voided nations populated by no-one, yet a culture that cannot be changed by anyone. Players can develop cultures out of random inspirations but lack the canvasses to do so, because of an idea from up to 10 months ago that someone isn't maintaining. Players can also develop cultures in Open nations, but considering the powers of Protected cultures by contrast, the incentive to do so is merely to build a castle of sand.

As for languages, the different attitudes of different nations justifies a two-tier approach in CultPro. There are some strong attitudes on the issue in this thread which require two options to satisfy.

We are allowed to grant exceptions "where a strong case has been presented", and there have been a few cases where this has happened already.

Of course. It is certainly important these are heard and I'm glad this continues. Investigating issues was one of the most fun, yet time-consuming parts of the job!

The enforcement of Cultural Protocols has been firmer since the changes announced on 26 August. Parties are not reactivated or given early elections if they are not in compliance with the rules. For example, if they are playing in Valruzia (a Polish-themed nation) and their candidates list is filled with English names and their party description contains references to Christianity and America, then they will be asked to make the changes before their request is fulfilled.

It is also true that I have personally been monitoring the game to ensure players - especially those who have just joined non-English nations - know about the rules and are following them. The most awkward situations with players I have experienced have been when a player has already been playing the game for a while and has not followed the rules, but has not been challenged about this before. Usually this is not complying with the Cultural Protocols, but it can be other things as well, like the rules on real-life/ridiculous variables and the rule on English being the language of communication in the game. Since I became a Moderator, I have become increasingly of the view that it is best to "catch them early". If you explain the rules to a player just after they've broken them, they're much more likely to be accepting of that than if the situation has gone on for a long time.

These two points present an unfortunate paradox of sorts. Yes, inconsistencies need checking when requests are made and yes, advising newcomers and nipping problems in the bud is sensible (your assessment of early explanation is spot on), but if a player has been in violation of the Cultural Protocol in a country for a fair while and either the other players aren't taking notice, wilfully permit it, aren't aware of the CultPro or are all inactive, surely it could be argued that pragmatically, this first player's culture is established in the nation -- at least on a regional or minority level -- de facto?

Further to this, to sanction a player who ends up on violation of CultPro after a change in the rules, when they were estabished in the nation prior to the revision, is akin to retroactive enforcement of a rule as they were in violation before the new law (per se) was established to make it a violation. This is always highly controversial and often viewed as heavy-handed. Requesting that they move to compliance is fine, but the power doesn't exist to sanction them, just as 16-year-olds who bought cigarettes just before the minimum age rose to 18 can't be retroactively fined (for the act of purchasing them, at least). They may be continuing in a state of violation rather than committing a single act, but if no-one complains and play continues peacefully, that's kinda the point of the rules.

There were certain players who frustrated me at times because they were incredibly adept at finding loopholes -- I'm sure some of you know who I mean -- but I then realised that actually the exceptions help you refine the rules to close the loopholes, then point out other pitholes you can then pre-emptively address. However, you cannot retroactively sanction them (nor can you give in to the large number of people who feel that they perhaps deserved a sanction and willingly suggest their own...) and so they usually get away first time. The consolation is that you then get heavier bricks to launch at copycats with an example to cite.

There is, of course, a positive spiralling effect from this. The players who know about the rules are much more likely to follow them when they move to their next nation, as well as much more likely to help other players understand them and, where it is appropriate, to report violations.

Very true and it is good you are taking the time to inform people.

It will take time for the positive effects of the changes to filter down, but I do believe it is working. Before, we had a situation where players were regularly complaining Cultural Protocols counted for nothing and were not being complied with. After I became a Moderator, I came under great pressure, both on and off the forum, to enforce the Cultural Protocols more vigorously. Players were complaining that most of Terra had become "generic English" and that the Cultural Protocols did not work.

That era is over. If anyone doubts me, go on a tour through the nations of Terra. There has never been a time in the game's history when Cultural Protocols have been as clear, as well understood and as widely adhered to as they are now. If we continue along the present path, I believe we will have a situation where a larger and larger core of players understand the Cultural Protocols and follow them in whichever nation they move to.

It is good that you're responding to concerns but I think this discussion shows that different people expect two different levels of enforcement from the same concept now and I hope you'll stick around to help the community refine that.

Unfortunately a lot of interesting nations are one-party states or vacant and I would argue it better to have 10 Protected actively RP-ed cultures than 30 Protected cultures where 20 countries are dead. Diversity of cultures is good, but as well as seeing current ones in real life, you can also preserve dead ones in a museum when living people take over their space.

I should also add this is a current concern for me. I've returned to help the Jelbic language and culture but there's a shortage of interested people. I hope to revive things through the Terran Tourist Board idea and encourage new players, but if that fails, how can I fairly maintain a one-person idea?

But my view is not the only one that is important here. I do put time and effort into making sure Cultural Protocols and other rules are being followed. It's far from the most enjoyable way I could be spending my time, but I have been doing it out of a sense of duty, because I believed it was necessary to restore confidence in the Cultural Protocols and that it was what the community wanted. If anyone thinks it would be best if I ceased doing this, then I would ask them, if they have not done so already, to tell me so - either here or in private. I do not want to be spending time doing all of this if that is not wanted.

There is probably no perfect answer to the challenges facing the game. Whatever we do, not everybody is going to be happy. The beleaguered thought going through my mind right now is that I have totally worked my butt off and done my best to deliver what I was asked to deliver, and yet still nobody is satisfied! But I've been around long enough to know that was always going to be the case, so I can't complain.

I'm sure your effort is appreciated and we certainly need awareness and confidence in the protocols. If we add a third middle option to the Protocol, it gives the community the choice and would be easy to relay due to your work explaining the difference between Protected and Open nations. Things always evolve. Strangely, the sudden surge of critical opinion that we can harness to refine things probably only came about because of you taking the effort to change things and simplify an idea that was flawed in its execution. As the original architect, I want to put this right by chairing this discussion and finding the right way, at least for this era's opinions.

It'll evolve, it'll change and this discussion will just fade into distant memory as another point is raised to suggest amendment; such is legislation. Hopefully, if we get it right, it'll reduce the amount of time you need to spend enforcing it, too!

If we derive an improved formula for this, you'll have kick-started the process to make it better by raising awareness and understanding in simplifying it at taking the time to communicate it. Give me any opinion poll on policy from my days with the eyeball as you'd be lucky to have any go over 50% for a single option; you can't please everyone.

Sure, it's not the same as having people actively laud your decisions as a Moderator, but then people seldom take the time to appreciate the good decisions as they're busy playing now the issues are resolved. In a way, a quiet inbox is the closest to praise a Moderator ever gets, because if you've got everything right, nothing extraordinary needs doing and everyone's happy playing.

It can be thankless and even worse. I actually had demands made during certain periods of my Moderatorship and even when I explained I had a lack of time to undertake something for OOC reasons -- even to delay it by a day or two -- have received terrible replies to the effect that people didn't give a shit and that, as a Moderator, I should do it anyway regardless, of it being my voluntary contribution mucking out the stable. If the playing community saw the sometimes despicable stuff Moderators receive, it would open a lot of eyes.

Trust me, you're doing fine.

The rules as they stand now are a best effort, not a miracle solution. They are not set in stone and there could end up being changes. To be honest, when I was working on the new rules, I had a sense that I was unleashing something significant and that I did not know for sure where the end point of the journey would be, but that the general direction upon which we were embarking was the right one. This reflects even in the title of the rules. It was called "Rules of the Game (interim version)". Another document, the "Game Rules", was (and is) meant to come later.

There is never a final version and I never expect any rule I see in this game to be immune to future refinement. Opinions shift just like the nine issues in Particracy nations. Release what you can enforce and you'll not have the mistakes Pax Cyn made.

My last word will be about the Culturally Open nations and the English majority nations. I know they're not fashionable amongst some of us, but we do need them. Many players very understandably prefer to play in a nation with a culture similar to their own, and this means we need for these nations to be available to them. It is also my belief and my experience that to some extent, the success of the development of the non-English nations depends upon there being English nations available. The desire to play in a nation with a different culture so often comes after having first played in an English nation for a long time and then developing a curiosity to try something new. I know; I was one of those players.

I'm fairly sure most of us did (I started in an anglophone Pontesi but was working with Aloria). My problem wasn't so much with them being Anglophone, but more that they were always Republics with Presidents and Senates. We need some but several nations were reverted from creative ideas to these ideas and we lamented it heavily on the forum. The original iteration of CultPro certainly lined up against these and I agree that this nuance -- although I think you have already -- certainly needs to be dropped.

Who knows? Maybe someday people will not remember the day before there were CPs, and they will seem as natural in their place as they don't seem today to some of us.

I certainly remember the days prior to CultPros and the cultural issues of the era were typified by two major problems. First, the destruction of an RP culture by absolute non-descript variables; Second, the domination of a nation -- cultured or generic -- with a new culture via mass invasion of parties. To my mind, herein lies the crux of the matter (and indeed one your opt-in/opt-out suggestion would address): Some love Cultural Protocols for their absolute protection, some revile them for the ability to impose on other players who may have been there before.

The error of my early days was in not seeing the latter point of view in a drive for more interesting cultures and presuming that the attitudes to Cultural development were binary opposites. This poll shows me that we indeed need a middle ground as well.

If the lessons of this past be e'er forgotten, spout the above at them.

[TheNewGuy]

-snip-

Didn't you just tell us you have a full time job now, man?! How do you get the time to write this stuff?!

Anyway, quit making me miss Dynastia, and also, you're 100% right about how people have no idea about how shitty being a Mod can be. Aquinas is doing fine as far as I can tell, though he's also got a more friendly community than I did, as far as I can tell, although that is at least mostly my own doing.

Anyway, all of y'all are way more into this game than I ever was. I could never be assed to care this much. I'm not sure if I'm impressed or alarmed or what.