Cultural Protocols: A Broader Discussion

[EEL Mk2]

I have no strong theoretical objection to the idea of a nation moving from Culturally Open to Culturally Protected status, but I do tend to feel that somehow this would need to be reconciled with the principle that there should always be at least some Culturally Open nations available in the game. Cultural Protocols are not for everybody. Some players - and I do understand why - prefer the flexibility that comes with not having them.

I acknowledge IdioC's concerns about permanently opening particular nations, but I do think that this conflict can only be resolved if some countries are designated as permanently open. I do believe, though, that IdioC's concerns may be addressed if, in the event of exceptional RP in permanently open nations, moderation may take the decision to grant said nation cultural protection, whereas other countries would receive cultural protection on demand (so long as protocols meet certain minimum standards).

As I said before, and as I think you agreed, the longer a player is allowed to play in breach of the rules, the more likelihood there is he will be resistant and find it unfair when he is finally asked to conform to them.

This could potentially be solved by messaging a new player who is in breach of cultural protocols (in a country where protocols are reactively enforced) to the effect that, "You are in breach of cultural protocols due to [offence]. Due to the terms of cultural protocols in [country], moderation does not have a mandate to proactively enforce protocols, so, as there has not been a complaint, moderation will not apply sanctions. However, please be advised that this is not always the case. In nations with proactively enforced protocols, sanctions may be applied without a prior complaint."

I think the concept of having Cultural Protocols that automatically expire faces 2 particular challenges in terms of being practicable. (i) How precisely would you decide whether a nation's culture had "expired"? (ii) How confident could you be that this system would hold consensus amongst the playing community? Bear in mind we are in a situation today where players can feel that the identity, history and role-play of their nation has a strong connection to that of other nations. If one nation's culture is "expired", players beyond that nation may perceive themselves to be affected.

Expiry should be dealt with by means of a simple time limit. However, I think that moderation should retain discretion to extend the limit, or even grant semi-permanent protection, if RP in other nations would be seriously adversely impacted by expiry. I hope that addresses (ii).

[IdioC]

Before I begin, please don't anyone think I am taking any of this discussion personally. Everything here has been about the game and its direction, not about personalities. You're all great people.

Glad we've both established that. Love and peace.

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.

Yes, I agree that if that situation arose in one of those nations, it could be frustrating to those players and seem unfair. I think the odds are against that situation developing, though, because in practice, most of the players who aspire to do things with the Cultural Protocols already have some experience of the forum and some awareness of how the rules work. So the majority of players like that would be savvy enough to take their cultural projects/ambitions to nations where they have the best chance of implementing them.

I have no strong theoretical objection to the idea of a nation moving from Culturally Open to Culturally Protected status, but I do tend to feel that somehow this would need to be reconciled with the principle that there should always be at least some Culturally Open nations available in the game. Cultural Protocols are not for everybody. Some players - and I do understand why - prefer the flexibility that comes with not having them.

I concur that we need more open nations and I imagine that some would have been locked "Open" if I had had the foresight to include the option to do. Let's introduce this option, treat these nations as locked "Open" (with an expiry similar to a Cultural Protocol) and allow the players to decide in due course how things move.

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.

But the thing is, Culturally Protected nations *are* subject to cultural changes "in line with RL cultural rises and falls"! Cultural Protocols do get amended in response to that kind of RP. If you go through the history of Cultural Protocol changes (and I appreciate that would take a lot of time, btw.), you'll see that within the framework of the Cultural Protocols, cultures can change radically.

What I will concede is this: the absence of nations available for brand new Cultural Protocols generally means players with culture-building ambitions are disadvantaged if they lack the adeptness some of our more experienced players have both for role-playing and for Cultural Protocol lawyering (ie. the art of knowing what to do to convince Moderators to approve Cultural Protocol changes).

On a personal level, I do empathise with the frustration a player might feel in this situation, especially when they see that in the past, players had little problem setting up their own cultures in nations, and in the present, other players are being successful in getting cultural changes implemented whilst their own efforts are not being so successful. This means, I think, that there is responsibility, on the part of Moderators and the more experienced players, to respond to such situations sensitively and offer the right guidance/support.

I haven't been clear enough on what I mean I by "change" and that's my error. I mean a Cultural Change as in absolute overhaul and replacement (I'm still stuck in the mindset that one CultPro would overwrite the previous in the early days; things were a lot more volatile). I accept that large-scale amendment can happen under CultPro.

It is good that Moderation and the community offer support, but if we address the current situation to allow more "Open" nations to develop, the frustration will wane.

There is a view that if a player is in breach of the Cultural Protocols but nobody else in the nation is bothered by it, then they should generally be left to carry on as they are. My own personal view used to be, if not quite this, then something close to this. I would have found the idea of Moderators actively monitoring Cultural Protocol compliance to be intrusive and over-the-top. I would have thought this all the more so about the idea of making it necessary to be complying with the Cultural Protocols in order to receive reactivations and early elections.

Now let me explain why, after having been in this role for about 4 months, in all candour and to the best of my judgement, I no longer see the laissez-faire approach as an option.

To allow a player to disregard the rules is easy enough to do and might be the least confrontational thing to do at the time. But guess what? That player is not the only player in the game. As I said before, and as I think you agreed, the longer a player is allowed to play in breach of the rules, the more likelihood there is he will be resistant and find it unfair when he is finally asked to conform to them. So guess what happens when a player turns up in the nation who *does* care about its culture? To be fair, there are cases where the players communicate with each other and come to an understanding. But in too many other cases...yes, you guessed it...bitterness, conflict & chaos!

The pernicious effect of players not following the rules goes beyond disputes like this (not all of which reach the forum, btw.). What happens is, players who would like to play in the nation because they are attracted by its cultural background think "I would like to go there, but I don't want to as the culture isn't working because of that player and I don't want to get into a conflict with him". So in effect, whatever the Cultural Protocols say, the nation will be effectively closed to them. A certain few will react in the exact opposite way ("I'm going to go to that nation so I can have a fight with that player and get Moderation on my side"). More generally, players across the game will be thinking and saying "Moderation is useless and the Cultural Protocols must be either unenforced or unenforceable, and the game is broken".

A laissez-faire approach to cultural protection would not be a neutral choice, but a guaranteed choice for acrimony, a diminishment of player confidence in the Cultural Protocols and even in Moderation, and worse, general disillusionment with the game. Having Cultural Protocols but leaving them unenforced does not help *anybody* - neither the players who do follow them nor the players who don't follow them.

A very interesting insight and thanks for taking the time to commit it to type. Indeed not all disputes leave the game engine and reach the forum, some players enter nations as raging bulls with a point and conflict and acrimony will always result from disagreements over RP and related minutae the engine cannot police. If the agreements are taken to the absolute letter then yes, intervention and absolute policing of them is necessary to prevent conflict but comes with a high cost for the benefit when many others, as you describe, take a relaxed approach.

I think this scenario furthers the case for a "hard" and "soft" version of CultPro, as -- in accordance with your description as well as the poll -- players will either want a rough guide or a rigid framework.

If we presume existing ones to be "hard" unless nations opt for the softer option, then the nations who want to relax can do so and Moderation time can be better applied to the strict nations.

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 is no "sanction" involved. It is not treated in any way as a disciplinary matter. It's just part of the procedure that if you want to be reactivated or have Moderation call an early election, you need to be in compliance with the rules. This also avoids situations where Moderation is accused of actively facilitating such situations as the election of "Ronald Reagan" as President of Ibutho or of the Pakistani Muslim Congress as the largest party in Dundorf.

Perhaps "sanction" is strong, but it's still a reversion of someone's effort, so they are penalised to an extent (whether fair or foul). CultPro originally carried a penalty of warnings for violation. Moderation often get accused of helping someone as an ad hom. attack by people who fall foul of things because they ran out of arguments.

...and the examples you cite are both cringeworthily hilarious.

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 think the concept of having Cultural Protocols that automatically expire faces 2 particular challenges in terms of being practicable.

i) How precisely would you decide whether a nation's culture had "expired"?

ii) How confident could you be that this system would hold consensus amongst the playing community? Bear in mind we are in a situation today where players can feel that the identity, history and role-play of their nation has a strong connection to that of other nations. If one nation's culture is "expired", players beyond that nation may perceive themselves to be affected.

Fair questions.

i) If no-one can legitimately play in the nation under CultPro, it will remain vacant for the entire expiry period. If someone moves in and plays with something against the culture, either they'll be kicked out (if strict) or left to play their own way (which would be controversial under the current protocol as you've established)... the countdown can reliably be taken from the in-game month the nation's culture has no active participants.

ii) Consensus through forum discussions, as with most of the other non-engine rules. Cultural Protocols refer to the forum and active ones require players to return to the forum to validate them and contest points based on them. If we maintain the current ones as the strict forms to maintain continuity, existing ones are not directly affected for those who aren't aware of the change; those who feel them too strict can opt for the relaxed version; and those who frankly can't stand them can take opt-outs instead.

Eventually I will propose a revised version for either approval or revision.

From following some of the recent discussions, an unfamiliar observer could be forgiven for thinking there is some kind of Reign of Terror going on. This is not so.

The rules require no player to immerse themselves in and deeply engage with the culture of a nation. No player in Aldegar, for example, has their playing style monitored and scrutinised to ensure they are role-playing their political party in a satisfactorily "authentic" Persian/Aldegarian way (whatever that might mean).

All the Cultural Protocols actually require of players is to do the minimum - and no more than the minimum - that is necessary to adequately acknowledge the culture of the nation so that those who do wish to role-play with the culture are able to do so. That is all.

At the risk of making myself unfashionable around here...there is no stronger champion of our English party players than me. They form a large section of our player base. Most are not forum regulars, but many of them play the game very enthusiastically and create great enjoyment both for themselves and others. At times, we in the forum community tend to under-value and misunderstand them.

But let me say this: it is *precisely* because I respect them and their preferences that I believe in guiding them towards those nations where they are going to have the best possible experience of this game. I do not believe in laissez-faire; I do not believe in letting them wander unawares into an OOC cultural battlefield and then waiting until everything goes wrong.

Hence I felt the need to clarify that I was questioning decisions but not your intent. You've had a noticable amount of flak thrown your way of late and it was important to exclude those bunfights from this debate.

Anglophone cultures are important and the original CultPros did not consider their value properly as, at the time, about 40 of the nations were. This was an oversight.

However, you've identified flaws with laissez-faire and the community have identified flaws with rigidity. We need a middle way.

A final point to make is that although, on the forum, we mainly tend to hear about it when a player is dissatisfied about a Moderation decision concerning enforcement of the Cultural Protocols, it would be mistaken to think the process of cultural enforcement is a negative one for players. Again and again, players who I've contacted about following Cultural Protocols have taken up my suggestion of translating their party name into the appropriate native language, even though I've made clear they are by no means required by the rules to do so. Some of them have researched the Cultural Protocols Index and whizzed off around Terra, moving to different nations and trying out the different cultures. The thing that has astonished me the most has been how often players take their enthusiasm for cultural immersion rather further than I would like, by which I mean doing things like putting their party and bill descriptions entirely in a non-English language.

So whilst Cultural Protocols are not always universally popular, I would argue they are much more than just a restriction - they can actually be a powerful selling point for this game.

They are important, as is cultural enforcement, but they're not only on and off, but a continuum. The single-language nations were intended to protect groups of players from other countries as not all players are anglophones, provided one could translate. They protect cultures in the game and encourage role play for the better.

The problem is that they're on or off at the moment, can be put on players who might not like them and have no opt-out. We need a middle way and said opt-out.

2) I would prefer to make it so that players couldn't come in as short timers and pass a bill for opening the culture. I would also like to include moderation in on the discussion, because I think Moderation has the memory about the game as a whole. Right now, Aquinas has said that a culture can be unprotected if there is a good reason to do so. I think a "good reason" includes the will of the players in a country. So I think it would take something a little more comprehensive and fundamental than a statement..

There would have to be time expiry factor in addition to the Cultural Opening to allow protection for players on holiday or temporary inactives. The duration... is a matter for the community to decide upon.

I propose this. This would be the standard process:

a) An OOC bill to withdraw from the CP regime is passed with UNANIMOUS vote in an OOC resolution of all PCs in the country. If a Party misses the vote, it is no good. All those Players currently in the country have to pass the bill. The Bill should contain your wording, with a couple changes:

We, the Players of <<nation>> hereby request that the nation of <<nation>> to be declared Culturally Open. We think it should be culturally open because i) nobody is interested in playing the culture set for this country, ii) this culture was set for us without our input, or iii) This country has been vacant for more than 20 elections, or iv) This culture is too limited to permit the sort of roleplay that we wish to do in this country. We understand that, if we become a Culturally Open state, no language, ethnicity or culture may be locked through Cultural Protocols in this nation until this country is vacant for 5 elections, at which point, the last CP which Moderation will have approved for this country shall be restored and enforced by Moderation.

b) Once this Resolution passes, it will be forwarded to Moderation, who will then consider it, taking whatever time necessary to do due dilligence to ascertain if indeed the Players really want out of the CP.
c) If Moderation finds that indeed all players truly want to abandon the CP because of any or all of those four reasons, Moderation will declare the country Culturally open, and it will remain so until the country is vacant for 5 election cycles (in Kalistan, that is 15 years, for example) after which point, the CP which was passed for the country will go back into effect.
d) The Players, through unanimous vote in an OOC Resolution, may vote, at any time to restore the previously moderator-approved CP for any or no reason, so that if a country becomes vacant, and other players move there quickly, they can put the CP back into effect.
e) The accepted CP cannot be modified after this OOC resolution passes. It can only be modified when the country is Protected. Naturally, I would grandfather all currently open nations out of this restriction, but any that passed their resolutions after this policy would take effect would be, in a sense, cryogenically freezing their CP, not erasing it.
f) If Moderation opts to NOT remove protection from the country, they have to explain why they did so in a public forum post, and it has to be something more compelling that "A few players who don't play in your country don't think that your country should be unprotected." There has to be a legitimate reason for ignoring the will of the players in the country; some of which include: the players themselves just moved there to throw out the CP, or the Moderators feel that this is an effort at an illegitimate invasion or something like this. If the move appears to deliberately violate the other rules of the game, it should be rejected. Otherwise, once the true will of the players in the country has been ascertained, the Moderators should follow the players' lead rather than just protecting the CP for the sake of protecting CPs.

This would allow Moderation to retain control over the final decision, but at the same time, give the players some control over whether or not it happens. The desire to establish the CP protection should be collaborative, not top down. But Moderation should also be trusted, because the players in the country are, by definition, interested in their own case, while Moderators are expected to be impartial. I would just want to make sure that players who do not want to use the protocol are not excluded from the game. The way I see this, the protocols don't work for everyone. Kalistan is just an example, and we can explain, RPly, why they don't. I am sure other countries are like this too. I also don't want to deny people the opportunity to buy back into the CP- this is conservative and shows a bias toward expanding the Protocols, making it more difficult to get out than to get in. But the out door should never be completely closed, and should never just be up to two folks who do not even play in the country in question.

This would become a new rule under the CP Rule 6. What do you think?

Interesting. I'll have to think a bit further on this to test it but I'll get back.

[Aquinas]

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

I concur that we need more open nations and I imagine that some would have been locked "Open" if I had had the foresight to include the option to do. Let's introduce this option, treat these nations as locked "Open" (with an expiry similar to a Cultural Protocol) and allow the players to decide in due course how things move.

I would be interested to know more about the history of the Cultural Protocols, since after reading through this thread again... I'm getting a bit confused. I thought the first Cultural Protocols came in about 4 years ago, when Darvian and Urien/Liu Che were the Moderators. What was the history and the situation before then?

I think this scenario furthers the case for a "hard" and "soft" version of CultPro, as -- in accordance with your description as well as the poll -- players will either want a rough guide or a rigid framework.

I would return here to what I wrote here in my previous post:

The rules require no player to immerse themselves in and deeply engage with the culture of a nation. No player in Aldegar, for example, has their playing style monitored and scrutinised to ensure they are role-playing their political party in a satisfactorily "authentic" Persian/Aldegarian way (whatever that might mean).

All the Cultural Protocols actually require of players is to do the minimum - and no more than the minimum - that is necessary to adequately acknowledge the culture of the nation so that those who do wish to role-play with the culture are able to do so. That is all.

The current rules surrounding Culturally Protected nations are not that "hard". They do not micro-manage role-play. They require no more than the most basic acknowledgement of the cultural background, such as in choice of character names and the formal title of the nation (and even in these areas, there can be flexibility). Party names can always be in English. Also, unlike before, players are now guaranteed the right to have constitutional titles (other than the nation name) in English in all circumstances.

We already have Culturally Open nations. How much demand is there for a form of cultural protection which is more "relaxed" than the one currently available? Precisely what things would these more relaxed forms of cultural protection protect against?

However, you've identified flaws with laissez-faire and the community have identified flaws with rigidity. We need a middle way.

How much evidence do we have so far that "the community" finds the Cultural Protocols to have "flaws with rigidity"? Concerns have been expressed, of course, but it seems too early to come to a conclusion about the general verdict. I would suggest we need to give them more time.

We have seen calls for Cultural Protocols to automatically expire under certain conditions and for players to be able to adopt a looser form of cultural protection or opt-out of cultural protection altogether. From my perspective, here are some of the challenges involved here:

i. How precisely would you define the conditions under which a nation's Cultural Protocols would "expire"? It seems to me that this question has not been satisfactorily answered yet. Not that I want to say it is impossible to satisfactorily answer it, just that we haven't yet seen a precise & practical formula put on offer. How do you define whether a nation's culture is being actively role-played with? Remember, by the way, that we are now in an era where almost all players are going to be conforming to the culture in regards to the requirements of the rules (eg. character naming). The days when Jelbania's Cabinet was regularly made up of names like "Joe Bloggs", and "Fred Brown" are over.

ii. Would such a system be able to maintain the consensus support of the community, or would sudden changes in the cultural status of nations provoke a passionate chorus of disapproving cries along the lines of "That doesn't make any sense at all!", "You're destroying all our work!", "You're vandalising our cultures!" and "You've ruined our continent!"?

iii. How easy would it be to communicate a 3-tier system (Culturally Open and two versions of Culturally Protected) to the player base?

From my personal experience as a Moderator so far, I would say that once players have been in a Culturally Protected nation and adapted there, they tend to know what to do when they join another Culturally Protected nation. However, when players move from Culturally Open nations or English-themed nations to a non-English Culturally Protected nation...then it is much more likely they will make mistakes (even if they have been in the game for month/years...).

If we had a multi-tiered approach with different types of cultural protection for different nations...I am inclined to believe this would increase the room for confusion, since rules which applied to one culturally protected nation would not apply to another.

[errant sperm]

A census should be reqired to maintain the CP. If a nation goes inactive and has not done a census within 500 game years, I think a player should be allowed to establish a new CP that has limitless changes. Maybe reqire some very minor RP to back it up. The game is never going to be 100% realistic. Is a nation with no active parties realistic? Of course not. But it is just a game. Realism is important but having fun is the most important so if someone wants to take control of an inactive nation and make major changes then it should be allowed.

Please allow minority immigrant parties to exist. It is historicly realistc that foreigners can have political sucess.

I think the 2nd option on the poll is the status quo. Considering the third option currently has 50%, I would say this indicates that the community wants more relaxed CP rules.

[IdioC]

Just to say I'll reply in fuller in a few days and Aquinas, I'll happily divulge the history. It explains a lot about the form and why the modifications were necessary since.

[IdioC]

On the history front, the text of the Cultural Protocols was taken over from the old forum when that forum went under.

Notice one of the earliest replies in that thread mentions the "Quanzar/Istalia" precedent. In this case, a vacant nation (Quanzar) was taken over by a bunch of Italian players -- of whom only one was an anglophone -- to make a nation for non-English speaking players. I figured that provided one player ("Garibaldi" as it turned out) could reason for them on the forum, the community would benefit from having other nationalities. The trade-off would be that an anglophone representative on the forum would be a requirement to both provide this community benefit and reason for the non-anglophone players' behalves, alongside an expiry time if either this player could not provide this (from which being culturally "dormant" came into being) or if all the players fell off the world (from which culturally "void" came into being).

A hard, codified system was absolutely necessary for these nations; a subset of the community were vehemently opposed to this idea and mounted invasion attempts from which these nations needed protection. Only one other nation used CultPro for this original reason as I recall: Darnussia became "Lusitania" for a spell with Portugese-speaking players. Cultural Protocols were always a contentious from these origins despite being later expanded to include RP culture to provide a benefit to all. The first major case was Deltaria, where a Slavic culture faced opposition from a party constantly ignoring RP culture with a 300-year President called "Adrian".

Different mods have brought it back from the original forum and amended it several times. At each juncture, they're faced calls for scrapping from some quarters. Now their predominant purpose is actually to protect and codify the RP of nations, using protections originally designed to ringfence non-English speakers from invasion under the heady days of The System Comes First.

Which -- all things continuing in a similar vein since -- brings us to now. Some players based on this poll evidently desire these steadfast protections to remain to protect their hard work at the expense of accessibility. A similar number want a relaxed alternative to exist, risking more control of their productivity to encourage a more fluid evolution of culture with more input. A smaller number, as ever, want an opt-out (or perhaps even for the whole damn house of cards to frankly fuck off and die).

The current predicament is a the consequence of many moderator interpretations of an imperfect solution I devised for one problem, which has since been applied to another.

Mods have had to muck out the stable and cope with a divided community response on this for over six years: the time has come to resolve this by working on the three-tiered solution the community seems to want.

...I'll complete my analysis of the outstanding remarks tomorrow.

[IdioC]

I think this scenario furthers the case for a "hard" and "soft" version of CultPro, as -- in accordance with your description as well as the poll -- players will either want a rough guide or a rigid framework.

I would return here to what I wrote here in my previous post:

The rules require no player to immerse themselves in and deeply engage with the culture of a nation. No player in Aldegar, for example, has their playing style monitored and scrutinised to ensure they are role-playing their political party in a satisfactorily "authentic" Persian/Aldegarian way (whatever that might mean).

All the Cultural Protocols actually require of players is to do the minimum - and no more than the minimum - that is necessary to adequately acknowledge the culture of the nation so that those who do wish to role-play with the culture are able to do so. That is all.

The current rules surrounding Culturally Protected nations are not that "hard". They do not micro-manage role-play. They require no more than the most basic acknowledgement of the cultural background, such as in choice of character names and the formal title of the nation (and even in these areas, there can be flexibility). Party names can always be in English. Also, unlike before, players are now guaranteed the right to have constitutional titles (other than the nation name) in English in all circumstances.

We already have Culturally Open nations. How much demand is there for a form of cultural protection which is more "relaxed" than the one currently available? Precisely what things would these more relaxed forms of cultural protection protect against?

I would be worried if any player envisaged your enforcement of Cultural Protocols in the extreme manner you refer to. Players do indeed need to do the bare minimum, but largely due to differing opinions, terms in the CultPro text intended for other purposes and a range of community opinions on how relaxed they should be, the problem herein is the definition of said minimum.

Political opinions, cultures and ethnic make-up of nations evolve gradually over time but in the game engine, we cannot have rival minority parties grow up within the nation gradually, a player has to kick-start it with the sudden arrival of a party in the engine. As such, any such attempts to introduce subtle evolutionary changes are going to violate the CultPro minimum as things stand if any player takes exception. Any new ideas from someone not already in on the act walks a tightrope, as one player could take a hardline CultPro interpretation and give the newcomer grief, even if another might take a relaxed interpretation and try to introduce the new player gradually and enjoy the RP situation that results.

The hardline interpretation is the legacy of a law designed to protect conduct in an entirely different language from invasion from existing anglophone players trying to restore a culturally dead nation where no players remained. This has certainly been necessary in some nations for RP culture protection besides this -- especially with some "glorious" invasion tactics over the years ( )-- and I would never seek to deprive players the option of this, but it almost freezes the nation in time and allows players to prevent anything. It's not realistic or that welcoming to new players. Probably why a sizable number of locked nations are a bit thin on the ground player-wise.

The relaxed interpretation is the approach of players who want to not have their hard work obliterated but are receptive to evolutionary ideas whilst having a position to fall back on if someone starts bulldozing their nation. Of course, the suggestions still have to be sensible and viable -- which makes totally novel ideas a problem -- such as religious parties of a Terran religion, a party of migrants from a nearby nation etc.

The crux of the matter is a simple one: We have a single document but two implicit interpretations! The poll here and opinions in all the threads I've seen on the subject are unable to reach a harmonious acceptance of either interpretation, so we need to codify which.

However, you've identified flaws with laissez-faire and the community have identified flaws with rigidity. We need a middle way.

How much evidence do we have so far that "the community" finds the Cultural Protocols to have "flaws with rigidity"? Concerns have been expressed, of course, but it seems too early to come to a conclusion about the general verdict. I would suggest we need to give them more time.

The history of community concern over the reach of CultPro is long. Here's a selection:

*The Quanzar/Istalia case which led to their creation. The original thread was on the old forum but my decision to protect nations speaking other languages in such an absolute way caused outrage for some. This also resulted in some players trolling Istalia as rightly protested (actually by yourself as it happens (protesting, not the trolling)) here, with me referring a bit to the history and the Lusitania situation.
*The opinions on the thread on their 2009 re-introduction.
*A debate linked in the above from the Jelbic languages thread, also 2009.
*A thread from 2011 showing a split in opinion into two predominant camps on the extent of protection (and how the vote should be brought in).
*A thread from 2012 concerning whether monarchies are included or not.
*This thread from 2012 where the moderation position on CultPro enforcement had in fact changed despite it being a restoration of the original pre-2009 one (the right to use a secondary language provided at least someone could reason in English on request was the original interpretation).
*A further thread bemoaning the rise of Anglo-Saxon nations that evolves into a discussion on the reach of CultPro.
*...and this poll.

Generally, different nations have envisaged cultural protocols to protect a spectrum of things to a spectrum of degrees, then asked moderation to muck out their various stables, sometimes treating things loosely defined as inviolable characteristics or vice versa.

Hence, I seek to rectify my earlier mistake and at least 6 years subsequent pain with clearly defined "absolute", "loose guideline" and "opt-out" versions with "do not cross on pain of death", "you can't kick down this sandcastle" and "go nuts" as consequences. In the first case, anything unspecified isn't protected to give people a chance to comply while in the second, sensible implication and inference is permitted. Strict definitions for strict protections in the first; loose definitions for loose protections in the second.

We have seen calls for Cultural Protocols to automatically expire under certain conditions and for players to be able to adopt a looser form of cultural protection or opt-out of cultural protection altogether. From my perspective, here are some of the challenges involved here:

i. How precisely would you define the conditions under which a nation's Cultural Protocols would "expire"? It seems to me that this question has not been satisfactorily answered yet. Not that I want to say it is impossible to satisfactorily answer it, just that we haven't yet seen a precise & practical formula put on offer. How do you define whether a nation's culture is being actively role-played with? Remember, by the way, that we are now in an era where almost all players are going to be conforming to the culture in regards to the requirements of the rules (eg. character naming). The days when Jelbania's Cabinet was regularly made up of names like "Joe Bloggs", and "Fred Brown" are over.

ii. Would such a system be able to maintain the consensus support of the community, or would sudden changes in the cultural status of nations provoke a passionate chorus of disapproving cries along the lines of "That doesn't make any sense at all!", "You're destroying all our work!", "You're vandalising our cultures!" and "You've ruined our continent!"?

iii. How easy would it be to communicate a 3-tier system (Culturally Open and two versions of Culturally Protected) to the player base?

i) Indeed it's not answered yet, as it's a subsequent question that'll need a separate poll. I'll come to this in due course with a new thread (with respect to names: It also should be remembered that if a party leaves the fields blank, they will get automatically generated names from the game engine). I have rough relative timeframes that I'll put in the next part but the fuller discussion will come later.

ii) The transition, as I see it, can only be smoothly acheived in one way, balancing fair protection with incentive:

*Current cultural protocols would have to be presumed strict: bills in nations renewed to acknowledge this change and grant the opportunity to plug any cultural gaps.
--I envisage that strict protocols due to their inflexibility would expire the fastest (e.g. 50 in-game years from the last use of cultural activity; 75 RL days) due to their relative inaccessibility.
--Due to their strictness, new ones need unanimity from playing parties to impose.

*Nations with cultural protocols which take the relaxed interpretation can opt-in to the relaxed system.
--In return, they will not need pro-active policing by moderation -- although will still be able to raise concerns for investigation as with any issue -- and will have a grace period of double the "strict" type (in this example, 100 in-game years from last use of cultural activity; 150 RL days).
--Due to the more relaxed nature, new ones need a 2/3 majority of players from playing parties to impose and to guarantee some cultural suggestions of the remaining 1/3 as minority cultures.

*Nations that want to define themselves as culturally "Open" can do so, but require renewal at least every 100 in-game years to keep the nation forced open (or whatever the "Relaxed" expiry length).
--This will be hard to overcome with a strict or relaxed system under the above terms unless absolutely wanted and will hopefully see a slow increase in open nations up to a suitable number over time.

*Expiry will be simple: Stricts expire and become Relaxeds (but with 50 in-game years left until expiry to "Open" as the day of last cultural activity hasn't changed). Relaxeds expire and become Opens. Opens expire to nothing until renewed.

iii) Simply with clearer names than I chose 6 years ago (subject to community approval): "Absolute Cultural Definition" (Strict), "Cultural Protection" (Relaxed) and "Cultural Opt-Out" (Open). Players to be messaged with a link to the thread announcing the change. Grace period before change of 2 RL weeks.

From my personal experience as a Moderator so far, I would say that once players have been in a Culturally Protected nation and adapted there, they tend to know what to do when they join another Culturally Protected nation. However, when players move from Culturally Open nations or English-themed nations to a non-English Culturally Protected nation...then it is much more likely they will make mistakes (even if they have been in the game for month/years...).

If we had a multi-tiered approach with different types of cultural protection for different nations...I am inclined to believe this would increase the room for confusion, since rules which applied to one culturally protected nation would not apply to another.

Rules are for guiding that small number who don't tend to know what to do; players who co-operate with themselves and the rules can generally be left alone to do as they will.

Provided we have the three Strict, Relaxed and Open tiers with clear names and explanations, we'll not let the community down with the confusion of my original four!

...but there is yet more to iron out in due course before it's ready for implementation. I'll get the next stage rolling this week.

2) I would prefer to make it so that players couldn't come in as short timers and pass a bill for opening the culture. I would also like to include moderation in on the discussion, because I think Moderation has the memory about the game as a whole. Right now, Aquinas has said that a culture can be unprotected if there is a good reason to do so. I think a "good reason" includes the will of the players in a country. So I think it would take something a little more comprehensive and fundamental than a statement..

I propose this. This would be the standard process:

a) An OOC bill to withdraw from the CP regime is passed with UNANIMOUS vote in an OOC resolution of all PCs in the country. If a Party misses the vote, it is no good. All those Players currently in the country have to pass the bill. The Bill should contain your wording, with a couple changes:

We, the Players of <<nation>> hereby request that the nation of <<nation>> to be declared Culturally Open. We think it should be culturally open because i) nobody is interested in playing the culture set for this country, ii) this culture was set for us without our input, or iii) This country has been vacant for more than 20 elections, or iv) This culture is too limited to permit the sort of roleplay that we wish to do in this country. We understand that, if we become a Culturally Open state, no language, ethnicity or culture may be locked through Cultural Protocols in this nation until this country is vacant for 5 elections, at which point, the last CP which Moderation will have approved for this country shall be restored and enforced by Moderation.

b) Once this Resolution passes, it will be forwarded to Moderation, who will then consider it, taking whatever time necessary to do due dilligence to ascertain if indeed the Players really want out of the CP.
c) If Moderation finds that indeed all players truly want to abandon the CP because of any or all of those four reasons, Moderation will declare the country Culturally open, and it will remain so until the country is vacant for 5 election cycles (in Kalistan, that is 15 years, for example) after which point, the CP which was passed for the country will go back into effect.
d) The Players, through unanimous vote in an OOC Resolution, may vote, at any time to restore the previously moderator-approved CP for any or no reason, so that if a country becomes vacant, and other players move there quickly, they can put the CP back into effect.
e) The accepted CP cannot be modified after this OOC resolution passes. It can only be modified when the country is Protected. Naturally, I would grandfather all currently open nations out of this restriction, but any that passed their resolutions after this policy would take effect would be, in a sense, cryogenically freezing their CP, not erasing it.
f) If Moderation opts to NOT remove protection from the country, they have to explain why they did so in a public forum post, and it has to be something more compelling that "A few players who don't play in your country don't think that your country should be unprotected." There has to be a legitimate reason for ignoring the will of the players in the country; some of which include: the players themselves just moved there to throw out the CP, or the Moderators feel that this is an effort at an illegitimate invasion or something like this. If the move appears to deliberately violate the other rules of the game, it should be rejected. Otherwise, once the true will of the players in the country has been ascertained, the Moderators should follow the players' lead rather than just protecting the CP for the sake of protecting CPs.

This would allow Moderation to retain control over the final decision, but at the same time, give the players some control over whether or not it happens. The desire to establish the CP protection should be collaborative, not top down. But Moderation should also be trusted, because the players in the country are, by definition, interested in their own case, while Moderators are expected to be impartial. I would just want to make sure that players who do not want to use the protocol are not excluded from the game. The way I see this, the protocols don't work for everyone. Kalistan is just an example, and we can explain, RPly, why they don't. I am sure other countries are like this too. I also don't want to deny people the opportunity to buy back into the CP- this is conservative and shows a bias toward expanding the Protocols, making it more difficult to get out than to get in. But the out door should never be completely closed, and should never just be up to two folks who do not even play in the country in question.

This would become a new rule under the CP Rule 6. What do you think?

I would be open to the idea of allowing such a unilateral withdrawal at the half-way mark of expiry (Stricts 25 IGyrs in my example, Relaxeds 50 IGyrs; subject to outcome of further discussions) but we'll put it to the community at the next stage to gather more opinion. The new thread will bring it some more attention.

I think the concept of having Cultural Protocols that automatically expire faces 2 particular challenges in terms of being practicable. (i) How precisely would you decide whether a nation's culture had "expired"? (ii) How confident could you be that this system would hold consensus amongst the playing community? Bear in mind we are in a situation today where players can feel that the identity, history and role-play of their nation has a strong connection to that of other nations. If one nation's culture is "expired", players beyond that nation may perceive themselves to be affected.

Expiry should be dealt with by means of a simple time limit. However, I think that moderation should retain discretion to extend the limit, or even grant semi-permanent protection, if RP in other nations would be seriously adversely impacted by expiry. I hope that addresses (ii).

To reply to your first two points before the quote:
*We definitely need some open nations, the debate is more the method of assigning these. Aquinas appointed some of the last few as permanently open -- which if he hadn't done risked there being none left -- but this risks being seen as arbitrary in the long term (as unfortunately, it had to be). I feel that at some point, we need to let players appoint nations as culturally open with an opt-out mechanism in a future revision of CultPro and provide a mechanism to let an RP culture that exists in these currently "Open" nations be protected in the same way as before. This is more like the evolution of cultures and the enshrinement of their laws in real nations, as well as not damning a newbie who builds a castle in a nation forced "Open" in this manner to leaving their drawbridge lowered and gates unlocked to invasion.

*Contacting a player in breach with an explanation and links to related information is standard good Moderation practice. Aquinas doesn't need my judgement on his skills in this regard, but if his thorough guidance, willingness to respond in a civil fashion to criticism and courteous replies to requests in the moderator section of the forum are anything to go by, I'm sure he's got this covered!

To answer the point you raise about RP in the quote: Time limits are the fairest answer on players OOC. If there's an active RP in the forum involving that culture -- not a thin one instigated post-inactivation as a stalling tactic -- it should of course be allowed to continue. Players inactivate for temporary reasons as well as force majeure and of course moderators should have the power to make fair intervention.

[Aquinas]

A few have stated as fact that the poll accompanying this thread is evidence that Particracy's player community favours a 2-tier system of cultural protection involving 2 forms of Cultural Protocol - "Stricts" and "Relaxeds". So far, how satisfactorily has this theory been demonstrated to be accurate?

To begin with...and I don't want to come across as doubting anybody's integrity here...but in forums like this one, where so many members have multiple accounts, it is objectively difficult to entirely trust the legitimacy of forum poll figures.

But even if we look at the poll on its own terms, we run into sticking points. Despite having played this game for years and been a Moderator for the last 4 months, I cannot quite fathom what exactly the first 3 options mean, in practical terms. The phrasing makes a presumption that Cultural Protocols protect a single, homogenous culture in the nations that have them. This is not actually the case, as some nations have no majority culture, and most (all?) nations have minorities. Owing to this confusion, I puzzled over which option to vote for, and suspect some others did too.

Taken at face value, what the poll actually does suggest is that 26 out of 29 respondents support Particracy having Cultural Protocols. That probably represents greater support for them than they have enjoyed at any time since they were introduced.

*

Concerns have been expressed about a lack of Culturally Open nations. We have responded to this by increasing the number of Culturally Open nations from the original 3 to 6, which represents an increase in player spaces from 24 to 48. Since only 22 of these player spaces are currently being used, we can be confident that any player who wishes to play in a Culturally Open nation is able to do so, and is also able to have a choice of nations to choose from.

*

A further 7 nations have majority English Cultural Protocols, and in these nations, 47 of the 56 player spaces are filled. That's 83% full - an impressive figure, when you consider the game average is 2.74 players per nation (ie. 34% full). However unfashionable they may be in some quarters, the fact is, English nations are in demand and we need English nations available for players who want them.

As I argued earlier, the non-English nations are also partially dependent for their future players on the existence of those English nations. So many of us (myself included) were unwilling to play in a non-English nation at the beginning of their playing careers, but developed the curiosity to do so later on.

*

There has been a suggestion that Cultural Protocols cause nations to be "a bit thin on the ground player-wise". As stated above, the average number of players for a nation in Particracy is 2.74. In other words, if a nation has only 1 or 2 players, comparatively speaking it is not doing so terribly, and if it has 3 players, it is actually above average. I wish our player numbers were higher, but there you go.

But looking at the situation as it is, how convincing is the evidence that Cultural Protocols put off players? Norwegian Kazulia has been busy for some time, and currently boasts 7 players. Welsh-German Aloria has 6 players. German-Dutch Darnussia, Swedish Telamon and Chinese Indrala have 5 players. Jelbic Pontesi has 4 players...

I suggest the reality is Culturally Open nations and English nations tend on average to have more players, and specific Cultural Protocols do deter specific players from joining certain nations. However, they also very definitely draw in others, and they also tend to generate more role-play on the forum.

Surely the key challenge here - and I see this as a part of my job - is to make sure players are fully informed about the options available to them. That way, they are more likely to move to the nation which is right for them and where they are going to have the best possible experience.

*

Political opinions, cultures and ethnic make-up of nations evolve gradually over time but in the game engine, we cannot have rival minority parties grow up within the nation gradually, a player has to kick-start it with the sudden arrival of a party in the engine. As such, any such attempts to introduce subtle evolutionary changes are going to violate the CultPro minimum as things stand if any player takes exception. Any new ideas from someone not already in on the act walks a tightrope, as one player could take a hardline CultPro interpretation and give the newcomer grief, even if another might take a relaxed interpretation and try to introduce the new player gradually and enjoy the RP situation that results.

As I've explained before, it is possible for the cultures of nations to change over time. One of the most dramatic examples of this would be the nation I have played in the most: Dankuk. For example, back in March 2013 the Kyo/Koreans were only the third largest group and made up only 22% of the population. Today they make up 62% of the population.

Another example: Kalopia's Cultural Protocols once made Kalopians/Greeks the majority group with 76% of the population (see here ). Today they are on only 37% (or 23% if you exclude the Sessoldian "Muslim Pontic Greeks").

Nor is it impossible to increase the representation of a cultural group if it does not already feature to some significant degree in the current Cultural Protocols. In co-operation with other players in the nation, you can role-play the introduction of a new culture, or the growth of an existing culture. You can pass Cultural Protocol updates to increase the representation of the group over time. The bounds of realism mean you might not, for example, be able to role-play a party based solely on a culture represented by only 2% of the population. However, you could very well, for example, role-play a party featuring some characters from that culture and advancing the interests of that community as part of a broader political agenda.

*

There is a much more basic question which I would urge for this discussion to focus on. Quite simply, what are Cultural Protocols actually for?

There is a school of thought which sees them primarily as a means to protect players against short-term "nation raiding" or "culture crashing" during short periods when they are outnumbered by newcomers or away from the game. Those with this perspective will probably find Particracy's current system of cultural protection to be too rigid.

I do understand this way of thinking, and there is a level at which I sympathise with it. What I would say, though, is that the limitation with this approach is that it doesn't take adequate account of how the game has changed over the years. There was a time when players more generally stuck to one nation and focussed on that. The situation now has shifted. A lot of players - both on and off the forum - circulate across a range of nations which they are interested in and feel "invested" in. They also tend to care much more than in the past about Terra's international politics and geographical cultural landscape. They see themselves not just as parties in nations, but as participants in the grand project of Terra as a whole.

For these players, Cultural Protocols are much more than a means of seeing off nation raids. They are crucial to establishing the stable, long-term framework in which role-play all through the game takes place. Without them, the Terra so many of them know and love would cease to be so recognisable and believable. They do not object to the cultures of nations changing over time, but they feel this should be done realistically and with role-play, so as to both maintain the continuity of the narrative and respect the work that has been done in the past.

In order to carry a broad consensus amongst players, any attempt at reforming the Cultural Protocols would probably need to acknowledge this to at least some degree.

[IdioC]

An interesting interpretation of the Poll and I agree that there's always a degree of interpretation in subjective descriptions, which has underpinned a lot of our arguments for and against.

I think we've both delivered the summaries for Plaintiff and Defence (and in the appropriate order, no less), so the time has come to move on to more concrete proposals from this conceptual debate. If anyone feels that their poll option does not reflect their true opinion when we try to set absolute figures, rules and limits, I'm sure this will be raised there.

Thanks for your input and analysis. I'm sure where we have things wrong, someone will set us straight.