Announcement on Cultural Eras

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Re: Announcement on Cultural Eras

Postby Reddy » Wed Apr 19, 2017 6:12 am

I want to thank everyone who took part in this consultation and others who communicate their opinions privately to us. Moderation has managed to come to a decision about how to proceed. It's clear that there's no consensus about the model of

We have decided to abolish Cultural Eras entirely. The duties they impose on both players and Moderation are wholly unnecessary in our view. We believe there's a better and easier way to achieve their aims without risking the protection status of every single country.

We will however introduce a new rule which is based on the one proposed earlier and which will allow for very unpopular and inaccessible Cultural Protocols to be made Open. The rule prioritises consensus and is somewhat stricter than the current rules covering the creation of Cultural Protocols but they will generally operate in the same manner. The main difference will be that players need to have played in a country for at least 2 months (continuously) before making a request for Culturally Open status. Moderation will retain the discretion to refuse to approve requests for Cultural Open status where it is believed that they are motivated by malice or where they target a culture which is under-represented in the game. This discretion in practice should be exercised very rarely and in very few cases.

A "Requests for Culturally Open Status" thread will be added to the "Game Moderation" sub-forum. Rule 17.2 will be deleted as affirmation are no longer necessary for neither new nor old cultural protocols. Rule 19 which covers the RP Team is to be also amended to reflect the change in appointments which is no longer based on Cultural Eras.

The new rule

15. Requests for Culturally Open Status
15.1 In order to become a Culturally Open country, a bill requesting such a change must first be passed. It has to be supported by a 2/3rds majority of all players with seats (not just those with seats who vote) and over 50% of the seats in the legislature. Also, at least two of the players sponsoring the bill must have been currently continuously active in the nation (ie. no inactivations) for at least 2 months.

15.2 A request for approval of the bill should then be posted on the Requests for Culturally Open Status thread. In order to become official, the request must then be approved by Moderation. Moderation reserves the right to reject such a request where such a request is motivated by malicious intent or the targeted culture is deemed to be under-represented in the game.

15.2.1 Moderation will not approve of such a request within the first 96 hours of it being requested. This is in order to give other players a chance to query the proposed changes, if they wish to do so.


Rule 17.2 which will be deleted.

17.2 Newly-founded Cultural Protocols cannot be affirmed during the Cultural Era in which they were founded. At the close of that Cultural Era, they will automatically be candidates for Culturally Open status.


Rule 19 will be amended from

The Team takes collective responsibility for its decisions and operates under Moderation's overview. It automatically comes to the end of its term of office at the close of each Cultural Era, when appointments and/or reappointments will be made.
Where appropriate, the Team may delegate role-play and other tasks to players outside of the Team, but it retains overall responsibility.


to...

The Team takes collective responsibility for its decisions and operates under Moderation's overview. Appointments shall be made in March and September of each year, with each term lasting six months. Where appropriate, the Team may delegate role-play and other tasks to players outside of the Team, but it retains overall responsibility.



That wraps up this consultation. Till next time.
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Re: Announcement on Cultural Eras

Postby Aquinas » Thu Apr 20, 2017 12:33 am

Reddy wrote:We believe there's a better and easier way to achieve their aims without risking the protection status of every single country.


The previous system did not risk the Culturally Protected status of every single nation. Every nation had an opportunity to guarantee the continuation of its Cultural Protocol through the affirmation mechanism. Players had affirmation rights - which have now been stripped away, leaving every Cultural Protocol potentially exposed to being suddenly petitioned against. Also, under the previous system, even if a Cultural Protocol was not affirmed by the end of the Cultural Era, that would not necessarily mean the Cultural Protocol would be removed. There was always a consultation, and then a decision would be made about which unaffirmed Cultural Protocols to save and which to allow to elapse.

Reddy wrote:We will however introduce a new rule which is based on the one proposed earlier and which will allow for very unpopular and inaccessible Cultural Protocols to be made Open.


The new rule will do the reverse, making it less likely for very unpopular and inaccessible Cultural Protocols to be removed, whilst actually making more likely the removal of very popular and accessible Cultural Protocols.

Unpopular and inaccessible Cultural Protocols will tend to just stay there indefinitely. It is precisely because they are unpopular and inaccessible that few players will play there, few players will play there for very long and players there are unlikely to ever be able to meet the strong conditions for passing an Openness petiton. And for a great many nations, those really are strong conditions; just read them: "at least two of the players sponsoring the bill must have been currently continuously active in the nation (ie. no inactivations) for at least 2 months". Seriously?

To give an example of what I mean, lets have a look at the player numbers history of one of the most inaccessible and unpopular nations in the game, Jelbania. This is most easily done by perusing a Jelbanian regional election results page. Ever since 3685 (ie. around 3 RL years ago) Jelbania has been an almost permanent 1 party state, has never had more than 2 parties with seats and has never had anyone playing there on a really long-term basis. What are the chances of an Openness petition being successfully passed in Jelbania? How many years (real-life years!) has it been since Jelbania has even had 2 players at the same time who had both been continuously active there (ie. no inactivations) for 2 months? Has such an accomplishment ever been achieved during the entire time Jelbania has had its Cultural Protocol?

The irony is, with the new system, the more unpopular and inaccessible a Cultural Protocol is, the less likely it is a successful petition motion against it will ever be carried.

By contrast, we could actually start finding the reverse is true. What I mean is, as many of us will know from experience, little groups of players do occasionally develop sudden enthusiasms (sometimes out of boredom), and that can have...interesting results. Under the new system, it would not surprise me if, in a popular (meaning high player numbers) Culturally Protected nation, some players might suddenly get together and decide they want to do something radical. Those sorts of nations would likely not face much difficulty in meeting the petition requirements, since they're always full of players. So who knows what could happen? Maybe at some point in the future a group of players in the now-popular German Dorvik might decide they want to remove their Cultural Protocol so they can replace it with an Irish one, or you might end up with a group in English Luthori wanting to make it Polish. Bear in mind that by the time players were able to meet the criteria for an Opennness petiton, they'd easily qualify for the criteria for creating a new Cultural Protocol, so the two events could easily happen within less than 10 days of each other. This could be a fascinating adventure, of course, but I'm not sure how well it would go down with the community at large.

Reddy wrote:15.2 A request for approval of the bill should then be posted on the Requests for Culturally Open Status thread. In order to become official, the request must then be approved by Moderation. Moderation reserves the right to reject such a request where such a request is motivated by malicious intent or the targeted culture is deemed to be under-represented in the game.


As explained in my previous post, I am concerned about the conflicts likely to arise when Openness petitions are proposed, since such petitions are incredibly liable to provoke negative "gut" reactions. The "malicious intentions" clause especially concerns me, as it is likely to cause the same ugly disputes you get in divorce proceedings where the law requires one person to prove the other is at fault. Some players can get very strong-minded about nations and about cultures, and I would be seriously wary of putting them in a position where they feel the only way to defend a Cultural Protocol against being removed is to allege maliciousness on the part of those supporting the petition. BTW I am also a bit concerned that the language in the rule, with the references to "malicious intent" and "targeted culture", may come across as conveying a negative attitude towards those who are interested in attempting these petitions.

These reforms will tend in the direction of increasing the number of Cultural Protocols, especially the number of stale Cultural Protocols which consume the most Moderation time, and will overall increase Moderation's burden of workload. This will be even more so than under the original proposal, since it has now been made more difficult to perform Openness petitions. For the reasons given in my previous post, this is a worry.

*

I have done my best to present my arguments as well as I could, but I acknowledge this particular battle is lost, at least for now. The system of Cultural Eras and affirmations is now gone. Obviously, Moderators have to come to their own judgements, based on what they believe is for the best. So whatever my strong reservations about the changes, let me say I respect the decision, and I support the Moderators.

But you know me... I haven't finished quite yet. Here are a few incremental suggestions, none of them intending to undermine the central planks of the reforms:

1. Section 16.7 of the Game Rules includes a provision for Moderation to "amend Cultural Protocols which are deemed to have introduced significant cultures that are not sufficiently accessible and which are not being actively role-played with". This provision has never formally been used since it was introduced. Under the old system, it was never really necessary, since there were opportunities to remove such Cultural Protocols at the close of Cultural Eras. However, going forward under the new rules, Moderation probably will need to be assertive/pro-active on this front.

2. Similarly, more use may need to be made of the provision in section 16.5.1, which allows greater-than-usual changes to be made to Cultural Protocols in cases where there are accessibility issues. I urge Moderation to think about how to raise general awareness of the existence of this provision.

3. Section 15.2 should be reworded slightly to something like:

15.2 A request for approval of the bill should then be posted on the Requests for Culturally Open Status thread. Moderation will then listen to feedback and consider the request based on whether it is judged to be in the best general interests of the game.


4. A tiny technical point, but consider changing "country" to "nation" in section 15.1, since "nation" is the term consistently used in the rules (believe it or not, I've seen a number of confusions in the game amongst players as to whether or not a "country" and a "nation" are the same thing).
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