PARTICRACY CULTURE REFORMS CONSULTATION

[Roosevelt]

Malivian Government Press Release

The government and people of Malivia will like to thank moderation for its response to its request. Having seen that here have only been minor changes s follows:

Malivia
“Malivia is an Indo-Aryan nation with a sizeable Indo-Afro-Caribbean minority”

>> Kalkali (Indo-Aryan): 60%
>> Esinsundu Malivian (Indo-Afro-Caribbean): 30%
>> Other: 10%

Main language(s): Hindi, English


I humbly submit my approval of such protocol

[Sean]

Pls keep Mordusia like it has always been and Beluza too

[Phil Piratin]

Short of time right now so can't write one of my apparently notorious full-length "essays", but a few points:

1. What's the deal with the religious demographics not being included in the Base Culture Documents? Is it going to be okay, for example to RP Beiteynu as Ahmadi, Luthori as Jienist and Kafuristan as Felinist?

2. For some nations, the "Other" category is as high as 10%. Is 1 in 10 of the population too many to leave vague? Might it too easily open the way for disputes between different players with different assumptions about who the 10% are?

3. Not sure what to make of this process whereby Moderation is engaging in private negotiations with players about how their nation's cultures are to be changed, rather than holding those discussion publicly. Two issues:

(i) Even if Moderation successfully reaches a private "deal" with a group of players in a nation, some currently inactive players could return next week and raise an objection...and then the whole negotiation process will presumably have to start again. And bear in mind this consultation is scheduled to go on until April.

(ii) In the removed thread, the argument Moderation made for centralising culture is that the culture of a nation is a general community issue and not an issue just for the particular players playing in the nation. Assuming for one moment we accept this argument, then surely the consultation needs to be an open and inclusive process which all members of the community are able to take part in? Naturally, I appreciate the challenges involved with that, as such open discussions can become divisive and heated. However, if it really is the case that, as a community, having a discussion like this is just too toxic for us to have....then I have to say, that in itself is a rather persuasive argument against the whole principle of centralising culture in the first place. If, as a community, we lack the capacity to collectively discuss the "Cultural Map" in a fair/reasonable/respectful way, then we are hardly able to make decisions about the "Cultural Map" as a community either. Is this can of worms worth opening?

[Polites]

Thanks for raising issues in this format, it makes it a lot easier to respond and not miss anything

1. We'll be working on religious demographics as well, but they are less of a priority since they have less impact on gameplay.

2. Same for here, actually. Out of 13 ministries per nation, a 10% Other essentially leaves one(-ish) ministry to be filled by names of any culture, which wouldn't really be that different if the percentage were 5%. So the actual percentage doesn't really have that much impact on actual gameplay.

3. We're negotiating privately in situations where we feel a more detailed consultation and agreement is needed. We're not doing this privately in order to lock outside players from the consultation process or because we're worried the conversations would become too heated, we just don't want to derail the thread too much. We'd like to keep this as a debate thread for the entire proposal as well as the Base Culture Documents as a whole, rather than individual nations, which would just become impossible to follow. But we will accept feedback from any player regarding any nation.

[Arapaima13]

Hi. This is what the Kalopian players thought would be a good split up of the nation (although they have all left now). Just to see what Moderation think about this.

Kalopian (Greek): 51%
Siphinan (Albanian): 16%
Majatran (Arab): 13%
Turjak (Turk): 11%
Istochniak (Bosniak): 4%
Other: 5%

[Elf]

Speaking for myself, I'd really like to put like 5% from the "Other" category into the Selucian category, and give the Seluco-Pontesians some kind of proper recognition. I'm obviously biased here, though I could point out that a number of players besides myself, have RP:ed the Satrapy of Bazileum as majority Seluco-Pontesian.

10% Jelbic is good though, Mitraeum used to be majority Felinist Barmenian, but that should have decreased now that Barmenia is free again (at least for now lol).

[Phil Piratin]

1. We'll be working on religious demographics as well, but they are less of a priority since they have less impact on gameplay.

Assuming the new scheme is implemented, will the religious demographics all be filled in from the start, or will they be "blank" at first and then filled in over time?

2. Same for here, actually. Out of 13 ministries per nation, a 10% Other essentially leaves one(-ish) ministry to be filled by names of any culture, which wouldn't really be that different if the percentage were 5%. So the actual percentage doesn't really have that much impact on actual gameplay.

Actually, if you go through them, the Game Rules are nowhere near so rigid as to demand that Cabinet Minister names exactly represent the distribution of cultures in a nation.

As mentioned previously, if the "Other" category is rather large, there is a risk of confusion emerging over what is appropriate and non-appropriate RP. For example, according to the current Base Culture Documents proposal, 80% of Dorvik is German, 10% Prussian and 10% "Other". Now, imagine for a moment that I go to Dorvik and RP a tribe of African Mbuti pygmies seizing power and imposing minority Mbuti rule. If I was challenged about the realism/appropriateness of that, I could simply respond that the "Other 10%" are all Mbuti pygmies and therefore what I am doing is okay. Might this be an awkward situation for both Moderators and players to find themselves in?

To give another example, lets suppose I go to New Endralon, which under the current proposal, will be 40% Romanian, 30% Hungarian, 20% Kalmyk and 10% "Other". Lets say that I RP that half of one of New Endralon's provinces is made up of English settlers, and RP the English group taking over the province and going to war with the central government to try to achieve independence. If I was challenged about the realism/appropriateness of that, I could simply fall back on the argument that the English settlers are the "Other 10%" (half of one of the 5 provinces makes up about 10% of the overall national population, after all). Again, might this be an awkward situation for both Moderators and players to find themselves in?

It is always going to be a question of judgement as to how large the "Other" category should be allowed to be. The maximum allotted for it in the current proposal is 10%. We might have some people who think it could be 20% or 50%. My personal view is that the 5% cap which we have under the current rules is probably just about right, and that increasing it to 10% could potentially turn into a bit of a problem. It's Moderation's call, of course, but I hope you'll at least sit down and have a think about this one.

3. We're negotiating privately in situations where we feel a more detailed consultation and agreement is needed. We're not doing this privately in order to lock outside players from the consultation process or because we're worried the conversations would become too heated, we just don't want to derail the thread too much. We'd like to keep this as a debate thread for the entire proposal as well as the Base Culture Documents as a whole, rather than individual nations, which would just become impossible to follow. But we will accept feedback from any player regarding any nation.

As you know, there have already been some problems, and discussions about culture in Particracy do have a history of turning toxic. Also, if actual meaningful/extended public discussion about the actual cultures of any actual specific nations is not allowed, then this is hardly the community actively discussing the shape of the Cultural Map in an open, transparent and inclusive way. To quote what I commented in my previous post:

In the removed thread, the argument Moderation made for centralising culture is that the culture of a nation is a general community issue and not an issue just for the particular players playing in the nation. Assuming for one moment we accept this argument, then surely the consultation needs to be an open and inclusive process which all members of the community are able to take part in? Naturally, I appreciate the challenges involved with that, as such open discussions can become divisive and heated. However, if it really is the case that, as a community, having a discussion like this is just too toxic for us to have....then I have to say, that in itself is a rather persuasive argument against the whole principle of centralising culture in the first place. If, as a community, we lack the capacity to collectively discuss the "Cultural Map" in a fair/reasonable/respectful way, then we are hardly able to make decisions about the "Cultural Map" as a community either. Is this can of worms worth opening?

Also...

Along with our new rules Moderation are proposing the centralisation of Culture within the game. This would involve all nations who are enrolled in the Cultural Register/Global Roleplay index (we are still to decide how to implement this), would have their base culture determined for them by Moderation and the RP team.

At the moment we have come up with a proposed "cultural map" of Terra that would serve as the base from which the cultures of each nation would be determined. We want to hear your feedback on this issue and we can work to create something everyone is relatively happy with.
To be clear: this is not final, we are open to change and we will not be implementing this anytime soon. The consultation is running until the 3rd of April so there is plenty of time for change.

For the sake of transparency I feel I should let you know that the map was drawn up by the User jamescfm. He is a former mod, former RP team member and currently is a wiki admin. I initially began working on the rules with him whilst he was still a mod and we discussed this proposal however never finalised anything until after he had stepped down. After we decided to try this idea we approached him for some feedback. Following this we asked james to draw up a cultural map of terra with the help of a few other players and we would review it now and again and suggest changes, aswell as specifics for each nation. We asked james to do this as he has a tremendous amount of experience creating maps and always manages to produce accurate and aesthetically pleasing maps, aswell as this he is very experienced and knowledgeable with culture and as he was familiar with the proposal we felt it was a good idea to ask for his help. Im sure those of you who know james will understand why we asked him Can we please not bring james into this, this is moderations prerogative and our proposal so it is not his fault if its not popular.

Obviously there have already been a few threads dedicated to this and some controversy surrounding the issue and we apologise for that. We have however taken feedback from those threads and made a few changes to the map we released earlier today. Hopefully this will act as a fresh start.


Now because of the controversy this morning there are gonna be a few rules on this thread to ensure everything remains reasonably civil:

1- If you have an issue with your nation or another nations proposed culture please leave a post on this thread explaining your point of view. Polites or myself will send you a private message discussing it further, we will comment on the thread "messaged" to let others know the dialogue has been continued and then will post the result of our conversation on the thread once we are finished.
2- If you see another player in your nation starting a conversation about the nations culture which you would like to be involved in please simply quote the player and request to be added to the conversation, we will happily accommodate you.
3- Only Moderation should be responding to players issues. A large problem from this morning was third parties piling on and confusing things even more.
4- Only the cultural map and the idea of centralising culture should be discussed here, general comments on the rule redraft should go on this thread: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7767
Thanks guys and sorry for the extra rules we will maybe get rid of some of them as the consultation moves forward.

EDIT: The Base Culture Documents, which once properly vetted and updated, will be binding, are here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16s0 ... Ikg1s/edit

Lots of love,
Fin
xoxoxo

I've highlighted the edited update to the OP because it seems to suggest Moderation has already decided to implement the centralisation of culture and all that remains to be decided now is what the details will be. Or was this just clumsy wording? I don't like to bring this up because I realise its awkward, but there have been previous incidents where Moderators have made statements indicating the same thing (ie. that centralisation of culture is something that is going to happen), so I do feel the need to again ask for clarification.

[jamescfm]

I agree that we should reduce the proportion of the population allotted to “other”.

[Lucca]

And if you think my post is enough, just wait til Lucca decides to weigh in here.

Eep....

In general I agree with Phil Piratin, Roosevelt, and SlavaD.

As do I.


Yikes, how does everyone have so much time on their hands? I barely have enough free time to read this thread and put together the following....



But, considering that it looks like this is going to go ahead anyway....


"Kirlawa is a Celtic and Anglo-Celtic nation"

Looks good



>> Kilani (Irish): 45%
>> Draddwyr (Welsh): 20%
>> Caldorian (Scottish): 20%
>> Luthorian (English): 5%
>> Other: 10%

I feel 5% is a little low for English if the nation description is going to include "Anglo-Celtic"; please consider increasing it a tad?

On the other hand, this would constitute a major increase in Scottish (currently 4%); whereas Scots really haven't figured into Kirlawa very much so far at all.
But I can see that if the Scots don't have a [playable nation] home elsewhere, Kirlawa might be a sensible place to put them.

Meanwhile, Rutania's current Cultural Protocol mentions a somewhat significant Scottish presence there -- larger than Kirlawa's current contingent is, at least.
Plus Rutania borders (Welsh) Aloria just like we do.

There's a great current RP going on involving Scots in New Englia -- a land historically linked to Kirlawa, but geographically closer to Rutania.




May I request mentions of a few others, please?

Istalian (Italian)
If possible, I'd much rather not lose the mention of Istalian, please, considering the special Kirlawa-Istalia friendly relations in both the present and the past. We crucially provided a home for many Istalians when their homeland had been under occupation on more than one occasion, centuries ago.
Preferably a percentage, but a mention under 'other' is fine if that would be felt to be too much.


Kunihito (Japanese)
In a like manner, somewhat more recently an active Sekowo player involved Kirlawa as a refuge when there was unrest in Sekowo. But I understand if this would be a little too out-of-step to retain as a mention.


Kundrati (Basque)
I had been just about to increase our Kundrati minority as of an upcoming 4350 census, when this all happened....


Sullestian (Finnish)
All depending on what Imperial Dark Rome says, of course -- but,

if Davostan is going to be Finnish-influenced, well, Kirlawa's right across the bay from them.

And if it isn't, then the Finns will need somewhere to live, and I am certainly open to increasing somewhat the Finnish presence in Kirlawa.
I did notice a few Finns proposed for Endralon, just the other side of Kundrati from us.

If there isn't going to be a majority or plurality playable Finnish nation somewhere, then,
if OrangeFree doesn't mind, adding a few Finns, at least as a mention within "Other" if not as an actual percentage, to Kundrati -- could create a neat "Finnish coast" from Dirguzia in east-central Kirlawa, to northern Kundrati, to northwest Endralon.





>> Main language(s): English, Welsh, Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic, Scots

English and Irish Gaelic have been the only prominent languages so far; I'm not completely opposed to adding the others, but feel that doing so might risk over-complication, considering that most other nations have only one or two languages listed.

With Aloria next door being plurality Welsh (and on the cusp of a majority), thereby providing a homeland for them, I feel that we can tone down the Welsh in Kirlawa somewhat to make room.
(All the more so if they're going to be added to Davostan as well. Plus there are some in Dranland.)

Kirlawa's current cultural protocol, language section

Primary or first language of Kirlawans:
74% Luthori ( = English)
15% Kilani ( = Irish Gaelic)
4% Draddwyr ( = Welsh; prominent in Aloria, our western neighbour)
2% Caldorian ( = Scottish Gaelic)
2% Istalian ( = Italian)
2% Kunikata ( = Japanese)
1% [Sullestian] ( = Finnish)

And -- if OrangeFree approves -- please consider adding a reciprocal Kilani minority in Kundrati, if you would? 5% is plenty; just would like to see them mentioned please.







So, my tentative suggestions for Kirlawa, if Scots are re-added to Rutania:

>> Kilani (Irish): 50%
>> Luthorian (English): 15%
>> Draddwyr (Welsh): 10% (mostly in Uwakah and Merkan, near Aloria)
>> Caldorian (Scottish): 5%
>> Kundrati (Basque): 5% (mostly in Nuchtmark, near Kundrati)
>> Istalian (Italian): 5%
>> Sullestian (Finnish): 5%
>> Other and mixtures of the above: 5%

>> Main language(s): English, Irish Gaelic


or if they aren't:

>> Kilani (Irish): 45%
>> Caldorian (Scottish): 15%
>> Luthorian (English): 15%
>> Draddwyr (Welsh): 10% (mostly in Uwakah and Merkan, near Aloria)
>> Istalian (Italian): 5%
>> Sullestian (Finnish): 5%
>> Other and mixtures of the above: 5% (especially Kundrati (Basque))

>> Main language(s): English, Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic, Scots




Let's talk about it, please?




Kirlawa's current cultural protocol, ethnicity section, just for comparison:

44% Celda ( = Celtic)
>>> 32% Kilani ( = Irish)
>>> 8% Draddwyr ( = Welsh; prominent in Aloria, our western neighbour)
>>> 4% Caldorian ( = Scottish)
30% Luthori / North Artanian ( = English)
6% Gao-Showa ( = East Asian)
>>> 4% Kunihito ( = Japanese)
>>> 2% Sekowan ( = Ryukyuan)
6% Istalian ( = Italian)
3% [Sullestian] ( = Finnish)
2% Kundrati ( = Basque-Roman blend)
2% Canrillaise ( = French)
1% Hutori ( = Canadian)
1% Dissuwan ( = Hungarian)
1% Zergonese ( = Croatian)
1% Hugalonese ( = Slovenian)
3% various mixtures of two or more of the above (other than Enlii ( = mixture of Anglo and Celtic) )

and my suggestions for our neighbour and near-neighbour, if (and only if) the players in each approve:

"Kundrati is a Basque nation, with ... minorities

Kundrati (Basque): 80%
Kilani (Irish): 5%
Sullestian (Finnish): 5%
Dundorfian (German): 5%
Other: 5%"

and

"Rutania is a predominantly English nation, with a Scottish minority.

Rutanian (English): 75%
Caldorian (Scottish): 20%
Other: 5%"







As for where to put the Scots, I feel that Ardinia in Rutania would be a perfect place, if the Rutanian players approve.
Rutania already has a significant Scottish minority in their current cultural protocol ... Ardinia is right on the border with (Welsh) Aloria ... it's the farthest-away part of Rutania from Luthori as the crow flies ...
and, IIRC there had even been a rather major "Ardinian independence" RP there in the somewhat recent past, which I feel would interlace superbly with this (i.e. bolstered by the cultural divide of there being an English majority in the other four provinces, vs. a Scottish majority in Ardinia).
Just need to see if this would be fine with the Rutanian players....

(As an alternative, Bozarland is the farthest away by province count, and is likewise on the border with Aloria; but I feel that that Ardinian-independence RP might likely swing the balance in favour of Ardinia.)


Just my thoughts and suggestions

[Polites]

Thanks for the suggestions Lucca, they are really good! Can't give a detailed response right now, but after reading them I'm pretty sure we'll include most if not all of them in the next draft of the culture documents (we have a bunch of other things to change there as well, so an updated document is very much in order).