GRC Economic and Military Rankings

[Maxington]

I kinda have to agree with James, i told the GRC Team months in advance that because the NC conducts exercises it doesn't mean the nation who don't conduct their own military RP should be upgraded because of that fact. Kanjor should be down-ranked, Dankuk, Baltusia and Telamon should have maintained their old ranking position or be down-ranked. I can only speak for Keymon in this instance as it did more beyond the scope of exercises. It seems that the GRC didn't listen. NO NATION SHOULD BE UP-RANKED WHEN ALL THEY DID FOR THE PAST 6 MONTHS WAS PARTICIPATE IN EXERCISES.

[jamescfm]

Yea, Istalia and Trigunia were dropped to due them being inactive in terms of their RP and the effect it had on their country. Both nations lacked in reasonable, long-term military and economic RP. I think it was quite easy to point out that both nations have been lacking in such RP for a while already, so that's affected how we ranked them. We did not bring in the fact that they are NC "enemies" web ranking them.

Fair enough, though you have changed your explanation in the case of Istalia from a role-played economic downturn to a lack of role-play. I am happy to accept your reasoning on these particular countries and was simply illustrating how these changes could be perceived as indicative of an implicit bias within the decision making bodies. Thanks for the prompt responses, by the way, I imagine this is a pretty busy time.

I’d like to thank everyone for keeping a cool and level head when talking about keymon’s ranking militarily. Though I didn’t comment here, I have been watching closely. James, I understand the process could seem dominated by the NC, but I trust both Luis and the GRC to make respectful and thoughtful decision. Thank you James for raising concerns about Keymon’s place.

Of course! I don't doubt the fact that the members of the GRC are experienced, balanced players and I regret that it may have been perceived that I focused excessively on Keymon, in fact it was not a country which stood out particularly to me but just an example. Needless to say, it is no reflection on the players there who are doing a good job of reinvigorating role-play in the nation.

[Luis1p]

Fair enough, though you have changed your explanation in the case of Istalia from a role-played economic downturn to a lack of role-play. I am happy to accept your reasoning on these particular countries and was simply illustrating how these changes could be perceived as indicative of an implicit bias within the decision making bodies. Thanks for the prompt responses, by the way, I imagine this is a pretty busy time.

No, it was both role-played economic downturn and lack of role-play pertaining to military and economic improvement. Sorry for confusion.

[Aquinas]

Turning to the Third World Nations, I am curious as to what the rationale is behind increasing New Alduria's economic and military rankings. There has not been a great deal of RP on New Alduria's news thread since May. Only 5 articles.

Or was it decided it would be a good idea to raise the rating of one of the Third World Nations regardless of obvious RP justifications? To be clear, I would not necessarily object to that in principle...but again, it would be nice to have a clearer idea of whatever it is that is going on here, if you see what I mean.

[Luis1p]

Or was it decided it would be a good idea to raise the rating of one of the Third World Nations regardless of obvious RP justifications?

Uh no that wasn't the case. We don't just raise nation's without RP justification. That's been the case for previous rankings as well if you see what I mean.

New Alduria was raised because of its militaristic role in the Dovani War and it's improvement after the war with Hutori. Compared to other Third World nations, New Alduria has been RPed well enough to justify it rising.

[Aquinas]

Or was it decided it would be a good idea to raise the rating of one of the Third World Nations regardless of obvious RP justifications?

Uh no that wasn't the case. We don't just raise nation's without RP justification. That's been the case for previous rankings as well if you see what I mean.

New Alduria was raised because of its militaristic role in the Dovani War and it's improvement after the war with Hutori. Compared to other Third World nations, New Alduria has been RPed well enough to justify it rising.

Can you talk me through the details of that, and how all of this led to not only the military improving, but the economy as well?

(Also, just to be clear, I'm not lobbying for Noumonde's rankings to be increased, I'm very happy with those staying as they are.)

[colonelvesica]

I can offer both links to the Role Play but also the hard details if you'd like where it concerns New Alduria

[Aquinas]

I can offer both links to the Role Play but also the hard details if you'd like where it concerns New Alduria

Enlighten me.

[Wu Han]

My Comments

Just want to quickly preface by saying that as a Deputy CRC of the GRC (I don't know what this role was/is either) I did not contribute to the rankings whatsoever. I also suggested that Indrala should be up-ranked to one member, but recused myself from such a discussion, as I believed that advocating privately for this would be a conflict of interest. As I had intended to resign from the GRC for some time, I reserved some of my comments for after my official resignation.

1. Hawu Mumenhes

From my perspective, there is no objective reason whatsoever for the upgrading, or even maintaining Hawu Mumenhes' economic and military rankings. As James notes, the last meaningful RP post came from a player outside of Hawu on June 29th. This means that for 4 out of the 6 months on which the GRC is supposed to base their rankings, the players of Hawu Mumenhes did not create a single RP post pertaining to economic or military development.

Luis wrote that we should "...compare Hawu Mumenhes's RPs to other Strong and Average economies." In doing so, it is obvious that Hawu Mumenhes is nowhere near the same calibre as Lourenne, New Endralon or Kalistan.

All other defences of Hawu's position are not objective at all but point out some sort of bias against Hawu as the reason for the widespread agreement on this consultation regarding this unsubstantiated upvote. Pragma wrote: "I think it's wrong to hold Hawu to a different standard because 'it's the African nation, and African nations irl are poorer'." I would agree, but that is not happening. I am one of the most vocal critics of the overwhelming Western-European bias of this game; however, by holding Hawu to the same standard, this upvote is unfounded. Pragma went on to say that "[Hawu] had some solid RP in the past six months." That, as demonstrated above, is empirically false. I would agree it had good RP for the first two of the six month period before going silent.

Of course, this argument hardly matters considering that the player of Hawu Mumenhes decided to withdraw from the RP Accord anyway. This is an example where truly objective and substantive rankings are needed.

2. Indrala

If the GRC remains adamant on maintaining Hawu's position, I would have to suggest under the same metric that Indrala should be upgraded to a regional military power. In the last two months, at least, multiple players in Indrala have contributed to a large number of articles dedicated to the modernization of the Indralan armed forces. Both domestically and internationally, Indrala has been acquiring new military hardware and focusing extensively on every branch of the Imperial Armed Forces. Indrala has also been asserting itself internationally, acquiring two new military bases in North Dovani and leading multinational arctic military exercises.

Comparatively, Indrala is the strongest power among its immediate neighbours, which are either poorly ranked third-world nations or "small" military powers in the developed world. To continue with the comparative experiment, the "regional power" Luthori has not produced a significant military RP post since June 6th. This was the only military post produced in Luthori over the entire six month period of which the rankings are supposedly based on. Similarily, the last military post to come from the "regional power" Malivia was this one, published on April 10th, or before the rankings period began.

If Indrala's many posts are too recent, then fine. But let's not denigrate myself and the other roleplayers of Indrala by suggesting that we haven't produced content as much or as high of quality as Luthori and Malivia. The GRC should either substantiate why these nations are "regional powers" or explain why Indrala is not a "regional power" under similar standards. Recall that in the post from Pragma quoted above, she suggested that Hawu should be judged "in comparison to all the noob factories around Terra." I'm not even going that far, but suggesting that Indrala be judged in the context of those who the GRC has deemed "regional powers."

Conclusion

Aware that this may have come off as rather bitter, be sure that I don't mean any offence. I'm not trying to undermine the GRC in anyway, but posing these questions so that hopefully this committee will improve its standards for rankings, etc. There has been lots of talk about introducing objective rankings: I believe this would alleviate practically all of these open questions I have raised above as CRC's would have to substantiate their rankings under a clear and open criteria, at least under how I would understand "objective rankings" to be conducted.

Thanks folks.

[Axxell]

I fully agree with the economical downranking of Istalia, it is reasonable on the light of the several financial crisis and economic recessions which hit Majatra in the 45th century.

I'm instead a little disappointed by the military ranking, I don't think there was events that undermined so much the Istalian defence which continue to control bases abroad, has all the capabilities to project its force around the world, military forces as well as counterintelligence forces, and also to maintain a considerable arsenal.

However, I understand that the RP is the material of analysis for this ranking and that the military RP was very very few in the last months, especially on the side of technological developement maybe. So... let me some time and you still will see Istalia on the top, also because I don't want at all dismiss all the nuclear arsenal. (also if I continue to have some dubts about some nations in the same category of Istalia, first of all Luthori which to me seems death (a part political domestical RP) since very long time, and: it is really the general view of the players this new position of Istalia?).