What would be the benefit of eliminating the forums in Embassy Row?

While I don't think this is a critical issue, I also don't think we need embassy subforums. The volume they currently have doesn't really justify their existence when a single thread could serve the same function.

Former Delegate of the South Pacific
Posts outside High Court venues should be taken as those of any other legislator.
I do not participate in the regional server, but I am happy to talk through instant messaging or on the forum.

Legal Resources:
THE MATT-DUCK Law Archive | Mavenu Diplomatic Archive | Rules of the High Court | Case Submission System | Online Rulings Consultation System

Reply

Bumping this to see if others have thoughts/what the timeline/parameters might be for implementation?

Minister of Foreign Affairs
General of the South Pacific Special Forces
Ambassador to Balder
Former Prime Minister and Minister of Defense

Reply

Some thoughts from me about Treasure Island. Of course it would be good to hear from other RPers first too.

Treasure Island

• Meta (I believe moving guides to the wiki is a better idea, then what would remain are meta threads and and requests for help, hence the new name. This subforum isn't used a lot, but I can't think of anywhere else to place its contents.)
  
• Pacifica Canon (Renamed to reflect that we have at least two well established canons. I'm thinking the regional and Pacifica map threads could be moved to this level and get pinned. Doing this, Facts and Maps can be consolidated.)
  • Diplomacy (unfortunately I believe we need a place for all those embassy threads, otherwise they'd clutter the subforum they'd be moved to)
    • Embassies
      
    • World Forum
      
  • Media
    
  • Facts (Facts and Maps can be consolidated.)
    
• Additional Canons (Renamed to reflect that we have a least one well-established canon in this subforum)
  • A1-0 Canon (Sci-Fi is renamed since the RPs there are in a specific canon, not just any sci-fi)
    
  • Aurora Canon (Fantasy is renamed since there's a new map there that is to be used in its own canon, not just any fantasy RP)
    

Btw, is it possible to list the subforums in a different way on the index page? Would it be possible to present them in a more table-like manner as to reduce scrolling?

Roleplayer
Manager of the TSP and A1-0 maps
Roleplay moderator

My roleplay nations

Pacifica canon

Sedunn      Quick facts - Population: 26,016,343 - GDP: $1.53 trillion - Military: 354,000‬ personnel, 3.8% of GDP - King: Vimmru II - Foundation: Late Iron Age - Member of the WF and CPSC

Transsuneria Quick facts - Population: 1,003,504 - GDP: $20.637 billion - Military: 5,500‬ personnel, 0.75% of GDP - President: Emil Palmann - Foundation: 1905 - Member of the WF

A1-0 canon

Treecuu Star Empire

Aurora canon

Orawak Tribe

(This post was last modified: 11-18-2021, 04:46 PM by Qwert.)

Reply

I, personally, don't use Treasure Island and think of it as less "essential" or "high priority" than the government forums. But, I realize that's likely not a universal opinion. I guess we could give it a go, on a trial basis, to see if increasing Treasure Island's visibility would assist with its activity without needlessly decreasing government activity.

This is funny, I'm your direct opposite in that regard. I couldn't care less about anything that's government related (Oh, btw: Hi, you probably haven't seen me yet, if you're not active in Treasure Island Nice to meet you!) and would also think of it as less "essential" or "high priority", but mostly because of what you said in your second sentence and what Kringle also mentioned: The people will always come from NationStates and get involved in the government aspect of TSP, because it's simply super-duper visible everywhere. Whether on the forum or on Discord or in the NationStates dispatches, on the main page of our region etc., but the roleplay is lacking that visibility. We are closing once again with a year, that has seen less than optimal activity (Recently it has gotten a little better, but the first seven to nine months of the year, roleplay was mostly dead). Many players joining our region don't even know, that the rp exists and, if they know, wonder, why almost no new players do anything here. With the roleplay and its help pages further up the top, which is what other regions do on their forums too, if I remember correctly, maybe we could expand and enhance our community better. Like I said above: I don't think, this will have a negative impact on government activity. The worst, that could happen is, that it won't have any positive effect for the roleplay community and then we roleplayers might need to overthink, why we cannot attract more players to our hobby and keep them around.

That put aside, I think a mix out of Kringle's and Qwert's proposal would be best:

Treasure Island
--Meta (as proposed by Qwert)
--Pacifica (as proposed by Kringle consolidating Main Canon, Diplomacy [Note: Don't see, why it makes sense to have diplomatic roleplays and other roleplays of the same canon separate] and Embassies*
--- World Forum (please make the World Forum subforum accessible from the main page. I think, it's weird, that navigating to such an - assumingly - important organisation for our rp is as complicated as it is now. It doesn't deserve to be as buried as it is.
--- Media
--- Facts and Maps
-- Additional Canons
--- A1-0
--- Aurora

* As for the "Embassies" subforum: I'd like to keep Kringle's idea of eliminating the "Embassies" subforum. We could even consider just archiving them. You, Qwert, said yourself, the embassy threads are not really useful for the rp They are even more absurd, if you think about the fact, that probably we all assume having embassies in each other's countries by default, except there's an embassy thread existing (and even then we might assume it, because some people are simply too lazy to fill out the forms or don't want to gravedig threads). Furthermore at least my hope is, that in the medium term, we will have "foreign policy articles" on the Wiki instead, which can work as a "light" version of the embassy threads without cluttering up this forum, provided we really need an overview over, who has which consulates and embassies in which country.

But that's just my thoughts from a TSP-Roleplayer perspective ^^

Signed
Gianluca IV
Roleplayer (active in TSP since 2016)
TSPedia-Author
Head Bartender of the Lampshade Bar & Grill


Information about my roleplay
Pacifica GI-Land, Snolland (Hazelbrust), Guardian of the World Forum, IUFA-FWC/WFWC- and Pacivision Supervisor • 
Aurora Markatt (Maura)

Reply

I, personally, don't use Treasure Island and think of it as less "essential" or "high priority" than the government forums. But, I realize that's likely not a universal opinion. I guess we could give it a go, on a trial basis, to see if increasing Treasure Island's visibility would assist with its activity without needlessly decreasing government activity.

This is funny, I'm your direct opposite in that regard. I couldn't care less about anything that's government related (Oh, btw: Hi, you probably haven't seen me yet, if you're not active in Treasure Island Nice to meet you!) and would also think of it as less "essential" or "high priority", but mostly because of what you said in your second sentence and what Kringle also mentioned: The people will always come from NationStates and get involved in the government aspect of TSP, because it's simply super-duper visible everywhere. Whether on the forum or on Discord or in the NationStates dispatches, on the main page of our region etc., but the roleplay is lacking that visibility. We are closing once again with a year, that has seen less than optimal activity (Recently it has gotten a little better, but the first seven to nine months of the year, roleplay was mostly dead). Many players joining our region don't even know, that the rp exists and, if they know, wonder, why almost no new players do anything here. With the roleplay and its help pages further up the top, which is what other regions do on their forums too, if I remember correctly, maybe we could expand and enhance our community better. Like I said above: I don't think, this will have a negative impact on government activity. The worst, that could happen is, that it won't have any positive effect for the roleplay community and then we roleplayers might need to overthink, why we cannot attract more players to our hobby and keep them around.
-snip-

I would support Kringle's proposition, however I would switch Treasure Island and the Government District.

Personally, I see government as first and then RP as more of a second. The government is what runs TSP after all; not the RP, and we should draw new players into the government first instead of getting themselves involved in the RP and then disappearing (which is what happens with the RP; the people I see in the TSPRP discord is mostly different than the people I see in the main TSP discord server).

Right now the problem is that Treasure Island is literally at the bottom, and it takes a lot of scrolling. With this new forum layout, it doesn't take a lot of scrolling and new players could easily scroll down just a little bit farther and see the forum.

Just my 2 cents though.

"After he realizes this newfound power of his to override the hopes and dreams of republicans, he puts all of the united provinces under his control."
one time minister of culture

Reply

I... don't think we really need to be getting into this 'who's more important' conversation? Like, I get it. Part of me wants to wade into this argument too, but I really don't see it being a productive one. I'm sure GP is more important to GPers and RP is more important to RPers, and personally, I've found myself in either camp before. Everyone has their own interests, and I think it's silly of us to be dismissing either as less important than the other, or worse, viewing GP and RP as distinct communities competing with each other for active members. At least from my personal experience, it's simply not the truth.

With all of that said, I honestly don't care that much about whether Treasure Island or Government District comes first. On the topic of Treasure Island itself, I'm inclined to agree with Qwert that an embassies subforum would still be nice for now — as much as I dislike the current system with dozens of forms, I also know that the wiki isn't for everyone, and that's okay too. Personally I think it's more of an issue for us to solve as a RP community rather than an issue with the forum organization. I'd also prefer if we kept the guides we already have on the forum in the meta subforum instead of moving them all to the wiki? As much as I do like the wiki (and use it fairly often myself), I'm still not sure it's that welcoming to newer RPers... like how there aren't any search suggestions as you type in the search bar or how clicking the logo just reloads the current page.

Esfalsa | NationStates | Wiki | Roleplay | Discord

(This post was last modified: 11-18-2021, 08:37 PM by Pronoun.)

Reply

Two comments in response to what's been said so far:

1. I really do think that Treasure Island should be above the Government Centre. We already promote government involvement a lot, so there is little chance that we'll lack in activity there. The same cannot be said for roleplay, not to mention it would be nice to have people see that there is more to the forum than just government threads.
   
2. I get the logic of keeping national embassy threads, but like some have said above I'm not sure they make much sense as a concept or whether we need a full subforum for them. I'm not particularly attached to either keeping or doing away with them, but at the same time I don't think they're something we need to keep.
   

Former Delegate of the South Pacific
Posts outside High Court venues should be taken as those of any other legislator.
I do not participate in the regional server, but I am happy to talk through instant messaging or on the forum.

Legal Resources:
THE MATT-DUCK Law Archive | Mavenu Diplomatic Archive | Rules of the High Court | Case Submission System | Online Rulings Consultation System

Reply

I'm a bit sad to see RP below spam and foreign embassies and a bunch of mostly inactive subforums, but I can see why the government stuff would be prioritised (and that those subforums weren't always inactive or not intended to be inactive). It would be nice to have RP placed higher up.

Regarding the structure of TI, I have reconsidered and I'm now in favour of merging Diplomacy with Pacifica and letting WF take its place in the hierarchy, hoping that the embassy threads could be archived.

Roleplayer
Manager of the TSP and A1-0 maps
Roleplay moderator

My roleplay nations

Pacifica canon

Sedunn      Quick facts - Population: 26,016,343 - GDP: $1.53 trillion - Military: 354,000‬ personnel, 3.8% of GDP - King: Vimmru II - Foundation: Late Iron Age - Member of the WF and CPSC

Transsuneria Quick facts - Population: 1,003,504 - GDP: $20.637 billion - Military: 5,500‬ personnel, 0.75% of GDP - President: Emil Palmann - Foundation: 1905 - Member of the WF

A1-0 canon

Treecuu Star Empire

Aurora canon

Orawak Tribe

(This post was last modified: 11-24-2021, 02:52 PM by Qwert.)

Reply

I'm fine with putting Treasure Island above Government Center/Offices following this conversation

Minister of Foreign Affairs
General of the South Pacific Special Forces
Ambassador to Balder
Former Prime Minister and Minister of Defense

Reply

Do we have any other thoughts regarding this proposed reorganisation?

Waterfront District
-- South Pacific International Seaport (welcome and registration threads)
-- Lampshade Bar and Grill (general discussion, consolidating the LB&G and the Civil and Political Organisation Centre)
---- Badger Street (consolidating the NS Discussion Centre and news media)
---- Hall of Spam (spam games)
-- Operations Centre (admin and mod requests)
---- Moderation Back Office (moderation discussion)
---- Administration Back Office (administration discussion)

Treasure Island
-- Pacifica (consolidating Main Canon, Diplomacy, and Embassies)
---- World Forum (WF discussion)
---- Media (national news)
---- Cartography (consolidating Facts and Maps)
-- Extra-Canon (consolidating Sci-Fi and Fantasy)

Government District
-- Assembly (public legislative discussion)
---- Private Hall (private legislative discussion)
---- Voting Chamber (voting)
---- THE MATT-DUCK Law Archive (laws, resolutions, and treaties)
-- Cabinet (public executive discussion and announcements)
---- Cabinet Office (private Cabinet discussion)
---- Ministry Private Offices (one subforum per ministry, visible only to that ministry's staff)
-- High Court (case submissions)
---- 2504 Lampshade Street (case deliberation and private judicial business)
---- ORCS and CSS (links)
-- Regional Security (public security announcements)
---- Cantina of Requisite Sustenance (private CSS discussion)
---- Joint Security Room (private CSS-Cabinet discussion)
-- Embassy Row (embassies and consulates, ideally without subforums)

Hall of Historical Records
-- Archives (all subforums would be kept)
-- Former Forums

Former Delegate of the South Pacific
Posts outside High Court venues should be taken as those of any other legislator.
I do not participate in the regional server, but I am happy to talk through instant messaging or on the forum.

Legal Resources:
THE MATT-DUCK Law Archive | Mavenu Diplomatic Archive | Rules of the High Court | Case Submission System | Online Rulings Consultation System

Reply