The Rejected Times Issue LXV - Culture with a side of Conversation

Editor-in-Chief: Toerana
Deputy Editor-in-Chief: Crowheim

Index

• If Music Be the Food of Culture, Play On - Dead i jack

• The OWL Voting Incident and TSP’s Proscribing of TBH - Makdon

• A Conversation with the New Delegate, Chimes - Crowheim

• The Gameplay Awards - Guest Writer Zukchiva

• New Delegate of the South Pacific Elected - Purple Hyacinth
  

Before we start, A Leaf on the Wind is returning to TRT with a second edition of The Bread Box! Please submit questions for her to answer in the next edition of TRT here.

OPINION | WRITTEN BY Junior Writer Dead i jack | EDITED BY Crowheim

My first region in NationStates was a founderless roleplay region called European Union. While the roleplay politics were heavily contested with relentless jockeying to win government positions, pass legislation, and more, perhaps the biggest prize in all of the region was winning Eurovoice. Eurovoice was a competition set to mirror the real world Eurovision Song Contest, a contest where the nations of the European Union would come together through music. During my time there, it was held every month or two without fail. Each player taking part in Eurovoice would submit a link to a song they liked, the participants would give points to their favorites, and a winner would be declared (and host the next one). In our humble RP UCR, this would get anywhere from 15-25 participants every time. European Union tried to capture the magic in other ways through a similar format like Europe’s Got Talent but it never took the same. Why was Eurovoice so popular and not EGT? I believe, and it’s probably cliché at this point, it’s because there is a universality in the appeal of music.

The power of music in NationStates, is the power to share something with each other. Even though members of a community might have varying tastes in music, the act of suggesting a song to listen to is at once both a window into who you are and an opportunity for discovery for those with you. Curating playlists on forums or chatrooms is easy and decentralized and a good way to pass time for those otherwise looking to be occupied. This is something that the Founderless Regions Alliance understood when they brought FRAvision to NSGP and these are lessons I learned from European Union and have carried with me to every region I have been involved in since.

When I got involved in the Rejected Realms, I decided that music would play an important role in my cultural vision. Indeed the first ever event I ran there was Rejectvision, a rebrand of Eurovoice. I made it accessible to participate in via telegram, discord, or forum, and it was a big success. It drew in players from all walks: onsite and offsite; Reject and Non-Reject. Encouraged by the participation, as I brainstormed more activity ideas as Culture Officer, we dipped back into the music well, striking gold with a music trivia idea called Popmaster. Wopruthien and I ironed out a simple format: the host plays a song via the bot and the first one to guess the artist and the title gets points. It was something we were excited about, but could never imagine the popularity the contest would grow to achieve. After the first time we held it there were demands for more and it turned into a weekly phenomenon. What was unique about Popmaster, though, was how many people wanted to host one themselves. It’s a Culture Officer’s dream to have others taking an active interest in planning and hosting activities and people were lining up to host their own rounds of Popmaster. With over a dozen different hosts, scores of participants, and probably anywhere from 30-50 different editions over the last 2 years, it would be hard to find a game as culturally impactful for a regional community except for Werewolf. As a cherry on top of all this, our musical events were drawing in players to sign up for citizenship of TRR. Music wasn’t just something fun we could entertain ourselves with, it played an important part in strengthening our community.

Using music to aid in community building can come in many different forms. At one time The South Pacific had classical music sessions, TSP and TRR have had Eurovision watch parties, some regions have done some impromptu karaoke in their discord voice chats, while more just hang out and play music for a bit as they talk or as they partake in military gameplay. No matter the form, music is a powerful cultural tool in building camaraderie. It can help start a conversation, it can help bring you together, it can help you form new bonds, and it can help you attract new people. And so I leave those would be cultural ministers/officers and region builders with this advice: If your region is hungry for something to do, something to share, feed it music.

The OWL Voting Incident and TSP’s Proscribing of TBH

OPINION | WRITTEN BY Apprentice Makdon | EDITED BY Crowheim

Order of events:

1. November 18th, 2020: 3 nations of the names Rebbid, Glowgolden, and Seltin all vote for Commend Twobagger through TSP’s OWL voting system. This system allows any WA nation in TSP to vote on WA proposals by posting in the RMB of The South Pacific WA Voting Center. This vote determines TSP’s delegate’s vote. These nations are all puppets of TBH members.

2. Sometime between the previous and following events: XKI notifies TSP of the unusual voting activity by the 3 TBH puppets.

3. November 20th, 2020, 7:46 PM EST: TSP releases a statement reporting that they had been notified by 10000 Islands that three low ranking members of The Black Hawks has attempted to sway TSP’s democratically determined vote in favor of Commend Twobagger. This statement goes on to vituperate both the actions of the TBH members and the SC resolution, and encourages others to vote against Commend Twobagger.

4. November 20th, 2020, 7:53 PM EST: TBH Major and Council Member [nation]Lord Dominator[\nation] states that TBH had been made aware of the situation and had berated the perpetrators. TBH had not informed TSP.

5. November 20th, 2020, 9:47 PM EST: A TBH apology is later released. It apologizes for not TBH not informing TSP when they were notified of what had happened, and condemned the actions of the TBH members who tried to sway TSP’s vote.

6. November 23rd 2020: Commend Twobagger fails, with the delegate’s of Lazarus, TNP, TEP, Wintreath, FNR voting against, all in some part due to TSP’s statement.

7. January 5th, 2021, 9:48 PM EST: TSP publicizes a statement proscribing all TBH members from TSP, which is justified by TBH’s alleged attempt at influencing the Commend Twobagger vote, and an incident involving TBH council member Ever-Wandering Souls which took place some two years ago

So there’s a fair few heavy questions these events raise. What is regional sovereignty? What makes a region defender? Why is a GCR different from a UCR for raiders? Can TSP consider itself democratic while excluding many largely innocent players from membership? Why does anyone waste their time debating these things? If I were a more philosophical person I might care about answering these, but I’m not. Instead, I’d like to analyze these events for what they are, political plays, and see what they reflect about the state of GP.

Firstly, let’s consider the actions of the TBH members who attempted to sway TSP’s vote. What they did was plainly easy, obvious, and smart. As others have pointed out, they broke no explicit rules, and theoretically could’ve had a massive influence on the outcome of the SC vote. This is the price of doing democracy on-site. You either have to deal with this or go full oligarchy like Thalassia. However, one shouldn’t be too quick to denounce TSP’s voting system. It’s a reflection of their commitment to democracy, and respect is deserved for the fact TSP does it despite the risks. It was only a matter of time before those risks came to fruition though, so let's move onto the next event.

Why did TSP issue a statement? Now, it’s entirely possible that this was done in large part because of TSP’s deep commitment to giving their natives a voice and the perceived violation of regional sovereignty, you and I will likely never know. What we can now is that it was plainly a useful political play. TSP is opposed to Commend Twobagger, it looks like it’s going to pass, and then something drops into their lap that can swing the vote the way they want. It was a perfectly timed controversy. For all we know, TSP’s voting system has been abused before and they were completely aware of it, but waited till it was most politically expedient to use. Regardless, it got exactly what TSP wanted, whether it was intentional or not.

Why did TBH apologize? This is where things get interesting. TBH’s apology seemed like an inevitability at the time, but if we step back a bit, it becomes more confusing. TBH is a raiding organization. They exist to violate regional sovereignty. So why are they apologizing? There are two reasons. First, Commend Twobagger. TBH wants it to pass, and TSP’s statement is messing with that. An apology, one might reason, has a chance of mitigating this. The second is the state of GP, the utter niceness of it these days. I’ll get back to that later.

So, to sum up, so far we have three events, all of which were intelligent political plays, so much so that one could’ve probably predicted it would happen eventually. I’ll step back and draw my first assertion about GP now. It’s predictable, even stale. It’s almost all petty and superficial, becoming a game of optics and nothing more. Minor incidents occur, a bit is lost, a bit is won, and things go on, unchanged. I wasn’t around more than a year back, so I can’t say if things were more dynamic in the past, but it seems this conclusion isn’t one that’s contested. Some like the stability, proclaiming the growth of regional activity and community, others call it the death of NationStates. Either way, it’s there.

Moving on, what can be learned from TSP’s proscription of TBH? The first thing I’d like to point out is the critiques that were levied against this move. The biggest seem to be that the red phone incident is two years old, TSP’s own court found that it wasn’t enough to proscribe Souls, and that the Commend TB incident was being completely overstated. A question arises from this. Why did TSP justify the proscription with what it did, since these criticisms were fairly predictable? The red phone incident was big enough for justification, but it was two years old, so they needed something new, and thus reused the Commend TB incident. Simply put, it was important to TSP that they properly justified their proscription, even though they by their own laws didn’t need to. It was for the optics.

Finally, what do the trends in these events and the proscription of TBH mean for GP moving forwards? Well, earlier I mentioned how nice GP is. By that, I meant not that people on both sides of issues are often friends or that everyone hangs out on discord. What I meant is probably a product of that, but not a necessary one. What I meant is, for example, that raiders respect some regions. TBH felt like they should issue an apology for their members interfering with TSP. TSP felt like they needed to justify proscribing TBH with specific events. Why? Because everyone needs to seem nice, everyone needs to respect each other. Now, I’m all for being nice to people, but that’s what discord is for, not the GP forum. The GP forum should be for politics, and politics doesn’t play nice. It isn’t hard to see that this attitude towards politics in GP is largely responsible for GP’s staleness. No one can do anything without making someone angry, so they go through the motions of raiding or defending, without seriously ever trying to win anything big. However, TSP’s proscription of TBH indicates something. It appears to be a breakdown of the relationships that contribute to stability, and is, good or bad, a harbinger of things to come. Gameplay may be calcified, but something stirs beneath the surface.

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INTERVIEW | WRITTEN BY Deputy Editor-In-Chief Crowheim | EDITED BY the Editor-in-Chief

The Rejected Realms recently held delegate elections and chose Jamie, WA Officer, former Speaker, and former TNP delegate, to be its new Delegate. Jamie beat out four other candidates for the role. Here, I sit down with them and talk about what the future of TRR looks like.

Chipmunker: So thank you so much for agreeing to have this interview, Jamie, and may I congratulate you again on your comfortable victory in the TRR delegate elections! How did it feel when you found out you won, or did you know as much beforehand?

Jamie: I didn’t know beforehand at all really, our voting system is very unique in that preferences make all the different. I’m still shocked and humbled to win the election, all the other candidates were great and honestly it feels like a dream to be elected.

C: I’m sure. You beat out 4 others for the role, what do you say to them?

J: I would like to say it was a fun election and it was a really well spirited event full of lots of fun questions and I wish them all the best of luck for any future elections.

C: Awww, how nice! So, right off the bat of your term in office, you switched around some of the officer posts, and one is currently vacant, that being your own slot. What was the reasoning behind moving Robespierre in charge of WA affairs while continuing to leave Outreach empty, at least temporarily?

J: It was a combination of what I feel the region needs and what suited my cabinet, Robes is a talented WA author and our focus on domestic WA authorship and growth will complement them nicely. Outreach needs a person able to drive the car so to speak, be it updating guides or welcomes new players, which is why I left the office empty pending the officer election.

C: Interesting. You made this change pretty immediately, what other sorts of things might we rejects see in the very near future?

J: I want a strong cabinet, I have a number of announcements/plans which I’m hoping to announce soon, the next of which will be my revised RMB policy after the relevant rules have been updated.

C: You’re following up Sarah as delegate, who had a widely popular tenure. How do you plan to continue with the work she did and try and hold up to the excellent standard she set?

J: Sarah set a high bar. My term will focus on building upon the foundations that Sarah has built, I’ve already begun making sweeping changes - for example our new sparkly WFE!

C: The WFE is indeed looking very pretty and stylish! Speaking of style, Sarah also had a “gimmick” with her bread. Your opponent Neq planned on doing the same but with a dog had he been elected. Will you have a similar kind of thing, and if so, could you give any hints? :P

J: I believe ‘characters’ suit some people but not others, I see myself as just being me really :P I suppose you could say I’m a bit of a Mean Girl if you got the references from my delegate campaign xD

C: Well that’s a very fetch response. Such a grool delegate. Anyways, you’re leaving your WA Officer role to enter into this office. Are you proud of the term you’ve served?

J: On a whole, I’m happy. There was a few things I didn’t get round to finishing; such as my WA guide dispatch - but I’m intending to finish that regardless. I think WA activity has definitely improved, which was my goal. Was I perfect? Definitely not - I wish I could have done even more. But I feel I left the WA office in a good position.

C: Well I’m glad! Now I have a few questions about your plans for each arena under the jurisdiction of the delegate? What sort of ideas are you bringing to the table for Foreign Affairs?

J: My focus on FA affairs will be building bridges with more regions and strengthening relations we already have. As mentioned earlier, some of the events planned will encompass FA elements as well as culture, which I shall elaborate on as required.

C: Do you think Neq has been doing a good job managing FA thus far?

J: Absolutely. Neq hit the ground running with the diplo corps and I really respect their work ethic.

C: How about Nakari with Culture, and speaking of which, what are your plans for that department?

J: The big plan will be the cards event we have planned with a number of our friends and allies. It will be a big party of fun and i’m so glad to be able to have TRR involved in it. What can I say about Nakari, she’s a culture queen - she is full of amazing ideas and I can’t wait to work with her.

C: Yay, cards! That was a big part of your platform! How do you plan to get those not previously involved in that part of the game interested?

J: The thing is with cards - even if it’s not something that interests you, i’d always recommend trying it - to me its not about being the best its about making collections and collecting cards that you enjoy and like - and that should be the main appeal.

C:Very fair! So, finishing up, anything you’d like to say to the people of TRR who elected you into our highest office?

J: Yes. I am thankful and privileged to be your delegate, you gave me a big chance and big shoes to fill and will do my very best to make the region proud.

C: Thank you again for being here, and have a great day, Jamie! ❤️

J: Thank you ❤️

The Gameplay Awards

NEWS | WRITTEN BY Guest Writer Zukchiva | EDITED BY the Editor-In-Chief

Every year, the NationStates Gameplay community convenes in order to celebrate and award individuals, entities, and events that made an impact throughout the previous year. 2020, with all that had occurred this year both in terms of in-game politics and other issues, was a perfect and active year for awards. On December 25th, 2020,, Lord Dominator opened up the latest rendition of the Gameplay Awards. The rules and awards were similar to 2019’s Gameplay Awards, such as no-self nominations and a similar timetable for the ceremony.

Nominations opened immediately after Lord Dominator’s post, and a flurry of nominations were posted. Many popular gameplayers such as Tim, Phoenix, Xoriet, Altino, Roavin, and others were nominated for a various slew of individual awards. In terms of military organizations, nominations included Lily, the Black Hawks, the South Pacific Special Forces, the Grey Wardens, and the Autumnal Court of Caer Sidi. And for news organizations, entities like NSToday, Europeian Broadcasting Corparation, and the Rejected Times were nominated for their journalistic work. With over 30 people submitting nominations and seconds, the options for voting were diverse, with only one Award not having any valid nominations with a second.

On January 6th (the same day nominations were closed), voting for the Awards was opened. Over the next two weeks, over 70 votes were cast for the various Awards, utilizing a form Lord Dominator had provided. In an amazing display of activity, nearly half of all votes were cast within two days of the vote being opened! On January 21st, Lord Dominator formally closed the votes and formally announced Award results.

While many nominees were presented, only a few could win the Awards. Out of the individual awards, we see famous players like Dakota, Koth, Aquila, and Phoenix win various awards based on popularity, raiding/defending, and politics. On the military side, The Black Hawks won the “Raider Military of the Year'', with Lily winning the “Independent/Unaligned/Other Military of the Year”, and the Grey Wardens winning the “Defender Military of the Year Award”. The Rejected Times, as well as the Europeian Broadcasting Corporation, tied for best News Operation of the Year. Based on the subsequent comments in the thread, it is clear that many people were happy with the results.

Overall, the 2020 Gameplay Awards proved to be the final highlight for 2020. With over 30 nominations and 70 votes cast, the Awards go to show how involved and active of a community NationStates Gameplay is. Hopefully, the 2021 Awards prove to have just as many fun, interesting, and well-deserving nominations as last year’s Awards had!

New Delegate of the South Pacific Elected

NEWS | WRITTEN BY Journalist Purple Hyacinth | EDITED BY Crowheim

On the first of every January and July, the election for Delegate takes place in the South Pacific. The election runs in two rounds. In round one, legislators vote on all of the candidates using approval voting on the TSP forums. The top two candidates with the most approvals then move on to round two, which is a week-long gameside poll restricted to Native, WA resident nations, though members of the South Pacific Special Forces that are on deployment are allowed to vote via an alternate method.

TSP’s Delegate is largely a figurehead with little power. As a result, people often place emphasis on people’s trustworthiness rather than their ideas. Amerion, the incumbent, chose not to run. The three candidates who ran, Beepee, Rebeltopia, and Jay Coop, are all generally considered trustworthy figures. The candidates showed that they knew this too, with all three campaigns mentioning that they would be a safe choice. A third of voters cast their vote in approval of all candidates, and only one ballot was cast for Re-Open Nominations. The race ended up incredibly close, showing that legislators as a whole didn’t really have a strong preference for one candidate over another. Beepee received 27 votes, Rebeltopia received 26 votes, and Jay Coop received 25 votes.

Beepee and Rebeltopia moved on to round two. Since a lot of the nations that vote are nations who primarily are active gameside, round two is generally determined by who has the most influence on the RMB. Rebeltopia has not been very active on the RMB, so they were less well known. However, Beepee is not only active on the RMB, but during the election, was serving their second term as an elected Local Councillor, a role elected on gameside that primarily involves moderating the RMB. It was no surprise that Beepee held a strong lead over Rebeltopia, eventually getting twice as many votes as Rebeltopia.

After the election is over, TSP law states that the Delegate is not legally Delegate until they get the ingame seat. Beepee’s transition might be a long one--at the end of the election, they had 436 endorsements compared to Amerion’s 711--that’s 40% fewer endorsements. By comparison, when Amerion was elected, they had 809 endorsements and Aumeltopia had 916--only about 10% fewer endorsements--and Amerion’s transition into the Delegacy took 23 days. Based endorsement count trends from January 19th (the end of the election) to January 28th, I would guess that Beepee will surpass Amerion in endorsements in about a month. This likely long transition is probably due to the fact that Amerion is on the Council of Regional Security and Beepee is not. Beepee not being on the CRS means that they started off with a lower endorsement count, and Amerion being on the CRS means that nations are still asked to endorse them.

Beepee did not make many promises in their campaign, so we will have to wait and see what they will accomplish during their term. They may just sort of sit there--which is all that's really required of a Delegate anyway. But previous Delegates have done things beyond that. For example, Aumeltopia and Amerion held Endorsement Days to encourage cross-endorsing. Or perhaps they'll think of something new to do.

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