Mass recruitment policy

[Sandaoguo]

I believe we need to start developing a policy with regards to mass recruitment in The South Pacific. Osiris flew out of the gate with a broad policy that considers mass recruitment an act of war, and unfortunately they've implicated all other GCRs without any consultation. This is troublesome to me because attacks will be waged on regions in the name of TSP, even though we haven't asked for it and may not even consider mass recruitment an act of war. This means our name is being used to lend credence to Osiris' policy, so regions very well may believe that we are explicitly approving of the attacks.

 

So we should probably discuss this issue before Osiris starts attacking more regions and changes the recruiting landscape unilaterally. In my opinion, we should not consider mass recruitment an act of war because Feeders are the only source of new nations in NationStates. We have a responsibility to allow other regions to reach out to these new nations, which helps ensure the overall health of the entire game. Although we are working to grow our regional community, it would be selfish of us to "claim" all 3,800 nations as "ours."

 

Mass recruitment is a new frontier in NationStates. It's a grand experiment that may succeed and might fail. I don't believe that it will destroy regions, and certainly won't destroy GCRs. The NationStates administration has always worked with the community to foster balance between competing aspects of the game. With this new policy, they are trying to strike a balance between individual regional growth and the overall health of NationStates. Should that balance be out of reach with the new mass recruitment and UCR recruitment policies, the administration has not given any reason for us to doubt that the situation will be remedied.

 

Additionally, we should also think about formulating a policy on the use of mass telegrams as a tool of war. Is it legitimate? What uses are legitimate? For instance, Osiris' policy is using mass telegrams with the intent of destroying regions by recruiting all (or at least a critical mass) of their nations. The question we have to ask ourselves is whether or not that kind of stuff is okay.

 

Lastly, as mostly a side note, I know that I've been highly critical of Osiris and Cormac for long time. I just want to say that this post isn't an attack on Osiris or Cormac. It just so happens that Osiris has been the only GCR to release a mass recruitment policy and act upon it. I've had long-held opinions on recruitment, so I would be bringing this up no matter which GCR acted first.

[Escade]

I received a flurry of recruitment TGs when the first feature came out but haven't gotten any since. They're so easy to delete without reading that they're not an effective tool unless a nation is unhappy with where they are.  What is our current policy on mass TGs?  I also don't think it makes sense to equate an in-game tool with an act of war.  

 

Osiris is a strange region. The emotional control of the leaders needs some fine tuning.

 

I can understand why recruitment is banned on many RMBs, it's like allowing the competitor to put a sign in your front yard. However, with TGs or other means it seems like perhaps regions should be more concerned with keeping quality residents\citizens happy with the region then trying to hide the wide world from them.

[Sandaoguo]

As far as I'm aware, we don't have a mass telegram policy. There's a post from February by Carta about the security risks of mass unendorsement campaigns, but those are attacks regardless of the method used. (http://forums.thesouthpacific.org/topic/...-concerns/)

 

There was a little discussion when TWP recruited from other GCRs using a script, but no official policy statement was released. The Cabinet was generally hostile to it, and Southern Bellz considered GCR-GCR recruitment as an act of war. (http://forums.thesouthpacific.org/topic/...g-in-gcrs/)

[Kris Kringle]

I don't consider mass recruitment from a GCR to another in itself an act of war. Of course depending on the circumstance under which it happens it might such such or close to such. I do think however that it is an unacceptable act (though as I said not in all circumstances an act of war) to have GCR-GCR mass recruitment considering that all GCRs have a constant influx of residents. No GCR has a real need for recruitment. Their priorities should be keeping their current residents interested rather than getting new residents from other GCRs (like Escade said).

[Belschaft]

GCR-GCR recruitment has been considered an unacceptable act for a very long time; if there's only two things we all agree on they are that UCR's shouldn't control GCR's and that GCR's should not recruit from each other. Act of war is a fair description, and would have actually been the result if TWP hadn't backed the hell down so very quickly and bent over themselves to apologize for their ministers actions.

 

Regarding UCR-GCR recruitment; *shrugs*

 

It's always happened, and will continue to do so. I suspect most will not make use of the mass regional TG to recruit the entire region, but even if they do then they'll only get one shot before falling foul of the recruitment spam rules. As such I think we can have a wait and see approach here, and not address the issue unless it becomes one. If a region starts hitting TSP via it for non-recruitment purposes that's a different thing.

[Sandaoguo]

Act of war is a fair description, and would have actually been the result if TWP hadn't backed the hell down so very quickly and bent over themselves to apologize for their ministers actions.

To me, it's not a fair description unless the recruitment is targeted towards endorsers and not new or uninvolved players. Not every breach of convention should be elevated to an act of war.
 
 

As such I think we can have a wait and see approach here, and not address the issue unless it becomes one. If a region starts hitting TSP via it for non-recruitment purposes that's a different thing.

I'm not sure I agree that it's not already an issue. Osiris already launched self-described attacks against three regions for it, and it's likely they will continue. There's no unforeseen variables as of yet. I think we have all the information we need to begin formulating a policy, we just have to decide if mass recruitment from UCRs to GCRs is okay. Sitting on the sidelines just means Osiris gets to dictate the rules for everybody. If Cormac starts declaring wars on every region caught mass recruiting from GCRs, then Cormac gets to unilaterally change the whole recruiting environment.

I don't think it was appropriate for Osiris to implicate TSP in its policy. At the very least, we should request through diplomatic back-channels that Osiris remove TSP from their statement and agree to not act on mass recruiting conducted in TSP until we develop our own policy. Does that sound reasonable?

[Rebel-topia]

Just because its a problem in Osi doesnt mean its a problem in TSP. I havent received a single RTG in any of my nations... And Ive got a few here in TSP.

[Belschaft]

 

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Belschaft" data-cid="104584" data-time="1376943381">
Act of war is a fair description, and would have actually been the result if TWP hadn't backed the hell down so very quickly and bent over themselves to apologize for their ministers actions.

To me, it's not a fair description unless the recruitment is targeted towards endorsers and not new or uninvolved players. Not every breach of convention should be elevated to an act of war.


</blockquote>
 

An act of war it would have been, as that is what GCR convention agrees it is. The entire point of having conventions is that they are a set of rules everyone plays by, and as such when the convention is 'Doing x is an act of war' then x is an act of war.

 

 

In regards to the wider issue, TSP has only received two mass TG's so far, from Capitalist Paradise and Hippy Haven. Osiris seems to have received more as it has made itself a target for them. I don't see how at this point there is an issue for us to address, and if Cormac wants to tilt at windmills I'm inclined to let him get on with it and not waste our own time doing the same.

[Sandaoguo]

Just because its a problem in Osi doesnt mean its a problem in TSP. I havent received a single RTG in any of my nations... And Ive got a few here in TSP.

It's a problem in TSP for two reason. First, we're being implicated in a broad and controversial retaliation policy when we haven't even decided if we like mass recruiting or not. Second, Osiris is acting unilaterally, which damages the goals of GCR unity. Osiris didn't consult with other GCRs about this. By acting first and acting strong, Osiris is shaping the entire GCR response to this new era of recruiting. If nothing else, we should be formulating a policy so that we're not left in the dust.


It's a huge mistake for the Cabinet to wave this off. We should be proactive. We should be setting the trends, not sitting on our hands until we're forced to respond.

[Kris Kringle]

It was not responsible for Osiris to implicate other GCRs in its policies. It makes no sense for Osiris to consider what might happen to TSP an act of war when TSP itself might not consider it so or at least has not made up its mind. Besides the term 'act of war' in itself is excessive.


Still I don't think we should make this such a big issue. GCRs exist for new nations to get acquainted with NationStates and to then remain or join other regions and we cannot change that. We should not control which of our residents ought to be contacted and which ought not to but we SHOULD work to make our own region more attractive to current and prospective residents. Like Escade said that should be our focus.


We could of course state that as our official position but I think it would be giving too much importance to an overreaction from another region. Our position should be that the legitimate governments of all regions have the right to make their own choices while those choices do not threaten the governments or populations of other regions. That I think is as of now at least our implicit position so I don't think we should do much more than that unless there are further and more significant developments.

[Sandaoguo]

We don't need to "make a big deal" out of it. We could simply put out a statement that we believe TSP plays a certain role in the grand scheme of NationStates, that we believe recruitment from GCRs is just fine. We don't have to release a statement vilifying Cormac or Osiris or their policy. That would be a bad idea, which is why I suggest using back-channels to tell Cormac we don't want TSP implicated in any of their recruitment wars. But I think it's weak of us if we just say nothing.

[Kris Kringle]

If the Cabinet agrees on that it could be worked out. I don't think we 'have to' do it and I don't think it would make us weak not to do something (it would just make us indifferent to Osiris' overreaction) but I don't think either that it would do us harm should we reach a consensus on this.