A Rebuttal to "The Nationstates Freedom Pact"

The Nationstates Rebuttal Sheet -- a response to:

The Nationstates Freedom Pact
Copyright © 2005, Twink, Inc. (with the exception of the parodied graphic above)

Preamble
This document is designed to promote freedom, justice, and tolerance within Nationstates and shall not be construed, in any way, to promote flaming, trolling, spamming, or any otherwise childish and immature behavior. Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. By agreeing to the Nationstates Freedom Pact, you must place "The Nationstates Freedom Pact," within your signature on Nationstates and place a link to this page.



This rebuttal is designed to clear up some misconceptions apparently based on an enormous number of figures pulled out of guess-space and the ether.

The Moderators' Hardwork
Recalling the numerous individuals who have been warned for saying the moderators' job is not hard.
Recognizing that-

* The overwhelming majority of disciplinary actions are taken based upon complaints in the moderation forum. <-- Incorrect assumption #1. The bulk of complaints are received through the Getting Help Page.

* There are, on average, roughly ten moderation complaints a day. <-- incorrect assumption #2. * There are four forum moderators.

* Several other non-forum moderators oversee the forum.

* It usually takes minutes of work for moderators to resolve each complaint. <-- incorrect assumption #3 -- I've personally spent hours checking information hunting down nests of multis.

* The subjective aspect of dealing with "annoying people," is no worse than with retail jobs. <-- incorrect assumption #4 -- I've held retail jobs that were less stressful than this.

* Almost no one compliments employees of retail for their hardwork. <-- Yes, but they do get paid for it, don't they?

Affirms that it takes each moderator a few minutes a day to do their job and it is not a difficult task. <-- Statement is wildly inaccurate. I have been a game moderator for fifty days as of this writing; I have completed 12780 tasks, which elementary math will tell you comes out to an average of 255.6 tasks completed EACH DAY.

The Moderators' Decisions
Recalling the numerous individuals who felt that they have been warned, banned or deleted from Nationstates unfairly.
Recognizing that-

* Some individuals are merely rationalizing their own poor behavior. <--agreed.

* Some individuals who are warned, banned, and deleted have absolutely no problems at other comparable forums. <--Some forums tolerate a lot more abuse and flaming than this one.

* The moderators are human beings. <-- agreed

* A large, busy forum separated into groups creates "Us and Them." And apparently, the mods are the "them."

* The "Halo Effect" distorts individuals' perceptions. <-- Please, don't explain any of this. Just state it.

* "Groupthink" leads to extremism. <-- Agreed. For instance, spammers thinking they own the forums, and griefers thinking they can abuse other people until they are shown differently.

* The "Fundamental Attribution Error" causes people to judge others hypocritically. <-- again, don't bother to explain it; impressive phrases are enough to prove a point.

* Lack of democracy creates elitism. <-- What site is a democracy? I remember a spectacular failure related to the Nationstates Reform group, whose forums were NOTHING but flaming and apparently imploded. Additionally, nothing would be accomplished if we had to poll every nation for every decision.

* The prohibition against "rules-lawyering" can and is interpreted to eliminate disagreements with moderators' rulings. <--no, the prohibition is against people saying, for example, "But since this is a flag of a lookalike actor dressed as Hitler and acting the part of Hitler in a movie about Hitler, since it's not actually Hitler you can't tell me it's prohibited!"

* "Deletion" is rarely ever used in virtually all other forums. <-- Statistics, please? Another guess? Even if by some chance this statement is accurate, as my mother would have said, "This isn't every other forum; if you don't like this forums' rules, you can go live at Billy's forum!" ;)

* One can create another nation after being deleted. <-- Yes, because evil people that we are, we give people second chances. If they have learned to be civil, not multi, and not spam, (aka acting in a courteous manner) they are welcome to stay. If they choose to continue with their antisocial behavior, they're permanently banned -- and you cannot honestly say that people are not banned in other forums.

Affirms that deletion serves no rational, disciplinary purpose. <-- It does serve a rational, disciplinary purpose. It removes people who are causing trouble, and gives those other players who have been harassed by them a break.

Further affirms that some individuals have been, are, and will be warned, banned, and deleted unfairly. <-- Subjective opinion based on player's "Us vs. Them" mentality. Implies there is a belief here that moderators hate players and search for and create reasons to delete them.

The Cost of Nationstates 2
Recalling the moderator who admitted Nationstates 2 is going to cost money, because of desire for profit, not necessity. <--So, you can profit from the game by enjoying it, but the hours of work going into it deserve no compensation?

Recognizing that-

* During the first 50 pages of original discussion, the moderators claimed it was being done out of necessity.
* The original statistics put forth were skewed. <-- in what way? Because you pulled statistics out of the ether based on guesstimates?

* The moderators were dishonest. <-- in what way? because you decided not to believe them? Again -- it's not enough to make a statement without proving any of it.

* The actual numbers of those who are going to pay may not be enough to support the costs.
* Games which are the same size as, smaller than, and larger than Nationstates have remained free. <-- and other games have gone pay for pay... so your point is?

* Unpaid, freelance programmers can be easily sought. <-- uh huh, and we'd know we could trust them not to cheat or abuse players' personal information because.....?

* A system of paid "perks" could cover server costs. <-- So you DON'T object to people paying for the game? Just SOME people, not you...

* According to basic principles on "minimalization" in Computer Science, a separate game would be less cost-effective.
* Charging money for the game would not further Max's main priority of selling his books. <-- no, but it would be an income, wouldn't it?

* People who don't enjoy reading would not buy Max's book, but would donate. <-- all refuted in the thread in the Nationstates 2 forum, and all again based on guesses pulled out of the ether.

Affirms that it would be a smarter business decision to build upon or re-write Nationstates 1.
Further Affirms that a free game, supported by donations or a "perks" system would be preferable. <-- to you.

Intellectual Rights to User-Submitted Content
Recalling the Nationstates user-agreement, which states Max Barry owns all user-submitted content to Nationstates.
Recognizing that-

* Online documents are not usually legally-binding, particularly if the person signing is underage.
* Nationstates proclaims ownership over the content, but not legal responsibility.
* You cannot own the rights to content and publish it, but completely deny responsibility for it.
* Justifying lack of responsibility by naming Nationstates as a "forum," for "the general public," eliminates any claim to intellectual rights.

Affirms that the user-agreement is null, void, and merely a guideline, and neither Max Barry, nor any employees of Nationstates or Jolt have any claim to the user-submitted intellectual property on the public-domain forum of Nationstates. <--read other sites. This is standard stuff. Read other forums.

Final Declarations and Establishments
Declares that-

* The moderators' rule over Nationstates is unjust. In your opinion.

* We will fail to recognize their sovereignty. <-- Fail to recognize anything you like, so long as you obey the rules. It's only when you break them that there's a problem.

Establishes that-

* We will never post anything that could even possibly be interpreted as being flaming, trolling, spam, thread-hijacking, or otherwise illegal. Thank you.

* We will not post in the moderation forum, even when we are bothered by others who flame, troll, spam, and hijack threads. Your choice. We'll still act if we see rules being broken.

* We will not speak of or to the moderators unless necessary, and will never refer to them as "moderators" or "mods." Denial is a pretty silly thing.

* We will not recognize Max Barry's illegitimate and illegal claim for intellectual rights over the content of individuals' posts within the public-domain forums. If you disagree with it, like software, you have the right to stop using it.

* We will ultimately support democratic rule, achieved through civil disobedience. And if your civil disobedience involves breaking rules, then don't be surprised if there are consequences.

* We will put forth work, in any way possible, towards a superior political-simulation game, open-source, released under the GNU General Public License 2.0, and protected by "Fair Use." In other words, stealing the idea from Mr. Barry.

* We will notify others of this document by placing a link to it in our forum signature and mentioning it when appropriate. Be our guest. This one goes in my sig, too.