[Manifesto] Campaign for GSO Reform

[Guido Zambelis]

Scott - or in fact everyone;

Would you be open to a new map and organisation based in whole or in part on a hybrid of the GSO and MCS?

(I'm looking for outright support here )

[Scott Alexander]

Would you be open to a new map and organisation based in whole or in part on a hybrid of the GSO and MCS?

I would be very open to a new such organization, but not to a new such map.

[Liam Sinclair]

You could be the f**king Minister of Health

I'm in an even better position - I'm a part of Her Majesty's Civil Service

[Hesam Jayatar]

Im open to anything thats credible.

[kirov]

I'm in an even better position - I'm a part of Her Majesty's Civil Service

 That was rightous,

[Andreas the Wise]

I have to agree with Scott, in general (Scott, do you ever find it scary how similiar our general views are, and yet how deeply we're divided over philosophical issues?).  I do love Micras.  I think most cartographers do.  That's what I learnt when I joined the council - when you start doing map updates and maps regularly, you learn to love every pixel.

Plus I just enjoy developing the land we have.  It isn't realistic, and I don't care about that in the slightest.  I'd rather have a beautifully developed imaginary nation than a perfectly realistic imaginary nation.  And I know I don't speak for everyone in saying that.  Perhaps its just a Novatainian/Shirithian thing.
And we never did that on the GSO ... perhaps because the map is harder to edit, perhaps its because the land isn't as cool looking, perhaps its just because we got their later.  But if you'd ask me before we left GSO (and looking back, I have no idea how we got on), if the GSO died, would it affect Novtainia in the slightest?  No.  If the MCS died, would it affect Novatainia?  Phenomenally.  Our national identity is very connected to our land.  There is history in ... well, not every pixel yet (I'm working on it) but in most of them.  If the community sprang up with a new map, I'd probably be one of the people trying to keep the Micras map alive.

Very few micronations actually use their "land" to any useful long-term and viable extent.

Quite true.  But there are some that do and if you start a new map you'd have to manage without them.  Look at the effort Babkha went to reclaim Eura  when they returned to Micras.  Just goes to show ...

Hesam, haven't we had this discussion before? There are no fantasy nations in the hobby, either on Giess or Micras, with the exception of the ex-Gralans and limited parts of Shireroth. And the most fantasy-oriented nation of all, Novatainia, was on Giess for most of its lifetime!

Echoed.  Apart from the last line.  I'd say, up until I became King and made my historical developments public, that Toketi was the most fantasy-orientated.  But minor details ...

Nowadays, most successful countries have settled into a model based on having a political system that revs up during election time and whenever there are interesting crises, and spending the rest of the time in quiet simulated culture building and quiet simulated foreign affairs. This model isn't unique to Micras or Giess; both have converged on it independently as the most stable configuration. It isn't unique to any particular theme of country: it's as common in magical Toketi as in Iran-based Babkha as in completely made up cultures like Natopia.

And again, I'd agree, and emphasise his later line that the majority of nations don't have enough citizens for a decent political simulation.  As far as I can tell, the majority of nations out there are under five people, and having spent much time in a five man nation, and now having it reduced to three, I think five is the minimum number of core citizens you need to really get anything interesting going.

The organization strikes me as a very good organization, in that it's done what it's there to do - get the map updated fairly and frequently with a minimum of fuss

Considering the huge flame-fests that go on in Micras every time one micronation tries to claim more land than others think it deserves, the constant worry about whose borders don't look realistic enough, and the level of analness every time a mountain gets moved a pixel in the wrong direction, I would say that there's anywhere from a substantial minority to a small majority who care very much about their map.

I really don't understand the comments from GSO people that the MCS is completely controlled by its leaders and highly inefficient.  It has its phases, but in general, maps are updated every week, we go through more claims than the GSO, and its very true that for the large part claims are regulated by the community rather than Council whim - if something is too big, everyone comments and its denied.  If something's fine, nobody disputes it and it passes fine.  Perhaps the organisation could be done better, but it manages quite well in general.  And certainly far faster updates than the GSO.

Would you be open to a new map and organisation based in whole or in part on a hybrid of the GSO and MCS?

Organisation, maybe.  Depends.  While there are good justifications for imposing international standards if you want a really 'realistic' map, I do love the relatively complete freedom Micran nations have to develop their land as they want.  So it would depend on what the new organisation's purpose was.  Map - no.

EDIT: I was thinking a little more.  Here's a radical idea ...
Land (and thus maps) is used for four purposes:
1. To show which other nations we can interact with (and how far they are away);
2. To show what land we have to develop (terrain etc);
3. To show what resources we have for economic development (at least on the MCS);
4. To show our prestige as a nation (I'm not sure this works on the GSO, but on the MCS the more land you have, generally means the more developed, older and/or more active your nation is, and thus you have more influence).

Any new map will change the nature of 1 and 3.  It will be a very daunting task to renegotiate 4 for initial claims.  It will largely destroy 2, even if you get a similiar climate, for any of those nations who have seriously developed their geography.

A second thing to consider is the nature of nations these days.  I would divide them into two groups, but I wouldn't go realists/fantasists.  I'd say there are those nations who aim to seriously simulate a nation like the real world, and those who aim to have fun simulating a nation.  Those properly qualified as fantasists actually go to great depths to develop a land (and anyone who's read SCM must notice the depth of development) - they just don't try to make it conform to earth standards.  And there are other nations out there to whom this is just a hobby, and so they'll go for somewhat realistic, but they aren't interested in the depth and seriousness of the first type of nation.  Any united map will have to cater to both groups.

The easiest way to allow both on the map is to either leave the nations free to develop land the way they want; or make any existing standards very clear.  I like that the MCS currently does the first one very well - clearly some things, like resources or a physical map, do need to be worked out for the whole world, not left ad-hoc to individual nations, but this would be covered very well if we adopted Quetzal with claims on it - as it doesn't just give a vague physical map, but shows terrain and everything. (Scott, still waiting on those small corrections before we can adopt it  ).  With that minor change, we have people working from the same geographical slate, but leave them free to develop outside of a perfectly realistic framework if they want.

But we also leave them free to be totally realistic.  Why do we need a new map for realistic nations?  Why not just an organisation on the existing map?  We've established that there aren't enough "pure" realists left (and you keep bagging one of them - Ocia) to support a map on their own.  But there's nothing to stop you all being on MCS, but also having a "realist" organisation that imposes extra standards on members.  I know the International Standards Organisation failed, but it may well have aimed too broad.  The key things you need international standards on are geography, war and economics.  You can continue claiming realistically if you want - the Council likes to see you're actually using the land.  You can have a war system like ADB (as long as you're aware that you may not have others participate in it), or use Anunia, but add your own subrules about posting troop movements and allowing you to invade others before they agree to a war.  Then, when a war does break out, you can invite the not quite so realistic nations in for the fight as well.
Finally, you can create rough international standards for resources etc, maybe even tieing resources into military production (now that would be interesting, and we even tried it in an earlier trade incarnation but there wasn't enough general interest).  If you really wanted you could create your own resource map that your organisation uses, though I'd prefer if you tried to work within the MITO framework - its simple enough that you can develop more complex things on top of it, but still trade with the less strictly realistic nations out there.

Summary: Just imagine the disputes you'll have trying to populate a new map out of the current two.
Instead, why not move to MCS, get Scott to finish Quetzal and make it official, (modify the organiational structure a bit if you really want, but currently its working quite efficiently), and then create a standards organisation of those members who want to be realistic, and participate primarily with eachother, while leaving room to involve the rest of the world where you need them (eg War and basic trading).  There is absolutely nothing in the current MCS structure preventing you from pursuing realism on it if you want (even to the extent of creating your own terrain map, or resource map for your organisation only) - you can recreate the GSO ideals on the same map as everyone else, as long as you keep the boundary between standards organisation and map quite clear.

[extreme007]

4. To show our prestige as a nation (I'm not sure this works on the GSO, but on the MCS the more land you have, generally means the more developed, older and/or more active your nation is, and thus you have more influence).

That's precisely one of the reasons that some do not like the MCS for (atleast I speak for myself). The size on the map has begun to take more importance than the quality of the nation.
For instance, let's say some new nation gives birth. Say Republic of Waterspaceland. And the citizens are of the Lovely-inspired types (except those that are now around and have matured considerably). They could easily say "look, our activity is 300 posts a month" (or something) "while Babkha's is only at 30. We have more citizens than Babkha. We should have more land than Babkha. Make us bigger on the map. Give us that island." Whereas in truth, the more developed a nation becomes, the less posts you begin to see for 'developing' that nation! What do you do when all you can think of (say in politics to improve a nation) has been done? If a new idea comes up, then you discuss that idea, but that's it. While a new nation has tonnes of things to go through, lots of bugs to iron out in their system and thus, lots of activity available to them. Similarly with citizens. Unless offcourse if you are Babkha, where every old citizen that comes raises a revolution and overthrows the Shah. Thus keeping busy with politics all the time. Who's the Shah now?.
Off course, no one would point at Shireroth or Babkha because these two have been around for longer than most micronationalists were even here (myself included). Infact, I remember many saying "Shireroth's been on MCS for long. They deserve the land they have" when the whole GSO/MCS split was happening. The point 4 is just a proof of that.

1. To show which other nations we can interact with (and how far they are away);

A new map would be capable of doing this. So too would reuse of GSO/MCS map.

2. To show what land we have to develop (terrain etc);

Again, all three maps would be capable of doing that. How realistically its done depends. Because MCS map has been passed down from time when a map was just required, it has features in places that makes you wonder how its even possible? Like mountain ranges, deserts, rivers, etc... GSO map was started with trying to solve these things from the get-go and thus, actually supports this. The realism of the new map would start before its even penned.

3. To show what resources we have for economic development (at least on the MCS);

Again, same as above point. You dont find oil everywhere. You dont find plutonium everywhere. Same with fishes, herds, iron and everything else. Other than, any map (no matter what realism) is capable of putting resources on itself. The only difference is how much thought and realism has been put into placing those resources.

4. To show our prestige as a nation (I'm not sure this works on the GSO, but on the MCS the more land you have, generally means the more developed, older and/or more active your nation is, and thus you have more influence).

This I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND AGAINST on the new map. You tell me which is more prestigious? Singapore or Sudan? Bahrain or Yemen? Cuba or Venezuela?
I remember Feianova wanted to be only a city-nation. That was their choice. And as far as I remember, there were some good micronationalists in that nation, who are or might still be around. Would that nation have had the same amount of importance under the point 4 you mentioned as Gralan or whatever nation there is on MCS that's not big enough? (don't know any nation names on MCS at the moment. sorry. not been there in a while).

Anyways, I think we should certainly have a forum where we can channel all this talk. In the worst case, we'd atleast be bringing out all the issues facing this community and taking a step forward even if we dont solve it.

[Andreas the Wise]

Extreme, I think you miss my point.  Yes, any decent map can do those things.  But any new map immensely changes the nature of those things and invalidates a lot of work nations have already done.

You also seem to be taking 4 with that inherent GSO bias.  I don't know what MCS was like at the time of the split - I wasn't there then.  But I know that at the current time, the council doesn't just look at activity.  Beaugium had insane amounts of posts but no development, and so they don't get large amounts of land.  There's also HUGE arguments whenever anyone tries to claim a lot of land at once (and when they try to claim to close together).  To get a lot of land, nations need to have been around a while to build up over a year or two, as well as having the accompanying new cultural developments etc.
Yes, there are a few small nations that like to be small, like Craitland.  But oddly enough, you don't see Craitland invading lots of nations, or participating in spy work, or the other stuff that the sort of influence large land demonstrates is useful for.  (Instead, they just control micronational sport  )

[extreme007]

Extreme, I think you miss my point.  Yes, any decent map can do those things.  But any new map immensely changes the nature of those things and invalidates a lot of work nations have already done.

What sort of work does it invalidate? If you give an example or two, I might be better able to understand or structure my answer accordingly.

Regarding the latter stuff, I agree. But what would you do when a new nation copies all the development work (maybe improves or does it differently. whatever.) that an already developed nation has done? What if I start a nation, have enough active citizens, and do everything that Shireroth currently has. And I keep requesting for land? I wanna grow big. Maybe my nation is based on conquering new lands. Whatever the case be.
Let me put it this way, maybe I want my nation to be huge, but only a part of it populated. Like Greenland or Australia! But in the center of map. Say Eura on Mircas, or where Gotzborg was on Giess. I wouldn't mind if nations consider my nation as third-world nation or even worse than Craitland that cant even field a team for a micronational sport!

The point I was making here is that prestige of a nation should NOT be linked to the size of the land.


Hmmm.. if we get a new system/organization/map, perhaps we should have an ADB style thing. You get X amounts of money per month/year. You spend Y amounts on gaining additional pixels, or a resource, or military. Just a quick thought.

[Andreas the Wise]

What sort of work?  Well, history at any level larger than individual city.  Any maps they've made.  Any sort of geographical development involving the location of things relative to other things, especially anything involving islands.  Cities might just be transferable, but their relative position to eachother and coastline/islands will be virtually impossible to transfer.

If the resource map different, development of cities based on the resources they have is lost.  Ditto with physical/terrain.

Plus, if you've gone to an effort to get treaties with all the nations near you ... what happens when suddenly they all get spread to every side of the world?  Or you have military deals and it ends up that bases that used to be far apart are not right next to eachother and pointless.

That sort of work

EDIT: But if you don't like four, then don't like it.  I'll leave you to correct that in your GSO update (if you do update and not just rejoin MCS)

[extreme007]

If the work starts on a new map, then those things would be taken into account by nations that want it. Gotzborg did that when they joined the GSO. They wanted their map and not the MCS one. Then Anthelia said that they wanted to maintain Novasolum. Plus, other things. And that was all worked into it (the GSO map).

Now, I highly doubt that any nation would actually want their land on a new map to be pixel-to-pixel similar to the previous map they are on (unless if they are only a few ten pixels or so big!) Even the coastline for that matter. Are you really going to pick over, "hey this coastline should not extrude here by 4 pixels and shown be inland here by 2."

Even a historical document does not actually consider how many pixels and in which exact direction each city/object is relative to one another. Maybe a rough direction, like NE of the city.

With resources and terrain, its the same sort of deal. Babkha (or GC at that stage) had requested there to be different types of terrain for their nation when we were in the planning stage of GSO. If a nation wants desert, then they get that. If they want plains, they get that. This all goes on before the first pixels of the map are drawn. If someone ends up very adamant that they are unwilling to cooperate with the rest of the nation, we could even just copy-paste their entire land/continent into the new map and work from there (or we could just say "screw you. everyone else is cooperating. you are not special.")

With treaties, like I mentioned earlier, GSO did that with Novasolum. They wanted all the treaty nations to be together in roughly the same position as they were on MCS. They even kept the name! (though Darcy might have had to fight that with MCS)
Hmmm, if some treaty does gets pointless or useless, then you could always void that treaty and make up another. Hell, it would just give an excuse, a valid one mind you, to keep diplomacy between nations!


Hope that helps. If not, point to a particular issue (like a particular treaty or history or something which shows just how important the relative position of two cities and the coastline/island is) and I'll try to show you how it could be worked around on a new map for instance.
At the moment, it sounds more like you too are taking these 3 points with the inherent MCS bias.

You also seem to be taking 4 with that inherent GSO bias.

[Andreas the Wise]

Actually, that sounds far better.  If you are going to take into account a nations rough terrain and land shape, then a new map is much more plausible.  Apologies, I thought a new map meant someone just drew a new map and then we squabbled over our new land spots (and with 40 odd nations, that would be chaos)

[Hesam Jayatar]

Unless offcourse if you are Babkha, where every old citizen that comes raises a revolution and overthrows the Shah. Thus keeping busy with politics all the time. Who's the Shah now?.

I am actually.


I agree with the concept of what Extreme is talking about. but my unfortunate opinion is that we still don't have a large enough community to support both the MCS map and the GSO map. Further, even though the GSO map aims for a more realistic simulation, our staffing organization is not as dedicated. That's fine, the MCS lucked out and employed the-brain-in-a-jar known as Spangle who thrives in spreedsheets and databases. The GSO does not have an equivelant. So my point is that while Extreme's ideas are fantastic, and while Troy's Stella proposal is fantastic, the bottom line is WHO IS WILLING TO DO THE WORK TO MAKE IT SO?