[So...?]

First, I don't quit. Evar.

Also, I don't despise anybody.

Using my imagination, should I really quit and had I somebody I despise, I would have disgust of myself if I waited that moment to hit.

Of all my shortcomings, I don't have cowardice.

[nazi hunters must of missed this]

Nazis hating Jews.

People hating Nazis.

Same thing.

[OOC]

Unless there's some anarchic thought behind it, this is a weird idea. I will instead assume that we agree that liberal democracy is "good".

The liberal democracy is based primarily over the idea of individual rights, that of course include human rights. The liberal democracy has therefore tolerance for everybody, and for every idea, but those ideas that deny the individual rights. It's not possible to defend individual rights and, at the same time, tolerate the idea that human rights can be ridden roughshod over.

Nazist ideas have no place in a liberal democracy: it's a duty of the community to eradicate them.

On the other hand, the debate is open about how do it, and what to do to the Nazis (i.e. the individuals, not the ideas).

Of course, CN is a whole another topic and this post isn't about that.

[/OOC] (Note that I intentionally removed the author of the post I quoted: I'm interested in the idea, not in a flame war.)

[Alliance Forum Lurkers]

Message them.

If they don't answer, ban their accounts.

If they answer and say they're not interested in you anymore, you can mask them as diplomats, or guests, or whatever you wish.

I wouldn't recommend deleting the accounts, anyway (you may need that info later).

[Legion Announcement]

Congratulations to The Legion and to the Viceroy, for what appears to be a really well done job.

We hope that Peace will forever last between The Legion, the NPO, and the other Alliances of the CyberVerse.

[FAN thread?]

I've been noticing a lot of threads made by FAN members about the recent war. How many more threads do you think they'll make before this war is over?

They started two this far (if we're not wrong, mumble mumble...). We go to guess and we say: one about the end of the war, and one-two other in the meanwhile.

Overall = 4 or 5.

Should we bet on a figure, we'd say 4 (that's two more than the current count). Do we win something, if we guess?

[Alliance Aid transactions]

An Alliance-Aid Transactions list may be interesting. However, are you sure that you can tell who has "the best bankers", out of it?

[Orange vs Blue]

Guess about our vote...

[Is the NPO's action RE: FAN, Honorable?]

[OOC]

Out of curiosity: is this poll being manipulated by the NPO like it happened to the other one?

I ask this because I'm currently on the #nsa and there's nothing about it.

[/OOC]

[Iron Cross Alliance Catches Spy!!]

Well I must say he got the last laugh and is pretty smart. He lives down the street from one of our members (who has unprotected wireless internet) and logged in on his IP and did the attacks, and said the posted messages. In doing so he got our member deleted. This was because he used our members IP and since that was his last recorded IP all the information from that IP was banned and deleted. So now our member lost his nation of over 280 days which had 24 million saved up and he can't even create a new one...

So it is a sad day for IX and its members...

[OOC]I don't know in which country you live, but hitchhiking others' connections is a crime in most places. Maybe he's not that smart.[/OOC]

[GPA Presidential Election Results]

Congratulations to the new GPA President.

Good luck to him, and to the GPA as a whole.

[In Need of Flag and Banner]

The elements of the flag should include the National Football League logo

Are you sure you're not infringing the NFL copyright? The CN Terms of Service? Both?

(wavy and other cool effects with it)

I wish to point you to NAVA "Good Flag, Bad Flag" tutorial, here.

However, "cool" graphics in the banner is a pretty good idea.

[quick question]

I founded one.

[AHEAD Set of Recommendations (I): Surrender Terms]

Thanks to the many that read our words and to the ones (we hope there are some) that found something useful in them.

We believe that this thread served its purpose, so we ask to the Mods to lock it.

We ask to the others poster, out of courtesy, to avoid posting here in the meanwhile the Mods lock the thread.

[AHEAD Set of Recommendations (I): Surrender Terms]

(Last set of answers, and a couple of quotes.)

• Q. "who are you"
  A. We are not sure why our identity is relevant. However, you can find us via the links in our signature (click the image to get to the AHEAD forums).
  
• Q. "why do you get to tell people how to deal with alliances they've just defeated in war"
  A. If with "tell" you mean "teach/impose/etc.", we are not doing that. If you mean "suggest/help", we are doing that, because we believe that our contribution can be useful to the community of CyberNations. The nature of "Open Knowledge" is that the reader can do of it whatever s/he wants; if it's a bad idea, it will be simply ignored. In this way, we don't have to worry too much about the destiny of our Suggestions: if they're bad they will just be forgotten.
  Also, we believe that attempts - like ours - to help this planet's evolution; and rulers, - like us - that show they're active and they care, should be incouraged.
  
• Q. "Look, no offense, but it's NPO/IRON/GGA/TPF/NpO/Valhalla's (did I miss anyone? ) war."
  Q. "On a side note, who says we are gonna let them surrender again? We all saw how they did with the last surrender terms."
  A. We don't believe that this thread can be of any help about the current NPO-FAN issue, because their terms were written three months before our post.
  
• Q. "I'm glad to see you're trying to help, but they'll decide on their own ToS."
  Q. "its those who are fighting who create the terms of surrender not others."
  A. Not only we don't have the possibility to dictate, but we don't even have the intention to affect the content of any Term of Surrender. We think we could be of help in suggesting, but that also is beyond the scope of this thread.
  
• Q. "A little bit of ambiguity in surrender terms never hurt anyone"
  A. It's true that some degree of ambiguity can't be avoided: we are "only" human.
  However, while we repeatedly stressed that our Suggestions aren't about the NPO-FAN issue, we can take that as an example. The current result of this poll (~77% against the NPO's stance), assuming that ~370 voters are significant for representing the general "public", can be explained in two ways:
  
  • The NPO is wrong and the "public" realized it.
    
  • The NPO is right but the "public" didn't realize it.
    

  In the first case the quality of the ToS wouldn't have harmed the NPO image. In the second case, better ToS would have helped the NPO in their communication, probably convincing more people of their right stance.

  We may be wrong, but we believe that the ambiguity in surrender terms harmed the NPO in the FAN-NPO case.

  [*]Q. "majority of victors are more interested in squeezing the last scraping of tech and reparations from defeated nations before they slip up so they can be destroyed, not writing easy to understand and clear surrender terms. That makes it less likely surrendering nations to deviate from the terms, and hence less extortion/sadistic fun for the victors."

  A. We believe that the winning faction of a war would not even start talks for surrender terms, should they just want to crush and "get the most out of" the defeated. Even in our "short" experience, we saw defeated Alliances that were denied any Surrender Terms whatsoever, and Alliances that safely reached the end of their Terms and maybe even started a profitable relationship with the Alliances they were formerly at war with. In fact (but we don't have statistics to back up this idea), we believe that Surrender Terms that don't end well are strictly a minority. Also, the one that used Surrender Terms as a mean to extort, would eventually end in not being taken seriously (not our words).

Who are they? Well, they're a new and small alliance whose protectorate is one of the strongest alliances in the game (IRON), that's who they are.

[...]

Instead, you came here and read the title, then proceeded to flame them with an uneducated comment.

We see the good intentions of the respected BrilliantGenius, but we have to stress two points about these words of him:

• Yes, IRON gifted us with our Protectorate status, and we don't deny that we feel much more secure with it, and that we are extremely grateful to them for it. However, our present Suggestions haven't been agreed with them in advance, because they were just that: suggestion, "flying" words. We didn't think, and we don't think, that this thread should be a reason for any consequence in inter-alliance politics. For all of these reasons, we assume the complete responsibility for our words: we will not even mention our friendship with IRON, to backup our words.
  Moreover, maybe the venerable Ruler of Antioc intended to be threatening towards us, maybe not. However, unless they really proceeded to open hostilities against us, we would feel disgust of ourselves if we tried to evocate the shadow of IRON's might over their Nation, their citizens or their Alliance. War is a wild beast, and we prefer to leave it out of our words.
  
• Also, we don't feel flamed by the words of Cobalt: they expressed two meaningful questions, probably only partially out of topic; we don't know if their apperently rude manners were dictated by haste, by their being a straight person, or really by evil intentions. Life is simply too short to try to read in one's mind.
  

What makes you think they'll get another opportunity to surrender?

We have to say that this joke made we smile (no sarcasm intended). However, the answer is "nothing, we have no idea" (and again, this isn't about FAN).

Moreover, thanks to Bob Janova, HeroofTime55, BamaBuc, Syber, Smallfrog, Dan2680, Desert Ratz, Matthew George, nexangelus for their encouraging words (or, for the part of their words that were encouraging) and (some of them) for helping us in explaining our ideas.

[AHEAD Set of Recommendations (I): Surrender Terms]

Another set of answers:

• Q. "I doubt that the problem of FAN..."
  A. We don't believe that this thread can be of any help about the current NPO-FAN issue. We ask to all the readers to try keep it out of this, to have the thread uncluttered. However, if one strongly feels that not yet mentioned aspect of that case are relevant, please introduce them.
  
• Q. "There's nothing complicated about ..."
  A. The goal of these suggestions is exactly that of making simple to follow the terms.
  (However, the "absolute minimum amount of soldiers required to be free of anarchy" can change through an update just with the natural growth of a Nation's land, so it's not easy to stick at it all the time. Also, a Nation at "exactly" 20% SECR (Soldiers' Efficiency vs Citizens Ratio) may go into Anarchy for a Partner deleting their Trade (e.g. if Aluminum is involved). Also, most Alliances (the NPO included, I believe) will agree that having - say - 22% of soldiers vs citizens isn't a substantial breach of the soldiers' condition. Finally, if one is already satisfied with "casually worded" sentences, s/he shouldn't as well have any issue with sentences carefully worded. The other way round isn't true, instead.)
  
• Q. "If the defeated alliance wants more clearly specified terms, they can request it. Otherwise, any interpretation is left to the winning side when the time comes to enforce those terms."
  A. Every couple of sovereign Alliances has the right to decide of the interpretation of their treaties as they see fit. Should they choose to rely on arbitrates, we believe, they would have both some benefit of it. The defeated will have bigger hopes of not being at the sole mercy of those that won over them. The winner will have a stronger legal basis to support their decision with, in respect of the public opinion. Of course, the quality of the interpretating body is crucial and must not be underestimated. Again, also, it's up to the parties to decide (or not) about the interpretation of the Terms, and about who should do the interpretation.
  
• Q. "the likes of NPO have been around alot longer, and although i know your trying to do some good, i think they are a little more experienced in devising Surrender Terms."
  A. This is released as Open Knowledge. It's not meant to be complete and may be useless. However, we hope it will be instead useful.
  
• Q. "though perhaps belongs in the OWF"
  A. Yes, this is a thought we had. However, even if this Set it isn't a Treaty, it's strictly about treaties, so we eventually thought it belonged in Alliance Politics.
  

[Nuclear Rogue Attack on TDO]

The Nation of Gaela supports the TDO and condemns the nuclear aggression they were targeted with.

AHEAD doesn't have an official position, but we're sure that our fellows share our liking for the TDO's cause.

May Peace come soon (preferably, through the destruction of the aggressors' forces).

[NPO redeclares on FAN]

Here we promised a link to our our first Set of Recommendations, that is about designing Surrender Terms (not specifically the NPO-FAN ones, that were anyway set three months ago).

Here is the promised link:

AHEAD Set of Recommendations (I): Surrender Terms

[AHEAD Set of Recommendations (I): Surrender Terms]

Thank to the posters for the attention so far.

Please let us try to answer to the concerns expressed until now.

• Q. "why should they use these terms and not dictate their own"
  A. These are not terms, rather recommendations on how "dictate" (or, "agree on") them.
  
• Q. "the winners make surrender terms however they wish, not how outsiders suggest."
  A. This is just a set of suggestions. The "winner" of any conflict is free to use any part of them at their will; this includes disregarding these recommendation completely.
  
• Q. "I have no doubt that if NPO had found a handful of violators that a heads up would have been given. This seemed pervasive. As such, it is FAN who should be throwing themselves on the mercy of the NPO war court and seeking diplomacy."
  A. This set of recommendation was inspired by the bad outcome of the NPO-FAN Surrender Terms, but it's not designed to have an influence on what remains of those terms, or on the ongoing war. If not for many other (good) reasons, just simply because this set can be used only when designing the terms. As such, in regards of the NPO-FAN terms, it's three months late.
  
• Q. "those who win the war dictate the terms, external party's should not get involved"
  A. These recommendation are not about external parties' influence. It's however true that we recommend the constitution of a third party, but this would anyway take its legitimacy from the parties signing the terms.
  
• Q. "The problem with this is the assumption that the losers in a war are owed something. Speaking on behalf of the NpO, if you are at war with us, you deserved it, and we will assign surrender terms that we, and we alone, feel are appropriate."
  A. This Set of Recommendation isn't about who should design the Surrender Terms. (The assumption is that - at least - one party of a conflict proposes terms to be used to end the conflict itself, and the other decides whether accept them or not - this is why we say "agree" instead of "dictate". More extensive diplomatic efforts may be put in place on a case per case basis. However, we are digressing.)
  

Thank you Starcraftmazter and smallfrog for having helped in clarifying our thought.

[AHEAD Set of Recommendations (I): Surrender Terms]

The failure of the NPO-FAN Surrender Terms "Treaty" gave to us the idea for this Set of Recommendations.

Please consider this set as a draft: it's still a work in progress. Yet, we believe that it's already enough structured to be of help.

Also, this is released into the Open for everybody that wishes to use it. While of course we invite all the Alliances to consider this, we have by no means the intention to force anybody to do anything. As such, we don't take responsibility on behalf of those that will use this material, either as it is, or after having cutomized it to suit their needs.

Recommendations for Surrender Terms:

1. Definitions: ideally, every word you use should have an univocal meaning. This can theoretically done using a section for definitions. Practically, you should define at least everything that is critical to determine:
   
   • The timeline of events. It's recommended that every term is clearly identified by a specific date. E.g.: "This will be valid until January, 18th, 2008 included". Using the in-game update as reference is recommended.
     
   • The quantities relevant for defining the terms themselves (identification, unit of measure, size allowed or equivalent criterion, exceptions or procedure for exceptions). E.g.: "army per nation, number of soldiers, <=25% (+/-1%), exceptions must be agreed upon first", or "factories per nation, number of factories, <=1, no exceptions", or "external Foreign Aid, number of slots, <=1 and only for Deals, exceptions must be agreed upon first", etc.
     
   • The duration of the infraction for it being considered an offence (e.g.: "Not decommissioning tanks after December, 31st...", or "Raising one's soldier's count over said percentage for more than one day...", etc.
     

[*]Define who is responsible of what. Especially:

• Who is responsible for terms that naturally belong to the individual Nation (tanks, aid, etc.) Either the Nation or the Alliance, or both.
  
• In which case(s) the responsibility applies (e.g.: "the Alliance will be held responsible if more than 5% of its Nations will not comply with...")
  

[*]Define what the consequences of breaches are. Especially:

• Who will be sanctioned, and how (e.g.: "The Nation will be put to temporary ZI and the Alliance will have to pay 100*Nation's NS as reparation").
  
• Which is the time span in which the sanctions will be applied.
  
• Who will apply the sanctions.
  

[*]Guidelines for further steps. If your Surrender Terms (after their expiration) include any mandatory agreement/Treaty between the parties, try to include minimal guidelines for it/them.

[*]Procedure to handle the enforcement of the Terms, and to handle the breaches.

• This is best managed with Alliance-level diplomacy.
  
• Ideally, a channel of communication should be left open all the time, so that problems don't have the time to grow to the size they cannot be solved peacefully, anymore.
  
• It is recommended that the procedure itself encourages the parties to bring up and discuss any issue as soon as possible (= when it comes to knowledge) (e.g.: "the issue/aspect/breach/etc. will not be valid, under these Surrender Terms, if the offended party will not bring it to the attention to the other in within 48 hours from the moment it comes to their knowledge, or from the moment it can't be denied that they had means to know it - via public in-game features.) (This leads to less conflict in the long run, and is therefore recommended. Waiting for problems to disappear on their own or, worst, waiting "to see what the other party does about them", seldom leads to peaceful solutions: the other party may be unaware or unable to deal with it.)
  
• An exception to the previous point is when you want to check if you can trust the other party. (Anyway, if you don't grant them the minimal trust, it can be argued why you signed the Terms with them in the first place.)
  

[*]Who is charged with the interpretation of the Surrender Terms.

• Ideally it will be a third party, not involved in the war and not allied to any of the signatories.
  
• A good solution is an arbitration: each party appoints an arbiter (better an individual Nation), and these two appoint a third arbiter of their trust.
  
• The arbiters (or anyway the interpreting body) should be considered not responsible for their decisions, so that they can't be threatened by the parties involved.
  

Disclaimer: Copying, editing, modifying or otherwise utilizing this document is encouraged by the author. There's no need to credit us, but you can do it if you wish.

[NPO redeclares on FAN]

After having reviewed the NPO-FAN Surrender terms we came to the conclusion that those terms had some original shortcomings, that eventually led to the failure of the treaty:

1. Vague definitions:
   
   • "enough soldiers to keep their population happy" - missing a maximum percentage (and an accepted approximation); and/or missing a criterion (to allow backcollecting, infrastructure jumps, improvement swappings).
     
   • "three months" - what is a month? 30 days? 1st to 1st?
     
   • time terms in general - is the last day included or excluded? Missing the exact date after which the terms have expired.
     
   • "external aid" - are Deals or payments (for artwork, Trades, etc.) outlawed?
     

[*]Missing/faulty definition of the consequences for breaking the terms. The sentence "Any member of FAN who violates these terms will be ZId as long as the NPO deems appropriate." refers to individual FAN Nations, where the NPO interpretation of these terms is that FAN as a whole is responsible for the breaches.

[*]Missing guidelines for the NAP that should have followed the terms (aspect made obsolete by the events, anyway)

[*]Above all: the terms missed a procedure to properly handle their enforcement.

All of this is of course extremely unfortunate. We are sure that many Nations of FAN didn't want anything but respect the terms and live in Peace. Also, many Nations of the NPO like Peace as well, as most the Nations on this planet do (in the NpO, GGA, IRON, etc.)

The current war is a big waste of human lives and resources. Nations are being destroyed. Nukes fly over us and are polluting us, our homes, our children. Even if we are not directly involved.

This world doesn't have a working international justice court; therefore confusion can take its roots among the Alliances. Passive and remissive behaviour are being encouraged, because no one knows to which extent s/he will be able to present their thoughts. This may be seen as inacceptable, but it still is.

We of AHEAD, of course, don't have the strenght to pose an end to this. Even if we could, we wouldn't: we believe in education, in growth, in convincing our interlocutors. We believe in Evolution.

Anyway, we feel responsible for this situation. What we can do, what we must do, what we will do, is to (try to) deliver intelligence.

We will take this occasion to issue our first Set of Recommendations (in a thread of their own - a link will be provided later):

AHEAD Set of Recommendations (I): Surrender Terms

(Edit: added the link.)

(Edit: fixed typos.)

[Iron Cross Alliance Catches Spy!!]

StudyHall Nation has been deleted.

Obviously the Mods came at him.

[Network News: Tidal Wave of Orange Win]

Awesome Charter. WOW.

[IRON Announcement]

Did you not just lose your neutrality there or are GPA doing something wrong?

[tl;dr]

• Our neutrality is more a "pragmatic" one, rather than a "formal" one. As such, we hope it will have bigger chances to be successful.
  
• :wub: IRON :wub:
  
• GPA
  

[/tl;dr]

Thank you BNT for replying about it. We would like to give also a complete answer to the concerns of the venerable leader of M.$.B, as they may be of general interest.

We believe that neutrality can assume many forms.

Our particular form isn't that of isolationism, thus we may express our opinions about the events, even if they're in support of a particular side or stance, and against another. Our definition of "neutrality" doesn't conflict with our freedom of saying and doing what we think is right: in this case, that we think that the IRON's stance is both just and honourable^[1].

We are working for peace, justice and stability, and we wanted to become friends of IRON exactly to better defend and promote these values. Our liking goes first to IRON, our best friends, and we are of course a little bit "enthusiast" in backing up their stances. As you must have noticed, however, we didn't just approved the IRON's statement without reading it, like we were brainwashed monkeys: we're more for peace and we would be happy to see all the parties involved finding a compromise to stop the war.

Our neutrality is more a "pragmatic" one, rather than a "formal" one. As such, we hope it will have bigger chances to be successful.

The GPA rightfully exercises its sovereignty following a political agenda that involves their definition of "neutrality". We respect it and have no comment about it, other than the GPA is awesome for us (though they recently had horrible PR).

[1] Especially when - like in this case - we see that IRON's arguments are flawless (in the respect of FAN's breaching of the surrender terms, and in the respect of IRON's - treatied - friendship with the NPO).

[Edited for typo ("doing doing" has too many "doing" in it).]

[IRON Announcement]

We support the stance of IRON in this war. We're sad that the current situation forced them to endanger the lives of their citizens and soldiers.

Luckily, this war won't be much risky for IRON, as the opponent is clearly outnumbered and hopeless. Shall their Nations come back from war with minimal or no losses.

Also, we have mercy of the Nations of FAN: we hope that they see their true situation and that they find a speedy way towards surrender, before eveything is too late for them.

The AHEAD military is too weak to take direct part in this war and IRON will obviously not need it. For this reason, also for the neutral nature of AHEAD, and in the hope we could be diplomatically useful towards a peaceful solution, the AHEAD will remain militarly neutral.

Therefore, should our assistance be needed to find a compromise, we humbly offer our help.

In the hope of a swift Peace,

King jerdge of Gaela.

[DoS Attacks on NPO forums]

Eleven days ago, a member of the DevilDog alliance threatened to DoS the forums of the New Pacific Order in response to our implementation of the Revenge Doctrine after they attacked and nuked an unaligned red nation. The threat was for 11 days after the post.

Earlier today, 207 visitors were allegedly visiting our forums. Now our forum is offline.

I do not believe in coincidence. Nor do I believe in forum attacks being acceptable behavior in the Cyberverse.

The Devil Dogs have earned permaZI for everyone in their alliance for this act. It is the only recourse I have until we can identify IPs involved.

Enjoy living at the bottom of the food chain; this act has proven it is the only place you deserve to be.

I presume that if it can be proven it wasn't them, they'll be let off the hook. That sort of thing happens all the time. But having some asshat say "I'm gonna haxxor you on (specific date)" and then you get haxxor'd on (specific date), well, if you've got the power to enforce some consequences, then that's how it goes. The circumstantial evidence is pretty damning in this case, which puts the ball in the Dogs' court.

[Completely Out Of Character post]

The evidence is so much overwhelming that it's suspicious. TrotskysRevenge mentioned "a member", was s/he one of Devil Dogs' government?

Though I can't remember the Alliance involved, some weeks ago one impersonating their leader came to these forums and tried to achieve permanent ZI for that Alliance. Later it came out it was Vader.

Any doubt about this story, anybody else?...

[/OOC]