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Writing a Midterm about CN- docs needed/appreciated


AngolaThree

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[quote name='Delta1212' timestamp='1303075405' post='2692073']
Do you just want feedback on the content or will you accept help with cleaning up some of the writing?

Also, just so far in terms of what I've read, I'd challenge the common wisdom that democracies don't work in CN. That's a holdover from the WUT period where the vast majority of democratic alliances legitimately sucked and had little if any organization in comparison to the more autocratic alliances. These days, most successful alliances have some level of organizational bureaucracy regardless of government type, and even the middling alliances are far more effective than even many of the foremost alliances from the period where this idea was birthed.
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Content feedback is mostly appreciated, as it's a rough draft most of the writing hasn't even been looked at seriously and will end up changed.

I don't think I hammer the point too heavily. I should probably avoid the blanket statement though. I point out that the oldest alliance, GATO, is very democratic, and that radically democratic alliances like LSF are also fairly successful. But I point out that you need a membership that cares about it- if you just get a bunch of random newbs and say "ok we're a democracy" it's going to suck.

EDIT: In the second section I've softened up the terms about democracy, saying that it can very well work, just that it often isn't well thought out.

Edited by AngolaThree
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[quote name='AngolaThree' timestamp='1303075727' post='2692075']
Content feedback is mostly appreciated, as it's a rough draft most of the writing hasn't even been looked at seriously and will end up changed.

I don't think I hammer the point too heavily. I should probably avoid the blanket statement though. I point out that the oldest alliance, GATO, is very democratic, and that radically democratic alliances like LSF are also fairly successful. But I point out that you need a membership that cares about it- if you just get a bunch of random newbs and say "ok we're a democracy" it's going to suck.
[/quote]
Well, of course. Then again, a random newb declaring himself king of a bunch of random newbs isn't likely fair much better. But I'm really not trying to get into a debate about the relative merits of democracy versus autocracy, so much as I am just trying to address the following passage specifically:

"Nevertheless, the Global Alliance and Treaty Organization is a democracy and the oldest alliance in the game, at over five years of age,[2] proving an exception to what can largely be declared a rule, if one were to draw data on the lifespan of alliances."

Simply put, I don't think this is an accurate statement in terms of the implied correlation between lifespan and democratic tendencies in an alliance. Incidentally, you contradict yourself (if not explicitly, then at least thematically) with your next sentence:

"Generally, most alliances have a voting body[...]"

This would make more sense if GATO was a direct-democracy, but they run off of more or less the same republican system that most democratic-leaning alliances do. I think this portion needs a bit of revision.

You also have a tendency to throw out vocabulary terms that will make perfect sense to people familiar with CN (NPO was overthrown by 'Karma' or having members be 'elite') which go unexplained, or in the particular case of karma, unexplained until much further into the paper than their initial use. It's best to make sure that unfamiliar terms, or terms which have more context-specific meaning than is generally granted them outside the confines of the subject being addressed, have been explained to the audience or otherwise defined before you use them. Otherwise you tend to lose people and they won't always retain information they can't contextualize long enough to understand what you previously said once you do explain it. I'd make a point of watching for that.

Otherwise, I do think you have a slightly pro-autocratic slant in a lot of places, which makes plenty of sense since it is and has been a fairly popular perspective on CN politics in most public and probably private circles for a long time, but when it comes to writing a political analysis, you'll generally want to avoid coming down too strongly on a single point of view unless you provide substantial evidence to support that opinion. Then again, it probably depends on the class.




You can find a link to download the 3D MDP web on the CN wiki page about the [url=http://cybernations.wikia.com/wiki/Mutual_Defense_Pact_web]MDP web[/url].

Edited by Delta1212
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Yeah, I think the next draft will have a split between 1) defining my terms better and 2) getting rid of terms that aren't needed. I wrote this late last night and it was easiest to just write it as clearly as possible to myself, rather than to an audience.

I think the second paragraph has a more balanced flavor now- getting a GATO interview will also help even out bias. I'm not trying to be pro-autocrat (though given that hegemons haven't been democratic in a loooong time, it's hard to avoid the view), but I do need an argument of some sort.

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This is a very interesting project indeed. May I perhaps suggest the NADC for your work? All the discussions concerning our most recent charter rewrite are easily available on our forums, if that would help with your paper. Our government system is democratic, based off GPA's, but with a council somewhat similar to MCXA's.

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I suggest interviewing the ODN. They are one of CN's few democracies, but have appointed ministers unlike us in GATO. I personally think their system is better, heh. (having been in the ODN for over a year before I joined GATO.) MCXA is not a good example of a functioning democracy, or at least it wasn't in my time as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Even today it's not considered a good alliance.

[quote name='Azaghul' timestamp='1303019361' post='2691836']
I don't know if you can get direct sources for this, but NPO is well known for bureaucratic problems and elitism at the top, where new members find it hard to break into the elite click of IOs, and where IOs tend to fight each other. A good example of a badly functioning dictatorship.
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I would suggest AngolaThree tracks down the Zhadum logs of 2009, which reveal NPO's inner workings better than anything you'd get from an IO today. Zhadum was an IO who fell out with NPO's leadership and was removed from his IO position, before he left the alliance and provided a wealth of information on NPO's inner workings on a variety of channels in IRC (primarily in #mushroom if memory serves correctly.)

[this doesn't put him in a good light, but if I said anything beyond that I wouldn't be being objective. For the record, while I didn't have complete knowledge of what happened between Zha and NPO, I actually believe Zha's account of things and wasn't entirely happy with the way NPO treated him. People think he was a dick but I actually liked Zha D:]

Edited by Kalasin
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[quote name='Kalasin' timestamp='1303087432' post='2692142']
I suggest interviewing the ODN. They are one of CN's few democracies, but have appointed ministers unlike us in GATO. I personally think their system is better, heh. (having been in the ODN for over a year before I joined GATO.) MCXA is not a good example of a functioning democracy, or at least it wasn't in my time as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Even today it's not considered a good alliance.



I would suggest AngolaThree tracks down the Zhadum logs of 2009, which reveal NPO's inner workings better than anything you'd get from an IO today. Zhadum was an IO who fell out with NPO's leadership and was removed from his IO position, before he left the alliance and provided a wealth of information on NPO's inner workings on a variety of channels in IRC (primarily in #mushroom if memory serves correctly.)

[this doesn't put him in a good light, but if I said anything beyond that I wouldn't be being objective. For the record, while I didn't have complete knowledge of what happened between Zha and NPO, I actually believe Zha's account of things and wasn't entirely happy with the way NPO treated him. People think he was a dick but I actually liked Zha D:]
[/quote]

Good point about MCXA- I just picked them off the top of my head because I was a vet and they seemed familiar. In retrospect that's bad acadaemia to do that, so I'll look for another council-style system.

Tracked down the Zhadum logs, remember them from long ago but had recently forgotten. Good stuff! Thanks.

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[quote name='AngolaThree' timestamp='1303087814' post='2692144']
Good point about MCXA- I just picked them off the top of my head because I was a vet and they seemed familiar. In retrospect that's bad acadaemia to do that, so I'll look for another council-style system.

Tracked down the Zhadum logs, remember them from long ago but had recently forgotten. Good stuff! Thanks.
[/quote]

You could also talk to MaskofBlue, Zha's girlfriend, who was in lower levels of NPO leadership and knows NPO politics quite well.

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The essay really skims over alliances. If I were writing it I would cut down on the number of case studies and give more analysis of each -- the foreign policies pursued by alliances, such as neutrality, are irrelevant to the point being investigated, so GPA, for example, could be removed.

The case studies also seem very descriptive, which doesn't answer the question of why these different forms of government developed. There is no consideration of what role RL ideology played (and whether this advanced or held back development), or how significant historical factors/path dependencies were (hugely in the NPO's case). In the section on Vox, for example, you note why they formed, but not how this affected their supposed structure or how their position changed over time.

One has to consider their sources carefully. The Zhadum logs, for example, came from someone who had left due to personal issues with individuals, so objective analysis wasn't exactly on his mind.

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Sanctioned alliances

MHA - representative democracy
GPA - representative democracy
Fark - representative democracy
IRON - monarchy/oligarchy? the council isn't voted on anymore is it? council may be too powerful to classify as a monarchy
Sparta - dual monarchy with a democratic lower house
ODN - representative democracy
NPO - monarchy
GATO - representative democracy
VE - monarchy
NpO - monarchy
RnR - representative democracy
Legion - representative democracy

Some non-sanctioned alliances (selected in no order):
TOP - representative democracy
Umbrella - representative democracy
FOK! - representative democracy
Nordreich - constitutional monarchy
Mushroom Kingdom - monarchy
FAN - representative democracy

It's crazy to say that democratic alliances are rare. [i]Direct[/i] democracies are rare (LSF, Creole, anyone else?).

[quote]so GPA, for example, could be removed.[/quote]
You guys already tried that.

Edited by Arcturus Jefferson
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[quote name='Vladimir' timestamp='1303088453' post='2692151']
One has to consider their sources carefully. The Zhadum logs, for example, came from someone who had left due to personal issues with individuals, so objective analysis wasn't exactly on his mind.
[/quote]

Certainly carefully critiquing a source is important, but if he interviewed NPO IOs they're hardly likely to give him anything more objective.

AngolaThree, actually, if you're going to write a *paper* on CN lol, you'd probably better read a couple of Vladimir's blog posts. They'll basically give you the materialist perspective on CN history, and, for example, the reasons for Vox's formation. It may get slightly complicated in that it's a combination of different real life thinkers and not simply Marx or Hobbes or whatever, but it's adapted to the fact that CN is an online game which means it's of some value to you.

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The number of case studies probably can be cut- I'm sort of stuck between the page limits here (less than ten, more than five) and wanting to flesh it out into something larger. I agree that GPA is probably superfluous to my main point, so I'll skip over them and mention neutrality elsewhere as a parlay.

Arturus, good point. Representative democracy is sort of the current norm, so it's definitely not supported by hard data to say that autocracy is magically better. I don't know what smaller alliances pan out to be- that may be a bit more digging than I want to do for a five to ten page paper with the expectations involved here.

Vladimir, you're right, it's not nearly in depth enough, but it is a very rough draft and missing the depth of interviews and other sources. I wanted something out there so people could see my main points and critique them, so I wasn't being disengenous or making factual CN errors (I am far from a CN historian after all).

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Honestly I don't think this is a good subject for a paper. Since Cyber Nations is an alien subject to most if not all academians, you're going to spend a huge portion of your paper (remember the old adage that you have to assume they know nothing) explaining how things in this game work. While it would be possible to do this, the end result will be in all likelihood be clunky, tedious and a massive lecture on how CN works with little bits of analysis interspersed throughout. I advise you to pick another topic.

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I don't think there is a huge need to deeply describe the inner-mechanics of CN in such a short paper but you do need to add some context to terms. Anyone around here would understand what you mean when you say "NPO was unseated by Karma in 2009" but your professor will have no clue that Karma was a war and/or coalition against NPO instead of actual karma. You explain later in your paper but early on it would be unclear what is going on. Just adding one word to make it Karma War would be much clearer.

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While I respect that Savage, I don't think that holds true. CN isn't that fundamentally complicated. It's a nation simulation game- anyone who's done a simulation (and my professor runs simulations all the time as part of his classes) has an understanding of it- it's just on the Internet, and has some other quibbles.

This is about government, CN being secondary. CN is only explained when it must be, otherwise it's about, fundamentally, the decisioninmaking process of individuals in simulations like CN.

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[quote name='Chief Savage Man' timestamp='1303089269' post='2692160']
Honestly I don't think this is a good subject for a paper. Since Cyber Nations is an alien subject to most if not all academians, you're going to spend a huge portion of your paper (remember the old adage that you have to assume they know nothing) explaining how things in this game work. While it would be possible to do this, the end result will be in all likelihood be clunky, tedious and a massive lecture on how CN works with little bits of analysis interspersed throughout. I advise you to pick another topic.
[/quote]
The more I think about it the more I agree with this. You really have to play cybernations to understand it, and you really have to be on the inside of an alliance government to thoroughly understand all the dynamics that come into play in its governance.

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[quote name='Azaghul' timestamp='1303094259' post='2692207']
The more I think about it the more I agree with this. You really have to play cybernations to understand it, and you really have to be on the inside of an alliance government to thoroughly understand all the dynamics that come into play in its governance.
[/quote]

Got to say, the citations for this are going to be hilarious.

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I've already had to use usernames for citing IRC logs, which is awkward when they have unusual names like Ayatollah Bromeini.

First spam is so two years ago. revisions done, democracy again edited for clarity and referencing data, paragraph added explaining player motivations and demographics (will get more into detail later).

Edited by AngolaThree
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[quote name='AAAAAAAAAAGGGG' timestamp='1303106981' post='2692481']
I'm curious, did your professor actually approve this topic?
[/quote]

I am also curious about this as well.

Good luck with the paper, I would likely have a difficult time writing it myself in such a way that I would be able to explain it to someone without any knowledge of CN themselves.

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[quote name='Grabem' timestamp='1303093423' post='2692196']
I don't think there is a huge need to deeply describe the inner-mechanics of CN in such a short paper but you do need to add some context to terms. Anyone around here would understand what you mean when you say "NPO was unseated by Karma in 2009" but your professor will have no clue that Karma was a war and/or coalition against NPO instead of actual karma. You explain later in your paper but early on it would be unclear what is going on. Just adding one word to make it Karma War would be much clearer.
[/quote]

It is quite easy to explain what is CN and the inner-mechanics of CN in just one page. It's not that hard.
And, anyway, there's no need to do such thing for a paper like this one either... It is exactly the same if each one of us has "nations" or if each one of us has "soldiers with powers"... or if each one of us is an "elve with crystal wings". The whole point is that there are wars and we organize ourselves in Alliances. His paper is about how the Alliances organize themselves and how they interact with each other. I think it's likely that the professor will grade the paper thinking about that and he won't care if CN is about "nations", "soldiers", "elves", "fighting penguins" or whatever... nor he will try to understand every detail about how CN works (it doesn't matter if we have CMs or not, if we have a navy or not, if there are several kinds of ground attacks or not, etc).

The paper is interesting and not unreasonable. It would be great if he manages to avoid the little meaningless details, because they don't matter at all... he's not writing a tutorial about how to play CN.

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[quote name='AngolaThree' timestamp='1303093448' post='2692197']
This is about government, CN being secondary. CN is only explained when it must be, otherwise it's about, fundamentally, the decisioninmaking process of individuals in simulations like CN.
[/quote]
That might be the purpose of the exercise but it's not what your essay is. It's an essay on Cybernations with some RL government info thrown in. I assume the purpose of the essay was to demonstrate your understanding of RL political systems, and you're using parallels with CN to show this. However, what you've done is explain how CN alliances work and then use RL examples. This might seem like a small difference but to someone who doesn't play CN I imagine this is rather important.

I also think it's important to note that CN is not like other browser games, and even if your professor has played them in the past it doesn't necessarily follow that he would understand the complexities and follies of Cybernations.

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The paper is about government formation, why would he need to go into depth detailing the mechanics of CN and the game's peculiarities? Having said that, I don't think there's that much complexity in the decision making processes behind the formation of most governments in CN; the issues that we see in real world government formation, such as civil liberty, social mobility, elitism, ethnicity, culture et cetera simply don't matter in a world where governments are responsible for a few hundred people at best and the majority of those aren't hugely interested in internal politics.

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The first alliance I was in ( The Republic ) had a fully functioning court system ( different levels of courts, A few judges, jury's and appeals ). We were also a almost direct democracy with a lower house ( comprising the membership ) and an elected upper house

If any of that could be relevant to your essay PM me

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