OpenGeofiction
Question about Collaborative and Community territories for the sake of historical and political coherence
Posted by Ernestpkirby on 21 January 2016 in English.In a recent diary entry discussing the possibility of a World War, we started trying to develop ideas to create a more cohesive political/economical history. However when doing that the question came up about community territories. Udi had asked whether in something like the powerblocs being discussed whether blue community territories should stay unalligned or neutral.
In response to this, I looked at the OGF:Territories page to see which nations were blue to come up with my opinion. It was upon seeing it that I realized the nature of blue territories is HUGELY different from nation to nation. I noticed the chaotic nature of Commonia/West Commonia and the organized nature of developed nations like Mecyna, Gobbrassanya and Midistland, even if still under construction, are like day and night. Do you think perhaps Commonia and West Commonia should become the only two nations made for new mappers and the others to be considered more collaborative or to be categorized differently, perhaps as an admin-controlled collaborative nation? to 1) help create a more cohesive political and economical balance within the OGF world and 2) help protect the work and ideas in organized countries like Gobrassanya and Midistland? Commonia seems large enough in itself for new mappers to have plenty of space to use it as a sandbox. Not to mention, an increased density from more new mappers could actually help Commonia look more realistic, even if not very great (a giant somewhat dense anarchist nation even in real life probably wouldn’t look very nice anyhow :P)
What do you think, admin? (And other mappers?) It just seems like some of these blue territories have huge potential to be great admin-controlled community nations (Maybe red territories?) where the collaborative aspect is still there and it’s still open but the admin and community make the history and such work with the rest of the world.
Discussion
Comment from Yuanls on 21 January 2016 at 18:32
I agree, I was puzzled when I first examined the map, to see Commonia as one big blue blob and then all the random blue territories dotted around elsewhere. I would think that the other territories could be admin controlled, and have a realistic history, but any user can edit them as long as they follow the map style and history of the territory. But I think it’s good to have other opinions on this before deciding on a final outcome.
Comment from isleño on 21 January 2016 at 20:59
Other admins may disagree, but I feel like small and densely packed places like Gobrassanya tend to be more beneficial for new mappers than wide open spaces like Commonia. Gobrassanya forces new mappers to look closely at the work of more advanced users, encouraging them to learn by example, to focus on a small scale, and to put more thought into detail and quality. I think blue countries should be instructive examples of our best work, rather than big empty free-for-alls where anything goes. If anything, I might be interested in making Commonia a purple country while it undergoes a thorough “cleanup” process.
Comment from Ernestpkirby on 21 January 2016 at 22:05
I understand what you mean. I can, however, see ways that perhaps it could be improved. Considering that idea, do you think maybe something more like a sandbox environment that forces them to look at someplace like Gobras City but makes them edit elsewhere? Or at least makes it where they have to work (blue country and all) under the idea of creating/adding to something under a fixed prearranged plan and history? It just seems like while I completely understand and in many ways agree with the mapping part you mentioned, that maybe there’s a better way to encourage edits learning from those, yet make the history/culture/etc stricter?
In response to what you just mentioned and what we had discussed in the past, I did have one idea- what if Commonia was to remain a blue territory, but be broken up into smaller blue territories? That way, new mappers could work on smaller, more detailed edits, and perhaps a territory in that territory could act as the example created.
Comment from Ūdilugbulgidħū on 21 January 2016 at 22:23
Perhaps the way to do it would be to go and expand the cultures and histories of these developed blue countries on their wiki pages - and hope that new mappers would fit in with these. I hadn’t thought of isleño’s idea to make Commonia purple, clean it up, and then turn it blue again, but if admin or other users think they could manage to do this it might improve the overall quality when new mappers land in OGF. Or perhaps we should just do this anyway.
Comment from Yuanls on 21 January 2016 at 22:40
When I first came here, I didn’t know where to start. I didn’t see the wiki pages regarding territories, tutorials and FAQs, as I was so excited that I found the place I’d been looking for for so long. When I eventually started mapping in the right place, my eyes were naturally drawn to Commonia, because of its name, description and size. Then I was like ‘Omg! Where do I start? This place is so big’. I didn’t want to interfere with the existing cities, but I didn’t want to start on blank space either. The only reason I actually got started was because I transposed some maps I drew on paper onto the computer.
Here are some initial thoughts:
Comment from Ernestpkirby on 21 January 2016 at 23:14
I think both Udi and Yuanls make very good points. :)
(Although the direct link to FAQ is already up there XP)
Comment from Luciano on 22 January 2016 at 00:38
I have sometimes thought it might improve things a lot if the main “landing page” for new arrivals (i.e. plain opengeofiction.net) was the OGF:Territories page. If not that, then maybe that should be the first page users see if they click on the “sign up” link in upper right.
Ultimately, those issues of basic traffic design for the site are up to Thilo, I think.
RE the idea of turning Commonia purple - I’m not sure that’s necessary. isleño, indyroads and wangi have essentially been a behind-the-scenes managers for Gobrassanya without it being purple, and the same approach has been applied somewhat less intensively with Midistland or Rhododactylia. Some time back I had advocated for making Drull blue (rather than deleting it) and then took quite a bit of time to take some first steps to make a coherent history for it.
I think the “blue” model is not broken - and has great potential. I have come to agree that having some coherency on the map is a good way to guide new users. I see the problem in Commonia as being about its size (as mentioned - and I have been taking some steps to “fill in” some 1st order political divisions for the country, to make it seem less “blank”) but also there are a small number of entrenched, essentially anti-social regular users who create a poisoned atmosphere for other potential mappers, but whom we are reluctant to deal with.
Comment from Ernestpkirby on 22 January 2016 at 00:47
@Luciano and @isleno, what if (similar to what we did recently with the world news tab) we were to just add a “new arrivals” tab to the top of the page that would lead to maybe a modified version of the OGF:Territories page especially for new mappers with an explanation of everything? Making the tab either “NEW MAPPERS” or the one I like better, “BEFORE YOU MAP” and perhaps having it be a different color could help new users realize that there are guidelines meant to be followed. Also on that page links to the mapping a realistic city and the mapping a realistic country page could be included as well. Maybe a [[OGF:Before You Map]] wiki page could be an option? And a direct link from the top?
Comment from wangi on 22 January 2016 at 01:39
There’s probably a lot to be said for conspicuous name=”blah blah blah think about doing this here” locality tags in the big wide open blue areas?
Comment from Luciano on 22 January 2016 at 01:58
@wangi - that’s a very good point. The incidence of vandalism in the Western Hemisphere has gone way down since I tagged all the individual territories with “UNDER CONSTRUCTION DO NOT EDIT”. A similar approach could be taken, with a different message, for political divisions in a place like Commonia, something like, “FREE TO EDIT, BUT PLEASE SEE GUIDELINES FIRST”
It does rather spoil the map’s appearance, however.
Maybe a massive scattering of “locality” tags - just laid across the map. Not visible at low zooms, but when someone goes in to edit, they’d be confronted with a locality tag that said something similar, and pointed them to guidelines.
Interesting thoughts.
Comment from isleño on 22 January 2016 at 09:56
I definitely agree that things should be clearer for new users.
But I’m not sure I like the idea of changing the landing page, adding more menu tabs, or having actual messages appear on the map itself.
If it was feasible, I would simply have the “SIGN UP” button send you to a page saying: >Before signing up, please read our rules and answer the following questions:
If they type “blue” and “7” in the boxes, then they arrive at the sign up screen. Or something like that.
Comment from isleño on 22 January 2016 at 10:01
On the subject of new users mapping in the blue territories… I think if the mapping density is high enough, they won’t need to learn anything extra about regional history and culture, because they can grasp the basics just by looking at the map. This is generally true in Gobrassanya. If someone built something wildly out of place there (say, a huge ice shelf or a city written in Thai script) then I’d move those elsewhere (to Commonia, haha) but so far almost everyone seems to understand what ‘fits,’ thanks to the high density of mapping. Only once have I needed to remove something from Gobrassanya.
As for Commonia, I think it should remain one country (or mostly one country), because we need a good balance of big, medium and small countries. But I do feel that blue countries should have a high density of good quality mapping, which would disqualify Commonia from being blue (for now). That said, addressing Commonia isn’t exactly a high priority for me at the moment… Lots of other work to do first! :-)
Comment from Portopolis on 22 January 2016 at 17:05
I agree my first edit was in Fort Anah, Gobras City, Gobrassanya, I made an elementary school and random roads then later another user put in names fixed the schools and I learned from my mistakes. I was drawn to Commonia because of size but when looking at the overview map this was back when only Khaiwoon and Gobrassanya were the only relatively developed cities/ countries I learned quickly the do’s and don’ts of OGF. But it took me nearly two weeks after arriving on the site to truly get my bearings.
Comment from Sarepava on 22 January 2016 at 17:31
I would like to make Elhadia (“old” Karolia) a community territory but am fearful some unimaginative noob is going to slap a badly scaled US grid city in the middle of it and some motorways with 200km straights all over the rest. (It’s envisaged as a sub-Saharan former oil colony and one of the poorest countries in the world). Can I arrange some kind of ‘managed’ community territory where collaborators consult before editing?
Comment from isleño on 22 January 2016 at 20:31
@Sarepava, that’s what the purple territories are. You can add Elhadia to the list of collaborative projects and we’ll update the overview map accordingly.