Osiris Roundtable

[Ark]

Hi all, I have created this topic to generally “take the temperature” of Osiris and its citizenry. I am under no illusion that many of you are not happy with the state of the region and with my performance as pharaoh and those feelings are justified.

That said, with the goal of helping get things back on track, I am hoping that this discussion can be more oriented toward proactivity. While complaints are always okay and I will not begrudge anyone for making them, my free time for NS is limited and I really want to focus on hearing from people who want to see changes and are interested in either brainstorming ideas to help things run smoother without my direct involvement, or people who are eager to help somewhere but feel they haven’t been given a direction to go in.

Also, I am in the process of widening the pool of guardians that have citizenship application processing authority, so that issue is in the process of being resolved. We will also be holding an informal voice chat on the discord server and I would highly encourage people to share their thoughts from there here as well.

[Tethys 13]

Some ideas I have had over time, split between areas:

Regional Message Board:
- Endorsement gratitude. When I post the Question of the Day, I can try to remember to express gratitude to the specific nations who endorsed me since the last one. If I have time, I could perhaps also find something to say about their nation to show I am paying attention.
- Monthly challenges. Along with the Wrap-up, I could put factbook/dispatch/design challenges to the nations on the Regional Message Board, such as "create your nation's ambassador to Osiris" or "create some military/civilian honours for your nation" and then show any results next month (though that would mean adding yet more to the monthly wrap-up). This likely will not amount to much result.
- Topic of the Week. A topic each week I encourage Regional Message Board discussion about. This probably will not work, given my experiences with News Story of the Week and Factbook Focus.

Offsite Forum:
- Bring back Miniature Monday. Technically the door for that has always been open, with a challenge I set towards the end of that thread's run. I have quite a few new miniatures painted now, so I probably could keep it going for quite a while.
- Oracle. I did have an idea for an article recently, discussing what makes art 'worthy' and why you will not see digital or tie-in art in your typical art gallery. Or maybe not.

[Lukatonia]

As I kinda started in on a few days ago, I just think the Osiris system has broken down. This region is so dependent on the pharaoh to be around and perpetuate our culture and activities that without Ark being hyperactive like we have come to expect our pharaoh to be everything has just fallen down. Ark seems to have a strong enough presence when it comes to endotarting that I don’t feel the need to advocate for a change in leadership since our immediate security is not at risk, but I do think we need a change in the way we run the council of Viziers. I think the easiest solution to get things back on track is for the appointment of a Chief Vizier. This would allow for the cultural and community development of Osiris to have a clear leader and taking off a big load off Arks plate. I am also not a fan of widening the pool of people able to process citizenship applications. I think by giving away the day to day affairs of the government it would be easier for Ark to manage the citizenship applications. Something about citizenship applications in my opinion just belongs to the pharaoh because of the security implications that come with it.

A few other things I have noticed that have given me the ick through my process of regaining citizenship is that our integration efforts are lacking, and the ones that we do have are very unfriendly to those not accustomed to Osiris. I do personally consider myself an expert on the recent refounded nation and I just do not see a friendly experience. The information dispatches are very dense and I just don’t see efficient and effective attempts at gaining long term attention from the gameside folks and their conversation into citizens.

I’m totally willing to offer a hand if needed tho. I can’t just complain and not help :p. So like please feel free to reach out if anything needs to be done even though I don’t have the spare time I used to. Even 2 years later I still have loads of recourses for literally every area of Osiris laying around my google drive and elsewhere on my phone/computer ranging from community events to stuff like google sheets we’d track data on for GA.

[All Mummified Things]

The second half of this is an edited copy-paste of a conversation I had with Draco a few years ago. So what follows is a fairly disjoint collection of thoughts, but hopefully useful!

I’m unaware of what anyone’s dissatisfactions are at present, so I can’t comment on those. Some questions that may help tho:
What does good look like?
Where are we now?
What are the gaps between the two?
Which are the most important gaps to fill?
What are the options, and what is the best way to fill those gaps?
How do you measure progress?
How do you measure success?
How do you monitor ongoing?

These questions can be applied at various levels. Top level is Osiris level - what does a good region look like? At a lower level, Lukatonia’s talking about citizenship applications. I know nothing about that process, but hypothetically the Q&As might be:
What does good look like?
Citizenship applications are acknowledged within 24 hours.
Applicants are thoroughly vetted - we have zero tolerance for errors.
Applicants are approved or rejected within 48 hours.
Where are we now?
Hopefully the leadership team know. If not, time to find out!
What are the gaps between the two?
dependent on starting place
Which are the most important gaps to fill?
1) Quality of vetting, as we have zero tolerance for errors
2) Acknowledgement within 24 hours, as it shows we’re aware that action is needed and they’re not being ignored
3) Approvals/Rejections within 48 hours
What are the options, and what is the best way to fill those gaps?
Option 1: Have the Pharaoh do it all
Option 2: Have multiple people able to do vetting. More people with authority to do vetting means tasks can be completed faster. Each needs to understand how to do the job properly, and follow the set procedure. Might involve a training session for each relevant vetter.
Option 3: Split tasks between vetters to make the process faster. Might involve having a google form with each vetter signing off the step that was carried out for the applicant.
How do you measure progress?
Number of days since last security f*ck-up
Monthly number of applicants acknowledged within 24hrs compared to overall number of applicants in the month
Monthly number of applicants accepted/rejected within 48hrs compared to overall number of applicants in the month
How do you measure success?
Zero errors
>90% timely acknowledgements in past month
>80% timely acceptance/rejections in past month
How do you monitor ongoing?
same as above. Keep a monthly scorecard to monitor if the scores are declining so that action can be taken to fix.

I would describe myself as a Gamesider. For me, things like the WFE and pinned dispatches, the RMB, and any polls are what makes up my impression of a region. I very rarely look at the Discord, and even more rarely look at the forums. I’m a citizen, and in Sekhmet, but am probably one of the less active members.

In terms of what good looks like, the WFE is way better than when I joined. The links seem to work, and go to up-to-date documents. The exception is the pinned Oracle. It's a bit too old to still be pinned. I'd do one of three things:
Pin an updated one
Remove it and pin an archive of old Oracles instead
Remove it

Good looks like an active RMB. Ours is one step away from being mummified. Tethys single-handedly keeps it going with the Question of the Day. We need to collectively make more effort here I feel.

Question of the Day is fantastic. It gives us that nice balance of predictability (that the question is coming) with surprise (we don't know what the question will be). It alternately prompts us to think about RL or to grow the lore of our nations. And we get the reward of Tethys clicking ‘like’ when we make our contribution to the RMB. For me, this is the ritual that defines Osiran culture. The catch is that we have key-person dependency, and worse - we kind of lack culture beyond this.

One of our other rituals is also led by Tethys - the monthly round-up. Again, this is good. A bunch of people get pinged in the RMB post, and we go and take a look. I would like to see this changed though. I’d like this to be the centre-piece of The Oracle.

The Oracle comes out irregularly, and depends on us coming up with sufficient articles. If we shift the monthly round-up to The Oracle, then the round-up effectively becomes the Oracle. The additional articles then become bonus material rather than the core material. That way, even on a “no-news” month, we can push out a dispatch. Our newspaper doesn’t need to have groundbreaking news each month, but it should come out each month, and I think this is a decent way to do that. It has the bonus that a dispatch can be posted on the RMB (so reaching the same audience as the round-up does today), but can reach further by being posted on embassy RMBs etc. That gives us an increased FA presence.

Having regular polls, open to non-residents as well as residents boosts interest and activity. Reporting on the polls in The Oracle would give an additional boost too. There's an API call you can do which pulls back all the voter names. With a little tech wizardry, you can get a script to spit out the list with [nation] tags around them. You then just copy and paste into the dispatch.

Take a look at this old edition of The Cable for example.
https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispa ... 9946#polls
In the spoiler below the poll results, every single voter gets pinged. So everyone who entered the poll is going to read the paper. And some of them will upvote it, giving it a boost on the main NS "Dispatches" page. It starts to form a positive feedback loop.

Another thing to look at in The Cable is the "Diplomacy Awards". Again, this is based on an API call. It tells you who made the most posts on the RMB, who clicked "Like" the most, and who's posts were "liked" the most. Again, the "honourable mention" spoilers ping every single nation that posted on the RMB, or clicked "Like". It's worth noting that the final part of that newspaper explains to players why they got pinged, and how to avoid getting pinged in future if they don't like it.

That kind of stuff increases player awareness of Osiris, which hopefully leads to increased activity on-site, which hopefully leads to increased activity off-site too.

When people refound, there's a chance that they'll look at the region they're in before moving on, or before they go back to issue answering. This is our opportunity to tap them. Having a poll that they engage with, and by pinging them later is the way that we do that. Even if they've moved to another region, we've planted a seed that Osiris is a good place.

Of course there will be a couple of irate "why did you ping me" types, but a polite apology is usually enough to get rid of them.

Provided it's permitted, every eligible poll and every newspaper should be advertised on embassy RMBs in addition to our own. That builds up relations with other regions, including with their players that wouldn't look on their forums for foreign updates.

Another idea for going forward would be to shout out all the refounded nations. We must be able to use the API to get a list of all nations that refounded today, and stayed in Osiris. We then ping them on the RMB, saying "welcome, come and introduce yourself"

Hopefully some of that is useful!

[Maadi]

A few other things I have noticed that have given me the ick through my process of regaining citizenship is that our integration efforts are lacking, and the ones that we do have are very unfriendly to those not accustomed to Osiris. I do personally consider myself an expert on the recent refounded nation and I just do not see a friendly experience. The information dispatches are very dense and I just don’t see efficient and effective attempts at gaining long term attention from the gameside folks and their conversation into citizens.

I, for one, would love to hear more about your perspective on our integration efforts and how you think those may be made more refounded nation friendly! I've never been in the position where I didn't know where I was going back to after a refound, so I've never paid all that much attention to the density of welcome telegrams and the like. What do you think could be improved about the process? Dispatches broken up into more discrete sections? An automated call-out to newly arrived nations like some regions achieve via bots that monitor their nations? I believe the Pacific runs something like the latter.

The exception is the pinned Oracle. It's a bit too old to still be pinned. I'd do one of three things:
Pin an updated one
Remove it and pin an archive of old Oracles instead
Remove it

Good looks like an active RMB. Ours is one step away from being mummified. Tethys single-handedly keeps it going with the Question of the Day. We need to collectively make more effort here I feel.

Question of the Day is fantastic. It gives us that nice balance of predictability (that the question is coming) with surprise (we don't know what the question will be). It alternately prompts us to think about RL or to grow the lore of our nations. And we get the reward of Tethys clicking ‘like’ when we make our contribution to the RMB. For me, this is the ritual that defines Osiran culture. The catch is that we have key-person dependency, and worse - we kind of lack culture beyond this.

I agree with all of this, though perhaps not the bit about us lacking culture beyond it. Then again, I've been absent a while, and frankly I left a lot of stuff that was supposed to help enhance the region's roleplay community on the table in a way I regret not seeing through more completely before other aspects of my life got their hooks in me.

One of our other rituals is also led by Tethys - the monthly round-up. Again, this is good. A bunch of people get pinged in the RMB post, and we go and take a look. I would like to see this changed though. I’d like this to be the centre-piece of The Oracle.

The Oracle comes out irregularly, and depends on us coming up with sufficient articles. If we shift the monthly round-up to The Oracle, then the round-up effectively becomes the Oracle. The additional articles then become bonus material rather than the core material. That way, even on a “no-news” month, we can push out a dispatch. Our newspaper doesn’t need to have groundbreaking news each month, but it should come out each month, and I think this is a decent way to do that. It has the bonus that a dispatch can be posted on the RMB (so reaching the same audience as the round-up does today), but can reach further by being posted on embassy RMBs etc. That gives us an increased FA presence.

Having regular polls, open to non-residents as well as residents boosts interest and activity. Reporting on the polls in The Oracle would give an additional boost too. There's an API call you can do which pulls back all the voter names. With a little tech wizardry, you can get a script to spit out the list with [nation] tags around them. You then just copy and paste into the dispatch.

I think you make some great points, AMT! I concur that having more regular polls and a consistent core to the Oracle would be improvements. I do think, in the case that latter was coalesced around the content of the Monthly Round-Ups, it would be prudent to have at least some alternating schedule of responsibility for it, so that Tethys is not left having to front even more responsibility all alone.

Personally, I'd like to see an attempt to revive a regional map of nations and some roleplay gameside, either on the RMB or on the gameside forums, but I'll refrain from pitching in more solid suggestions on either of those fronts until I've finished transitioning to my next job next month and have even more time to proactively participate.