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!