Vitality of 10000 Islands

[Harmonious Treefolk]

Greetings fellow Islanders!

In these times of declining populations and slowing forum activity, it is time we had a serious discussion about what to do to maintain our vitality and even to grow again. I have drawn up a rudimentary, general plan, and I want to hear ideas from everyone.

As I see it, increasing immigration will not be accomplished by simply increasing our recruiting drives or refining our recruiting methods. We must also have a strong, vital community. As it stands, we offer the following strong community areas:

*TITO (Regional Defense)
*World Assembly (debate and drafting resolutions)
*The Grand Debate Hall
*10000 Islands Map/Mortimer Reports
*Role Playing
*Taco Island
*Regional Politics
*University/Library
*Private Sector
*Foreign Relations

Let's face it: not all of these are strong. Some barely exist at all anymore. Here are the only ones still getting any kind of draw:

*TITO (regional defense)
*Taco Island
*Grand Debate Hall

Even if we were to rely on those three points to be our big drawing points, we would be in serious danger. TITO is only open to WA nations, so non-WA regions will not be involved. And the latter two are both non-NS related. While having strong OOC sections is good, it cannot make up for the IC connections that must exist to draw in new recruits.

As for the rest:

*World Assembly (debate and drafting resolutions): no one drafts resolutions; even when resolutions come up there is virtually no debate or give-a-crap.
*10000 Islands Map/Mortimer Reports: Virtually no activity, although this is an area that necessarily takes a long time for things to be accomplished.
*Role Playing: I like Mutanatia's sporting events and politics. But if Mutanatia is the only one role playing, then our role playing section is dead in the water.
*Regional Politics: We do still have elections and elected officials, although the last election had an uncontested race. Our political parties are all defunct and there are no regional policies being discussed.
*University/Library: Great reading. Haven't been updated in forever.
*Private Sector: Completely defunct.
*Foreign Relations: We do hear an occasional report from our allies. Do we have emissaries to other nations? Do we have any inter-regional contact besides through TITO?

My stance on this issue is that we must revitalize our forum life. This is not something that can be done all at once--such a proposal would be foolhardy. I would suggest looking at the list I just created and picking two areas to work on. We then draw up a good plan for turning those areas into a) strong sections of our forum; and b) something that draws recruits to our region.

I do have some ideas on those specific points, but let us leave those for now. I want to hear what you have to say about this topic in general.

[New Dracora]

No response to this topic makes ND a sad panda.

[Harmonious Treefolk]

Feb 23, 2009 8:14:40 GMT -5 New Dracora said:

No response to this topic makes ND a sad panda.

Me too, ND. Me too.

There are a lot of ways we can spice things up and flourish. No one individual can support everything, though; and that is why I think we should work together to liven things up in sections rather than all at once. I also think that aggressive immigration policies, while very helpful, are not enough in and of themselves to maintain and grow our population.

I have some ideas on how to stimulate our forum economy, so to speak. But I cannot do them alone. Anyone who would like to help or has some good ideas, write here in the debate hall or pm me! I know there are a lot of people who care and work hard on this forum, so join in the discussion my friends.

This might be the foundation for a new political party as well. Who knows?

[Lassiem]

HT...I'm with you 100 percent....I personally think that if we can get two good political parties going with seperate platforms and ideas to help the islands...I thinks that would be a great starting point.....sorry I didn't see this post earlier.

[Enigmatic]

I'd certainly like to hear you ideas, Treefolk. I can say that there are ongoing discussions in the Co9 about some of these issues, so your concerns aren't totally ignored. Nixon is still listed as the head of the UPP, although he hasn't been very active. Technically I'm still a member so if you like perhaps we could work together to revitalize that party, though I must admit I'm not much into politics. However if it'll help the Islands I'm more than willing to do what needs to be done.

[Harmonious Treefolk]

We will figure something out! I have great hopes for our mighty region.

[Private Doctors]

I will do what I can...I will try to get involved with role playing...It has a very good premise. It is sort of like Taco Island but with a bit more thinking involved...If there was some way to make people want to do it though that would be helpful. And what about the University...Did it just go away or something? I would love to try to do something with that. I know we have some smart people on here....I have actually really no real ideas (as in fleshed out ideas with exact details) but what i just mentioned seems to have a good bit of promise.

[Fleeb]

Hey, we have our own Private Doctor--what more could we want? Things are bound to get healthier!

Just don't ask him to do any math or engineering....

[Chronopolice]

Mar 6, 2009 23:49:55 GMT -5 Fleeb said:

Hey, we have our own Private Doctor--what more could we want? Things are bound to get healthier!

Just don't ask him to do any math or engineering....

Can he decipher alien languages perhaps? Reading doctor's handwriting is like learning a dead written language. ;D

Oh if I may add, not only do we have a doctor onboard. We also have a local town fool, an museum of WMDs, a jail that can compete with 5-star hotels and our own space navy!!!

[Private Doctors]

But Fleeb! I am really good at math! lol I promise xD Do you not see my amazing proof on my sig...can you prove 2 =1

[Free Saorse]

I'll admit that even as a brand new member, I share these sentiments. I was visiting the political party forums and the World Assembly bit, to name a couple, and I kept trying to re-sort them by date over and over again as I thought it must has been a mistake that posts from 3 years could be fitted on one page.

Not to ruin the jokes that were sifting around , yet has there been any advance on these ideas?

[SovietPrussia]

Regional Politics: We do still have elections and elected officials, although the last election had an uncontested race. Our political parties are all defunct and there are no regional policies being discussed.

Yeah, this gets to me most. I miss being the political and immature attention seeker I was in '07.
But for politics to take off again, you need drama and something to argue about. Off the top of my head, how about a merger with another region? It would bring activity and population up, but make it less XKIish. Thoughts?

[New Dracora]

I vote we merge with DEN. Who's with me?

[Ananke II]

Mar 19, 2009 6:29:15 GMT -5 New Dracora said:

I vote we merge with DEN. Who's with me?

Only if I get to order their people around.

[Harmonious Treefolk]

Good God...we could rule this universe as Father and Son...

Oh sorry I drifted off there for a second.

[Hockeynutville]

I dunno, I could get used to the idea of personal waiters here in the islands....^^

[Chronopolice]

Mar 24, 2009 20:27:29 GMT -5 Hockeynutville said:

I dunno, I could get used to the idea of personal waiters here in the islands....^^

Personal waiters...

Get your lazy bum off the couch and go get your own food. ;D

[Hockeynutville]

I dunno man, I've met some invaders who can make pretty good hors d'ouvres...when they're in chains of course

[Biblical Importance]

I have looked at the political party system. Perhaps it was utilized in the past, but I don’t see it really being of much importance anymore. There isn’t really any issues to take up sides on any way. What does have more of a chance, I think, is the House system (House of Ananke II, House of Grub, etc.). As Grub stated in his post about the Houses:
10000islands.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=xkigen&action=display&thread=11073,
a House can gain prestige by gaining more members or producing a delegate/senator. Some houses would certainly wield more power than others, but all the more region of a particular House to recruit and promote itself and foster its own community within our larger community. We seem to be a strong group with respect for one another, I don’t see any true conflicts arising. But friendly rivalry between a couple Houses could be interesting and attract new players.

[New Dracora]

Hmm... instead of political parties where people try to come up with ways to change the islands, lets have a series of fraternities where everyone just gets pissed and learns new ways to fall over themselves......

I love it. I'm start thinking up whacky initation ceremonies right away XD

[Ananke II]

I more or less agree with Biblical Importance. Might be because I'm a relative newcomer, who spent most of my NS time in the feeders, but I find it a bit hard to see what the political parties do at this point. I suppose they can be used to make people's opinion on some issues more transperant, but on the other hand it's not like there's that big disagreements between people here in the 10000 Islands. At least not from what I've seen, which makes sense, since the region has a clear profile. If you choose to stay around in the 10000 Islands you probably like the place and more or less agree with how it's run.

I might be wrong, but I don't really see any real politics going on. Not like in the feeders, where there's a real stake for people to scheme over. Politics there are often deeply serious for most people, since everyone's got a lot to loose if the wrong delegate/government/fraction gains power.

Suppose what I'm trying to say is that from my point of view 10000 Islands is too stable and lack the ultimate prize necessary for political parties to really have something to fight over.

Which isn't a bad thing imo.

[Salinthal]

May 2, 2009 7:21:58 GMT -5 Ananke II said:

Suppose what I'm trying to say is that from my point of view 10000 Islands is too stable and lack the ultimate prize necessary for political parties to really have something to fight over.

Which isn't a bad thing imo.

I agree with Ananke.

I feel dividing things up into houses or fraternities for friendly competitions could work. We could have houses compete for wealth, power, and influence. House vs. House debates. A winner could have claim to new lands or regional positions.

I would be very interested in this.

Also merging with another region would be sweet.

[Enigmatic]

We've discussed merging with other regions in the past. Bottom line there is no one is willing to give up their regional identity. The only way we'll merge with another region is if we're still 10000 Islands. They either want to retain their name and identity or they want a new region where their people in power are still people in power. Merging two regions takes a lot of compromise and the people involved, myself included, don't particularly want to do that. I'm not saying merging never works or that it's not something we necessarily shouldn't pursue, but we've never had an success with it in the past.

[Salinthal]

That is what I expected concerning a merger. I would still be all about house competition etc..

This is my favorite region of all the ones I've been in. This is not my first country, this is more like my 5th.

[New Dracora]

That's good to know

Mergers are for more competitive games where greater numbers can be the difference between dominance and extinction. In such cases they also a last resort - the only successful mergers I've ever see generally have involved a much larger entity absorbing much smaller ones followed by a swift stamping of their dominant identity all over these small parties. Kinda like an annexation rather than a merger really.

[Belriel]

I like the house idea. At this point, being rather new to 10000 Islands and NS as a whole, I am seeking purpose more than anything. I currently have two WA resolutions stirring in my mind (if I can ever sit still enough to write them down in format), and I think the "House" idea might give me a little competitive motivation to do that.

Speaking of resolutions, I read the currently proposed ones (as of yesterday) and they're HORRIBLE. Is it always like that?

[Inquirius]

On rare occasions, one of those terrible proposals does come before the entire WA for a vote. However, usually the bad ones don't get enough support from WA delegates to become actual resolutions. The preliminary process of getting delegate approval usually weeds out the worst of the proposals. So, the proposals that come for a vote before the entire WA are generally of decent quality.

[Belriel]

Speaking of resolutions...*hint hint hint* miiight wanna check out the one I wrote over here 10000islands.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=unboard&action=display&thread=9398&page=1#247368 maybe, sorta, kinda? DO IT!