Theory of Offsite Forums and IRC

Day 924, 16:12 • Published in USA Ireland • by Politius

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The following publication is an expression of my views. The intended purpose of this article is to prompt a different way of thinking for eRepublik players. In light of my article, I hope the reader can at least recognize the potentially harmful effects of off-game, off-site forums and IRC.

For the vast majority of states and players in the New World—there is some sort of association with forums. Virtually every nation—and most established parties—have a forum for their members to discuss issues. eRepublik has only recently provided “national” forums onsite—which haven’t proven all that popular and only offer select countries. Furthermore, the eRepublik forums offer no means of censuring and hiding potentially sensitive information (think Ministry of Defense). So it’s understandable that the use of off-game websites continues.

In addition, offsite IRC (real-time chatting) still reigns vastly more popular over eRepublik’s Chat features. This is most likely because of tradition, privacy issues, monetary issues, etc. The eRepublik designers are quite correct in claiming that real-time chat is essential and beneficial in an inheritily social game.

None can doubt the productivity of forums and IRC: Information is recorded, potentially censored, and the sites are free of charge to an individual player. However, in the following passages I will attempt to ask the question: are the benefits enough to outweigh the harmful effects of off-site communications?

As a younger man, the late and great Emerick, when he was PP of the USA’s Libertarian Party note😛 the Libertarian forums isolated the party from the country. A radical notion, indeed. By spending time off of eRepublik, the Libs focused less on serving the country and more on internal party “issues”. Any real political eRepublik player can attest that the debate over any policy isn’t so expansive as to need to constantly argue over one’s Party’s position on a specific issue (Forum topic: where do we stand on taxes?) Also, as with any social arena, people are bound to argue and, inevitably, denounce and loath one another. Perhaps Emerick also considered that by not providing the Libs with a Party Forum—he was, in effect, preventing any internal party dissention. Without a place to fight endlessly and call one another morons: the Libs could not split and appear disarrayed publicly. The Libertarian Party remained at a refreshingly simple “Center-Right, Libertarian”. Likewise in South Africa’s national offsite IRC—constant bickering and name-calling led to huge political controversies in March 2010 over conversations among officials that most South African citizens hadn’t even read.

This opens us up to the idea: what if offsite forums are not all that helpful? Please, for a moment, try to think what it was like for you, personally, when you first started on eRepublik. For most of us: it was probably quite a daunting community. We were all simply born into this vast timeline somewhere between where it began and where it ends—and appropriately, there was a whole lot to learn. One can’t simply start on eRepublik and learn everything that has occurred or is occurring. Then, imagine how disconcerting one might find it to realize that in order to participate in eRepublik—one must in addition to in-game participation register offsite on party forums, party IRC, national forums, national IRC, etc. I believe this can prove quite discouraging to new citizens and is an enormous contributing factor to low player-retention. New players only sign up for one game on one website. They sign up with the dream of becoming influential figures, only to realize how many different “games” that implies. Let’s face it—none of us like giving out emails, registering, etc. Why would new players want to put in that effort to such an exclusive, dispersed game?

This creates a major cleavage in eRepublik: those who participate offsite, and those who don’t. It should come as no surprise that most of the CPs and influential statesmen in the New World spend a considerable amount of time on IRC and forums. By human nature, those whom you spend time with: you’re more likely to think positively of. Hypothetically, let’s say that John Smith—active forum participant—becomes elected to CP. Is John Smith more likely to choose “active” players for his cabinet (those who speak often on the forums) or a player who post comments on threads infrequently. Furthermore, if a group of citizens spend time together on a must-register IRC, they’ll quickly become a tight-knit group of friends. Perhaps most alarmingly, the threads and topics of discussion on these offsite forums and chats don’t even need to be relevant for these psychological conditions to arise (Favorite flavor ice cream?). It’s simple: there’s an in-group and an out-group. Forums and IRC in a corner of another site fuel exclusion. I won’t go on about “elitism” in eRepublik: I’m quite sure we’ve all heard enough from PTOers and channers. However, no levelheaded citizen can deny it does exist—and these communications offsite can contribute to elitism.

Furthermore, there’s an underlying safety concern. Not only for an individual playing the game, but for the eNation’s stability. Consider the situation in January 2010 in South Africa. Channer hackers infliltrated the country’s offsite forums, and were able to hack President Ines Schumacher’s account, personal information, Facebook, etc. Afterwards, the site was destroyed. Consequently, for a few days the country was without an Executive—and also: the government was crippled for weeks because of an over reliance on the forums. All of their information and history was lost. As I stated earlier—a new citizen might be wary to join another website besides eRepublik because of safety/virus concerns. We’re discouraging babies from getting interested in this game.

Offsite forums isolate members from eRepublik, contribute to in-group bias and elitism, and pose safety and stability concerns. The benefits of posting information that can be kept private are undoubtedly productive—but in most every other sense of using offsite IRC and forums, is it worth it? What would really happen to a country without a National Forum on its own website? Is it worth the players we’re disillusioning and discouraging from staying in the New World? Is it worth the culture of exclusion that arises? I can imagine many will disagree—and while I can recognize my side of the argument isn’t the whole answer, I hope this publication has at least allowed you to become cognizant of the potential faults of offsite communications. I propose that the eRepublik mod should offer all nations forums—equipped with private boards for the President and Congress members. Furthermore, there should be increased privacy with eRepublik Chat rooms that, currently, anyone can enter. Until that day, we’ll see what happens.

-Politius

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