[Talon] On The Forums

Day 1,797, 08:49 • Published in United Kingdom United Kingdom • by Talon Karrde


My Friends,


I’m taking a step back from my usual CP updates today to talk to you about a hot topic in UK political life at the moment: The forums.

The UK forums have been around for about four years now, and are run by an old player from the UK, Kumnaa. He pays for their hosting out of his own pocket, and has final say on anything to do with them. Kumnaa is an expert coder, and along with Nelsaidi, another very old player who has since quit the game (but still looks after forum code) makes up the ‘founder’ team of the forum. Without these two guys, their time, money and expertise, the forums would not exist.

In the UK, we use the forums for a variety of different purposes, with various different sections for different purposes, most of which revolve around eRepublik government, military and politics. Of late there has been a lot of discussion about these forums and their place in the UK, revolving around two main viewpoints: First, that more discussion and communication should take place in game, and second; that people dislike the way in which the forums are run.

Both valid viewpoints, and I’m here today to address these points as best I can; both in my capacity as CP as forum use is a government policy of sorts, and in my capacity as an administrator of the forums.

Recently we had a party summit on IRC, in which a couple of suggestions were made on how to improve the forums. One of these was the deletion of subforums to make the boards look more tidy- we've done this to an extent, and will continue to do so. Efficiency!



This next part of the article will have three main sections:

Why I think the forums are useful

How / who runs the forums

Global Moderator applications


Why the Forums are Useful.

For me the forums have been immeasurably helpful during my time in the game. They’ve brought me some fun times, they’ve furthered my political career, and most importantly for me, they’ve enabled me to make a difference.

For a long time (probably over a year at the start of my time in the game) I was one of those players that didn’t enjoy forums, or IRC chat, and just wanted to tick along in the background, working and training, fighting sometimes, and voting for my party at election time. I think because I started out that way, I can certainly understand that some people will prefer not to use the forums, and indee😛 The forums aren’t for everyone!

That said though, I did indeed decide to make the jump to the forums in the November of 2010, and ran in my first congress elections that December, because I saw the opportunity not only to do so, but to get support for my run, on the forums. From there, my road to the top wasn’t a straight line, not without challenges, and by no means only due to the forum, but it was certainly a contributing factor due to its role in facilitating communication.

So, I guess my main point here is that, if you think your desired role in erepublik is one in which you need to facilitate communication, the forums almost certainly will be useful for you.


The forums- Useful for you?


Now, with all that said, I do think people have a point when they say a lot of our communication should take place in game. That’s why I’ve endeavoured to make all my ministers post in game articles, and not neglect those players that choose to communicate only in game. I would hope all succeeding governments would continue this trend too.

On the other hand, there are some discussions and bits of communication that really can’t be put in game. Some discussions might break the erepublik rules; people want to be able to speak freely sometimes and the game (quite rightly) limits this, and so a different forum is needed.

Some discussions contain sensitive information; information we wouldn’t want certain groups to know, sometimes for diplomatic reasons, sometimes for other reasons. The forums are very useful for these, particularly for congress to discuss contingencies, wars, alliances and more without the threat of security breaches. Most of these (certainly under me) are released to the public after the fact anyway, but at the time need to be kept secret. The forums facilitate this.

Likewise, politicals parties like to scheme and plot behind closed doors, planning their next big strategy, discussing and perfecting their policies, deciding on candidates, all the things that political bodies do. The forums enable this.

There are more examples than this, but in a nutshell, this is why I think the forums are useful.






My next section is on who actually runs the forums. This is one of the most frequently asked questions I get so I’ll explain this as simply as possible.

As I mentioned above, Kumnaa and Nel are the forum founders, the head admins. They do behind the scenes work with the boards and are responsible for the coding. They also make the final decision on appeals against bans and the like.

On a day to day basis, the forums are run by myself and Dan Moir, or ‘the administrators / admins.’ We were both picked by Kumnaa / Nel to maintain responsibility for the running of the forums. We perform a variety of tasks, like the creation of party / private forums, picking and organising the moderator team, and more besides. We’re also the first point of contact for anyone to appeal against bans, or for complaints against the mod team.

Finally, we have the GMods, or global moderator team. They are responsible for managing content on the boards and ensuring the rules are followed. Currently we have Minecrafting Instead (Appleby), Invalidation, Frerk, Kcirp and Thomas765. We have had others in the past, but those guys are the current team.

We recently had a discussion on the forum rules themselves, and the conclusion reached seemed to be that the rules themselves were fine, but that the interpretation / implementation from the mod team was too harsh. We are addressing that in two ways- first by passing direction down to the mods on how to interpret the rules, and second by adding to the team. If you don’t like the way the boards are modded then I invite you to participate in the system! Engage with us and discuss constructively about what you want. I won't say your changes will be implemented, but I will say that you'll get a fair hearing.





Do you want to join the team?

So, as I mentioned above, we’re up for adding to the team. If you’re an interested party then read this carefully.

I’d first like to add a qualifier here- we will not be appointing anybody, on any grounds, or for any reason, other than on merit. We will assess every application carefully, and pick the individuals we think will be best at the role, regardless of any party affiliation, past exploits, or other factor. If you are good enough in our estimation, you will be picked. (though we won't be appointing more than a couple, having too many mods would be rather pointless.)

So, with that in mind, if you would like to be a GMod, please PM me an application ON THE FORUMS with the following information: (Yes, on the forums and not in game, due to the character limit of 2000 and the lack of any code, also to show that you are actually on the forums and know how to work the buttons.)





Who you are in brief

A paragraph or so detailing who you are as a person, what sort of style and personality you have

Why you want to be a GMod

Quite simple- why you want the role


What experience do you have that you think will be useful

If you’re a mod anywhere else, tell us. Likewise any life experience you have that you think makes your have good judgement or something like that.

What you bring to the team

How would you change things if appointed? How easily could you work with the current team? What benefits are there to appointing you over somebody else?


Make sure you answer all those points thoroughly, and do feel free to give us any extra info you think is relevant.



With that, I’ll finish. Feel free to discuss / comment below!

Talon Karrde
Country President