Thoughts...and a solution.
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by Ranger Bob
Ok,
Please bear with me, as I have refrained from writing a social commentary piece for a while.
I have been looking at all this brou-hah hah over PaPP and Paul Hamon in particular. As I understand it, other than the first infraction (which is being dealt with by Senate and was reported to the Admins) - the most recent issue seems to be Paul has developed a 'script' to identify and personally message players with low wellness. After offering help and supporting them, there may/may not be the offer of a house followed by a promise that when the player receives their 5 gold for reaching level 6, they will pay this back to the PaPP.
All the while, providing messages to 'recruit' said people in to his party.
I'm not writing today to comment on the ethics of what he has done. Nor, do I intend to comment more broadly on the policies of PaPP (or lack thereof), or what their intentions actually are in growing their party so quickly to a top 5 that could (conceivably) affect the outcomes of a CP election, or (arguably) gain a majority in the Senate.
However - I submit to you that the major parties could have easily done the same thing as Paul has done. In fact, the only real difference appears to be that rather than via an ad-hoc more individualised messaging approach that many parties in the Top 5 have previously adopted, PaPP has come up with a more systematic way of getting to new players and selling them on their party while they are still new and 'impressionable' in the eWorld.
And from all accounts, sex does indeed sell.
Again, it is not my place to say whether this is ethically correct - I mean, I also hate telemarketers selling their wares, and personally am always suspicious when I get offered stuff for free, what they will expect of me down the track.
But, the box is now open. This IS happening, and so long as it is not outllawed by Admin in the future, while some may consider it unethical, it is not illegal from an in-game perspective.
In other words, folks, you can't turn back the clock.
So, what to do?
Well, I would think the best way forward would be to accept the box is now open - and, remove the advantage. Simply put - ALL parties have the right to do the same thing PaPP is doing - it is not illegal for them, or for you. And, if you accept that you cannot stop this message-selling tactic for new players, then at the least - you owe it to them to inform them of the choices that they have politically in this game.
So - I would suggest that you stop trying to stuff the elephant back into the Matchbox, and get out there, work our your own technology and model, and get your messages out to new players. You could all adopt a PaPP recruitment model, and you can all tell them personally why your party rocks.
Of course, the side effect of this may be that players stop reading the spam in their in-boxes, and decide to look at the parties for what they stand for - and make up their own mind who to respond to, what to believe, and who to join.
Is that a bad thing in the end, eAustralia?
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Comments
Ranger you are awesome!
good read 🙂
You're right. Or we could become "Spam Capital of the eWorld" and watch citizens run for the hills of other countries. But I think you're right and we all need to go for it. Wow! This could get crazy! 😛
great article Ranger.
looks like admin are going to need a spam filter for our inboxes 😛
because houses are permanent, we will sooner or later end up with alarge supply of of unwanted low quality houses. Creating a system where they are provided to new players is simple efficiency.
Ideally, this would be done through employers rather than parties, but hey, whatever works.
I hope the PaPP can focus other parties onto the Wellness and Education, talking to new players getting them excited about eAustralia and participating as a eCitizen.
The reason I started the party was to draw these issues into the forefront, because so many eAustralia play for 7 days and then die, because they are not loved and nurtured.
Patt11 did offer I make it an official stance of the ADSP before I left, but as I told him I want it to be the one driving focus of the party to make sure young citizen feel like they get helping hand they need. And in my opinion that was a party whos sole focus was based on that.
I just wish instead of attacking and bad mouthing, the other parties actually started competing and the process help eAustralia grow.
I think it is time the political parties of eAustralia actually put some effort in, you can't just expect members to join based on nothing.
Now the PaPP has raised the bar, whether we agree with the way it was done or not.
That's really not an appropriate thing to base an entire top 5 party on, though. It could screw things up for legitimate parties.
Good article in general, as a nub though I disagree with "stop reading the spam in their in-boxes, and decide to look at the parties for what they stand for " I tried to look at each party and what they stood for, and all the info links are empty, except for trawling IRC to get a link which had a few comments where is all the party info?
I agree Katamine - but then, it is also a prompter then for the Parties to ensure they sell themselves well, and what they stand for.
The information is sometimes not easy to find - but it _is_ there. And, worst case scenario, you can always send a message to the respective party president (PP) asking for their spiel.....
Welcome to the game, BTW
You know, other parties have long been focused on wellness and education. I saved a dying PaPP member just yesterday, and have started talking to them about how to keep their wellness up. Other parties have been sincere and selfless in their attempts. But I guess true kindness is no longer welcome in eAus - now we must all wear neon signs when we've done something good. This will get really boring really fast! I know I'm already bored and quite discouraged with who we're being forced to become. Oh well ...