Hello! Welcome to the South Pacific, and its regional message board, or RMB! It is a vibrant, active place where people from all around the world can hang out and talk. It is the region's primary place of communication, and is open to all types of conversations, debates, and overall fun. However, without some form of rules, the RMB would be a wild, annoying, and downright un-enjoyable place. And so, due to this, rules must be laid down and enforced. These are important to protect everyone's safety, dignity, and sanity. So we all ask that you please take the time to read the following rules, and try your hardest to follow them. Remember, there are consequences for breaking the rules.
Note: The “Fundamental Rule” portion of each guideline is meant as a summary of the rule. The official text of the rule may be found in the “Details” spoiler.
Breaking these rules can result in consequences including warnings, post suppressions, and in the the case of repeated or serious infractions, ejection and banning from the region. The full, detailed Local Council Standard Moderation Policy, which specifies the exact consequences for various levels of rule-breaking, can be found here.
And so, after much introduction, here are your RMB Rules:
1. Say Neigh to Spam
Fundamental Rule: Don't spam. Spamming is bad. It is the first rule for a reason.
Details: Spamming on the RMB is not allowed at all, under any circumstances. Spamming is probably best described as a post that is meaningless and/or unnecessary— for example, a post that repeats the same thing multiple times, a lone emoji or image, multiple posts of the same thing, or a series of posts that have no apparent meaning. It does not matter what your intent is— if your post(s) fits the above definition, it is considered spam and will be dealt with accordingly.
2. English is our Mane Language
Fundamental Rule: Posts on the Regional Message Board must be in English, or include an English translation.
Details: We understand that many of you come from backgrounds where English is not your main language, as players come from all around the world. However, to avoid confusion among people who don't speak your language, we sincerely ask that you post in English only, for ease of communication.
Remember, there are tools like Google Translate to help you. If you speak in another language, please add a translation to English in the same post. Posts with English translations will not be suppressed. For the avoidance of doubt, English means Modern English and not backwards English.
3. Keep Our Region Stable
Fundamental Rule: Don’t ask for people to endorse you on the Regional Message Board. Don’t ask for people to move to another region.
Details: Asking for endorsements on the RMB is not allowed at all, under any circumstances. Ever. Permissions are only made if the requester is a member of the Council on Regional Security, the Coral Guard, or the Delegate seeking to increase endorsement counts for the purposes of promoting regional security.
Similarly, recruiting, or telling people to move to another region, is also not allowed. You may not ask people to join your region on the RMB, whether you are also a South Pacifican citizen yourself or not.
4. So a Horse walks into a bar ...
Fundamental Rule: Roleplay on the Regional Message Board, but do not break any other rules. If you're feeling nice or your roleplay is a bit niche or particularly nation driven, please consider taking your roleplaying to Knowhere.
Details: It's all legal! As long as it complies with the rules. Specifically; remember to keep your roleplays appropriate (as stated in rule IX). The LC has reached a general conclusion on what is appropriate, and if your roleplay does not fit within those boundaries, it will be stopped. So, excessive display of affection, sexually-suggesting roleplay, and the like, are not allowed at all.
Similarly, do not clog the RMB with your roleplay. If you feel it has been going on for a while, either take it to a roleplay region, or cease it all together. Otherwise, it may be interfered with. When the board is dominated by roleplay, it becomes hard for everyone else to communicate with each-other, thanks to the overabundance of posts completely unrelated to what they are doing.
But other than those things, feel free to roleplay to your heart's content!
5. Hold your Horses
Fundamental Rule: Don’t post on the Regional Message Board three times or more in a row.
Details: Triple posting, or posting three posts in a row, is considered illegal, as are any other number of posts more than two in a row. All posts after the initial two post will be suppressed. If one hour has passed without another post on the RMB a single third post will be allowed
6. Keep your nose in your own feedbag
Fundamental Rule: Don’t reveal other players’ personal information.
Details: It is not permitted to post or otherwise share another player's personally-identifying information (i.e. social media accounts, IP addresses, postal addresses, E-mail addresses, telephone numbers, etc.), and neither is it permitted to post or share information that may not be identifying but is nonetheless of a personal nature (i.e. medical history, relationship status, etc.). The only exception is if the player in question has shared that information themselves and does not mind its dissemination (this sharing or statement of permission must be publically viewable).
Making a claim of serious out-of-character misconduct (e.g. bullying, harassment, sexual harassment, etc.) against someone else, without providing evidence to moderation/administration, is considered malicious harassment, and will be dealt with accordingly. This rule applies to the TSP forum and discord as well.
7. Get Off Your High Horse
Fundamental Rule: Trolling, baiting or flaming of others is not allowed under any circumstances.
Details: Trolling is defined as starting quarrels or upsetting people by posting inflammatory and digressive, extraneous, or off-topic messages with the intent of provoking other nations into displaying emotional responses. Baiting is similar to trolling, and is defined as posting with the aim of angering someone indirectly, directed at a specific person. Flaming is defined as posting insults or other verbal and often personal attacks on other nations. Erudite slams while maintaining a veneer of politeness can also be considered flaming. All three of these are banned under all circumstances.
This is an extension of a simple policy of respect. What may seem like good natured fun to you could be trolling to someone else, and if they tell you to stop, do so. We can and will warn, suppress, and even ban you, as well as record the incident. In severe cases the NationStates Moderators will be contacted, and puppets will not hide your IP address from them.
8. You Canter Break Site Rules
Fundamental Rule: No matter where you are in NationStates, the rules for the game still apply.
Details: TSP is a part of NationStates, and as such, you must follow the rules of the game as a whole at all times. Breaking the game rules will land you in trouble with both the regional officers and NationStates site moderation. See the link below for the list of rules and a quick FAQ page for more details on the game rules.
Fundamental Rule: Don’t post anything that would not be allowed in a PG-13 movie.
Details: Excessive swearing, explicit, suggestive, or excessively violent messages, sexual references, and other such things will be suppressed on sight, and the NationStates site moderators can and will be called to get involved in serious cases. Excessive displays of personal affection (e.g. suggestive roleplayed snuggling, nuzzling, kissing, licking and so on) is also considered inappropriate and will be suppressed accordingly.
Mild swearing may be tolerated, mild sexuality may be at the very most hinted, but explicit or excessive versions of either or both will result in moderation intervention, both from the Local Council and potentially from NationStates site moderators. Derogatory terms are disallowed, and all swearing must abide by all other rules, particularly those about respecting others.
10. Straight from the horse’s mouth
Fundamental Rule: Do not edit someone's post in a malicious way or repost offensive content.
Details: It is illegal to edit what someone else has written when quoting it in order to make it seem like they expressed a view which they didn’t. Quote-editing should be avoided even for comic effect.
When you are responding to someone's post, please quote their post (by pressing the "quote" button), as it makes it less confusing and will alert them to your post.
When quoting an offensive post, delete the content of the post and replace it with "-snip-". Doing so makes the administrators’ jobs much easier.
When quoting long posts, please cut the post down to the particular parts you are responding to, or replace the extraneous material with "-snip-".
11. Crop Your Post
Fundamental Rule: Use spoilers when making or quoting a very long post.
Details: The [spoiler] tag is your friend. When making or quoting a very long post, or one which not everyone might want to read, please add spoilers, so as to avoid taking up a large amount of the page.
If you are giving a spoiler of a recently released book or film, put it in a spoiler tag, to give people who haven't read/watched it a chance. As a general rule of thumb, give a month for films post-release (as release dates may be different in different areas) and two months for book releases.
12. Rein In Rudeness
Fundamental Rule: The golden rule: treat others how you want to be treated.
Details: Remember, there are other, real people behind the nations on the RMB. Everyone here is a human being with emotions and the right to be respected.
While dissent with regional officers (LC, Delegate, CRS, and Ministers) is perfectly acceptable, remember that they are people too, and worthy of basic human decency. The regional officers should be respected at all times just as any other member of the region should.
When debating, always remember to attack the argument rather than the person making it. If you find yourself getting heated, try to take a step back. Personal insults, insults to intelligence, etc. will not be tolerated. The only form of debate banned on the RMB is that over a particular suppression. For more information, see the Help Section at the end of this document.
13. Don't Ride on Foals
Fundamental Rule: Single word or similarly short posts are not appreciated on the RMB.
Details: Single word posts that do not advance conversation are not allowed. If you find yourself wondering if a post is both unsubstantial and too short, it likely is. This rule does not mean you have to post several paragraphs of content every time you want to post. Single sentence posts, single word greetings, and single-word replies quoting other posts are still allowed under this rule.
However, at the discretion of the Local Council, posts deemed to be insubstantial and not contributing to the regional discourse will be suppressed. An excellent way to avoid this is to add thought to your posts.
Thank you for reading, and remember to follow these guidelines!
Now sit back, relax, and enjoy your stay here in TSP!
~~~HELP!~~~
If you believe a post breaks the rules and should be suppressed, wish to appeal to have a post unsuppressed, wish to appeal a formal warning, or have any questions about the laws of the RMB, you can contact your current Local Councillors through telegrams:
Lodge complaints or comments with the following nation:
The tsp local council
This nation is controlled by the LC, ensuring all Local Councillors can see your complaints or comments. Remember, the rules of respect apply to telegrams as well as the RMB.
Hello, and welcome to the TSP RMB. Have a lampshade, a glass of SPIT, and enjoy your day!
(Also, our citizens hate nuance, and if you let one quality post pass then they'll accuse you of corruption or abusing your power for suppressing their terrible post and we get in a little death spiral.)
Seven? A bit old, aren't they? If it's not made by a five year old Norwegian child, it's not good enough. Also, if we're being modern, I suppose you could trade people's personal data online.
Endorse everyone in this region in under 20 minutes!
One of the easiest ways to get awards and increase your nation's endorsement count and influence very quickly is to endorse a lot of nations in this region, this activity is called endotarting. In this guide, you will learn how to endorse everyone in this region in under 20 minutes using the fastest publicly-available method!
How to find nations to endorse:
Use an endotarting tool like this website. Just enter your nation name and region name (The South Pacific) and the site will spit out a list of nations you haven't endorsed in the region yet (This list is updated every 24 hour).
Use the below list of all current WA nations in the region. Only use this list as an backup option.
There are too many nations, how do I endorse all of them fast?
Step 1: Install a browser extension that provides keyboard shortcuts for NationStates such as Breeze++ (Chrome, Firefox).
Step 2: Click on a bunch of nations on the endotarting tool's list or the below list while holding the Ctrl key (or clicking the middle mouse button, or pressing your track-pad with three fingers) to open them in individual tabs.
Step 3: Press the E or C on your keyboard to endorse the nation in a tab.
Step 4: Press Ctrl+Tab to switch to another tab and repeat step 3.
Step 5: Press Ctrl+W to close a tab.
Step 6: Open another bunch of nations and repeat.
With these steps, you can endorse the entire region in max 20 minutes.
Optional: Each time you endorse a nation, send a telegram to ask that nation to endorse you back.
The endotarting tool's list is only updated every 24 hour but the order of nations doesn't change. if you're too tired but don't want to wait for the next day to have an updated list, remember the last nation you've endorsed and resume your endorsement work from that nation on the list.
Adding nuance doesn’t necessarily mean choosing when to enforce. You could say, for instance, don’t make a post solely focused on a violent or pda act. After all, it’s not like Erinor’s post was any different from a non-action post. “I wonder what kind of greetings these may be” literally doesn’t change the meaning and yet it gets around the rule and is completely allowed (which sounds like picking and choosing which posts are suppressed but with extra steps)
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