Why Are We In The IRC?
Written by Monkey
Written by Monkey
Published 15 June 2021
I think it's safe to say that the IRC has been one of the messier FA-related agreement rollouts over the last year in Europeian history. Initially proposed by President Pichtonia in early February, it was quickly revealed that only a few members of our leadership were keyed into this somewhat secretive initiative, which began all the way back during Sopo's term in August or September. Initially, it was framed as a way to "create an offer to exchange with friends from other regions in a safe environment". Several senators immediately chimed in on this historic endeavor, commending the President for undertaking an ambitious project, but also expressing some concerns regarding moderation, who would be able to join, and questions of it rivaling a similar NS-wide Discord server, NationStates Gameplay (NSGP).
A couple of weeks later, some key questions about the IRC still remained unanswered -- and during that time, incumbent President Pichtonia lost his bid for re-election in an electoral upset influenced by several factors, leading to then-Speaker Calvin Coolidge ascending to the Presidency, now in charge of IRC negotiations. Nearly a month later, President Calvin Coolidge presented the final version of the IRC treaty to the Senate, noting that the negotiations initially promised by President Pichto did not occur.
Despite these concerns, many citizens and senators came out in fervent support of the treaty, even with some remarking that it would be "unthinkable. It's irresponsible. It cannot be allowed" for us to withdraw from the treaty over the language concerns. The treaty passed the senate unanimously on March 17 but the IRC didn't officially open to the general public until a few weeks later, on April 8. However, it wasn't smooth sailing just yet. Beyond the less-than-enthusiastic reception of the IRC among NSGP frequenters, other issues, like why the IRC was open to non-member-region-citizens, was a large discussion point shortly after the server opened, with many Europeians feeling that they were sold another vision of how the Discord server would be implemented. Nearly a month later, there's still no clear announcement on whether the board had decided on a direction in regards to the status of non-members, but one might be able to assume how that discussion went down based on the lack of updates.
When it was first brought to public, I was admittedly skeptical of the IRC. While I was the Foreign Affairs minister at the time, I was looped in essentially when the rest of the region was -- so it took some time for me to formulate my own feelings on the proposal. At the time, I felt like it seemed like a small group of individuals wanted to establish a sort of rival to the NSGP server, and came up with the IRC as a possible solution. However, what would motivate individuals to move over to the IRC, rather than continue to use a server that had already been established as an NSGP server? And on the opposite side of the spectrum, if it was wildly successful, what kind of impact might that have on our own regional server and communication? Some of the proponents of the server at the time touted the benefits of our region taking a bigger role or stake in guiding the direction of a server, but I wasn't fully convinced that that offered enough of a benefit for users to switch to this platform over using an existing one that was already well-known and served a similar purpose.
Indeed, when the IRC finally was revealed, it looked very similar to the functions provided by the NSGP server. Not only in terms of overall organization, like dividers for IC/OOC conversations, but even essentially the same channels, like military gameplay, security council, and general IC/OOC discussion channels. The question then was, would people see the benefits of this new server enough to essentially shift over their conversation from NSGP?
Recently, Senator HEM proposed an IRC amendment, intended to make our board appointee senate confirmed to make it easier to conduct oversight, and for increased visibility and communication about the overall health of the IRC. This inspired me to dig the IRC out of the bottom of my NS-discords folder, and take a closer look at how the IRC was doing, a little over two months after opening. I charted some data, provided below:
Interestingly, the Europeian server alone beats out both the IRC and NSGP server in terms of messages sent. This isn't too surprising to me, as #eurochat seems to always be buzzing with conversation, but still interesting to see nonetheless. I'll also add that some messages sent in private channels were also counted when tallying up total messages, but I think it's fair to assume that the number of messages in public channels far outweighs the conversation occurring in private channels, and even if you were to take a quarter (or even half) off of Europeia's messages, it would still beat out NSGP messages.
So, what does this mean for the IRC? While the IRC follows the same trend of dips and rises in message count that the other servers do, I don't think the IRC has been particularly effective at offering an alternative to NSGP beyond the week of its launch. In fact, it's had a pretty steady decline, plummeting to a low of 100 or so messages sent in the entire server over the course of a week. Doing some math, the IRC averages to about 233 messages per day, NSGP 1079, and Europeia 1790. It makes sense to me that players would gravitate towards an established server to discuss NationStates, rather than one that was created to compete against an already existing institution. And I don't feel as if there are many benefits that the average NS player gets out of using a sever moderated and led by its own region vs using a server they know will be active, where they can converse with a wide audience. In fact, over the past week, I've even seen many Europeian choose to converse in the NSGP server over the IRC server. Doing a quick glance over the IC channels in the IRC shows that many have been inactive for a week, while the NSGP server has utilized their IC discussion channels every day. If these channels aren't being used by our citizens, or citizens of the member regions, and instead they choose to use NSGP, then what is the purpose of the IRC existing?
I don't think this is a death sentence for the IRC. But it is a concerning trend that we should be aware of. I think an important question to consider is what we want the purpose of the IRC to be. Despite some people claiming otherwise, at its core, I do believe that it was intended to serve a similar purpose as the NSGP server -- a place for NationStates players to gather and chat about IC/OOC things. Even the similar channel names suggests that we wanted a very similar "atmosphere" compared to the NSGP server. However, I think that the IRC has failed to capitalize on the momentum it would have needed to inspire a shift to the IRC from NSGP. While that kind of split/activity might have looked feasible in the first week, we're now at a time where there's a pretty big disparity in activity, and I think anyone would question why they would share the latest military update or discuss a world assembly proposal in the seldom-used IRC over NSGP.
I think there are a few areas to go from here. Firstly, is to try and inspire a surge of activity, to see if it can truly be a rival to NSGP in terms of NationStates gameplay discussion. I've already stated my reasons for why this is probably unlikely to work, but if the founders of the IRC really believe in its purpose, then it's a possibility. The second option is to obviously just let it play out, and accept it for what it is. While it's maybe less than ideal, or not exactly what we set out to do, having this server open for occasional short conversations or bursts of messages doesn't harm any of the regions, and who knows, maybe the NSGP server will be accidently deleted one day (?!) A third option is to pivot away from the idea of NSGP altogether (at least temporarily, as its main focus). The IRC is a collection of member regions and citizens with many of us sharing similarities in regional culture and community values. Instead of just offering the same channels as NSGP, why not use it to host cultural events, or festivals as well? For example, earlier this term, I suggested reaching out to IRC member regions, and incorporating their involvement into this year's EuroPride celebration. Beyond that, why not allow member regions to share advertisements about their own 'weekend games' or domestic festivals, and host them jointly through the IRC channels? I think there's an enormous potential for the IRC to be used as a cultural space too, to connect members of these regions outside of just NSGP discussion, and I think that this shift in focus will allow us to differentiate the IRC from the NSGP server and lead more people to see the value in what the IRC offers. I also considered using the IRC as a space for various governments to meet and discuss IC or FA developments and share information, but I'll admit that this is unlikely to be very successful or used very often.
I think there are benefits of having a stake in a server where we have a voice at the table regarding moderation, administration, etc. And staying in this agreement allows us to keep a seat at that table. But faced with the recent level of activity in this project, I think it's time to have an honest discussion about what we expect from the IRC, what benefit it brings our region, and where we can go from here. So, what do you think?
