I brought this up in another thread but I’d like to bring it up here. I saw some interest was expressed for this idea in the thread and I want to separate it from the overarching “Fix A1-0” discussion.
This idea solves several problems with the TT and right now. The biggest one is that right now the TT gets very little activity. This is less of a problem with the TT itself and more the a problem with NPNs in general—there are no established community guidelines or NPN “managers” to help someone interested in participating in the NPNs. The sort of structured claiming system I suggest will provide this structure to encourage participation. Another problem is that the TT aren’t really adequately developed. This is sort of the same problem, but still different. We have a culture of community agreement on decisions that affect a lot of people—which is great! but not in this context. When we have NPNs like this people need the ability to go and unilaterally make decisions and I feel that people are wary of doing that, lest they risk incurring the wrath of several people and causing their work to get deleted.
My idea is this: we divide up the TT into many smaller plots. Since the bigger map change is still happening afaik, the number of plots could be anywhere from 30-ish to 100. These plots wouldn’t be displayed on the map—only the most important planets would be displayed, as it is now. Instead, we would have a separate TT map with these plots. People would be allowed to claim a certain number of plots—depending on the total number we have, it could be anywhere from 5 to who knows. The plots would not be allowed to be extensions of the claimer’s nation unless they have a very good reason for it. I initially suggested species limitations but I don’t think those would be a problem as long as we try to keep the number of human nations in the TT down—after all, this is supposed to be a place where you can create a nation different from your main one.
The TT would be managed by a group of territory managers who would make sure that all the rules are being followed. Under this plan, the TT would be a semi-collaborative territory where people generally have discretion to do whatever they want with their plots but they still have to follow a set of rules and engage in TT-wide events and worldbuilding. The territory managers would have discretion to remove people who are refusing to follow the rules and participate in the TT-wide worldbuilding. In addition, when someone leaves the TT, their plots will remain under community control until the managers decide to remove them.
What do you all think?