What is Taijitu?

[St Oz]

I'm not saying don't get involved in other regions, just don't bring their drama and events in the forum/irc rooms, it discourages other people from speaking and it's BORING. I couldn't care less how omg did you hear whit he say

[Lindisfarne]

I am not so sure we need a mission statment. Different members will have a different view of what Taijitu is, and that is important if we are to stay a democracy. Live and let live!

For me personally I really only care for two enduring aspects of our collective. Firstly our creative side is to me the absolute core of our identity, from our high standards to our integrational model of creative output. Secondly is our community, we've had a very strong core of people over the years who have dedicated an immense amount of time and energy not only into the GP or RP aspects of Taijitu but most of all to each other and I value our collective more than I could hope to express.

I agree with Khem. I am not much into interaction with the other NationStates nations or regions, but that does not mean we can distance ourselves fom NationStates, since we are, after all, a product of that game.

I care for the people in here. You have given me a lot of interesting feedback and I have learned a lot since I joined Taijitu. some of you I disagree with, but I am still very interested in your points of view. Some of you guys are amazingly creative and I just hope to be able to contribute more myself, so you don't see me as some kind of leach. My biggest problem is available time, which will continue to plague me.

Some regionalism can be helpful, but this angry version ... is less useful

I am not sure why we want to define ourselves so specifically - are we trying to change the welcome TG text? some other goal?

Taijitu means many things to different people. I am not an RPer, yet I have felt at home here for years. Let me know if that is going to change.

So, I also agree with this. Live and let live!

Good example:

The virulent hatred for anyone participating in other regions isn't making me want to stick around. I have fun in TNP, and I think it's a fun community just like I think Taijitu is a fun community. But being insulted because I think somewhere else is fun too makes me value the fun I have here less. No one in TNP tells me I'm an idiot because I participate in Taijitu too.

There must be space for us all! Live end let live!

Long live the glorious revolution!
Long live Taijitu!

                            

[Allama]

The virulent hatred for anyone participating in other regions isn't making me want to stick around...

tl;dr if taijitu dies because some of us hang around elsewhere too thats not our damn fault

Some regionalism can be helpful, but this angry version ... is less useful

I am not sure why we want to define ourselves so specifically - are we trying to change the welcome TG text? some other goal?

Taijitu means many things to different people. I am not an RPer, yet I have felt at home here for years. Let me know if that is going to change.

Rather than try to put the well-said comments above in my own words: ^ agreed to all!

I don't understand the hatred towards GP that some people express. It may not be as prominent as RP, but so long as participation in it is optional (which it has always been) there should be no reason why it can't be a part of the region. Likewise, there's nothing wrong with having people who hang around multiple regions. That's pretty common for NS.

Yup yup. I may not enjoy GP nor get active in other regions but I see no reason to object to others doing so. In fact, it keeps us connected to the larger NS world and I appreciate that. No one has ever given me a hard time for not GPing, either.

There's every reason to support NSers of all stripes, IMHO. It can only help us recruit new members and promote more activity, which is the main goal of all these related discussions [unless I totally misinterpret some people's comments (which is aways possible)]. Some users are only going to be interested in regions that get involved in a particular activity, GP or RP or whatever, so why not let everyone have fun in the game as they prefer?

I care for the people in here. You have given me a lot of interesting feedback and I have learned a lot since I joined Taijitu. some of you I disagree with, but I am still very interested in your points of view.

EDIT: Whoops, missed a post! I definitely feel the same way. Even if discussions get heated sometimes, it's good to be exposed to opposing ideas. Some of you have changed my mind on more than one occasion.

[Red Mones]

Some regionalism can be helpful, but this angry version ... is less useful

I am not sure why we want to define ourselves so specifically - are we trying to change the welcome TG text? some other goal?

Taijitu means many things to different people. I am not an RPer, yet I have felt at home here for years. Let me know if that is going to change.

This is exactly how I feel.

[AwesomeSaucer]

On GP, I'm really sorry, but it needs to stay on the forum.  Why?  We are the ONLY popular DD in NS.  Our system needs some off-site political interaction in some way.  NS GP, however?  I couldn't care less.

Speaking of which, I don't think we should ever completely separate from NS.  We still have a huge in-site community that we couldn't simply let go.  However, maybe we could try not making it a requirement, and see where that takes us.

[Allama]

On GP, I'm really sorry, but it needs to stay on the forum.  Why?  We are the ONLY popular DD in NS.  Our system needs some off-site political interaction in some way.  NS GP, however?  I couldn't care less.

Why do you view discussing GP outside of the forum as bad, though? How does it actually negatively affect the parts of the region or the game that you wish to promote? Just because you personally don't care doesn't mean we should ban the subject except on the forum. I mean... censorship? Are you really pushing that idea?

People talk about all sorts of stuff on IRC, for example. It's better for newbs to see people chatting about GP than utter silence. GP talk doesn't preclude discussion of other subjects. I've seen 2-3 different conversations going on in the same channel a number of times.

[Myroria]

There's no way to limit what people can talk about and expand activity at the same time.

[AwesomeSaucer]

On GP, I'm really sorry, but it needs to stay on the forum.  Why?  We are the ONLY popular DD in NS.  Our system needs some off-site political interaction in some way.  NS GP, however?  I couldn't care less.

Why do you view discussing GP outside of the forum as bad, though? How does it actually negatively affect the parts of the region or the game that you wish to promote? Just because you personally don't care doesn't mean we should ban the subject except on the forum. I mean... censorship? Are you really pushing that idea?

People talk about all sorts of stuff on IRC, for example. It's better for newbs to see people chatting about GP than utter silence. GP talk doesn't preclude discussion of other subjects. I've seen 2-3 different conversations going on in the same channel a number of times.

Oh, I don't.  I just don't really care one way or another.  I'm just pushing that on-forum GP should continue. 

Edit: Ah, my wording was off.  I didn't mean that GP should ONLY be on the Forum (as I can accept you interpreted), but that forum GP should continue.  Pardon my language.

[bigbaldben]

Ok, awesome responses and conversation!  I am bummed that work is all-consuming this week so I can't jump in here during the day.  Always happens that way!

My initial question was based around how we want to market ourselves.  Yeah, I know, business jargon, but if we don't all have the same idea, then as a community we're going to be less effective in our plans to get people to STAY, I think.  What is our hook? 

Again, as I've said in other threads, NS is getting people HERE.  So it would be suicide to cut off that pipeline.  How do we get them to stay?  I wholeheartedly embrace this being a place of different people here for different reasons.  Hey, remember my "how do you Taijitu?" ad??!? 

I don't like GP, but I fully support those who do!  There should always be a place here for them just like the RPers and WBers and shoot-the-shitters.  But that's difficult to market - difficult to sell.  It's generic, and I think hard to get excited about unless, like some of us newer folks, you really dive in and commit.  But I think we all agree that forum activity here is what we need to increase. 

So is there any way GPers can increase activities here on the forum?  I honestly don't know the answer to that b/c I don't know GP.

I guess I could just focus on what I like here and try to market it that way some how, but it seems less effective than all of us joining forces.

[Solclquial]

I don't have any overt feelings for or against gameplay (I hardly know what it means in this context), but what got me to join Taijitu was always worldbuilding. That and the people in chat could be really swell most times.

[Eluvatar]

In my head, Taijitu was always supposed to be open and inclusive.

Whether to continue to be such is of course a community decision, but so long as I have a vote it'll be for inclusiveness and against banning gameplay, roleplay, WA play, or any other category of NS play.

[bigbaldben]

In my head, Taijitu was always supposed to be open and inclusive.

Whether to continue to be such is of course a community decision, but so long as I have a vote it'll be for inclusiveness and against banning gameplay, roleplay, WA play, or any other category of NS play.

This ^^^^

That will be at least two votes then.

[Lindisfarne]

In my head, Taijitu was always supposed to be open and inclusive.

Whether to continue to be such is of course a community decision, but so long as I have a vote it'll be for inclusiveness and against banning gameplay, roleplay, WA play, or any other category of NS play.

Yes, I can get behind this.

Three votes then.

[Sovereign Dixie]

Perhaps as one of the "old timers" I can shed some light on this.

Taijitu started out as simply.. a place where you can say what you think without a drunken idiot banning you.  For real. That's how we started because that was what happened to us.

Now, even at my most autocratic, I never began banning people. I simply played a role that at the time encouraged some people to get off their collective arses and give a shit about something.

Since then, the region has grown, and fallen, and grown again, and fallen again and grown again.. etc. Taijitu has changed. Some of it for the better. Some of it imho.. not so much. But you take the good with the bad. What I had said about a year ago was that if Taijitu were to be something that transcended NS itself, that we not drift away from the friends we make here, that we had to become more than just a region that had a litany of tedious laws and a stack of treaties. We had to be a true and real community.

I think Taijitu is well on its way to that. That being said though, it is -still- a region in NS. And there are going to be those who wish for the region to take a greater part in those types of things. Though I disagree with Elu's take on inter-regional affairs usually, I do agree with him that we should be inclusive of all forms of "gameplay", just while not losing sight that we are more than just a region.

So in short.

Community first.(yes this includes RP)
NS Gameplay second.

[Funkadelia]

While your post contains a lot of feel-goody platitudes, I think it fails to understand the basis of the entire region as a whole.

I really don't understand why people feel the need to egg on this ludicrous anti-gameplay or even anti-NS vitriol over the past several months.

With all due respect, Sovereign Dixie, you disappeared well over a year ago and hadn't been back since yesterday. I don't think you truly understand the struggles that the Taijitu community has been going through lately. "Community first, NS Gameplay second" truly does not make any sense. This entire regional culture and the in game region and all of its structures and offshoots are part of one Taijitu. You can't pretend that they are two entirely separate universes, because they are both integral aspects of the one Taijitu experience. In fact, how would NS Gameplay, from a Taijitu perspective, exist at all without Taijitu existing? The proposition is just silliness.

I have not been posting for the past two to four months now, on purpose, to protest the growing sentiment that the 'fossils' are not necessary for Taijitu to function, well let's see about that.

Taijitu has fallen from 500 nations to 337 between August 15th and November 7th.
Taijitu has fallen from 984 posts in August, gradually to nearly half that in October, 557.
Taijitu has fallen from 33 new member in August to just 3 in October.

But no one batted an eyelash. Members like myself and Myroria and Dyr have tried to help and we were met with an attitude like our contributions were not important because we were some old crones who were overbearing or too mired in our own thoughts or something like that. But it appears that we at least had some shred of accuracy to our suggestions. There have been a lot of times in the past six months that Taijitu has had the opportunity to stand out and has simply failed to. Even now, there are discussions about another NS World Fair and no one from Taijitu has offered to submit for a venue or discuss the possibility of Taijitu hosting the World Fair. I get the sense that everything's fallen to a shambles, and now we've elected a Delegate who has expressly told us he's simply going to ignore the laws that we fought so hard to overhaul and re-establish over the past year and a sergeant with no knowledge of how NS military works, and a willingness to raid which will most definitely get Taijitu banned and excluded from defender channels, and at the very least lose a trust that has been built up over years with defenders.

Perhaps this post should be split from the thread, and if another admin feels like it's necessary, then very well do so.

I just feel it necessary to finally put my two cents in because I am seeing things come to a head, and I feel it's important that we have a discussion on how we've failed and how to rebound before everything turns into 2012 Taijitu again. If I have to give you a history lesson, go ahead and ask because I know that at least 75% of you were not around when I had to carry the region on my back to help get it where it is today.