Join the new world

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind

So begins John Godfrey Saxe's "Blind Men & the Elephant". It's a poem you may already be familiar with, but if you're not, just click here.

Yesterday Canada voted in 16 Party Presidents. Most of them have held this office before, and while there is no shiny bauble to go with the position, they carry a lot of power. Certainly some of us will recall how this came to a head in late Summer 2010.

Calling any eRepublik election can be a monumental task. Much like Saxe's elephant, there are a lot of variables, and to get a proper picture you need to know quite a few things. If you haven't reached the elephant, you can't possibly describe it. And if you never figure out what the man holding the tail knows, the trunk isn't going to help you much. A flailingly obvious example of this came last week with Rolo's reelection. This came as a surprise to many 'experts' - how could Rolo possibly win out when there wasn't a public peep of him before the 11th hour? His win, in fact, followed a failed run in May, against the most self-promoted Roleplaying CP we've had all year. Was "The Finger" on break that month, or does it take some time to Charge Malaysia?


Did you really think you'd get a meme photo?

Like Chaos Theorists, the political pundits of eRepublik spend quite a bit of time looking at data trying to discern a pattern. How certain parties do well, who will succeed under certain conditions, and most importantly - how do we win? Anyone can make these guesses, but of course, the more times you've been around to touch the elephant, the better your guesses are. Don't make a euphemism out of that.

The question of "Why" is a difficult one. It's the mother of all elephant questions. The results of Party Presidencies are no different - so let's give it a look. Below is a chart of PP Elections for the past 3 months, in each of the Top 6 parties:


Click to make me big!

Turnouts are up. Way up. Whereas April saw 164 votes between these parties, and May rose to 192, there were 441 votes cast in these parties yesterday. With the exception of the DAL, every party doubled their turnout or better. EPIC managed to triple theirs.

Voter turnouts are the quickest way to measure party activity. Just how good are these turnouts? Very good. They range between 63% (CPP) and 75% (MOO), when last month the DAL was the only party to scrape above 50%.

But why? Why, after months of declining activity throughout the country, did all of the Top 5 parties see a huge spike in what has often been described as the least interesting of the eRepublik elections? Why, in this month, have 250 more people voted for PPs than they did in either Kazuo's or Jacobi's terms? Pundits, no doubt, will herald this spike as a clear example of success along...whatever agenda they happen to be pursuing. Let's try and head them off with a few potential reasons:

1) The War with Sweden. "War makes people active", the saying goes, so we should always be at war and we should always Acacia the Button. But how active do wars make us? If you check the numbers, about 10% more active. There was a 10% rise in PP vote turnouts when Kazuo invaded the UK. If you glance back to the summer of 2009, you'll see numbers consistent with War Growth. Parties and Canada saw 10% voter boosts for each month that the war was on, and once it was over, 10% drops until the next major war cropped up. But this invasion, which is smaller than the ass-whooping we were handed 2 years ago, coincides with much larger jumps. Votes went from 35 to 109 in the largest party. Neither of those ballots was contested - there was only 1 frontrunner. Are Canadians really 4 times as trigger happy as they were 2 years ago?

2) President Rolo. Love him or hate him, the man's renewed prominence has caught a lot of attention among the older crowd. The media module was alight in the lead-up to Rolo's first Impeachment vote. But I don't credit Rolo with this activity boost. Does the "Old Guard" like talking about him? Absolutely. Does it lead to Finger-Giving on both sides? For sure. But Rolo has not directly made up the 30% gap himself. Activity is always up before Impeachments (see: May), and the group that write articles all-a-flurry belong to Canadians who are already regular voters.

3) Mechanics over Roleplaying. This has got to be the easiest argument to make, and the hardest one to refute. Not because it's correct, but because it sounds nice. It's the Rob Ritchie of statements in this game, because nobody wants to defend the 'elitist' position of roleplay. But that can't be the solution here either, and for the "why not", we'll look at the candidates. They're the same mix of Roleplayers and Closet Roleplayers that they were last month, and the month before that. 4 of these parties have reelected a leader at least once in the April-June range. It would have been 3 for 3 across the board, but for two very close votes (EPIC & UN), and two I'll-let-him-runs (MDP & MOO). The leaders aren't new, either. Teddyz (UN) is the youngest - he joined in November 2010. All of the other victors hail from at least mid-2009.

4) Game Changes. Ye Gods, dare I suggest Plato is helping activity? A lot of things inside the game have been changing lately. Yes, it's pushed the CAD into the ground. Remember when we were whining because the CAD was "only" worth 1/30th of Gold? But on the whole, it's gotten easier for mid-sized players to sustain themselves. The odd pattern of changes is approaching a model that is simple, reasonably cool looking, and good for ePeen Egos. To this I'll associate some success, if only because game changes have sometimes caused activity spikes. And by sometimes, I mean once.

5) SOs & NSOs. Le Wha? Serious Opponents, No Serious Opponents. The two types of elections, and the fastest way to guess who will win any vote. We're overdue for another graph, so here we go. Below is a breakdown of Victory Margins, by party, for the past 3 months:



This graph shows the gap between each party's winner and the runner up (if there was one). EPIC's April Margin is 0% - a 50/50 tie between 2 candidates. UN & MOO both have 100% Margins - their candidates earned every vote.

An "NSO" election is a landslide. Candidates with No Serious Opponents walk away with at least a 60% margin of victory, usually closer to 80. Despite the "democracy" - now free - of allowing anyone to run for PP, NSOs almost never win. NSOs do not campaign and are generally unknown to the party. SOs, on the other hand, drag the margins of victory much closer. SOs either campaign enough to steal loads of votes from the frontrunner, or they're a big enough name in Canada that their face alone draws a crowd.

The opponents turned out in droves this month - EPIC had a record 10. Are they the bearers of activity? Possible, but unlikely. CPP & DAL both saw 3 SO Elections, because they are divided on how to proceed. MDP and MOO predetermine their candidates, which means very few SOs. Only when outsiders meddle do they slip below the 60% line.

The UN and EPIC are one-at-a-time parties. One predetermines (UN), the other does not (EPIC), but both tend to have only one frontrunner. This gives a Jacobian length to PP terms, and only on token occassion (EPIC April, UN May) are there Brucklebear Overlaps.

These margins are consistent. They're grand indicators of unity, but there's no correlation to activity.



Calling elections is an art of elephant rubbing. Many pundits can see patterns in the chaos, and make out reasons explaining why each party moved where they did, and how to make them succeed. But to pin down exactly why this election had the staggeringly active results it did, we're going to need to walk around the elephant for a month or two. If the spike falls just as quickly, then it's a one-time cause from something temporary. If it levels off, perhaps Admin have found a setup that Canadians like. And if it continues to rise, then the only explanation I can conjure is Lana. They must have started using her in ads. You know, those ads.

That's all from me today. If you liked what you saw, please Vote, Comment, & Subscribe. And while you're at it, click here. 🙂

Cheers
Sperry