The Province system

What is the Province system

The province system is a map reform that, when implemented, will break any countries with no rep, and negligible or none location dependent lore, into a set of thread neutral provinces which can be claimed by a thread when their rep arrives.

Here is what the map will look like after being provinced. Please note that provinces are not countries, and are to be treated in a similar vein to the schizo wasteland.

What does the Province system hope to achieve?

The Province system is intended to solve 4 perceived issues

1. It will prevent a repeat of the ID3 and /mans/ scramble

every time a new thread appears we have to scramble to find a space on the map for them, usually at the expense of an unrepped nation, which leaves the new rep waiting up to a week to be able to begin writing. This has happened twice recently, with the advent of HolostarsEN and Hololive Indonesia's third generation. All four new introduced countries ended up being almost comically small, and three came at the expense of Bakatare being shrunk.

I feel it's especially pertinent that we find a more efficient way of dealing with this process considering that we're expecting another Hololive English Generation this year, which will bring with it anywhere between 1 to 5 new threads depending on how successful they are.

2. It gives new reps more choice

The most frequent thing that new threads request when they enter the thread is to have their borders, topography, or climate modified to suit their needs. Many threads enter /vtwbg/ with a very specific idea of what they want to write, and often have to lobby to get their country changed to have the country allow for that idea.

While some will argue that "limitations lead to creativity" I'll posit that while limitations CAN lead to more interesting writing when tools are present to work around them, they are also just as capable of limiting, entirely ruining, or dissuading the writer from even writing anything. You simply remember the examples of the former better because they're more memorable, and because we've largely respected the wishes of reps to change their geography, meaning we have few examples of people being forced to write for a setting contrary to what they'd hoped.

as mentioned previously all of the recently introduced Holo Nations are incredibly small. This heavily limits the type of nations that these new threads can be written as, and may potentially lead to samey lore. Most people aren't going to be interested in writing their nation as a literal who back water, and there are only so many different ways you can write "Small, geopolitically relevant, country".

The fewer gate ways we can have between new reps and writing their first contribution the better. The map should serve the writer, not the other way around.

3. It will make it easier for people who dislike their current borders to change them

This one is self-explanatory. If you are, for whatever reason, dissatisfied with the borders your country currently has then it will be far easier to readjust them to be more to your liking.

4. It will prevent people from writing dubious lore

To clarify what I mean by "dubious lore" I mean lore that has been written by another nation that will either limit a currently unrepped threads future writing, or that will have be retconned if the rep decides to go contrary to what was written. While not all dubious lore is bad, some of it is actually quite well written, and that it should be to a degree respected (some dubious lore was factored into deciding what nations should and should not be provinced) I believe that writing more of it should be discouraged as much as possible.

"What nations got provinced? you didn't province mine did you?"

If you're a currently active rep and you're reading this then the answer is almost certainly no.
A council of three, consisting of Deadbro (the current rep of Moriji) Mountain (the current rep of KFP) and Cunt (The former rep of Nasa) went through a voting process over each individual nation considered a potential candidate for provincing in which they were all checked to see if they currently have a rep, or if they have enough location dependent up to date lore to warrant them remaining in their current location.

Here is a list of the results. If your nation didn't make it onto this list then chances are it was not provinced, however feel free to ask.

Keep: /meat/, /hfz/, /wg/, /Nasfaqq/, /lig/, /yah/, /aeg/, /pcg/, /vrt/, Amelia Watson, /ggg/, Towa, Any-Petra, /uuu/, /KFP/, /Wah/, /Who/, Hoshiyomia, Sakura Miko, MoriG, Watamelon, /Mhm/, /V7/, /risu/, /mans/, /ahoy/, /mep/, /ehe~/, /infinity/, /Luna/, Lazulight General, NijiEN, /Haha/, /Yeah/, /Rose/, /Warkop/, /Kr/, /Nenmen/, /2434/, /uoh/, /ag/, /ybc/, /pyon/, /voms/, 744inc, /vsj+/

Province: /vspo/, /vtwbg/, /#/, /vsinger/, /asp/, /gorls/, /n/, /ccu/, /kbns/, /wvt/, /nina/, /aa/, /ppg/, /indie/, /pol/ka, /stars/, shishilamy, /Nene/, /Okfams/, /FBK/, /pagi/, /Zomg/, /Kson/, Micomet, /Moon/, /Akushio/, /Sora/, /Noel/, Haachama, Rumina, Pekora, /rrat/, Matsuri, /Bakatare/, /rbc/, choco-mel-aki, /ppt/, HoloX, Horni, Ringo, /vt/uber draw, /hag/, /HIRyS/

Partially Provinced: /Hlgg/

For further reference, here's a map of provinced vs unprovinced territory that someone else created.

"I'm a new rep and my nation has been provinced, but I liked my old borders."

If you are legitimately a new rep, or thinking about becoming a new rep, and want your old borders restored then not to worry. We will respect your wishes and restore them on the condition that you actually write for the thread that you represent.

Adressing any criticism or questions of the province system

I'm a proponent of open dialogue, so any criticisms or questions related to the province system posited in reply to a post where this rentry is posted will be addressed here to the best of my ability up until voting begins.

"How do we treat provinced territory in writing?"

Provinces territory should be treated as if it is inhabited and civilized, especially if it is an region where it is likely to be claimed soon such as in the Holo Continent, however it should be described as none specifically as possible, and reference to any nation that isn't rep should be avoided where possible.

While this is a limitation to writing that I'm sure many of you would not especially like, that I don't have a good work around for, I would still argue that the good that the province system does outweighs this minor setback. I'd also argue that even under the old system that specific descriptions of unrepped regions should be avoided as it creates dubious.

"How do we handle the blobbing issue?"

For those who don't know the blobbing issue was an issue brought up relatively early into the development of the province system. The issue was that people would pick to blob out near a few areas of high activity where there are interesting writers and nowhere else. This is an issue because it is not sustainable, as related threads will find it harder and harder to find space near each other.

While I think the concern is legitimate, and that it could cause issue down the line, I don't think this will happen. Very few people go into the thread intending on working with a specific writer or thread, and most adjustments are related to climate. I'm also fine with some threads who wouldn't typically be together being put next to each other, as it could lead to some interesting lore emerging. If it really does become such a big concern though, that a new thread wants to specifically be next to another already existing thread, then we can always ask if any of the other threads nearby are willing to make space for them.