[freeciv-data] Re: freedata

[Gerhard Killesreiter <killes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 5 Jan 2001, Reinier Post wrote:

> > Ok, sounds good. But we will run into trouble if we want to define a
> > nation in the first place.
> 
> The rules are intended to cover general admissibility, so they would
> apply for any new nation.

I meant something different: We need to reach an agreement on what
constitutes a nation. Not neccessarily a real one, but at least we have to
decide what a real nation needs to have to be eligible to be entered as a
freeciv-nation. See below.

> > nation = state ? What to do with nations without a state
> > (Palestinians, Kurds, ...)? How should parts of a nation classified
> > (Bavarians as part of the German nation)?
> 
> This is handled by the guidelines on 'policy' below.

Those are not sufficient, I am afraid.

> Oh, does the dialog just pick the first?

It picks one at random. At least the gtk-dialogue does this.

> It is intended to explicitly nations such as 'Fantasy Netherlands'
> including cities like include Keulen, Luik and Luxemburg.

Have those cities been part of the Netherlands at one point in
history? Then, in my opinion, these are not fantasy Netherlands, but
historical ones. 

In general I think it is difficult to make a distinction between
historical and modern nations, if they exist both under the same name,
since freeciv starts at 4000 B.C.

> So the idea is, if a Kurdish nation is added, but someone objects to it
> on the ground that it is not actually a nation,

Official Turkish policy is to call them mountain-Turks.

> which is a reasonable
> claim, 

I do not think so at all. They have a culture, a language, and, more
important, there exist people who consider themselves as being Kurdish.
The only thing is that there is no state labelled Kurdistan.
Do you consider a state to be a neccessary requirement for a nation to
exist? I do not. There are examples where states did cease to exist and
later came to existence again, e.g. Poland. Would you say that the Polish
nation did not exist in the 19th century?
On the contrary, there (did) exist states, e.g. the former GDR, that were
states, but, in my opinion, do not have an own nation.

> we (who? the maintainers?) would not claim to be able to determine
> 'the objective truth' on the issue, but instead we would just withdraw
> the Kurdish nation.  (Same for Taiwan/China, etc.)  I am trying to
> describe the policy that is being followed in practice.

I do not like it. I would rather like to include every nation that
somebody wants to be included to be included. And I do think that it is
possible to decide what is a nation and what is not. Take the existance of
a language as an example.

> > I can reverse the argument by stating: If Hitler is a legal
> > freeciv-ruler of freeciv-Germany, then it should be legal to include
> > freeciv-cities that have belonged to the state Germany during his
> > period.
> 
> I am not presenting an argument, but a proposed rule.  But I can see your
> argument.  The rules can be changed to handle rulers and cities identically,
> as follows: rulers and cities of modern nations must at one time have been
> rulers/cities within that nation, and they may not have been cities/rulers
> of a different nation. 

This is probably a non-problem for rulers, but would require cities to
have existed without being part of a nation.

> (I think it's this second case that causes problems.)

Indeed. But what would be the actual problem if the modern nation (or
rather state) Great Britain included cities that have been parts of the
British Empire at one time? If somebody plays as Victoria a city of Cape
Town or New-Delhi would be historically correct. But this would not be
true if you play as Elizabeth II.

A possible solution would be to mark cities in the ruleset to be
allowed for one ruler and not the other. Of course the player could
override it.

> But this may be too much detail.

Hmm. Maybe.

> Yes, I know.  It is impossible to make rules that settle all possible
> causes for dispute in advance.  The idea is to have some rough guidelines
> that people could consult when they want to contribute nations.  It's

We should make sure that existing freeciv-nations should also conform to
them.

> supposed to be no more than a FAQ document, summarizing what has been
> said on the lists.

Agreed.
 
> I think it would be completely hopeless to use that kind of argument
> as a basis for what nations to allow in Freeciv. 
> It is too subjective.

Is it? Maybe we should get expert advice.

> This is why the rules don't mention anything of the kind.
> 
> This is implicit in the rules: the default ruleset includes 'Germany',
> which must adhere to the rules 'modern' nations because its name
> suggests present day Germany.

But with Niels' ruleset, only Helmut Kohl and Gerhard Schröder would make
sense as a ruler. How many people would like to play as them?

If, however, somebody plays as Bismarck, it would not make sense to
exclude Königsberg or Straßburg, but to include Wolfsburg.


> 
> To conclude, I think we agree.

I am afraid, we don't (yet).

Cheers,
        Gerhard