Is Our Regions Thriving? A (Mostly) Unbiased & Accurate 12-Month Review

[Adam Griffin]

All of the discussion over regional consolidation and the various views out there on the subject has created a lot of variance in how we view the regional system. Certainly, many of us have our anecdotal experiences that have been tossed around as evidence of our positions' correctness, but this isn't always (or ever) the best way to view any given issue. I have been hypothesizing that activity has been at historic lows for some time. Is this true?

So I thought: why not look at some of the measurable metrics of the regional system over the past year to see where we stand relative to a month ago, or a year ago? Why not look at how voting patterns have shifted and how inflation of the Census count has affected this? Surely there would be valuable information to consider.

Perhaps there is. Below, you'll find a ton of charts on the subject. What is this data?

• All regional voting booths from September 1, 2012 to present have been examined
• Regular regional elections are indicated on each chart in light blue; each region can be identified by the standard Wiki colors (IDS - goldenrod, ME - lime green, NE - purple, MW - red, Pacific - blue).
• Light blue trend lines only relate to regular regional elections; other trend line on each region's chart accounts all regional voting booths

"But Adam, voting is not necessarily indicative of activity!" - Correct. However, I have measured every regional election over the past year and as such, it's a pretty balanced measurement overall. It's not 100% perfect nor exactly scientific, so don't bust my balls. You will see clear trends below, plus I plan to add on to this in the coming days and weight these numbers so we have an even more accurate (and relative) assessment to consider.

First, the IDS:

The IDS saw the biggest prolonged increase in average voters over the twelve month period, but has recently crashed quite hard. Clear trends in both regular regional and special elections can be seen in terms of increases throughout the fall, winter and spring of 2012-2013. Following the April regional elections, however, turnout dropped dramatically. I can speak somewhat to what happened here: I stopped caring about turning out voters after SJoyce won, but really wanted BK to win in August. For the most part, the conservative half of the region seems to have followed suit.

The same chart, but with trend lines:

Next, the Mideast:

The glorious bastion of regional success, we so often hear, is the Mideast. What do the numbers say, though? While the region certainly did undergo the largest population boom of any region throughout the 12-month period, its rapid fluctuations in voter participation mute this achievement in part. It also saw a rapid decrease in voter participation that began in May - initially, I thought this could be due to school ending, but this trend is not apparent in all regional analyses. Former Governor Tmthforu94's departure from the executive office and region may have played a role in this, but it is clear that voter participation has been consistently declining for four months now.

The Northeast:

At one point the epitome of activity in Atlasia, the Northeast has experienced a less disastrous fate overall when compared to the aforementioned regions. Voter participation was never very high in constitutional amendment votes and special elections, but the clear deterioration of the region can be witnessed in the regional election turnout. Effectively, the Northeast has as many active voters today as it did one year ago - despite a smaller population.

The Midwest:

Commonly thought of as "that region that just keeps chugging along", the Midwest has seen a very slight uptick in its fortunes over the past twelve months in regards to voter turnout; previously, voter turnout was subject to wild swings. Regular elections appear to have helped in this regard. Still, it should be considered that the Midwest has grown by roughly 50% since last year but only has two to three more voters per average election (Sept 2013) than one year prior.

The Pacific:

Commonly thought of as "that region that just won't die", it surprisingly has the most consistent increases in voter participation of any region over the past twelve months - even if those gains are relatively minuscule. The drivers behind this appear to be the recruitment efforts of Wolfentoad throughout the winter and Operation Rimjob (which began ~5/20).

Put Them All Together...

Oooh...aaah...

More to Come...

[Supersonic]

A really interesting analysis, thanks for sharing.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

So basically, we're seeing an equalisation between the regions...?

[Enderman]

definitely appreciated..... I would like it better if there was the abbreviations of the regions next to the dots.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Very good.  Those Pacific stats are definitely a surprise.

[PJ]

Nice Bushism. Interesting results.

[President Tyrion]

Wait, what's the y-axis here? # of voters, or %?

[Maxwell]

Wait, what's the y-axis here? # of voters, or %?

# of voters.

[President Tyrion]

Wait, what's the y-axis here? # of voters, or %?

# of voters.

Ah ok thanks

[Adam Griffin]

Thanks, all.

So basically, we're seeing an equalisation between the regions...?

Yes, but it is not necessarily a positive indicator (as I will be shortly following-up with some new data). The difference in regional voter participation has been reduced, but regional activity as a whole is down. The ME, for instance, is still larger than the one-year average in terms of population, yet currently has the lowest average voter participation at any point within the past year. It's not so much that the smaller regions have seen large upticks in participation, but the larger regions (ME & IDS) have seen larger decreases in participation, leading to a perceived equilibrium.

Another interesting observation (warning: ideological) is that the conservative-dominated regions of the ME & IDS seem to have experienced the largest decreases in voter participation over the past year, the fairly centrist Northeast region has held relatively steady, and the traditional leftist bastions have seen net increases in voter participation.

[Adam Griffin]

So much of the data above was mined for one particular purpose, which will be displayed below. My original premise was that regional activity is far lower than it was one year ago or a few months ago, but the above data does not necessarily draw a strong correlation with the trend on its own.

Since it is lacking relativity in terms of how many voters existed on the rolls at each interval, nominal increases or decreases in voter participation cannot be necessarily construed to show regional health. There was also no one measurement of total regional activity; rather, the measurements showed the overall health of each individual region.

National Participation in Regional Elections, Average Voters by Month (#)

It is a combination of all regional elections in all regions by month to determine the average number of voters for each month. The above chart shows a similar result to what we saw in the data posted previously. Essentially, it displays the appearance of a boom and bust cycle - perhaps there could be a seasonal influence, since one year ago participation was lower and then spiked, followed by a rapid decrease? The issue here is that census population changed quite markedly over the past year, and so a nominal measurement is not the best way to determine the level of activity or health of the regional system. It turns out not to be the case, and the relative assessment below goes a long way toward proving my initial hypothesis.

National Participation in Regional Elections, Average Voters by Month (%)

Wow. So this shows the same set of numbers as the chart above, but in terms of percentage of registered voters instead of a nominal measurement. The previous notion that this might be a boom and bust cycle (where Atlas kids go off to school/college and therefore spend more time on the computer versus the summer) is fairly well rejected. Over the past year, we have seen average voter participation rates in regional elections drop from nearly 45% to less than 35%. Relative regional voter participation is roughly 25% lower than it was one year ago.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     The IDS's declining voter participation rates began with my retirement, so it is probably at least partially my fault. Sorry folks.

[Adam Griffin]

The same data I posted earlier this morning, but this graph shows each region.

Participation by Region in Regional Elections, Average Voters by Month (%)

How many citizens would you need in 9/2013 to generate the same level of activity that 1 voter equaled in 9/2012?

Mideast: 2.03
IDS: 1.60
Northeast: 0.97
Midwest: 0.90
Pacific: 0.74

[Flake]

Pacific's not doing too bad when you look at that last chart.

[Maxwell]

I think this is all very convincing to me. I would like to see more of this though.

[tmthforu94]

It's disappointing to see the Mideast fading - hopefully my "birth region" can pick up the pace!!

[ZuWo]

It's disappointing to see the Mideast fading - hopefully my "birth region" can pick up the pace!!

We're working on it, don't worry.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

I would be interested in seeing a breakdown of regional participants in federal elections. Just so we can clarify that the problem is not the regions themselves, but rather the GOTV operations of their members.

[President Tyrion]

I would be interested in seeing a breakdown of regional participants in federal elections. Just so we can clarify that the problem is not the regions themselves, but rather the GOTV operations of their members.

Isn't not voting in regional elections as opposed to federal elections a pretty decent sign of a lack of interest in regional affairs?

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Lack of interest in regional affairs is a different problem than "the regions are inherently flawed!" I agree that the discrepancy would show a lack of interest in regional affairs, but that just speaks to the idea that the problem is easily fixed and does not require massive institutional changes.

[President Tyrion]

Lack of interest in regional affairs is a different problem than "the regions are inherently flawed!" I agree that the discrepancy would show a lack of interest in regional affairs, but that just speaks to the idea that the problem is easily fixed and does not require massive institutional changes.

Just curious, what would be evidence that we need institutional changes, in your mind?

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Real numbers, not arbitrary ones.

Votes cast in regional elections may be a gauge for how good our politicians are at engaging the crowd, but these statistics don’t speak to “decline” in and of itself. Right now, Atlasia does have the numbers to sustain five regions and an active federal government. The problem we have is that these numbers aren’t engaging. I understand that not everyone is receptive, but I think it’s clear that the potential is there—we’re just not harnessing it. All we require is a handful of active participants to turn the game around, and there’s a huge pool of Atlasians from which we can draw active participation. If people were actively deregistering and our citizenry collapsed to around a hundred people, we’d have a problem on our hands. As it stands, new people create accounts on the forum every day—so really, in the foreseeable future, I don’t see anything that could speak to the need for huge institutional changes. Instead of condemning the regions and scheming over their elimination, we need to reach out and take it upon ourselves to make regional debates interesting.

Part of the problem, I think, is the obstacles that some of us are purposely putting in the way of regions. Operation Rim Job took skill, effort, and engagement. Its architect is now running for president and claims to be in it for good reasons. Not sure if I buy it, but that’s what we should’ve seen from the start. That skill, effort, and engagement could have gone into the region, not into destroying it for others. Why would anyone want to jump into regional affairs in the Pacific and spend their time managing a group of trolls? So that’s one obstacle.

The rhetoric, too, is a problem. We are approaching the regions as if they’re a stepping stone to the senate. They don’t matter—they just exist so people can get their footing in the game. That’s true to an extent (and, you know, I think it’s important, and it’s part of the reason why I don’t think we should totally can two regions), but they are so much more than that. So many issues fall under the purview of the regions, but, unfortunately, the preoccupied with small-item debates. Part of the problem is that the people who know Atlasia the best concentrate at the top. Once you’ve been a senator, why downgrade to your regional legislature? The regions are coded wrong, which, I think, stunts their progress.

I absolutely think changes need to be made. Cooperation between the federal government and the regions really doesn’t happen, so the regions tend to operate in isolation as if what they do doesn’t matter. We should focus on increasing this type of cooperation. I think one place where we can do it is in the execution of federal legislation. The position of Secretary of Internal Affairs is ambiguous and unsuccessful. I think we ought to look at institutionalizing CARE and having the SoIA serve as the administration’s ambassador to the regions. If the senate passes a broad green transportation bill, CARE can iron out the details amongst itself and work on drafting a type of signing statement that discusses how the regions will interpret the implementation of a bill. These can be issues that the executives bring to their legislatures for further discussion. I mean, obviously this is a rough idea, but I just feel like instead of working creatively with what we’ve got, people are content to give up.

If you ask me, there are other ways to make the regions interesting. There’s loads of potential that we’re choosing to ignore in favour of an easy fix. All it takes is some creativity and a desire to want to make the regions work. You get five or six people who really want to make a difference, and the game will flourish. It’s doable. Why aren’t we focusing on that? I’m not sure. Maybe there are other agendas at play. But to give up now would, I think, be an even bigger show of this game’s decline.

[bore]

We might, just about, have enough people to support 5 regions and a federal government- but what we don't have is enough people to support competitive elections in 5 regions and a federal government. And atlasia is, primarily, an election sim.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

We might, just about, have enough people to support 5 regions and a federal government- but what we don't have is enough people to support competitive elections in 5 regions and a federal government. And atlasia is, primarily, an election sim.

We would if all the regions switched to a Mideast-type variable-sized legislature.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Also, "people" =/= "active people." I'll admit, we don't have the best number of active people right now. But we have enough "people" to get there.