Tightly Knit: NS Sport as a Community

[thechurchofsatan]

Tightly Knit: NS Sport as a Community
Written by Yttribia The amount of users that browse NS Sport as drastically small compared to another subforum, say NationStates or International Incidents. As a result, you have a small community with around one hundred talented users, which includes those who do not participate in World Cup Qualifiers. Take out those who don't participate in World Cup qualifiers, and there are eighty or so users in total who are regulars in the community. Some users, such as Audioslavia, Commerce Heights, and Liventia (formerly Liverpool England) have been around since the site's inception, continuing to play a major contribution to the site. Commerce Heights, honored by the World Assembly, has scorinated fifty-four seasons of international club football, and Liventia was in charge of maintaining the Olympic Movement for several With many talented writers such as Starblaydia, Nephara, The Inevitable Syndicate, Polar Islandstates, Paradystopia, and the up-and-coming Buyan, NS Sport has honed some of the forum's best writers for a long time. However, the most impressive of it all is the collaborations many of our writers do during an RP line.

For example, the most recent collaboration took place in July of this year, during the 69th World Cup. Users such as myself, The Sarian, The Inevitable Syndicate, Farfadillis, Felix formed a fascist collective known as the Corvidae, fighting against San José Guayabal, Free Felix (the same user as Felix), and with assistance by Eura, the Royal Kingdom of Quebec, and the Northern Sunrise Islands. This became one of the World Cup's biggest collaboration roleplays in recent memory, taking place during the 69th World Cup Qualifiers, and with events occurring before, such as in the tenth Campionato Esportiva. How this all came to being was in part due to extensive communication between ourselves via the Internet Relay Chat, or IRC. While many users of NationStates use IRC extensively, the NS Sport community and their relation with IRC allows for a more personal connection to many of the users on the website. And by using IRC, the users behind the nations have found common interests, often because they decided to drop by the channel one day.

While most channels related to topics about NationStates (i.e. #gamplay, #nationstates, #nationstates_general) are usually quiet for the most part, the IRC channel for #nssport is lively and exciting. Most of the time, new users will be greeted to the channel warm-heartedly by a collection of users, setting the relaxed mood of the channel. Discussions on the channel are lighthearted for the most part, ranging from general topics unrelated to NationStates such as professional wrestling, Harry Potter, the Illuminati (and satirical evidence to prove NS Sport's affiliation), or even the rapper DMX and his interesting life. In addition, out-of-character banter on our nations is always prevalent, ranging from various phrases such as "drawing the Equestrian States in a World Cup Playoff is a sure way of qualifying," to "the Archregimancy is a great stepping stone for up and coming Esportivans." But who could forget the classic "Polarian/Audioslavians always coming up short in the end." These are all various jabs at banter we have with other users, whenever it seems fit. Our banter also extends beyond our nations, and goes into the real life sporting world. One of our users hailing from Brazil certainly had a terrible time chatting with us after the infamous 7-1 game back during the actual World Cup. Even once in a while, you'll have wagers between two nations, with the loser being forced to dress up as a character from the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic universe. Our community is eccentric, and filled with bright minds all around.

In the end, we all have a mutual respect for each other's writing, and for themselves as a person. We have bonded, finding common interests because of our interest in developing imaginary nations. We've created dozens of little tidbits, inside jokes, and unimaginable moments over the years in NS Sport. Our bond created in NS Sport is tighter than most other communities on any forum. Users from the United Kingdom, United States, Germany, El Salvador, Colombia, Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Singapore, Australia, and many other countries have found a common interest in imaginary nations, and have developed brotherly bonds because of this website. I've spoken with many users on the state of NS Sport for this interview, with one telling me that this was one of the most welcoming communities he's ever been a part of. A general consensus between users on the NS Sport IRC channel is that had it not been for NS Sport, they would have abandoned NationStates long ago. This shows how influential the community is on many of our users. Whenever veteran users retire from roleplaying, such as Astograth or Cassadaigua, many well wishes are given to the user, thanking them for their service in the community, and wishing them well in future endeavours. When The Licentian Isles retired from roleplaying, Esportiva was in utter shock. Present since the start of Esportiva, his departure from the site lead to much of the regional message board to be flooded with messages of gratitude to him. This shows how deep the community ties are in NS Sport.

NS Sport is a community that, contrary to popular belief, is not filled with a bunch of three sport varsity athletes, who are planning to go to the University of Alabama for American football, or Ohio State University for basketball, or plan on joining the Tottenham Hotspur Youth Academy in several weeks time. While there are athletes in the community, they aren't going to be making a career out of it. Instead, NS Sport is filled with writers. The community is filled with writers who enjoy sport, yet enjoy telling a good story, much like any roleplayer on this site, or on any roleplaying site. And this guild of writers have a bond that is unbreakable. We have a bond thanks to all of the memories made in chat, and in our writings. And when I was asked by Unibot to write an essay for the World Fair, I knew I wanted to write about our community. I wanted to write about how unified we were, and how close we are. In the end, I wrote about how this community is tightly knit.