Forum:Global and regional issues/Tarephia future

Forums → Global and regional issues → Global and regional issues/Tarephia future

Dear OGF Community,

As you may have noticed, open continents have undergone some level of restructuring these last years and we are currently in the process of redefining the future of Tarephia.

As we had already done in the past (e.g. naming new continents or oceans, FSA), we have decided to openly turn to the wider mappers community to gather and discuss visions and ideas OGF members have for Tarephia as a whole. These topics may include cultural/linguistic aspects, territories administration (e.g. collaborative territories, continental or regional collaboration), geography (including climate), community outreach processes to name but a few.

Thank you and as always: happy mapping!

The Admin Team

PS: a very big thanks to Bruno for his long tenure as admin and as continent coordinator. Enjoy your well-earned rest! --Aiki (talk) 20:25, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

I think that something that should be considered is an organization of regions in Tarephia, as has been done with every other continent in some shape or form (Ulethas with codes, Antarephia and Archanta on the wiki) - it would make the already existing regions formal, and allow for a reorganization of codes and easier sub-division of the plans for the continent. This is probably a job for the next admin, but it's something I think would be pretty nice to see. Also, I think perhaps this page should be organized into different sections for the various topics you mentioned? That'd probably make it easier to follow. --Lithium-Ion (talk) 21:06, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

While it wasn't said directly, the continent description paragraph from territory application is pretty suggestive and explains that Tarephia is Latin America + North Africa with Serion desert being natural cultural barrier. However it would be better if the southern part would be described by "colonial other than North American" because in current territory organisation we don't have much space for original concepts of colonisation (for example my distant idée fixe of some Muslim culture being coloniser in South America-like area) despite it had to somehow occur in the OGF environment.

Other issues I can find include purely management ones. As I mentioned once territories should be interesting in size and shape. Tarephian ones, especially in the northeast look too generic and they are mostly "full-size" territories with generic shape of square or rectangle. I thinkt the area would gain more interest if they were more varying in size and with some panhandles being present. Also borders going through deserts look a bit too complicated. If there are no people (because of the desert) why they are like this? It's ideal place to have territory borders made using a ruler like in Africa or Central Asia. That are probably all issues I would like to see solved at one point. Rustem Pasha (talk) 12:00, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

I'd second Rustem about the territories- reorganizing some of the ones that are currently reserved (basically most of the northwest) would probably help to provide more options for potential mappers coming in.

Rustem pointing to the continent description paragraph also is basically accurate to what my understanding has been. Northern Tarephia has lost some of the countries that helped create that North Africa vibe, but some have come in its place and helped maintain that, and it does seem that the desert is going to be a big factor. The one thing I would definitely advocate for is continuing to have Tarephia be a place where there's a general framework but flexibility to create countries that fit well enough but reimagine it some. For example, the Lyc takes heavy inspiration from Latin America, in a lot of cool ways that factor in the climate, the geography, and parts of the cultures. At the same time, there's aspects that perhaps wouldn't come to mind at a glance at Latin America, such as it serving as sort of a collective tech and financial hub and having the close-knit international cooperation and connections. I think the more we can encourage 1) countries that fit the general theme in mapping and in climate/geography but take a creative twist on it and 2) countries that all sort of do their own thing but work in close collaboration with each other, the better. In my mind those are the things Tarephia has done especially well with to date and that we should try to encourage with new clusters of activity in the north and west. --Ernestpkirby (talk) 15:48, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

What Rustem and Ernest said is good. For me the north Africa/Latin American division of Tarephia works good. Of course it would be nice to encourage more Arabic country mapping in north and Spanish/Portuguese in the south, for Spanishj at least its hard when there are many Spanish mapped territories spread out in the world and we can't realistically bring them all to Tarephia. Also, one of the things that makes Tarephia unique is the ability to combine other influences into a defined general setting, there already exist countries that combine Mexican and Moroccan, Argentina and USA and others where they fit into the region very well while making a unique country. This sets the region apart, being able to take Central America, Cono Sur, Morocco etc as the basis but create a totally unique nation. Brunanter (talk) 19:14, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Totally agree with everybody else. When I chose the territory for my nation I loved how it meant I could echo some of the culture of the Canary Islands with "Spanish" and "African" influence. But it's quite sad to see the vast swathes of northern territories just empty. The coastlines around the North should be full, much like Morocco, Tunisia, Libya etc. I really do think if the large territories were split and redrawn it would encourage more people. As they are they are very intimidating to attempt to fill. I know in the past there was ideas of having a shared currency a la the Euro. I'd like to see a return to that idea, and maybe a union of Tarephian Nations? @Punkmonkey22 19:53, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

@Punkmonkey22 - the Tarephia Cooperation Council is on the wiki - feel free to add your country to the page. It's mainly southern Tarephian nations, but a la EU/AU, it's open to all. It's not quite as much of a supranational government as the EU is, but it's not as decentralized as other unions. I think that some re-drawing of territories would be very helpful as other people have said. I think another issue is that because of lack of activity or any examples of mapping style in the region, no new user wants to take possession of any territories in the north or center. I know that BMSOUZA had plans to make Tarephia Equatorial a collab, and I think that maybe going through with that idea somehow and possibly adding a small collab in the north could help catalyze activity. --Lithium-Ion (talk) 20:56, 10 March 2022 (UTC) It delights me that there will be a slight update on the organisation of Tarephia.

I agree with Lithium-Ion, that Tarephia needs to be divided into further subregions. For this, I would suggest One being the Latinian Peninsular (The Peninsular Latina is on); the region surrounding the bay on which the city Valka lies (I don't know it's name) including the hinterland with rainforest; and the desert regions of the North and Center. Especially the last region will be big, but this will make sense, as sparsely populated regions, such as deserts, are often united in bigger regions that more populated areas (This is also why I disagree with Punkmonkey to split desert territories, as it is natural for them to be big). I also agree with Lithium-Ion on the fact that it would be helpfull if the page was to be devided into different subsections. Can we just go ahead and do that? I agree with Rustem Pasha, that countries should vary in size more. It would be cool to have more island states, as is the case in the Caribbean (Since Tarephia ~= S. America). This is already the case a bit, though. As Ernestpkirby mentioned, it would be nice to have more cooperation the TCC was cool, but it should be stronger, I believe (Reintroduction of the Tare). Besides country organization, there should also be more consistency organisation in terms of where mountain ranges are, for example. Mappers should be notified if they are mapping against general consent on climate etc. Maybe not forced to bend to the rules, but kindly informed, that conventions exsist.

There are a number of things that I would put conventions on for Tarephia

• Climate (already done a bit)
  • Wind Patterns
  • Ocean currents
  • Temperatures
  • Precipitation
  • Biome
  • etc
• General politics (Are countries generally poor/unstable/rich/dictatorial/democratic). Obviously, mappers will still have freedom in choosing their political stance, but it would be realistic to have a general, overall trend
• Geography
  • Minerals
  • Mountain ranges
• History
  • Wars
  • Colonialism
  • etc
• Linguistic/Cultural Map And (but it thematically doesn't fit in the listing) more internal/behind the scenes structures. Maybe we could establish and open, unelected group (anyone can join/exit any time) of committed people organizing Tarephia (not controlling, but organising), doing things like community outreach, helping new members, Collecting and organising ideas from other people, keeping track of stuff. This would bring more structure into the whole Wiki part of Tarephia and make it fun for everyone.

Looking forward to more collaboration and organization!

Fifafo (talk) 15:07, 12 March 2022 (UTC)