Mapocalypse Now!

They said it would never happen. They said it couldn't be done. But today saw the launch of a new mapping service, and a consequential en-masse resignation of nine nations (so far) from an long-established micronational mapmaker.

The Geographical Standards Organisation is the new map on the block, and nine nations have already resigned from the venerable Micronational Cartography Society to join it, citing various reasons to do so, including dissatisfaction with the MCS, and the GSO having a better map.

The catalyst for the split occurred in April, after the MCS started to put its map on an "Atkins diet", belatedly held a vote about it, and controversially started backtracking on the previously non-negotiable reductions. The MCS had also previously ignored the 2005 mapping conference COMSAV, which had examined ways of improving the MCS Micras system. While the results of the Atkins Vote looked good for the MCS, some of the voters obviously hadn't been that truthful, as several disaffected nations met soon afterwards in secret to find a permanent solution to their problems, which they did not believe could be found within the MCS. The result, four months later, is the GSO, with most of the creative work having being by John Darcy of Anthelia and Lachlan Powers of the Grand Commonwealth.

The aim of the GSO is to operate a more realistic simulation of planetary mapping than its rival. To begin with, a physical map of a new planet named 'Giess' has been developed, with a detailed geographical backstory for its appearance. Two continents have been left 'unexplored' to assist with the simulated aspects of mapping and exploration.

The nations on Giess will also have more control over their depicted territories with regards to the "development of territories, negotiation of borders, exploitation of resources" and their eventual "decline and disappearance", within an overall framework of rules and guidelines managed by the GSO. They can also produce their own national maps from the GSO maps, at a level for detail that the GSO would not publish itself.

Nations on Giess will also be equal partners in the ownership of the GSO, which has its own elected board of directors and separate committees for managing admissions and designing maps.

The founding members of the GSO are Alexandria, Anthelia, Gotzborg, The Grand Commonwealth, Lemuria, New Brittania, Oscland, Paulovia, Stormark and Treithar, and the current board of directors comprises Lachlan Powers of the Grand Commonwealth, John Darcy of Anthelia, and Ben Gray of Treithar, who is also the President, and was unfortunately unavailable for comment.

Opinion: Matbaa versus Rastakhiz

While we have taken a break during the summer silly season, things have sufficiently cooled down this week to enable us to give brief consideration to a minor spat that has surfaced between two erstwhile micronational newsblogs: Dzez Matbaa and Radio Rastakhiz. We probably wouldn't have bothered if Dzez Matbaa allowed direct feedback, like ourselves, to published articles, but they seemingly don't, so we have bothered.

Anyway, it would seem that yesterday Radio Rastakhiz essentially accused the Matbaic government of hypocrisy by virtue of apparently permitting two of its key government figures to post messages from the same IP address, and thereby demonstrating that they were obviously one and the same person.

The only thing is, a brief bit of research of the Matbaic website, and of a thread about Matbaa in Micronational Eye, would have provided enough circumstancial evidence to significantly reduce that probability. (We're feeling generous so we'll offer a small prize to anyone who can identify the evidence and let us know if they can conclude what we have concluded from it).

Dzez Matbaa, in its haste to issue a suitable response, also skipped a bit of research. A quick search of the Babkhan forums and of Microwiki infers that Ardashir Khan is the Emir of Raspur all the time, but when he's Shah he's primarily Osman Shahanshah.

While we know we shouldn't jump to conclusions like everyone else, it's possible that a news blog like Radio Rastakhiz was called 'Radio' because its founders thought it was a good idea at the time.

Personally, though, we blame the Baracoãns.