So it seems we've got a few ideas with various degrees of support.
1. The OP - A split along the RP direction the factions have taken Zoners. Seems that it's been determined to be too heavy-handed to work for everyone in a functional sense.
2. The Regional Divide - Four IDs, each representing a different regional set. Omegas, Taus, Omicrons, and Inter-House. Let each region manage its own diplomacy independently of the rest. Gives us the desired effect, but currently doesn't have a fleshed-out set of responsibilities attached. Blodo, since you proposed it here, would you mind either digging up the old proposal or putting something together for this?
3. The Faction Divide - each Zoner faction gets its own ID and then we have a fourth generic Zoner ID (which would be the present Zoner ID). Would sate each faction's special needs and still leave generic indies, although I assume this would shoot to leave the Non-Guard System Zoner Bases under the generic tag? That could still raise regional diplomacy issues.
3a. Aeternus' Divide - Omicroners and TAZ get their own IDs, OSI keeps the Zoner ID. Personally, I wouldn't be opposed, but I don't think, given the Omicroner's view that OSI isn't a Zoner faction, this would ever fly. Neat proposal, though.
4. We leave things as they are. Certainly wouldn't make things any worse, but I don't think the status quo is quite cutting it.
At least those are the ID ideas that have been presented here. I might take a couple of those and draw up some draft IDs to see if we could balance them well enough for everyone, but that's going to be the issue. How do we balance the Zoner IDs to fit the established roleplays while still being fair to the indies?
Ingenious, as much as I love the can-do attitude, talking among the Zoner factions hasn't proved to be a viable solution. This feud of sorts - at least between OSI and the ZTC/Omicroners - has been going on for a long time between various members of both factions. What can you say to a group of people who don't even recognize your roleplay as valid? And on the other hand, OSI recognizes Omicroner RP as valid, but disagrees with how it is displayed, which I suppose would explain why we're not all Omicroners.
This OORP stance affects all three of the factions in and out of RP. InRP we can't solve an OORP problem, and OORP discussion has yielded no results for the longest time because one of us ends up saying something that upsets the others. As far as a solution goes, the only one that I can imagine having any effect would be to make it so we don't need to deal with each other unless we want to. Hence the ID split.
In regards to your comment on the usage of FR5, if memory serves, OSI has only filed one FR5 since I've been there, and it was on an indie player who'd caused quite a ruckus. We've never moved to do any sort of Five-ing toward a faction, as generally we can talk things through. I know the Omicroners have requested a few, and I'm not certain if teh TAZ has at all, but I'm not gonna point fingers on that. You're absolutely right, though. If we have to FR5, we've failed as Zoners.
Nevertheless, because of these OORP feelings, our RPs cannot coexist on the same ID and still be productive. Because of the way the Omicroners feel, they object to us having our own Zoner ID. OSI feels it's a Zoner faction more than it would be any other.
