NationStates Jolt Archive

As it stands now, more than 2/3 of all UN proposals are repeals of previous resolutions. Not only that, but the same resolutions often get targeted for repeals over and over again, even if the majority of UN member nations has already made it clear that it does not want those resolutions repealed.

To breathe some life back into the UN and incourage players to come up with new ideas rather than endlessly re-discuss old ones, I propose a cap of one repeal proposal per resolution per month. In other words, we should make it so that you cannot propose to repeal the same resolution more than once a month.

I don't like the idea because if one person submits a stupid repeal for a proposal that everyone hates, we would all have to wait a month for the badly written repeal to pass.

Maybe raise the number of endorsements required to propose a repeal?

I don't like the idea because if one person submits a stupid repeal for a proposal that everyone hates, we would all have to wait a month for the badly written repeal to pass.
Perhaps badly written repeals should qualify for deletion by moderators (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=330452) then...

I propose a cap of one repeal proposal per resolution per month. In other words, we should make it so that you cannot propose to repeal the same resolution more than once a month.
A can see a cap on only one repeal for a resolution in the queue at a time but not only one repeal attempt per month, especially when you consider the fact that it usually takes multiple tries to get enough support for any proposal to come up for a vote.

Perhaps, then, the entire UN proposal/repeal system should be eliminated?

As far as I see it, the UN is a necessary evil when it comes to proposals/repeals, because for the most part, 98% of what is submitted is utter crap that would make even a third grade child with proper English skills gringe (sorry to those who submit them, just proving an illustrative point).

It might be crap, but at least it's new crap. ;) Seriously, even a horribly bad proposal can contain an idea that can be taken up by somebody else and turned into a better proposal. But endless repeals for the same resolutions are just spam.

Flibbleites has a good idea: We could at least have a cap of one repeal per resolution in the queue at any given time. So you can't submit a new repeal until the previous one has been rejected. It makes sense.

A possibly simpler solution would be to have a seperate repeals page, so we wouldn't have to wade through them all when doing our delegatly duty. Any good repeals would probably make it through due to campaigning.

gringe You are referring to cringe perhaps? ;)

You are referring to cringe perhaps? ;)

Yeah, when I wrote gringe, I thought it looked funny. :p

A possibly simpler solution would be to have a seperate repeals page, so we wouldn't have to wade through them all when doing our delegatly duty. Any good repeals would probably make it through due to campaigning.
YES! That's the best idea i've heard in a while.

A possibly simpler solution would be to have a seperate repeals page, so we wouldn't have to wade through them all when doing our delegatly duty. Any good repeals would probably make it through due to campaigning.
But then you would have two lists to look through instead of just one, a list of proposals and a list of repeals.

Yeah, but lets face it, a lot of repeals are not well written. Having said that, neither are a lot of resolutions, but the seperate section would mean that it would be more manageable. Not very many repeals actually get quorum, (I think only one or two?) and the ones that do have been campaigned for in the forums, and so were well known by the time they were submitted.

Yeah, but lets face it, a lot of repeals are not well written. Having said that, neither are a lot of resolutions, but the seperate section would mean that it would be more manageable.But it would then mean more work for the delegates because they would have to read through two seperate lists, and anyone on a dial up connection (like me) is not going to want to do that. Not to mention the fact, if this were done, that some people would submit repeals and then complain that they couldn't find their submission because they were looking for it in the wrong list.
Not very many repeals actually get quorum, (I think only one or two?) and the ones that do have been campaigned for in the forums, and so were well known by the time they were submitted.
Actually, three repeals have reached quorum (Repeal "Fight the Axis of Evil [passed], Repeal "The 40 Hour Work Week" [failed], and Repeal "Legalize Prostitution" [passed]) but I fail to see the point in bringing this up because repeals have only been around for less that a year, and besides if you look at the number of proposals submitted versus the number that make quorum, most proposals fail to make quorum only a very small number do.

Ok, related to the whole proposal system.

1 - No NATION may have more than one proposal in the queue at any time. Period, full stop. No spamming the queue.

Add the ability to UN-endorse a proposal. If at any time a proposal has twice as many negative endorsements (minimum... let's say the lower of 10, or 1/10 what you need to get a proposal to the UN floor) as it has positive ones, it gets cut from the queue right away.

Right now that'd mean 14 people could vote "This is trash" basically, and get something off the proposal list, so long as 7 people haven't yet disagreed. As long as there's a reasonable minimum required to kill a proposal, it shouldn't prevent well-worded proposals from quickly floating to the top (surviving the death cut)

1 - No NATION may have more than one proposal in the queue at any time. Period, full stop. No spamming the queue.

Add the ability to UN-endorse a proposal. If at any time a proposal has twice as many negative endorsements (minimum... let's say the lower of 10, or 1/10 what you need to get a proposal to the UN floor) as it has positive ones, it gets cut from the queue right away.
1. That's a great idea.
2. I had that idea a while ago and I talked about it for a little bit but no one really liked it. I still like it though!

Add the ability to UN-endorse a proposal.
From just over a year ago: Proposal: Let UN Regional Delegates vote to REJECT Proposals (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=304107). (Extensive discussion of how it might actually work included.)

It's a good idea, but it involved coding that Sal didn't want to get into at the time. The obvious time to add it would have been summer 04, during the Jolt move, but the Admins obviously had other things on their minds at the time.

People Pie, both good ideas. If Salusa or [violet] wants to add either or both to the coding pile, I'd sure like to see it done.

And as I posted in that thread:

This idea has been around before I was founded, originally known as "The Power of Deletion". It hasn't been seen lately, but it seems it has resurfaced.

My position on this has never changed: strong support.

Wouldn't this be equivalent to a "logjam" or filibuster, to relate to the US Congress, which I view as impediments to democracy? Not that I'm opposed to the idea, but would cringe at its abuse to kill controversial proposals or repeals before most delegates could see them.

Imagine, for example, a well-organized alliance of delegates that endeavor to kill all Abortion, Gay Rights or Gay Marriage repeals, regardless of how well they are stated. See where I'm going with this? Tyranny by Minority.

My best suggestion for cutting down the proposal and repeal lists is to impose a population minimum, like that for the Issues submission. It's not a popular idea, but one that might cut down on the more inane proposals. It's been pointed out, however, that not all of the bad proposals are submitted by n00bs.

Also, I would very much support the idea of one proposal per nation in the queue.

You bring up a good point, in that a veto-type system would allow such games to be played with legitimate proposals as well. In fact, the idea of allowing vetos certainly envisions that this will actually take place, at least as far as the asinine proposals go.

That is why I wanted to tie the ability to get rid of a proposal numerically to the amount needed to approve of one, plus take support into account. The asinine ones don't get supported, so they would be easier to eliminate - the contriversial but legitimate ones would, I presume, have equally motivated people on both sides of the issue, and would get such a core group to quickly endorse the proposal, to make it more veto-proof. The proposers would have the advantage in such a situation, since they would know when it is being submitted before the opponents do.

The mods seem to do a decent job of getting rid of the worst of the worst, but they still come. Frustration is a big part of sending that idea out in the first place. 20+ pages of proposals are daunting.

Actually, the biggest downside to my own idea, now that I think of it, is that the proposal list will be less spammy, and therefore more delegates will wade through to find things they like, which will mean more resolutions to the floor. Since virtually every resolution that gets to the floor passes, even when they contradict, it's tough to say that this is a good thing per se.


Another proposal - hide the list of specific endorsers by default. Not because it is bad, but because it takes up space on the screen. I'd rather see a big "140" than see a list of 140 names. If someone were really interested in seeing the list, they could click on a "[view signatories]" icon, or something similar. (and same for the vetoers, if that were implemented.)

I'm going to split the one-per-nation into a seperate topic and make a poll for it, just to get a better sense of whether agreement on it is as clear as it appears to be.