NationStates Jolt Archive

Just trying to wade through some of them, they seem to be relying more and more on convoluted language and structure without ever actually reaching a point.

It's a needless waste of UN resources. Almost none of the proposals that consist of a page of floral writing with vast vaguries and intricate convoluted structures have been sucessful. Yet there's a queue of hundreds of the things that us delegates are expected to wade through.

What I look for in a proposal. A clear point. Don't beat around the bush, if you've got something to say then say it. Don't hide it in 'whereas the wheels fell off the tree whereas the dog had 6 legs whereas vote for banning guns'.

A decent structure. Couple of paragraphs perhaps, each with a point that's clearly stated in the topic sentence of the paragraph.

Length too is important. I don't want to wade through 5 pages to get to 'so lets support homosexuals'. If that's the point then say it clearly and concisely.

Look at the proposals that have suceeded. Except for a handful, they're generally short, to the point, no major spelling or grammar issues and clearly state what they're on about. If everyone wrote clear proposals with an easily identifiable point it would make the approval process quicker and more effecient and we'd not have 20 pages of rubbish to try and wade through.


Cliff Notes
Proposals that are clearly written without rubbishy language, that clearly state their point, are better for everyone. Use a dictionary if need be.

Yeah, proposals that are hard to read because of all the typo's are pretty annoying. It should be formal since the resolution would affect all the UN countries.

There are at least two issues currently being discussed that meet this test, and more. (Declaration on Rights and Duties of NationStates (http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=116834), Please support "Processes of Extradition" (http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=116583)) I'll grant you that they're largely surrounded by junk, but I don't really have a solution for that. The best you can do is look for the gems in the rough.

Given that there have been at least two other topics on essentially this same topic created in the past couple of hours, (So, you wish the UN had some common sense!?!?!? (http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=117237), The slow downwward spiral of the U.N (http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=117196)) I have to ask: are you part of the solution, or part of the problem? We don't really need three to five new topics each evening telling us what a horrible job we're all doing.

Yeah, proposals that are hard to read because of all the typo's are pretty annoying.
Uhh, Lexwolf - typo's is possessive, typos is plural. If you're going to lecture us on grammar, use your apostrophes correctly.

There always was the "Bush is a moron" proposal that was described as "Bush should be labeled a moron" and that was it.

There also was the "Legalize marijuana" because "My citizens need it"

Overall, I think they are decent; not perfect, and can be better. The problem is people complain about length. You have to take a barebones approach to it. Since the world came into being in 2002, very little exists before or since. You have to lay the foundation for everything in outlining any proposal here.

One major concern I have will all of the proposals I have seen is the lack of key definitions. Without substantial definitions in the proposal, it becomes meaningless. Some people have argued that they want that to be left up to the individual nations to interpret, however, the effects are immediately enforced.

Yea, seriously. I can't believe some of the pure unadulterated trash I have to wade through to see how my proposal's doing (not so good so far, it turns out, but I knew the chances of a vote were statistically slim when I proposed it.) I saw one proposing a fluffy little love fest, to be fluffily enforced by guns. That does not belong here. That belongs on The Simpsons.

So how about this: Before a proposal is even put up for approval, a first cut is made. It goes to the mods. They cut out the joke and horribly-written proposals. It would be very easy to make the cut here-- just make a point, be halfway serious, and spell words correctly. Still, a good 40% of proposals would probably get squashed right there. It'd free up space for the actual people who want to get something done.

Bart Simpson said "We need another Vietnam to thin out their ranks"

Interesting. One of the problems is, in my opinion, that fact that too many loopholes can get through. People create long, drawn out proposals to leave no loopholes. While some are successfull, many just kill the point, and leave the whole proposal up to question.

For Example: The proposal that banned land-mines was a single paragraph, and never actually got around to explaining what a land mine was. Thus, rather than remove all the Land-Mines, several nations (Which will not be named) simply renamed them Earth Bombs, and other names such as that.

I think the problem is more in pointless proposals, that have no real effect on any nation. An example of this would be the Hippo Proposal, which I am thankful got voted down. Remove the pointless proposals and you will have a lot more time to read the long ones.

Dictator Corrin
Armed Republic of Kel-Moria

And Freedom of Humor?

Remove the pointless proposals and you will have a lot more time to read the long ones.

Mm... we live in an age where most of us are the proud owners of an attention span literally measured in seconds. If I can't find a defineable point within the first couple of sentences, I consider continuing reading utterly worthless unless it's essential to a real aspect of my life.

I'm not alone in that.

If we boild it down, the two issues that we all seem to share is 1) Poorly written proposals and 2) Inappropiate length. Lack of topic sentences is to me poorly written.

On the subject of people trying to eliminate every possible loophole and interpretation- a correctly written proposal stating exactly what *is* meant rather than what isn't is surely the better way to go about it.

"I propose we give pensions to all war veterans or their surviving spouse"

is a lot more precise than

"WHEREAS I propose that we give regular payments of money to people who've fought in wars WHEREAS family members of killed active service men are entitled to similar payments WHEREAS divorced family members are not entitled to said payments THEREFORE children are not entitled to these payments WHEREAS step children are not entitles. HENCEFORTH there are payments."

In short, you can remove loopholes by stating clearly what *is* rather than eliminating what *isn't*. You can state your 'is' in the first sentence or two too, which makes life even easier.


Anyhow, the point is that I can vote with my feet, not just my mouth. Sure, my vote carries very little weight but I will consistenly not approve poorly written proposals and vote against any that are approved :) Glad to see other people are bright enough to do the same. Lets not encourage ignorance.

Yeah, proposals that are hard to read because of all the typo's are pretty annoying.
Uhh, Lexwolf - typo's is possessive, typos is plural. If you're going to lecture us on grammar, use your apostrophes correctly.

He made a single error in a post otherwise quite legible. It's a forum. Not a virtual UN. You're allowed to make mistakes here.

Well said Gigglealia, badly spelt proposals & issues-NO-but lets stop being childishly picky if someone makes one error or a mistype.

Bahgum is concerned at the lets get rid of joke proposals mentality. A well written joke proposal just as much right as a well written serious proposal in this GAME. In fact the game was written with an intitial style of quirkiness and humour which seems to be sadly lacking in most of the 'accepted' proposals. Remember: Fun, seriousness and a little strangeness were all meant to have a place in this game and can, often,(and should) go hand in hand.

Bahgum

Remove the pointless proposals and you will have a lot more time to read the long ones.

Mm... we live in an age where most of us are the proud owners of an attention span literally measured in seconds. If I can't find a defineable point within the first couple of sentences, I consider continuing reading utterly worthless unless it's essential to a real aspect of my life.

I'm not alone in that.

If we boild it down, the two issues that we all seem to share is 1) Poorly written proposals and 2) Inappropiate length. Lack of topic sentences is to me poorly written.

On the subject of people trying to eliminate every possible loophole and interpretation- a correctly written proposal stating exactly what *is* meant rather than what isn't is surely the better way to go about it.

"I propose we give pensions to all war veterans or their surviving spouse"

is a lot more precise than

"WHEREAS I propose that we give regular payments of money to people who've fought in wars WHEREAS family members of killed active service men are entitled to similar payments WHEREAS divorced family members are not entitled to said payments THEREFORE children are not entitled to these payments WHEREAS step children are not entitles. HENCEFORTH there are payments."

In short, you can remove loopholes by stating clearly what *is* rather than eliminating what *isn't*. You can state your 'is' in the first sentence or two too, which makes life even easier.


Anyhow, the point is that I can vote with my feet, not just my mouth. Sure, my vote carries very little weight but I will consistenly not approve poorly written proposals and vote against any that are approved :) Glad to see other people are bright enough to do the same. Lets not encourage ignorance.

As someone has pointed out, those short porposals are always met with objections- "What about this scenario?", "You forgot this potential problem!" etc.
So the authors try to anticipate the objections in advance, which is one reason for lengthy proposals.

I'm just tempted to vote against anything that has "WHEREAS"

Well, if the Hippo proposal, amongst others, is anything to go by then I would say yes. But then the Euthanasia resolution sparked of fierce debate which is what the UN should be all about. So, who knows?

Technically the euthanasia proposal shouldn't have gotten that far. It would change the game. There are already daily issues related to it. In theory, UN law should override it but it doesn't, therefore, it is meaningless.

We at Imperial Council know the problems with bad resolutions. That is why we have started the Imperial Council Voting Bloc, ICVB for short. Basically what this means is that proposals first go for a vote between regional delegates and if there is majority support all delegates in the bloc at least agree to approve it to get to the voting stage.

We will only send three proposals for a vote to delegates per week and you can even sign up for our Delegate Bypass scheme, meaning that all proposals go to trained Liason Officers first to weed out the junk.

Here is how we propose it will work in practise.

The Voting Bloc will be split into two councils

The Council of Smaller Regions (CSR)
for those with <50 nations in them

and

The Council of Larger Regions
for those with =>50 nations in them.

A proposal will first have to be approved by either the regional delegate or a Liason Officer to get to the vote.

Then the proposal in full is sent to all delegates in each council.

A vote of delegates is taken, with delegates having free choice how they decide to vote. You can choice to poll your region or be a dictator. Then the votes are counted. Both the CSR and CLR must agree for a proposal to be passed.
A proposal may be altered and resubmitted, but it must wait it's turn in the queue.
Once a proposal has been approved, it is posted to the UN and all delegates agree to approve it so it gets to a general vote.

If you wish more information, or if you wish to discuss the process Tgram

Rachakidia, Egotistical Empire or VostocKs Revenge.

Thank you
Rachakidia

Or... Better yet, a screening process so that they have to be submitted to the mods like the issues are before they can become a proposal...

Or... Better yet, a screening process so that they have to be submitted to the mods like the issues are before they can become a proposal...


They have real lives, having to wade through the "Eat Your Children Act" and the "Convert to Randomnism Proposal" would really annoy them, and why bother? :)

I've said it before, but I'll say it again anyway: I think a lot of the junk could be weeded out if the UN delegates took a moment to think-- and I don't mean only approving deadpan serious legalistic formulations, just think about what the proposal is, what it does, how it's formulated, and if that works. Someone in my region recently took exception to some ofmy approving/not approving practices, so I thought I should explain my behaviour.

Reasons why I will withhold approval for a proposal:

1. Bad spelling or grammar, or poor construction are reasons why I will not consider a proposal. I do recognise that many people who submit proposals to the UN are not native speakers of English, and that some native English speakers are not particularly skilled in the grammatical arts, so I am inclined to tolerate mistakes. By bad, I mean appalling, as in: obvious typos gone uncorrected; blatant disregard for simple normatives such as capitalisation where appropriate or that punctuation should exist in some form; proposals written in txt-ese: these are the sorts of thing that will not get past my filter.

2. Extreme vagueness is likely to get a proposal flagged junk. A proposal banning sweatshop labour would be a very good thing, and I would be inclined to support even a very poorly phrased proposal designed to do that. But a proposal, say, entitled 'SWEATSHOPS', reading 'cmon ppl U all no what i mean so lets do it huh' would not receive my approval. Neither would a proposal targeting only specific companies, such as the recent one naming GAP and Nike. GAP and Nike are evil, it's true, but they could just change their names or vend through subsidiaries. The proposal is thus impotent.

3. Good words, bad mechanic: a recently submitted proposal advocated the right to free speech in any language guaranteed to all UN citizens, but had the mechanical effect of decreasing civil rights in the interests of law and order. This makes no sense. I will not approve a proposal whose phraseology and mechanic do not match.

4. Religiously couched proposals will not receive my approval. Full stop.

5. (added since posting to the ACA forum) I am extremely disinclined to approve any proposal that is essentially identical to one that has already passed. I understand that there's a good half-hour's reading involved, but I would expect a nation interested enough in the UN to submit a proposal at least to check to see if it's not already been passed. Proposals that clarify previously accepted resolutions may well get my approval, but not straightforward repeats. Likewise, proposals that are direct plagiarisms of other proposals or of previous resolutions I consider beneath contempt. Neither will I consider a proposal that involves a change to the game mechanic. This is because, if you look in the Stickied topic entitled 'Before you submit a UN proposal...' you will find the following:

...there are three broad categories of proposal which will always be removed from the queue before they become able to be voted on by the general membership of the United Nations. These three categories are:

1. Suggestions for how to change the game mechanics
2. Proposals in which the category and the description do not match
3. Proposals which are deemed unworthy of UN consideration

Well, they aren't always removed from the queue, because, I suspect, the mods have lives and can't always attend to every one of the scads of ridiculous things through wich they must weed every day-- I find it tough enough just to get through what makes it past them. But delegates can help them do their job. This stuff isn't appropriate. I do-- I admit it-- expect people to read the guidelines.

Mechanics are thus important in the ways I choose which proposals to support, but they are not the only thing I consider. I will not approve a proposal just because it has an effect that I like. That, to me, smacks of unrealistic roleplay at the level of cheating. In order for me to approve a proposal, there has to be something in it of which I can approve. It doesn't have to be in legalese or be all serious-- I did, for example, approve the 'Hippos are Really Quite Large' proposal (though I can't remember if I voted for or against it, because I can't remember what the ACA said about it). I do not, as a strict rule, approve any proposal that has the effect of decreasing barriers to free trade, no matter how nice it looks or how well written it is. That mechanic is just too odious and is against all anticapitalist ideology (n.b.-- I am currently UN delegate for the Anticapitalist Alliance). I will, however, occasionally support a proposal that might have a deleterious effect on something I hold dear-- say, a proposal that increases law and order at the expense of civil rights-- if it is well phrased and has a concrete effect that I judge to be good, such as increasing public safety. Law and order is a good thing (even you anarchists have to agree that you follow basic rules of morality and don't look kindly upon people who take it as their God-given right to go around eating babies or something), and a thing that I think occasionally merits a UN mandate.

Those are my criteria. I may be a bit of a stick, but there ya go.

Maybe its just me, but lazy ass nations that present resolution ALREADY ENACTED and they make it like its something new. :evil:

Try reading the link that says previous resolutions before wasting people's time!

arrr this drives me nuts :lol:

Bahgum is concerned at the lets get rid of joke proposals mentality. A well written joke proposal just as much right as a well written serious proposal in this GAME. In fact the game was written with an intitial style of quirkiness and humour which seems to be sadly lacking in most of the 'accepted' proposals. Remember: Fun, seriousness and a little strangeness were all meant to have a place in this game and can, often,(and should) go hand in hand.

Bahgum

I love you man.

To me, the only thing the book had going for it was the deadpan humour. Plot sucked, writing was far from the best I've written, but I quite enjoyed the wit and understated humour.

Again, the draw of the game was not the potential excitement of arguing politics with undergrad politics students, but the wit in the bizarre issues.

I can't understand why people stuggle so hard to make their proposal appear like it's a 'real UN' proposal when they're lacking in any identifiable point and they've couched the proposal in a failed attempt at 'formal language'. I'd love to see some proposals with a clear point, concisely written- and with a hint of the beloved funny that's missing from the UN. That'd be more in the spirit of the game.

As someone has pointed out, those short porposals are always met with objections- "What about this scenario?", "You forgot this potential problem!" etc.
So the authors try to anticipate the objections in advance, which is one reason for lengthy proposals.

It's a game. I want mock serious, funny proposals in the spirit of the game. Intellectual wit, consise, to the point and utterly meainingless. That's what the book was about, that's what the game was about when I started playing. It's a little mock world set in a humourous universe.

If you want to debate real politics or religion or whatever, go and play with the folks at http://www.iidb.org or something.

I'm just tempted to vote against anything that has "WHEREAS"

I'm not only tempted, but I tend to. With maybe a couple of exceptions when the proposal actually had a meaningful point and was otherwise well written, 'whereas' reeks of wannabee-ism to me. We of Gigglealia don't like that.

You do have to have some meaning in the proposals or you will get thousands of proposal for "Vote for it because I said so." That's not even worth the time to look at it. I know the description has nothing to do with the effects on my nation but I'd rather have it say something I can agree than add another way for people to invade my country or plot against me.

At last a fellow glorious nation which thinks along our lines, Gigglealia, Bahgum salutes you. It's good to know that a few nations are playing the game in the spirit which was intended! Though not many if the number of endorsement to Bahgums last resolutions is anything to go by. Bahgum is undaunted and its national mission to bring back the fun continues. How about a proposal on dwarf tossing?