NationStates Jolt Archive

In a lot of recent proposals which have reached quorum, there have been clear loopholes or important information which is missing from the proposal, yet people still vote for these proposals.
Because of this, I feel it nessesary to create a post with some guidelines of how, in my opinion, you should decide wether to vote for a proposal.

When to vote for a proposal: When a proposal is well-worded, and written in character
When you agree with everything written in a proposal
When you want the appropriate alterations made to your nation's stats*
When not to vote for a proposal: If you are unsure, but it sounds like a good idea**

When to vote against a proposal: If it is a proposal that should have been deleted (e.g. a Game Mechanics proposal)
If you do not agree with something (even if you agree with other things) in the proposal***
If it is a proposal which you feel is not a matter for the UN, such as one which affects national laws, and should not be dealt with on an international level

When not to vote on a proposal: If you haven't read the proposal
If the proposal does not concern you****
If you are unsure*****
Footnotes:
*If you are a Psychotic Dictatorship, you are unlikely to want to pass a proposal which increases political freedoms.
**A proposal such as the "Passport Harmonisation" proposal sounds good, but it may be bad, or may be a waste of time. If you have read all through the proposal and are still unsure, see footnote *****
***If a proposal contains something that you strongly agree with, but also contains something that you are against, don't vote for the proposal so that you get the benefits of the part you agree with, as you will also get the detriments of the part which you don't.
****If you are in a nation with medieval technology, you wont be effected by a proposal about cars, so don't vote for or against it
*****If you are unsure of a proposal, read the topic for it on the UN forum (if there isn't one, start one) and see what other people think of the pros and cons of the proposal.

I hope that after reading this topic, people will be more careful about how they vote in the UN, and we won't have so many people who vote for any proposal that comes along.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Nibbleton

A fine piece of work, Nibbleton. If anyone bothers to read it, it will be most helpful. Unfortunately, it seems most people don't bother with the UN Forum, and many of those who do don't read anything that's been written before.

In a more perfect world, perhaps ...

That is the point most people just look at the civil rights bit, vote yes and move on no one really looks at this forum except to post their own proposal on it, so nice work :wink:

That is the point most people just look at the civil rights bit, vote yes and move on no one really looks at this forum except to post their own proposal on it, so nice work :wink:

Who really can speak for what "most" governments (remember, we all represent our governments here in one way or another) are really thinking and practicing when it comes to voting on resolutions.

While I think your assumption may have some truth to it, an old Miervatian saying comes to mind:

"People will follow, where others will lead."

To date I personally have read very few well constructed UN resolutions. When the Council of Mikitivity was debating joining the United Nations, I was appointed to review this organizations past actions. My first recommendation was for the Confederacy to join as a non-voting "associate" member. We did not plan to follow UN Resolutions, not because we disagreed with the spirit of them, but rather because implementing them requires more guess work than legal work. (Fortunately we have access to Barada Telepaths ... in fact many of them are in high places across the globe now ... so the guess work is made easier by not only considering the debate held in the UN on each resolution, but we've even gone as far as to mind scan a few key individuals.)

Ahem ... my point is that, if nations with seasoned diplomats would create counter proposals to poorly worded resolutions and urge people to contact their regional delegates and vote on what they believe is a better proposals / solution to a similar problem, maybe more people would find it easier to follow your good advice.

in the endorsement of proposals, the issue at question is whether the issue is deserving of public debate, not if the delegates agree with the proposals viewpoint. If the view is valid, then the proposal deserves to be brought to public vote.

Good job, Nibbleton. This makes perfect sense to me... if only more people would think before voting. :(

*bump* incase someone wants to read this

*bump* incase someone wants to read this
Nibbleton, I recommend you cross-post your initial post to an appropriate Sticky thread. Granted, not everyone reads the stickies front to back, but you have a lot better chance than by continually bumping this topic.

*bump* incase someone wants to read this
Nibbleton, I recommend you cross-post your initial post to an appropriate Sticky thread. Granted, not everyone reads the stickies front to back, but you have a lot better chance than by continually bumping this topic.

How about stickying this? I think it deserves one.

<--- looks around for a mod

This has been an OOC post.

*bump* incase someone wants to read this
Nibbleton, I recommend you cross-post your initial post to an appropriate Sticky thread. Granted, not everyone reads the stickies front to back, but you have a lot better chance than by continually bumping this topic.

How about stickying this? I think it deserves one.

<--- looks around for a mod

This has been an OOC post.
Thanks for that Goober, I appreciate the comment.

Either sounds like a plan, I suppose its gonna be easier to cross-post than to try and get this stickied *also looks around for a mod*, so I'll give it a go.