NationStates Jolt Archive

Just reading a UN resolution-For the sake of the supposed author I won't name it. Most of the clauses used are directly taken from actual UN resoultions. It can be argued that all UN resolutions are similar but several of these clauses are taken directly form either the UN or various international covenents.

I think this is a thing best to be taken up in moderation. Or the getting help page if you are going to name names.

Lady Desdemona of Merwell,
Senior UN representative,
The Black New World

Just reading a UN resolution-For the sake of the supposed author I won't name it. Most of the clauses used are directly taken from actual UN resoultions. It can be argued that all UN resolutions are similar but several of these clauses are taken directly form either the UN or various international covenents.
Many resolutions take their start as actual UN resolutions, then get modified here. I don't see a thing wrong with that - those RL UN people spent many long hours negotiation and compromising to arrive at language that everyone would accept. Why shouldn't we take advantage of that?

My resolution, Rights and Duties of UN States, began as a 'borrowed' draft from an early foundation document of one of the many UN sub-bureaus. I credited them in the forum topic, and we went from there. By the time we finished adapting it to the NS world, it bore very little resemblance to the original document, but the root structure and some of the language remained. I'm proud of that resolution, and would welcome comparisons to real-world UN documents. It tells me I did well.

I've seen many people cut-and-paste the US Bill of Rights or similar RL document as a proposal, without making any effort to conform in any way to the world of NS. If a mod spots it, it gets deleted. If not, no one is going to approve it beyond the usual loco bunch that sign off on every proposal. No danger of it ever going to a vote.

If on the other hand you are referring to NS nations stealing resolution content from other nations' posted resolutions, I believe the mods will crack down on that. Name names on the Getting Help page.

I'd actively encourage the adaptation of appropriate RL UN legislation for proposals*. As long as it's suitable to NS, why not? It's bound to be of a higher standard than much of the stuff the proposal list is full of.

*I'm assuming it wouldn't be illegal or anything, like breach of copyright, but I see no reason why it would be.

Just reading a UN resolution-For the sake of the supposed author I won't name it. Most of the clauses used are directly taken from actual UN resoultions. It can be argued that all UN resolutions are similar but several of these clauses are taken directly form either the UN or various international covenents.

OOC:
That is a pretty serious charge, and I think we need to look at the bigger picture here and ask "why".

The Peaceful Uses of Outer Space proposal that I had posted here, *was* in fact plagiarized from a single real UN resolution. I deleted about 60 to 80% of the real resolution, because I felt that part did not apply to NationStates and added a single clause. The name of the real resolution is the "Peaceful Uses of Outer Space" -- I've posted the full text of that resolution on the IDU forum. The reason I've kept some of the basic language is I honestly feel it is well written and can be applied to NationStates.

Comments on the draft seemed to suggest that nations wanted *more* changes to that proposal to better match NationStates, and I agree with those opinions and have already said that I'd make more changes (including deleting extra baggage). That proposal will come back, but as the Peaceful Uses of Near Earth Space, provided that name is not too long.

To be honest, I don't have a problem with players stealing real world documents and creating something new. In fact, before I started doing this with the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, I had already asked if this would be in in the Moderation Forum back in late August or early September. The ruling that was issued was that as long as the text did not make real-world references and was appropriate for NationStates, that it doesn't matter where the text came from.

If you are interested, I can find the old moderation forum thread, but your complaint has already been ruled on a few months ago! Moderators should look back to that ruling!!!

The Ballast Water resolution took some national (Canadian and American) existing standards, and I did look at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) as a guide. So there is some borrowed material present there as well, but I challenge you to tell the rest of us what is borrowed and what is not. I am guessing that it won't be so easy to tell what is original and what is not (and that resolution is a mix).

Tracking Near Earth, Needle Sharing, and Good Samaritan are all original, but certainly written in the style of the real UN resolutions. I can honestly tell you that the real UN wouldn't touch any of those three topics!

So you are saying that anything in a game, or anything that isn't set in the real world, can't borrow from things in the real world? Cause that would just make writing fiction impossible.

I realise that the NSUN is quite important, but nothing that is done within it is going to cause the real UN to go wrong (or more wrong than it has already). And like someone above said, the real UN has a lot of decent writers working for it, so why not borrow the talents of those writers to put proposals together in here.

I really don't get what the problem is here :}

Actually, any resolution that makes any reference whatsoever to any real life person, organization, event, thing, whatever, is technically illegal. And can be deleted, with the author recieving a warning.

This has kind of taken a moderaton approach... perhaps time for a move?

The issue here isn't IMHO debating real-world references. Moderation has made it clear if you make a reference to the dollar bill or England, your proposal is going to be deleted. They've also been less clear on references to things like humpedbacked whales and DDT (both very specific real world things).

The question IMHO is, "Can players take real-world documents and submit copies as proposals?"

The answer was already determined in the moderation forum two months ago, and basically said this is OK so long as there are no obvious real-world references. I did not save a link to this, but if I have time (and energy) tonight (meaning if I don't head out to a party) I'll see if I can dig up the thread. Basically I think Stephanistan, Cog, and another mod or two were talking about things there.

The thread came up when XG and I were asking if his proposal on biodiversity would be OK. It was ruled OK at the time ... and later he got zapped for having an appendix making real-world references. Cog later came in and cleared that misunderstanding up.

The take home message: moderation has always been extremely inconsistent in its interpetation of UN rules and treatment of proposals in the queue that are complex. I think the best approach is to just be up front and document to death what you plan to do and why. And try to be accomidating to whatever opinions folk's might have to offer.

The rules are guidelines, and decisions can be reversed or proposals rewritten. Good Samaritan laws is an example of a compromise / rewritten proposal.

The take home message: moderation has always been extremely inconsistent in its interpetation of UN rules and treatment of proposals in the queue that are complex. I think the best approach is to just be up front and document to death what you plan to do and why. And try to be accomidating to whatever opinions folk's might have to offer.

Extremely inconsistent is definitely correct. Seeing as how amendments are now illegal, yet were allowed at some point, of which "RBH Replacement" is an example...

RBH Replacement went through on "Thu Jun 26 2003", which was before Enodia had codified the rules, and indeed, before any Moderators concentrated heavily on the UN. It's a poor straw man for arguing inconsistancies.

That being said, I do agree that we have been inconsistant when it comes to real world mentions in UN proposals. This is partially because Enodia didn't really deal with it when he made his rules (and, to be honest, all the GM's are cribbing from his rules). The original guidelines only mention overt citations (ie: a proposal to impeach George Bush); a ruling that nobody's complained about, but is a rather vague ruling.

That vagueness leads to our current problem. While George Bush obviously doesn't exist on NationStates (indeed, 'The United States of America' doesn't exist (or hasn't for the past 709 days)), things get more sticky when dealing with things like, say, whaling. Nobody argues the existance or non-existance of whales in NS, what is open to debate is their current state of endangerment. Some would argue that since some species of whale are endangered in the real world, they are therefore endangered on NS; others argue that such a logical leap is over too wide a chasm.

The reason for the inconsistancy is that the Mods disagree on the tack we should take. We'd ask Enodia his views if we could, but we can't so we make it up as we go along. Some take a hardline view (ie: myself and GMC), some take a more lenient view (Cogitation). Currently, the hardlines have it because, to be perfectly frank, it's easier that way. "Zero tolerance" policies have their problems, but they're much easier to legislate than parsing if a particular reference crosses the line, is integral to the proposition, or what-have-you.