NationStates Jolt Archive

Brought to you by the GBC, in association with Gruenberg Fried Dolphin - "it's fin-pickin' good".

Warning: The following program may contain sex, violence, swearing, bad jokes about dolphins, glaring factual inaccuracies, gross generalisations, and rampant bias. The Gruenberg Broadcasting Corporation cannot be held responsible for injuries, psychoses or pregnancies obtained as a result of watching this program.

Numbers

In 2005, UN delegates brought 65 proposals to quorum. Of those, 3 were removed before vote - 2 of these 3 saw replacements produced which did make it to vote (and which both passed).

Of the 62 proposals then voted on by the General Assembly, 53 passed, and 9 failed. This was a pass rate of 85% (signifying almost no change from 2004 in terms of overall pass rate).

15 of the 62 proposals were repeals; 2 of those repeals failed, meaning 13 repeals were passed out of the 53 passed proposals. 5 of the 53 resolutions were repealed; repeals to a further 2 failed. (There is crossover between the passed and failed repeals of "Protection of Dolphins Act" here.) 5 of the repeals led to 'replacements', and a further two replacements were brought to quorum, but did not pass.

Categories

The major category was Human Rights, making up 14 of the 40 substantive resolutions; by contrast, no Moral Decency proposal even reached quorum. The second most popular category was Environmental, with 6 resolutions. Social Justice won out over Free Trade by 5 to 4, The Furtherment of Democracy over Political Stability 3 to 1, and International Security over Global Disarmament 5 to 2.

Of the repeals, 3 were directed at Environmental resolutions, 3 at Social Justice, 2 at Human Rights, 2 at Free Trade, 2 at Global Disarmament, and 1 at The Furtherment of Democracy. The two failed repeals both targetted Environmental resolutions.

Pie chart showing category distribution of passed resolutions
http://img376.imageshack.us/img376/5379/res0vr.png

In terms of the way the overall balance of category ratios, there has been no notable change: Human Rights still dominates, followed by Environmental; Social Justice and The Furtherment of Democracy still outweigh Free Trade and Political Stability. (I have done no 'strength' analysis.) The only shift has been in favour of International Security, over Global Disarmament. 3 categories remain unlegislated.

Votes

The most popular resolution in 2005 was the Tsunami Warning System, with 86% of the vote, followed by the repeal of DVD Region Removal with 84%. This year saw the heaviest defeat for a resolution, with just 28% for the Forced Banishment Ban. The Worldwide Media Act was defeated by the closest margin on record (100 votes); the closest victory was the repeal of Ban Chemical Weapons.

In total, 935,252 votes were cast this year, of which 594,127 were for, and 341,125 against. This means an average of 15,085 votes were cast per proposal. There was a noticeable drop off in voting over the year: the first quarter averaged over 17,000 votes per proposal; the last quarter barely 13,000. Tsunami Warning System received the most votes FOR (15,961), beating Natural Disaster Act by over 3,000. 9 resolutions received over 12,000 votes for; none has done such since June. Repeal "DVD Region Removal" received the fewest votes AGAINST (2,320), with 3 other resolutions receiving fewer than 3,000 votes against.

Repeal "Legalize Prostitution" received the greatest total vote; it and The Global Library were the only two to pip 19,000. Since June, only Promotion of Solar Panels has received over 15,000 votes; Repeal "Right to Divorce" collected the lowest total vote. It, along with UN Small Business Education and Repeal "UCPL" failed to collect 12,000 votes. For an indication of decline of total voting patterns, here's a shiny graph with no x axis. Still, it goes down. A bit.

http://img449.imageshack.us/img449/3608/vote3fn.png

(I have no numbers on overall membership - I'm hoping Mikitivity does.)

Authors

Given branding violations, and the way that many proposals were crafted by group efforts, in the UN forum or off-site, is difficult to make an assessment of the most 'successful' author...or at least it would be if those Chipmunks weren't so damn Powerhungry. PC had four resolutions pass, and 5 repeals pass (having already had 2 resolutions pass in 2004). Close behind was Love and esterel, involved, to various extents, in 4 resolutions and 2 repeals, as well as one failed proposal, and one which was removed (but which passed on resubmission). Other fairly prolific authors included Groot Grouda, Mikitivity, Reformentia, and Yelda[n UN Mission]. Over 35 authors submitted or co-authored resolutions or repeals in 2005.

The forums

Obviously, an assessment of what the 'bestest' debates were would be rather tricky, although we suspect Rights of Biological Sapients would not have numbered among them. The topics which attracted the most attention, though (aside from The Strangers' Bar and Silly Proposals), were:

Repeal "Legalize Prostitution" - 896 replies (record)
Promotion of Solar Panels - 615
The Sex Industry Worker Act - 523
Rights of Biological Sapients - 455
Adoption and IVF Rights & The Transgender Equality Act - 388 each
'The Fair Argument' (draft of Repeal "Abortion Rights") - 358
Nuclear Armaments & Forced Banishment Ban - 349 each
Right to Divorce - 346
Ban Chemical Weapons & United Nations Security Act - 345 each
The Global Library & Protection of Dolphins Act - 331 each

(Definite sex and violence theme.)

The most posts in a single thread went to Flibbleites, who almost reached 300 reports of Silly Proposals.

Miscellany

2005 saw more resolutions passed than any other year. At the same time, national sovereignty got more 'air time', both through the extension of Gatesville's franchises, and the formation of the NSO.
Especially notable were the 'ten day repeal' of Promotion of Solar Panels, and the controversy surrounding the United Nations Security Act.
The rules for proposal submissions were updated, with The Most Glorious Protocols effectivelye replacing the Enodian Protocols.
There were many new faces - one of whom managed to pass six resolutions before the year was out - but at the same time, the UN forum said goodbye to some old faces - one who possibly came back for a spot of Vengeance.

how about the stats on UN membership and the ammount of delegates? i swear the number of deligates has dropped since may

how about the stats on UN membership and the ammount of delegates? i swear the number of deligates has dropped since may

It has, but I don't have that kind of information (as I mentioned in the first post) in any real form. If you look through a few old topics, you can see 150 approvals required in places, though: now it's 126 (allowing for a slight Dec-Jan lull). But yes, overall membership would appear to be dropping. It would be interesting to see the correlation between that and the decrease in total votes.

Nice stats, thanks


...
Repeal "Legalize Prostitution" - 896 replies (record)
...
The Sex Industry Worker Act - 523
...


=1419 in total, was this whole debate the hottest ever?

The most posts in a single thread went to Flibbleites, who almost reached 300 reports of Silly Proposals.
The scary thing about this is not the number of posts I made, but the fact that you went through and counted them.:p

I think a noteworthy (though mild) feature of 2005's resolutions was the growth in collaborative efforts. Love and esterel in particular has encouraged this approach - we may not always agree with the results, but I think that, all in all, it's a very positive development.

Of course, I'm biased. I remember PC highlighting Freedom of Conscience as the inspiration (or something) for this... which probably isn't accurate, but touchingly ego-soothing.

EDIT: forgot to say - this is excellent. Thanks, Gru.

The scary thing about this is not the number of posts I made, but the fact that you went through and counted them.:p

Methinks our friend has far too much time on his hands. ;)

Methinks our friend has far too much time on his hands. ;)

I wish I had too much time on my hands. Would be kinda nice to have that again. :(

Ah well, here's to 2005, a year of craziness and fun.

I wish I had too much time on my hands. Would be kinda nice to have that again. :(

Ah well, here's to 2005, a year of craziness and fun.

I hear ya, mate!

And here's to 2006, hopefully a year of more craziness and less fluff! :D

Here's to 2006, a year in which the U.N. shall finally achieve its total dominance over all areas that were formally national perogatives and fluffies shall rule the worlds!

<manic laughter in background>

May the blessings of our otters be upon you all.

Leonard Otterby
Ambassador for the Republic of Compadria to the U.N.

...perhaps I'll do something this year.

...perhaps I'll do something this year.
You already have. You wrote "A short guide to posting in the UN forums". Nice job too.

Here's to 2006, a year in which the U.N. shall finally achieve its total dominance over all areas that were formally national perogatives and fluffies shall rule the worlds!

<manic laughter in background>

May the blessings of our otters be upon you all.

Leonard Otterby
Ambassador for the Republic of Compadria to the U.N.
*cracks knuckles*
Over my dead body.

Bob Flibble
NSO Mafia Don

*cracks knuckles*
Over my dead body.

Bob Flibble
NSO Mafia Don

*grabs shotgun*
Can be arranged :p

*cracks knuckles*
Over my dead body.

Bob Flibble
NSO Mafia Don

Over mine, too.

Over mine, too.

*checks gun*

plenty of ammo

You gonna wiki this?

*checks gun*

plenty of ammo

*equips solar-powered laser cannon*

Third dead body's a charm, or so I've heard. ;)

*checks gun*

plenty of ammo

Gun? Pfft...we've got plenty of nukes. :p

Gun? Pfft...we've got plenty of nukes. :p

Ah, but you see, what's more important is that your body be dead so that Compardia can get over it

Stop this nonsense! You'll get blood on my anorak.

*removes horn-rimmed spectacles purposefully*

Anyway, yes. Firstly, I didn't count up all those posts: you can get "Who posted" stats by clicking the number of replies in the UN forum.

Secondly, I didn't, in any case, have to spend much time on this. It's just trivia, really, but there's some interesting features. One thing I was going to do was how, in the wake of repeals, the 'legislative obligation' of the UN had changed over the year. But I couldn't be arsed. Anyway, it was made much easier through use of the UN Timeline (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/UN_Timeline)...

...to which end, a plea. NSwiki is an unofficial resource. It is, nonetheless, a very well-used one, and increasingly one new players will be pointed to. I myself used NSwiki well before I became active in the UN: it was a very useful guide. The UN Timeline is an especially great page, into which Fris, Mik, Jey, L&E, and many others have put a lot of time and work into. However, we now have linked from it a lot of pages with resolutions on and nowt else. That's boring. There's no point to that. If people want that, fine, but it seems to me to be a wasted opportunity.

Initially, people like Frisbeeteria, Mikitivity, Powerhungry Chipmunks and others wrote background to their resolutions. Love and esterel and 'Kenny have written great accounts of theirs. Lazy cunts like me have not, and I do intend to. But it would be nice to have a bit about some of the other resolutions, too. So, if there's a page on a resolution already made (we're not making them again for old ones, at the moment) and you think you could add to it, I really would encourage you to do so. That way, we could really document 2005, and its great - and not so great - resolutions. I'm very willing to help anyone who knows what but not how, or similar. It's just that it's getting to the stage where we might think about clearing the old pages which have never been added to, yet having been active in the last few debates, I've begun to appreciate the RPed and OOC little stories to each resolution which will never be remembered simply by the bland text saved in the game.