NationStates Jolt Archive

This is the official comments thread for the UN Reference Guide (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=490188), where you can express your concerns, point out flaws, suggest changes, or just say "nice job, HotRod" if that's your thing.

Right now, after reviewing the thread I just spawned and noticing some things, I plan to do the following:

1. Add a note about how many people contributed ideas and facts, and give them props and such. [Edit: Done.]

2. Work with Sophista on getting the Resolution Writing Guide in the thread and updated. [Edit: In Progress]

3. Updates: the Practical Guide with more detailed info on a variety of things [Done], the Roleplaying post with more links to examples of UN-related roleplay [Done], the Moderation post with links to relevant cases and precedents as well as some elaboration on various points. [Done]

4. Tweak the formatting a bit if possible to make it even more standardized. [Edit: Done.] [Edit2: Done even better.]

I haven't read all of this yet, but I have one comment I'd like to see stressed under the Moderation section, dealing with legality. The first legality questions should be raised among players, not mods. Think of it with this legal analogy:

UN proposals are essentially legal documents in the world of NS. Players are legislators attempting to introduce new law. This begins as either a solo effort (the player) or may include a staff (his regionmates, offsite forums, whatever). If there are questions about how it should work, or where it should be categorized, those should be researched by the player, his staff, or the Ad-hoc UN Committee on Vetting Proposals (aka the UN forum).

Once sufficient arguments and counterarguments have been made, one of two things is likely to happen. Either you will arrive at consensus, or you will reach an insurmountable divide. Then, and ONLY then, should you appeal to the mods.

Games mods are the Supreme Court of the NSUN. We select the cases we want to hear. We have an excellent understanding of law and precedent, but we don't necessarily spend a lot of time researching. We simply don't have enough time to do all the research on every proposal. That's the player's job. You present the case, we'll make a ruling. Sometimes that ruling will be extensive and will add new precedent, but more often we'll simply pick one side or the other.

Sometimes a case comes along, and we'll refuse to rule. New precedent doesn't always come from the mods - we'll let the UN itself decide the precedent if it won't damage the game to do so.


This could probably be condensed and re-written substantially. Feel free to have a swing at it.

On the list of offsite forums at the bottom, it'd be nice to have what the forums are for. Something like this:

UN DEFCON: Works on security- and defense-related legislation
UN Organizations: Houses organizations related to the UN [inactive]
National Sovereignty Organization: Works towards less UN intervention in national affairs
ACCEL: Works towards less government involvement in the economy
Reveal & Repeal: Works on repeals and replacements for them
Green Think Tank: Works on environment-related legislation
United International Congress: Works towards counteracting national sovereignty legislation [inactive]
FAIRTRADE: Works towards free trade between and, to a lesser extent, within nations
Reclamation: Helps all authors with legislation on all issues

RL UN = NS UN

I'd either put a question mark or a =/= instead. If someone is just skimming, they may, accidentally, pick that up without reading what goes with it. If you put a question mark, it makes the statement non-definitive and it would require one to look further at the question (or rather, your answer) to get the result. Obviously, =/= also brings its own problems (List of common mistakes followed by NS UN =/= RL UN might ingrain that this is not true), but seeing that is more likely to be ingrain itself as they've seen it than the alternate, it would still be preferable over this form. I'd still suggest a questionmark.

Also, I think both ACCEL and Change do belong on those lists simply because of their scope and effort within the UN as of late.

3. Updates: I thought there could be more material on finding loopholes - perhaps Omigodtheykilledkenny' Creative Solutions Agency would be a good example of this. I feel that angle of the game is good, because it helps with resolution writing, encourages roleplaying, and can be quite fun.

I haven't read all of this yet, but I have one comment I'd like to see stressed under the Moderation section, dealing with legality. The first legality questions should be raised among players, not mods. Think of it with this legal analogy:

UN proposals are essentially legal documents in the world of NS. Players are legislators attempting to introduce new law. This begins as either a solo effort (the player) or may include a staff (his regionmates, offsite forums, whatever). If there are questions about how it should work, or where it should be categorized, those should be researched by the player, his staff, or the Ad-hoc UN Committee on Vetting Proposals (aka the UN forum).

Once sufficient arguments and counterarguments have been made, one of two things is likely to happen. Either you will arrive at consensus, or you will reach an insurmountable divide. Then, and ONLY then, should you appeal to the mods.

Games mods are the Supreme Court of the NSUN. We select the cases we want to hear. We have an excellent understanding of law and precedent, but we don't necessarily spend a lot of time researching. We simply don't have enough time to do all the research on every proposal. That's the player's job. You present the case, we'll make a ruling. Sometimes that ruling will be extensive and will add new precedent, but more often we'll simply pick one side or the other.

Sometimes a case comes along, and we'll refuse to rule. New precedent doesn't always come from the mods - we'll let the UN itself decide the precedent if it won't damage the game to do so.


This could probably be condensed and re-written substantially. Feel free to have a swing at it.

Thanks. I'll add a short paragraph to that effect.

Edit: This has been added.

On the list of offsite forums at the bottom, it'd be nice to have what the forums are for. Something like this:

UN DEFCON: Works on security- and defense-related legislation
UN Organizations: Houses organizations related to the UN [inactive]
National Sovereignty Organization: Works towards less UN intervention in national affairs
ACCEL: Works towards less government involvement in the economy
Reveal & Repeal: Works on repeals and replacements for them
Green Think Tank: Works on environment-related legislation
United International Congress: Works towards counteracting national sovereignty legislation [inactive]
FAIRTRADE: Works towards free trade between and, to a lesser extent, within nations
Reclamation: Helps all authors with legislation on all issues

I considered doing that, but then realized that for the most part the names of the forums were pretty self-explanatory and nixed the idea since I was at the end of my night shift and I was tired. I'll add a short description for each since that's what you want though.

Edit: This has been done.

Also, I think both ACCEL and Change do belong on those lists simply because of their scope and effort within the UN as of late.

ACCEL is already in there, but you're right that Change should be too. Thanks.

Edit: This has been done.

RL UN = NS UN

I'd either put a question mark or a =/= instead. If someone is just skimming, they may, accidentally, pick that up without reading what goes with it. If you put a question mark, it makes the statement non-definitive and it would require one to look further at the question (or rather, your answer) to get the result. Obviously, =/= also brings its own problems (List of common mistakes followed by NS UN =/= RL UN might ingrain that this is not true), but seeing that is more likely to be ingrain itself as they've seen it than the alternate, it would still be preferable over this form. I'd still suggest a questionmark.

Fair enough. Will do.

Edit: This has been done.

3. Updates: I thought there could be more material on finding loopholes - perhaps Omigodtheykilledkenny' Creative Solutions Agency would be a good example of this. I feel that angle of the game is good, because it helps with resolution writing, encourages roleplaying, and can be quite fun.

A very good idea. Thanks, Gruen.

ACCEL is already in there, but you're right that Change should be too. Thanks.I thought Change was a region? Come to think of it, Antarctic Oasis is one too. Why aren't we included? Don't you love us? :(

3. Updates: I thought there could be more material on finding loopholes - perhaps Omigodtheykilledkenny' Creative Solutions Agency would be a good example of this. I feel that angle of the game is good, because it helps with resolution writing, encourages roleplaying, and can be quite fun.As far as UN roleplay is concerned, I was thinking maybe the wiki links for the UN ambassadors list and UN Headquarters could be included somewhere.

I thought Change was a region? Come to think of it, Antarctic Oasis is one too. Why aren't we included? Don't you love us? :(

I was just picking random regional boards that I happened to have the URLs for handy. I should probably add a lot more regions than are currently on the list of regional forums, including AO. :)

As far as UN roleplay is concerned, I was thinking maybe the wiki links for the UN ambassadors list and UN Headquarters could be included somewhere.

I've already decided that those will go in the Practical Guide under a new Resources section that I'm working on.

Alright. More regional forums have been added and the forum descriptions requested by Ceo have also been added.

All I have left to do on this is finishing adding in all the links to precedents and rulings for the Moderation guide and doing a bit of revising/adding to it.

Sophista should be getting around to fixing up the Resolution Writing Guide today, according to the telegram he sent me.

After that, it's all done and ready for Mod approval (hopefully) and...stickiness!

Well it looks like Sophista has gone MIA. I'll try to rouse him again.

I've finished updating and editing the Moderation Guide, so I figure our resident Mods will want to look it over and make sure it's kosher.

I tried to incorporate links from both past and present decisions and cases, making sure to cover all the bases, without going overboard. I tried to include links to a lot of the more significant or interesting rulings so players would be familiar with them, and tried not to brown-nose too much. ;)

When I try this url:

http://www.nationstates.net/page=UN_proposal1/match=gambling

I got "No matching proposal found."

Does this still work, did we pick the right sample query?

When I try this url:

http://www.nationstates.net/page=UN_proposal1/match=gambling

I got "No matching proposal found."

Does this still work, did we pick the right sample query?
That's because currently there are no proposals in the list with "gambling" in the title, the search can't find something that's not there.

That's because currently there are no proposals in the list with "gambling" in the title, the search can't find something that's not there.

I suspected that, but I wasn't able to get it to work for any query.

I suspected that, but I wasn't able to get it to work for any query.
How about this
http://www.nationstates.net/page=UN_proposal1/match=the
That should work for you. You are probably putting in things with no matchs

How about this
http://www.nationstates.net/page=UN_proposal1/match=the
That should work for you. You are probably putting in things with no matchs

Well that certainly worked. Perhaps we should make this the sample url used?

I can't seem to find a query that brings up:

"
UNITED NATIONS RESOLUTION #163
UN Copyright Convention
"

Why doesn't http://www.nationstates.net/page=UN_proposal1/match=Copyright work?

Am I mising something?

Well that certainly worked. Perhaps we should make this the sample url used?

I can't seem to find a query that brings up:

"
UNITED NATIONS RESOLUTION #163
UN Copyright Convention
"

Why doesn't http://www.nationstates.net/page=UN_proposal1/match=Copyright work?

Am I mising something?
Because that searches the proposal list, not the passed resolutions.

I still think the wiki entries for UN Headquarters and the list of UN ambassadors merit a place somewhere in the stickies (unless they're already there, and I just ain't seein' them).

Because that searches the proposal list, not the passed resolutions.

There we go, I was missing something... sorry to bother everyone :)

I always thought there should be a way to search the resolutions

I always thought there should be a way to search the resolutions
Well, take it up in the Tech forum.

oh ya I just mentioned that while we were on the topic... I think I did at some point but I don't go there ever so I don't remember the response.

I still think the wiki entries for UN Headquarters and the list of UN ambassadors merit a place somewhere in the stickies (unless they're already there, and I just ain't seein' them).

They're in the Possibilities for the UN Forum section of the Roleplaying guide.

1. Any objections to me adding a link to Kenny's Meet the Reps Part II (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=453162) thread?

2. Sophista logged into his nation, but hasn't gotten back to me. I'm a little concerned here. I think if he doesn't get to updating the Resolution Writing Guide in the next month, I'm just going to use my own material and link to his Guide.

Oh, and have our friendly neighborhood UN Mods had a chance to look over the Moderation guide yet?

Any suggestions for formatting changes, or is that all good?

I've alphabetized the Focused Forums list at Ausserland's suggestion, and made some minor wording and formatting changes.

Any particular reason why both the new and old guides are stickied?

Any particular reason why both the new and old guides are stickied?

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11605973&postcount=11

http://www.safalra.com/other/nationstates/un-resolution-safety/

I think this is a useful page. Although its premise (that margin of vote correlates to ease of repeal) is probably not spot on, it's still of both potential help and interest. Maybe it could get a passing mention in one of the posts - maybe the last one, under repeals.

http://www.safalra.com/other/nationstates/un-resolution-safety/

I think this is a useful page. Although its premise (that margin of vote correlates to ease of repeal) is probably not spot on, it's still of both potential help and interest. Maybe it could get a passing mention in one of the posts - maybe the last one, under repeals.

Good point!

I'll definitely add a link to it. :)

And you really should sticky this thread, amigo. ;)

And you really should sticky this thread, amigo. ;)

Bah. We have enough stickies.

Bah. We have enough stickies.

Yeah, I thought about that before I posted my suggestion, but this is definitely a worthwhile thread. It really should be up there with the guide itself so that people who read it can easily offer suggestions. New players aren't going to know this thread even exists if it falls of the first page (which it almost did before I bumped it with my previous post here ;) ), and they're the most likely, I think, to offer good suggestions as to what should be added. "I didn't understand X, so maybe an explanation in the guide is in order." Those of us who've been around for a while might not even remember some of the things that befuddled us when we first joined, since it's just not fresh in our minds anymore.

Yeah, I thought about that before I posted my suggestion, but this is definitely a worthwhile thread. It really should be up there with the guide itself so that people who read it can easily offer suggestions. New players aren't going to know this thread even exists if it falls of the first page (which it almost did before I bumped it with my previous post here ;) ), and they're the most likely, I think, to offer good suggestions as to what should be added. "I didn't understand X, so maybe an explanation in the guide is in order." Those of us who've been around for a while might not even remember some of the things that befuddled us when we first joined, since it's just not fresh in our minds anymore.

Hmm. This is true.

But I'd really rather not add any more stickies.

Are there stickies you think could be taken down so things don't get cluttered?

What do other folks think?

The chat one could probably go, I think. Unless things have changed recently, the UN IRC channel was never really used all that much.

Yes, the IRC one serves no real purpose. Perhaps mention it in the main sticky, but otherwise, scrap it.

Yeah, mention in the main sticky's not a bad idea.

Since all the IRC sticky does is point to another thread that's out of date, I'm going to de-sticky that one now.

The best post I've found on IRC is in the General Sticky. Unless somebody has a better idea, my suggestion is to link to that post directly from the Reference Guide. Here's the link:
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=8622592&postcount=10

That's probably the best call, Fris, in my not-so-humble opinion. ;)

This thread doesn't need stickying, IMNSHO. There's already a link to it at the top of the actual Reference Guide.