NationStates Jolt Archive

Dear UN-Members,

I am quite new, but I realized that only very few of the UN Delegates are using their right to vote for new proposals.

It seems, that it is not the case that they do now want to vote.
It is just, that they quite the game.

Is there a chance to eliminate inactive Delegates and readjust the number of delegates nessesary to pass a proposal into the main voting process of the UN?

I hope hearing about your ideas, impressions, etc.

Thanks for listening to me,

Kahoolawe (http://www.nationstates.net/kahoolawe)

Or perhaps the lack of delegate endorsements of proposals reflects the steaming pile of goat berries that is the proposal list?

Delegates' right to endorse proposals to queue contains within it an inherent right, nay a duty, to weed out proposals that have no business being put to a vote of the full membership.

Besides, such an action as you request would be metagaming and out of bounds.

I rarely exercised my "right" to approve proposals when I was a delegate. I barely remember scanning the list more than half a dozen times. When I got a telegram, I'd only occasionally check out the proposal; rarely not if they had not provided a link or any other useful information to help me find it amidst 12-15 pages of bad proposals (the list was thicker back then). As it is, encouraging inactive delegates to exercise their voting rights, or "readjusting" the quorum requirement, only increases the chances that awful resolutions like Murder and Manslaughter Laws (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Murder_and_Manslaughter_Laws) and Democratic Observation Act (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=526148) will make it to quorum. I'm content with the current telespam-campaign system.

There is a chance that good proposals can pass, but you have to work for it. You have to telegram delegates and plead for their support. This in itself is another buffer against bad proposal from making queue. That way, mostly serious efforts from hard-working players will make it through, and the trash is taken out after three days.

OOC: While, in a perfect world, it would be nice for voting bodies like ours to vote for each and every measure, we simply don't have the ability to do that. We'd have the queue backed up for decades. That's why we have the method that we have, which, I have just realized is stunningly like real-life American politics, because the only way for the "general public" to attend to something is for it to be heavily advertised, i.e. a telegram campaign in this game.

Now, obviously, the statement "there is no chance of a proposal making it to vote," is not true, since we vote for things quite often (albeit less often than I remember a while back). If we make it so that only a few people have to like an idea, WZForumz and his bloody troop of auto-approving idiots would push through every single piece, which, as I said, we can't do.

If you bring a good proposal here, however, to the UN Forum, before submitting it, I believe it drastically improves the likelihood of it coming to vote, especially if you can get some of the regulars behind you to help. The system really is designed quite well for our purposes. Is it perfect? No. But then again, little is in this modern world.

And I am not talking about bad proposals like manslauther or whatsoever.
I am talking about honest and serious proposals that might be worth considering them.

"Honest and serious proposals," like this one (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12736208&postcount=4801), which you copied and pasted?

Where is the point in submittin proposals if there is no interested in participating or if there is lazyness among the delegates.

As opposed to the laziness of proposal "authors" who can't be bothered to write their own material?

A statistical breakdown of proposals reaching the approvals stage would show you some basic facts. Since Summer 2003 (when the game had achieved 'critical mass') we've had a consistent stream of proposals to vote on
between 13 and 15 proposals make queue every quarter
some of them pass, some fail, and a very few have been removed from queue by mods before reaching the floor for various reasons
if you look at just the Passed list, you'll get skewed results. You need to look at the full UN Timeline (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/UN_Timeline) to see the whole picture.

The operative phrase here is, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

While we appreciate the concern of the representative of Kahoolawe, we think there's another angle to the issue.

Regional delegates are responsible to the member nations of their regions, not to the NSUN as a whole. As long as the way the delegate is representing the region (approvals, votes, etc.) satisfies those nations, that's all that matters. If the representation isn't satisfactory, the UN members in the region can always shift their endorsements and get a new delegate. And if there aren't enough dissatisfied nations to do that, the unhappy nations can always move to another region.

We're not unhappy with the approval system. It sure does keep a lot of garbage from taking up the time of the Assembly. And our impression is that the majority of quality resolutions do get enough approvals to come to a vote. That's especially true if the authors have enough savvy to post drafts here and on off-site forums for comment and to drum up support. A key factor, of course, is an effective telegram campaign. But people who care enough to write good resolutions generally care enough to learn how the process works, as well. They'll look for advice and help, both here and in the off-sites.

Travilia E. Thwerdock
Ambassador to the United Nations

@New Vandalia

i guess u r right. I know this may sound as a lame excuse, but I obviously i didnt get the game right. well, dumb misstake.

but that doesnt change my point and your post is not quite a convincing argument. in fact its not even an argument at all.
cause because i did wrong by trying to use "real" UN doesnt justify to do nothing.

i hope i got the idea of the game staight now.
thanks again for the support.

@New Vandalia

i guess u r right. I know this may sound as a lame excuse, but I obviously i didnt get the game right. well, dumb misstake.

i hope i got the idea of the game staight now.
thanks again for the support.

OOC: Glad you have it straight, I still don't. Welcome to the forum.