NationStates Jolt Archive

To the Moderation Team:

I recently submitted a proposal to the UN entitled "Repeal 'Fight the Axis of Evil'". The proposal seems to have been deleted. May I please ask why?

The full text of the proposal read:

Whereas it is to be recognised that the world is a dangerous place, wherein unscrupulous aggressors may indeed have access to weapons and powerfully destructive military technology,

Be it also duly recognised that retaliation in kind is not always the ideal solution to acts of aggression, nor is the escalation of military power always the ideal response to the existence of danger.

In recognition of the fact that non-aggressive policies can and do work for the preservation of peace,

In recognition of the sovereignty of each individual UN nation with regard to their adoption of militaristic or non-militaristic policies, and that UN nations should be free to abandon military spending should they so wish it,

In recognition that the Resolution 'Fight the Axis of Evil' was passed by a majority of 2 to 1, whereas the UN currently comprises over 27,000 nations, the vast majority of which have had no say in its implementation,

Be it resolved that the resolution 'Fight the Axis of Evil' shall be repealed, and freedom over military spending restored to UN member nations.


I really can see no reason why this should be offensive. I would just like to understand the reasoning behind its removal.

Thanks in advance.

you wanted to repeal the 'Fight the Axis of Evil', that's technical and therefore is your proposal deleted.

Do you have any idea how many proposals have been tabled that try to repeal 'Fight the Axis of Evil'?

Neither do I.

But a lot. Probably in the hundreds. I can understand why some people might be tired of reading about it all the time.

However, I do not agree that this resolution is technical - it is perfectly reasonable for a nation to try to get a passed resolution repealed. It doesn't change anything in the way the game works - it simply reverses a UN decision.

Technical resolutions are things like "I propose that Max Barry make maps for all the regions' or 'I propose a new system for searching/sorting proposals'.

However, I have personally seen proposals accidentally disappear from the proposal list without moderator intervention. Sometimes reasonable proposals disappear when the game updates and housecleans older proposals whose time is up. My roomate reported the issue several months back, but I imagine it's a hard one to track, since it doesn't happen very often.

(In the previous case it was the proposal 'Ban Single-Hulled Tankers' which had gained a lot of approval. It disappeared after only two days. The Imperial Senators filed a report and re-issued the proposal, and fortunately everyone approved it all over again and eventually it became a passed resolution.)

In the NationStates game engine, your nation has a whole list of behind-the-scenes numerical variables that describe your nation. UN resolutions, if passed, adjust these numbers in some preprogrammed manner. The adjustment is determined solely by the category and strength (or options) of the UN resolution.

Given that, there's no way to "repeal" a UN resolution that was passed except to pass a resoltuion that has an opposite effect. For example, "Political Stability" and "The Furtherment of Democracy" have opposite effects on political freedoms in UN member nations, if I remember correctly.

I think that this is the reason that any proposal that talks about "repealing" an earlier proposal is deleted; it gives a misleading impression of how the in-game UN works.

I'm not a Game Moderator, so I'm not sure who deleted your proposal or if the removal was due to a game bug.

--The Modified Democratic States of Cogitation
"Think about it for a moment."
NationStates Forum Moderator

If I remember correctly Cog...

This specific proposal did indeed have the opposite choices on the list to effectively 'counteract' the axis of evil proposal.

It was 'global disarmament' I made sure to double check that it actually counteracted the original proposal's intent before I endorsed it.

Thedoc: Yes, quite so. I know that there is no mechanical way to repeal past proposals, so I had placed it in the directly opposite category and at the same strength so as to undo the resolution's effect.

Equus: do you think I might resubmit on the offchance that it mysteriously vanished into the aether, or do you suggest that trying to get this passed is hopeless? If so, I would find that a bit unfortunate. It had already gathered some support in the brief time it was up, and I've had a lot of positive feedback on it.

For example, "Political Stability" and "The Furtherment of Democracy" have opposite effects on political freedoms in UN member nations, if I remember correctly.

It's close, but not quite the opposite.

All The Furtherment of Democracy proposals are described as:
“A resolution to increase democratic freedoms.”
All Political stability proposals are described as:
“A resolution to restrict political freedoms in the interest of law and order.”

If they were the exact opposite, the Furtherment of Democracy would have to reduce law and order as well. Also, it would be equating democratic freedoms with political freedoms. It's close but not 100%.

A whole bunch of categories don't have a direct counter-part, although your example is an example where it's IMHO sufficiently close to ignore the difference.

In the case here, the categories are:

All International Security proposals are described as:
“A resolution to improve world security by boosting police and military budgets.”
All Global Disarmament proposals are described as:
“A resolution to slash worldwide military spending.”

Note the difference in police budget in the two. They're once again close, but not the opposite.

And this is just looking at the text. I've never read any authoritative confirmation that some categories have actually been implemented to have an effect that is (close to) the opposite of another one. If this is so, it surely should be added to the ATTEMPT at a UN PROPOSAL FAQ (http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8126).

Ballotonia

In the end, it just depends on how nitpicky everyone feels. IMHO, the categories mentioned Ballotonia are close enough to negating each other out that I would be satisfied. I can't speak for anyone else of course, but I tend to consider the content of the proposal to be more important than the categories - provided that the category is appropriate to the proposal.

As for the feasibility of resubmitting the proposal, well, that's hard to say. Like I said earlier, there have already been many attempts to repeal it. I think it would take a lot of hard work to raise enough interest among the delegates, given that it's been tried so many times before. Another important note is that since that resolution was passed, only one proposal involving 'International Security' or 'Global Disarmament' garnered enough approvals to become a resolution (Elimination of Bio Weapons). Most proposals with these categories gain only lack-luster support, since most nations are very polarized when it comes to these concepts, and it is not easy to change their minds.

Not much help am I? I hate to see anyone give up - if you feel very strongly about this, do repost it - but be prepared to work hard if you want to drum up support.

Did the previous attempts make to to a vote? We had 70+ approvals before the mods deleted this one, with a whole day left to reach quorum.

In the NationStates game engine, your nation has a whole list of behind-the-scenes numerical variables that describe your nation. UN resolutions, if passed, adjust these numbers in some preprogrammed manner. The adjustment is determined solely by the category and strength (or options) of the UN resolution.

Given that, there's no way to "repeal" a UN resolution that was passed except to pass a resoltuion that has an opposite effect. For example, "Political Stability" and "The Furtherment of Democracy" have opposite effects on political freedoms in UN member nations, if I remember correctly.

I'm thinking more RP repeal then game repeal.

Did the previous attempts make to to a vote? We had 70+ approvals before the mods deleted this one, with a whole day left to reach quorum.

None ever made it to the UN floor. Not many were deleted though, then again for quite some time the "Britanny Spears rulez" and "Let's all invade nation X" type proposals weren't removed either.

Ballotonia

And this is just looking at the text. I've never read any authoritative confirmation that some categories have actually been implemented to have an effect that is (close to) the opposite of another one. If this is so, it surely should be added to the ATTEMPT at a UN PROPOSAL FAQ (http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8126).

Hmmm....

Stephistan knows more about the in-game UN than I do, so if she wants, I'll let her field this question. I've been ignoring the UN for a while.

--The Modified Democratic States of Cogitation

In the NationStates game engine, your nation has a whole list of behind-the-scenes numerical variables that describe your nation. UN resolutions, if passed, adjust these numbers in some preprogrammed manner. The adjustment is determined solely by the category and strength (or options) of the UN resolution.

Given that, there's no way to "repeal" a UN resolution that was passed except to pass a resoltuion that has an opposite effect. For example, "Political Stability" and "The Furtherment of Democracy" have opposite effects on political freedoms in UN member nations, if I remember correctly.

I think that this is the reason that any proposal that talks about "repealing" an earlier proposal is deleted; it gives a misleading impression of how the in-game UN works.

I'm not a Game Moderator, so I'm not sure who deleted your proposal or if the removal was due to a game bug.

--The Modified Democratic States of Cogitation
"Think about it for a moment."
NationStates Forum Moderator

While you can't delete a resolution once it has passed. You can put up a proposal to repeal it. While this will have no literal affect on how that proposal affected your nation at the time, what it will do is nullify the resolution which is often enough for RP purposes.

Stephanie
Forum Mod

While you can't delete a resolution once it has passed. You can put up a proposal to repeal it. While this will have no literal affect on how that proposal affected your nation at the time, what it will do is nullify the resolution which is often enough for RP purposes.

So... do any Game Mods know why this proposal disappeared?

--The Modified Democratic States of Cogitation

I asked.. and no one was aware of why or did they do it. However there are two GM's I still haven't asked. Although this has happened before and it was a bug. It's quite possible the same thing occurred in this case. I don't know. The best suggestion I could make from what I know at this point (which isn't much) is re-submit the proposal. *shrug*

Stephanie
Forum Mod

Then I will assume it was a bug, and I will resubmit the proposal, though probably not today as I won't have the time to drum up all the support it will require. Eschatopia was brilliant in helping me promote it before, and hopefully between us we can get it to a quorum.

I agree that the content of a proposal is overall more important than the mechanics, and I had worded my 'repeal' quite carefully so as to be simple, concise, correct, and UN-proposal-like. If I have succeeded even remotely, perhaps those increasingly rare qualities will help.