NationStates Jolt Archive

OK, I'm pretty upset right now.

A proposal of mine was deleted with the following message being sent to me:


Next time, make sure your UN proposal is in the correct category.


First, that is not helpful. They should have made a suggestion for what it should have been.

Second, perhaps the moderator should have asked me why I thought my proposal (text below) is a political stability proposal.

Third, it is rude as all hell.

I have a very good reason, already discussed in the UN forum for *why* my proposal is a Political Stability issue.

Here is the text of the proposal, along with red bold text highlighting why this is a political stability (i.e. that a political freedom is lessened in order to promote law and order) issue:


Disaster Assistance Liability for Engineers
A resolution to restrict political freedoms in the interest of law and order.

Category: Political Stability
Strength: Mild
Proposed by: Mikitivity

Description:
The NationStates United Nations,

RECALLING its resolution, the IRCO, adopted Sep. 1, 2003, which established the voluntary funded International Red Cross Organization (IRCO) for United Nations members in order to be “the first response team to natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and any other events which threaten the lives of citizens”;

OBSERVING that in addition to medical and law enforcement personnel, that these first response teams include technical and engineering professionals who in many non-emergency situations may be highly regulated by domestic liability laws;

MAKING NOTE that of the existence of many other national and international disaster assistance programs in addition to the IRCO;

NOTING WITH APPROVAL the many nations, including both UN members and non-members, which have entered into bi-lateral agreements to provide local and regional disaster assistance;

CONCERNED that these disaster assistance programs are limited in their effectiveness to send both first response teams and long-term disaster recovery teams due to the lack of pre-existing bi-lateral and unilateral arrangements, such as arrangements concerning the liabilities associated with all personnel in the volunteer response and recovery teams;

1. ENCOURAGES all nations, including UN non-members, to lend whatever aid possible in the event of a disaster;

2. EXPRESSES ITS HOPE that nations will continue to enter into local and regional arrangements to prepare for and lend aid to one another in the event of a disaster;

3. DIRECTS the IRCO to set up an international aid clearing house to inventory the capabilities of existing national and international disaster assistance programs;

4. AUTHORIZES the IRCO to expand its role beyond lending first response teams to nations in need to developing additional disaster assistance programs focusing on long-term disaster recovery;

5. SUGGESTS that nations receiving any disaster assistance to appoint a single organization or office of their government to act as a coordination group in the event that multiple national or international disaster recovery and assistance teams are working together; and

6. CALLS UPON all nations to develop domestic “Good Samaritan” laws granting volunteer based first responder teams, including technical and engineering professionals, immunity to liability associated with work and professional judgments made while rendering disaster assistance.


I've written three resolutions, all of which have passed. I've started the following resource for UN players:

http://www.skytowerpoet.net/nationstates/the_united_nations/

Complete with the following link:
http://www.skytowerpoet.net/nationstates/the_united_nations/PDFs/ResCategories.pdf

Which lists all the resolution categories.

While I can see how somebody who didn't read my proposal might make the mistake that it is a social justice category (to reduce income inequality and increase basice welfare), I've already submitted a social justice program establishing Needle Exchange programs.

Frankly, social justice is a real world term used to describe welfare based programs and equality based issues. Human rights are used to describe the fact that we have equal rights, social justice is in the real world the practice of establishing those equal rights. One category is an ideal, the other is an implementation. And Max's game text makes that clear.

Now a political stability issue would be trading away the "legal right" to sue somebody for breaking your shirt open while trying to restart your heart. You have traded your right to sue for a better chance that somebody will come in and help you. The problem with assuming that the above proposal is *not* a political stability issue is, governments don't send disaster aid / assistance equaly. They send the aid when needed, but the form of the aid is first often determined by local funding.

A good example: when grass fires and mud slides hit poorer regions of California, the local communities often have less money on hand to respond and often slack back on their rebuilding efforts. Another California example is the levee break (which I actually worked on) on the Middle River on Jones Tract. The local levee district didn't get any Federal help (though it did get state help). But why did that levee on Jones Tract fail and not a levee say on neighboring Bacon Island? The answer is obvious ... emergency prepardness and response are in fact not equal.

My proposal doesn't say, "All nations should be treated equally". Instead is very much says, "Yo, IRCO ... you will now do this and this to in addition to what you currently do." It then goes on to say, "Yo countries, you really need to control your lack of laws about law suits, because we can't help you, if the people we are trying to save want to sue us."

My proposal is based on real world *existing* laws in California, and I can find the link to the New York City laws.

In any event, I've not lost at least 18 endorsements (probably more since I haven't checked in the past 9 hours) ... I think the proposal should be reinstated and that it should be a political stability category. But first, I need moderator advise on what it should be.

Finally, whichever moderator did this, should have been more helpful and polite.

I was hoping to keep this in the UN forum to the "NationStates" world, but since a moderator seems to disagree and feel that I've applied this proposal (which had around 50 endorsements the first time it was in the queue and was not deleted), here are some links:

http://sections.asce.org/metropolitan/samaritan.html

The important part of the article:


In October 1, 2003, Connecticut’s Good Samaritan law, which provides immunity to engineers volunteering in a declared emergency, took effect. At least 18 other states also have some type of Good Samaritan law protecting engineers. Washington, Colorado, New Mexico, Virginia, Oregon, North Dakota, North Carolina, Maryland, Louisiana, Kentucky, Georgia and Florida currently have comprehensive Good Samaritan Laws, while others have laws that address specific emergencies or specific kinds of volunteer work.

This is so not a social justice issue.

Another quote:


A professional engineer who voluntarily provides engineering services in response to a natural disaster or other catastrophic event will not be liable for any personal injury, wrongful death, property damage, or other loss caused by a professional engineer’s acts, errors or omissions in the performance of such services. Immunity from liability would not be applied in cases of wanton, willful, or intentional misconduct. The immunity applies to services that are provided during the emergency or within 90 days following the end of the period for an emergency, disaster, or catastrophic event, unless extended by an executive order issued by the Governor under the Governor’s emergency executive powers.

Another article from a US National Organization:

http://www.nspe.org/govrel/gr2-4042.asp


Some states have responded to this concern, but only after an emergency situation occurred. For example, when Hurricane Hugo struck South Carolina in 1989, engineers were made temporary employees of the state so that they could assist in relief efforts without fear of liability exposure. In Florida, the state Department of Community Affairs granted engineers "agent of the state" status in order to afford the volunteer engineers liability protection when they responded to Hurricane Andrew in 1992. However, this practice is legally untested and vague, and may still leave the volunteers exposed to liability.


And yeah, when not playing the game, I actually *am* a registered civil engineer in the state of California, and *if* Mexico would have had a similar law, my state would have sent me and other engineers two years ago in response to an earthquake they had. California and Mexico have a mutual assistance treaty (the state and the country), but when the California lawyers saw that there was no liability protection extended to structural engineering teams, my group was asked to stay in California!

You have done allot of work on this. It will be bad if this gets all wasted. At least you're working hard to make this game fun for other people.

Yeah, damn mods. Ahhhhh! Don't delete me, please! *Hides in the corner*

You have done allot of work on this. It will be bad if this gets all wasted. At least you're working hard to make this game fun for other people.

Thank you.

A large part of what makes me angry is that there are currently other proposals that are far more questionable that didn't get deleted ... this happened to my proposal about 2 hours ago. To be rude like this moderator was for one proposal and not others is not fair or just. And it really does seem like whomever made this decision should have just telegrammed me and asked, as I would have been happy to explain why I did this (I already did when the proposal was in DRAFT form).

-Michael

For the record, I am not the Moderator who handled your case.

That stated, I have reviewed the case and come to the following conclusion:

Political rights are affected by two categories: "The Furtherment of Democracy" and "Political Stability". The first extends political rights, the second restricts them. Political rights involves having a say in how policy decisions are made. If the policy decisions are made by a monarch or tyrant whose every word is law (and noone else has a say), then political rights are low. Such a leader might be compassionate, kindhearted, and willing to listen to others, but if noone has the ability to override anything he/she decides, then that leader is the one with all the political power. Noone else has any political rights except what the leader grants them.

Civil rights are affected by two categories: "Human Rights" and "Moral Decency". The first extends civil rights, the second restricts them. Civil rights involves the everyday conduct of people. This also includes how civil disputes are handled. Saying that you can't sue certain people in certain circumstances is a restriction of peoples civil right to sue other people for damages. Your proposal is therefore "Moral Decency".

I also want to point out that your proposal seems to talk about two different things: Actually providinig disaster/recovery assistance, and limiting the civil liabilities of Good Samaritans. This is a dangerous thing to do; a UN proposal may only be in one category. If you try to cross multiple categories with a single proposal, you will get caught in the proposal rules.

Anything talking about actually providing assistance doesn't too neatly into any category, but fits best in "Social Justice". That's Items #1 through 5 of your proposal.

Anything talking about limiting the civil liabilities of those who provide assistance is a limitation of civil rights and belongs in "Moral Decency". That's Item #6.

Your complaint about Moderator conduct has been noted. I will forward the matter for discussion amongst the Administrators and Moderators. I assert no opinion as to whether or not the complaint is valid.

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

It seems, from Cog's explanation, that a very simple solution to this problem would be for you to seperate the original proposal into two different ones, one dealing with items 1-5 of your proposal, and the other dealing with item 6, as Cog mentioned. At least it seems that way to me.

For the record, I am not the Moderator who handled your case.


I was certain it wasn't you.

But I have reason to believe that one of the forum moderators has made me his / her special pet project. The fact that my proposal was singled out suggests this. While I can understand a "forum cop" keeping a watchful eye on somebody he or she feels is a potential trouble maker, still feel they should have asked first and been more polite.


That stated, I have reviewed the case and come to the following conclusion:

Political rights are affected by two categories: "The Furtherment of Democracy" and "Political Stability". The first extends political rights, the second restricts them. Political rights involves having a say in how policy decisions are made. If the policy decisions are made by a monarch or tyrant whose every word is law (and noone else has a say), then political rights are low. Such a leader might be compassionate, kindhearted, and willing to listen to others, but if noone has the ability to override anything he/she decides, then that leader is the one with all the political power. Noone else has any political rights except what the leader grants them.


The descriptions are then misleading:

Political Stability
A resolution to restrict political freedoms in the interest of law and order.

That to me clearly indicates that if I take away a freedom that I'm also boosting the effectiveness of law enforcement. In my proposal I'm trying to boost the ability of engineers, volunteer firefighters, and doctors to provide long-term and short-term aid in response to a disaster.

I'm not taxing anybody. There is no money created. I'm basically making a political change (domestic laws) that create efficiency. Hard rules, but ones in the interest of law enforcement.



Civil rights are affected by two categories: "Human Rights" and "Moral Decency". The first extends civil rights, the second restricts them. Civil rights involves the everyday conduct of people. This also includes how civil disputes are handled. Saying that you can't sue certain people in certain circumstances is a restriction of peoples civil right to sue other people for damages. Your proposal is therefore "Moral Decency".


Can moral decency *also* improve law enforcement? Because I would have choosen that (I agree with the civil aspect) if I also saw a trade off like the Political Stability resolution includes.

Basically, I'm open to making this a moral decency proposal ... but I'd appreciate quick advice. I spent about 1 hour last night telegramming ~40 of the nations that had previously endorsed my proposal. I want something in the queue for them when they read their telegrams. I had ~10 nations who had already re-endorsed it. 1 nation whom is on my do not call list (for good reasons ... he always endorses my proposals), and 8 new nations that I've now lost track of.

I'm trying to avoid a mass telegramming campaign in order to make the job for the moderation team easier. Mass telegramming rises tensions (we've seen that), so be only contacting nations that have expressed an interest in the resolution text, I'm trying to keep a low profile. It is a hell of a lot of work though.



I also want to point out that your proposal seems to talk about two different things: Actually providinig disaster/recovery assistance, and limiting the civil liabilities of Good Samaritans. This is a dangerous thing to do; a UN proposal may only be in one category. If you try to cross multiple categories with a single proposal, you will get caught in the proposal rules.

Anything talking about actually providing assistance doesn't too neatly into any category, but fits best in "Social Justice". That's Items #1 through 5 of your proposal.


I disagree, but understand why people think that. That was Frisbeeteria's opinion at first.

Social Justice is domestic welfare. I'm not increasing any domestic taxes, but making it easier for international idea.

Clause 1:
1. ENCOURAGES all nations, including UN non-members, to lend whatever aid possible in the event of a disaster;

I'm just saying "Please" lend aid. I'm not forcing them to, so I don't consider this a "game stat" domestic welfare program.

Real life example: Following an earthquake in Mexico, the State of California contacts the Mexican Consulate in Sacramento and says, "According to our mutual disaster assistance treaty, I've contacted several state engineers and the state is willing to release them to your government provided you have housing, transportation, and liability protection for them. Do you need help?" Mexico: "Um, we aren't prepared to actually accept long-term aid." We did send of course short-term aid, but the state felt that it also had an obligation for long-term aid. The Mexican government was OK with that, but didn't have the ability to accept that aid.

Anyway, in that example, there would have been work (like mine) that would have been put on hold, but California volunteered to render aid -- I was actually told that my time in Mexico would come out of my vacation time, which I was happy with. (NOTE: My real concern was that I don't speak Spanish, so my ability to point out flaws in levees, dams, and buildings wouldn't help if I didn't have an interpeter.) :(

As for items 2-5, these deal with the International Red Cross. If you look, I give directives to the organization, but not UN member states. The funding is voluntary. I'm not increasing the funding, but mandating that they must provide long-term recovery assistance as well.

That is an "administrative" order and typical of most real UN resolutions. I can provide plenty of examples for this.

Basically NationStates already created a IRCO. I wanted to show players that in the real world that disaster assistance takes two forms:

Short-Term
Long-Term

The real IRC and domestic organizations like USAID in fact recognize this. The original IRCO resolution did not. I'm basically *expanding* the roleplay potential here (and trying to indirectly expose many younger players to what happens in the real world, by bringing it into their fun NationStates game). :)

But I'm not changing domestic stats by playing around with the IRCO.


Anything talking about limiting the civil liabilities of those who provide assistance is a limitation of civil rights and belongs in "Moral Decency". That's Item #6.

Your complaint about Moderator conduct has been noted. I will forward the matter for discussion amongst the Administrators and Moderators. I assert no opinion as to whether or not the complaint is valid.


Thank you.

I'd really like to get this proposal in the queue *soon*. And I while I'd be happy to post it as a Moral Decency, in that Good Samaritan Laws limit law suits ... i.e. move us a step away from anarchies, I feel strongly that nothing in my present resolution implies that there is an INCREASE in domestic welfare programs. My resolution targets legal and political inefficiencies between governments. It is modeled on real-world actions, and I feel that it is a single topic focused towards ultimately improving our ability to cope with disasters.

I don't want another warning for basically trying to follow all the rules, and would hope that in the future that if a moderator is going to kill a proposal and put a black mark against a nation that they would actually give that nation a chance to defend their POV.

Basically I feel completely justified based on the rules to have made the correct decision and do feel mistreated, if not singled out by a member of the team.

But I have reason to believe that one of the forum moderators has made me his / her special pet project. The fact that my proposal was singled out suggests this. While I can understand a "forum cop" keeping a watchful eye on somebody he or she feels is a potential trouble maker, still feel they should have asked first and been more polite.
Where did this come from? If you mean to refer to the long debates with each other we've had in the UN forum, I can assure you this is not the case. I have not nor has any other FM deleted your proposal or targeted you specifically in any way.

It seems, from Cog's explanation, that a very simple solution to this problem would be for you to seperate the original proposal into two different ones, one dealing with items 1-5 of your proposal, and the other dealing with item 6, as Cog mentioned. At least it seems that way to me.

Thank you, and yes ... that is a good solution, but I also disagree with the "Social Justice" implication. Here is why:

I'm a licensed engineer. I also volunteer my extra time to the state as needed and am on a few disaster / emergency teams (in addition to being a poll worker -- i.e. I work elections as well). I do so at my own risk, but with the understanding that I'm not about to get sued. I can easily expand the Good Samatiran laws, without touching the IRCO ... and will if necessary.

But the reason for having international volunteers, i.e. those most likely to need protection from a new set of laws, is gonna mean that there is a major, not minor disaster. Earthquake, major terrorist attack, flood, hurricane, etc.

The second part of my proposal tries very hard to touch just the IRCO without monkeying with other countries. I never said, "You will send aid to your neighbor if you like it or don't." I really want to show that you can improve law enforcement and medical help without raising taxes. The way you do this is by putting political agreements in place. In a sense you take away a political freedom (the ability to be nasty all the time to your neighbor) and grant their volunteers some rights in your country. You also take away a few civil freedoms.

Bottom line, in the UN there is currently a backlash with respect to taxes. We see this mostly in the forum of Environmental resolution. The game is coded such that for any long-term environmental benefit industries are knocked down a bit.

Likewise, every social welfare program (which I still maintain is about implementing human rights) increases taxes. At least in the real world, most all law enforcement, medical personnel, and many other disaster assistance volunteers do this not expecting taxes or money ... they do this because people are in need.

So bottom line, I'd like to introduce more players to the idea that sometimes you can improve something without going to a tax. It happens in the real world when governments reorganization (California is doing this under the current Governor's policies -- we'll see how well of course). It also happens when priorities shift.

Ultimately if there were a game code called "International Aid" I'd have choosen that over all else. But I feel strongly about how tied liability protection is in the real world to humanitarian aid, which is not the same thing social justice.

Where did this come from? If you mean to refer to the long debates with each other we've had in the UN forum, I can assure you this is not the case. I have not nor has any other FM deleted your proposal or targeted you specifically in any way.

I'm not talking about you. You've had long debates with me, but you've *also* backed my opinions up in all of the forums when you felt I had a validate point. I might not have said this, but I do actually appreciate that and am happy to see you on the team.

There is another moderator whom has been pretty rude to me not in the UN forum but here. To be fair, it was pointed out to me (and I agree) that I *started* being rude. I just feel that this other moderator is keeping a close eye on me ever since then. While that is perfectly fine, that is your jobs right? I sometimes feel that he may actually be keeping *too* close an eye on me.

In any event, I think the *only* things I'd like to see come of this is for a chance for me to find a way within the rules to bring my proposal forward, but also for a chance for me to also defend *why* I feel that my proposal isn't a welfare program (i.e. social justice program).

When I hear the term social justice, I think of environmental justice or advocacy groups that work to reach out to people whom by circumstance aren't given the same opportunities as others. My Needle Sharing Prevention resolution was very specifically designed to help groups of people whom fall behind the cracks in societies: injecting drug users. They are at high risk for getting HIV and governments tend to treat them like dirt. A program targetted to helping them is social justice.

On a domestic level, I did this with my daily issue (fingers crossed) which would give women equal access to college sports programs (think US Title IX).

But in this case, I read through all of the proposal categories and saw that Political Stability means that you trade a "Freedom" for "Law Enforcement and Order". Giving away our ability to sue somebody and having governments make agreements between one another to share existing emergency resources is not an attempt to reach out to an under represented group. It is a government efficiency program and the tradeoff is not taxes, but freedoms for faster action.

I just want to point out two things:

1) I, unfortunately, cannot issue a rapid decision as I have to think this through carefully, and tht's going to take time. I doubt that we'll be able to resolve this before your telegram recipients go to check the proposal queue. I don't see how this is avoidable.

2) Forum Moderators do NOT have the power to delete UN proposals. This is strictly a Game Moderator ability.

Acually, I'll point out a third thing:

3) Anything having to do with police and military spending would go in "International Security" or "Global Disarmament". If you wanted to make it the reponsibility of law enforcement to take care of disasters and give them extra funding to do so, then it might go in "International Security". I'd have to think this through, though.

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

2) Forum Moderators do NOT have the power to delete UN proposals. This is strictly a Game Moderator ability.

Acually, I'll point out a third thing:

3) Anything having to do with police and military spending would go in "International Security" or "Global Disarmament". If you wanted to make it the reponsibility of law enforcement to take care of disasters and give them extra funding to do so, then it might go in "International Security". I'd have to think this through, though.


I stand corrected on forum vs. game moderators. But my point that my proposal was singled out while many other proposals that violate categories and/or the other existing rules remained in the queue when I checked this morning still gives me reason to believe that there is a moderator who needs to remove some of his bias.

I'm not increasing IRCO spending nor am I increasing law enforcement directly. I'm increasing the efficiency of the response time and ability to work unhampered of volunteer firefighters, medics, engineers, and even grief therapists. A national guardsman is already protected against liability suits in most nations ... but a foreign national guardsman is not. The change that is happening is a political / legal issue, not an issue of funding, though the result is that by increasing the ability for protection law enforcement and first response crews should be rated better.

Perhaps with that in mind, either the Moral Decency or Political Stablity are the best categories. I can see a case for either ...



I would think that the proposal (which is very long) would indicate to a moderator that the author actually thought about this first. This isn't the case of a "White Race Over All" proposal. And this isn't your "Let's Plant Trees" proposal. A moderator who cycles through the queue should see that there is a great deal of time and care spent here.

They *should* in fact, respect that and approach this by asking the author if he / she can defend his / her decision without just rudely deleting the proposal and worse ... not even suggesting another category.

I feel I not only have a right to be upset (with the individual, not the moderation team), but I fear that since this was *1* proposal that was targeted that the team needs to really stress that when a moderator makes a decision to delete one proposal that he needs to then apply that same decision to all ... to not do so is IMHO an abuse of the position.

Perhaps my proposal was flagged to the moderation staff by another player ... but in that case, a moderator shouldn't just act without getting the other side of the story, namely mine! Again, this would show that somebody on the staff wasn't being entirely fair.

As for game stats, I've already made it clear in the moderation forum, that I don't really like the game stats issues. That is why I choose "mild" resolutions and why I'm working with my UN Delegate Cheney-Land to balance out my International Security proposal about Tracking Near Earth Objects with a Peaceful Uses of Outer Space proposal (Global Disarmament). For this political freedom (Political Stability category), I already have a balancing proposal in the works, "Miervatian Bier Purity Accord" which will be a Free Trade proposal and modeled after the German Beer Purity laws, but scaled up into something that will have an international focus on removing trade barriers.

I think a creative player can use real world problems to come up with fun roleplaying based aids, and that by putting a bit of thought into your negative game impacts, that a well designed game will allow you to tweak the game back.

The only resolution I don't have a current plan for pushing the game stats *back* is my needle sharing exchange program idea. That was an example of me just wanting to address some comments from the African players about HIV, and I hope in 2005 to revist the HIV / AIDS issue again *if* some other player doesn't beat me to it -- and one very nearly did with an excellent proposal about sexually transmitted diesase prevention and specific mentioning of HIV / AIDS.

The game is normally fun, but when a moderator begins to single out an individual player, one who is working hard to both stay within the rules and keep the game moving (at least that is my hope), it is a big disappointment. :(

1) I, unfortunately, cannot issue a rapid decision as I have to think this through carefully, and tht's going to take time.Or, the Cog must turn for the great machine to run. Yeah, yeah, not relevant but I felt like saying it. :)

* That and " No, Cog, your only meant to think about it for a moment " , ;)

That said, I'd like to point out from my own observations Mikitivity, that most of the, lets face it, plain " shit " proposals don't get hunted down because they simply won't get enough endorsements in time to get in que. Its theref-fore safe to say they are left to be culled by the auto-matic timer for shifting the list along. I assume this is so, looking at some of the B.S. set to be deleted today, ...

Cog, you said to bump this about once a week ... since I'm gonna be away this weekend and won't get a chance then, I'd love to resubmit this proposal next week. I think I might be able to get the 135+ endorsements this next go around and worked too hard on this to simply abandon the idea.

I still feel that this proposal limits people's rights to sue disaster assistance people so it represents some form of mild improvement to disaster aid (not taxes involved) and / or a mild freedom (your ability to sue anybody you like) away. It was zinged for being a Political Stability issue, but this also does take away nation's political freedoms in that it encourages they enter into disaster assistance treaties.

I feel there is a lot of flexibility and that the initial ruling was handled poorly.

Okay, my ruling is as follows:

Clauses 1 through 5 are "International Security", if you're going to say that you're using the police/military to handle disaster situations. Not a neat fit, but that's the best one.

Caluse 6 is definitely "Moral Decency". Being able to sue someone is a Civil freedom, not Economic, not Political.

Economic freedoms deal with regulations on commerce and industry. More regulation means less Economic freedoms. Political freedoms deal with who makes the decisions. If The leaders of government are regularly elected and can be recalled by popular vote, then that's high political freedom. If a dictator make all the decisions, then that's low economic freedom.

Decision: Split this into two proposals. The limitation of liabilities is "Moral Decency". The funding of the police/military to handle disaster relief is "International Security".

I'm a bit tired, so I might have overlooked something: Is there anything else, here, that we Mods are being asked to rule on?

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

Thank you.

I can work with your decision above, as it was very helpful.

Just an update for anybody who has been following this ...

I did in fact rewrite the second half and posted a draft (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=7079622&postcount=6) in the UN for UN forum visitors to comment on. I followed up on that post with a clause by clause analysis, because I did add some new stuff in there.

I honestly hope I'm following the spirit of Cog's ruling (which I found extremely useful), but I'm not certainly gonna toss this draft in the proposal queue yet.

Thanks for everybody who provided any insight here, and a special thanks to Cog!