NationStates Jolt Archive

I've noticed more than a few people on the UN Forum eager to pass slightly modified versions of original UN proposals. While I do not like the sheer unoriginality of it all, I have no problem with the original authors stepping up to pass a new version of their previous proposal, or giving their permission to others to do the same. I do have a problem, however, with copy/pasting the work of long-since-passed nations, without their permission, and trying to introduce it again. If they're gone and we can't get their permission, we should probably do the sensible thing and just write a new resolution.

For me, a blank slate should allow us the opportunity to vote in some new stuff, not just copies of old stuff.

Yeah, I think we're already aware of this WA Agenda thread (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=553278), and my initial reaction is to prohibit plagiarism except by the original author. Even then, all such proposals had their opponents, and there are doubtless tweaks that could be made.

That said, I'll open the floor for comments from my fellow mods and interested bystanders.

Concurred; only the original author should be able to resubmit his proposal, and it would be really nice if he or she would take the opportunity to make it even better and shinier and nice. Other people should try rewriting things instead.

I can't think of a single proposal -- even Glog's -- that wouldn't benefit from a bit of informed editing. So I'm tempted to call for all-new content.

But, hey, if original authors have the chutzpah to insist that their effort is perfect in every way, sure, let them cut 'n' paste. For anyone else to do so is plagiarism, and should be dealt with as such.

But I don't think anyone should have dibs on a topic. If anyone can come up with, say, a better abortion compromise/blocker than the one we had, they should be able to have a go at it. *winces*

This seems like a good place to bring up another topic: blockers.

Any proposal that effective removes an entire category or sub-category from play is a problem. It's not fair to new players that they can't (or couldn't, as it were) create an Education, Drugs, or similar category because somebody made their proposal so comprehensive as to prevent all future legislation.

This is a really hard one to codify for the rules, but I think we need to look into it. Too many blockers in the old UN made it impossible to legislate without prior repeals. We're going to have to think on how to prevent that in the WA.

I don't expect to see many successful blockers, but I do agree that we need to make sure folks aren't just c&ping old resolutions.

It takes a bit of skill to write a blocker; they're not something that a new player's likely to get a proposal disallowed for.

So could we just make blockers flat-out illegal? It'd give the expert players something else to try as a last-ditch effort to get rid of a proposal, so it'd need mod ruling every time, but it wouldn't be likely to come up too often.

I seem to have unwittingly started a firestorm; if a necessary one.

To what level can we use the materiel from old resolutions? For the record; I was never planning to submit any of the resolutions without first making important changes to them. Granted, we can't just change the title and "submitted by" line and submit it word for word; but what level of reuse is aceptable?

I really only started the "WA Agenda" thread because I thought it would be a good starting point for the first block of new proposals, and there are many old UN rezzies that are excellent pieces of legislation. So, I suppose the question is- limits, or lack thereof?

It takes a bit of skill to write a blocker; they're not something that a new player's likely to get a proposal disallowed for.

So could we just make blockers flat-out illegal? It'd give the expert players something else to try as a last-ditch effort to get rid of a proposal, so it'd need mod ruling every time, but it wouldn't be likely to come up too often.

I'm not clear on the strict definition of "blocker" with regard to WA proposals. Under the old UN (still feels weird saying that,) a "blocker" was a proposal that said, for example, "The UN shall not pass any laws relating to recreational drugs," but proposals that said, "All UN member states shall have full authority over recreational drug laws" were OK. The first type of proposal was illegal. The second type was OK and existed throughout the annals of UN resolutions and were quite frankly, IMOHO, a pain. So I don't know if the WA will make both kinds illegal or just the first. The second kind is a little unnecessary, though, since the absence of a resolution means that member states are on their own to set laws anyway.

That's a veteran's opinion...well, moreso a request for clarification.

A blocker is any resolution that affirms national rights on a particular issue, though you're right. "The UN shall not legislate on..." was considered an illegal form of blocker. Also nixed were proposals that just affirmed national rights and nothing more. Blockers were first used to "block" other resolutions; Abortion Legality Convention blocked Clinical Abortion Rights, and United Nations Security Act tried to block UN Biological Weapons Ban, though a mod ruling made the "block" unsuccessful. UN Educational Aid Act blocked a proposal to require music education in all UN schools.

I agree that blockers eventually got out of hand, but some did serve a purpose. The UN Drug Act, however, was completely unnecessary, as now, I'll concede, was Marriage Protection Act. There were no viable proposals at the time threatening national rights on marriage or drug policies. Another silver lining to this whole "WA" thing is the loss of crap blockers like Right to Refuse Extradition, which served no purpose whatsoever, save grandstanding on the death penalty.

While I don't think blockers should be declared illegal outright, I do agree with Fris that they were a little too common in the UN, and that they should be more of a rarity in the WA. And I still think things like abortion and the death penalty should be left up to individual nations.

The problem was how broad they were. The Education blocker may have been designed to block a specific law, but it all but obliterated an entire category. And a brand new one at that. Things like the Nuclear Armaments was fine for me as it was quite specific.

Things like the Nuclear Armaments was fine for me as it was quite specific.

You mean I don't need to change (much) it to make it legal, cool.

The one that got on me was Fair Sentencing Act. Granted, it did get rid of a lot of bad proposals, but it almost seemed like this resolution was the one that generated the most "illegal by contradiction" rulings (I'm sure a mod would know for sure, but that was my own observation.)

However, it did seem like several potentially good proposals were gunned down because they, in some way, contradicted a resolution that said "Nations can all make their own laws regarding X." And X was often broad - drug laws, sentencing laws, education laws, etc. It was as if the teeth were taken out of the UN.

So I'm not sure what I'm hearing about the future of these blockers. Is it the case that, say, a proposal that says "Nations can make all their own drug laws" would be an illegal blocker, but, say, "Nations may make their own laws regarding sentences for trafficking drugs" may not be? (I'm sorry if my "general vs. specific" example isn't a great one; it's Friday and my mind has been consumed with insanity and stress.)

The Education and Drug blockers generated the most contradiction, as they both killed a category. And, honestly, most of the ones that ran afoul of FSA were anti-death penalty Proposals that had plenty of other problems.

But "Environmental Science" and "UN Access to Literacy Project" were both legal, and passed. The UNEAA didn't block all education proposals: I wish it had, as it would have averted "Max Barry Day". Disarmament proposals passed after UNSA, a drug proposal passed after UNDA, and people submitted - illegally, but still provoking debate - abortion and gay marriage proposals every 5 seconds. I just hope any ruling doesn't end up being as overly broad as the proposals it would be intended to stop.

The Education and Drug blockers generated the most contradiction, as they both killed a category.

Thus rendering illegal proposals such as these recently-submitted (and, once the UN resolutions no longer apply, both fully legal?) gems _

Lets go higher
A resolution to ban, legalize, or encourage recreational drugs.

Category: Recreational Drug Use
Decision: Legalize
Proposed by: Nosstrals

Description: In act of the WA the following lists are active

(1) most recreational drugs are hereby legalized.
(2) it is no longer illegal to deal cannabis, cocane and magic mushroomsand other hallusinants.
(3) the only drugs that will be illegal are ecstasy, herowin and crystl meth.

Approvals: 4 (WZ Forums, Black Empire, Anarchy works, Brazykystan)

Status: Lacking Support (requires 100 more approvals)

Voting Ends: Wed Apr 9 2008

Force Education
A resolution to promote funding and the development of education and the arts.

Category: Education and Creativity
Area of Effect: Educational
Proposed by: TheOttomanEmpire

Description: @Thish proposal is and only is to force every WA nation to make it a law to attend university
@By doing this the educational standards will rise and in all will help evey person in the WA

thank you

Approvals: 1 (WZ Forums)

Status: Lacking Support (requires 103 more approvals)

Voting Ends: Wed Apr 9 2008


Please, PLEASE, can we have those blockers back? :D

Please, PLEASE, can we have those blockers back? :D

The presence or absence of blockers never prevented such literary masterpieces from being being submitted. What it did do was force me or Hack to delete the few decent ones that came through with the crap.

Blockers don't stop us from deleting those "not worthy of the WA's time". They do stop us from allowing through the ones that are worthy.

I've noticed more than a few people on the UN Forum eager to pass slightly modified versions of original UN proposals. While I do not like the sheer unoriginality of it all, I have no problem with the original authors stepping up to pass a new version of their previous proposal, or giving their permission to others to do the same. I do have a problem, however, with copy/pasting the work of long-since-passed nations, without their permission, and trying to introduce it again. If they're gone and we can't get their permission, we should probably do the sensible thing and just write a new resolution.

For me, a blank slate should allow us the opportunity to vote in some new stuff, not just copies of old stuff.

I actually liked the living history that the old stuff had, and I'm a bit disappointed that it *seems* that it is gonna be tossed away. While I understand that the game would end someday (all things do), I actually think that an alternative might be to simply require people bringing back old ideas to simply cite the UN resolution and/or original author.

How many 2003/04 authoring nations are still around?

One thing to consider for the repeal-happy crowd ... if there is a clean slate, there ain't gonna be any easy repeals to force through.