[DEFEATED] Repeal "Rights and Duties of WA States"

[Defwa]

I've been mostly quiet about this repeal since I submitted it, mostly because I didn't want the permission I'd been given to submit it to be withdrawn by the original author.

However, now that it is up for vote and losing by a wide margin, I'd like to come out officially against this repeal and thank the delegates who're voting against it.

Isn't this pretty unethical?

The anti-reform side doesn't seem to be able to win based on ideas, so I guess this is what it comes to.

/OOC I do have to respect your well-played Machiavellian move, though. Well done.

The pro 'reform' side can't seem to win on ideas either

[Hakio]

If its former success wasn't the result of disreputable political ploys, then whats going on now?

Could it be, esteemed ambassador, that our fellow members came to their senses? No, we agree on there having been some seriously dubious behind the stage maneuvering last time.

It could be both.

[Brilliant Equestria]

To say that the previous submission only succeeded by luck and manipulation is a cheap shot. I find it completely contemptible that you would even submit this proposal, when you don't support it. It's unsportsmanlike.


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Isn't it simply delightful?

Lord Bentwing claps his talons together slowly. Bravo, Ambassador. Bravo. A brilliant maneuver indeed! Color me suitably impressed.

We, of course, were against last time and still are.

[Imperium Californium]

I do not see why this item should be repealed in the first place. It is a rare oexample of the WA being honest about sentient nature. Therefore, to support the extant act, Imperium Californium votes AGAINST repeal.

[Provaskola]

The members of the Provaskolan Federal Council, as well as President Drogvan Vrosajvic, have reached their conclusion concerning the repealing of GA# 2. President Vrosajvic has declared the following statement: "We believe General Assembly # 2 is nesseccary in order to provide the basic foundation for the regulations of the World Assembly. We are inclined to believe that repealing it would only complicate the functionality of the WA. Therefore, we would have to vote against the repealment of this document."

[Glen-Rhodes]

To say that the previous submission only succeeded by luck and manipulation is a cheap shot. I find it completely contemptible that you would even submit this proposal, when you don't support it. It's unsportsmanlike.


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Isn't it simply delightful?

No, it really isn't. It shows an extreme lack of good character and non-concern about ethics or simply being a good person. If I was still interested in this part of the game -- and I was slowly building interest again -- I would certainly think twice before teaming up with Douria, you, or anybody else applauding what Douria has done. It's distasteful to trick an author into handing over their most important work to you, by saying that you want to see it passed, and then come out swinging against it when it's too late for the author to withdraw their permission. It's intellectual property theft. It's bad faith dealing. It's contemptible.

[Mallorea and Riva]

Isn't it simply delightful?

No, it really isn't. It shows an extreme lack of good character and non-concern about ethics or simply being a good person. If I was still interested in this part of the game -- and I was slowly building interest again -- I would certainly think twice before teaming up with Douria, you, or anybody else applauding what Douria has done. It's distasteful to trick an author into handing over their most important work to you, by saying that you want to see it passed, and then come out swinging against it when it's too late for the author to withdraw their permission. It's intellectual property theft. It's bad faith dealing. It's contemptible.

If you were foolish enough to partner up with either myself or the Dourian delegation to begin with then you would have brought the disaster upon yourself, just as the Auralian Delegation did. This is the risk they took when they got themselves banned from this assembly and vowed not to be the ones to submit this legislation. Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before the fall.

I applaud the work of the Dourian delegation in ensuring that this tripe becomes buried once more. What's wrong with doing something distasteful in the Festering Snakepit? Par for the course I would say, but to be fair this is rather magnificently superior to the usual par of the GA.

[Hakio]

Isn't it simply delightful?

No, it really isn't. It shows an extreme lack of good character and non-concern about ethics or simply being a good person. If I was still interested in this part of the game -- and I was slowly building interest again -- I would certainly think twice before teaming up with Douria, you, or anybody else applauding what Douria has done. It's distasteful to trick an author into handing over their most important work to you, by saying that you want to see it passed, and then come out swinging against it when it's too late for the author to withdraw their permission. It's intellectual property theft. It's bad faith dealing. It's contemptible.

Who ever said Douria was trustworthy?
Worthy of respect? Yes. Trustworthy? Eh....

[Glen-Rhodes]

If you were foolish enough to partner up with either myself or the Dourian delegation to begin with then you would have brought the disaster upon yourself, just as the Auralian Delegation did. This is the risk they took when they got themselves banned from this assembly and vowed not to be the ones to submit this legislation. Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before the fall.

I applaud the work of the Dourian delegation in ensuring that this tripe becomes buried once more. What's wrong with doing something distasteful in the Festering Snakepit? Par for the course I would say, but to be fair this is rather magnificently superior to the usual par of the GA.

I don't know when it became desirable to be seen as wholly lacking ethics and character. Douria stole Auralia's repeal by lying and misrepresenting himself, then purposefully waited to reveal his true intentions until Auralia couldn't withdraw his permission. That is not just being unethical, immoral, and simply a terrible person, it's plain intellectual property theft. Frankly, Douria should be ejected and banned from submitting proposals, because this is proposal stealing. But mods will probably brush this off as "politicking," even if Auralia were to lodge a complaint.

It is not a good thing to be seen as untrustworthy and unethical. People like you and Douria have taken Kenny and Yelda's abrasiveness and knack for insulting others, and misinterpreted it into thinking it's okay to be a bad person in this game. There are lines you don't cross, and this is one of them. For all the terrible and dumb shit the old Antarctic Oasis crowd pulled back in the day, they never tricked others into letting them steal their proposals. I don't know how you were molded in this game into thinking anything goes, but you're wrong. Nobody should be supporting what Douria did. It's what makes the General Assembly such a toxic part of this game. So many older players have left because they were tired of this type of B.S., but it looks like nothing will ever change.

[Ardchoille]

To say that the previous submission only succeeded by luck and manipulation is a cheap shot. I find it completely contemptible that you would even submit this proposal, when you don't support it. It's unsportsmanlike.


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Thank you, G-R. That is a textbook example of not flaming, while still criticising an action.

Unfortunately, having just read the amended Original Post, and having then skimmed the thread, I conclude others need a *** reminder about flaming ***: attack the post, not the poster; the action, not the actor.

<snip>... Given the fact that the exact same resolution was illegal two weeks ago, and that the laws of the GA have not changed in the last two weeks, I might come to the rather ridiculous conclusion that, I don't know, it might still be illegal now.

The proposal text was not shot down for being illegal. Its manner of submission was illegal. Douria's re-submission was legal, as the author gave permission on this site. Its text was legal, and remains so.

It's also what the discussion should centre on. This is an At Vote debate on a repeal; as the submitter has rejected it, please focus on his text-related reasons. The text is what's up for vote, though it is relevant to comment on whether other matters affected your vote. However, C&Cs belong in the Other Place.

[Wrapper]

Douria stole Auralia's repeal

Say what you want about intentions and ethics, but one cannot steal what was freely given away. This should be a lesson to all: Don't ever make blanket "authorizations" like this one.

[Defwa]

Isn't it simply delightful?

No, it really isn't. It shows an extreme lack of good character and non-concern about ethics or simply being a good person. If I was still interested in this part of the game -- and I was slowly building interest again -- I would certainly think twice before teaming up with Douria, you, or anybody else applauding what Douria has done. It's distasteful to trick an author into handing over their most important work to you, by saying that you want to see it passed, and then come out swinging against it when it's too late for the author to withdraw their permission. It's intellectual property theft. It's bad faith dealing. It's contemptible.

Douria isnt exactly doing anything to thwart the proposal. Saying that he is not a supporter holds no more sway than the many other people posting in this thread. Any other party is equal in their power to support this repeal. I just don't see many of them.

[The Dourian Embassy]

Yeah my only concern was that support would get withdrawn by the originating author in favor of someone more willing to try something underhanded. This is something we need a definitive decision on after the last time's fuzziness... and I think the votes make it pretty clear where the support for this lies for future efforts.

[Normlpeople]

I've been mostly quiet about this repeal since I submitted it, mostly because I didn't want the permission I'd been given to submit it to be withdrawn by the original author.

However, now that it is up for vote and losing by a wide margin, I'd like to come out officially against this repeal and thank the delegates who're voting against it.

Isn't this pretty unethical?

The anti-reform side doesn't seem to be able to win based on ideas, so I guess this is what it comes to.

/OOC I do have to respect your well-played Machiavellian move, though. Well done.

"While I have to chuckle at this extremely well-played political maneuver, I also must first say that I voted AGAINST, as I did last repeal.

As for this comment, I disagree that it is unethical. The original attempt, using a WA tagged country (and a fairly officially sounding title for it), along with the WA flag, was moreso in my opinion. Combined with the telegram campaign, it was passing handily. The two sides were easy to identify: One claiming foul at the deception and one saying that it didn't matter, the votes clearly showed support for the repeal. Of course, it was pulled due to the deception.

By placing this up for vote again, the Dorion representative simply gave the other side another chance to prove their point. After all, if the support was so great for this repeal based on the repeal alone (and not the deception that went with it), then this would be passing handily. The fact that it isn't tells us something about just how effective the deception was"

[Texan Hotrodders]

Given that I have been given both public(non-specificly as part of his general gifting of all drafts to public domain) and private permission(in a TG last night) by Auralia, and given that the current "at vote" version will be discarded after the vote... I am resubmitting Auralia's proposal to repeal GA#2.

UPDATE: I've been mostly quiet about this repeal since I submitted it, mostly because I didn't want the permission I'd been given to submit it to be withdrawn by the original author.

However, now that it is up for vote and losing by a wide margin, I'd like to come out officially against this repeal and thank the delegates who're voting against it. It should be clear to everyone that this piece of legislation will remain on the books for a good long time, and that the first effort by Auralia only nearly succeeded as it did due to surprise and not a little amount of manipulation of the voter base.

Let's examine the number of things that would've changed if this were to actually pass:

1. GA#2 would be repealed.

2. There is no second item.

<snipped for brevity>

The issue here is simple... when this was pushed through once before... the resolution was slammed through on an expensive stamp campaign. When it was to be discarded, there were plenty of folks who were chomping at the bit(and were given permission by Auralia) to resubmit. I beat them to the punch because we needed to have an adequate dialogue on why this resolution is a bad idea. A particularly well organized argument is given here: http://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=241882

I applaud the most excellent maneuver of the delegate from The Dourian Embassy for its sheer gumption.

I also object to the delegate's underhanded tactics.

I also retain my previous objections to the repeal stated clearly in the debate during its first submission.

The referendum in the Federation regarding this legislation set a record for low voter turnout. Only 0.3% of the population bothered to vote despite the immensely popular lemon twist cookies being provided yet again, and those who voted were overwhelmingly against.

I wish you all a lovely evening and pleasant backstabbing for many years to come.

Ambassador to the World Assembly
Tlaloc Blackstone

[Texan Hotrodders]

To any normal person, there's a difference between the WA "having" a peacekeeping force and the WA "authorizing" peacekeeping. I wouldn't put it past the mods to ban the subject altogether, but the rules prohibit the WA from intervening, not member states.

OOC: My problem with the rule is that there is no nuance to it. It is used to shut off any discussion of anything even tangentially related, even where it nowhere qualifies as an "army", such as on the gun amnesty proposal. Look at how my Interpol proposal got immediately dumped in the Silly Proposals thread and shit all over - despite the fact the NSUN version, the ICPIN, was ruled perfectly legal. Anything that looks like a violation is dismissed out of hand without any sort of qualification.

The rule about "forced roleplay" is inconsistently applied between committees, and peacekeepers: the argument that the WA mods would have to moderate roleplayed WA peacekeeping missions is ridiculous, unless I've somehow missed them being forced to moderate ICC cases, WTC disputes, or WHA conferences. It is because the roleplay element of the WA has degraded so much - led by people who would rather use this as a forum for spouting RL IR theory and who view their ambassadors as interchangeable with their OOC personas - that this has arisen.

It is no longer even clear what purpose the rule's expansiveness serves.

Nonetheless, I am sorry for failing to qualify as a "normal person".

OOC: I really sympathize with your points here. Out of curiosity, do you know how many active players would be interested in roleplaying something like the ICPIN currently? I ask only because I really have no idea and you probably have a much better sense of it.

[Veranda]

I disagree that the current vote indicates the the prior vote was achieved by deception. It's likely, IMO, that people are saying "WTF, didn't I just vote for this?" and voting against it when they voted for the first time. The OP being against it surely doesn't help (and regarding that, why do I have the music for "Game of Thrones" going through my head, and picturing Auralia as Ned Stark? ). Personally, I voted for it the first time, and I never thought the TG was "official". I'm still voting for.

[Rotwood]

Jericho looks up
"Wow, I'm surprised."
"About what?" asks Felicia "That it's failing? that Douria has come out against it?"
"No, that there was no aggressive telegramming from the Auralian WA Mission. Maybe they have learned their lesson..."
Felicia chuckles before continuing "Anyway, as we have stated before, we are against. As you were..."

[Linux and the X]

Jericho looks up
"Wow, I'm surprised."
"About what?" asks Felicia "That it's failing? that Douria has come out against it?"
"No, that there was no aggressive telegramming from the Auralian WA Mission. Maybe they have learned their lesson..."
Felicia chuckles before continuing "Anyway, as we have stated before, we are against. As you were..."

I suspect it is more a matter of not wanting to give up that victim complex over seventeen dollars of TG stamps.

[Mousebumples]

Aw, I should have posted up my arguments from my dispatch (written yesterday) since Douria took all my arguments.

However, if anyone cares, I did run a counter campaign for this - basically including most of the text of the above dispatch. Not sure how much that's impacting the vote, but I'm still pleased to see the vote so solidly against at this stage.

[Snefaldia]

We have, of late, been absent from the debates in these halls, rendering our opinions and suggestions infrequently while still attending carefully to the arguments and bills presented here.

For all the pleased nodding by some over the methods employed by the Dourians today, we cannot help but disapprove of the kind of duplicitous politicking that has seemingly wormed its way in this General Assembly.

It is a sad state of affairs and we register our displeasure with the behavior of the Dourian Embassy.

Primua Tarhuntamanapa
Charge d'Affaires

[Auralia]

This post contains OOC content.

I briefly dropped in to see how the vote was going. I was rather disappointed to see that Douria was lying through his teeth when he offered to submit the proposal on my behalf.

For reference, this is the first telegram I received from him about this submission:

Hey man. I have an idea I'd like to run by you. How would you like another authorship with your name on it? I was looking at the whole GA#2 repeal mess and you know already that I support the repeal. So, I was thinking about submitting it myself and putting you down as a co-author(The nation Auralia). That'll save you the time and effort of doing it yourself, and make sure it gets repealed.
What do you think? I guarantee it'll be repealed if I get my hands on it.

It is worth noting that I also received a second telegram asking me to use $17 worth of stamps to campaign on behalf of the proposal, making his deception tantamount to fraud:

I also sent a small blast out to the Delegates to get it into the queue. All I'm asking is if you could use yo' stamps to send a message to all WA's like you did he first time.

I must say, the hypocrisy of many members of this Assembly is saddening but not surprising. I am condemned when I deceive the Assembly by submitting a self-commendation, but Douria is congratulated when he deceives me by submitting my repeal text with my name on it under false pretenses?

Douria stole Auralia's repeal by lying and misrepresenting himself, then purposefully waited to reveal his true intentions until Auralia couldn't withdraw his permission. That is not just being unethical, immoral, and simply a terrible person, it's plain intellectual property theft. Frankly, Douria should be ejected and banned from submitting proposals, because this is proposal stealing.

For what it is worth, I would have revoked Douria's permission to use the text of my proposal and to credit me as co-author had I known what he was planning. If that means that Douria's actions constitute plagiarism or some other violation of the rules, then I would expect appropriate action to be taken by the mods.

If you were foolish enough to partner up with either myself or the Dourian delegation to begin with then you would have brought the disaster upon yourself, just as the Auralian Delegation did.

Oh, Mall. Thank you for publicly recognizing, at last, that you deserve to be ostracized and that nobody should give any regard to what you say, since you simply cannot be trusted to be honest with us.

[Tantricia]

People who commit immoral acts entirely of their own impetus are looked down upon. Those who commit immoral acts upon immoral people often receive an altogether different reception.

[Rotwood]

This post contains OOC content.

I briefly dropped in to see how the vote was going. I was rather disappointed to see that Douria was lying through his teeth when he offered to submit the proposal on my behalf.

For reference, this is the first telegram I received from him about this submission:

Hey man. I have an idea I'd like to run by you. How would you like another authorship with your name on it? I was looking at the whole GA#2 repeal mess and you know already that I support the repeal. So, I was thinking about submitting it myself and putting you down as a co-author(The nation Auralia). That'll save you the time and effort of doing it yourself, and make sure it gets repealed.
What do you think? I guarantee it'll be repealed if I get my hands on it.

It is worth noting that I also received a second telegram asking me to use $17 worth of stamps to campaign on behalf of the proposal, making his deception tantamount to fraud:

I also sent a small blast out to the Delegates to get it into the queue. All I'm asking is if you could use yo' stamps to send a message to all WA's like you did he first time.

I must say, the hypocrisy of many members of this Assembly is saddening but not surprising. I am condemned when I deceive the Assembly by submitting a self-commendation, but Douria is congratulated when he deceives me by submitting my repeal text with my name on it under false pretenses?

Douria stole Auralia's repeal by lying and misrepresenting himself, then purposefully waited to reveal his true intentions until Auralia couldn't withdraw his permission. That is not just being unethical, immoral, and simply a terrible person, it's plain intellectual property theft. Frankly, Douria should be ejected and banned from submitting proposals, because this is proposal stealing.

For what it is worth, I would have revoked Douria's permission to use the text of my proposal and to credit me as co-author had I known what he was planning. If that means that Douria's actions constitute plagiarism or some other violation of the rules, then I would expect appropriate action to be taken by the mods.

If you were foolish enough to partner up with either myself or the Dourian delegation to begin with then you would have brought the disaster upon yourself, just as the Auralian Delegation did.

Oh, Mall. Thank you for publicly recognizing, at last, that you deserve to be ostracized and that nobody should give any regard to what you say, since you simply cannot be trusted to be honest with us.

Jericho raises an eyebrow at the Visitor from Auralia
"...And with your tainted reputation you expect us to believe half of this? Sorry, not really buying it, and I have a feeling that since you did give permission up until now I don't think the mods will rule in your favour in regards to plagiarism."

[The Dourian Embassy]

*snip*

Actually Auralia's TG's look accurate. If he'd told me he was going to use stamps, I'd have advised several others who I happened to know were organizing a resistance to this to wait for the moment it was started showing up in inboxes(which would've been likely right after the thing went to vote), and then send their own opposing telegram... that way his would get bumped down.

I mostly just needed to know how serious Auralia was about his proposal, and also convince him that this was as important to me as it was to him.

I find it fairly funny how folks foisting fraudulent laws feign unfairness in the face of a fight.

Or to put it into non alliterative terms you guys don't get to complain about dishonest dealings with dirty digits(oops).

I didn't steal your draft, you gave it to me freely. And I put it to vote. The only reason I had to lie to you about my support was because you didn't want a straight up and down vote, you wanted the opportunity to cheat the system again. I actually messaged the mods for an exact ruling on how this would be handled before I even asked you about it(which given your public dedication of your works, I was not even required to do). I was told that you could withdraw support while it was in the queue, and I would be required to file a GHR to have it removed. Not to avoid a plagarism issue, by the way, you cleared that hurdle for us when you gave me permission, but rather to avoid it being an illegal proposal.

And since we're quoting telegrams... I only need one for my defense(from Auralia on my initial question of "can I submit my own version"):

I've already made arrangements with Afforess, but I suppose you could technically do it instead if you wanted, since the proposal is public domain.

In any event, I'm done with the GA (and probably the game), so feel free to do whatever you want.