[PASSED] Repeal "Commend Tiago Silva"

[Sedgistan]

The proposal in itself is fine and well written but I question the legality of the status of the proposal, because if the security council stands to CONDEMN raiders and military aggressors, why do they have a legal right to author proposals?

Raiders have as much "legal right" to author SC proposals as any other player.

[Sciongrad]

Maybe I will try my hand at writing a replacement myself. The thing is, this is my first ever serious attempt at a Security Council proposal, and I thought I had a pretty good shot at getting this one through (according to the current votes, it was a pretty solid guess). Do not take my lack of at-the-ready replacement as an indication that I don't actually believe that what Tiago Silva did was worth a shoutout. I'd honestly really like to see a better quality commendation passed for Silva, but the idea I had when I wrote this (high at 3:30 AM) was that it wouldn't be me, the no-name gameplayer who has never even spoken to the guy, who would write it for him

Fair enough. I may have been too quick to accuse, so I apologize if I came across as a little vicious.

There are plenty of nations that have been commended and condemned for non-gameplay contributions. See the commendations and condemnations of Omigodtheykilledkenny, Greater Tezdrian, Imagey Nation, Great Nepal, Sionis Prioratus, Der Fuhrer Dyszel, Bergnovinaia, Starblaydia, The Cat-Tribe, Commerce Heights, Blackhelm Confederacy, The Kraven Corporation, Glen-Rhodes, Milograd, Automagfreek, Lamoni, Ralkovia, Aglrinia, Mousebumples, Bears Armed, Sanctaria, Abacathea, and Yohannes. These are 23 commendations and condemnations that have little or nothing to do with gameplay contributions. Several of them were written by gameplayers.

Wow, get right out of town. You mean to tell me a whole 13% of Security Council resolutions don't have anything to do with gameplay? Wow, how could I have been so blind?

Please, I don't even know what type of response you expect me to give that ridiculous argument. 1 out of 10 SC resolutions has nothing to do with gameplay. Nice. It is worth noting, however, that some recipients among that truly impressive sum were either commended or condemned as a result of projects explicitly intended to commend or condemn players for non gameplay related activity (because the focus on gameplay was so overwhelming that some individuals actually reacted to it), or were commended or condemned because they were gameplayers themselves. You mentioned that many of these resolutions were also written by gameplayers as if that was somehow evidence that the SC is free from their influence, but all it does is reaffirm that the impetus behind many non-gameplay related commendations and condemnations is from within the gameplay power structure. And what's truly telling is that you're even willing to make the argument that the SC isn't overwhelmingly dominated by gameplay interests in the first place! Talk about arguments not reflected in reality, huh?

EDIT: Wow, I'm terrible at typing.

[Omigodtheykilledkenny]

Of course there's an arbitrary standard at play here, and you yourself define it by measuring this resolution against other passed commendations. You wail that the resolution is only three sentences long. Well, so what? Honestly, I wish more commendations were shorter and sweeter and easier to digest than all these long treatises that do nothing but rattle off players' "resumes" and try to fit in everything a player has ever done in NationStates. That's incredibly boring. This resolution sought to single out a player for something different, and in my book that's something to admire, not something to scorn because it somehow doesn't stack up to all those long-winded accolades about players' roles in feeder coups and regional governments and offsite forums and other such nonsense.

Eh, I consider it much more common sense and abstract than arbitrary but hey, whatever. I don't really see what's so bad about putting all of a nation's accomplishments in one nice place, easily accessible from their page should it pass, in addition to giving the nations of the world a nice overview of the history of a fellow player they may have never spoken to before. Let's be real, unless you're writing something awesomely controversial, literally all legislation is boring.

Um, OK. I still don't see why we need to repeal a resolution just because it doesn't conform to your personal preferences.

In any case, we'll see who agrees with my assessment on the resolution. Given the current vote, I'd say a good portion of the world

Appeal to popularity FTW!

In any case, Max Barry Day and Condemn NAZI EUROPE were also very popular resolutions. Doesn't mean they were worth the proverbial paper they were printed on.

[Kaboomlandia]

Or the UN Taxation Ban. How that thing wasn't repealed in six years is beyond me.

[Goddess Relief Office]

Why do we have to repeal this? Tiago Silva had been making flags for people long before he did the batch for Max Barry. It's not as if they NS flags were his only contribution. He was commended for a good reason.

[Ambroscus Koth]

It's not as if they NS flags were his only contribution.

That's irrelevant to the resolution I'm repealing, which literally only commends him for that contribution. If you want to contribute to a new commendation for Tiago Silva, I'd love to see it

[Omigodtheykilledkenny]

Or the UN Taxation Ban. How that thing wasn't repealed in six years is beyond me.

Why? What was wrong with it?

[Kaboomlandia]

Or the UN Taxation Ban. How that thing wasn't repealed in six years is beyond me.

Why? What was wrong with it?

The UNTB was a one sentence proposal that passed by an 86%-14% margin. Standards were evidently lower back then

[Omigodtheykilledkenny]

It was one-sentence proposal that had a lot of impact. It was the first "blocker" and it forbade the UN from taxing private citizens. It was also incorporated into WAGF after the UN was disbanded.

[Kaboomlandia]

Interestingly enough, had today's rules existed ten years ago, UN #2 would have been dinged for branding.

[Great Brigantia]

Wow, get right out of town. You mean to tell me a whole 13% of Security Council resolutions don't have anything to do with gameplay? Wow, how could I have been so blind?

I'm going to stop you there. Are you factoring in liberation resolutions?

[Omigodtheykilledkenny]

Interestingly enough, had today's rules existed ten years ago, UN #2 would have been dinged for branding.

Description: The UN shall not be allowed to collect taxes directly from the citizens of any member state for any purpose.

Where's the Branding violation?

[Jean Pierre Trudeau]

Interestingly enough, had today's rules existed ten years ago, UN #2 would have been dinged for branding.

Description: The UN shall not be allowed to collect taxes directly from the citizens of any member state for any purpose.

Where's the Branding violation?

That's what I was going to ask.

[Ambroscus Koth]

I know how we got on this tangent, but can we please go back to the proposal at hand?

[Sciongrad]

Wow, get right out of town. You mean to tell me a whole 13% of Security Council resolutions don't have anything to do with gameplay? Wow, how could I have been so blind?

I'm going to stop you there. Are you factoring in liberation resolutions?

I said all SC resolutions, but if we're talking solely commendations or condemnations, only 19% of them have to do with mostly or entirely non-GP contributions.

EDIT:

I know how we got on this tangent, but can we please go back to the proposal at hand?

My bad, I posted after I read this. [/threadjack]

[Great Brigantia]

I said all SC resolutions, but if we're talking solely commendations or condemnations, only 19% of them have to do with mostly or entirely non-GP contributions.

Thank you for adjusting the percentage. The percentage with liberation resolutions included is misleading, as liberation resolutions, by their nature, can only be used for gameplay purposes.

In regard to commendations and condemnations, I don't think it's fair to pass the blame for that onto gameplayers or "gameplay elitism." If we want to see more commendations and condemnations covering other aspects of the game, people from those areas of the game need to start authoring more commendations and condemnations. Expecting gameplayers to know who to commend or condemn, or the reasons for it, in other aspects of the game is unreasonable. But when roleplayers have come forward to commend or condemn roleplayers, there hasn't been a parade of gameplayers arguing that isn't appropriate.

Maybe when this repeal passes you should author a commendation of Tiago Silva that is better quality than the resolution being repealed. I would support a better quality commendation, and probably so would many others.

[Omigodtheykilledkenny]

It should be noted that some of those "non-GP" resolutions, like those for Cat-Tribe and Automagfreek (and probably my own, now that I think of it), were introduced with the express purpose of making the SC relevant to other players in the game, sort of like "affirmative action." They did not occur "organically."

[Tiago Silva]

He converted the default flags on the site from ass tier JPEGs to better quality PNGs.

Apparently people think this act alone is commend worthy.

Well... bullshit.

I'm going to explain exactly what I did (again, since this was posted in 2011).

If only what was done was just "converting JPEG to PNG"...
This was my routine for several months: picking up on public domain or Making up vectorial sources; render as bitmap; try to hand-fix the alpha conversion quirks (some unfortunately passed along); resize; brute-force lossless optimization; custom brute-force lossless optimization; even more brute-force lossless optimization.

[Great Brigantia]

It should be noted that some of those "non-GP" resolutions, like those for Cat-Tribe and Automagfreek (and probably my own, now that I think of it), were introduced with the express purpose of making the SC relevant to other players in the game, sort of like "affirmative action." They did not occur "organically."

I understand, but what I'm saying is I think that's a worthy project. This idea that gameplayers want the Security Council all to themselves really isn't accurate; most gameplayers don't mind seeing commendations or condemnations based on RP, WA, etc. activities. But expecting gameplayers to be the ones to actually write them, or to not repeal the resolutions that they believe are low quality, is asking a bit too much. If other players don't want the Security Council to be so centered on gameplay, the burden is on non-gameplayers to make that happen.

[The Dark Star Republic]

It should be noted that some of those "non-GP" resolutions, like those for Cat-Tribe and Automagfreek (and probably my own, now that I think of it), were introduced with the express purpose of making the SC relevant to other players in the game, sort of like "affirmative action." They did not occur "organically."

The sports ones, too, Starblaydia and Commerce Heights: it was a very deliberate tactic, as you say, not something the SC just happened to arrive at.

[Pollaetorian]

It should be noted that some of those "non-GP" resolutions, like those for Cat-Tribe and Automagfreek (and probably my own, now that I think of it), were introduced with the express purpose of making the SC relevant to other players in the game, sort of like "affirmative action." They did not occur "organically."

I understand, but what I'm saying is I think that's a worthy project. This idea that gameplayers want the Security Council all to themselves really isn't accurate; most gameplayers don't mind seeing commendations or condemnations based on RP, WA, etc. activities. But expecting gameplayers to be the ones to actually write them, or to not repeal the resolutions that they believe are low quality, is asking a bit too much. If other players don't want the Security Council to be so centered on gameplay, the burden is on non-gameplayers to make that happen.

That's where I disagree. The 'affirmative action' from even a 'bad' resolution is more important then the drive to repeal them for low quality, especially if there is no replacement ready. They shouldn't be repealed unless there is.

[Great Brigantia]

That's where I disagree. The 'affirmative action' from even a 'bad' resolution is more important then the drive to repeal them for low quality, especially if there is no replacement ready. They shouldn't be repealed unless there is.

I don't agree with that, but if nobody else wants to do it I would be willing to author a replacement commendation for Tiago Silva over the next couple of weeks.

[Omigodtheykilledkenny]

It should be noted that some of those "non-GP" resolutions, like those for Cat-Tribe and Automagfreek (and probably my own, now that I think of it), were introduced with the express purpose of making the SC relevant to other players in the game, sort of like "affirmative action." They did not occur "organically."

I understand, but what I'm saying is I think that's a worthy project. This idea that gameplayers want the Security Council all to themselves really isn't accurate; most gameplayers don't mind seeing commendations or condemnations based on RP, WA, etc. activities. But expecting gameplayers to be the ones to actually write them, or to not repeal the resolutions that they believe are low quality, is asking a bit too much. If other players don't want the Security Council to be so centered on gameplay, the burden is on non-gameplayers to make that happen.

And the best way of discouraging it is to repeal non-GP resolutions solely on the basis that they do not comport to bullshit "standards" that exist only in the minds of GPers. Like this repeal.

[Great Brigantia]

And the best way of discouraging it is to repeal non-GP resolutions solely on the basis that they do not comport to bullshit "standards" that exist only in the minds of GPers. Like this repeal.

Quality standards aren't exclusive to the Security Council and the gameplayers who frequent its forum. The General Assembly is held to an even higher standard, both by its additional rules as well as by the authors who frequent its forum. I don't agree that imposing some standards of quality discourages participation, rather it encourages participation that isn't lazy and shoddy.

I'm opposed to shoddy, low quality proposals, gameplay or non-gameplay, period. I replaced and repealed condemnation of The Black Riders for that reason. If you're going to expect people to accept lower standards for the sake of greater non-gameplay participation, sorry, but no.

[Omigodtheykilledkenny]

Wanting to strike out a resolution because it doesn't meet some arbitrary standard for length or number of contributions cited has nothing to do with quality. It's just prejudicial nitpicking over baseless frivolities that make no matter at all. Resolutions do not need to be long, boring essays about all of a player's accomplishments to pass muster -- particularly in a Council that has yet to repeal that ridiculous first resolution, which incidentally also didn't meet the artificial "length" "standard," but also rambled off on crap like what colors raiders used in regional WFEs.