4th rule clarification

[Flibbleites]

Replace Rule #4 with Rule #5, lets burn Rule #4 and salt the ground where it laid so we can forever forget about that silly fourth wall -- there is a reason why our headquarters is shaped like a prism.

Rule 5: Mini-Modding by using a resolution to conduct business that should have been instead conducted by a moderator is prohibited, this includes using a resolution to augment or extend the punishment ruled by a moderator -- as only other moderators can do so after much deliberation -- not the World Assembly.

[/not a mod]

How exactly is that any different than rule 2?

[Naivetry]

@ Nai: those examples didn't touch on Gameplay events because AMOM was talking about events he regarded as "outside", and I was bringing them "inside"....

This is like saying I can't give prizes to an author, only to a character in his book.

Ard, we fought for months - literally, months - when the SC was first created to avoid the need to comply with GA conventions on IC/OOC, because that's not what we do! And in one ruling, you're going to erase all of that effort and make it impossible for us to use the SC in the way I hoped we could. It's not a question of whether we "can" shoehorn Gameplay events from "Noting with disapproval Westwind's institution of a new forum for The North Pacific, his attempts to undermine the constitution of TNP, in contravention of his oath of office, through the appointment of new judicial officers..." into something "legal" under this new rule, whatever that would look like - it's a question of why should we have to after all this time when it's not our conventions that are causing the problem? We can all tell when something is a personal attack, whether or not it's prefaced with "the citizens of", as you just demonstrated with Quod's example. So why not just outlaw that, personal attacks, whatever IC conventions someone follows? This rule that we should have to jump through hoops to phrase everything that happens in Gameplay as if individual players don't exist - none of that addresses the problem you're trying to correct.

The people who actually use and want to use this subforum on a regular basis aren't the ones causing the problems, from what I've seen, so why are you instituting a rule that can and will completely alienate the Gameplay world from using the SC?

[Snefaldia]

It seems that the main opposition to the rule can be boiled down to "I can no longer stroke the egos of people that I like in the way that I used to." At least, that's what I'm reading.

Wouldn't someone whose nation/name showed up in a C&C just be happy that it made it there? Provided, of course, it wasn't just thinly-veiled flamebait. The difference between "The nation of" and "the player of" is just cosmetic; a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose. Intent is clear, isn't that what's important?

[Naivetry]

It seems that the main opposition to the rule can be boiled down to "I can no longer stroke the egos of people that I like in the way that I used to." At least, that's what I'm reading.

Wouldn't someone whose nation/name showed up in a C&C just be happy that it made it there? Provided, of course, it wasn't just thinly-veiled flamebait. The difference between "The nation of" and "the player of" is just cosmetic; a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose. Intent is clear, isn't that what's important?

No.

Commend the citizens of my nation for something, and I'll laugh in your face.

I would honestly prefer a completely blank sheet of paper rather than an outright lie.

[Snefaldia]

It seems that the main opposition to the rule can be boiled down to "I can no longer stroke the egos of people that I like in the way that I used to." At least, that's what I'm reading.

Wouldn't someone whose nation/name showed up in a C&C just be happy that it made it there? Provided, of course, it wasn't just thinly-veiled flamebait. The difference between "The nation of" and "the player of" is just cosmetic; a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose. Intent is clear, isn't that what's important?

No.

Commend the citizens of my nation for something, and I'll laugh in your face.

I would honestly prefer a completely blank sheet of paper rather than an outright lie.

So it's about... what, then? Being "right?" Setting the score the way you want it set? An unwillingness to compromise? What?

[Quintessence of Dust]

So why not just outlaw that, personal attacks, whatever IC conventions someone follows?

Because that's the Security Council is for - personal attacks. If you have a system that allows one player to "condemn" another player, I think no amount of nominal rules would prevent malicious condemnations sneaking through.

[Ananke II]

The difference between "The nation of" and "the player of" is just cosmetic; a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose. Intent is clear, isn't that what's important?

No. The same way that the player behind the nation doesn't exist in roleplay, "citizens of a nation" or "spokemen" don't exist in gameplay. That's why it'd be odd to commend the citizens' of a gameplayer's nation for something, because noone's citizens are doing anything. As a gameplayer I don't have any citizens. I'm just Ananke II.

[Naivetry]

So it's about... what, then? Being "right?" Setting the score the way you want it set? An unwillingness to compromise? What?

It's about whether or not the way we play the game is going to be considered valid and legitimate.

So why not just outlaw that, personal attacks, whatever IC conventions someone follows?

Because that's the Security Council is for - personal attacks. If you have a system that allows one player to "condemn" another player, I think no amount of nominal rules would prevent malicious condemnations sneaking through.

Some of these things that you seem to see as personal, we don't. Anything that insults a player's intelligence, charisma, whatever - that's clearly a personal, OOC attack. That's the distinction Ard made with your post. You can Condemn someone for being evil. You can't Condemn them for being a moron. That's the line we've always drawn in Gameplay when it comes to IC and OOC attacks. Do OOC attacks happen on our side? Sure. But I don't want those in a C/C any more than you do.

[Mad Sheep Railgun]

Because that's the Security Council is for - personal attacks.

It's a stick for us to beat each other over the head with!

* beats Quintessence of Dust over the head with a Commend Gruenberg Stick™ *

[Krioval]

No dice. I still don't really see why this had to become a rule. If those causing problems were the main cause of such a sudden and swift rule change (which was not totally discussed by the main players of the SC or other competent players), then punish them, not the entire group. Change the rules to reflect their actions, not the actions of the body. Really, the beauty of the SC was that there was no clear cut law on how proposals should be written, aside from the very basic rules. This posed a problem at first, but people eventually settled in and things gradually settled down. Now the rules are to change again? As Krull pointed out, rules that will cause alienation between gameplayers, many of which are unfamiliar with the definitions of IC and OOC for that matter?

At the risk of sounding rude, why should one segment of the NS community not have to abide by a set of rules? The RP community has things we can and can't do, NSG posters have things they can and can't do, so why should GPers be exempt? Not to beat this into the ground, but NS is a nation simulator. Sure, there are people behind the nations, but nations draft international legislation in NS. People learn and adapt all the time, and the admission fee for the SC as a WA-mediated GP device is that GPers need to work within the constraints of the WA.

I, for one, would have my faith restored in this system if I saw this rule removed. It would really impress me to see that, honestly, because I know it is difficult to remove something that was put into place. But I am hopeful. Now, a rule on flaming would be more than appropriate, since this seems to be the root cause, and would not affect those who are "caught in the crossfire", so to speak. I would not mind writing more C&C's in the future. But if I have to write it in such a manner where I have to hide the efforts of players by masking their works and accomplishments by IC jargon so that it "fits the mold", what's the point? How disappointing would it be to see Kandarin's commendation ICly? Or Goob's? Or Imagy Nation's? Wouldn't doing that deter from their accomplishments? To turn Goob's NSwiki into "an international catalog of national events, phenomena, flags, etc" deter from the very basic "Praises Goobergunchia for the creation of NSwiki?" It just seems shallow to me.

It's not just flaming, if I'm interpreting Ard's posts correctly. It's that international legislation needs to refer to nations, populations within nations, or individuals within nations. Note the recurring theme. Referring to a nation as "he" or "she", mentioning "threads", and the like are things that international legislation do not do in RL situations. If my nation can be the target of a C&C regardless of my WA status, it should at least be worded to refer to my national happenings on some level, however abstract, rather than because I made a post in a thread.

And really, Todd, after lambasting the 12 hour time mismatch on resolution voting as being the apocalypse for democracy, I tend to see your complaints as a bit hyperbolic. If this destroys GP participation on the SC forum, that seems shallow to me.

[Krioval]

The difference between "The nation of" and "the player of" is just cosmetic; a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose. Intent is clear, isn't that what's important?

No. The same way that the player behind the nation doesn't exist in roleplay, "citizens of a nation" or "spokemen" don't exist in gameplay. That's why it'd be odd to commend the citizens' of a gameplayer's nation for something, because noone's citizens are doing anything. As a gameplayer I don't have any citizens. I'm just Ananke II.

Seriously? This is the prime argument? People don't want the abstraction of playing nations in a nation simulator so international legislation should refer to nations by third-person singular pronouns, and things like "threads" should be mentioned there?

[Naivetry]

At the risk of sounding rude, why should one segment of the NS community not have to abide by a set of rules?

Go ahead and merge the SC back with the GA, then, enforce all the GA rules, and be quick about it.

It's not just flaming, if I'm interpreting Ard's posts correctly. It's that international legislation needs to refer to nations, populations within nations, or individuals within nations. Note the recurring theme. Referring to a nation as "he" or "she", mentioning "threads", and the like are things that international legislation do not do in RL situations. If my nation can be the target of a C&C regardless of my WA status, it should at least be worded to refer to my national happenings on some level, however abstract, rather than because I made a post in a thread.

In other words, the way we play and think about the game is illegitimate and we are not to be permitted to speak about it that way. Thanks for clearing that up, I wasn't quite sure what this rule really meant for us.

[Mad Sheep Railgun]

As a gameplayer I don't have any citizens. I'm just Ananke II.

Then why don't you change your flag to a picture of yourself?

[Naivetry]

As a gameplayer I don't have any citizens. I'm just Ananke II.

Then why don't you change your flag to a picture of yourself?

To speak for myself rather than for Ananke: first, because it's egotistical; second, because I like my privacy; third, because the things I do as Naivetry are not necessarily the things I would do in RL. And that's what IC means to me.

[Krioval]

Go ahead and merge the SC back with the GA, then, enforce all the GA rules, and be quick about it.

Why? The GA specifically cannot do anything to non-WA states while the SC can. They deal with separate types of legislation - but that's not an argument that the style should be different, or that they should be recombined.

In other words, the way we play and think about the game is illegitimate and we are not to be permitted to speak about it that way. Thanks for clearing that up, I wasn't quite sure what this rule really meant for us.

It means that you have to write proposals that emphasize a nation or national happenings. You can speak about players all you want outside of the official proposal. Is that really such an onerous restriction? I have to make concessions when I write RP proposals, whether GA or SC, and I have to abide by rules for NS RP on the RP forums. Why shouldn't you have to do the same thing from time to time?

[Sedgistan]

At the risk of sounding rude, why should one segment of the NS community not have to abide by a set of rules? The RP community has things we can and can't do, NSG posters have things they can and can't do, so why should GPers be exempt? Not to beat this into the ground, but NS is a nation simulator. Sure, there are people behind the nations, but nations draft international legislation in NS. People learn and adapt all the time, and the admission fee for the SC as a WA-mediated GP device is that GPers need to work within the constraints of the WA.

There's plenty of rules that apply to gameplayers, and there's several other SC-related rules. I just don't see why we should be forced to write resolutions IC - are we now going to enforce IC debates too? Other communities (NSG, Forum 7) are allowed to do their thing without having to act like they're representing nations, so why force us to?

The reason given to justify this change - that OOC resolutions are used for flaming, is just ridiculous. If the mods think that is the case, they've already got plenty of rules to deal with flaming. Just enforce those properly.

[Krioval]

To speak for myself rather than for Ananke: first, because it's egotistical; second, because I like my privacy; third, because the things I do as Naivetry are not necessarily the things I would do in RL. And that's what IC means to me.

1. How is writing proposals calling somebody an awesome person (not nation) not egotistical?

2. Fair enough, but why create a national flag and persona only to abandon it at the first opportunity?

3. What do you do as Naivetry that you don't do IRL? And no, pretending to be a nation and participating in invasion/defense doesn't really count. That's too obvious. What makes the nation different from the player in any significant way that you'd consider that "IC"?

[Krioval]

There's plenty of rules that apply to gameplayers, and there's several other SC-related rules. I just don't see why we should be forced to write resolutions IC - are we now going to enforce IC debates too? Other communities (NSG, Forum 7) are allowed to do their thing without having to act like they're representing nations, so why force us to?

Let's see...reading the ruling...reading it more carefully...nope. Nothing about IC debate enforcement in there. Also, nearly every time I've attempted to inject IC debate into a SC thread, I've been told that I shouldn't do that, it's wrong, and so on. Many GPers seem to be allergic to the slightest trace of RP, and it's frankly silly.

NSG and Forum 7 do not craft internationally binding legislation on the NS community, so they are irrelevant to this debate. In fact, for all the flack that the GA gets for being silly RPers, GA legislation doesn't do a thing to non-WA nations. SC resolutions can, and frequently do, affect non-WA nations that can't even cast a vote for or against legislation that targets or otherwise affects them.

The reason given to justify this change - that OOC resolutions are used for flaming, is just ridiculous. If the mods think that is the case, they've already got plenty of rules to deal with flaming. Just enforce those properly.

That's because a veneer of civility goes a long way. A condemnation that would affect a player frequently skirts the line of propriety the way that the same condemnation targeting a nation would not. And let's not imply that the mods are not enforcing the flaming rules "properly". They are doing so by eliminating a suspect category of proposals from consideration so that they don't have to take a fine-toothed comb to each C&C to see if it passes the "proper" test.

[Naivetry]

Go ahead and merge the SC back with the GA, then, enforce all the GA rules, and be quick about it.

Why? The GA specifically cannot do anything to non-WA states while the SC can. They deal with separate types of legislation - but that's not an argument that the style should be different, or that they should be recombined.

Because there is no point to having a separate organization with separate standards if the only one that ever mattered to us is gone. This difference between IC/OOC standards was the only reason we argued that the two should be separated in the first place. Every other rule in the GA can be imported into the SC except for the mention of individual nations/regions - and if this ruling stands, every other rule in the GA should be imported, and soonish, so maybe the world wouldn't have to deal with so much trash coming from this subforum.

1. How is writing proposals calling somebody an awesome person (not nation) not egotistical?

It's about what people have done, not who they are.

2. Fair enough, but why create a national flag and persona only to abandon it at the first opportunity?

Because the game required it when I signed up?

3. What do you do as Naivetry that you don't do IRL? And no, pretending to be a nation and participating in invasion/defense doesn't really count. That's too obvious. What makes the nation different from the player in any significant way that you'd consider that "IC"?

Political deception, political propaganda, adherence to in-game ideologies. This is less of an issue for me than for others I could name, particularly those involved in the intel game.

It means that you have to write proposals that emphasize a nation or national happenings. You can speak about players all you want outside of the official proposal. Is that really such an onerous restriction? I have to make concessions when I write RP proposals, whether GA or SC, and I have to abide by rules for NS RP on the RP forums. Why shouldn't you have to do the same thing from time to time?

You're not addressing my point. It's not a question of following rules. It's a question of whether or not in the eyes of the NS world, Gameplay modes of thought are or are not legitimate.

[Naivetry]

NSG and Forum 7 do not craft internationally binding legislation on the NS community, so they are irrelevant to this debate. In fact, for all the flack that the GA gets for being silly RPers, GA legislation doesn't do a thing to non-WA nations. SC resolutions can, and frequently do, affect non-WA nations that can't even cast a vote for or against legislation that targets or otherwise affects them.

...and that addresses Sedge's objection that we're the ones being singled out as having to play as if we were nations... how?

That's because a veneer of civility goes a long way. A condemnation that would affect a player frequently skirts the line of propriety the way that the same condemnation targeting a nation would not. And let's not imply that the mods are not enforcing the flaming rules "properly". They are doing so by eliminating a suspect category of proposals from consideration so that they don't have to take a fine-toothed comb to each C&C to see if it passes the "proper" test.

The difference between our IC standards has nothing to do with civility. Quod and Ard have already shown that it's perfectly possible to write and to spot personal attacks in an RP-IC resolution. Gameplay IC resolutions aren't any more ambiguous than that example.

[Ananke II]

Besides if flaming is the main issue, why are commendations included in the rule change? Their whole existence is based on saying good things about people...

[Todd McCloud]

At the risk of sounding rude, why should one segment of the NS community not have to abide by a set of rules? The RP community has things we can and can't do, NSG posters have things they can and can't do, so why should GPers be exempt? Not to beat this into the ground, but NS is a nation simulator. Sure, there are people behind the nations, but nations draft international legislation in NS. People learn and adapt all the time, and the admission fee for the SC as a WA-mediated GP device is that GPers need to work within the constraints of the WA.

It's not just flaming, if I'm interpreting Ard's posts correctly. It's that international legislation needs to refer to nations, populations within nations, or individuals within nations. Note the recurring theme. Referring to a nation as "he" or "she", mentioning "threads", and the like are things that international legislation do not do in RL situations. If my nation can be the target of a C&C regardless of my WA status, it should at least be worded to refer to my national happenings on some level, however abstract, rather than because I made a post in a thread.

And really, Todd, after lambasting the 12 hour time mismatch on resolution voting as being the apocalypse for democracy, I tend to see your complaints as a bit hyperbolic. If this destroys GP participation on the SC forum, that seems shallow to me.

It seems I'll never live that down, despite explaining my condition at the time of that debate. Studying for quals will do that. Moving on.

My biggest question is this: why? My second biggest question is this: why now? Most of the people who have been commended and condemned have been OOCly due to their events in the OOC world. Does that mean IC people can't be commended or condemned? Nope. But take a look at the list of people C&C'd - can you honestly write one of those ICly without sounding the least bit, well, insulting? To say, for instance, that it was a person in my nation that was the delegate of TEP or a group of people in my nation that did those things in Fox Rite, that would seem hollow. I wasn't even in NS RPing until over a year ago - why should I have to be classified ICly when the greater part of my NS career has been done OOCly? Heck, the two nations I run in TEP as far as the IC standards go shouldn't really merit a commendation or condemnation. But even trying to word an OOC-commendable nation is just tacky. Goob did not create a inter-regional tool available on the computers or governmental houses of all nations, he created NSwiki, something that is delves into more factbook and OOC related activities than IC related activities. Kandarin's nation didn't elect a leader to oversee all the events in The Rejected Realms and across NS (not to my knowledge at least), he did.

But still. Why now? We argued this tirelessly for the first few months of this body's creation, and even after those times, we still did. We didn't want it to be all OOC or all IC - we just wanted the two factions to find some common ground. I thought that common ground was just saying 'commends the nation of Goobergunchia for the creation of NSwiki, blah blah blah'. We can't do that anymore. No one debated this change, no one started a thread demanding a change, etc. It just sprang up. Overnight. I would pretty much think very highly of Ard if a post was made along the lines of repealing this law, because it shows that s/he (God this is embarrassing... I used to know the gender, apparently I've forgotten, lol) is willing to listen to us and concede a few things back to us. And yes, I know NS is not a democracy when it comes to modding, but still... this is something that I, Nai, Kandarin, and countless, countless others fought for months for. It was okay up until April 22nd, 2010. Please don't take that away, because it makes our efforts feel useless and wasteful. And if the gameplayers feel short-ended, what will become of the SC? Really, what will happen? I don't really want to know, to be honest.

Really, this isn't a shot against IC C&C's. Those are perfectly fine. But, the beauty of splitting the SC was so that things could happen here ICly and OOCly. If you're going to make it happen ICly, then why was the SC split from the GA? So it could become GA part two?

[Todd McCloud]

Besides if flaming is the main issue, why are commendations included in the rule change? Their whole existence is based on saying good things about people...

Quite right. To paint an analogy, it's almost as if two kids were caught diving off the ledge of a pool and the lifeguard told everyone to get out of the water and immediately closed the premises. Or said everyone had to now wear life vests and PFD's. If a few bad eggs caused this, why hasn't Forum 7 been shut down when a few bad eggs make flame posts there?

[Naivetry]

This is why I find the term "Gameplay-IC" helpful. Everything Todd is talking about as "OOC" (as it would be considered for RPers) is what I call Gameplay-IC.

Gameplay-OOC doesn't come up until you start talking about the personal characteristics of the person behind the nation, apart from their demonstrable activities in-game. (So the Condemn Govindia thing, for instance, was blatantly a Gameplay-OOC troll.) My point is, we can spot those as easily as RPers can spot OOC flames intruding in an "IC" post. So flaming is no reason to change the standards of IC protocol that apply to the SC.

[A mean old man]

...I know you're all arguing about whether the terms of this rule are really fair/reasonable or not, but would you also care to acknowledge reality for a few minutes and take a look at what this rule is really going to (fail to) accomplish? From what I've seen of the forums activity and the latest WA proposals, I have a feeling we're in for less use of the WASC in general (gee, I wonder why AO showed up here all of a sudden and began protesting in favor of this rule...?), shittier C&Cs overall (Such as the condemnations of godmodders and really bad roleplayers which we've been seeing lately, and... wait... what the hell is at vote now? Why the hell wasn't it removed for violating rule #4 and rule #2!? If the rule isn't going to be enforced, I suppose we can just all get back to what we do normally here, anyway...), some amazingly confusing C&Cs where the writing should actually be out of character but the words are switched around to make it seem in-character (and for which everyone will vote based on their OOC opinions and answer to OOC in the threads anyway), and all of the C&Cs being accompanied by the same amount of flaming/trolling one would normally find in the threads here with some of it being disguised in strange fashions. Isn't this really just making your job more difficult, Ard? The incredible loopholes in this new "rule" prevent it from accomplishing the goal you have in mind for it to accomplish and instead just make things more confusing.

Like QuoD said - it's too late to establish this idea in the WASC. If you had wanted the WASC to be in-character like the General Assembly and based around a nation’s in-character actions, you should've established that precedent when the assembly was young. But the WASC has made itself, Ardchoille, through its history of passed/failed resolutions and through the attitude of its forums, and has played around with OOC far too much to suddenly forget its OOC nature. Sure, the WASC has been used IC, but hardly as much as it has been used OOC.

As well as this, look at the very nature of such an establishment – an establishment that can commend/condemn nations which are controlled by players or regions run by these nations which are controlled by players, and “liberate” regions “invaded” by nations which are controlled by players (speaking of which, I have no idea how you expect liberations to be written IC) simply has an OOC nature to it. There are only so many roleplayers out there that people are actually aware of. Then there are WA delegates, WA activists, defenders, raiders, regional politicians, social leaders of the social forums who everyone knows as people, not as nations. Many of these people have worked harder than any roleplayer (or are roleplayers themselves but not worthy of a C&C as such), and these are the people that the players want to commend – and you can’t change that by saying “no, that’s OOC.”

It feels strange to say this, Ardy, and I'm not trying to sound like a rebel to your authority as a moderator by saying it, but I think that this aspect of the WASC is out of your control. The simple nature of the beast and the actions of the players who have ridden it have already defined the WASC’s attitude far too much for you to suddenly have the ability to completely change it as you are trying to do.