The Branding Rule

[Mallorea and Riva]

Branding

Limited branding is allowed. "Limited" means that you may list your co-author by nation name only. Example:

"Co-authored by The Most Glorious Hack"

Further branding will result in the Proposal being deleted. Don't list everyone who posted in the thread for your draft, don't list yourself, don't list your Minister Of Making Proposals, and don't post the 'pre-title' of the co-author (ie: "The Republic Of..."). This includes creating nations that have the same name as your region or group and using them to promote your region or group. It also includes using the name of a nation, region or group as an acrostic or acronym in a proposal. If you are using the [nation] tag to list your co-author make sure you are using the short version ([nation=short] or [nation=short+noflag]).

[Mallorea and Riva]

First round discussion bump.

[Kaboomlandia]

Happy to kick this off!

What I would suggest is a choice between:

• two co-authors, in short form
• one co-author, in long form - unless the signature is something of Mall/Mouse/Sedge length.

[Mallorea and Riva]

Happy to kick this off!

What I would suggest is a choice between:

• two co-authors, in short form
• one co-author, in long form - unless the signature is something of Mall/Mouse/Sedge length.

Why do you think this is superior to the current rule?


I am going to advocate doing away with the Branding rule in its entirety. If players want to waste characters listing ten coauthors I say we let the voters punish them for it. Alternatively it may allow for greater cooperation on proposals. Additionally if players wish to state their own name ten times in a proposal I think that such proposals will be weeded out at vote or in the queue.

[Elke and Elba]

Happy to kick this off!

What I would suggest is a choice between:

• two co-authors, in short form
• one co-author, in long form - unless the signature is something of Mall/Mouse/Sedge length.

Why do you think this is superior to the current rule?


I am going to advocate doing away with the Branding rule in its entirety. If players want to waste characters listing ten coauthors I say we let the voters punish them for it. Alternatively it may allow for greater cooperation on proposals. Additionally if players wish to state their own name ten times in a proposal I think that such proposals will be weeded out at vote or in the queue.

*raises DISAGREE placard*

I say stick with the current rules of one. The SC non-limit really makes it a circle jerk where they can say the entire region did a contribution or whatnot.

Given that the main purpose of this rule is to put emphasis on the bill rather than the string of names, I really do think this slightly conservative rule is needed to ensure sanity.

[Mallorea and Riva]

Why do you think this is superior to the current rule?


I am going to advocate doing away with the Branding rule in its entirety. If players want to waste characters listing ten coauthors I say we let the voters punish them for it. Alternatively it may allow for greater cooperation on proposals. Additionally if players wish to state their own name ten times in a proposal I think that such proposals will be weeded out at vote or in the queue.

*raises DISAGREE placard*

I say stick with the current rules of one. The SC non-limit really makes it a circle jerk where they can say the entire region did a contribution or whatnot.

Given that the main purpose of this rule is to put emphasis on the bill rather than the string of names, I really do think this slightly conservative rule is needed to ensure sanity.

What do you see as being wrong with regions being credited for proposals if they have contributed?

[Flibbleites]

[*]one co-author, in long form - unless the signature is something of Mall/Mouse/Sedge length.[/list]

First off, I believe you mean "pre-title" not signature (and considering how one obtains an exceedingly long pre-title it's unlikely that that would ever be a problem). But I do have a question about this idea. Why should a co-author get their pre-title on the resolution, when the author doesn't?

Happy to kick this off!

What I would suggest is a choice between:

• two co-authors, in short form
• one co-author, in long form - unless the signature is something of Mall/Mouse/Sedge length.

Why do you think this is superior to the current rule?


I am going to advocate doing away with the Branding rule in its entirety. If players want to waste characters listing ten coauthors I say we let the voters punish them for it. Alternatively it may allow for greater cooperation on proposals. Additionally if players wish to state their own name ten times in a proposal I think that such proposals will be weeded out at vote or in the queue.

Oh to be young and naive again instead of bitter and jaded like I am now. I honestly don't share your optimism that the voters or the delegates would weed those out. Heck I can remember one particular delegate who would literally approve every proposal in the queue, you could have two diametrically opposite proposals right next to each other and his approval would be on both of them. As for the voters, well, there's a reason I coined the term "Lemming Vote" during the vote on Promotion of Solar Panels (and created the UN Card for it), even the author of that resolution realizing that it had problems that needed to be addressed couldn't stop the tide of "Yes" votes that pushed it through, necessitating it's repeal 2 resolutions later (and if i remember correctly, the only reason Labeling Standards is even between the two is because it was already at quorum when the voting on Promotion os Solar Panels ended).

What do you see as being wrong with regions being credited for proposals if they have contributed?

And how often does an entire region contribute to a GA proposal?

[Omigodtheykilledkenny]

@Mall: It's a form of regional advertising. Players already have plenty of resources to pimp their regions; adding WA proposals to the mix doesn't help things. Some groups such as ACCEL were quite shameless in the way they used repeals as a recruitment device.

[Elke and Elba]

*raises DISAGREE placard*

I say stick with the current rules of one. The SC non-limit really makes it a circle jerk where they can say the entire region did a contribution or whatnot.

Given that the main purpose of this rule is to put emphasis on the bill rather than the string of names, I really do think this slightly conservative rule is needed to ensure sanity.

What do you see as being wrong with regions being credited for proposals if they have contributed?

The problem is that most if not all of the time, such regions haven't contributed significantly. We see this all the time in the SC, where the region's name in the proposal only seeks to claim legitimacy of the proposal since it had been consulted with the natives.

We have a similar precedent in the WA I believe, with regards to Cultural Site Preservation which was once submitted by the Osiris WA Office and dinged for it. This was despite that Osiris as a whole didn't contribute to the bill, but was more for "promoting WA activity in the region" so to speak.

Furthermore, I think if one isn't able to write a few thousand characters proposal without the help of ten advisers, I don't think that person should write in the first place. Nor do I think it is good for the WA in the long run as people solicit the ten largest regions by WA delegate votes count to bargain a vote for with a name on the proposal.

[Mallorea and Riva]

What do you see as being wrong with regions being credited for proposals if they have contributed?

The problem is that most if not all of the time, such regions haven't contributed significantly. We see this all the time in the SC, where the region's name in the proposal only seeks to claim legitimacy of the proposal since it had been consulted with the natives.

We have a similar precedent in the WA I believe, with regards to Cultural Site Preservation which was once submitted by the Osiris WA Office and dinged for it. This was despite that Osiris as a whole didn't contribute to the bill, but was more for "promoting WA activity in the region" so to speak.

Furthermore, I think if one isn't able to write a few thousand characters proposal without the help of ten advisers, I don't think that person should write in the first place. Nor do I think it is good for the WA in the long run as people solicit the ten largest regions by WA delegate votes count to bargain a vote for with a name on the proposal.

Right but why do you think that? How is politicking somehow bad for the GA?

[Elke and Elba]

The problem is that most if not all of the time, such regions haven't contributed significantly. We see this all the time in the SC, where the region's name in the proposal only seeks to claim legitimacy of the proposal since it had been consulted with the natives.

We have a similar precedent in the WA I believe, with regards to Cultural Site Preservation which was once submitted by the Osiris WA Office and dinged for it. This was despite that Osiris as a whole didn't contribute to the bill, but was more for "promoting WA activity in the region" so to speak.

Furthermore, I think if one isn't able to write a few thousand characters proposal without the help of ten advisers, I don't think that person should write in the first place. Nor do I think it is good for the WA in the long run as people solicit the ten largest regions by WA delegate votes count to bargain a vote for with a name on the proposal.

Right but why do you think that? How is politicking somehow bad for the GA?

*sigh* It's not just about politicking. It's about regional advertising like what Kenny said (something which is beyond annoying - see Gradea's Archmont post in every other thread), and jamming up the proposals chock full of names which is unsightly.

We're here to pass proposals. Not here to write a phonebook.

Anyway, if this is the response a mod's going to give (I have my own beliefs, you must convince me of yours rather than being impartial and taking in all opinions before forming my own), I believe this discussion is dead upon arrival. There's no point talking to someone who is dead on sure that he wants the branding rule to be gone (and ignores all the other valid comments from other players).

[Mallorea and Riva]

Right but why do you think that? How is politicking somehow bad for the GA?

*sigh* It's not just about politicking. It's about regional advertising like what Kenny said (something which is beyond annoying - see Gradea's Archmont post in every other thread), and jamming up the proposals chock full of names which is unsightly.

We're here to pass proposals. Not here to write a phonebook.

Anyway, if this is the response a mod's going to give (I have my own beliefs, you must convince me of yours rather than being impartial and taking in all opinions before forming my own), I believe this discussion is dead upon arrival. There's no point talking to someone who is dead on sure that he wants the branding rule to be gone (and ignores all the other valid comments from other players).

I have my opinions and I'm questioning yours, just as you have every right to question mine. You all wanted mod input into the discussion, you're going to get it. And you'll see that we don't all share the same opinion, so to assume that this discussion is DOA is rather strange.

[Flibbleites]

Right but why do you think that? How is politicking somehow bad for the GA?

*sigh* It's not just about politicking. It's about regional advertising like what Kenny said (something which is beyond annoying - see Gradea's Archmont post in every other thread), and jamming up the proposals chock full of names which is unsightly.

We're here to pass proposals. Not here to write a phonebook.

Anyway, if this is the response a mod's going to give (I have my own beliefs, you must convince me of yours rather than being impartial and taking in all opinions before forming my own), I believe this discussion is dead upon arrival. There's no point talking to someone who is dead on sure that he wants the branding rule to be gone (and ignores all the other valid comments from other players).

Luckily he's not the only mod, I for one, am strongly in favor of leaving the Branding rules just as they are.

[Elke and Elba]

*sigh* It's not just about politicking. It's about regional advertising like what Kenny said (something which is beyond annoying - see Gradea's Archmont post in every other thread), and jamming up the proposals chock full of names which is unsightly.

We're here to pass proposals. Not here to write a phonebook.

Anyway, if this is the response a mod's going to give (I have my own beliefs, you must convince me of yours rather than being impartial and taking in all opinions before forming my own), I believe this discussion is dead upon arrival. There's no point talking to someone who is dead on sure that he wants the branding rule to be gone (and ignores all the other valid comments from other players).

I have my opinions and I'm questioning yours, just as you have every right to question mine. You all wanted mod input into the discussion, you're going to get it. And you'll see that we don't all share the same opinion, so to assume that this discussion is DOA is rather strange.

The problem is that the entire time we have been giving you as to reasons as to why your view isn't as ideal as you might think, and what happens instead is that we are only given back questions that have been pretty much explained in many of our responses.

Mod input isn't about getting grilled, nor is our job to answer questions. Mod input is for YOU to make your own stance to rebut the stance of others through reasoned argument.

And it doesn't seem to be the case here. It's not a bloody examination. If mod input means only being quizzed, I don't really see the point of this "discussion" - especially so when being asked one lined questions at the end of a lengthy response - it is condescending and rude. There hasn't been any practical input from you in this topic except for your post re: Kaboomlandia.

[Frisbeeteria]

Historical note:

The Branding rule was my strong suggestion back when the first (or maybe second) Hack edits of the Enodian ruleset was being created. At the time, the proposal queue often ran 10+ pages, and the vast majority of proposals were really more about ego boosting than about any real international issues. A lot of them were little more than a regional promotion plus "... and oh yeah, let's ban abortion too" tacked on as an afterthought.

I pushed Hack into adding it so I could quickly reduce the queue down to a couple of pages with minimal reportage. Obviously, it was a mod workload thing, but I made the case that it was also a player readability issue. Only the most dedicated (or asinine) delegates would delve through 50 or more daily proposals, and the small bits of decent writing were often lost in the morass of crap. We gave in to player pressure to allow co-authors, but that's as far as we would bend.

The main thing I'm against here isn't co-authors. It's the florid prose from "The ExtraOrdinary Velvet Democracy of The Most Benevolent NationStan" and the signatures from "by the Grace of God and the Blessing of the Populous of Benevolent NationStan, His Most Royal Highness King Oliver St John-Mollusc IV". You remove the branding rule, and you open the floodgates to that sort of thing. Is that what you really want?

Mall, you never dealt with that issue as a player or as a mod. I think your reasons for dropping the rule are far outweighed by the benefits of leaving it in place.

[Snefaldia]

What about a compromise and allowing a region tag to be used, something like "authored by members of Western Atlantic? Or some formula that isn't obtrusive but still fills the desire to politic and peacock?

[NERVUN]

What about a compromise and allowing a region tag to be used, something like "authored by members of Western Atlantic? Or some formula that isn't obtrusive but still fills the desire to politic and peacock?

I'd be interested in this.

Also, third in line to keep things from getting silly with Ambassador so-and-so's in them. Mostly because from my point of view, the GA is speaking to world legislation.

[Krioval]

I seem to remember the current rule arising from trying to determine who counted as a "co-author" once drafting was complete. An author might not want to leave out any significant participants, and in the case of a truly collaborative project, that might include several co-authors. Then again, it might indicate that everybody involved in drafting and revision, no matter how minor the contribution, wanted to be included as a co-author. Thus the new rule made it mandatory that only one individual could be singled out as a co-author, and as I recall, that was a compromise position - originally, the idea was to eliminate the co-author credit altogether.

I think that the rule works sufficiently as it is. At the same time, I think that a single co-author could ostensibly be a region or an RP group. Expanding to multiple co-authors would likely reintroduce the issues that the current rule was implemented to resolve.

[The Dark Star Republic]

At the very least, could the use of nation and region tags be allowed? The Branding rule was written before those tags existed. True, the nation tag causes the full name of nation, pretitle and all, to be included, so perhaps relax that aspect too. But it seems silly to have this arbitrary rule to prevent the use of a tag system presumably designed to be useful to players.

[Sedgistan]

The SC has extremely loose rules on branding, and doesn't have a problem with people trying to list 10 co-authors or anything of the sort, so the talk of "opening the floodgates" is silly. I don't see why GAers wouldn't be similarly sensible.

Branding should be a matter of personal preference for voters, not a serious rules violation that gets a proposal deleted. Mods shouldn't be enforcing silly little regulations like this.

[Snefaldia]

The SC has extremely loose rules on branding, and doesn't have a problem with people trying to list 10 co-authors or anything of the sort, so the talk of "opening the floodgates" is silly. I don't see why GAers wouldn't be similarly sensible.

Branding should be a matter of personal preference for voters, not a serious rules violation that gets a proposal deleted. Mods shouldn't be enforcing silly little regulations like this.

The point of this "silly little regulation" was to address a problem that was actually experienced, not a hypothetical Security Council test case. I think the WA has enough trouble as it is with absurd personal vengeances and faction politics poisoning perfectly acceptable legislation without us introducing a new way to stir the pot. I personally feel the rule was tightened too far, but that was long after the rule was actually introduced. Voters shouldn't be subjected to idiotic proposals that devote more time to listing titles and handing out Oscar acceptance devotionals because they aren't legislatively germane. The rules be designed to foster good legislation, not advance political grievances, and if that means an author has to make a hard choice between co-authors to list, or create a new region for the purpose of WA legislation, then so be it.

Additionally; voters will vote for anything if it makes it to the queue, and it's not a compelling argument to say "let the voters decide" or else we end up with crap like Max Barry Day, or even some of the ancient resolutions from the Old Days.

[Ardchoille]

I don't see why regions should "politic and peacock" in the GA's permanent record, which is what Resolutions are. GA Resolutions affect individual nations, not regions. Leave regional stuff to the SC's permanent record, since it's the SC that affects them. There's plenty of opportunity in drafting and in campaigning to pimp your region.

I'm not intrinsically opposed to changing the use of the nation tags, but I don't see any other practical way around avoiding pre-titles.

I'm not certain whether this is a valid concern: I don't know for sure, but it seems likely to me that, once a pretitle is changed, the tag that allows it to be seen will automatically show it as the new version. As pre-titles can be changed by the player, this would open the possiblility of something trolling or flaming being introduced once the Resolution had passed. I don't particularly want to see, say, The Ethical Society Act recorded as authored by The Kill All Feminist BItches of Respectabilia (known, during drafting, submission and voting, as The Eminent Philosophers of Respectabilia).

Sure, somebody would notice eventually and mods would kill the pre-title, but how long would it be on the GA's official records before that happened? (Not all that long, perhaps, if the Mod Olympians are online, but you get the picture.)

And do I really think somebody would be so petty as to try that sort of trick?

I've been hanging round the NSUN/GA since 2004. You bet I do.

[The Dark Star Republic]

And do I really think somebody would be so petty as to try that sort of trick?

I've been hanging round the NSUN/GA since 2004. You bet I do.

I think it's really great that this whole enterprise is beginning on such a solid foundation of trust and good faith.

[Snefaldia]

And do I really think somebody would be so petty as to try that sort of trick?

I've been hanging round the NSUN/GA since 2004. You bet I do.

I think it's really great that this whole enterprise is beginning on such a solid foundation of trust and good faith.

I don't think that's the way Ard intended that to come across, but I think it can be admitted it's an area that could be open to abuse the same way that flags are.

On that topic, though, how would using formatting tags affect the character limit? I guess this is more of a technical question and not strictly related to the branding rule.

[The Dark Star Republic]

I think it's really great that this whole enterprise is beginning on such a solid foundation of trust and good faith.

I don't think that's the way Ard intended that to come across, but I think it can be admitted it's an area that could be open to abuse the same way that flags are.

There is already a game rule against customisable field violations, including flags, national animals and currencies, unlockables, and pretitles. The WA proposal rules don't need to be a second line of defence against things that are already illegal, especially given the Grossly Offensive rule (which we're not allowed to discuss yet, admittedly) should provide them with enough discretion to take care of such things anyway.

On that topic, though, how would using formatting tags affect the character limit?

They don't count towards the character limit: Snefaldia would only count as 9 characters, for example.