The Branding Rule

[Snefaldia]

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.

That's a good point, I hadn't considered that.

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

Ok, so how about the pretitle tag? Would the pretitle length fluctuate and affect the character count?

I've just had a thought; this involves coding so maybe not quite germane, but implementing a field for co-authors would obviate the need for this rule.

[Mousebumples]

Technical question: could the proposal/resolution pages be coded to automatically use the nation=short coding (similar to the author listing) to simplify coding while minimizing the need to police pretitles?

If so,, is that desirable? Do those in favor of allowing pretitles want them for the pretitles themselves or for simplicity?

[The Dark Star Republic]

Ok, so how about the pretitle tag? Would the pretitle length fluctuate and affect the character count?

Interesting - it does!

Formatting tags don't contribute to character count. But the output does. So I was wrong* before: Snefaldia doesn't count for 9 characters, it counts for 34, because it outputs as The States-Federation of Snefaldia. To avoid that, you'd have to mandate use of the short nation tag, which would defeat the whole point.

* I'd forgotten that

Code: Select all

[nation]Snefaldia[/nation]

doesn't include the pretitle on the forum, but does in the proposal body text. I don't know the reason for that discrepancy.

Technical question: could the proposal/resolution pages be coded to automatically use the nation=short coding (similar to the author listing) to simplify coding while minimizing the need to police pretitles?

If so,, is that desirable? Do those in favor of allowing pretitles want them for the pretitles themselves or for simplicity?

Just for simplicity. It's crazy that the proposal submission page includes the nation and region tags among the allowed formatting tags, but then the proposal rules don't allow those tags to be used.

[Bears Armed]

I have seen cases where naming two or three co-authors would genuinely have been accurate, and would favour allowing that although perhaps requiring pre-approval by a Mod who could check the appropriateness.

[Glen-Rhodes]

I think I suggested this before a while ago, but the best solution to me is for fields to be added for coauthors, who can approve of being listed as a coauthor.

If nothing else, I do think we need to do away with the interpretation that players can't create a "workgroup" nation to submit their proposals.

[Snefaldia]

I have seen cases where naming two or three co-authors would genuinely have been accurate, and would favour allowing that although perhaps requiring pre-approval by a Mod who could check the appropriateness.

I don't think we need to add another area for the Mods to evaluate a proposal.

I think I suggested this before a while ago, but the best solution to me is for fields to be added for coauthors, who can approve of being listed as a coauthor.

If nothing else, I do think we need to do away with the interpretation that players can't create a "workgroup" nation to submit their proposals.

Is that an official interpretation? I thought there was just controversy about the whole WA Working Group nation thing. I think I even remember drafting groups using designated nations for group efforts way back in the NSUN days, but I could be confusing that with ACCEL just using a common moniker for their legislation.

A thought occurs though, if there is a separate field for co-authorship independent of the text, there would still need to be some guidelines about what's acceptable, right?

[Glen-Rhodes]

If it's an additional field, I don't think many limits are needed. If you have 10 coauthors, then 8 of them can be shown "below the fold" like we do with endorsements.

As for the workgroup ruling, as far as I know, the rule is interpreted to mean that that's not allowed. Mods can correct me if I'm wrong there.

[Omigodtheykilledkenny]

Is that an official interpretation? I thought there was just controversy about the whole WA Working Group nation thing. I think I even remember drafting groups using designated nations for group efforts way back in the NSUN days, but I could be confusing that with ACCEL just using a common moniker for their legislation.

Yes, that's why the "group-nation" rule was created; people like ACCEL were constantly using puppets like "The members of ACCEL" to get around the one-nation-only branding rule. It closed the loophole shut. (For the record, inasmuch as this rule prevents region-pimping and alliance-pimping, for me it's fine.)

That said, I have suggested adding a new "co-author" field in the past, and if it would help solve problems with this rule - and to be clear, I never knew there was a serious problem - then fine. Citing ten nations is overdoing though. Five is too many.

[Omigodtheykilledkenny]

I have seen cases where naming two or three co-authors would genuinely have been accurate, and would favour allowing that although perhaps requiring pre-approval by a Mod who could check the appropriateness.

You do realize, the more co-authors you add, the more likely it is that one of them could have the proposal pulled (which has happened before - if people don't want their name on a proposal, they shouldn't have to)? Sticking with one co-author you can trust not to burn you is just common sense.

[Frisbeeteria]

I'm entirely in favor of adding co-author fields and eliminating all branding in the text of the proposal. We would necessarily leave the Branding rule in place to prevent the concerns I had here, but trim it of the co-author portions.

A major point on adding co-author fields is that this wouldn't be a moderator decision. This would require code, and the more complex you make the system, the less likely implementation becomes.

[Elke and Elba]

I'm entirely in favor of adding co-author fields and eliminating all branding in the text of the proposal. We would necessarily leave the Branding rule in place to prevent the concerns I had here, but trim it of the co-author portions.

A major point on adding co-author fields is that this wouldn't be a moderator decision. This would require code, and the more complex you make the system, the less likely implementation becomes.

Can't we leave the system as it be now? We have now submitters that aren't authors and co-authors that are actually authors (one regarding St Edmund I believe), or with euphemistic language (my "significant contributions" one because Sciongrad initially didn't wanted to be listed).

We kinda know that it takes 71344314424456426130984 years to get something coded in. Given the backlog of the R/D summit coding, I don't think there's a need to create a big trouble to solve what's seemingly a very small problem in this case.

[Unibot III]

I have seen cases where naming two or three co-authors would genuinely have been accurate, and would favour allowing that although perhaps requiring pre-approval by a Mod who could check the appropriateness.

I don't think we need to add another area for the Mods to evaluate a proposal.

I think I suggested this before a while ago, but the best solution to me is for fields to be added for coauthors, who can approve of being listed as a coauthor.

If nothing else, I do think we need to do away with the interpretation that players can't create a "workgroup" nation to submit their proposals.

Is that an official interpretation? I thought there was just controversy about the whole WA Working Group nation thing. I think I even remember drafting groups using designated nations for group efforts way back in the NSUN days, but I could be confusing that with ACCEL just using a common moniker for their legislation.

A thought occurs though, if there is a separate field for co-authorship independent of the text, there would still need to be some guidelines about what's acceptable, right?

ACCEL would not legally be able to submit legislation as ACCEL anymore. There was an attempt by moderators more recently to block regions from submitting proposals as work-groups, which seriously undermines WA Ministries in regions, because they could no longer attribute resolutions to their regions. I believe Osiris and Europeia and maybe TNP tried to do it, and TSP definitely did with "Commend Fudgetopia".

I know in TRR's case, our WA Committee has never gotten off the ground, partly because we know the WA's ruleset discourages work-groups - instead we've focused on NS Issues, because there isn't a rule preventing regional workgroups from submitting proposals there. We would never be able to get anything attributed to us in the GA if we did pass something under the current ruleset, so it's a bit of a lost cause.

[Unibot III]

I have seen cases where naming two or three co-authors would genuinely have been accurate, and would favour allowing that although perhaps requiring pre-approval by a Mod who could check the appropriateness.

You do realize, the more co-authors you add, the more likely it is that one of them could have the proposal pulled (which has happened before - if people don't want their name on a proposal, they shouldn't have to)? Sticking with one co-author you can trust not to burn you is just common sense.

On the contrary, the less co-authors you add, the more likely a resolution can be pulled for plagiarism if a resolution was legitimately the work of multiple authors.

I can think of at least one draft that was an amalgamation of three authors' separate works - one of those authors by virtue of this silly rule was forced to remain silent about the plagiarism in the amalgamation because it was not legal for him to be attributed as a co-author. He could have killed the resolution at any time by reporting the resolution for plagiarism.

Just for simplicity. It's crazy that the proposal submission page includes the nation and region tags among the allowed formatting tags, but then the proposal rules don't allow those tags to be used.

It's not really crazy, per se. The SC uses a different rule set - the [nation] is allowed in the WASC - and I don't think the SC would be happy with its proposal system being more restricted to come into harmonisation with the GA, when few in the SC like the GA's ruleset on branding.

[Ainocra]

I think the Branding rules are fine as is, I do like the suggestion of a co author slot in the forms though.

[Kaboomlandia]

I think the Branding rules are fine as is, I do like the suggestion of a co author slot in the forms though.

Wouldn't that require re-coding all resolutions with a co-author, or would that only apply from this point on?

[Ainocra]

Depending on how widespread this overhaul is we may be looking at a second coming of the implosion of all law.

I would think it would only apply going forward, just add a field on the short form.

[Frisbeeteria]

Wouldn't that require re-coding all resolutions with a co-author, or would that only apply from this point on?

It would not require recoding past resolutions. I'm quite certain that "this point on" would work.

That said, it's been 7 years since we tossed out the baby with the bathwater. Max may have said "never again!" but we haven't pestered him lately on that subject. Revisiting the way proposals are written could just be a golden opportunity to toss the whole mess out and start over.

[Flibbleites]

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.

The Nation tag is allowed as long as it's the short version. And now, I'll ask this question again since it seems to have been ignored the first time I asked it. Why should the co-author get their pre-title on the proposal, when the author doesn't.

[Ainocra]

I'm with Flib, no pre titles

[Glen-Rhodes]

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.

The Nation tag is allowed as long as it's the short version. And now, I'll ask this question again since it seems to have been ignored the first time I asked it. Why should the co-author get their pre-title on the proposal, when the author doesn't.

The author doesn't get a pretitle because the nation bbCode was created way after the UN/WA page was coded, not because there was a specific decision made that authors don't get pretitles.

So we could just as easily ask, "Why don't authors get pretitles?" But, really, given that there's no specific reason other than that the UN/WA page hasn't been recoded in a long time, the better question is, "Well, why shouldn't they?"

[The Dark Star Republic]

Wouldn't that require re-coding all resolutions with a co-author, or would that only apply from this point on?

It would not require recoding past resolutions. I'm quite certain that "this point on" would work.

That said, it's been 7 years since we tossed out the baby with the bathwater. Max may have said "never again!" but we haven't pestered him lately on that subject. Revisiting the way proposals are written could just be a golden opportunity to toss the whole mess out and start over.

Hold on. Max himself told the players:

<@MaxBarry> I would never do another reset like that
...
<@MaxBarry> But I would want to allow new ways of dealing with what we have, rather than throwing it all out and saying, "Okay, go!"

It would totally undermine faith in the site administration for the moderators to go back on the word of the site creator.

[Glen-Rhodes]

Eh, different times. We shouldn't rule it out. Creative destruction and all. But that's really a completely different discussion than changing the rules.

[The Dark Star Republic]

We shouldn't rule it out.

The person whose game this is ruled it out. No more needs be said.

But that's really a completely different discussion than changing the rules.

If that's on the table, nothing else is worth discussing.

[Mallorea and Riva]

Let's focus on branding in this thread. Musings aside here in this thread there haven't been any other talks about a reset that I'm aware of.

[Bears Armed]

If that's on the table, nothing else is worth discussing.

Agreed. If all of our work is thrown out again,"to give new authors more opportunity", then I for one will be resigning from & subsequently ignoring the WA -- rather than trying to get my existing resolutions replaced -- to leave it for those new authors, and so there'd be no point in me commenting any further in these discussions