The Branding Rule

[Excidium Planetis]

Because recognizing someone's assistance can very easily be done on the forums, where anyone can see it.

Not everyone goes on the forums, or even bother to read them if they do go on, as evidenced by the people who make comments that make it clear they did not read any of the resolution.

Inserting a co-author's name into the actual text of the resolution places an unwanted emphasis on getting recognition. All you have to do is read Unibot's claims that getting a co-authorship plug is like bathing in a pool of pure white marmoreal ecstasy and you'll see that their only purpose is to garner even more recognition for passing a resolution. Glory shouldn't be the purpose of participating in the GA, and any prospective "co-author" should only be contributing to a resolution to improve the resolution, not to get their name plastered in front of 20,000 strangers.

What if you want to give attention to someone who is not seeking it? A recognition of the efforts of a humble person is not allowed?

The WA is not a legislature. It's an international body that passes resolutions, like the RL UN. And the real world General Assembly does not present co-authors in the text of resolutions.

A legislature is the law-making body of a political unit, usually a national government, that has power to enact, amend, and repeal public policy.

It is an international legislature that enacts and repeals international laws.

What? Why? Assuming that 99% of voters actually did care about who wrote the resolution (they don't), I don't see why knowing who co-authored the resolution should in any way impact their decision.

You just make it more clear than ever that you are do nothing more than badge hunting. You can't even stick to a single topic. I will say this now: Any proposal submitted by you, I will actively campaign against just to ensure you don't get that badge you want so bad.

There's one example. I know I wouldn't vote for a resolution written by someone I hated. Some people might be adverse to voting for a resolution written by a condemned player.

[The Dark Star Republic]

I know I wouldn't vote for a resolution written by someone I hated.

That attitude sums up about 75% of what is wrong with the modern WA.

Some people might be adverse to voting for a resolution written by a condemned player.

Condemnations don't have anything to do with the GA.

[Sciongrad]

It is an international legislature that enacts and repeals international laws.

The WA is not a legislature. By definition, a legislature is the legislative body of a country or state. The WA is a parallel of the real world UN, which does not include co-authors in the text of resolutions.

There's one example. I know I wouldn't vote for a resolution written by someone I hated. Some people might be adverse to voting for a resolution written by a condemned player.

Is this... satire? Or are you serious? Because this is exactly the type of attitude that we shouldn't be striving for.

[Kaboomlandia]

It is an international legislature that enacts and repeals international laws.

The WA is not a legislature. By definition, a legislature is the legislative body of a country or state. The WA is a parallel of the real world UN, which does not include co-authors in the text of resolutions.

The RL UN has sponsors instead (I know, I've been in Model UN).

[Excidium Planetis]

I know I wouldn't vote for a resolution written by someone I hated.

That attitude sums up about 75% of what is wrong with the modern WA.

And this is wrong why?

Some people might be adverse to voting for a resolution written by a condemned player.

Condemnations don't have anything to do with the GA.

So? People can still refuse to vote for GA resolutions written by condemned players, either for personal or RP reasons. Why would a nation approve of legislation written by the ambassador of an international menace?

[Old Hope]

We could merge this with Real World violations:

Single World violations
No references to any imagined or real individual, type of species,specific locations,specific nations,including Nation States nations, or anything else like that.
New York, the Earth, your nation's leader, the national animal of any nation.. they have no place in the WA. The WA is for general legislation, not specific micromanagement for your nation. It is appropiate to use general terms like desert, animal, predatory animal, the World, religion, aggressive insects,number, language...

[The Dark Star Republic]

That attitude sums up about 75% of what is wrong with the modern WA.

And this is wrong why?

Because there's no point to the game if the resolution is irrelevant and the only concern is whether the submitting nation is allowed to sit at the cool kids' table.

So? People can still refuse to vote for GA resolutions written by condemned players, either for personal or RP reasons. Why would a nation approve of legislation written by the ambassador of an international menace?

First, let's not pretend the WA has a strong enough RP culture to support that sentiment. The very quote you were citing was OOC bitching from one of (many) WA players who so routinely conflates IC and OOC that it's impossible to tell the difference.

Second - because they agreed with the resolution? The RL UN GA resolution I cited earlier had 175 co-sponsors. Do you suppose all 175 of those nations are on great chummy terms?

[Excidium Planetis]

It is an international legislature that enacts and repeals international laws.

The WA is not a legislature. By definition, a legislature is the legislative body of a country or state. The WA is a parallel of the real world UN, which does not include co-authors in the text of resolutions.

Not in the definition I quoted. The RL UN also doesn't have space-faring nations, and yet here I am in the WA.

There's one example. I know I wouldn't vote for a resolution written by someone I hated. Some people might be adverse to voting for a resolution written by a condemned player.

Is this... satire? Or are you serious? Because this is exactly the type of attitude that we shouldn't be striving for.

Why should my nation approve of the legislation our sworn enemies wrote?

[Excidium Planetis]

And this is wrong why?

Because there's no point to the game if the resolution is irrelevant and the only concern is whether the submitting nation is allowed to sit at the cool kids' table.

There's no point to the game, period.

So? People can still refuse to vote for GA resolutions written by condemned players, either for personal or RP reasons. Why would a nation approve of legislation written by the ambassador of an international menace?

First, let's not pretend the WA has a strong enough RP culture to support that sentiment. The very quote you were citing was OOC bitching from one of (many) WA players who so routinely conflates IC and OOC that it's impossible to tell the difference.

Second - because they agreed with the resolution? The RL UN GA resolution I cited earlier had 175 co-sponsors. Do you suppose all 175 of those nations are on great chummy terms?

1) Other people's RP does not affect anyone but themselves. If Some nations want to RP not approving of legislation written by people they don't like IC, why do you have an issue with it?
2) Sometimes. But do you believe Israel would support legislation proposed by an Iranian? And vice versa?

[Sciongrad]

Not in the definition I quoted. The RL UN also doesn't have space-faring nations, and yet here I am in the WA.

How can you appeal to real world institutions as a justification for something while simultaneously dismissing real world examples for another? You're saying that because RL legislatures use coauthors, so too should the GA, yet the real world GA, which doesn't use coauthors, isn't a proper example? But even then, the RL UN and the WA are not legislatures. Passing policy does not a legislature make. And arguing that the existence of space-fairing nations somehow precludes the WA from being considered a parallel to the RL UN doesn't make any sense. There's no relationship between what type of member nations comprise the WA and whether or not it can be considered a similar institution, functionally, to the RL UN.

Why should my nation approve of the legislation our sworn enemies wrote?

Because you're not voting on resolutions based on who the author is! That's the point I'm trying to make. This game is about legislation and policy and debating, not who you like and who you don't and who's got the most resolutions and which authors everybody knows.

[Excidium Planetis]

We could merge this with Real World violations:

Single World violations
No references to any imagined or real individual, type of species,specific locations,specific nations,including Nation States nations, or anything else like that.
New York, the Earth, your nation's leader, the national animal of any nation.. they have no place in the WA. The WA is for general legislation, not specific micromanagement for your nation. It is appropiate to use general terms like desert, animal, predatory animal, the World, religion, aggressive insects,number, language...

What does this have to do with branding?

[Flibbleites]

Because recognizing someone's assistance can very easily be done on the forums, where anyone can see it.

Not everyone goes on the forums, or even bother to read them if they do go on, as evidenced by the people who make comments that make it clear they did not read any of the resolution.

And if someone hasn't read the text of a resolution then they're not going to have seen a co-author credit listed there either, now are they?

The WA is not a legislature. By definition, a legislature is the legislative body of a country or state. The WA is a parallel of the real world UN, which does not include co-authors in the text of resolutions.

The RL UN has sponsors instead (I know, I've been in Model UN).

Because the last time we modeled something after the UN worked out so well for us.

[The Dark Star Republic]

1) Other people's RP does not affect anyone but themselves. If Some nations want to RP not approving of legislation written by people they don't like IC, why do you have an issue with it?

I don't, I'm talking about OOC statements: the statement you linked was OOC, after all!

2) Sometimes. But do you believe Israel would support legislation proposed by an Iranian? And vice versa?

Both of those nations did co-sponsor the resolution I linked earlier, yes.

[Old Hope]

We could merge this with Real World violations:

What does this have to do with branding?

The bold parts do.

Single World violations
No references to any imagined or real individual, type of species,specific locations,specific nations,including Nation States nations, or anything else like that.
New York, the Earth, your nation's leader, the national animal of any nation.. they have no place in the WA. The WA is for general legislation, not specific micromanagement for your nation. It is appropiate to use general terms like desert, animal, predatory animal, the World, religion, aggressive insects,number, language...

[Excidium Planetis]

Not in the definition I quoted. The RL UN also doesn't have space-faring nations, and yet here I am in the WA.

How can you appeal to real world institutions as a justification for something while simultaneously dismissing real world examples for another? You're saying that because RL legislatures use coauthors, so too should the GA, yet the real world GA, which doesn't use coauthors, isn't a proper example? The RL UN and the WA are not legislatures. Passing policy does not a legislature make. And arguing that the existence of space-fairing nations somehow precludes the WA from being a parallel to the RL UN doesn't make any sense. There's no relationship between what type of member nations comprise the WA and whether or not it can be consider a similar institution, functionally, to the RL UN.

A legislature is the law-making body of a political unit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislature

An officially elected or otherwise selected body of people vested with the responsibility and power to make laws for a political unit

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

a body of persons vested with power to make, amend, and repeal laws.

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003

a body of persons elected or invested with the power to make laws,

Dictionary of Collective Nouns and Group Terms. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

a group of people with the power to make or change laws

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/legislature

A legislature is a governing body that makes laws and can also amend or repeal them.

http://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/legislature

I'm pretty sure all these dictionaries can't be wrong. The WA is a governing body with the power to make or change laws.

Why should my nation approve of the legislation our sworn enemies wrote?

Because you're not voting on resolutions based on who the author is! That's the point I'm trying to make. This game is about legislation and policy and debating, not not who you like and who's got the most resolutions and which authors everybody knows and which ones you don't like.[/quote]
It is the Policy of Excidium Planetis not to support legislation written by lying scum.

[Sciongrad]

I'm pretty sure all these dictionaries can't be wrong. The WA is a governing body with the power to make or change laws.

So is a bureaucracy, which is not a legislature. Although you've conveniently chosen to sweep the gaping logical inconsistencies in your argument under the sofa, so I don't know how continuing this banter could be constructive.

[Kaboomlandia]

The RL UN has sponsors instead (I know, I've been in Model UN).

Because the last time we modeled something after the UN worked out so well for us.

Just stating what the UN does in comparison to the WA...

/threadjack

[The Dark Star Republic]

Just stating what the UN does in comparison to the WA...

But you're not. As I already pointed out, sponsors and co-sponsors aren't listed in the text of UN GA resolutions.

[Kaboomlandia]

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

I am of the opinion too.

It's a bit stupid throwing out what's here just to let new players try. They have plenty of opportunity to do stuff here, they just have to find an angle which is palatable to do so.

Agreed. The organization-which-must-not-be-named was only finally disbanded because of copyright infringement. There's a lot of history in these hallowed halls.

Whilst I've only a single GA resolution on the books to date, I've probably about 20+ drafts in these forums. The experience has been fun, from seeing how Radiowaves and Microwaves Act fell flat on its face, blocking the floor for some useful purpose then by 8 days by having votes on "Universal Suffrage Act" and "Moratorium on Animal Testing", seeing other scary things happening like the closeness of votes in things like Auralia's "Repeal "On Abortion"" or how my "Right to Adequate Sanitation" was failing at first and then the tides changed due to McMasterdonia's and TNP's voting, or how "Ban of Perfidy in Warfare" failed miserably but ushered in a new era of Separatist People's war proposals.

I am of the opinion that getting stuff to quorum should be the real accomplishment, not necessarily getting stuff passed. It's pretty difficult to convince 51% of 22,222 members to vote FOR, especially with the so-called "lemming effect".

If passing is the premise on which "opportunities are given on", that idea must be knocked out of people's heads. The GA game has always been on "very hard" mode, and it should not be turned down to "easy" just because of non-existent newbies (these forums are getting quieter by the day). If there's any changes it will be up to players - who will then realise that chunky widesweeping resolutions should be repealed for more minutely and intricately written pieces.

Agreed. It shouldn't be easy to pass a resolution. I also agree that the large, chunky blockers (I'm looking at you, GAR #34) should go.

It should never be an objective to pass legislation in these places, in my opinion. More emphasis should be to the drafting method and trying to work with people and work-like politics here, which makes this place interesting than say, plain raiding founderless regions. The fun is in the process itself, like how true blue raiders are - they raid for fun, and not for the endresult of changing WFEs because they always get changed back.

See, and this is what I get bashed over. I'm for just removing the authorship badges altogether - they create too much of a class distinction.

---

Back to branding. I'm still more convinced that the one-nation rule is sufficient.

How about a Nobel Prize-like compromise? At most two nations listed, alongside the submitter which makes three (max for Nobel Prize-sharing). I sometimes wished to add Eireann Fae to "Right to Adequate Sanitation"'s contributions list.

It could look something like:

Proposed by: Maxtopia (contributed to by Bigtopia and Brasilistan)

[Excidium Planetis]

I'm pretty sure all these dictionaries can't be wrong. The WA is a governing body with the power to make or change laws.

So is a bureaucracy, which is not a legislature. Although you've conveniently chosen to sweep the gaping logical inconsistencies in your argument under the sofa, so I don't know how continuing this banter could be constructive.

A rhombus (bureaucracy) has four sides (can make laws), doesn't mean a Square (the WA) isn't a rectangle (a legislature).

What logical inconsistencies? I'm saying that co-authoring is something that exists in real life. Are you saying that isn't true? Just because it doesn't exist in the UN doesn't mean the WA can't have it, since the WA =/= the UN.

[Sciongrad]

A rhombus (bureaucracy) has four sides (can make laws), doesn't mean a Square (the WA) isn't a rectangle (a legislature).

This is illogical. You stated that the WA is a legislature because it formulates policies. Rule making bureaucracies are also policymakers, therefore, they too should be legislatures, right? But they're not. And neither is the WA. And intellectually absurd comparisons like this one (which doesn't even make sense) don't make your argument any more correct.

What logical inconsistencies? I'm saying that co-authoring is something that exists in real life. Are you saying that isn't true? Just because it doesn't exist in the UN doesn't mean the WA can't have it, since the WA =/= the UN.

No, you can't have it both ways. You can't say that because the WA is like a real world legislature it should use coauthors while at the same time refusing to acknowledge that the real world analogous institution does not. But you either can't understand that or don't care to, so I'm not going to continue this acrimony.

[Excidium Planetis]

A rhombus (bureaucracy) has four sides (can make laws), doesn't mean a Square (the WA) isn't a rectangle (a legislature).

This is illogical. You stated that the WA is a legislature because it formulates policies. Rule making bureaucracies are also policymakers, therefore, they too should be legislatures, right? But they're not. And neither is the WA. And intellectually absurd comparisons like this one (which doesn't even make sense) don't make your argument any more correct.

The WA fits every definition of legislature I could find. Are you saying it is not a legislature? Do you have a better definition?

What logical inconsistencies? I'm saying that co-authoring is something that exists in real life. Are you saying that isn't true? Just because it doesn't exist in the UN doesn't mean the WA can't have it, since the WA =/= the UN.

No, you can't have it both ways. You can't say that because the WA is like a real world legislature it should use coauthors while at the same time refusing to acknowledge that the real world analogous institution does not. But you either can't understand that or don't care to, so I'm not going to continue this acrimony.

But as I pointed out, the UN and WA are not the same. They don't have to be exactly the same. If the UN doesn't have something, that's not a reason the WA shouldn't have it.
For the same reason, just because the real world does have something doesn't mean the WA should have it either. But it is good reason for the WA to have it. And at any rate I never said the WA should have co-authors because real world legislatures do. I simply asked why you intend to do away with something that does exist in real life.

[Bears Armed]

Option '2a' if technically feasible, otherwise option '3' (with two co-authors allowed as well as the submitting author).

I think that having credit for our work that we can point people to in the resolutions themselves (rather than just in the forum) is potentially useful for establishing our credibility when lobbying for later proposals, which might not matter so much for those of you who use stamps or scripts to contact all of the delegates but could be helpful for those of urrs who still rely on manual TG campaigns targeting a smaller proportion of the delegates instead.

[Sierra Lyricalia]

...do you believe Israel would support legislation proposed by an Iranian? And vice versa?

If you honestly think that's a real argument, then I'd ask you to explain precisely what you think the fucking point of diplomacy even is. You assume it's reasonable to vote against a proposal without even a thought as to its contents or merits? Then why are you wasting time with words when missiles speak so much louder? Yes, I know some politicians really feel that way IRL, but I'm not here to shout at a flood of deaf screamers, I'm here to try to reason out some common legislation for the good of disparate and varied actors. Step one in that process is realizing the idea is more important than its author. If you can't separate the proposal from the proposer, all you're doing is playing cliques. Hope you have fun with that - outside of the GA.

Thank you for helping me distill my views. In order, I'd say I prefer:

- option 5 (if that's on the table; it seems to be compatible with 2a);
- option 1

[Excidium Planetis]

...do you believe Israel would support legislation proposed by an Iranian? And vice versa?

If you honestly think that's a real argument, then I'd ask you to explain precisely what you think the fucking point of diplomacy even is. You assume it's reasonable to vote against a proposal without even a thought as to its contents or merits? Then why are you wasting time with words when missiles speak so much louder? Yes, I know some politicians really feel that way IRL, but I'm not here to shout at a flood of deaf screamers, I'm here to try to reason out some common legislation for the good of disparate and varied actors. Step one in that process is realizing the idea is more important than its author. If you can't separate the proposal from the proposer, all you're doing is playing cliques. Hope you have fun with that - outside of the GA.

Thank you for helping me distill my views. In order, I'd say I prefer:

- option 5 (if that's on the table; it seems to be compatible with 2a);
- option 1

1) Rational thinking is not always present in ambassadors. If I want to realistically RP an ambassador, there'd have to be some rather personal votes, wouldn't there?
2) If an opponent's name makes it on a celebrated resolution, that gains fame and respect for their nation/ambassador, something that we might not want. Would we really want genocidal dictators to become commended for their WA resolutions? We have good reason to try and deny positive recognition for people we fundamentally disagree with.
3) The name of someone we don't like may indicate (whether true or not) that there is ulterior motive behind the bill. For example, if a warmongering menace is trying to pass a resolution for disarmament, it might indicate that the purpose is not to achieve world peace, but rather to limit the ability of their victims to defend themselves from attack.