[VOTE NOW-SUBMITTED] On Palm Oil

[Separatist Peoples]

"Right people, that's lunch. Lets go drink our calories in the Bar!"

[Bears Armed]

If they do plan to re-submit, then two points to consider for the sake of legality:

1/ As the clearance of rain-forest is to make way for growing Oil Palms rather than to acquire timber, and in fact the fires commonly used would actually destroy much of the timber so that it wouldn't even be available as a by-product, the classification under 'Logging' seems inappropriate. Bearing in mind the main uses of Palm Oil, I suggest that it should actually be classified under 'Manufacturing' instead.

2/ The large-scale uncontrolled (and smoke-producing) fires about which this proposal complains are already prohibited under GA Resolution #295: 'Prevention of Wildfires', thus (in my opinion) making the inclusion of that complaint in the proposal a case for the 'Honest Mistake' rule.

[Mousebumples]

2/ The large-scale uncontrolled (and smoke-producing) fires about which this proposal complains are already prohibited under GA Resolution #295: 'Prevention of Wildfires', thus (in my opinion) making the inclusion of that complaint in the proposal a case for the 'Honest Mistake' rule.

Quick note: Honest Mistake only applies to repeals.

[Losthaven]

Quick note: Honest Mistake only applies to repeals.

OOC: Really?

Honest Mistakes

This usually happens with Repeals. Someone will misread the Resolution and submit a Repeal that supports the Resolution, or tries to undo a Resolution because they think it does something it doesn't (Freedom of Marriage Act comes to mind...)

I always took the phrase "this usually happens with repeals" to mean "this usually happens in the context of repeals, but can also happen in resolution proposals." Otherwise, "this usually happens with repeals" suggests that "usually" repeals will contain this illegality, which I certainly hope is not the case (i.e. I hope that it is not the case that the most repeals are usually honest mistake violations).

In any case, I believe Bears Armed meant that it would be duplicative, though this is a good example of a minor duplication in a proposal that otherwise addresses a distinct issue. Unless he meant that it's an "honest mistake" to say that palm oil production can cause these wild fires because, legally, palm oil producers are already prohibited from causing such fires?

[Mousebumples]

Quick note: Honest Mistake only applies to repeals.

OOC: Really?

Honest Mistakes

This usually happens with Repeals. Someone will misread the Resolution and submit a Repeal that supports the Resolution, or tries to undo a Resolution because they think it does something it doesn't (Freedom of Marriage Act comes to mind...)

I always took the phrase "this usually happens with repeals" to mean "this usually happens in the context of repeals, but can also happen in resolution proposals." Otherwise, "this usually happens with repeals" suggests that "usually" repeals will contain this illegality, which I certainly hope is not the case (i.e. I hope that it is not the case that the most repeals are usually honest mistake violations).

In any case, I believe Bears Armed meant that it would be duplicative, though this is a good example of a minor duplication in a proposal that otherwise addresses a distinct issue. Unless he meant that it's an "honest mistake" to say that palm oil production can cause these wild fires because, legally, palm oil producers are already prohibited from causing such fires?

I suppose I should clarify my quick comment. I've never seen it happen with not a repeal. I didn't write the rules - and, honestly, I've never talked to Ard or Kryo or Hack or Fris or [insert other GA mod here] about what circumstances it would apply to a non-repeal.

My guess is that BA meant to say duplication - and perhaps due to an "honest mistake" of what was covered in the other resolution. I don't think that the duplication here was sufficient enough to doom this proposal on those grounds - after all, we've allowed minor duplication in the past, and I know I've used that "exception" to reassert important rights (*for example) in a Human Rights proposal, in the event that the other resolution that references XYZ right is ever repealed.

Hope that makes more sense ...

[Ardchoille]

Re the Honest Mistake violation: I read it as applying to any proposal, ie, Losthaven's interpretation. It's more often applied to Repeals, and more often than not it arises when players have some doubt about the "Honest" part. I have applied it to proposals for a Resolution when a player, misreading the meaning of an existing Resolution, painstakingly writes and submits a new proposal that will fill the gap only he sees (often these fail under Duplication or Contradiction, rather than HM, but the occasional one does show up).

I also use it when the mistake is something a newbie really could not be expected to know, such as the existence of a law that prevents the GA from directly taxing individual citizens (I can't call to mind an example, but I suspect that if newcomer tried to institute a GA lottery with a specific purpose, such as to support a healthcare project, Honest Mistake might apply, depending, of course, on the wording.)

Finally, I'll occasionally write Honest Mistake in the fiddly little Mod Centre panel we have to fill in for every proposal removed. What I actually mean by it then is, "This player made a damn good attempt at writing a legal proposal, and I don't think he should be treated the same way we treat the "three strikes, you're out" people who commit bright-line violations because they obviously haven't read the Proposal Rules, so I'm using mod discretion here to avoid adding an "illegal proposal" hit to his tally, and have sent him a TG explaining it in detail, because it looks like he will catch on fast and become an ornament to the GA" -- but, amazingly, that doesn't really fit in the fiddly little panel. (Previously, we just didn't record anything for proposals that were good tries, which is why players who've been around for a long time may not have any illegalities recorded, despite their occasional fumbles while they were learning the ropes.)

As to duplication, Mouse is right that we have allowed mild duplication: in the example she suggested, if the player briefly re-states a principle to protect the basis of their law against a repeal of an earlier Resolution; also, where the essence of the proposal is something new or particular (most often, these relate to CoCR). That's where preambulatory clauses can come into their own. Explaining the reasoning behind a proposal can help clarify what it's getting at, even though they don't have legislative effect -- like the recent query attempting to extend a law on nuclear weapons to all weapons, on the ground that one clause didn't have the word "nuclear" in front of the word "weapons". SInce every other clause, including the prefatory ones, had "nuclear" in it, mods concluded that the author meant nuclear weapons.

Of course the sort of mistake that ends up being deemed Honest would be pointed out to a newbie if (a) he posted a proposal to the forum before submitting (b) anybody with some knowledge of the GA rules read his thread (c) said "anybody" felt strongly enough about decent proposals to contact the mods if the player seemed disinclined to believe or understand Anybody's "don't do it" argument -- Q&A would probably be the quickest way to go (d) said "anybody" wasn't perfectly happy to see the player get dinged for an illegal proposal.

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As to the proposal under discussion, my opinion as a player is that I agree with everybody who's said that it would have been better if it had been extended to a more generalised, international purpose (but then I think it would have run head-on into duplication). Players generally RP a WA Resolution as an outline or principle for their own nation's laws. Obviously there's no way of knowing how many voted against because it wasn't sufficiently international, and how many because they were satisfied with the coverage offered by GA#295, but when a legality question could go either way, mods tend to toss it back into the laps of the voters.

tl;dr: I agree with the voters.