[DISCUSSION] When to use the Discard function?

[Mallorea and Riva]

I previously argued (with Mallorea, who has since rather conveniently completely changed his position) against this idea of repeals being held to a different standard than substantive resolutions. Repeals aren't held to a higher standard of legality before they go to vote, so they shouldn't be held to a higher standard after going to vote.

I was clarifying Ard's position in that post, not arguing my own opinion of how the discard function ought to be used.

[Separatist Peoples]

Repeals can't be repealed, but resolutions cannot be repealed based on their supposed illegalities, because they are de jure legal upon their success. Dealing with a passed illegal proposal is just as obnoxious as dealing with a passed illegal repeal. There's no reason to treat them differently.

Would it help if we changed that rule regarding dealing with illegally passed proposals?

That's a little too little too late, as it were. Besides, what happens when repeal efforts on a proposal that is admitted to be illegal by the mods doesn't succeed? Wheres that fall in terms of IC compliance or RP continuity? If I passed a law banning Widgets, in contravention of all existing legislation on the matter, and it was ruled illegal but failed to be insta-repealed, would it be illegal to contradict or duplicate that law? How would it affect the legality of future legislation?

I think an ounce of prevention goes further in this instance.

[Mallorea and Riva]

Would it help if we changed that rule regarding dealing with illegally passed proposals?

That's a little too little too late, as it were. Besides, what happens when repeal efforts on a proposal that is admitted to be illegal by the mods doesn't succeed? Wheres that fall in terms of IC compliance or RP continuity? If I passed a law banning Widgets, in contravention of all existing legislation on the matter, and it was ruled illegal but failed to be insta-repealed, would it be illegal to contradict or duplicate that law? How would it affect the legality of future legislation?

I think an ounce of prevention goes further in this instance.

*nods* Fair enough.

[The Dark Star Republic]

Repeals can't be repealed, but resolutions cannot be repealed based on their supposed illegalities, because they are de jure legal upon their success. Dealing with a passed illegal proposal is just as obnoxious as dealing with a passed illegal repeal. There's no reason to treat them differently.

Would it help if we changed that rule regarding dealing with illegally passed proposals?

Won't that just lead to even more rules lawyering? Especially given you seem to have relaxed the Honest Mistake rule,* it could just lead to anyone submitting a repeal and claiming a resolution is illegal so as to repeal it on spurious grounds. Given you're trying to prevent resolutions being wrongly repealed that would seem utterly counterintuitive.

Repeals are not treated any differently to proposals before they go to vote in terms of determining whether or not they should be deleted. They shouldn't be treated after going to vote in terms of whether they're discarded.

* the status of this is still totally unclear to me, but I accept it's not the subject of this thread

[Knootoss]

Anything but option #1 would just make things more complicated. The rules are the rules. The focus ought instead to be on how the rules can be simplified so the moderation staff has less trouble enforcing the rules and people have less trouble understanding them.

[Sedgistan]

Regarding GA/SC, the discussion here is obviously on the GA - but the same arguments apply in the SC, and we'd probably want to keep things consistent there.

This argument makes the most sense to me:

Anything but option #1 would just make things more complicated. The rules are the rules. The focus ought instead to be on how the rules can be simplified so the moderation staff has less trouble enforcing the rules and people have less trouble understanding them.

I get that we don't really want to be discarding proposals for minor errors (such as a branding violation by using the wrong nation tag) - it's a big confusing waste of everyone's time to vote on them for 4 days, but to me when we're at the stage of saying "it doesn't really matter all that much if we pass a proposal with X in it", you have to wonder if it's even worth having X against the rules.

[Mousebumples]

Question to ask the techies later (I.e. when I'm not on my phone) - is it possible to change how the discard function works so that voting ends at the next update, if a resolution is discarded?

Question to the players now: If that's possible, is it preferable? I know I had times where I'd time out the at vote (minor versus major) to work best for (large vote delegate) who was likely to stack in favor early, so I can see the downside. Still, not wasting 4 days voting when the votes will be discarded anyhow seems worth considering.

[Sanctaria]

Option 1 seems to me to be the most sensible. If it's illegal, in any way, toss it.

[Elke and Elba]

Regarding GA/SC, the discussion here is obviously on the GA - but the same arguments apply in the SC, and we'd probably want to keep things consistent there.

This argument makes the most sense to me:

Anything but option #1 would just make things more complicated. The rules are the rules. The focus ought instead to be on how the rules can be simplified so the moderation staff has less trouble enforcing the rules and people have less trouble understanding them.

I get that we don't really want to be discarding proposals for minor errors (such as a branding violation by using the wrong nation tag) - it's a big confusing waste of everyone's time to vote on them for 4 days, but to me when we're at the stage of saying "it doesn't really matter all that much if we pass a proposal with X in it", you have to wonder if it's even worth having X against the rules.

Precisely Sedge. I must say it has been an utter pain to read through proposals in this assembly when people continue to harp on Ard's "egregious violation" quote. A strict adherence to option 1 would eliminate all forms of discrepancy. As I was one of the two which GHRed for Auralia's Repeal GAR #2 to be removed (albeit on different issues), and the one proposing discarding it based on the group branding rule which caused this lingering stir, it seems that some regulars here will take any chance to blame the mods for doing something that they think is wrong, and that their opinion of how things should be done as the only right.

It might be a bit crude to say this - but if we were to have sanity injected back in into the GA, we will have to get players to bicker with each other on a proposal, and not having the two parties bicker over rules. As I have said before in the discarding of Auralia's Repeal GAR #2 - rules are rules are rules. If you don't follow the rules, don't play. And without hard and fast rules that all proposal writers must follow, it will only ensue chaos as writers start trying to change rules rather than their own proposals and mistakes.

Having leeway only makes people kind of jealous and angry. Are you going to refund another person his stamps after having his proposal discarded again, even though the rules are there and therefore he has failed to follow it? Auralia did, and sets a unwanted precedent. Do you want that precedent to stand? Else, if you do it contrary to the Auralia case given they really didn't follow the rules, someone's obviously going to complain about the treatment given to Auralia.

This tightrope is hard to walk. I don't think there's a need to make it even harder for yourselves.

[Old Hope]

Regarding GA/SC, the discussion here is obviously on the GA - but the same arguments apply in the SC, and we'd probably want to keep things consistent there.

This argument makes the most sense to me:


I get that we don't really want to be discarding proposals for minor errors (such as a branding violation by using the wrong nation tag) - it's a big confusing waste of everyone's time to vote on them for 4 days, but to me when we're at the stage of saying "it doesn't really matter all that much if we pass a proposal with X in it", you have to wonder if it's even worth having X against the rules.

Precisely Sedge. I must say it has been an utter pain to read through proposals in this assembly when people continue to harp on Ard's "egregious violation" quote. A strict adherence to option 1 would eliminate all forms of discrepancy. As I was one of the two which GHRed for Auralia's Repeal GAR #2 to be removed (albeit on different issues), and the one proposing discarding it based on the group branding rule which caused this lingering stir, it seems that some regulars here will take any chance to blame the mods for doing something that they think is wrong, and that their opinion of how things should be done as the only right.

It might be a bit crude to say this - but if we were to have sanity injected back in into the GA, we will have to get players to bicker with each other on a proposal, and not having the two parties bicker over rules. As I have said before in the discarding of Auralia's Repeal GAR #2 - rules are rules are rules. If you don't follow the rules, don't play. And without hard and fast rules that all proposal writers must follow, it will only ensue chaos as writers start trying to change rules rather than their own proposals and mistakes.

Having leeway only makes people kind of jealous and angry. Are you going to refund another person his stamps after having his proposal discarded again, even though the rules are there and therefore he has failed to follow it? Auralia did, and sets a unwanted precedent. Do you want that precedent to stand? Else, if you do it contrary to the Auralia case given they really didn't follow the rules, someone's obviously going to complain about the treatment given to Auralia.

This tightrope is hard to walk. I don't think there's a need to make it even harder for yourselves.

You have some good arguments. However, there are some things to consider:
1.Auralia case: Precedent is that someone gets campaign stamps refunded if something is ruled illegal after it was told to be legal ... by the mods.
2. Removal. If proposals can be removed from vote, there is less incentive for others to search for problems early. More illegal proposals might reach vote. Now imagine voting... and it gets discarded. You vote on the next proposal... discarded. And so on. That is bad.

[Elke and Elba]

You have some good arguments. However, there are some things to consider:
1.Auralia case: Precedent is that someone gets campaign stamps refunded if something is ruled illegal after it was told to be legal ... by the mods.
2. Removal. If proposals can be removed from vote, there is less incentive for others to search for problems early. More illegal proposals might reach vote. Now imagine voting... and it gets discarded. You vote on the next proposal... discarded. And so on. That is bad.

Hmm, the Auralia case precedent could be read like this, and I hope it does, especially since it was the mods that legal'ed it in the first place, before rescinding it. It's also a good idea to read it as a sui generis case - because if it's not, I think people will be demanding for refunds when they probably submitted pretty-clear-illegal-proposals to start with.

On the removal part - I'm hoping on the part of increased activity on the mods to get the removals done. Most problems were found early, and speedily deleted; else GHRs sent early on enough and removed upon realisation. Whilst we have already seen the "voted - discarded, voted - discarded" cycle once (with the AD/Auralia ones), these are pretty rare. Until now, we have only three cases of discarded proposals - the AD commendation with somehow no one realising the word "game" was included until a day into voting, the Auralian commendation for the Afriasab self-commend nonsense (which the mod team unfortunately found a bit late, and was pretty much illegal for flouting the no-2-nations in WA rule), and the Repeal GAR #2, which remains a special case (took me and Pio City to make our case again for the legality ruling to be rescinded).

Problem-searching isn't really a worry about since most proposals are either legal or illegal, and we rarely have proposals that fall in between. Given that mods work this in time before voting all the time both before and after the introduction of the discarding tool, I think it's fair to say that even with regular players' laziness in finding problems (most of them sounded off in drafting threads, anyway), the possibility of a vote-and-discard pattern to develop is miniscule and almost impossible.

[Sedgistan]

the Auralian commendation for the Afriasab self-commend nonsense (which the mod team unfortunately found a bit late, and was pretty much illegal for flouting the no-2-nations in WA rule)

To clarify, that was illegal solely due to the multying (self-commending is legal) - so that one wasn't a case of us failing to check the proposal thoroughly enough.

[Elke and Elba]

the Auralian commendation for the Afriasab self-commend nonsense (which the mod team unfortunately found a bit late, and was pretty much illegal for flouting the no-2-nations in WA rule)

To clarify, that was illegal solely due to the multying (self-commending is legal) - so that one wasn't a case of us failing to check the proposal thoroughly enough.

Yes, indeed. I thought I was pretty clear in saying that the illegality was in the no-2-nations/multiying part at the end of the sentence, rather than the self-commend part (which was a personal commentary that it was nonsense). To clarify again - it was unfortunate that the revealing of the identities were done a bit late, rather than the proposal (since the proposal text is legal).

Given that one of my first WA experience was writing a SC draft to condemn a region who wrote a text to self-commend which failed at voting (how I laugh at my ignorance then ), I think I do know that self-commending is pretty much legal.

Thanks though, Sedge. My language seems to be going haywire when the night is getting late.

[Sudarium]

So does this come from a general wish to see higher quality proposals in the future? How about thinking outside the box for this? Instead of debating over the use of the discard function, add another layer of venting to the process of making proposals become resolutions to increase the quality of said text, while simultaneously shrinking any 'grey area' concerning whether text in resolutions/proposals is allowed or not? My simple suggestion is this:

Add a single layer of inspection between the step of a nation submitting a proposal to the WA and the step of getting 6% of WA Regional Delegates to approve the proposal to which it becomes a resolution to be voted on by the entire WA, in which two moderators from the game staff must approve a proposal before the text proceeds onto the next step, and becomes viewable to the rest of the NationStates community.

You cannot compensate for human error. Mistakes will be made, things will be overlooked, etc. You can improve upon the quality of humanity however. Going to extremes for a relatively mundane issue like the content of GA proposals isn't necessary, will upset users and/or discourage them from participating (even tempt them to break the rules anyway out of frustration). If anybody wishes for higher quality proposals, then consider my idea as the correct path.

[Elke and Elba]

So does this come from a general wish to see higher quality proposals in the future? How about thinking outside the box for this? Instead of debating over the use of the discard function, add another layer of venting to the process of making proposals become resolutions to increase the quality of said text, while simultaneously shrinking any 'grey area' concerning whether text in resolutions/proposals is allowed or not? My simple suggestion is this:

Add a single layer of inspection between the step of a nation submitting a proposal to the WA and the step of getting 6% of WA Regional Delegates to approve the proposal to which it becomes a resolution to be voted on by the entire WA, in which two moderators from the game staff must approve a proposal before the text proceeds onto the next step, and becomes viewable to the rest of the NationStates community.

You cannot compensate for human error. Mistakes will be made, things will be overlooked, etc. You can improve upon the quality of humanity however. Going to extremes for a relatively mundane issue like the content of GA proposals isn't necessary, will upset users and/or discourage them from participating (even tempt them to break the rules anyway out of frustration). If anybody wishes for higher quality proposals, then consider my idea as the correct path.

Please have at least an inkling of idea of what's going on before commenting as if your opinion is right and must be implemented. Who's going to code this extra layer? Consider the fact too that mods aren't infalliable. The Auralia debacle happened because mods flip-flopped with their decisions. Mods already have enough time in the time before the proposal to reach quorum to remove clearly illegal proposals, and have done so for the past ten years.

This idea here is not only clunky and problematic for admins to code, but also extremely silly in the fact it fails to comprehend how things work in the GA and putting a solution that will never - I repeat - NEVER work.

[Ardchoille]

I find myself in the utterly unexpected position of agreeing somewhat with Unibot --

I'm of the unpopular position of 4) <snip>

-- and wholly with Dark Star:

<snip>Personally, I'd rather Discards were never used. The NSUN/WA survived for ten+ years without a Discard. But I do recognise that given the tool exists it would be silly to allow a truly egregious violation pass.

I never expressed any desire for the Discard, I knew nothing about it until we got it, and when we did get it I found it worrying. However, since we have it I can see that it would be useful for controlling damage, such as potential RW legal suits or release of personal information.

I had been trying to establish uses of the Discard by looking at practical situations when they came up, and then using or not using it -- practice-created law. That's why I brought it up during the Just-A-Committee vote, because I wanted people to know we were discussing (and then, had rejected) GHRs asking that it be applied for simple illegals.

I think specifying "we will use it here, and here, and here" sets us up for trouble when we get a "here" that isn't listed, or a "here" that is, but for some reason isn't as serious as the listed description. I can't even begin to think of everything that malice or bad luck might present.

One description I've had in mind was "anything that would previously have compelled mods to seek Admin action". In seven years of WA modding, I've done that only once -- over an SC Resolution from the days before the SC rules, which, just by existing, seriously contradicted the firmed-up ruleset -- and was told that the mechanism to remove an illegal Resolution was the Repeal.

On that basis, since a way exists to get rid of new laws that are illegal on a technicality, I don't think we should use it for simple cases such as the recent Just-A-Committee.

I think that when the Discard is used, the practice I followed of not acting until it has been approved by a panel of uninvolved mods should be the norm, where time permits.

When I asked a tech mod recently about it, I was told that Discards should not be used often. At the time I took this to mean "as near to never as you can get", but I do see it could mean "not often because the community shouldn't let things get to that pass often".

My concern with using it for each and every illegality is that it will add an extra layer of GHRs to the mix: "I think this quorate proposal should be removed because of (intricate rules-lawyering that mods have to evaluate)" will be followed by "I think the At Vote should be Discarded because of (new intricate rules-lawyering that mods have to evaluate)."

Further, it will all be decided under time pressure: every matter will have to be resolved within the voting window, as the Discard doesn't work after the GA adopts the proposal/repeal.

Finally, I feel that having to sit through three days of debate on a proposal known to be illegal, followed by three days (or whatever it takes) getting rid of it, fixes that particular illegality firmly in the minds of both mods and players, something that is obviously needed (or the proposal wouldn't have got to vote). It's not fun, but it's sure an effective teaching tool -- seen any good Max Barry Days lately?

[Sudarium]

So does this come from a general wish to see higher quality proposals in the future? How about thinking outside the box for this? Instead of debating over the use of the discard function, add another layer of venting to the process of making proposals become resolutions to increase the quality of said text, while simultaneously shrinking any 'grey area' concerning whether text in resolutions/proposals is allowed or not? My simple suggestion is this:

Add a single layer of inspection between the step of a nation submitting a proposal to the WA and the step of getting 6% of WA Regional Delegates to approve the proposal to which it becomes a resolution to be voted on by the entire WA, in which two moderators from the game staff must approve a proposal before the text proceeds onto the next step, and becomes viewable to the rest of the NationStates community.

You cannot compensate for human error. Mistakes will be made, things will be overlooked, etc. You can improve upon the quality of humanity however. Going to extremes for a relatively mundane issue like the content of GA proposals isn't necessary, will upset users and/or discourage them from participating (even tempt them to break the rules anyway out of frustration). If anybody wishes for higher quality proposals, then consider my idea as the correct path.

Please have at least an inkling of idea of what's going on before commenting as if your opinion is right and must be implemented. Who's going to code this extra layer? Consider the fact too that mods aren't infalliable. The Auralia debacle happened because mods flip-flopped with their decisions. Mods already have enough time in the time before the proposal to reach quorum to remove clearly illegal proposals, and have done so for the past ten years.

This idea here is not only clunky and problematic for admins to code, but also extremely silly in the fact it fails to comprehend how things work in the GA and putting a solution that will never - I repeat - NEVER work.

Your response will be invalid, and should be invalid to anyone reading your text, if you try to insult someone in the pursuit to discredit them. If you disagree with my suggestion, then say nothing or give constructive criticism, and don't be blind by your ego. Now onto answering the constructive parts of your text.

To Answer your question, the administrators and others responsible for game code would handle the responsibility. It may surprise you, but some of the moderators don't know the game code. That precious knowledge is held to an inner circle within the inner circle of the game staff. Now onto your comment about mods not being infallible. It's obvious their judgement isn't infallible. In my previous post, I said you cannot compensate for human error, you can only improve the quality of humanity; which is a euphemism for stating that adjustments to the discard function is pointless since things will happen anyway. Adding more screening to improve the quality of proposals though? That's a better investment.

I know there exists only a slim chance that the moderation team will consider my idea, but I write anyways because I know my idea is a correct path. Not the only one, but one of them.

---

My opinion on the presented options from the OP is being in support of option 4, and to a lesser extent option 2. To elaborate on what sort of "rule-breaking" I'd consider to be sufficiently egregious would be violations of the forum rules, specifically ones posted in the ONRS and the GA forum. Spamming, plagiarism, proposals with very little content, etc..

[Elke and Elba]

Please have at least an inkling of idea of what's going on before commenting as if your opinion is right and must be implemented. Who's going to code this extra layer? Consider the fact too that mods aren't infalliable. The Auralia debacle happened because mods flip-flopped with their decisions. Mods already have enough time in the time before the proposal to reach quorum to remove clearly illegal proposals, and have done so for the past ten years.

This idea here is not only clunky and problematic for admins to code, but also extremely silly in the fact it fails to comprehend how things work in the GA and putting a solution that will never - I repeat - NEVER work.

Your response will be invalid, and should be invalid to anyone reading your text, if you try to insult someone in the pursuit to discredit them. If you disagree with my suggestion, then say nothing or give constructive criticism, and don't be blind by your ego. Now onto answering the constructive parts of your text.

To Answer your question, the administrators and others responsible for game code would handle the responsibility. It may surprise you, but some of the moderators don't know the game code. That precious knowledge is held to an inner circle within the inner circle of the game staff. Now onto your comment about mods not being infallible. It's obvious their judgement isn't infallible. In my previous post, I said you cannot compensate for human error, you can only improve the quality of humanity; which is a euphemism for stating that adjustments to the discard function is pointless since things will happen anyway. Adding more screening to improve the quality of proposals though? That's a better investment.

I know there exists only a slim chance that the moderation team will consider my idea, but I write anyways because I know my idea is a correct path. Not the only one, but one of them.

---

My opinion on the presented options from the OP is being in support of option 4, and to a lesser extent option 2. To elaborate on what sort of "rule-breaking" I'd consider to be sufficiently egregious would be violations of the forum rules, specifically ones posted in the ONRS and the GA forum. Spamming, plagiarism, proposals with very little content, etc..

Uh duh, administrators handle game code - I wrote very clearly as "admins" rather than "mods" in my last sentence. It might be to your surprise, but I do know that.

I'm not even going to try to rebut the rest of the argument given that I've already effectively answered them in my first reply - that is the one that you replied on, if it wasn't clear. I am not going to waste my time to reply someone who hasn't taken the time to read anything in my reply, judging from the response.

Let someone else here tell you why it isn't feasible to get the admin to code anything to change the process due to decreasing marginal returns.

[Glen-Rhodes]

Option #1 is attractive simply because it sounds the most objective. But mods will be shooting themselves in the foot whenever they discard a contentious resolution -- one that has the whole of the GA community debating it -- for a minor rules violation. Let's be real: objectivity doesn't matter all that much if the mods look like they're being petty in the midst of political controversy. Option #1 will simply create a more divisive environment.

Option #2 is my preference, with the way Gruen outlined it. If the violation is serious enough to warrant ejection, then it's serious enough to warrant discarding the resolution. That balances objectivity with political reality.

Option #4 if nothing else.

[Sciongrad]

Option #1 is attractive simply because it sounds the most objective. But mods will be shooting themselves in the foot whenever they discard a contentious resolution -- one that has the whole of the GA community debating it -- for a minor rules violation. Let's be real: objectivity doesn't matter all that much if the mods look like they're being petty in the midst of political controversy. Option #1 will simply create a more divisive environment.

I agree completely. The first option's only real benefit is that it is ostensibly the most straightforward, but if you stop for a minute to consider the political fallout that would result from removing a resolution over a branding violation *cough* then I don't understand how anyone could think option one would do anything but exacerbate the frustration players feel towards moderation. Option two, like GR said, is able to reasonably balance pragmatism with objective rule enforcement.

[Kaboomlandia]

I'm going to agree with what (was it Dark Star?) said earlier, basically:

- If a repeal is illegal, in any way, toss it
- For non-repeals, only toss:

• plagiarism
• grossly offensive
• offensive nation name
• nation is DEATed in middle of vote

Also, this is an SC question, but if the nominee CTEs in the middle of voting period, does it get discarded?

[Blaccakre]

[I agree] wholly with Dark Star:

<snip>Personally, I'd rather Discards were never used. The NSUN/WA survived for ten+ years without a Discard. But I do recognise that given the tool exists it would be silly to allow a truly egregious violation pass.

I never expressed any desire for the Discard, I knew nothing about it until we got it, and when we did get it I found it worrying. However, since we have it I can see that it would be useful for controlling damage, such as potential RW legal suits or release of personal information.

I don't know how I feel about a game mod saying they don't like a tool that lets them remove proposals that violate game rules. Seems to me that the rule used to be: if it's illegal and we catch it in time we can strike it out. What's not to like about a tool that merely extends what it means to catch the illegality "in time"?

I understand that some of you have been playing a long time and back in your day you didn't have fancy repeals or discard functions. And you had to ride a dinosaur to the old forum, which was actually just a fax machine and a typewriter taped to an old cathode ray tube TV. Thing is, the game has improved since then, and the nostalgia for the old system is no reason not to embrace a new system that allows better enforcement of game rules.

Option #1 is attractive simply because it sounds the most objective. But mods will be shooting themselves in the foot whenever they discard a contentious resolution -- one that has the whole of the GA community debating it -- for a minor rules violation. Let's be real: objectivity doesn't matter all that much if the mods look like they're being petty in the midst of political controversy. Option #1 will simply create a more divisive environment.

I agree completely. The first option's only real benefit is that it is ostensibly the most straightforward, but if you stop for a minute to consider the political fallout that would result from removing a resolution over a branding violation *cough* then I don't understand how anyone could think option one would do anything but exacerbate the frustration players feel towards moderation. Option two, like GR said, is able to reasonably balance pragmatism with objective rule enforcement.

How is deleting the proposal while it's at vote really all that different from deleting it, say, immediately after it's made quorum. Why should we treat the (relatively arbitrary) moment it goes to vote so specially?

What I'm really hearing is "some of these rules kinda suck." Lets get rid of those rules, and only remove a proposal (via discard or any other means) for violations that we can agree warrant pulling the proposal regardless of what arbitrary time we happen to notice the illegality. If, say, a branding violation isn't serious enough to warrant deleting a proposal when it's at vote, why is it serious enough to warrant deleting the proposal when after it's made quorum, when it's 50% of the way to quorum, or even 5 minutes after it's been submitted?

[Old Hope]

[...]
How is deleting the proposal while it's at vote really all that different from deleting it, say, immediately after it's made quorum. Why should we treat the (relatively arbitrary) moment it goes to vote so specially?

What I'm really hearing is "some of these rules kinda suck." Lets get rid of those rules, and only remove a proposal (via discard or any other means) for violations that we can agree warrant pulling the proposal regardless of what arbitrary time we happen to notice the illegality. If, say, a branding violation isn't serious enough to warrant deleting a proposal when it's at vote, why is it serious enough to warrant deleting the proposal when after it's made quorum, when it's 50% of the way to quorum, or even 5 minutes after it's been submitted?

It is special. And maybe you don't know what discard does.
If the proposal goes to vote, it is up to vote for four full days. If the mods use discard, the proposal will read as discarded in the result- which means at the end of the four days. And voting is not disabled.
Before that, it can be removed without blocking anything.
And if all mods are taking a break somehow and a passed resolution has to be removed from the books completely, the admins have to take down the servers first. That is why discard exists. It is a workaround, and a flawed one. I would suggest at least asking violet(admin) if there is any problem with discard being used often(from a technical standpoint)

[Imperium Anglorum]

Given that we just had two more discards, in a row too, I think we may need this thread again.

[Bananaistan]

It is pointless having this discussion. We can have another big hoo ha about this, like there was a few times in the past, but ultimately there will be no progress and us authors will remain subject to the whims of whichever mods happen to online on a particular day.