Secretariat's Council (MEMBERS ANNOUNCED)

[Excidium Planetis]

I embrace the change and am ready for it

Christ, can we not with this? Please? Can anything at all slip by without a hackneyed puppet being formed? This joke needs to stop.

At least it wasn't a Sapient Legality Challe-
Crap, now that is gonna be a thing, isn't it?

[Snefaldia]

I embrace the change and am ready for it

Christ, can we not with this? Please? Can anything at all slip by without a hackneyed puppet being formed? This joke needs to stop.

You're part of the Establishment now, entitled to all the exasperation that comes with!

[Araraukar]

I embrace the change and am ready for it

Christ, can we not with this? Please? Can anything at all slip by without a hackneyed puppet being formed? This joke needs to stop.

I don't think that's a joke puppet so much as a way to submit anonymous legal challenges, since that chance was for some reason not included. And no, that one's not mine.

[Wallenburg]

Announcement:

The following is our procedure for hearing legality challenges.

1. If a player wishes to file a challenge against a fully drafted or submitted proposal, they must prepare a coherent and organized legal argument. This argument should list the rules broken and why, along with relevant precedent.

2. The filing player must create a new [Legality Challenge] thread. GenSec will allow the author and other interested parties a reasonable amount of time to post briefs in support of or opposition to the challenge. Players should avoid getting into tit-for-tat quote battles, and instead address competing arguments with organized responses.

3. GenSec will deliberate, asking players further questions if necessary. Upon reaching a majority opinion, GenSec will post their ruling and notify the mods if the proposal needs to be removed from queue. Rulings will include a majority opinion and any dissenting opinions.

A few questions:
1. We're expected to dig through years of forum posts to see if there is any legal precedent to our challenge now? That's rather excessive and unnecessary, don't you think?
2. Are we supposed to post that new thread on this subforum or the new GenSec one (which, at least for the moment, we cannot even see)? Because we're going to clutter up this one real quickly if we try to use the GA subforum.

[Separatist Peoples]

Announcement:

The following is our procedure for hearing legality challenges.

1. If a player wishes to file a challenge against a fully drafted or submitted proposal, they must prepare a coherent and organized legal argument. This argument should list the rules broken and why, along with relevant precedent.

2. The filing player must create a new [Legality Challenge] thread. GenSec will allow the author and other interested parties a reasonable amount of time to post briefs in support of or opposition to the challenge. Players should avoid getting into tit-for-tat quote battles, and instead address competing arguments with organized responses.

3. GenSec will deliberate, asking players further questions if necessary. Upon reaching a majority opinion, GenSec will post their ruling and notify the mods if the proposal needs to be removed from queue. Rulings will include a majority opinion and any dissenting opinions.

A few questions:
1. We're expected to dig through years of forum posts to see if there is any legal precedent to our challenge now? That's rather excessive and unnecessary, don't you think?
2. Are we supposed to post that new thread on this subforum or the new GenSec one (which, at least for the moment, we cannot even see)? Because we're going to clutter up this one real quickly if we try to use the GA subforum.

1. If you are using precedent to bolster your argument, we would like you to link to the ruling. If you aren't using precedent, it doesn't really apply. This saves us time, which is essential considering that we have to deeply analyze an argument, come to a consensus, and write out an effective ruling in a short period of time. Help us help you.

2. We are starting out by posting in the regular forum as I recall. If that becomes a burden on this forum, we can address that issue later, but we felt it would be easier to start here for a number of reasons.

[Araraukar]

1. If you are using precedent to bolster your argument, we would like you to link to the ruling.

Do we have to link even to the well-known ones, like how "human" rights means sapient rights? It was a mod ruling, but finding it to link to it is going to be a pain.

If the mods have made consensus decisions on GA things before, those got to be somewhere where they can find them, possibly easier than we could on this forum?

[Glen-Rhodes]

1. If you are using precedent to bolster your argument, we would like you to link to the ruling.

Do we have to link even to the well-known ones, like how "human" rights means sapient rights? It was a mod ruling, but finding it to link to it is going to be a pain.

It would help, yeah. We're trying to build a compendium of precedents, and if people are able to track down threads for those precedents, it would held tremendously. Also, it gives your argument that much more weight. People tend to remember these things differently.

As for the procedures that were posted-- it seems to be a clerical error. Those were a previous draft. What GenSec actually voted to approve was this:

---

Legality Challenge Procedures

Any player may issue a challenge on the legality of a proposal that has been finished or submitted. GenSec will not review proposals still in their drafting stages, as player critique should be the first defense against an illegal proposal. If GenSec believes a submitted proposal violates the Proposal Rules, but a challenge has not been submitted, it will still review the proposal and deliver a public ruling.

To file a challenge against a proposal:

Note: This process does not apply to violations of the OSRS rules, plagiarism accusations, or attempts to create new game mechanics. To report those types of violations, please submit a Getting Help Request.

1. If a player wishes to file a challenge against a fully drafted or submitted proposal, they must prepare a coherent and organized legal argument. This argument should list the rules broken and why. To be more helpful, if a player is able to find a past ruling on the issue, they should consider citing it in their argument.

2. The filing player must create a new thread with the [Legality Challenge] tag, with their full argument, the challenged proposal's text, and a link to the proposal's drafting/debate thread. This helps to keep the process organized and aids GenSec in noticing when a challenge has been lodged. GenSec will allow the author and other interested parties a reasonable amount of time to post briefs in support of or opposition to the challenge. Players should avoid getting into tit-for-tat quote battles, and instead address competing arguments with organized responses. These threads should be treated like a courtroom, avoiding off-topic discussion, personal fighting, peanut-gallery comments, etc. In other words, if you don't have anything substantive to add to the legal issues at hand, refrain from posting in Legality Challenge threads.

3. GenSec will deliberate, asking players further questions if necessary. Upon reaching a majority opinion, GenSec will post their ruling and notify the mods if the proposal needs to be removed from queue. Rulings will include a majority opinion and any dissenting opinions. Precedent-setting rulings will be recorded in a public compendium.

[Tinhampton]

Why is the "Secretariat" badge for members of the GAS/GenSec not the same colour as the colour of the Secretariat member names on the forums?

[Separatist Peoples]

Why is the "Secretariat" badge for members of the GAS/GenSec not the same colour as the colour of the Secretariat member names on the forums?

Simplicity?

[Gruenberg]

That process looks reasonably straightforward.

If I can make two suggestions:
1. Once you start making rulings, make an archive of them. Like the mods' "rulings repository", except, actually up to date and used. The rulings repository also suffered because there were so many rulings not in it, whereas if you guys start from day 1, it'll be much easier to keep it up to date.
2. Ignore the moderator ruling banning precedents from the Jolt era. Given you're considering all previous precedents to be less-than-binding ("persuasive" was the phrase previously used), it doesn't matter if they're mixed in, and given you're putting responsibility on players to find evidence of previous precedents, those able to link to the Jolt archives can do so.

[Bears Armed]

That process looks reasonably straightforward.

If I can make two suggestions:
1. Once you start making rulings, make an archive of them. Like the mods' "rulings repository", except, actually up to date and used. The rulings repository also suffered because there were so many rulings not in it, whereas if you guys start from day 1, it'll be much easier to keep it up to date.
2. Ignore the moderator ruling banning precedents from the Jolt era. Given you're considering all previous precedents to be less-than-binding ("persuasive" was the phrase previously used), it doesn't matter if they're mixed in, and given you're putting responsibility on players to find evidence of previous precedents, those able to link to the Jolt archives can do so.

I agree that both of those suggestions make sense.

[Christian Democrats]

A few questions:
1. We're expected to dig through years of forum posts to see if there is any legal precedent to our challenge now? That's rather excessive and unnecessary, don't you think?

Yes, I agree. It's excessive and unnecessary.

2. Are we supposed to post that new thread on this subforum or the new GenSec one (which, at least for the moment, we cannot even see)? Because we're going to clutter up this one real quickly if we try to use the GA subforum.

You're supposed to clutter up this forum.

(If it's not already clear, I'm one of the councilors who voted against the motion.)

If I can make two suggestions:
1. Once you start making rulings, make an archive of them. Like the mods' "rulings repository", except, actually up to date and used. The rulings repository also suffered because there were so many rulings not in it, whereas if you guys start from day 1, it'll be much easier to keep it up to date.
2. Ignore the moderator ruling banning precedents from the Jolt era. Given you're considering all previous precedents to be less-than-binding ("persuasive" was the phrase previously used), it doesn't matter if they're mixed in, and given you're putting responsibility on players to find evidence of previous precedents, those able to link to the Jolt archives can do so.

I agree that both of those suggestions make sense.

Me too.

[CANATOP]

Nice to know,

[States of Glory WA Office]

The guidelines seem fine in theory (though I would have preferred it if anonymous challenges were allowed). It's just a matter of if they work in practice.

[Tinhampton]

https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=30306143#p30306143
There's a nice new warning-style tag for the GenSec?

[Christian Democrats]

From now on, there will be a special tag for GA legality rulings. The flashing lights will be no more.

[States of Glory WA Office]

From now on, there will be a special tag for GA legality rulings. The flashing lights will be no more.

This cannot be!

#BringBackTheLights

[Tinhampton]

From now on, there will be a special tag for GA legality rulings. The flashing lights will be no more.

The lights... the lights I was never lucky enough to see.

[Christian Democrats]

The lights... the lights I was never lucky enough to see.

I suppose somebody else can post the lights. They're no longer the "official" tool for Secretariat business.

However, the new tag is official, so you cannot use that.

[The WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAmbulance]

WEWWEWWEWWEWWEWWEWWEWWEWWEWWEWWEWWEWWEWWEWWEWWEWWEWWEW

Some extremely official sounding sirens blare, and an extremely official looking ambulance draws up. Out jump two workers in extremely official looking uniforms. They announce in extremely official sounding tones:

"Here they are."

They then continue in even more offical seeming tones: "Maybe discussing the operation of this body is more important, and we could get back to discussing that?" They then jump, in a rather official looking style, back into their ambulance, and drive off.

WEWWEWWEWWEWWEWWEWWEWWEWWEWWEWWEWWEWWEWWEWWEWWEWWEWWEW

[Tinhampton]

The lights... the lights I was never lucky enough to see.

I suppose somebody else can post the lights. They're no longer the "official" tool for Secretariat business.

However, the new tag is official, so you cannot use that.

Maybe some day... "some day" being defined as "never"

[Imperium Anglorum]

So it seems to me that what we have created is a Star Chamber-like council which initiates its own prosecutions without any kind of oversight, does so out of sight of everyone else, and uses their own positions to push their own agendas. If this isn't the case, nothing has been done to fight the perception that this is the case.

The issue with the proposal National Control of Elections makes it again clear why transparency is needed. There is utterly no accountability right now because we don't know who is taking what actions. Lacking such accountability means that it is impossible to do the checks and balances which members of the Council have told us to exercise: remove the people we believe are abusing their power. It is like the FISA court, you can subpoena the information you need, you just can't know what information you could possibly need.

If we are going to have these self-initiated prosecutions, it would be at least be more reasonable to only allow the Council to do self-started prosecutions if the member of the Council who proposes that prosecution is forced to recuse. Not doing so would be unreasonable: a judge is not allowed to make a decision if he believe the defendant is already guilty or liable, a juror is removed from the bench if he cannot make a fair decision.

If nothing can be done to alleviate these issues, there is no reason to play this part of the game.

[Glen-Rhodes]

We're about 5 hours into GenSec's first legality challenge. Maybe give it at least 6?

[Araraukar]

council which initiates its own prosecutions without any kind of oversight, does so out of sight of everyone else

Except mods, admins and Max, who probably will all be watching closely - if for no other reason than morbid curiosity.

The real fun starts when there's a legality challenge for a proposal that one of the councilors needs to excuse theirself from.

EDIT because my fingers are writing in a world of their own tonight... I'll just go to bed now.

We're about 5 hours into GenSec's first legality challenge. Maybe give it at least 6?

Postby Gruenberg » Thu Nov 03, 2016 9:53 am

That's more than 24 hours.

[Glen-Rhodes]

That's more than 24 hours.

You'll notice that IA is lamenting about the GenSec-initiated review of National Control of Elections..

Point being, we literally have no even delivered our first ruling. Saying you're about to quit the game over a single challenge is a bit melodramatic.

If we are going to have these self-initiated prosecutions, it would be at least be more reasonable to only allow the Council to do self-started prosecutions if the member of the Council who proposes that prosecution is forced to recuse. Not doing so would be unreasonable: a judge is not allowed to make a decision if he believe the defendant is already guilty or liable, a juror is removed from the bench if he cannot make a fair decision.

Judges in systems like these don't have sua sponte powers in the first place. We are not judges. We've been tasked with the job of telling mods when to delete illegal proposals. This obviously entails monitoring the submission list for illegal proposals. It's not as if this is some kind of new idea, here...