[PASSED] Repeal "Commend Texas"

[21st Century Egyptians]

Just because regions are old doesn't mean that they should be recognized by the security council. They should be adding things that create more substance for the game and move avenues of involvement for users that join.

You mean like having a 10+ year history of defending that is still ongoing, maintaining a very useful historical record database, having a weekly chat, and constant discussion about WA resolutions? I'd like to believe this is really not about gameplay, but I just don't see why this is the first or even the 50th resolution to be repealed.

Pointing out that BT was warned two weeks ago for what I believe the first time in his, what 12+ years playing the game also seems really unfair to me. We all have bad days.

The honest question that needs to be looked at is the activity over the ten years. I don't know most of it but I haven't even heard of them or had a clue who they were in the past year. Also I personally wouldn't define active as 3 times in the course of one month. So if someone could speak fairly on the actual activity of them it would be beneficial to help. Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't several of the stuff in the historical record database lost? I think I may have heard that somewhere it was. Also most regions have weekly chats and discussion about WA resolutions. In all honesty the discussion about Condemn Koth only the founder posting their thoughts and a big statement about how they viewed it with only around 2-3 (or a very small number) other people from that region discussing it. It could be discussed on discord or another off site chat i don't know. But in all honesty it didn't seem like much chat on the RMB now that you bring that up. In all honesty with today's standards I don't think it would have passed to be polite as possible. It's just most of the things on there were one nation that did so shouldn't be whole region getting it should have been that nation. Then the rest of the stuff on that list are average mundane things most regions have that aren't commended for. In all honesty an official warning and what looked like an unofficial warning since there was more after what they initially came for (correct me if I'm wrong the second) on the same day really shouldn't happen. There probably are users that have gone the whole game without getting warned so accepting the practice of getting warned is something that should be avoided especially when it involves taking time to type out a message and proof it and then deciding to hit submit. His post might be included in it but that is not the main focus of why this resolution is here. It is for the other things I mentioned above here.

[Klaus Devestatorie]

Just because regions are old doesn't mean that they should be recognized by the security council. They should be adding things that create more substance for the game and move avenues of involvement for users that join.

You mean like having a 10+ year history of defending that is still ongoing, maintaining a very useful historical record database, having a weekly chat, and constant discussion about WA resolutions? I'd like to believe this is really not about gameplay, but I just don't see why this is the first or even the 50th resolution to be repealed.

Pointing out that BT was warned two weeks ago for what I believe the first time in his, what 12+ years playing the game also seems really unfair to me. We all have bad days.

I've been raiding for 9 of those years. The only time I can ever remember seeing Texas on the battlefield might have been the liberation of Feudal Japan. All the useful parts of your database are dead and gone. Weekly chats are a generic regional community function, and discussing WA resolutions is not special. Your region isn't special, it's just old.

[Benevolent Thomas]

EDIT: If anything, I'm more likely to be motivated by y'all hating on the Tide than by my R/D alignmnet ;P

come say that to my face ....oh wait don't bother yall be coming in September and that's when yall will be leaving with one less win. Whoop

Like... how do you even see this and not register that he's talking about football? I know 0 about college sports and I could tell. How else does "yall be coming in September and that's when yall will be leaving with one less win" even remotely make sense if its about anything else? Tell me how it makes sense in a GP sense. If you couldn't figure out the context of the post, you shouldn't have used it to further the point you were trying to make.

Again your own personal interpretation of my post I am skeptical of it being in a fair mindset due to your participation on the opposite side of gameplay as myself.

If you're being honest about everything thus far, this is the very reason why all of this has taken place. Gig is on the opposite side of the GP spectrum from you, so you were only willing to see the potential malice in his post. That lead to every misunderstanding between us.

This quote is also why we're done here. I'll get back to offering Souls my thoughts as long as its welcome.

[Ransium]

You mean like having a 10+ year history of defending that is still ongoing, maintaining a very useful historical record database, having a weekly chat, and constant discussion about WA resolutions? I'd like to believe this is really not about gameplay, but I just don't see why this is the first or even the 50th resolution to be repealed.

Pointing out that BT was warned two weeks ago for what I believe the first time in his, what 12+ years playing the game also seems really unfair to me. We all have bad days.

I've been raiding for 9 of those years. The only time I can ever remember seeing Texas on the battlefield might have been the liberation of Feudal Japan. All the useful parts of your database are dead and gone. Weekly chats are a generic regional community function, and discussing WA resolutions is not special. Your region isn't special, it's just old.

Just to be clear, I'm not a member of Texas, I've just had a puppet there in the past and made observations through embassies. Since becoming an IE, I haven't been paying too much attention though.

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Besides the, what, 3 very active defender regions that are commended, who in your opinion does deserve a commend? How high is your bar for commendable?

Is (formerly?) traveling between regions truly unique? Writing poetry? (Formerly?) traveling to commended regions? (Formerly) raiding but in a silly way?

Do you really think Forest and Yggdrasil are so much more special than Texas?

I think we commend regions in part for their vibe that's hard to adequately describe. To me, Texas has that vibe. I don't know what else to say or how else to explain my perspective. Perhaps further debate on this matter isn't going to change either of our minds and the best thing is to respectfully disagree.

[21st Century Egyptians]

come say that to my face ....oh wait don't bother yall be coming in September and that's when yall will be leaving with one less win. Whoop

Like... how do you even see this and not register that he's talking about football? I know 0 about college sports and I could tell. How else does "yall be coming in September and that's when yall will be leaving with one less win" even remotely make sense if its about anything else? Tell me how it makes sense in a GP sense. If you couldn't figure out the context of the post, you shouldn't have used it to further the point you were trying to make.

Again your own personal interpretation of my post I am skeptical of it being in a fair mindset due to your participation on the opposite side of gameplay as myself.

If you're being honest about everything thus far, this is the very reason why all of this has taken place. Gig is on the opposite side of the GP spectrum from you, so you were only willing to see the potential malice in his post. That lead to every misunderstanding between us.

This quote is also why we're done here. I'll get back to offering Souls my thoughts as long as its welcome.

Well maybe since there was a lot more posted above that one line that wasn't referring to it as all. Also Tide can very easily be overlooked as referencing a football team and assuming that everyone will pick up on that reference even though they could be from any part of the world with no reference to that is a narrow minded thing to do. But thanks for only leaving that line to make it seem it was one of the few things there. That could have been referencing any number of things in a little over a week from today. Again love the fact you know my intentions better than me. Maybe it has to do that post seemed confrontational with no context whatsoever. There was nothing there and impossible to see could be football until mentioned. And yes please lets focus on the thread if my comments can't be shaken up and turned into something that they aren't without people trying to assume the worst of my every post.

[The Bruce]

You might as well add to your repeal:

"Finding that invaders have over time abused the spirit of the Security Council on a number of occasions, we thought we'd do it one more time, to see if anyone was still paying attention. Especially since the delegate of Texas said bad things about invaders, whose generous contribution to the fabric of NationStates can be measured in all the regional communities they've destroyed, players driven from the game, and general acts of vandalism."

[The Bruce]

The repeal cites the dialogue between the player of Reventus Koth (aka Valtarre) and the residents of Texas. Oddly enough, the members of the defender region didn’t like having an invader using Texas’ embassy with the Rejected Realms to post on their region board.

It was further pointed out and admitted by this player that they were also one of the invaders whose primary nation was deleted for using the illegal Predator script to circumvent the NationStates system and rules. Reventus Koth was up for a puff piece, commendation styled condemnation saying what an awesome invader they were, bringing up their “glorious” past as an invader, but failing to mention the player’s involvement with the Predator script scandal.

https://www.nationstates.net/region=tex ... #p26810829

It’s not very difficult to see how someone in a defender region, who were less than happy to find out they were playing a rigged game, might have a problem with an invader getting an invader commendation styled condemnation, after being an active participant in one of the biggest cheating scandals in NationStates history.

That this region board interaction is a major point of this repeal of the Texas region’s commendation appears to be more of a reaction by invaders to being on the receiving end of “evil shaming” than of having an actual basis for going forward.

[Reventus Koth]

We get it, Bruce. You and Big Tex are old and have deeply ingrained opinions about invaders that pretty much everyone else in the game got over a decade ago. However, the amount of dust on your bones is about as relevant to this topic as my (minimal) involvement in Predator. So I'm going to try to move past this as quickly as possible so we can move back to the proposal at hand.

In the post you linked, I clearly go over the details of my involvement with the tool, which was a couple of times before its creator was revealed to be breaking any site rules at all, at which point I completely detached from anything involving him. The only people who are still obsessed with labeling me as a world-class cheater are the ones so out of touch with and detached from Gameplay such as yourself and the citizens of Texas that they are willing to turn apparently anything into a discussion about a tool I barely used to raid probably a maximum (ballpark) of 50 regions with, ever. Less than some organizations are capable of hitting in a single update. So obsessed, in fact, that it has had to be stated three times that I am not the author of this proposal, and frankly don't have much to add to this thread at all.

How about this, Bruce? You and Tex are clearly old enough to understand that this is a political game where people can (shockingly) speak to one another. Get with the times and stop acting so incredulous that an invader could dare open a dialogue about his own condemnation. Defenders and raiders have been able to get along and talk to one another for years and years. Only those too deep in their armchairs for anyone to take their opinions (or commendations) seriously remain as openly hostile towards players on the other side as you seem to be.

Now can we kindly go back to discussing the many other merits to this proposal that you seem to think do not exist? Perhaps follow the lead of your defender comrade, Benevolent Thomas, who has been very constructive in his arguments against this proposal in this thread. My time in the spotlight was last week, when I got my condemnation. Focus the beam elsewhere.

[Omigodtheykilledkenny]

Only those too deep in their armchairs for anyone to take their opinions (or commendations) seriously remain as openly hostile towards players on the other side as you seem to be.

I'm sorry, who is it trying to repeal a region's commendation because someone got their feelings hurt on their RMB?

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Only those too deep in their armchairs for anyone to take their opinions (or commendations) seriously remain as openly hostile towards players on the other side as you seem to be.

I'm sorry, who is it trying to repeal a region's commendation because someone got their feelings hurt on their RMB?

Not fucking him, and if I have to say one more time that I am not Koth, I swear, Ima have an aneurysm. >.>

Let me repeat this one, hopefully final, more time.

I. Am not. Reventus Koth. Nor Valtarre. I have not posted on the Texas RMB in ages, if ever. I have not interacted with the region in months prior to writing this proposal. I am not the player who spoke on their RMB.

I am not Koth.

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...Proposal edits coming soon on a day that's not 14 hours long.

[Fauxia]

I'm sorry, who is it trying to repeal a region's commendation because someone got their feelings hurt on their RMB?

Not fucking him, and if I have to say one more time that I am not Koth, I swear, Ima have an aneurysm. >.>

Let me repeat this one, hopefully final, more time.

I. Am not. Reventus Koth. Nor Valtarre. I have not posted on the Texas RMB in ages, if ever. I have not interacted with the region in months prior to writing this proposal. I am not the player who spoke on their RMB.

I am not Koth.

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...Proposal edits coming soon on a day that's not 14 hours long.

But Koth supports, Right?

[Studly Penguins]

I'm sorry, who is it trying to repeal a region's commendation because someone got their feelings hurt on their RMB?

Not fucking him, and if I have to say one more time that I am not Koth, I swear, Ima have an aneurysm. >.>

Let me repeat this one, hopefully final, more time.

I. Am not. Reventus Koth. Nor Valtarre. I have not posted on the Texas RMB in ages, if ever. I have not interacted with the region in months prior to writing this proposal. I am not the player who spoke on their RMB.

I am not Koth.

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...Proposal edits coming soon on a day that's not 14 hours long.

While yes you may not be Koth you're the one banging the drum because they got their feelings hurt......so you might as well be. Why not let Koth do his own dirty work of writing this since it was him, not you, that did what they done in Texas and got nailed for it.

[Big Bad Badger]

Why are we allowing this thread to turn into petty arguments and getting away from the matter at hand. I feel that the touchiness of so many here indicates the need to push this proposal forward and let the greater NSverse decide its fate.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Why are we allowing this thread to turn into petty arguments and getting away from the matter at hand. I feel that the touchiness of so many here indicates the need to push this proposal forward and let the greater NSverse decide its fate.

I'm sorta hoping for some more line by line legality and wording feedback, that I occasionally see some folks give

[Benevolent Thomas]

Why are we allowing this thread to turn into petty arguments and getting away from the matter at hand. I feel that the touchiness of so many here indicates the need to push this proposal forward and let the greater NSverse decide its fate.

I'm sorta hoping for some more line by line legality and wording feedback, that I occasionally see some folks give

I've been doing that. I may be your best helper ironically enough

Having said that, I have another argument to make.

I've been reading the Texas RMB lately (thanks to you ) and I saw that this past Saturday was Texas' 653rd Weekly Chat. The draft currently reads "FINDING IT UNREMARKABLE that the leaders of a region talk to one another and the public". I happen to think that 653 and counting weekly chats is pretty damn remarkable. Many regional communities do not even last that many days, let alone weeks. Unlike many of our regions, these chats are scheduled for a formal time and they are never skipped. That is over a dozen years Commitment to a region or community is often brought up as a commendable thing in the SC and this level of commitment may be unmatched.

[Ransium]

I'm sorta hoping for some more line by line legality and wording feedback, that I occasionally see some folks give

I've been doing that. I may be your best helper ironically enough

Having said that, I have another argument to make.

I've been reading the Texas RMB lately (thanks to you ) and I saw that this past Saturday was Texas' 653rd Weekly Chat. The draft currently reads "FINDING IT UNREMARKABLE that the leaders of a region talk to one another and the public". I happen to think that 653 and counting weekly chats is pretty damn remarkable. Many regional communities do not even last that many days, let alone weeks. Unlike many of our regions, these chats are scheduled for a formal time and they are never skipped. That is over a dozen years Commitment to a region or community is often brought up as a commendable thing in the SC and this level of commitment may be unmatched.

Yeah, that is what I was ineloquently trying to get at yesterday, I think.

[The Bruce]

We get it, Bruce. You and Big Tex are old and have deeply ingrained opinions about invaders that pretty much everyone else in the game got over a decade ago. However, the amount of dust on your bones is about as relevant to this topic as my (minimal) involvement in Predator. So I'm going to try to move past this as quickly as possible so we can move back to the proposal at hand.

Yes. We get it. You like to insult people when you have no point to make.

The only people who are still obsessed with labeling me as a world-class cheater are the ones so out of touch with and detached from Gameplay such as yourself and the citizens of Texas that they are willing to turn apparently anything into a discussion about a tool I barely used to raid probably a maximum (ballpark) of 50 regions with, ever.

Invading 50 regions using a cheating script is minimal? The way you were using the word minimal made it sounds like you had done something very different…like 1-2 invasions using a cheating script. Pro Tip: If you also consume a minimal amount of soft drinks you may be a candidate for early onset diabetes.

How about this, Bruce? You and Tex are clearly old enough to understand that this is a political game where people can (shockingly) speak to one another. Get with the times and stop acting so incredulous that an invader could dare open a dialogue about his own condemnation. Defenders and raiders have been able to get along and talk to one another for years and years. Only those too deep in their armchairs for anyone to take their opinions (or commendations) seriously remain as openly hostile towards players on the other side as you seem to be.

You may be surprised to learn that over the years I’ve met some intelligent, well spoken, and polite invaders that I’ve had long discussions with. Some of them were even aware that I was the one talking to them. However, apparently results may vary.

Now can we kindly go back to discussing the many other merits to this proposal that you seem to think do not exist? Perhaps follow the lead of your defender comrade, Benevolent Thomas, who has been very constructive in his arguments against this proposal in this thread. My time in the spotlight was last week, when I got my condemnation. Focus the beam elsewhere.

The discussion of your commendation styled condemnation on the region board of Texas is quite clearly the inspiration for this repeal, so it should be front and centre in the discussion of this repeal. If you don't want that to be the case you should just tell your friend to remove the clause from the repeal and I'm pretty certain that they'll take care of that for you.

[Reventus Koth]

Yes. We get it. You like to insult people when you have no point to make.

Are you serious? Go look at the Texas RMB if you want to see unfounded insults thrown around. I only brought up your NS age because it was relevant to the point I was making: that you are clearly out of touch with the way the Gameplay community has evolved and the way invasion works in the modern world. To expand on why this is the case:

Invading 50 regions using a cheating script is minimal? The way you were using the word minimal made it sounds like you had done something very different…like 1-2 invasions using a cheating script. Pro Tip: If you also consume a minimal amount of soft drinks you may be a candidate for early onset diabetes.

Yes, in fact, it is. Tag raiding isn't new, it's been pretty much the main method of invasion since at least 2011. During tag raids, it is not at all unheard of to raid 50 regions in a single night. It happens with relative frequency, actually. My total use of Predator resulted in about as much regional graffiti as a skilled triggerman can achieve in an hour or two. That is minimal usage, believe it or not. You clearly haven't had a frame of reference for what invaders are capable of since the days of the Farkers, so I'm not surprised that you are so utterly confused by how I could consider this not a massive fucking deal.

You may be surprised to learn that over the years I’ve met some intelligent, well spoken, and polite invaders that I’ve had long discussions with. Some of them were even aware that I was the one talking to them. However, apparently results may vary.

While your insults are actually pretty clever here, it makes you look like a hypocrite considering you were just railing on me for "insulting" you in this very same post. Pick a theme and stick with it.

The discussion of your commendation styled condemnation on the region board of Texas is quite clearly the inspiration for this repeal, so it should be front and centre in the discussion of this repeal. If you don't want that to be the case you should just tell your friend to remove the clause from the repeal and I'm pretty certain that they'll take care of that for you.

Perhaps the discussion may have been the catalyst for Souls to look into the commendation and decide it needed a repeal, but the fact of the matter is that alone is not going to get the job done. Luckily, Souls wrote a substantial repeal that challenges almost every point in the commendation, so we don't need to worry about what the inspiration was.

[Consular]

So Koth considers his cheating to be "not a massive fucking deal". Alright then, that's interesting.

I still think the motivations behind this are far too partisan. Perhaps if it was a more neutral author we could have a better discussion.

[Reventus Koth]

So Koth considers his cheating to be "not a massive fucking deal". Alright then, that's interesting.

Don't act like it's some massively controversial opinion. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and I was already done with the program long before it was ever found out to have been against the rules. Your side continuously paints my involvement as an intentional play to break the rules and cheat. I'm not that kind of player, and I never will be.

I served my sentence and sacrificed my main nation for that mistake. I accept that it had to happen to send the message that illegal script usage has to be punished. What I don't need to take is continual character assassination. I don't even want to be in this thread, yet four times it has had to be explained that I am not the author of this proposal and I've had to defend myself from crap like this from people who apparently can't get enough Koth in their diet.

Would you like to be forever known only as the imperialist who fell asleep at the wheel in Nazi Europe, Consular? Literally nothing else you've accomplished in the game matters at all because you fucked up one time. In the grand scheme of things, when you put your whole career into perspective, you'd probably consider that event not a massive fucking deal.

[RiderSyl]

Since The Bruce and Consular see it fit to bring up Koth's association with Predator, and I was the one that provided the tool itself to the tech team and usage logs to the site staff, let me go ahead and clear this up.

Koth deserved his Predator punishment about as much as Aurum Rider, Camo5768, 94 Block and Wetwork did. That is to say, them being punished at all was questionable. Koth and Wetwork barely touched it, and Aurum Rider, Camo, and 94 Block never used it. They all received punishments in the Predator scandal anyway. That said, the site staff were dealing with a gigantic, unprecedented breach of site rules and I don't blame them one bit for sweeping up some non-offenders with the actual offenders.

[Consular]

Since The Bruce and Consular see it fit to bring up Koth's association with Predator, and I was the one that provided the tool itself to the tech team and usage logs to the site staff, let me go ahead and clear this up.

Koth deserved his Predator punishment about as much as Aurum Rider, Camo5768, 94 Block and Wetwork did. That is to say, them being punished at all was questionable. Koth and Wetwork barely touched it, and Aurum Rider, Camo, and 94 Block never used it. They all received punishments in the Predator scandal anyway. That said, the site staff were dealing with a gigantic, unprecedented breach of site rules and I don't blame them one bit for sweeping up some non-offenders with the actual offenders.

So Koth considers his cheating to be "not a massive fucking deal". Alright then, that's interesting.

Don't act like it's some massively controversial opinion. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and I was already done with the program long before it was ever found out to have been against the rules. Your side continuously paints my involvement as an intentional play to break the rules and cheat. I'm not that kind of player, and I never will be.

I served my sentence and sacrificed my main nation for that mistake. I accept that it had to happen to send the message that illegal script usage has to be punished. What I don't need to take is continual character assassination. I don't even want to be in this thread, yet four times it has had to be explained that I am not the author of this proposal and I've had to defend myself from crap like this from people who apparently can't get enough Koth in their diet.

Would you like to be forever known only as the imperialist who fell asleep at the wheel in Nazi Europe, Consular? Literally nothing else you've accomplished in the game matters at all because you fucked up one time. In the grand scheme of things, when you put your whole career into perspective, you'd probably consider that event not a massive fucking deal.

I mean, me falling asleep at the wheel didn't break game rules.

That said, that's fair enough. I apologise.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

I still think the motivations behind this are far too partisan. Perhaps if it was a more neutral author we could have a better discussion.

Hi,

I haven't interacted with Texas at all in ages prior to this proposal.

I'd appreciate further criticism on the actual text of the proposal, though I realize I need to make a day or two worth's of edits as it.

Thank you.

[Mostly Benevolent Tyranny]

If anything, the behavior of the residents of Texas in this thread merely continues to show how little they deserve their commendation. Full support.

[Fauxia]

Why are we allowing this thread to turn into petty arguments and getting away from the matter at hand. I feel that the touchiness of so many here indicates the need to push this proposal forward and let the greater NSverse decide its fate.

This is NS. Petty arguments is what it's for... jk