[PASSED] Disease Naming Compact

[Excidium Planetis]

Ai-ah. Abciddy.

No no, ABCD is pronounced Ab Kid

[The Yellow Monkey]

How do you pronounce ABCD?

Ay-bee-cee-dee... [not] "ab-si-de"

IA believes his own name is pronounced EE-AH

I'd pronounce ABCD as "aa bee see dee"...And "Araraukar" is pronounced "AH-rah-rah-oo-kar"...

Ai-ah. Abciddy.

No no, ABCD is pronounced Ab Kid

I don't say this lightly, but I believe this may be the most pointless debate in World Assembly history.

Congratulations?

[Araraukar]

I don't say this lightly, but I believe this may be the most pointless debate in World Assembly history that day.

OOC: Fixed.

[Bears Armed]

I don't say this lightly, but I believe this may be the most pointless debate in World Assembly history.

Remembers the drafting of a proposal (WA? UN?) that was aimed at regulating the colour of toothpaste...

[Tinhampton]

LAST CALL! Will submit at 5pm GMT tomorrow (give or take fifteen minutes) if it remains the case that none of you have any serious complaints.

---

I don't say this lightly, but I believe this may be the most pointless debate in World Assembly history.

Remembers the drafting of a proposal (WA? UN?) that was aimed at regulating the colour of toothpaste...

Toothpaste Color Regulation?

[Bears Armed]

LAST CALL! Will submit at 5pm GMT tomorrow (give or take fifteen minutes) if it remains the case that none of you have any serious complaints.

---

Remembers the drafting of a proposal (WA? UN?) that was aimed at regulating the colour of toothpaste...

Toothpaste Color Regulation?

That's it. Thank you.

[Sierra Lyricalia]

How do you pronounce ABCD?

Ay-bee-cee-dee... [not] "ab-si-de"

IA believes his own name is pronounced EE-AH

I'd pronounce ABCD as "aa bee see dee"...And "Araraukar" is pronounced "AH-rah-rah-oo-kar"...

Ai-ah. Abciddy.

No no, ABCD is pronounced Ab Kid

I don't say this lightly, but I believe this may be the most pointless debate in World Assembly history.

Congratulations?

https://youtu.be/qTvhKZHAP8U?t=76

IC: "I really fail to see the point of spending WA money on this, when fighting over what a disease is called is simply a thing that does not happen. The doctors who write up their case files describe the illnesses, and either they or the journalists who report the stories find a name that then sticks. If we'd had this law in place a-way back in the day, we'd be using some gobbledigooky name like 'depressive respiratory fever' for a simple flu. I find this entire idea a waste of time and energy. Apologies to your delegation, but we must oppose."

[Excidium Planetis]

Toothpaste Color Regulation?

OOC:
It was either that or the earlier Toothpaste Accordance Act, of which the first draft specified that toothpaste should be primarily white but also "various colors". Bears Armed also commented on it so he could be referring to either one.
(Edit: apparently you were right though)

No no, ABCD is pronounced Ab Kid

https://youtu.be/qTvhKZHAP8U?t=76

Hey, I was right!

[Bears Armed]

Toothpaste Color Regulation?

OOC:
It was either that or the earlier Toothpaste Accordance Act, of which the first draft specified that toothpaste should be primarily white but also "various colors". Bears Armed also commented on it so he could be referring to either one.
(Edit: apparently you were right though)

Actually, I think that it was the earlier one.

[Tinhampton]

Smith: Influenza means influenza.

OOC: Proposal-A-Go-Go. I'd love to campaign for this but I unfortunately can't due to severe time constraints which have literally just kicked in for me (also known as "the reason why I submitted this four-and-a-half hours after I said I would").

[Unibot III]

OOC: If there were as many strange sentient species as some in the WA like to imagine, cross-species infection would be common, ever-evolving, and pose a lot of challenges for classification and identification.

If anything, the weirder and wilder you imagine the WA, the more significant the naming problem becomes.

[Imperium Anglorum]

I have no particular objection on some RP-wank grounds. Though, I would imagine there is likely some level of inherency here. Scientists generally want to be readily understood by their colleagues. Norms on naming etc would be settled, in absence of a government or international body doing it, by something like IUPAC. Basically: Coase theorem that thing.

[Wallenburg]

"This seems functionally impossible to me, seeing as member states have no common language nor any common writing system. Whatever naming convention the committee might adapt will unavoidably fail to work for many member states," says Ogenbond in his native tongue, whose phonetics prominently feature sounds not present in the English language.

Ogenbond writes out a similar complaint in the Yewvic script, whose format also deviates significantly from the Latin alphabet.

[Tinhampton]

"This seems functionally impossible to me, seeing as member states have no common language nor any common writing system. Whatever naming convention the committee might adapt will unavoidably fail to work for many member states," says Ogenbond in his native tongue, whose phonetics prominently feature sounds not present in the English language.

Ogenbond writes out a similar complaint in the Yewvic script, whose format also deviates significantly from the Latin alphabet.

Smith, who has conveniently forgotten his headpiece: What? What is this? I... I just can't... BIANCA!!! ANOTHER CUP OF COFFEE!

OOC: Suppose that ABCD decides to name a new disease "severe juvenile influenza." I believe that it may be reasonably assumed that those words, and therefore the ABCD-publicised name, can feasibly be translated into @@NATION@@'s language(s).

[Omigodtheykilledkenny]

Wow. I don't think I've ever been the very first to cast a vote on a resolution. Yay me.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

While we commend the efforts to create standardisation, it seems unreasonable and counterproductive to force the use of a particular language on a state's communications to its own public. Additionally, attempting to proscriptively define language rather than allowing to evolve organically will restrict uses that evolve for good reason.

Take for example the (mostly) non-viral condition Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Initially, this disease was referred to be many medical communities as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (or ME), but has at different times been called Post-Viral Fatigue and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. At other times it has been conflated (now decided to be inaccurately) as a form of Polymyalgia Rheumatica, and at times has been claimed to just be a manifestation of Depression (though this view is largely discredited).

Do these name changes reflect linguistic sloppiness? No, rather they reflect changing ideas around the causation of an illness which, by its very nature, is hard to pin down and define. Meanwhile in Chinese, Arabic and other languages there's different names for this condition still, that each reflect the thinking process of physicians around the illness.

Names are not just random collections of syllables, arbitrarily decided upon. They convey meaning, and emerge as a result of the ongoing process of thinking about a condition. You no more need an ultimate authority forcing specific names than you need an ultimate authority mandating that everyone should speak English and say "coriander" instead of "cilantro".

All in all, this seems like bureaucracy for its own sake. The WA doesn't have to legislate everything, so let's not fix problems that don't exist.

[Pradesh]

This resolution is absolutely redundant because we already have binomial nomenclature for living beings and similar International systems for viri (viruses).

[ArenaC]

[/quote]

While we commend the efforts to create standardisation, it seems unreasonable and counterproductive to force the use of a particular language on a state's communications to its own public. Additionally, attempting to proscriptively define language rather than allowing to evolve organically will restrict uses that evolve for good reason.

Take for example the (mostly) non-viral condition Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Initially, this disease was referred to be many medical communities as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (or ME), but has at different times been called Post-Viral Fatigue and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. At other times it has been conflated (now decided to be inaccurately) as a form of Polymyalgia Rheumatica, and at times has been claimed to just be a manifestation of Depression (though this view is largely discredited).

Do these name changes reflect linguistic sloppiness? No, rather they reflect changing ideas around the causation of an illness which, by its very nature, is hard to pin down and define. Meanwhile in Chinese, Arabic and other languages there's different names for this condition still, that each reflect the thinking process of physicians around the illness.

Names are not just random collections of syllables, arbitrarily decided upon. They convey meaning, and emerge as a result of the ongoing process of thinking about a condition. You no more need an ultimate authority forcing specific names than you need an ultimate authority mandating that everyone should speak English and say "coriander" instead of "cilantro".

All in all, this seems like bureaucracy for its own sake. The WA doesn't have to legislate everything, so let's not fix problems that don't exist.

Nation of Candlewhisper Archive— let us note:

OOC: Suppose that ABCD decides to name a new disease "severe juvenile influenza." I believe that it may be reasonably assumed that those words, and therefore the ABCD-publicised name, can feasibly be translated into @@NATION@@'s language(s).

[Candlewhisper Archive]

That clarification doesn't exist within the legislation though, and so has no legal weight.

[Tinhampton]

This resolution is absolutely redundant because we already have binomial nomenclature for living beings and similar International systems for viri (viruses).

Article d: "...this resolution does not affect the naming or taxonomy (such as binomial nomenclature) of disease vectors." This resolution pertains to naming the diseases that are carried by viruses etc., not to naming the viruses themselves.

[Rex the Very Good Boy]

Arf! Arf! (Support!)

[Grubville]

Grubville will be voting in support of this resolution.

In a world where disease spread occurs at faster rates than ever before due to increased levels of international travel, anything that can be done to standardise identification of illness should be done.

Grubville notes however that this resolution seems hastily drawn up, poorly debated and badly named. We fear that due to a low level of active engagement among other WA nations, this bill may face a difficult path on its way to approval.

[Delginard]

- From Leader of Delginard

Although I can see why some want to enact this, I simply see no reason in which this needs to be put in place. Not only would it be expensive to create a new branch of government like that, but the imapct of the actual proposal would to little. Therefore, I must vote against. Sorry.

[Kalliopea]

That clarification doesn't exist within the legislation though, and so has no legal weight.

- From Leader of Delginard

Although I can see why some want to enact this, I simply see no reason in which this needs to be put in place. Not only would it be expensive to create a new branch of government like that, but the imapct of the actual proposal would to little. Therefore, I must vote against. Sorry.

OOC: The way I see it is, this is more or less a piece of legislation establishing the equivalent of an ICD-10. It's frankly surprising this hasn't been legislated yet.

[The Palentine]

Ye effing gods! Somedays its not worth gnawing through the leather straps to show up here. The Palentine votes AGAINST!
Excelsior,
Sen. Horatio Sulla