NationStates

So, obviously this was my first attempt at something like this. I have to say, writing a C&C or a Liberation is a lot easier than writing a declaration. I gave this a shot, and have been working on it off and on for a few days now. I don't know if it's a good start or not, but I would like to get people's opinions on it.

The Security Council,

Noting that throughout the NationStates Multiverse there are regions of truly ancient status that were founded in the time before founding nations held executive power amongst their peers;

Acknowledging that among this group of regions the majority had one nation that took executive powers over the region through many different means, including democratic elections and godly appointments, while a select few did not;

Naming the few regions thought to be the last of these truly ancient regions which have never had a founder nation lording over them to be Belgium, Bucketheadland, Carioch, Eutopia, EWU, Hattrick, Haven, Lake ilopango, Liberal Paradise, Secularia, Seven Eleven, South Pacific, The AGS Commonwealth, The Proletariat Coalition, The West, User Friendlia, NationStates, Canada, Middle Earth, St Abbaddon, Stargate, Yorkshire, Space, and LUE;

Believing that these regions hold a significant historical position within the interregional community, as they are among the last of the first regions ever founded within NationStates, and that due to this status these regions should be especially protected from destruction and loss;

Differentiating the regions listed within this resolution from other truly Founderless regions that hold the name of Feeder, Sinker, and Warzone in so far as the regions with those titles are not at the same risk of regional destruction;

Hereby states that regions and organizations should take the following steps to protect these special historical regions from being destroyed and founded under new nations:

• Interregional protection treaties. All major regions of defender, Independent, Imperialist and non-aligned ideologies can sign and adopt treaties to protect these regions from aggression.
• Regional laws if they have a functioning government. These laws would restrict the regional military forces from attacking these regions and keep them from destroying them by removing all native nations and refounding.
• Using preemptive liberation resolutions to keep the regions from being passworded and to protect them from internal threats. This would make it harder to refound the region by passwording the regional borders to prevent new nations from moving in.
• Preserving the regional history and message boards through making copies of their contents and publishing them in their regional libraries for all nations to see.

Encouraging regional governments to take the following actions against military and non-military entities who disregard the protection of these regions:

• Political isolation by closing existing embassies, repealing any existing treaties, and pulling regional ambassadors back.
• Direct military intervention against the attacking forces, and any future endeavors by those attacking forces, to attempt to pressure the offending entities into following the outlines of this declaration.

An interesting idea, but IIRC the list of truly founderless regions is longer than that.

I quite honestly don't see a point to any of this. It's well written but pointless none the less....

Wayneactia wrote:I quite honestly don't see a point to any of this. It's well written but pointless none the less....

Wayne summed it up for me. What does this achieve?

Klaus Devestatorie wrote:An interesting idea, but IIRC the list of truly founderless regions is longer than that.

There is this. I know Luna produced a list around here somewhere. (Maybe it was in NSGP? I recall having seen one.)

Honeydewistania wrote:

Wayneactia wrote:I quite honestly don't see a point to any of this. It's well written but pointless none the less....

Wayne summed it up for me. What does this achieve?

Concur with Honeydew and Wayne. I like the idea but there needs to be something stronger than a suggestion. Teeth would be good.

Hulldom wrote:Concur with Honeydew and Wayne. I like the idea but there needs to be something stronger than a suggestion. Teeth would be good.

Declarations are in themselves inherently toothless......

Wayneactia wrote:

Hulldom wrote:Concur with Honeydew and Wayne. I like the idea but there needs to be something stronger than a suggestion. Teeth would be good.

Declarations are in themselves inherently toothless......

That was a reference to the wording. I recognize that they’re toothless in the sense of any effect.

Hulldom wrote:

Wayneactia wrote:Declarations are in themselves inherently toothless......

That was a reference to the wording. I recognize that they’re toothless in the sense of any effect.

What possible wording could there be other than "Refounding founderless regions = Bad"? Declarations can't force anything....

This draft is being caught in a trap as we speak. This draft being a declaration, as others have state, drains it of having any effect. On the other hand, this topic would not be fitting for a GA proposal whatsoever. Therefore, I feel that the author must either approach a modified topic that evades this trap or scraps this draft altogether.

Why does this apply to those special ancient regions and not every region that doesn't have a founder?

Also, interestingly enough, LUE appears to be a raider colony.

Wayneactia wrote:

Hulldom wrote:That was a reference to the wording. I recognize that they’re toothless in the sense of any effect.

What possible wording could there be other than "Refounding founderless regions = Bad"? Declarations can't force anything....

“Declares that regions should do their utmost to protect historical founderless regions, including protecting them from raids, encouraging their culture and population…”, etc. Really all that would be needed to make this *stronger* would be for the author to make their last few clauses feel less like suggestions and more like concrete steps going forward which would mean tweaking the language to reflect that.

West Barack and East Obama wrote:Why does this apply to those special ancient regions and not every region that doesn't have a founder?

Also, interestingly enough, LUE appears to be a raider colony.

Other regions have a visible CTE'd founder - these regions have the appearance of never having a founder at all, akin to GCRs.

It's been Luna's for like 18 years. It's theirs.

Echoing the choir here but this seems pretty pointless

All Declarations are inherently useless in nature. In fact, the entire category does nothing at all by design! They don't even give out shiny badges like C/Cs do! So for people to argue that this is pointless is a bit hilarious, given that this is meant to do nothing except express an opinion on something. Which is weird, since I would say the SC community is pretty vocal about its likes and dislikes and you would think that people would jump at the opportunity to publicize their opinion by utilizing a game-sanctioned tool.

Hulldom wrote:

Klaus Devestatorie wrote:An interesting idea, but IIRC the list of truly founderless regions is longer than that.

There is this. I know Luna produced a list around here somewhere. (Maybe it was in NSGP? I recall having seen one.)

You remember correctly, the Declaration seems to be missing 17 in total viewtopic.php?p=39502727#p39502727

Anne of Cleves in TNP wrote:This draft is being caught in a trap as we speak. This draft being a declaration, as others have state, drains it of having any effect. On the other hand, this topic would not be fitting for a GA proposal whatsoever. Therefore, I feel that the author must either approach a modified topic that evades this trap or scraps this draft altogether.

With all due respect, I'm not going to give up on this draft. I'm going to edit it continuously until I'm confident in it's ability at vote.

Hulldom wrote:

Wayneactia wrote:What possible wording could there be other than "Refounding founderless regions = Bad"? Declarations can't force anything....

“Declares that regions should do their utmost to protect historical founderless regions, including protecting them from raids, encouraging their culture and population…”, etc. Really all that would be needed to make this *stronger* would be for the author to make their last few clauses feel less like suggestions and more like concrete steps going forward which would mean tweaking the language to reflect that.

I'm going to try and adopt this idea into the draft, we'll see how it goes. Thanks Hulldom .

Emodea wrote:All Declarations are inherently useless in nature. In fact, the entire category does nothing at all by design! They don't even give out shiny badges like C/Cs do! So for people to argue that this is pointless is a bit hilarious, given that this is meant to do nothing except express an opinion on something. Which is weird, since I would say the SC community is pretty vocal about its likes and dislikes and you would think that people would jump at the opportunity to publicize their opinion by utilizing a game-sanctioned tool.

I really, really couldn't have said it better myself.

Numero Capitan wrote:

Hulldom wrote:There is this. I know Luna produced a list around here somewhere. (Maybe it was in NSGP? I recall having seen one.)

You remember correctly, the Declaration seems to be missing 17 in total viewtopic.php?p=39502727#p39502727

I'm incorporating those I missed into the draft, I really didn't realize those existed!

Support. Declarations are useless anyways so saying that as a reason to oppose doesn't make sense. This is well-written and gets its point through in a sound manner.

I would say rather than outlining ways in which member-regions can preserve founderless regions, it should outline expectations that these regions be preserved and not be destroyed, or grieved - in addition to outlining sanctions that member-nations are expected to pursue too for violators, in addition to collective action that should be taken to liberate/support/preserve these regions.

Effectively, I’d suggest declaring that member-nations should abide by and take “x” action, rather than declaring a bullet point list of actions that could be taken.

One blue-skies-idea too could be to have the WASC establish a player-run ‘NS historical preservation society’ that supports the remaining historical regions when/if they lack a local gov’t by establishing resources that allow the regions to endure. The Society might, for instance, dig up old regional flags and build historical guides to attach as Dispatches, and essentially maintain the region on a cultural-administrative level.

Another idea would be to have different levels of historical preservation status, with Class 1 being naturally-founderless UCRs; Class 2 being regions older than ten (?) years whose historical status is adopted in future WA declarations.

Lenlyvit wrote:

Anne of Cleves in TNP wrote:This draft is being caught in a trap as we speak. This draft being a declaration, as others have state, drains it of having any effect. On the other hand, this topic would not be fitting for a GA proposal whatsoever. Therefore, I feel that the author must either approach a modified topic that evades this trap or scraps this draft altogether.

With all due respect, I'm not going to give up on this draft. I'm going to edit it continuously until I'm confident in it's ability at vote.

Okay then, good luck to you!

The Orwell Society wrote:Support. Declarations are useless anyways so saying that as a reason to oppose doesn't make sense. This is well-written and gets its point through in a sound manner.

Except like... Why is this opinion needed? Clearly these regions have bene surviving just fine without a declaration telling them how to survive.

Minskiev wrote:

West Barack and East Obama wrote:Why does this apply to those special ancient regions and not every region that doesn't have a founder?

Also, interestingly enough, LUE appears to be a raider colony.

Other regions have a visible CTE'd founder - these regions have the appearance of never having a founder at all, akin to GCRs.

It's been Luna's for like 18 years. It's theirs.

Yeah, but why do these special no founder regions need to be differentiated from ones with CTE founders? As far as I know, both still get raided, and the "operative" clauses dont make it so that only that one class of founderless regions are affected.

West Barack and East Obama wrote:

The Orwell Society wrote:Support. Declarations are useless anyways so saying that as a reason to oppose doesn't make sense. This is well-written and gets its point through in a sound manner.

Except like... Why is this opinion needed? Clearly these regions have bene surviving just fine without a declaration telling them how to survive.

Minskiev wrote:Other regions have a visible CTE'd founder - these regions have the appearance of never having a founder at all, akin to GCRs.

It's been Luna's for like 18 years. It's theirs.

Yeah, but why do these special no founder regions need to be differentiated from ones with CTE founders? As far as I know, both still get raided, and the "operative" clauses dont make it so that only that one class of founderless regions are affected.

Of the ones that are for sure still in existence, the only ones with any sort of day-to-day activity are St Abbaddon and South Pacific. And I don’t believe they should be the addressees of this resolution. (If they are, I can’t say it’s a great idea to address them and not those who would take them.)

The reason for the differentiation is because of their uniqueness. These are all regions that predate regional founders (someone can correct me if I’m wrong but late 2003, I think) as a permanent position and thus have stood the test of time. Not all of them are fortunate enough to get passworded for one reason or another. (I recall St Abby was not too long ago.)

A declaration on this topic is at least a public statement that these regions ought to be preserved and not considered targets. (Notwithstanding political reasons that would make some of them unwise targets.)

Pass one just for Stargate.

Lyra Cecile Cronier, Representative of the Entity of Nova Universo to the Security Council: The Entity of Nova Universo, in behalf of the Union and of its member nations, SUPPORTS this proposition. We agree to the sentiments underpinning this draft. We would like to see more protection afforded to founderless regions. We also support the representative of Unibot III's idea of creating a 'NS Historical Preservation Society'.

So, I've added a second draft. I'm getting happier with the writing, but I'm not 100% sure about it. I could only come up with two things for the "encouraging" clause, so I'm not sure if anyone has any more suggestions there. I'm also thinking about switching the "Hereby" list clause with the "encouraging" list clause, but I want opinions on that before I do.

I see a lot of improvement, but I do believe that there are too many founderless regions listed.