Secretary General Role Expansion

[Gruenberg]

Most seem to agree that the SG should be re-enacted after any changes happen so Misley doesn't get to mess with the WA (unless he is re-elected, which no offence to the guy, but I would prefer someone else there). A significant portion think the SG should have some token power, but there is little consensus on what powers they should have, and who it should effect.

I haven't seen anything from the GA players who commented on the SG - almost all of whom have been unremittingly hostile to the idea - to back up that assertion of support.

Even the WA itself was an April Fool's thing.

Yes. [violet] deleted all of our resolutions, was genuinely surprised when it was mentioned later on that some of us were actually not wildly enthusiastic fans of this, and tried to blame it on us. What jolly japes, can't wait to see something like that happen again!

[Flanderlion]

Not going to pretend widespread GA support given the thread was linked in the council thread, and most seemed to think this was a continuation of the council discussion.

That said, the GA is getting tech goodies, and I doubt the rest of the game would throw a fit if either the GA got it unwillingly (obviously not exactly ideal), willingly (ideal imo), or missed out entirely and only the SC got it. It is the event that matters, not specifically it having an impact on the GA.

I kind of thought it was good if the SG was meant to be the leader of the whole WA, he/she would have power over the WA process, not half. But if the GA/SC are going to go seperate ways, the SG doesn't need to be something chaining them together. Just whatever power the SG has should be WA related, because they are meant to be the leader of the whole WA.

Obviously the veto would suck for authors etc. as I mentioned earlier, but what about the badge/reorder or some of the things mentioned earlier in the thread?

[Gruenberg]

That said, the GA is getting tech goodies

I agree it's a shame they're wasting their time on the Advisory Council instead of actually fixing the WA, but if this is going to be a trade-off - "you get the Advisory Council so you also have to swallow the Secretary General" - that is revolting, and I certainly hope it's made clear to those who supported the Advisory Council that that's what they're signing up for (something hitherto not mentioned, along with most of the project details of course).

and I doubt the rest of the game would throw a fit if either the GA got it unwillingly

Of course they wouldn't. They didn't last time, in fact they actively cheered it on! That's why it's so important for WA players to comment in threads like this, because we are the only ones who will defend our interests. The mods certainly won't.

It is the event that matters, not specifically it having an impact on the GA.

Then, again, why can't it just be limited to the SC?

I kind of thought it was good if the SG was meant to be the leader of the whole WA, he/she would have power over the WA process, not half. But if the GA/SC are going to go seperate ways, the SG doesn't need to be something chaining them together.

But the two "halves" of the WA have nothing to do with each other. One is an in-character roleplay legislative body that for 7 years hasn't acknowledged the existence of the other (the sickening mod ruling tearing down that wall that [violet] had promised us is very recent); one is an out-of-character gameplay body. Seeing them as "halves" of one thing is the essential problem.

but what about the badge

Don't care. In fact if that's all this is, I'm fine with it.

reorder

No one has offered any convincing benefit for this in the WA beyond "it would be political". Which funnily enough is the exact same justification some of the game staff used to try to justify the SC stuff.

or some of the things mentioned earlier in the thread?

There's been no explanation, Blaat's interesting interpretation of a "good faith" contribution notwithstanding, for why one individual should be granted so much power over the game. If anything, centralized power is already one of the biggest problems with the WA (delegate vote stacking, unaccountable moderation) and adding to that can only make it worse.

[Excidium Planetis]

Since they can resubmit their resolution, what have they lost honestly?

Everyone lost their time.

The resolution wasn't permanently vetoed so it can be done over and over again.

Does that sound fun to you? "Hey, we just voted on yhis for 3 days, and then the SG vetoed it, now the author has resubmitted amd we are going to need to vote on it for another 4 days! Yay"

So what if you lost your gamble on a few stamps.

Oh, goodie. So it is a way to make someone pointlessly waste their money. How does this help?

You stated that it's either a permanent veto or the veto is completely ineffective. Yet as you suggested, the same issue will arise again if it is suitably important, if it isn't then the community will move on. However it is unlikely to be a permanent veto (which is where the shade of grey comes in), with the limitations that Sedge proposed they would be restricted to the number of times that they could veto something and therefore with persistence and community willing the SG can be over-ridden

Yes, that is called "completely ineffective" and a w a telegram of everyone's time. We will just have to immediately vote on the same resolution a second time, and pass it again. You could achieve the same effect by requiring all resolutions to be passed twice to become resolutions... does that sound fun?

The same process works well in a number of countries around the world and it's a good process.

No, it doesn't. In nations like the US, a presidential veto raised the requirements to pass a law: two thirds of Congress are needed to pass the law instead of a simple majority. If the presidential veto did not raise the requirements, then it would be completely ineffective like the one being suggested here.

[Bears Armed Mission]

Since they can resubmit their resolution, what have they lost honestly? The resolution wasn't permanently vetoed so it can be done over and over again. So what if you lost your gamble on a few stamps.

So. what about those of use who (for one reason or another, such as not having a way to spend money online) don't use stamps and consequently campaign for their proposals the old-fashioned way? RL won't necessarily leave us with enough time for repeat 'manual' campaigns during the same period -- instead of having to wait for several weeks, by which time the SG's veto power would be ready for use again as well -- if the first submission gets vetoed.

I do not support that suggested power for SGs.

[Omigodtheykilledkenny]

This is all completely insane. A player with no GA involvement took far too seriously an April Fool's joke and threadjacked a discussion on GA rules moderation to bring up the SG role being expanded, and now here we are, with mods actually considering going forward on it.

This might take a while.

Indeed. You might even have identified the problem this solution is supposed to fix by then.

[Sciongrad]

This is all completely insane. A player with no GA involvement took far too seriously an April Fool's joke and threadjacked a discussion on GA rules moderation to bring up the SG role being expanded, and now here we are, with mods actually considering going forward on it.

This might take a while.

What might take a while?? Why is this being considered???

[Excidium Planetis]

This might take a while.

What might take a while?? Why is this being consider???

As long as the SG just gets the ability to rubberstamp proposals, it's all good. That should be considered, at least.

It wouldn't fix any problems, so I definitely don't think it needs to be a priority, but it would be kinda sorta cool.

[Mousebumples]

What might take a while?? Why is this being consider???

As long as the SG just gets the ability to rubberstamp proposals, it's all good. That should be considered, at least.

It wouldn't fix any problems, so I definitely don't think it needs to be a priority, but it would be kinda sorta cool.

I'm not saying that I think this is a good idea, but the other possibility I saw mentioned that might not be terrible would be a Presidential-like veto. (i.e. requiring 67% to pass versus 50%) However, for those that aren't as observant or as aware of what's going on, on the forums, I could see how that could also confuse the hell out of people when/if used.

However, from an author perspective - provided it needs to be announced within the first day or two of voting (i.e. the SG shouldn't be able to use a veto in the last few hours of a vote when it's clear that the veto will be successful) - is that doable? Of course, I think it would be more likely to be used on more contentious issues, which - historically - seem likely to be a passing (if they pass) by a closer margin.

I know Kenny used to update an NSwiki page with the voting margins. Is something like that around anymore, so we can see what sort of margins we've had recently?

[Excidium Planetis]

I know Kenny used to update an NSwiki page with the voting margins. Is something like that around anymore, so we can see what sort of margins we've had recently?

You mean like the total votes For and Against (with percentages)?

[Eluvatar]

What I think might actually be interesting is if the SG had a role in adding information to a WA vote. I think that the ability to present analysis of or counter-arguments to a resolution at vote where it will be visible to all voters might actually encourage voters to get more involved.

Pinning a dispatch is one possibility, an alternative would be promoting a submission from a special submission pool of commentary on the particular proposal/resolution at vote.

[Enfaru]

Since they can resubmit their resolution, what have they lost honestly?

Everyone lost their time.

<--snip but I am responding to the rest of the post too-->

Boohoo everyone lost a few minutes of their time. They're playing a political simulator yet get upset if someone does something remotely political. :/. I'd like to repeat, political simulator. Politics is not the most exciting thing in the world, re-drafting, re-submitting is part and parcel of the political process. In fact it would make (possibly) better legislation because people would have to re-think their approach.

As for wasting money. Don't think about it as wasting, think about it as: contributing and donating to NationStates. You didn't *have* to use stamps. So in effect when you buy stamps you are already wasting money if you're not interested in the upkeep of nationstates. Besides if you're spending money solely to win, you're missing the point of NationStates really, which has long been against "pay to win" (allegedly).

While some resolutions may be vetoed, under Sedge's proposals, they would only be able to do that twice a month. Once they've used up their vetoes, everyone else gets a free ride. So yes, it does sound fun actually, but then... I like politics so...

This isn't a presidential veto. If anything it is more like the UK House of Lords Veto. After the passage of the same bill through the house of commons three times it then skips the house of lords entirely. No one is proposing that a resolution require more votes simply that the community is sure that they want it and have at least looked at the complaints.

Since they can resubmit their resolution, what have they lost honestly? The resolution wasn't permanently vetoed so it can be done over and over again. So what if you lost your gamble on a few stamps.

So. what about those of use who (for one reason or another, such as not having a way to spend money online) don't use stamps and consequently campaign for their proposals the old-fashioned way? RL won't necessarily leave us with enough time for repeat 'manual' campaigns during the same period -- instead of having to wait for several weeks, by which time the SG's veto power would be ready for use again as well -- if the first submission gets vetoed.

I do not support that suggested power for SGs.

Then you have lost a lot of time and I suggest an API... seriously given the number of WA nations, manually campaigning (unless you have a team) seems... well...impossible to be effective.

Maybe, just maybe, if your resolution is actually wanted, someone with the time will take up the cause? Have you considered joining or creating some kind of Resolution creating political body so that you can "share" the responsibilities of writing/campaigning for a WA resolution?

And I also support Eluvatar's proposal.

(Just to be clear, I'm not at all saying what MUST absolutely be done, I'm just saying what I think would be good and what would make the game more interesting for me).

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Voting would have to be WA members to prevent puppetwanking, while a one-member one-vote system (rather than with delegates having extra power) would make the race much harder for big regions to dominate the way they can with WA proposal votes.

Harder, but still very possible. For example, if you look at those in TNP currently voting on proposals up to vote out of total individual votes, they represent about 8% of the current SC vote and 7% of the current GA vote. While by no means are residents required to vote a certain way, they are fairly likely to follow the (undoubtedly highly touted) candidate the region's leaders choose to back. If they and 2-3 other large regions agree on a common candidate, it would basically force other large regions to agree on a counter-candidate to have any reasonable chance of winning, and quickly turn this into essentially a dozen or two people picking the two or three folks this'll be drawn from. I feel like that may not be entirely desired behavior.

While I'm not sure you can make the raw vote any more fair, what would be really interesting is to make the selection process for the candidates to be voted on far different from how it was done for april fools. Three different ideas with varying merits come to mind right away, so in order of selectivity -

>Hold a nomination process for candidates among folks with X number of posts in the World Assembly subforum. Means that those with at least some degree of field experience are those who get a say in who they'd like to see in charge.
>Hold a nomination process for candidates among resolution authors. Anyone there has by nature of the selection had a decent amount of WA experience. (to be clear, I'm not saying only they could run, but that only they could nominate. Though only them being able to run *would* be another interesting one...)
>Make the position more of a "chair" of the Secretariat's Council. Those selected for the council are the candidates. Would require some editing to one or the other roles, since as is the SG is proposed for both bodies and the council just for the GA. Perhaps overly selective, but also ensures vetted candidates.

My personal favorite is holding it among authors, but I think any one of these (or really anything but a fully open nominations process) would be interesting and helpful in slightly reducing the odds of this becoming "which of a dozen regions can get the most allies and put their favorite person in office first," and put the focus more on actively contributing members of the two bodies.

[Excidium Planetis]

Boohoo everyone lost a few minutes of their time.

Days. A few days of their time. For no reason.

They're playing a political simulator yet get upset if someone does something remotely political

That's not political. That's stupid. We work to get a resolution to vote, it starts passing... and then the SG removes it. So we work to get it to vote... AGAIN, and then we vote AGAIN, and then it passes. For no reason. Nobody is better off because of that veto.

Politics is not the most exciting thing in the world

Wrong. Politics is the most exciting thing in the world. That's why I play this game. That's why I write resolutions.

, re-drafting, re-submitting is part and parcel of the political process.

Yes it is. However, having to vote on the exact same resolution twice is not part of the process.

In fact it would make (possibly) better legislation because people would have to re-think their approach.

No they wouldn't. They could resubmit the exact same thing with no changes, and it would pass. Why would you change something when the voters clearly supported it?

As for wasting money. Don't think about it as wasting, think about it as: contributing and donating to NationStates. You didn't *have* to use stamps.

API and manual are not fast enough for WA wide campaigns. So sometimes you DO have to use stamps.

And also, why make random people have to pay for stamps twice instead of once? Why not just raise the price of stamps, since the goal here seems to be to make people spend more money for no real reason?

While some resolutions may be vetoed, under Sedge's proposals, they would only be able to do that twice a month. Once they've used up their vetoes, everyone else gets a free ride.

Great. I'm so happy that our time and money will only be wasted for no reason twice a month.

So yes, it does sound fun actually, but then... I like politics so...

You just said it wasn't the most exciting thing. Make up your mind.

This isn't a presidential veto. If anything it is more like the UK House of Lords Veto. After the passage of the same bill through the house of commons three times it then skips the house of lords entirely. No one is proposing that a resolution require more votes simply that the community is sure that they want it and have at least looked at the complaints.

I'm sure if the MPs were paying to vote instead of getting paid to do so, they would have devised a system involving less pointless repetition.

[Enfaru]

...have you actually worked for local government and policy drafting? You make it sound like it's a "write once and one time decision" kind of thing. That's rarely (if ever) the case. Often the draft is revised and revised and when it gets to formal vote time, it is often amended during the debate. Then it comes back for a second reading if the higher ups don't like it for whatever reason so we have to re-draft it, make sure it's legal, re-submit. Only for a judge to throw it out on a technicality, so guess what. Back to the drawing board, for the same piece of legislation to be reviewed, checked so that it is consistent with all other legislation and then it gets put to vote again... and that's at local government level dictating how local housing is allocated. Politics is by definition, boring. Many people think "programming" is exciting because of Hollywood and Hacking. Reality is vastly more different.

So it's not really like they've wasted a few days for no reason, they get to look back over their proposal and judge the reason why the SG rejected it. Was it rejected with good reason, did they provide reasons, if so, review the damn thing see if their comments have any merit and submit the re-draft. Sometimes they'll do it on principle, in which case a re-draft is unnecessary. You say nobody is better off because of that veto, when in fact, quality of legislation might actually improve...if we elect good Secretary Generals. (This relies on a fundamental principle of democracy: That in the end, the public know best).

Voting on the exact same resolution, twice...thrice even, can in fact be part of the process. Sometimes it's just a stalemate with say the Secretary General but this is also part of politics and part of the excitement. Things won't always go your way and you'll have to find more interesting ways of circumventing the veto. For example, make 'em use up all their veto's with more controversial legislation early on and submit the legislation you actually want passed later.

As for why would you change it? Well, quite simple, in my own experience, voters often don't look at the fine detail and they don't realize how things they are voting on will affect their lives in the future. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's called democracy, but sometimes it is right for someone to stand up and say, "Hold on a damn second and lets think about this. Are you really sure you want to take x, y, z risks?". This veto idea against a determined WA would not be able to resist a resolution a third time so ultimately even though they feel strongly about the matter the SG would be over-ruled.

If you have to use stamps to win, then that's something that needs to be looked in to. Violet has repeatedly said this is not a pay to win game and has repeatedly rebuffed my suggestions to pay for some "aesthetic" changes (a few ergonomic ones too but not the point).

No, the goal here is to make better resolutions and give the SG some meagre powers. In all, I'm happy that people with far too much money are contributing more money to Nationstates out of the goodness of their hearts, under the misguided idea that if they pay more then they can win.

I'll reiterate. Politics is tedious and boring by nature. However, I like that kind of thing because I'm a tedious and boring person, hence me and politics go hand in hand. (As well as lots of other nerdy stuff).

You're not paying to vote. Voting is free. MPs and parties do campaign for their bills (out of their own party funds) but also vote for free (and don't get paid for voting) *eyes ukip suspiciously*.

[Gruenberg]

Wow, Enfaru, I can't wait for you, someone who has never once posted in the GA in any capacity, to make our game more "tedious and boring". That sounds like a really great change.

I'm not saying that I think this is a good idea

Agreed, it's not.

What I think might actually be interesting is if the SG had a role in adding information to a WA vote. I think that the ability to present analysis of or counter-arguments to a resolution at vote where it will be visible to all voters might actually encourage voters to get more involved.

Pinning a dispatch is one possibility, an alternative would be promoting a submission from a special submission pool of commentary on the particular proposal/resolution at vote.

Again, why should one player's interpretation of a resolution be given so much prominence over everyone else's?

Harder, but still very possible.

Yeah, agreed. I'm not sure if they're being naive in not seeing that gameplayers or simply some large bloc (like reddit.com/r/truecommunism last time around) would dominate the voting. I almost want such an election to take place, just to demonstrate there is 0 chance of a qualified WA player actually winning such an election.

[Enfaru]

Really couldn't give a damn about the GA, it's needs to be abolished ^-^.

[Gruenberg]

That just makes it all the more likely you'll be the one the admins listen to when it comes to massive changes to the WA. It certainly has been a reliable indicator in the past.

[Enfaru]

Just because you have been in the GA such a long time, doesn't mean your opinion matters above anyone else's. Your only argument is that I shouldn't have a say because I haven't posted in the GA and therefore my opinion is invalid. Are you going to maintain that stance?

[Gruenberg]

Just because you have been in the GA such a long time, doesn't mean your opinion matters above anyone else's.

In the views of the admins, it matters quite a bit less. The people they tend to listen to when considering major changes affecting the WA are people with no involvement in it whatsoever.

Your only argument is that I shouldn't have a say because I haven't posted in the GA and therefore my opinion is invalid.

No, my argument is that the SG was a shit idea when Ryanimus brought it up, and no one has yet done anything to make it any less shit. Whatever problems the WA currently has, not spending enough time voting on multiple versions of the same resolution, not having the proposal queue reordered because "it's political", and not having whichever player can summon up the largest mass of popular support given priority in broadcasting their opinions on a proposal, are not exactly the highest priorities of them.

This is something I brought up in the other thread, too, although because the mods misleadingly titled it it didn't get much play. Changes to NS are a sort of zero-sum game: the admins have limited time and resources, and many other areas of the game to tend to besides the WA, such as issues, nation stats, cosmetics, forum, etc. etc. Making a change that involves the admin means not making another change, because the admins can't do everything at once.

If they are going to spend their limited time and resources on the WA, there are much better things they could be doing than catering to players who don't understand April Fool's jokes.

[Flanderlion]

Typed up a big reply to this all but lost it all by coming back a few hours later rather than finishing the reply.

Redoing the same things twice doesn't sound exactly like it's add to anyone's game, bar maybe the SG themself. But it does sound like it'll be detrimental to people's game for little gain. Not exactly in favour of veto ability, sucks in the real world UN, not convinced it's play out better here.

Badge/Stamp to say the SG approves it and the ability to reorder proposals I'm still in favour of. Stamp is to give the SG an appearance of having power (purely cosmetic) and a way to say "the SG thinks this is good, and you elected him" while showing a badge. Re-ordering proposals is useful (as long as they can't remove proposals from queue, that should be only a mod/GA council ability) to pass time relevant resolutions and get instant repeals in front of seperate resolutions. WSA instant repeal rather than letting it sit over a week on the books, and the liberation where Cormac got an author or two to pull their proposals to get it urgently to vote come to mind as two examples for the use of it.

But that said, I'd be fine with whatever as long as we have the event again, and people are interested in it enough to contest it.

With Elu's idea, it kind of seems to revolve around the SG being consistently active, and having the motivation to pick the best option. The neutral dispatch sounds like it would be better to come from the GA council and some sort of neutral body for the SC. If the SG gets into exam period and vanishes for a resolution, what would happen? Or if the SG just links useless dispatches etc.

In the worst case scenario, someone putting badges on resolutions that don't deserve it just means a few players vote for a resolution that is later repealed or re-enacted, and the general weight players place on the badge goes down. Switching another proposal to the front of the queue just means at worst a resolution goes to vote a bit later than it should have, but the resolutions would still go to vote and wouldn't be impacted bar timing. But if the seperate idea from earlier to give WA voters more information relies on a single person, that could go horribly wrong.

[Gruenberg]

Re-ordering proposals is useful (as long as they can't remove proposals from queue, that should be only a mod/GA council ability) to pass time relevant resolutions and get instant repeals in front of seperate resolutions.

Who is making that determination, that one resolution is more "time relevant" than another? And I'd imagine the author of the resolution being repealed wouldn't see an "insta-repeal" of their resolution as more pressing than a new resolution.

Ironically, this suggestion is actually killing off one of the very few PvP elements of NS, the battle to get a resolution submitted first. Can you imagine the history of the NSUN had the SG been able to simply reorder Abortion Legality Convention and Clinical Abortion Rights?

But that said, I'd be fine with whatever as long as we have the event again, and people are interested in it enough to contest it.

If this is just about the SG event itself, then why does the WA have to be involved at all? Just run an election for Dog-Catcher-In-Chief or whatever position every April Fool's. It's not the WA that's intrinsic to the SG event.

In the worst case scenario, someone putting badges on resolutions that don't deserve it just means a few players vote for a resolution that is later repealed or re-enacted, and the general weight players place on the badge goes down. Switching another proposal to the front of the queue just means at worst a resolution goes to vote a bit later than it should have, but the resolutions would still go to vote and wouldn't be impacted bar timing.

"At worst" is a false proposition when there's nothing wrong with the status quo.

[Excidium Planetis]

...have you actually worked for local government and policy drafting?

Have you?

You make it sound like it's a "write once and one time decision" kind of thing.

No, I don't. Hey, remember when I just said this:

, re-drafting, re-submitting is part and parcel of the political process.

Yes it is. However, having to vote on the exact same resolution twice is not part of the process.

It is absolutely hilarious that you, who have never passed a resolution, are telling me, who has passed 4 of them, all of which went through numerous drafts and one of which was actually a repeal and replace of one of my earlier resolutions which was inadequate. And one proposal I am currently working on is on its 12th Draft. Resolutions are absolutely not write one time things.

That's rarely (if ever) the case. Often the draft is revised and revised

I know. I have actually done it, unlike you.

and when it gets to formal vote time, it is often amended during the debate.

No, that's not the case here, because that is illegal.

[/quote]Then it comes back for a second reading if the higher ups don't like it for whatever reason so we have to re-draft it, make sure it's legal, re-submit.[/quote]
That is only the case in real life because the higher-ups have the ability to actually stop it. The POTUS can veto legislation all day, every day, so Congress either had to show major bipartisan support or change their law. But the Secretary General here only gets one or two vetos, so we can send the exact same thing through again. No need to redraft, because it will pass and the voters clearly agree that the current draft is good, and no need to check for legality because it is likely already legal if it made it to vote.

Only for a judge to throw it out on a technicality, so guess what. Back to the drawing board, for the same piece of legislation to be reviewed, checked so that it is consistent with all other legislation and then it gets put to vote again

There are no judges in the WA to throw out passed legislation, so this doesn't even apply.

Politics is by definition, boring.

There are two major problems here:
1) No it isn't. Politics is exciting.
2) You said thus would make things more political. In fact, that is your whole argument here, that this would make things more like politics (it wouldn't). So, if you are saying politics is boring, then you are saying you are attempting to make the game more boring. Why? Why would you want to make the game more boring? What benefit do we gain from you pointlessly making the game more boring?

Many people think "programming" is exciting because of Hollywood and Hacking. Reality is vastly more different.

Programming is exciting. Maybe not for other people, because staring at thousands of lines of code while you attempt to figure out why a result is not the number you were expecting is not most people's idea of exciting, but I love solving problems like that. But what does this have to do with the topic?

So it's not really like they've wasted a few days for no reason, they get to look back over their proposal and judge the reason why the SG rejected it.

The SG rejected it because they disagreed with the majority of voters. I am inclined to accept the majority of voters' opinion than the SG.

Sometimes they'll do it on principle, in which case a re-draft is unnecessary.

Exactly. I imagine this will happen all the time.

You say nobody is better off because of that veto, when in fact, quality of legislation might actually improve...if we elect good Secretary Generals. (This relies on a fundamental principle of democracy: That in the end, the public know best).

You are contradicting yourself. You say the public knows best, yet, when the public passes a resolution, you are suggesting we go back and redraft it because one person disagreed with the public. I thought the public knew best? Doesn't that mean when they voted for the proposal, they knew better than the SG who vetoed?

Voting on the exact same resolution, twice...thrice even, can in fact be part of the process.

We don't need an SG for that. We can simply require that all resolutions get voted on three times in a row before they really pass. Does that sound fun to you?

Sometimes it's just a stalemate with say the Secretary General

Except it isn't, because the SG has no power to actually stop the proposals. The authors will always win. It make take two or three attempts, but the SG will run out of vetoes and the resolution will pass.

but this is also part of politics and part of the excitement.

Boring, exciting... make up your mind. Which is it?

Things won't always go your way and you'll have to find more interesting ways of circumventing the veto.

No, I won't. I will just resubmit the proposal unchanged. Because if it got to vote, it was already determined good enough, and if it was passing, the people agree with me. Screw the SG.

For example, make 'em use up all their veto's with more controversial legislation early on and submit the legislation you actually want passed later.

1) Why would I go to the trouble of drafting, submitting, and campaigning for a controversial proposal I don't even want passed? That's a stupid idea.
2) It would be much easier to just submit the proposal I do want passed, and then if it gets vetoed, sumbut it again, and then of it gets vetoed, submit it again and now all the vetoes are used up.

As for why would you change it? Well, quite simple, in my own experience, voters often don't look at the fine detail and they don't realize how things they are voting on will affect their lives in the future.

The public knows best... but they can't even read? MAKE UP YOUR MIND. Which is it? You can't have it both ways.

I accidentally deleted what was in this quote. Something about how the SG could not stand up to a determined WA

Exactly my point. At the end of the day, the SG is wholly incapable of stopping even the worst piece of legislation from being passed. That makes the whole veto a pointless endeavor, nothing more than unnecessary obstruction.

If you have to use stamps to win, then that's something that needs to be looked in to.

Do you remember when World Space Administration was passed? Maybe, maybe not?

That made it quite clear the WA is indeed a pay to win game. Pay $20, and you can get anything you want to vote, and possibly even passed, despite massive opposition by those who didn't pay.

At one time, Imperium Anglorum wanted to form a kind of political alliance where 4 people with APIs could hit the entire WA within one voting period. This would have leveled the playing field by enabling API to hit the whole WA in a reasonable amount of time. Guess what the moderators said? It was illegal. We couldn't do it. And thus, stamps will always be the way to send out a campaign to every voter.

No, the goal here is to make better resolutions and give the SG some meagre powers. In all, I'm happy that people with far too much money are contributing more money to Nationstates out of the goodness of their hearts, under the misguided idea that if they pay more then they can win.

They can. They have. WSA was oposed by two telegram campaigns, had every single GA regular opposed (except Kenny, actually), and a majority of Delegate's and delegate votes against. It passed because in spite of many of their delegates voting against, 60% of individual WA nations supported it, because Bitely paid $20 to send all of them a telegram asking to vote for it.

I'll reiterate. Politics is tedious and boring by nature.

No, it really isn't. You just want to make it that way.

[Sciongrad]

Just because you have been in the GA such a long time, doesn't mean your opinion matters above anyone else's. Your only argument is that I shouldn't have a say because I haven't posted in the GA and therefore my opinion is invalid. Are you going to maintain that stance?

I don't care if Gruen maintains that stance, but I certainly will. Your opinion means nothing. In fact, it's less than nothing. Your opinion holds negative value. From now on, when you suggest something, I will consider that a reason against your argument. Let me explain why.

Firstly, the GA is open to anyone. Anyone can participate at any time. Therefore, when someone who has not participated makes a suggestion, their suggestion should be considered less valuable than a regular's opinion. Which is not to say their opinion is valueless, like yours, but that it should not be considered over the objection of regulars, who actually play the game. Consider the following. You and your family own a house and have been running it according to your preferences for a decade. One day, your neighbor, who you hardly know, tells you that you should vacuum the living room on Wednesdays, not Saturdays. A reasonable person in that situation should respond by saying "you get a say when you help pay the rent, buddy." The neighbor might have a good idea sometimes, and a reasonable person will consider it. But the neighbor's idea is secondary to the ideas of the people in the house.

However, you are not an outsider making a suggestion. You said:

Really couldn't give a damn about the GA, it's needs to be abolished ^-^.

And so your dumpster fire of an idea - even if it wasn't actually horrifically awful - should be dismissed out of hand because you have demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that you have no intention of contributing in good faith. So kindly go bother some other community, please.

EDIT: The fact that EP and I are agreeing over just how terrible your ideas are should be quite telling.

[Cormactopia II]

Part of the reason "the GA community" is so small and exclusive is because the few who have self-declared themselves part of that community have made it so small and exclusive. Go participate in the General Assembly forum as a new player and see how unwelcoming and unhelpful some of the people there can be, and you see why there is so little interest in the General Assembly.

Any change that would expand participation in the World Assembly to more WA nations is a change that should be embraced, regardless of what the few people in "the GA community" want. The World Assembly is supposed to be for all players, not just the few who dominate the General Assembly forum. At minimum, we should consider expanding the Secretary-General role to be more involved in voter education and outreach, such as the pinned dispatch at the top of the WA page that has been proposed. Another idea might be to allow the Secretary-General to wire campaign telegrams to all WA nations at no cost.

I do agree that the Secretary-General's powers shouldn't be expanded in ways that are obstructive (e.g., veto, removing proposals). That doesn't increase participation, it would probably reduce it. I could support allowing the Secretary-General to move proposals up in the queue, but only if the proposal has more approvals than a proposal that is already ahead of it in the queue, so we aren't granting too much power to one person.

I also agree that a new election should be conducted using a one-vote-per-WA-nation standard before any new powers go into effect.