Making the Secretary-General Meaningful

[Flanderlion]

Glad to hear [v] is still around and okay.

I've posted a lot in the past on the subject and am obviously in favour of this. Looks like the GA crowd have showed up, but like, is still a good idea. The easier option is doing it without the GA, but it depends on how much [v] wants the GA and SC to stick together. The GA has forever been trying to distance themselves from the SC.

I'm still for the ability to reorder the proposal queue - as that gives the Secretary-General power, while also allowing NS the ability to put important resolutions like liberations at the front of the queue (or bottom), and I think it'll overall add more longterm than vetoes which will generate a lot of excitement twice a year, then not as much for the rest.

Vice-SG should be able to do what the SG does with the queue, possibly being unable to undo what the SG does, but I think that is just over complicating things.

Veto wise - sure? I think that's less important for the game than being able to reorder the queue though, but players probably care more (for or against) about the ability to veto as it's more interesting.

Re the recommendations, should first have dispatch categories for each proposal in queue, and build upon it from there once it is seen how much it is used/the quality of it. I think the recommendations is a lot more likely to happen in a number of little updates than one big one.

Also, as a minor aside, but I think somewhere gameside should save the election records/which players served which terms as the SecGen/ViceSecGen. That's not a must have, the must have for me is having the regular elections, the really like to have is the reorder proposal queues.

Also - @Galiantus accounts will make that more doable. But that won't happen in the next 5+ years.

[Wallenburg]

I will add this: I think it says a lot that the mods never bothered to implement an easy, objectively good idea to improve the WA, but that this gets suggested as a worthy change to the WA instead.

[Honeydewistania]

Opposed to any idea making Sec Gen elections frequent (or happening again, at all). Too much tag:wa campaign spam will lead to delegates and others blocking WA filters, making it harder to campaign for stuff

[Comfed]

Opposed to any idea making Sec Gen elections frequent (or happening again, at all). Too much tag:wa campaign spam will lead to delegates and others blocking WA filters, making it harder to campaign for stuff

I would suggest another category for such election campaigns.

[Great Algerstonia]

I am very opposed to this... NSGP nonsense shouldn't affect the GA this badly

[Barfleur]

I don't understand the point of the veto idea... As others have remarked, a vetoed proposal can be resubmitted in the exact same format, and if it garnered a majority the first time, what's to stop it from being passed a second time, now with the single veto having been used up? On the opposite side of that coin, to give one player the power to cancel out potentially thousands of votes seems manifestly unworkable. So either the Secretary-General has a power that is better off not existing, or it may as well be meaningless. (Also, what about a reverse veto? Could the Secretary-General declare a proposal to have passed even if it did not gain a majority? That makes just as much sense, logically, but I think we can all agree it is absurd for a proposal that has been rejected by the voters to become law at the whim of one person.)

[Separatist Peoples]

Because Gameplay entities have a long history of trying to affect the GA regardless of their involvement. You saw that with TEP's anti-GA policies, for example. TWP had a history of it for some time. Every major delegate, with the possible exception of Imperium Anglorum, is Gameplay-centric, and yet exert huge control over the GA. Disproportionate with their involvement.

And naturally so: Regional security in feeders and sinkers is directly tied to WA involvement. No feeder or sinker would choose a leader based on WA politics when their primary goal is the protection and prosperity of the local community. Note that Imperium Anglorum has the luxury of being the delegate of a region with an active founder. The region can afford to separate the issues of security and WA politics.

And this isn't to say I like how things are set up. I have suggested on multiple occasions that WA participation be separated from gameplay participation, because they are indeed two different games that should have been developed separately. If they were separate a lot of this would just not be an issue and features could be added more to the liking of GA without gameplayers caring, and vica-versa. Unfortunately, that would be technically difficult to do. So for the time being, the GA is going to have to get along with gameplayers because that is just the way things are.

There wouldn't be any need to "get along" if ideas that fundamentally interjected an unwanted influence on the GA community were not implemented over the objections of the GA community. a

Its odd that the GA should get the short end of the stick when improvements to the GA have never come at the expense of another group in the game. Its no more than we've come to expect, though.

[Galiantus III]

And naturally so: Regional security in feeders and sinkers is directly tied to WA involvement. No feeder or sinker would choose a leader based on WA politics when their primary goal is the protection and prosperity of the local community. Note that Imperium Anglorum has the luxury of being the delegate of a region with an active founder. The region can afford to separate the issues of security and WA politics.

And this isn't to say I like how things are set up. I have suggested on multiple occasions that WA participation be separated from gameplay participation, because they are indeed two different games that should have been developed separately. If they were separate a lot of this would just not be an issue and features could be added more to the liking of GA without gameplayers caring, and vica-versa. Unfortunately, that would be technically difficult to do. So for the time being, the GA is going to have to get along with gameplayers because that is just the way things are.

There wouldn't be any need to "get along" if ideas that fundamentally interjected an unwanted influence on the GA community were not implemented over the objections of the GA community. a

Its odd that the GA should get the short end of the stick when improvements to the GA have never come at the expense of another group in the game. Its no more than we've come to expect, though.

To be fair, I'm not advocating for either side of this. I'm just pointing out that gameplay and the GA are intertwined by the features of the game, and that's not likely to change in the near future. People are going to suggest features they think will improve the game based on their experience with it, and that is going to differ based on which area they focus on. That said, I don't think becoming tribal about the discussion is useful. This proposal has merit but it definitely needs tweaking.

[Separatist Peoples]

There wouldn't be any need to "get along" if ideas that fundamentally interjected an unwanted influence on the GA community were not implemented over the objections of the GA community. a

Its odd that the GA should get the short end of the stick when improvements to the GA have never come at the expense of another group in the game. Its no more than we've come to expect, though.

To be fair, I'm not advocating for either side of this. I'm just pointing out that gameplay and the GA are intertwined by the features of the game, and that's not likely to change in the near future. People are going to suggest features they think will improve the game based on their experience with it, and that is going to differ based on which area they focus on. That said, I don't think becoming tribal about the discussion is useful. This proposal has merit but it definitely needs tweaking.

It's hardly tribal to want to avoid having our favorite part of the game harmed by an attempt to cater to an entirely different part of the game.

[Flanderlion]

Its odd that the GA should get the short end of the stick when improvements to the GA have never come at the expense of another group in the game. Its no more than we've come to expect, though.

All improvements come at the expense of other groups, as there is only a finite amount of improvements. Also, I thought the last thing the GA got was the GenSec, which afaik is working fine?

[Separatist Peoples]

Its odd that the GA should get the short end of the stick when improvements to the GA have never come at the expense of another group in the game. Its no more than we've come to expect, though.

All improvements come at the expense of other groups, as there is only a finite amount of improvements. Also, I thought the last thing the GA got was the GenSec, which afaik is working fine?

No, improvements need not come at the expense of other communities. GenSec didn't take away from GE&T. Trading cards didn't screw over II. This is demonstrably not true as a rule. This proposed change will harm the GA. This Secretary General prank has been little more than frustration and trouble for the GA since it was created. Expanding it makes it worse. Expanding it at the cost of GA functionality and autonomy is a great way to let the GAers know their input is not a priority.

[Flanderlion]

All improvements come at the expense of other groups, as there is only a finite amount of improvements. Also, I thought the last thing the GA got was the GenSec, which afaik is working fine?

No, improvements need not come at the expense of other communities. GenSec didn't take away from GE&T. Trading cards didn't screw over II. This is demonstrably not true as a rule. This proposed change will harm the GA. This Secretary General prank has been little more than frustration and trouble for the GA since it was created. Expanding it makes it worse. Expanding it at the cost of GA functionality and autonomy is a great way to let the GAers know their input is not a priority.

GenSec/Trading Cards came with dev time that could've instead been used of the long planned forum upgrade, so yeah, both did take away. I personally agree with the dev choices of pushing back the forum upgrade though.

I actually don't think the GA would get many vetoes, dependent on who won the election/it being implemented exactly as Sedge said, as the SC would receive the bulk of them (and there only being 2 a year). https://www.nationstates.net/page=WA_pa ... ?start=335 would be something I would expect to be vetoed though, as the WA elite (which I'd expect to win an election like this in some form) was not a fan of Bitely. So personally, implementing it for the GA and SC vs just the SC I don't think would make a massive difference, it's more whether [v] wants to keep the two parts of the WA together, or is more in favour of the GA viewpoint of splitting them apart more.

[SherpDaWerp]

As someone who ran a TG campaign in the last Sec-Gen election: the main reason there was so much spam going around was because there was, essentially, 4 elections in 4 days (I don't remember specifically but I remember sending 1 TG per round, and that added up to 4 TGs). Each one needed the player to vote in each round, which meant each round brought a full wave of campaign TGs. If the election was re-tooled to be, say, just 1 vote, then there'd only be 1 round of campaign TGs being sent, and only a quarter as much spam as last time.

That said, it seems to me that there's been a fair bit of demand for something to shake-up GP, and absolutely no demand for something to shake-up the WA, so you might find that you (Sedge/Admin) get more mileage out of proposing an improvement like this to a community that actually wants it.

[Wallenburg]

No, improvements need not come at the expense of other communities. GenSec didn't take away from GE&T. Trading cards didn't screw over II. This is demonstrably not true as a rule. This proposed change will harm the GA. This Secretary General prank has been little more than frustration and trouble for the GA since it was created. Expanding it makes it worse. Expanding it at the cost of GA functionality and autonomy is a great way to let the GAers know their input is not a priority.

GenSec/Trading Cards came with dev time that could've instead been used of the long planned forum upgrade, so yeah, both did take away. I personally agree with the dev choices of pushing back the forum upgrade though.

That's not even remotely comparable to a change that actively harms the community, and no amount of mental gymnastics on your part will change that.

I actually don't think the GA would get many vetoes, dependent on who won the election/it being implemented exactly as Sedge said, as the SC would receive the bulk of them (and there only being 2 a year). https://www.nationstates.net/page=WA_pa ... ?start=335 would be something I would expect to be vetoed though, as the WA elite (which I'd expect to win an election like this in some form) was not a fan of Bitely. So personally, implementing it for the GA and SC vs just the SC I don't think would make a massive difference, it's more whether [v] wants to keep the two parts of the WA together, or is more in favour of the GA viewpoint of splitting them apart more.

Yet another person who says "WA elite" and doesn't even know what they mean by that. That's not how the power dynamics of NationStates work. All the powers possessed by a mechanically relevant Sec-Gen would be used to most effectively benefit whichever GP faction controlled it, not to satisfy the stylistic and procedural standards of some shadowy cabal of WA regulars.

[Wallenburg]

As someone who ran a TG campaign in the last Sec-Gen election: the main reason there was so much spam going around was because there was, essentially, 4 elections in 4 days (I don't remember specifically but I remember sending 1 TG per round, and that added up to 4 TGs). Each one needed the player to vote in each round, which meant each round brought a full wave of campaign TGs. If the election was re-tooled to be, say, just 1 vote, then there'd only be 1 round of campaign TGs being sent, and only a quarter as much spam as last time.

That said, it seems to me that there's been a fair bit of demand for something to shake-up GP, and absolutely no demand for something to shake-up the WA, so you might find that you (Sedge/Admin) get more mileage out of proposing an improvement like this to a community that actually wants it.

You'll find that a concerning portion of GP is far more comfortable ruining the game for everyone else rather than making changes in their own backyard.

[Flanderlion]

That's not even remotely comparable to a change that actively harms the community, and no amount of mental gymnastics on your part will change that.

Still hasn't been shown how this 'actively harms the community'. Seems like a lot of worry over things that won't really be aimed at the GA, interspersed by good points about WA TG spam and saving proposals. The benefits of the change (reordering proposals, veto) are still realised even if the GA does not have the veto applied to it, as I said earlier, it's more about whether admin wants to bind or seperate the two different WA parts.

Yet another person who says "WA elite" and doesn't even know what they mean by that. That's not how the power dynamics of NationStates work. All the powers possessed by a mechanically relevant Sec-Gen would be used to most effectively benefit whichever GP faction controlled it, not to satisfy the stylistic and procedural standards of some shadowy cabal of WA regulars.

I think your definition of "WA elite" is different to mine. I'm meaning the big delegates/WA programs/authors who have an elitist view and try to crush whoever they disagree with, for usually good reason. I'm not actually for/against the existence of this, as it creates conflict which makes NS more interesting, but I think it should still be acknowledged. If you want another way to word it, sure - but for the GA I think that'd be the only usage of a veto - unless a GPer did a GA resolution, but that's less about the GA then. As you would know more about the power dynamics of NS over the years (having spent half your time in a sub 100 nation UCR that now has literally one nation in it), I'll cede to your expert knowledge.

[Lord Dominator]

On the practical side, I don’t think a position with token power that results in a week of campaign spam about it. Additionally, a single veto per term is basically useless (and multiple rapidly becomes tyranny) as does a general ability to reorder the queue - all of those kinds of powers really only truly matter for liberations and C&Cs for people who are going to cte soon.

Additionally, I’ll echo the commentary that adding a further way for Gameplay to flex on the GA is not useful at all.

As you would know more about the power dynamics of NS over the years (having spent half your time in a sub 100 nation UCR that now has literally one nation in it), I'll cede to your expert knowledge.

Quite aside that Wally is a sitting minister in TEP and an active GAer, this is needlessly rude and not at all conducive to discussion.

Edit: I would point out that GenSec doesn’t really count as something done by admin for GA, being more a mod change that admin facilitated (at least from my perspective).

[Sanctaria]

There's only one community being divisive and drawing battle lines here. The General Assembly is part of the major democratic feature of NationStates; expecting to use it without having to engage with the wider world of those members is unrealistic, and has never been the case. If you truly want a "GA for the GAers", you can roleplay it in the NationStates forum and scorinate your results. And you'll find there's about 3 of you interested in it. You get your activity because the GA impacts the wider world (reminder: GA resolutions affect the stats of thousands of nations even if they don't participate in the WA), and the result of that is the wider world is interested in the General Assembly.

This kind of attitude is incredibly unhelpful. Dismissing the concerns of a legitimate sub-community in the game as being divise and drawing battle lines is not helpful, and it's disappointing it's coming from a Senior Moderator who apparently wants to change how things work - to a not insignificant degree - in the WA as a whole, and how that affects the GA in particular. It seems based on this, there is a serious lack of understanding of the GA community, and someone who hasn't put the time in trying to work with and understand that community shouldn't be trying to push forward with this kind of implementation that would really affect that body.

A lot of the GA community who've turned up in this thread have mentioned limiting its veto powers to the SC, or having it just for the SC. We're making suggestions to make the idea work, but still insulate the GA from further GP erosion. I don't think asking for compromise is the community being divisive or drawing battle lines.

[Sedgistan]

A lot of the GA community who've turned up in this thread have mentioned limiting its veto powers to the SC, or having it just for the SC. We're making suggestions to make the idea work, but still insulate the GA from further GP erosion. I don't think asking for compromise is the community being divisive or drawing battle lines.

If you read back over the tone of posts from members of the GA community, you'll see the majority of them say little other than "we don't want GP shitting over the GA", which is drawing battle lines and being divisive from the start. It's somewhat disappointing that the most level-headed and well-reasoned counter argument to the GA being part of this comes from a player who hasn't been involved there for years - Unibot's. That post is persuasive.

There's too many posts made since last night for me to respond to them all individually (and there's also a lot of relevant comments made on the WA Discord, some of which haven't been made here), but picking out some points that warrant a response:

GenSec/SecGen confusion - understood. On this particular point, I'll note there's also the potential of a name change for the role, to avoid this. I'm open to [serious] suggestions for alternate names.

Separate S-G for each chamber - doesn't address any of the concerns that GA members have raised. The only possible way this could be anywhere approaching a runner is with adding some eligibility criteria, e.g. having to have authored proposals in the GA to be able to run. But I don't see the whole concept of a separate"GA S-G" and "SC S-G" as being worthy of exploring that further.

Flanderlion's point on re-ordering the proposal queue - I feel that could become too significant as by endlessly submitting half-decent proposals you could permanently block something ever coming to vote. Potentially avoidable if the S-G could only delay a proposal once for X days, but that constant control over the queue is still more power than I think would be ideal for the role.

Flanderlion's other point on dispatch categories / recommendations. The simplest way to display a recommendation would be just a line of text above the voting page - "The Secretary-General recommends a vote FOR/AGAINST this proposal". I would like to see something more involved with dispatches, including player-submitted ones, but that's part of a wider revamp of the layout of the WA pages, and the most important thing there would be getting links to the forum debate threads. The intention here remains for the S-G to be a simple idea.

I will add this: I think it says a lot that the mods never bothered to implement an easy, objectively good idea to improve the WA, but that this gets suggested as a worthy change to the WA instead.

Admins not mods. That's also the first I've seen of that thread. My nation had CTEd by the time it was posted, and it hasn't been bumped since I returned in December 2019. I think it's a good idea, and I'm going to add it to my list of things to pester admins about. Feel free to bump the thread up; it deserves it.

As someone who ran a TG campaign in the last Sec-Gen election: the main reason there was so much spam going around was because there was, essentially, 4 elections in 4 days (I don't remember specifically but I remember sending 1 TG per round, and that added up to 4 TGs). Each one needed the player to vote in each round, which meant each round brought a full wave of campaign TGs. If the election was re-tooled to be, say, just 1 vote, then there'd only be 1 round of campaign TGs being sent, and only a quarter as much spam as last time.

I'd like to get more input on this - the number of voting rounds there should be. I can see the arguments to reduce it from 4, though I'm unsure whether 1 is the way to go, where those in favourable timezones may be able to amass an insurmountable lead before others can join in.

[Flanderlion]

Flanderlion's point on re-ordering the proposal queue - I feel that could become too significant as by endlessly submitting half-decent proposals you could permanently block something ever coming to vote. Potentially avoidable if the S-G could only delay a proposal once for X days, but that constant control over the queue is still more power than I think would be ideal for the role.

It's gone from too weak in OP to too strong now. But I still think being able to rush a liberation proposal of the Moon ahead of a commendation for Fratt without forcing authors to remove their proposals from the queue. Plus gives the role relevance outside of the one veto they use a term, plus the election. It won't stop a proposal from going to vote, but it will allow people to skip the queue. Most of the time there isn't even multiple proposals in the queue, but WA activity seems to come in floods and droughts.

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Re the rounds of election, votes should be hidden for the first day or so, then shown to remove TZ biases (like what should happen in the WA, but that's in another thread). And have 2-3 rounds, first to separate the no chance campaigns from the 'has merit', 2nd to figure who will contest/who can drop out and become the other one on the ticket, then the 3rd for victory. I don't think the vice should be fixed until the last round, as allows campaigns to merge/politic/exile their loyal vice in the final round.

[The Free Joy State]

I'm only a voter and (via. my puppet) sometimes poster in the GA, so I don't have much of a horse in this race, but I would like to say that I think Unibot makes some cogent points on the spirit behind the two chambers of the SC and GA and how giving veto-power only over the SC would appear to be a continuation of that spirit.

I think limitation of the amount of vetoes allowed should be placed on any holder, even if applied only to the SC, as the WA mimics the UN in style (with a chamber of voters), and it is notable that -- in the UN's security council -- there are only limited veto powers, rarely exercised unilaterally more than once a year, and held by five of the members. So I think a small number of vetoes, perhaps even only one per term (to force the post holder to use their power judiciously) would not be unreasonable. Perhaps this could be counterbalanced with a system of abstentions, as with the UNSC, which would have no effect (not stopping the vote) but could show disapproval on an SC proposal without using a veto. It could look like:

"Commend So-and-So" was abstained on by the World Assembly Secretary General.

EDIT: I would obviously prefer the more grammatical "the World Assembly Secretary General abstained on Commend So-and-So", but I imagine the former would be easier to code.

As for the name, I think the chance of confusing GenSec and Secretary General is very high. If limited to the SC, perhaps Security Council President could work for a title?

[Sedgistan]

Flanderlion's point on re-ordering the proposal queue - I feel that could become too significant as by endlessly submitting half-decent proposals you could permanently block something ever coming to vote. Potentially avoidable if the S-G could only delay a proposal once for X days, but that constant control over the queue is still more power than I think would be ideal for the role.

It's gone from too weak in OP to too strong now. But I still think being able to rush a liberation proposal of the Moon ahead of a commendation for Fratt without forcing authors to remove their proposals from the queue. Plus gives the role relevance outside of the one veto they use a term, plus the election. It won't stop a proposal from going to vote, but it will allow people to skip the queue. Most of the time there isn't even multiple proposals in the queue, but WA activity seems to come in floods and droughts.

You're right I think I had a specific vision of the proposal queue ordering from reading one of the old discussion threads when I wrote the OP. It depends on how exactly it worked. It's also a bit obscure - the proposal queue is looked at by some WA buffs and Delegates, but not so much regular players. I'd like the S-G's influence to be visible to regular WA players.

[Bananaistan]

A lot of the GA community who've turned up in this thread have mentioned limiting its veto powers to the SC, or having it just for the SC. We're making suggestions to make the idea work, but still insulate the GA from further GP erosion. I don't think asking for compromise is the community being divisive or drawing battle lines.

If you read back over the tone of posts from members of the GA community, you'll see the majority of them say little other than "we don't want GP shitting over the GA", which is drawing battle lines and being divisive from the start. It's somewhat disappointing that the most level-headed and well-reasoned counter argument to the GA being part of this comes from a player who hasn't been involved there for years - Unibot's. That post is persuasive.

It is rather a shame that pointing out factual information is "drawing battle lines and being divisive".

Question. What's the point of the discussion? If it is to finetune an idea that's going to be implemented over the unanimous opposition of GAers, there's little point in continuing to engage.

[Flanderlion]

It's gone from too weak in OP to too strong now. But I still think being able to rush a liberation proposal of the Moon ahead of a commendation for Fratt without forcing authors to remove their proposals from the queue. Plus gives the role relevance outside of the one veto they use a term, plus the election. It won't stop a proposal from going to vote, but it will allow people to skip the queue. Most of the time there isn't even multiple proposals in the queue, but WA activity seems to come in floods and droughts.

You're right I think I had a specific vision of the proposal queue ordering from reading one of the old discussion threads when I wrote the OP. It depends on how exactly it worked. It's also a bit obscure - the proposal queue is looked at by some WA buffs and Delegates, but not so much regular players. I'd like the S-G's influence to be visible to regular WA players.

I'm not saying instead of. Veto is what will make players care about the position/election/SC more. But if we're adding powers to the SecGen, should add one that actually helps WA authors and adds more utility to the position over the entire term.

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Re the name of the position, personally I think a few good options should be put up along with the current name (my personal preference), then have a WA only poll in Testlandia for the name - as like, no harm in getting random natives caring more about the position, and if the role is IC representing the WA, the WA should decide the name.

[Sedgistan]

Question. What's the point of the discussion? If it is to finetune an idea that's going to be implemented over the unanimous opposition of GAers, there's little point in continuing to engage.

1) deciding if an idea should be implemented, 2) working out the details of it.

When I put an idea forward, it's with the belief that it should be implemented, and that the way I have outlined it is the best way for that to happen. But the point of the discussion is that neither of those beliefs may be correct, and that therefore it may be sensible not to implement the feature, or for details of it to change.

There are already things that have been brought up in the thread that are likely to change details - e.g. the issue with election TG spam causing players to block WA campaign TGs, the potentially excessive rounds of voting, and the naming confusion with the Secretariat. The biggest one is obviously whether the veto power affects the General Assembly. I would prefer it to, but that doesn't mean that my preference cannot change or that my preference should necessarily take precedence. Posts like Unibot's could change my mind. Posts like "My taxi driver told me this is a bad idea." won't.