Do a WA reset

[Wallenburg]

This is the kind of a game change that serves the authors, but it doesn't necessarily serve the WA or its member-nations.

This is the kind of game change that could attract new authors. The contradiction/duplication rule is ridiculously prohibitive when it means having to wade through hundreds of resolutions to make sure you're not contradicting or duplicating anything. It's consistently amazing to me that anyone authors GA proposals at this point, but not at all surprising that so few people are now doing it. They're the only ones left who can be bothered to wade through the morass and try to understand it. That's no way to run a game. You should always want any game to be accessible enough new players can get involved with reasonable effort.

Ah yes, because there are no new GA players at all. You are really exhibiting your complete lack of knowledge when it comes to GA activity. New authors come in all the time. They even manage to navigate the existing law rather well, despite your poor opinion of their intelligence and patience.

[The Hazar Amisnery]

This is the kind of game change that could attract new authors. The contradiction/duplication rule is ridiculously prohibitive when it means having to wade through hundreds of resolutions to make sure you're not contradicting or duplicating anything. It's consistently amazing to me that anyone authors GA proposals at this point, but not at all surprising that so few people are now doing it. They're the only ones left who can be bothered to wade through the morass and try to understand it. That's no way to run a game. You should always want any game to be accessible enough new players can get involved with reasonable effort.

Ah yes, because there are no new GA players at all. You are really exhibiting your complete lack of knowledge when it comes to GA activity. New authors come in all the time. They even manage to navigate the existing law rather well, despite your poor opinion of their intelligence and patience.

Nice burn

[Sedgistan]

Nice burn

Not appropriate for Technical, or frankly anywhere on the forums. Cut it out.

[Separatist Peoples]

It's really not that hard to find new topics. There's been more activity on the last few months than the last few years. Maybe a reset is necessary in another 200 resolutions. Until then, I don't see much utility beyond some unsustainable short term activity.

[Mzeusia]

I have never suffered through the supposed trials and trying to get properly involved in the WA, and maybe if I wanted to subject myself to that, my view might change. That said, it seems a shame to scrap all that history. Apparently there are subjects yet to be legislated on, so I would not support a reset. The amount of legislation the WA has passed is remarkable and deserves to be kept.

[Meretica]

I have never suffered through the supposed trials and trying to get properly involved in the WA, and maybe if I wanted to subject myself to that, my view might change. That said, it seems a shame to scrap all that history. There are subjects yet to be legislated on, so I would not support a reset. The amount of legislation the WA has passed is remarkable and deserves to be kept.

The UN legislation was kept, was it not? We can view past legislation. Perhaps the same could be done here.

[Mzeusia]

The UN legislation was kept, was it not? We can view past legislation. Perhaps the same could be done here.

If the past legislation were kept, that would certainly soothe my fears there. I also fear that the complete wiping of the progress made (wiping of its legislative power anyway) would have effects that cannot be foreseen. Since there hasn't been a reset for so long and I don't think the effects of the 2009 reset can be relied upon to be repeated. it's a big leap into the unknown, and unless things are really desperate, I wouldn't want a change.

[Meretica]

The UN legislation was kept, was it not? We can view past legislation. Perhaps the same could be done here.

If the past legislation were kept, that would certainly soothe my fears there. I also fear that the complete wiping of the progress made (wiping of its legislative power anyway) would have effects that cannot be foreseen. Since there hasn't been a reset for so long and I don't think the effects of the 2009 reset can be relied upon to be repeated. it's a big leap into the unknown, and unless things are desperate, I wouldn't want a change.

I wasn't around here in 2009, so take a portion of my next statement with a grain of salt.

I don't think that things would have been very desperate in 2009 and I don't see why they would be now, apart from the inherent lack of creativity and focus of the refined wording of various subjects. The General Assembly is not a place of the great debates over international law, but rather a stale cracker that we all continue to eat. Have major issues come up that have been solved? Yes. Are we running out of new issues to address? Also yes. Lately, though, we have repealed and replaced legislation over a mere line or two that was disagreed upon. Take, for example, Repeal: “Protecting Native Prairies And Grasslands” or Repeal: “Toxic Heavy Metals Act”, both of which passed (though have not had replacement resolutions passed). In many ways, I feel like many of these resolutions are passed on a whim-- no one takes time to read them anymore, and those that do usually start telegramming every other user to make sure they understand what they're supporting. "Native Prairies and Grasslands" didn't even last a month.

Then there are things like "Ensuring Safe Syringe Use" Someone took the time to go all the way to March 2020 to rewrite this legislation because there's not been anything else to truly legislate. Putting aside the fact that Morover had far too much free time to find this, let alone revise it, shows that we need a clean slate to work from so that the WA can work properly.

[Fioletovyyrus]

For what it's worth: I'm in favour of an unannounced complete reset. Even joining the WA today feels idiotic, because you'd have to read so many resolutions that you're implicitly agreeing to (in the real world you'd have dedicated staff pouring over these for months or years). Actually participating with new resolutions is completely hopeless.

[Coronational Chechyans and affiliates]

I've been on and off sense 2011. The world assembly is so hard to get into because everything has been done. Proposals were passed years ago that wouldn't make quorom today. A reset would he a fantastic way to encourage new involvement and jumpstart activity. That being said the security council should be left alone. The achievements and admonishments of the past should be kept.

[Mzeusia]

I wasn't around here in 2009, so take a portion of my next statement with a grain of salt.

I don't think that things would have been very desperate in 2009 and I don't see why they would be now, apart from the inherent lack of creativity and focus of the refined wording of various subjects. The General Assembly is not a place of the great debates over international law, but rather a stale cracker that we all continue to eat. Have major issues come up that have been solved? Yes. Are we running out of new issues to address? Also yes. Lately, though, we have repealed and replaced legislation over a mere line or two that was disagreed upon. Take, for example, Repeal: “Protecting Native Prairies And Grasslands” or Repeal: “Toxic Heavy Metals Act”, both of which passed (though have not had replacement resolutions passed). In many ways, I feel like many of these resolutions are passed on a whim-- no one takes time to read them anymore, and those that do usually start telegramming every other user to make sure they understand what they're supporting. "Native Prairies and Grasslands" didn't even last a month.

Then there are things like "Ensuring Safe Syringe Use" Someone took the time to go all the way to March 2020 to rewrite this legislation because there's not been anything else to truly legislate. Putting aside the fact that Morover had far too much free time to find this, let alone revise it, shows that we need a clean slate to work from so that the WA can work properly.

I certainly understand your point and you've got some compelling examples but I am still wary of having an entirely complete clean slate. Perhaps a partial reset, with the bigger issues coming into question again and being open for fresh legislation. Some IC disagreement with the established WA legislation would be a very plausible thing to RP.

[Meretica]

I wasn't around here in 2009, so take a portion of my next statement with a grain of salt.

I don't think that things would have been very desperate in 2009 and I don't see why they would be now, apart from the inherent lack of creativity and focus of the refined wording of various subjects. The General Assembly is not a place of the great debates over international law, but rather a stale cracker that we all continue to eat. Have major issues come up that have been solved? Yes. Are we running out of new issues to address? Also yes. Lately, though, we have repealed and replaced legislation over a mere line or two that was disagreed upon. Take, for example, Repeal: “Protecting Native Prairies And Grasslands” or Repeal: “Toxic Heavy Metals Act”, both of which passed (though have not had replacement resolutions passed). In many ways, I feel like many of these resolutions are passed on a whim-- no one takes time to read them anymore, and those that do usually start telegramming every other user to make sure they understand what they're supporting. "Native Prairies and Grasslands" didn't even last a month.

Then there are things like "Ensuring Safe Syringe Use" Someone took the time to go all the way to March 2020 to rewrite this legislation because there's not been anything else to truly legislate. Putting aside the fact that Morover had far too much free time to find this, let alone revise it, shows that we need a clean slate to work from so that the WA can work properly.

I certainly understand your point and you've got some compelling examples but I am still wary of having an entirely complete clean slate. Perhaps a partial reset, with the bigger issues coming into question again and being open for fresh legislation. Some IC disagreement with the established WA legislation would be a very plausible thing to RP.

As part of my nation's backstory, Meretica left the WA because it disapproved of many pieces of legislation and saw the way the WA was/is run as corrupt in its way. If not going for an entirely clean slate, we could keep some of the most recent pieces of legislation and all Security Council legislation. I also think that it would be worth it to update the Rights and Duties of WA States.

[Quintessence of Dust]

Re: ideas for more complicated interventions involving sunset clauses, partial resets, new repeal+replace categories (all of which have been discussed before...)

Virtually every admin intervention into the WA has been absolutely awful. Other than the Environmental/Mild change (something players had been pushing for for more than a decade) almost every change made by the admins has been for the worse. I am proposing a reset partly because it is quick and clean, and does not require substantial new code from the admin. [I'm assuming; obviously, we players can't guess precisely what any particular change would involve.] Start asking for admin to make very complicated new coding changes and I fear it will go disastrously, as it nearly always has in the past.

"That's it, we're only resetting YOUR resolutions."

Forgot to say: I would be 100% on board with this.

[Imperium Anglorum]

The idea which I discussed on the WA Discord was this:

1. Create a score based on age and on the per cent in favour of a resolution (both positive in the scoring function).

2. Order the resolutions based on that score, descending.

3. Every month (or two weeks) retire the first resolution on that list, unless it is marked as reaffirmed.

4. Create a new resolution category that applies to resolutions. Resolutions can be reaffirmed; those resolutions are then exempt from score-based sunsetting.

This idea resolves a few issues. First, topics for which there is more of a consensus are not brought back as perennial issues. Second, there is no flood of expiries based on activity gluts something like 10 years ago. Third, it also means that recent resolutions are not lumped in with really old resolutions. More broadly, a queued sunset also opens up topics at a rate which the WA can deal with and produce drafts for instead of having a rush of haphazard replacements.

If we are really wedded to GA 2 (I'm not, I have desired it's repeal for some time), we can reaffirm it so it doesn't isn't immediately queued out. (To do this, one of course would have to open reaffirmations before the sunsetting queue starts processing.)

This also is true. The analogies to real world governments break down in the face of the game's mechanics.

Isn't this just basically adding a sunset clause to every resolution?

Adding a sunset clause to every resolution with a set timing would cause a "flood of expiries based on activity gluts something like 10 years ago".

If the past legislation were kept, that would certainly soothe my fears there. I also fear that the complete wiping of the progress made (wiping of its legislative power anyway) would have effects that cannot be foreseen. Since there hasn't been a reset for so long and I don't think the effects of the 2009 reset can be relied upon to be repeated. it's a big leap into the unknown, and unless things are desperate, I wouldn't want a change.

I wasn't around here in 2009, so take a portion of my next statement with a grain of salt.

I don't think that things would have been very desperate in 2009 and I don't see why they would be now, apart from the inherent lack of creativity and focus of the refined wording of various subjects. The General Assembly is not a place of the great debates over international law, but rather a stale cracker that we all continue to eat. Have major issues come up that have been solved? Yes. Are we running out of new issues to address? Also yes. Lately, though, we have repealed and replaced legislation over a mere line or two that was disagreed upon. Take, for example, Repeal: “Protecting Native Prairies And Grasslands” or Repeal: “Toxic Heavy Metals Act”, both of which passed (though have not had replacement resolutions passed). In many ways, I feel like many of these resolutions are passed on a whim-- no one takes time to read them anymore, and those that do usually start telegramming every other user to make sure they understand what they're supporting. "Native Prairies and Grasslands" didn't even last a month.

Then there are things like "Ensuring Safe Syringe Use" Someone took the time to go all the way to March 2020 to rewrite this legislation because there's not been anything else to truly legislate. Putting aside the fact that Morover had far too much free time to find this, let alone revise it, shows that we need a clean slate to work from so that the WA can work properly.

Or there were big topics that we also legislated on all within a year and a half. Like the legality of the death penalty... twice. Or the legality of abortion. Twice (and a third time coming up). Or international trade regulations (twice). Or international sovereign immunity. These topics are large and not particularly niche. The idea that the WA is only dealing with niche topics can only be said if you haven't been following the WA.

[Unibot III]

This is the kind of game change that could attract new authors. The contradiction/duplication rule is ridiculously prohibitive when it means having to wade through hundreds of resolutions to make sure you're not contradicting or duplicating anything. It's consistently amazing to me that anyone authors GA proposals at this point, but not at all surprising that so few people are now doing it. They're the only ones left who can be bothered to wade through the morass and try to understand it. That's no way to run a game. You should always want any game to be accessible enough new players can get involved with reasonable effort.

Ah yes, because there are no new GA players at all. You are really exhibiting your complete lack of knowledge when it comes to GA activity. New authors come in all the time. They even manage to navigate the existing law rather well, despite your poor opinion of their intelligence and patience.

I think this is a key point.. the GA is active, and its membership seems to be thriving?

When you joined the WA, there was always a ton to learn.

In no other realm of the game would we seriously contemplate just culling regions or roleplays or stuff that the community-at-large had put work into.

My own opinion is that today’s WA is a better place to learn than the ‘08-09 WA that I learned in, because there is less hostility, bitterness, old “UNOG” cliqueness, and IntFed v NatSov divisions. That, not extant resolutions, was the real barrier to getting involved. You never felt like you belonged as one of the group. Parts of the WA had pure contempt for one another, especially new, post-NSUN authors. That’s why so many of us younger authors (e.g., SP, GR etc.) were so close, because we didn’t have anyone else to lean on. We knew we were breaking ground and we were hated. The problems with integration is social.

With respect to Cormac, I was a newbie in the WA at one time and Cormac was not — and let me tell you, it sucked big time to be a newcomer but not for any reasons with regard to style, format, structure, or content — it was extremely combative and there wasn’t a moment that went by where you weren’t aware than the game’s established authors were in some sad private forum somewhere complaining about you and mocking you. That’s why it was hard to get involved in the WA. And I think today’s GA really doesn’t suffer from those issues anymore. I worry that a reset that isn’t supported by the players active in the GA could create new grievances, bitterness etc. and just initiate a new generational divide.

[Meretica]

Isn't this just basically adding a sunset clause to every resolution?

Adding a sunset clause to every resolution with a set timing would cause a "flood of expiries based on activity gluts something like 10 years ago".

I wasn't around here in 2009, so take a portion of my next statement with a grain of salt.

I don't think that things would have been very desperate in 2009 and I don't see why they would be now, apart from the inherent lack of creativity and focus of the refined wording of various subjects. The General Assembly is not a place of the great debates over international law, but rather a stale cracker that we all continue to eat. Have major issues come up that have been solved? Yes. Are we running out of new issues to address? Also yes. Lately, though, we have repealed and replaced legislation over a mere line or two that was disagreed upon. Take, for example, Repeal: “Protecting Native Prairies And Grasslands” or Repeal: “Toxic Heavy Metals Act”, both of which passed (though have not had replacement resolutions passed). In many ways, I feel like many of these resolutions are passed on a whim-- no one takes time to read them anymore, and those that do usually start telegramming every other user to make sure they understand what they're supporting. "Native Prairies and Grasslands" didn't even last a month.

Then there are things like "Ensuring Safe Syringe Use" Someone took the time to go all the way to March 2020 to rewrite this legislation because there's not been anything else to truly legislate. Putting aside the fact that Morover had far too much free time to find this, let alone revise it, shows that we need a clean slate to work from so that the WA can work properly.

Or there were big topics that we also legislated on. Like the legality of the death penalty... twice. Or the legality of abortion. Twice (and a third time coming up). Or international trade regulations (twice). Or international sovereign immunity. These topics are large and not particularly niche. The idea that the WA is only dealing with niche topics can only be said if you haven't been following the WA.

Things like abortion, the death penalty, and international trade will always be debated because no one will ever really be satisfied by those results. While it may not be correct that the WA is only handling niche issues, it can be said that niche issues and the typical controversial (that isn't the light word but it's the best I have) topics make up the majority of recent decisions.

[Wallenburg]

For what it's worth: I'm in favour of an unannounced complete reset. Even joining the WA today feels idiotic, because you'd have to read so many resolutions that you're implicitly agreeing to (in the real world you'd have dedicated staff pouring over these for months or years). Actually participating with new resolutions is completely hopeless.

In the real world, dedicated staff could not only read all active resolutions within a day, but have policy impact summaries prepared in another two and recommendations for compliance strategies prepared in yet another three or four. Only an illiterate band of monkeys (which, to be fair, probably describes more than one delegation to the WA) would take years to just read all the resolutions. The reality is that if you are interested in a topic, you can type keywords into the search function on the Passed Resolutions Thread and immediately pull up resolutions relevant to that topic. Researching the WA's effect on this or that policy is easy.

I've been on and off sense 2011. The world assembly is so hard to get into because everything has been done. Proposals were passed years ago that wouldn't make quorom today. A reset would he a fantastic way to encourage new involvement and jumpstart activity. That being said the security council should be left alone. The achievements and admonishments of the past should be kept.

This sums up a good half of this thread perfectly. Once again, the GA is expected to give up everything and the SC/GP community gets to keep everything. Did you ever once stop to think that the achievements in the GA are at least as valuable as those of the SC?

[Bears Armed]

Perhaps a partial reset, with the bigger issues coming into question again and being open for fresh legislation. Some IC disagreement with the established WA legislation would be a very plausible thing to RP.

Some of he "bigger" issues are just the ones that it seems to me the international community would be least happy [IC} about leaving unlegislated-on until replacement resolutions could be drafted & passed: Slavery & trafficking, for example, or Greenhouse Gasses 'Cap & trade'...

Also, although much is being made of the fact that authors of new resolutions would no longer have to worry [much] about potential contradiction &/or duplication of already-existing ones for quite a while, they presumably would still have to avoid Plagiarism of those...

[Sandaoguo]

This sums up a good half of this thread perfectly. Once again, the GA is expected to give up everything and the SC/GP community gets to keep everything. Did you ever once stop to think that the achievements in the GA are at least as valuable as those of the SC?

I don't get this complaint. What does the SC have to do with a GA reset at all? What happens to the GA doesn't have to be mirrored to the SC, or vice-versa. The two councils have different issues that lead to different solutions. That doesn't say anything at all about the value of the GA's resolutions. We could all agree that the GA's law book is amazing in quality and value, and still support a reset because the problem a reset seeks to address has nothing to do with believing existing resolutions are valuable or valueless.

I stopped writing GA resolutions because it became boring, and that was many years ago. The kinds of ideas that people have who are attracted to an IGO pol-sim were impossible write about, because of years-old (and now decades-old) resolutions that did them poorly but that the GA community would never want to repeal. There's a point where, regardless of your ideology or politics, the policy areas left to explore are mundane. That's the reason why the GA is mostly ignored by the rest of the game, despite efforts by big regions to get their players interested. There's also the issue that getting involved in the GA involves more than learning the rule set, but also learning the shadow rule set to avoid contradicting or duplicating some part of 550+ resolutions. The longer things go on, the less accessible the GA becomes simply because of how many resolutions there are.

The purpose of a reset is to revitalize what's possible in the GA. It has nothing to do with saying "your contributions have no value." The value is in writing them, not in preserving them for all eternity. You got your trophies, badges, your recognition, reputation, and influence in the GA. None of that disappears when a game is reset. You get a clean slate! You get an open chance to do things again with all the knowledge and experience you've gained. Why is that a negative thing?

[Bears Armed]

The purpose of a reset is to revitalize what's possible in the GA. It has nothing to do with saying "your contributions have no value." The value is in writing them, not in preserving them for all eternity. You got your trophies, badges, your recognition, reputation, and influence in the GA. None of that disappears when a game is reset. You get a clean slate! You get an open chance to do things again with all the knowledge and experience you've gained. Why is that a negative thing?

It destroys the IC value of having written/sponsored resolutions that are helpful to your nation and/or that help to spread your nation's principles to the other member-nations: That value, rather than badges or reputation, is why I -- as the Bears, now, and before that as the St Edmundans is what I have been so extensively involved in the GA (and, before that, in the NS-UN) for.

[Sandaoguo]

The purpose of a reset is to revitalize what's possible in the GA. It has nothing to do with saying "your contributions have no value." The value is in writing them, not in preserving them for all eternity. You got your trophies, badges, your recognition, reputation, and influence in the GA. None of that disappears when a game is reset. You get a clean slate! You get an open chance to do things again with all the knowledge and experience you've gained. Why is that a negative thing?

It destroys the IC value of having written/sponsored resolutions that are helpful to your nation and/or that help to spread your nation's principles to the other member-nations: That value, rather than badges or reputation, is why I -- as the Bears, now, and before that as the St Edmundans is what I have been so extensively involved in the GA (and, before that, in the NS-UN) for.

Your IC world gets reset, then. Retconning isn't a new idea in roleplay. World resets happen in many RPGs, whether online or tabletop. You then get to use all the expertise you've gained over the years to craft a better world, fix the mistakes you wish you could but never had the opportunity, and enjoy that the game has the room to go on for another 10 years. At the end of the day, your roleplaying story can't be an obstacle to ensuring the game can survive and people can enjoy it the way you did for your first decade.

I want to emphasize that we're 14 13 years into this "world" of the GA. That's an incredibly long time. I feel that many of you lose sight of just how old the GA is and how long it's gone without any reset or retcon that would happen in any other RP game.

[Wallenburg]

It destroys the IC value of having written/sponsored resolutions that are helpful to your nation and/or that help to spread your nation's principles to the other member-nations: That value, rather than badges or reputation, is why I -- as the Bears, now, and before that as the St Edmundans is what I have been so extensively involved in the GA (and, before that, in the NS-UN) for.

Your IC world gets reset, then. Retconning isn't a new idea in roleplay. World resets happen in many RPGs, whether online or tabletop. You then get to use all the expertise you've gained over the years to craft a better world, fix the mistakes you wish you could but never had the opportunity, and enjoy that the game has the room to go on for another 10 years. At the end of the day, your roleplaying story can't be an obstacle to ensuring the game can survive and people can enjoy it the way you did for your first decade.

I want to emphasize that we're 14 years into this "world" of the GA. That's an incredibly long time. I feel that many of you lose sight of just how old the GA is and how long it's gone without any reset or retcon that would happen in any other RP game.

I think you've lost sight of what a reset is presumably supposed to achieve. A reset isn't a good thing in of itself. Whenever someone has argued for one, they've tried to present various positive outcomes from it, all which are questionable at best and outright dishonest at worst.

[Sandaoguo]

I think you've lost sight of what a reset is presumably supposed to achieve. A reset isn't a good thing in of itself. Whenever someone has argued for one, they've tried to present various positive outcomes from it, all which are questionable at best and outright dishonest at worst.

I believe I just posted what a reset is supposed to achieve. What am I lying about, or QoD lying about?

[Sanctaria]

Your IC world gets reset, then. Retconning isn't a new idea in roleplay. World resets happen in many RPGs, whether online or tabletop. You then get to use all the expertise you've gained over the years to craft a better world, fix the mistakes you wish you could but never had the opportunity, and enjoy that the game has the room to go on for another 10 years. At the end of the day, your roleplaying story can't be an obstacle to ensuring the game can survive and people can enjoy it the way you did for your first decade.

I want to emphasize that we're 14 years into this "world" of the GA. That's an incredibly long time. I feel that many of you lose sight of just how old the GA is and how long it's gone without any reset or retcon that would happen in any other RP game.

I think you've lost sight of what a reset is presumably supposed to achieve. A reset isn't a good thing in of itself. Whenever someone has argued for one, they've tried to present various positive outcomes from it, all which are questionable at best and outright dishonest at worst.

I think that's a fair point, that tangible benefits other than short-term bursts of activity need to properly discussed, but I would agree with Glen that, in general, how it might disrupt a player's headcanon shouldn't be an overriding concern.

[Wallenburg]

I think you've lost sight of what a reset is presumably supposed to achieve. A reset isn't a good thing in of itself. Whenever someone has argued for one, they've tried to present various positive outcomes from it, all which are questionable at best and outright dishonest at worst.

I believe I just posted what a reset is supposed to achieve. What am I lying about, or QoD lying about?

The only argument I see in your posts is that it will somehow "revitalize" the WA, a bullshit buzzword if I ever saw one, and give the WA a "new chance" or do-over of international policy, which repeals already allow for. And you can claim that repeals are somehow harder (they aren't), but that doesn't change that they happen constantly, even for very old resolutions. Not even half of the first 100 resolutions still have any effect on member states (the majority either being repeals themselves or having been repealed) and that figure isn't going to go up. If you want to improve international law, a reset isn't necessary. In fact, it's a detriment.

As to QoD, they haven't participated in the GA in over a decade. I don't think they have a leg to stand on to suddenly come in and tell us to erase the entire body of law people who stuck around and came after them have built.