. This isn't my opinion, and it’s also not consistent with my writing, but I figure it’s something that’s not talked about as much as it should, and the argument has merit.
I (this all is my opinion before the next line break) would distinguish substantive parts of a proposal into descriptors and supplements. Descriptors answer what the nominee is and why you’re commending/condemning it. In other words, a descriptor defines the nominee. Descriptors could be the nominee’s ideology (also government like “democracy”), its foreign presence (major allies, major enemies, organization, region’s it is in if it’s a nation), its genre(s) of the game (e.g. roleplay, gameplay), its presence within that/those genre(s) (e.g. R/D alignment, general significance), its size (for regions), major events within its history (i.e. consequential changes in another descriptor, such as changing military alignment), etc. Naturally, these descriptors do not only apply when currently being the case. If the region was once a major defender region, that’s relevant to a proposal. Here are some examples of descriptors:
- Nasicournia was an important member of the Alliance Defense Network and a defender-oriented region.
- Sunset is a talented, long-time future tech roleplayer.
- The North Pacific is a democracy.
- TITO does not use switchers.
- The Pacific was couped in 2003 by Francos Spain, making it no longer a democratic government. Many coups, however, do not shape or define the region, so they would not be a descriptor.
The idea is that if you can answer the descriptors, you know exactly what the nominee is. Many older players have observed each nominee as a primary source, so they can answer all the descriptors. While they cannot give lots of details or examples, (for this reason) they still have a far greater capacity to write and vote on proposals well than others.
Supplements are examples of the nominees actions. Unlike many descriptors (e.g. long-time defender region), a single supplement cannot fill a proposal. Here are some examples of supplements:
- Gatesville provided support in the Douria coup of Osiris (not defining to Gatesville, however “Gatesville lended support to coups often” would be a descriptor).
- A Mean Old Man wrote “The Foreign Farce” (whereas “A Mean Old Man is a propagandist” would be a descriptor).
- Koem Kab owns x number of art from Soops (whereas “Koem Kab is very rich” would be a descriptor).
For reference, here are a few recent resolutions (which I consider to be standard) color-coded by descriptors and supplements (the first pre-ambulatory clause in Gatesville Inc is just a conceptual argument, so it doesn’t apply):
While I may have missed some things (and some of those clauses marked supplementary may have been defining but it didn’t seem clear to me), it does seem clear that supplements have a stronghold within Security Council proposals.
But why? I would like to suggest here that these supplements that fill proposals (you really need to look at the color-coded examples) aren’t necessary.
Authors are encouraged to find information that supports the operative clause (commend or condemn) rather than a thesis based on descriptors as to why you’re commending or condemning them (e.g. they’re a devoted defender and region-builder). With this in mind, researchers include pre-ambulatory clauses that are out of place in the rest of the proposal (for example roleplay in a GP proposal).
Additionally, when looking for supplements instead of descriptors, you forum research and interview players (who often remember or will say very little), which results in only a small percentage of the nominee’s actions being found, and authors typically pick out only the stuff that fits your commendation or condemnation goal and ignore the rest.
So what ends up happening in many cases is that the authors tailor their “thesis” around the limited examples that they have found. In reality, authors should make a thesis based on descriptors, then find supplements to support it.
The limited amount of supplements we can find causes them to not help in creating an illustration of the nominee like descriptors do. In fact, our current focus on them often hurts the proposal. In the recent case of Commend and Condemn Cormactopia Prime, the author searched for supplements, received very little of the main information, and had trouble forming a description that fit Cormac’s character enough to satisfy voters.
The demands for supplements that voters require not only places extra burdens on authors, but also doesn’t approve draft quality. In the cases where the supplements are working for the thesis (the SC is a biased organization) rather than the thesis working for it (the thesis is made through descriptors), supplements are often boring, derivative and contributing towards the widespread tendency not to read proposals. Being a delegate of a GCR or stopping a coup is heard so many times that there’s simply no interest in reading it. Every region and nation is unique, so focusing on crafting a story centered around the descriptors can be interesting.
It doesn’t provide a more convincing argument or reassurance of accuracy (this obviously mainly referring to gameplay C&Cs) either. The lack of what could even remotely be a complete record of this information and avoidance of contrary information by authors deceives readers. Additionally, the information provided is most often tangential (As an example: "sure, they helped in the coup. How much? How many updaters?") due to limited space.
Furthermore, many questions of overall impact (e.g. “who was affecting GP the most in 2010?”) are impossible to answer with ‘evidence’ based on our current research capabilities (so much is lost), so mandating that examples be used to support is too limiting on authors.
Based on this logic, we should be writing proposals quite differently. Authors should answer a series of questions, similar to how a roleplayer world-builds:
- What genre do they participate in? What is the extent of their significance (not to be confused with influence)?
- What is their alignment / ideology?
- What are major descriptor-changing events in their history?
- What were their major goals? Did they fulfill them?
- Etc. (see above)
They would then put that information into a proposal, and it would be done. Everything substantial about the region or nation would be answered with that alone.
The proposals themselves would begin to look something like a more expanded proposal from the early SC, but they would certainly be more interesting.
I'd like to see some debate on whether we should be keeping extra details and examples in proposals.
