[RULES DISCUSSION] Repeals and Operative Clauses

[Imperium Anglorum]

I think that such a definition would be a step back: definitions should be clear, not requiring too much interpretation. To correct that, something like the following could work: Proposals, excepting repeals, must possess operative clauses have at least one operative clause, those being clauses which would have the World Assembly, member nations, or other bodies take or not take some action.

I think that explaining the rules would be good, though as rules have different meanings and different conceptions go into their making, it would be difficult at best. My own ideas on the ruleset and the purpose of the different rules was detailed somewhat on a recent Europe Media Union article.

EDIT: Changes based on identification of a plurality inconsistency, recommendation from Araraukar, changed colon to ', those being' to correct the fact that the definition no longer clearly follows from the declaration.

[Frisbeeteria]

Forum rule of thumb: "the longer the rules explanation, the less likely it will be read by people who don't follow rules". That's been demonstrated more times than I could count.

Moderation staff still write rules according to a Max Barry edict: keep 'em short. If Max had his preferred way, the entire ruleset would be encompassed by the six words in the original FAQ: [obscene, illegal, threatening, malicious, defamatory, spam]. However, he's come around to at least accept that some of you players need to have things spelled out a bit.

definitions should be clear, not requiring too much interpretation.

The more you write, the more loopholes you open up. All our rules require interpretation for precisely this reason. We'd rather have a human mind in the loop than a rigid set of loophole-ridden rules ... or worse, a 342 page PDF in legalese that nobody would ever read or understand.

: Proposals, excepting repeals, must possess operative clauses: clauses which would have the World Assembly, member nations, or other bodies take or not take some action.

I like that. It adds the corrected interpretation, and is actually one word shorter than the rule it replaces.

[Sierra Lyricalia]

Proposals, excepting repeals, must possess operative clauses: clauses which would have the World Assembly, member nations, or other bodies take or not take some action.

I was gonna try my hand at this, but as many of you know I am capable of being either clear or brief - but not both. This is both. I like it.

[Aclion]

Forum rule of thumb: "the longer the rules explanation, the less likely it will be read by people who don't follow rules.

"People who need to read rules; dont."

It isn't as if the General Assembly is bound by stare decisis.

I didn't know what that meant until seconds ago when I googled it. The mods aren't lawyers (well, Mall is a law student, but ...) and we've never had a coordinated back room filing cabinet with all the precedents neatly codified. We've always counted on the forums and player input to catch mistakes. And we haven't always been quick to correct those mistakes. That's a big part of why we did a handover to a player council. You want that level of legal basis? Agree on it yourselves, and support it yourselves. We're neither qualified nor interested in adding that level of micromanagement to our other duties.

Please don't. We're too legalistic here as it is.

[Sciongrad]

Please don't. We're too legalistic here as it is.

I agree with Fris insofar as I think it would be a mistake to make the forum any more legalistic than it already is. That being said, GenSec is bound to stare decisis with our own precedent. That is, if we make a ruling, we will apply that ruling to all future similar cases. It doesn't apply to mod precedent.

Proposals, excepting repeals, must possess operative clauses: clauses which would have the World Assembly, member nations, or other bodies take or not take some action.

I was gonna try my hand at this, but as many of you know I am capable of being either clear or brief - but not both. This is both. I like it.

Agreed. That's good.

[Imperium Anglorum]

Proposals, excepting repeals, must possess operative clauses at least one operative clause: clauses which would have the World Assembly, member nations, or other bodies take or not take some action.

I was gonna try my hand at this, but as many of you know I am capable of being either clear or brief - but not both. This is both. I like it.

Thank you! I'd also do the change that I have noted in the quote above. Simply 'operative clauses' could lead to rules lawyering where a claimant demands multiple operative clauses.

[Excidium Planetis]

How so not, if it's what the author would have added otherwise?
It is, in any case, automatically the sole content of the 'Description' section... which is the part of a proposal that contains the operative clauses for GA proposals of all other categories.

What author would put Category and Strength in an IC resolution text?

The game added text cannot be IC text without forcing players to acknowledge the Category and Strength fields in the game as part of the IC resolutions. For someone who complains frequently about forced roleplay, you sure seem keen on forcing metagaming on players.

Will the GA stop functioning if we alter our interpretation of the operative clause rule? Will it cause new nations to throw IC debate out the window?

Will the GA stop functioning if we acknowledge the SC as an IC institution?
Will it cause new nations to throw IC debate out the window?

I literally cannot see what this rule does, and the line of reasoning that it will break down the OOC/IC divide in the GA is almost laughably exaggerated.

I literally cannot see why acknowledging the SC is illegal, and the line of reasoning that it is metagaming is almost laughably exaggerated.

As far as I'm concerned, this rule contributes nothing. It's not even purposeful, let alone "unquestionably necessary."

Making it illegal to refer to the Security Council contributes nothing, and is not even purposeful as far as I am concerned, let alone unquestionably necessary.

Indeed, since many new players refer to it in proposals and in IC debate, making it illegal needlessly raises the barrier to entry into the GA community.

The game generated text is functionally identical to what any player would add.

I'll stop parodying your argument here and just say this is Bullshit. Point me to any repeal where a player purposefully added in Category and Strength to a repeal. I don't even think that is legal. (Is it? Can one repeal a resolution for being the wrong Category or the wrong Strength?)

Lastly, if the Operative Clause rule is not necessary and indeed useless as you have said so many times, why is it still a rule? Why did you not remove the operative clause rule?

And where is that rule now?

This borders on malicious quote editing. Clearly I said after that:

and honestly it was a Bloody Stupid rule. And that was not this rule. The Operative Clause rule serves a very good purpose.

[Araraukar]

I agree with Fris insofar as I think it would be a mistake to make the forum any more legalistic than it already is.

So howabout dropping the Legalese Latin entirely when talking to us lowly mortals?

I agree with IA's rewrite if "possess" can become "have". Simplicity and clarity and all that.

[Imperium Anglorum]

So howabout dropping the Legalese Latin entirely when talking to us lowly mortals?

New rule, all Secretariat business must be conducted in Law French. Not normal French. Law French. Two further edits noted on my proposed text (yea, yea, adds to length): (1) the change above, recommended by Araraukar; (2) change from the colon to 'those being', which corrects for a grammatical ambiguity.

A note: One could also have the operative clause definition simply be 'clauses which affect the World Assembly, member nations, or other bodies'. Helps with length if one really wants to cut it down.

[Bananaistan]

I do not believe that it would be helpful right now to roll up the abolishing of the committee rule into this. I don't agree with either of IA's proposed wordings on this account.

[Imperium Anglorum]

I do not believe that it would be helpful right now to roll up the abolishing of the committee rule into this.

?

What about the committee rule in this thread? This is about no longer requiring an explicit repeals clause.

[Bananaistan]

Proposals, excepting repeals, must possess operative clauses at least one operative clause: clauses which would have the World Assembly, member nations, or other bodies take or not take some action.

"Or other bodies take or not take some action" suggest to me that it would be OK for a proposal to merely have a committee taking action without any requirement of member states.

Also, it appears that this wording would allow an operative clause merely requiring the WA itself take action. Or indeed blocking the WA from future action, thereby driving a truck through the blocker rule.

Both of these aspects would represent a sea change in the rules.

[Imperium Anglorum]

Proposals, excepting repeals, must possess operative clauses at least one operative clause: clauses which would have the World Assembly, member nations, or other bodies take or not take some action.

"Or other bodies take or not take some action" suggest to me that it would be OK for a proposal to merely have a committee taking action without any requirement of member states.

Also, it appears that this wording would allow an operative clause merely requiring the WA itself take action. Or indeed blocking the WA from future action, thereby driving a truck through the blocker rule.

Both of these aspects would represent a sea change in the rules.

I don't see how that would be a problem given those other rules . . . still exist?

[Bananaistan]

I don't think internal contradictions in the rules would be useful.

[Imperium Anglorum]

I don't think internal contradictions in the rules would be useful.

It's not though. It simply defines what an operative clause is, something which has long been considered to be a clause that does some- or anything. The other rules aren't built on the basis of 'blockers must include an operative clause' or 'committees must include an operative clause', they are built on the idea that they must include a clause with plausible statistical effects – i.e. a subset of the set of operative clauses.

In the old rules thread, there is no use of the word 'operative'. Nor is there such a provision in the Enodian protocols. Furthermore, it isn't as if changes to the blocker and committees rules have not happened in the past: the Enodian protocols have a provision interpreted by Hack to ban the creation of any bodies or organisations by the NSUN (see 1) and the post-Enodia rules do not have a 'Blocker' provision. As late as 2011, there was no rule on operative clauses at all.

Now, I don't believe we possess a term for such a statistically significant (I don't like that, too close to econometrics) clause, this exact segment of the rules being quite unclear.

1:

Actually, the Enodia Law bans all committees too:

Flagrant Offences
1. Radical changes to Game Mechanics - including but not limited to the following: setting up parallel UNs, Security Councils etc; allowing individual nations to decide whether or not to abide by resolutions.

But simplying saying, "A UN committee responsible for inspecting nuclear plants and reporting to the UN should be established. This committee should contain 15 members from different countries and be responsible to the UN." doesn't imply that anybody is forced to do this, but it is a flavour text (in this case, it might be argued that this is too small a group ... but I'd say that too is part of the fun of experimenting).

Hm. By my reading, you are attempting to force a Game Mechanics change. No committee has actually been created, despite the Resolution's attempt to do so. (19-03-2005 at 10:53 on the thread [i]New Rules For UN Proposals/ FINAL DRAFT POSTED. LAST CHANCE TO COMMENT! [Archive] - Jolt Forums)

Edit summary, if it could be called that: Lots of formatting changes, addition of new content, a reference to the exact location of Hack's post, changes changes changes. Edit 5 moved text from in-line into a footnote.

[Bananaistan]

I don't think internal contradictions in the rules would be useful.

It's not though.

It is though. You'd have one rule saying doing X, Y & Z is ok. Other rules would then say X and Z are prohibited. This makes no sense to me. And I doubt it would be helpful to anyone to have such unnecessary ambiguities and contradictions in the rules.

[Imperium Anglorum]

You'd have one rule saying doing X, Y & Z is ok. Other rules would then say X and Z are prohibited.

It seems to me you ignored the entirety of the post, [EDIT 1] which I recall included the meat of the argumentation in its initial version, [EDIT 2] though without exact references.

[Bananaistan]

You'd have one rule saying doing X, Y & Z is ok. Other rules would then say X and Z are prohibited.

It seems to me you ignored the entirety of the post, [EDIT 1] which I recall included the meat of the argumentation in its initial version, [EDIT 2] though without exact references.

The rest of it doesn't really matter. It's a nice little commentary on ancient rulings and no longer applicable rules that has no bearing on the simple fact that your proposed wording says that X, Y and Z are ok. I see no good reason to do that when X and Z are already prohibited by other rules.

[Imperium Anglorum]

The rest of it doesn't really matter. It's a nice little commentary on ancient rulings and no longer applicable rules that has no bearing on the simple fact that your proposed wording says that X, Y and Z are ok. I see no good reason to do that when X and Z are already prohibited by other rules.

Or, we could just look at the first paragraph, not talking about ancient rulings or no longer applicable rules. However it is, the concept of a subset seems to be lost.

It's not though. It simply defines what an operative clause is, something which has long been considered to be a clause that does some- or anything. The other rules aren't built on the basis of 'blockers must include an operative clause' or 'committees must include an operative clause', they are built on the idea that they must include a clause with plausible statistical effects – i.e. a subset of the set of operative clauses.

I am at a loss of how to explain this. It seems so simple a concept. Perhaps car brands may work. If I say that you need to have a car to have your car washed, but that Rolls-Royces get a discount at the new IA car wash, that doesn't mean that all cars get a discount. If I say that Britons can attend university for low (compared to American) rates, but then the Scots say theirs are free for Scottish students, that doesn't invalidate the first statement.

[Bananaistan]

When you're explaining you're losing.

You mention that the other rules are built on statistical effects. Why, then, have you proposed a rule which completely ignores statistical effects?

If B - A = C, and C is not permitted by other rules because of underlying statistical effects, why mention it at all? It's still not permissible because stats, so why have a rule that envisages it is permissible? It just does not make sense to me to do so.

[Imperium Anglorum]

You mention that the other rules are built on statistical effects. Why, then, have you proposed a rule which completely ignores statistical effects?

Because the Operative Clause rule has never talked about statistical effects. It talks about the general requirements associated with all World Assembly proposals. The other rules don't operate at such a high level, they apply under specific circumstances, when a committee is involved and when something is blocked.

[Bananaistan]

I still fail to see why it's a good idea. What benefit arises to the GA by defining operative clauses in such a broad way including clauses which are otherwise not permissible?

[Imperium Anglorum]

I still fail to see why it's a good idea. What benefit arises to the GA by defining operative clauses in such a broad way including clauses which are otherwise not permissible?

Because they are permissible. One can write a legal proposal stating that citizens may not kill people. One may also write a legal proposal stating that member nations may not kill their citizens. And, since all urging clauses are statements that the World Assembly urges a member to do something, so too has the World Assembly taken some action. The drafted version talks about concrete actions – the third proposal, noted above, would change that to affects – namely, 'clauses which affect member nations'.

However it is, on recent reflection, I really don't see the need for an operative clause rule. Not only was the GA just fine for the vast majority of its history without one, all of the actual requirements imposed by an Operative clause rule would duplicate the requirements imposed already by the Category and Strength rules: namely, that something justify the statistical changes of a resolution.

EDIT: Also, the definition of an operative clause is extremely broad.

[Bananaistan]

I still fail to see why it's a good idea. What benefit arises to the GA by defining operative clauses in such a broad way including clauses which are otherwise not permissible?

Because they are permissible. One can write a legal proposal stating that citizens may not kill people. One may also write a legal proposal stating that member nations may not kill their citizens. And, since all urging clauses are statements that the World Assembly urges a member to do something, so too has the World Assembly taken some action. The drafted version talks about concrete actions – the third proposal, noted above, would change that to affects – namely, 'clauses which affect member nations'.

However it is, on recent reflection, I really don't see the need for an operative clause rule. Not only was the GA just fine for the vast majority of its history without one, all of the actual requirements imposed by an Operative clause rule would duplicate the requirements imposed already by the Category and Strength rules: namely, that something justify the statistical changes of a resolution.

EDIT: Also, the definition of an operative clause is extremely broad.

This is fair enough actually and it has been recently reiterated by GenSec that WA resolutions can and do directly restrict the actions of individuals and private organisations in member states. Shame neither of us copped it sooner, like about 15 posts sooner!

[Tzorsland]

That being said, GenSec is bound to stare decisis with our own precedent.

Who was the vile being who has thus imprisoned you? Why forcing anyone to be consistent should be a violation of everything NationStates stands for.

OOC: You know I'm kidding. NationStates doesn't stand; it sits on a nice recliner with a beer in one hand and a cigar in the other watching the game.