[DEFEATED] Pride And Prejudice

[States of Glory WA Office]

Neville: Nonsense! What if a government calls a snap election in the hopes of increasing its majority, only for there to be a hung parliament? What sane nation would allow such a weak and unstable coalition of chaos to be formed?

'You think politicians are going to not roll the dice when they think they are going to win?! Like I said, utterly craven!'

Neville: Nonsense! What if a...

Fairburn: This is going nowhere. It is a shame that the United Commonwealth of Imperium Anglorum has withdrawn one of the few decent Ambassadors sent to the World Assembly and replaced him with the typical obstinate fool one tends to find amongst the other Delegations... (looks at Harold) ...including ours.

[Araraukar]

OOC: and -- because this has now changed quite a bit from the original St Edmundan version -- re-define St Edmund as just a "Co-author" rather than as the "Original author".

OOC: Wasn't St Edmund one of your accounts?

[Omigodtheykilledkenny]

The mandatory clause is atrocious. Was it motivated by Brexit, or the predictable whinings of delegates who don't like mild-strength resolutions?

Definitely against now.

[Bears Armed Mission]

national and sub-national leaders but other politicians....
national or sub-national leaders, other politicians, and public officials....
national or sub-national leaders, other politicians, and public officials....
national or sub-national leaders, other politicians, or public officials....

ARI: With all due respect, reading that same phrase made my assistant yawn. And no one wants to see him yawn, with that big gaping hole in his face that he calls a mouth. Perhaps, since this is all preamble, after spelling it out the first time, just use the phrase "political leaders" or something similar in subsequent clauses?

"The latest draft now includes a clause defining such people as 'the relevant people', for the purpose of this resolution, and repeats only that term instead: Does that solve the problem?"

3. DECLARES that if a member nation's government officially states that it will regard the result of a forthcoming referendum or plebiscite as binding and that vote in on a subject legal under WA law

Neville: I believe that it's meant to be "and that vote is on a subject".

Fairburn: Thanks to the addition of a perfectly reasonable binding active clause, our Delegation is prepared to offer our support to this draft.

Thank you. That typing error has been fixed."

Mortimer Wellesley notes, 'On the other hand, we find that clause utterly unreasonable and will not vote for a proposal mandating it. Parliament is sovereign and cannot be overruled, except by its own authority, placing such a power in the hands of ministers is utterly craven'.

Neville: A referendum where Parliament doesn't respect the result is a glorified poll. Don't want direct democracy getting in the way of your Government's plans? The solution is simple: Don't initiate a referendum that your Government isn't prepared to lose.

"Precisely!"

Urrna Silvertrees,
Apprentice Voice, Bears Armed Mission at the World Assembly.

_____________________________________________________________________________

OOC: and -- because this has now changed quite a bit from the original St Edmundan version -- re-define St Edmund as just a "Co-author" rather than as the "Original author".

OOC: Wasn't St Edmund one of your accounts?

OOC: It was (and still is, in fact), but its only IC connection to the Bears is that the St Edmundan ambassador and the Bears' [then] 'Chief Observer' occasionally drank together in the Strangers' Bar. When the St Edmundans were having a last drink there, before leaving for home, their ambassador handed a folder of un-passed drafts to the Bears and said something along the lines of "If you feel like continuing any of these projects then you're welcome to use our drafts: Free to a good home" and so the Bears IC consider it polite to credit the St Edmundans as relevant.

The mandatory clause is atrocious. Was it motivated by Brexit, or the predictable whinings of delegates who don't like mild-strength resolutions?
Definitely against now.

OOC: What's so 'atrocious' about it? After all, nothing here says that governments have to call any referendums -- or to promise the people that they will regard the results as binding, rather than just as advisory -- in the first place. All it says is that if they do make such a promise then they have to keep their word... Don't you think that governments should have to keep their word to the governed?
The whole [rough] draft from which I took that clause was inspired by the pre-Brexit situation, and tried to protect WA nations' inhabitants from various forms of "fixing" whose use in that RL situation was thought potentially possible, yes.
For example, it also had a clause saying that if the referendum is on foreign policy (e.g. about membership of an international organisation) then foreigners resident in the nation -- even if they are allowed to vote in some other types of polls there -- can't be allowed to vote in it. I dropped that project partly because of the difficulty in reaching a balance between loopholes & micromanagement, but largely because I foresaw any thread that it was given here getting too heavily threadjacked by arguments about Brexit.
My decision to include that clause here wasn't to placate any of the other delegates, it was because I could see the argument that this proposal was verry weak -- bearing in mind the existence of the other GA legislation that has already been mentioned here -- and it occurred to me that this addition would be a good way of fixing the problem and of getting at least this part of my earlier work -- which seemed a good fit for the proposal's theme -- into play after all.

[Bears Armed Mission]

"This proposal has now been re-submitted, as its latest version, and we will be making a serious attempt at getting it to vote. Delegates, please approve it."

Urrna Silvertrees,
Apprentice Voice, Bears Armed Mission at the World Assembly.

Artorrios o SouthWoods,
ChairBear, Bears Armed Mission at the World Assembly.

[The Puddle Jumping Wads of Wrapper]

"The latest draft now includes a clause defining such people as 'the relevant people', for the purpose of this resolution, and repeats only that term instead: Does that solve the problem?"

ARI: Well, yes it does, although perhaps a more relevant term than "relevant people" would be more...

AHUME: Relevant?

ARI: Appropriate. No matter, this is fine. We'll support.

[Bears Armed Mission]

OOC

Nations contacted so far (TGed manually, in batches of 8 -- or sometimes fewer -- nations) = 366

TG delivered, 307 nations = 83.9%
TG blocked by category, 54 nations = 14.8%
Target nations are in 'Class' regions, 5 = 1.4%.
(= 100.1%, due to rounding...)

Approvals received in first two hours [approximately] = 8... of which 7 were TGed, and the other is Wrapper.

So far I've contacted the delegates who approved this proposal on its trial run and -- on the basis that they seem to favour helping people -- most of those who voted 'For' on the resolution to help disabled students.
I have to take a break now, but will send some more TGs this afternoon.

[States of Glory WA Office]

OOC: 307 nations already? What I'd give to be able to campaign that quickly.

[Bears Armed Mission]

OOC: 307 nations already? What I'd give to be able to campaign that quickly.

OOC: I had the those names already collected & [more or less] split into batches, and the text for the two main versions of the TG written, before I submitted the proposal... and I think that the spam filter lets older nations send TGs post more frequently than newer ones.

Now on 21 approvals.

Edit: more names gathered; another 34 nations now contacted, using a modified TG template, including 3 individual nations [for 3 separate reasons) for which I don't have 'delivery' data... The others = 26 delivered, 5 blocked by category.

It's now on 24 approvals, after c. 6 hours since submission.

I'm logging off for the evening.

[Wallenburg]

What a mess.

[Imperium Anglorum]

OOC: 307 nations already? What I'd give to be able to campaign that quickly.

Manual campaigning allows for you to address to 8 recipients at a time, with a delay of somewhere around 10 seconds, I believe. This means that manual campaigns are faster than API – just API doesn't require any effort or use of your time.

[States of Glory WA Office]

OOC: 307 nations already? What I'd give to be able to campaign that quickly.

Manual campaigning allows for you to address to 8 recipients at a time, with a delay of somewhere around 10 seconds, I believe. This means that manual campaigns are faster than API – just API doesn't require any effort or use of your time.

OOC: Believe you me, I am well aware of how manual campaigning works.

Of course, typing in all eight names takes far longer than ten seconds, though I might take BA's advice about typing them up in advance. If it gives me an excuse to unretire then I'm all for it.

[Imperium Anglorum]

Of course, typing in all eight names takes far longer than ten seconds, though I might take BA's advice about typing them up in advance. If it gives me an excuse to unretire then I'm all for it.

Oh, you can use python to easily split the API information into a big list, and then read them back eight at a time, preformatted to give them in telegram relevant order. I'd also recommend randomising the order – having the nation of 1-502nd Airborne Inf receive the first telegram like every time seems a bit overwhelming.

[Bananaistan]

OOC: NS dossier has an option to produce a CSV export of delegates. I can't recall exactly how but from this export I used to be able to get excel to generate lists of 8 short nation names separated by the comma and space for easy copying and pasting into the addressee field. This would mean that you could hit ~1500 delegate in a half hour sitting of manual TGing.

[Bears Armed Mission]

Oh, you can use python to easily split the API information into a big list, and then read them back eight at a time, preformatted to give them in telegram relevant order. I'd also recommend randomising the order – having the nation of 1-502nd Airborne Inf receive the first telegram like every time seems a bit overwhelming.

OOC; Too technical for me... and I alphabetise the names, when making my initial lists, so that if I subsequently consider adding another batch to be advisable it's easier to check the new names against the lists of both delegates already TGed and approvals already received.

OOC: NS dossier has an option to produce a CSV export of delegates. I can't recall exactly how but from this export I used to be able to get excel to generate lists of 8 short nation names separated by the comma and space for easy copying and pasting into the addressee field. This would mean that you could hit ~1500 delegate in a half hour sitting of manual TGing.

OOC: Hr'rmm...
Anyway, I'm doing a "targeted" campaign rather than just trying to reach as many delegates as possible. From experience, suitable targeting can usually get a proposal to quorum with a lot less work than the latter approach.

The number of approvals received had risen to 51 when i logged in & checked this morning, but hasn't risen since then: I've just sent some more TGs, contacting a further 46 nations (32 delivered, 14 blocked by category). That means I've now contacted everybody who approved the trial run, several other nations whose support I've had on previous proposals, every delegate who voted 'For' on the last GA resolution passed, and all of the delegates for the 120 largest 'Democratic'-tagged regions -- with suitable customisation on the TGs for each of those groups -- which I hope will be enough.

[Excidium Planetis]

OOC:
I wouldn't particularly care, but some people might question whether "the Sun" is a Real World reference.

[Imperium Anglorum]

OOC: I wouldn't particularly care, but some people might question whether "the Sun" is a Real World reference.

I don't think so. They aren't even a real newspaper.

[Wallenburg]

OOC:
I wouldn't particularly care, but some people might question whether "the Sun" is a Real World reference.

It is. Lowercase "sun" is not a RL reference but uppercase "Sun" is a proper noun and, therefore, refers to a specific RL thing. It's much like the difference between "the pyramids" and "the Pyramids".

[Excidium Planetis]

OOC:
I wouldn't particularly care, but some people might question whether "the Sun" is a Real World reference.

It is. Lowercase "sun" is not a RL reference but uppercase "Sun" is a proper noun and, therefore, refers to a specific RL thing. It's much like the difference between "the pyramids" and "the Pyramids".

OOC:
Yeah, well, I'm not going to be the one to challenge it, because I'm not that petty. That, and one of my resolutions did mention "Terran bees".

[Wallenburg]

It is. Lowercase "sun" is not a RL reference but uppercase "Sun" is a proper noun and, therefore, refers to a specific RL thing. It's much like the difference between "the pyramids" and "the Pyramids".

OOC:
Yeah, well, I'm not going to be the one to challenge it, because I'm not that petty. That, and one of my resolutions did mention "Terran bees".

OOC: Which I think many of us only tolerated because of all the Orange Julius.

[Bears Armed]

OOC:
I wouldn't particularly care, but some people might question whether "the Sun" is a Real World reference.

It is. Lowercase "sun" is not a RL reference but uppercase "Sun" is a proper noun and, therefore, refers to a specific RL thing. It's much like the difference between "the pyramids" and "the Pyramids".

OOC
Ouch! I can see that argument's sense. Such a pity that nobody (including me) caught this point earlier, either during this attempt or during the earlier version's original WA run.
On the other hand, I suspect that most people in WA member nations *, even if native to worlds that aren't versions of 'Earth', probably call their homeworlds' suns by names for which 'the Sun' is a reasonable translation.
Anyway, the flow of approvals has tapered off significantly (from c. 2/hour to c.1/2 hours) so it looks unlikely to make quorum this time around even if it's left as 'legal', and I'll switch that word to all-lowercase before resubmittal.

(* although possibly not settlers on new[ish] colony-worlds in colonists in multi-system interstellar nations, I admit...)

[Wallenburg]

It is. Lowercase "sun" is not a RL reference but uppercase "Sun" is a proper noun and, therefore, refers to a specific RL thing. It's much like the difference between "the pyramids" and "the Pyramids".

OOC
Ouch! I can see that argument's sense. Such a pity that nobody (including me) caught this point earlier, either during this attempt or during the earlier version's original WA run.
On the other hand, I suspect that most people in WA member nations *, even if native to worlds that aren't versions of 'Earth', probably call their homeworlds' suns by names for which 'the Sun' is a reasonable translation.
Anyway, the flow of approvals has tapered off significantly (from c. 2/hour to c.1/2 hours) so it looks unlikely to make quorum this time around even if it's left as 'legal', and I'll switch that word to all-lowercase before resubmittal.
(* although possibly not settlers on new[ish] colony-worlds in colonists in multi-system interstellar nations, I admit...)

OOC: Well, I still won't be voting for it, but it's always good to see small fixes like that. Best of luck on the next submission.

[Tinfect Diplomatic Enclave]

On the other hand, I suspect that most people in WA member nations *, even if native to worlds that aren't versions of 'Earth', probably call their homeworlds' suns by names for which 'the Sun' is a reasonable translation.

OOC:
I feel the need to note that in the Imperium, the word for the Sun would translate better to 'God'. Government Personnel are advised to avoid referring to it directly.

For the record, while the Imperium doesn't consider this legislation worth bothering with, it's sufficiently inoffensive to the Imperium and inconvenient for Democracies that you can expect their vote if it gets that far.

[Bears Armed Mission]

"sun" fixed.
Re-submitted

It reached 67 approvals last time, out of the 86 needed.
I had asked everybody whom I TGed that time around to check in a few days time to see whether had gone through or had been re-submitted & needed approval again: Hopefully they will do so, and whether they do or not I'll concentrate my campaign this time any on other delegates instead.

[Bears Armed Mission]

Final attempt: Please approve.

OOC: Unfortunately RL -- and getting embroiled in certain threads in these forums, too -- hindered my ability to campaign for the previous couple of attempts as much as I'd hoped to do.
This time I've started by contacting everybody who approved it on any of the recent attempts (101 received it, only 9 blocked it by category), and should be able to do a lot of extra TGing if necessary. Also, by submitting it at a different time of day to the earlier attempts, I gained it an extra 7 hours in the list to gather support.