D: Simplifying the Rules

[Magecastle Embassy Building A5]

Simplifying the Rules

I am aware that this is a topic that has been brought up before; however, at this point it's worthy of a serious discussion. I'm starting this thread to facilitate a discussion on the long-term simplification of the ruleset -- @ -- in general.

The Problem

Firstly, the rules are not even consistent with how they are actually enforced. Take, for example, the Honest Mistake rule _

Honest Mistake: Repeals should address the contents of the resolution it's targeting, and not just state the reverse of the arguments given in the resolution. Embellishment, exaggeration, deceptive/weaselly-words do not constitute an 'honest mistake'. An 'honest mistake' is factual inaccuracies, misrepresentation, or content that doesn't address the resolution.

"Content that doesn't address the resolution" is relatively well-established not to be an Honest Mistake violation in itself -- it is honestly a violation if none of the repeal addresses the resolution. Yet, the wording of the rule implies that having a singular clause that doesn't address the resolution, even if the rest of the repeal does indeed address the resolution, is an Honest Mistake violation.

Secondly, there a number of areas of the rules which only exist because of precedent which is completely unmentioned in the actual ruleset. For example, the National Sovereignty rule says that _

National Sovereignty: Theoretically any resolution can be removed with this sole argument. For this reason, repeals require unique arguments tailored to the target resolution. NatSov may be used as an additional unique argument but it cannot take over the repeal. Its variations include cultural and religious sovereignty.

Arguing that a term is not defined is considered a "National Sovereignty" argument, and accordingly repealing a resolution on the sole grounds of a term being undefined is illegal under the NatSov rule. This is absolutely not clear in the text of the rule. It is not even formally codified in GenSec precedent -- the only precedent on the matter that can be relatively easily located is a quote from Ardchoille nearly a decade ago.

Why this is bad

The GA already has a very steep learning curve. NS is played by users as young as 13, and being able to find a policy idea, write it into World Assembly law, ensure that it is politically viable, and be clear in avoiding oversights and loopholes, is already quite difficult, and this is not helped by players having their proposals marked illegal for something that a new player would only find by mining through old precedent when it should be clear from the text of the ruleset itself.

Precedent itself can be filled with legal jargon and complicated language that would, once again, make it incomprehensible to the average 13 year old who only just joined NS/started participating in the WA. The Flesch-Kincaid readability scale shows the latest precedent with a grade level of 12.2, with all precedents having a GL scale of no less than 11. Likewise, the ruleset itself has a GL scale of 12.5. While I do not find that such complexity in GenSec rulings is inherently bad, it makes it even more important that the rules be clear and able to be understood by anyone.

The solution

Besides the numerous typoes and errors in the text of the rules, the solution is a complete rework of the ruleset. Such a rework would have to ensure that the rules be

• comprehensive, such that all areas of the rules are covered and explained in the ruleset; and such that GenSec precedents are only "minor clarifications", rather than "introducing entire new areas of the rules";
  
  
• comprehensible, such that any layperson can adequately understand the rules without, say, having to google legal terms; and
  
  
• accurate, adequately conveying how the rules are actually enforced in practice.

Further, once should a rework occurs, GenSec should act in accordance to the rules where possible. Except where doing so would violate the absurdity doctrine (in which case the rules should also be amended as promptly as possible), GenSec should mark proposals illegal if, under the ruleset, they would be illegal. Likewise, GenSec should mark proposals legal if the ruleset indicates that they are legal. New precedents (not rulings) should solely address minor ambiguities in the text of the rules -- for example, whether committees can act on member nations without a separate enabling clause. They should not introduce entire new areas of the rules which are elided in the actual ruleset.

-----

Discuss.

[WayNeacTia]

The rules are fine. People just need to learn how to actually read them.

[Honeydewistania]

Can you name an instance where one of these 13 year olds had their proposal ruled illegal due to ancient precedent and lost interest in the GA as a result?

[Nunaqujjuk]

Also to be honest the standard is too high.
WA resolutions used to be like one paragraph but they had everything needed in them but in the paragraph, now its like a million paragraphs and a low chance still, the expectation are too high.

[Imperium Anglorum]

If you really want to do wide-ranging rules reform, I'd want to propose my current draft procedure document. Word says it scores a F-K GL of 10.2. It attempts to reduce every rule into a bright-line test. Drawback is that it's 2131 words long.

[Jedinsto]

If you really want to do wide-ranging rules reform, I'd want to propose my current draft procedure document. Word says it scores a F-K GL of 10.2. It attempts to reduce every rule into a bright-line test. Drawback is that it's 2131 words long.

I would be interested in seeing a redraft of the rules, however I don't find them too hard to understand. Perhaps important precedents could be included in the rules themselves, or at least be easily accessible to new players searching the rules thread.

[Imperium Anglorum]

If you really want to do wide-ranging rules reform, I'd want to propose my current draft procedure document. Word says it scores a F-K GL of 10.2. It attempts to reduce every rule into a bright-line test. Drawback is that it's 2131 words long.

I would be interested in seeing a redraft of the rules, however I don't find them too hard to understand. Perhaps important precedents could be included in the rules themselves, or at least be easily accessible to new players searching the rules thread.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/17X2 ... sp=sharing

[Unibot III]

I would be interested in seeing a redraft of the rules, however I don't find them too hard to understand. Perhaps important precedents could be included in the rules themselves, or at least be easily accessible to new players searching the rules thread.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/17X2 ... sp=sharing

The issues I see with this ruleset is that it continues a pattern of growing overreach of the rules (a trend with GenSec) and embraces a singularly challenge-based view of rules enforcement (another product of the GenSec system).

My preference would be to see the ruleset stripped down and there to be greater focus on in-thread collaboration between GenSec and authors in a drafting phase.

[WayNeacTia]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/17X2 ... sp=sharing

The issues I see with this ruleset is that it continues a pattern of growing overreach of the rules (a trend with GenSec) and embraces a singularly challenge-based view of rules enforcement (another product of the GenSec system).

My preference would be to see the ruleset stripped down and there to be greater focus on in-thread collaboration between GenSec and authors in a drafting phase.

When have you ever known the U.S. Supreme Court to collaborate with anyone on anything?

[RemiorKami]

The issues I see with this ruleset is that it continues a pattern of growing overreach of the rules (a trend with GenSec) and embraces a singularly challenge-based view of rules enforcement (another product of the GenSec system).

My preference would be to see the ruleset stripped down and there to be greater focus on in-thread collaboration between GenSec and authors in a drafting phase.

When have you ever known the U.S. Supreme Court to collaborate with anyone on anything?

I would say GenSec is a little more collaborative and social.

[Heavens Reach]

Can you name an instance where one of these 13 year olds had their proposal ruled illegal due to ancient precedent and lost interest in the GA as a result?

I imagine that most examples would lurk the forum for a while, see the learning curve, see even good proposals that fell afoul of unclear rules, and, based on that collective evidence, quietly peace out.

[The Orwell Society]

I would definitely be for this.

[Heavens Reach]

I would be interested in seeing a redraft of the rules, however I don't find them too hard to understand. Perhaps important precedents could be included in the rules themselves, or at least be easily accessible to new players searching the rules thread.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/17X2 ... sp=sharing

This is good, overall. But also some feedback:

Certain actions are non-strategic. By that, I mean that the plea has such a clear test that the discretionary powers of the Secretariat operating in the queue are de facto conclusive.

It might be worth explaining what "de facto conclusive" means, especially vis a vis the outcome of the initiated action.

Reasonable nation theory is a doctrine with two separate elements. First, member nations will not choose to interpret a resolution in a way that is to their own self-detriment. Second, member nations are sufficiently alike real life human nations that it is possible to make predictions and inferences of their actions based on human nations.

I would place this earlier in the document since the following come before it:

In less clear cut cases, the facts alleged must follow reasonable nation theory.

2. asserts judiciable facts which violate reasonable nation theory.

Especially the first of the two, which is separated from the explanation of reasonable nation theory by several pages.

However, proposals with mild strength – which does not include areas of effect – may consist only of hortatory language.

This has come up before, but it's probably worth briefly defining hortatory.

Overall, however, I think the document is very clear and informative.

[Unibot III]

The issues I see with this ruleset is that it continues a pattern of growing overreach of the rules (a trend with GenSec) and embraces a singularly challenge-based view of rules enforcement (another product of the GenSec system).

My preference would be to see the ruleset stripped down and there to be greater focus on in-thread collaboration between GenSec and authors in a drafting phase.

When have you ever known the U.S. Supreme Court to collaborate with anyone on anything?

I think that’s exactly the issue, the “mock” court manner of conducting itself interferes with the ability of GenSec to moderate the GA in a practical, community-focused way.

It strikes me as folks practicing their Latin, while they move the goal-posts back and forth in a chaotic and unpredictable way. It works for them, but is it really working for the GA?

Ultimately, it is a Secretariat but it acts like a court or tribunal and colours its correspondence as a court.

[Imperium Anglorum]

Dialogus Cancellarii

In the beginning, there was Simplicio. Dixitque, "What if everyone just practised kumbaya? Then we could have our beautiful utopian world with lots of strangely-named pseudo-Greek generations cooperating together with many physeis in a single hypostasis. There are no drawbacks; the status quo, moreover, is not really working for the GA, in which I now take no part due to historical reasons".

Fallen from the heavens, acting against Simplicio, there was one Salviati. Impishly, he responded "People disagree on things, however. Views on the correct interpretation of the rules are divergent, are they not? How would these differences be resolved?" In an instant, Simplicio responded with the devastating retort, "The population of authors could engage in self-introspection with enforcement personnel, allowing for informal pre-dispute resolution". Salviati, struck into puzzlement with this retort, said like brainless moron, "That literally doesn't engage with my question at all in any way; people get into disputes because they have real differences that are set in stone".

Simplicio continued, unheeding his rude interruption of his glory, "If all matters were discussed to the point of peaceable and amiable resolution, there would obviate any prerequisite demand for formal dispute resolution services". But Salviati with his bad manners interrupted again, "—But that misses the point. The disputes are there no matter how you decorate the deckchairs. People disagree on things; when those are on the rules, there are only two choices – it is or it isn't illegal – one has to be picked; not picking at all too is a choice (legal). In fact, the recent case you just engaged with was a case of this! You said that a historical reading that ignored the current text was one that should be taken and that the proposal at hand was not illegal!"

Struck, Simplicio replied with a gentle smile, "Yes, and I was right." Salviati, like a dirty empiricist, questioned the doctor of philosophy, "But why?", to which the doctor responded, "Well, I told you in a number of paragraphs there; it was exceptionally clear why a trier of law should ignore the primary documents and engage in circumvention of publicly discoverable legal rules in favour of undiscoverable non-precedential case law." Salviati, unthinkingly answered, "But your statement of why is itself an opinion! And, if you were the person whose opinion mattered, is not giving that opinion a case of the court-like behaviour you dislike?"

Simplicio responded with akin to a sage, "Ah, no, because when I said that, it was before the triers of law released their opinion; it is the formal releasing of opinions which makes something a judicial body; they should avoid such activities. Instead of releasing opinions, those actions should be taken in concert with authors. Judicial action sans consultation creates a hotbed for chaos and unpredictability." But the foolish Salviati then replied to his sagacious response with a snide knife of a paragraph: "So either authors have vetos over enforcement or they don't. If they do, the rules are a dead letter. If they do not and releasing reasons for doing something is evil, you've locked yourself into thing being done on seeming whim without reasons. What you have left when you allow them to say why they did something ... is a 'court' which you say is the root of all our problems. A definitive statement of views also solves future chaos and unpredictability by clearly deciding disputes."

Finally, Simplicio, unveiling his divine powers to the demon Salviati, issued his final judgement: "Begone demon! I am tired with your snide and contemptuous remarks questioning my divine revelation!" And with a wave of a hand, Salviati was struck dead and his soul consigned to the hellish infernos beneath the earth, where it belonged. No opinion was released for this self-evidently right and proper penal action.

[Unibot III]

The problem with your dialectic is you’ve imagined one person holding your position and another person who disagrees with that position and presumably suffered from blunt force head trauma recently.

There will be disagreements over interpretations, absolutely.

The mock court shtick is not only unnecessary for resolving disagreements, but there should be an effort made by GenSec to limit the use of the Discard feature to cases of spam and “bloody stupid” resolutions that slip through quorum.

The whole approach of challenges, especially challenges post-quorum, encourages (1) players to wait until a resolution they don’t like is at vote to place a challenge, (2) GenSec to take the opportunity to weigh in with creative legal interpretations that expand the application of the rules further.

Here’s how the alternative works:

- If it’s known that the Discard feature won’t be used for cases of non-spam, players have no incentive to wait to raise issues with the legality of a resolution
- Players raise issues with the legality of a draft in the drafting thread
- Author asks GenSec members to weigh in, a GenSec member can weigh in immediately, but a member of GenSec may ask for a ruling to be made after an internal discussion
- A ruling shouldn’t be approached as a court-inspired document, with maxims and doctrine, but plainly written and clean, simple, and limited - the more GenSec tries to act like a court, the more it “innovates” with the ruleset like a RL court might

A mock court continues to be disruptive to the GA because it is too slow to accommodate the actual pace of drafting and the rulings create an unpredictable rules environment for authors. The answer is to stop acting as a court and instead act like volunteers moderating an online game. That’s not a “kumbaya” impossibility. Sure, you won’t always agree, so you hold a discussion and come to a ruling, but you can still offer feedback when asked, and the work of GenSec should be done within the timeline of drafting and submitting a resolution - with less emphasis on the style and form of rulings which unnecessarily delays an official response.

[Imperium Anglorum]

The impacts and warrants you marshal for those impacts are both causally disconnected and go in reverse of how you think they do. If the other person seems to have suffered suffered from blunt force head trauma, that's not a coincidence.

If you think discard should be abolished, that's a separate topic from what you're arguing for, which is that everyone somehow doesn't disagree and that any disagreements are resolved magically or without the tools necessary to effect final resolution.

So here's your alternative:

Your first point (abolish discard except for spam) is a non sequitur. The next one and a half points are the status quo. Players raise issues with proposal legality? People do that all the time. They even do it in the drafting thread too. Players ask for GenSec members to weigh in? People do that all the time. Does this work? GenSec members weigh in all the time. What you're asking for in the latter half of your third point and your fourth point (Secretariat should make lots of small rulings and abolish "doctrine"), though, go against the impacts that you claim you want to achieve.

You think the rulings create an unpredictable rules environment, but then advocate for minimalist "non-doctrinal" opinions that intrinsically offer no general guidance. That is what creates the unpredictable rules environment. Predictable rulings require clear reasons, which are themselves "maxims and doctrine", which are the things you want to abolish.

You think rulings are delayed and too slow. I wrote and posted my draft opinion 39 minutes after Wally informed people that we had made a decision. Maybe that's not fast enough for you, but why did it take so many days to post? Other members needed to vote on it; I needed to take its Flesch-Kincaid score from 17 to 13. If you want to give me all the power and get your 30 minute authoritative ruling, I'm game. I don't think anyone else is though.

There is also this strange underlying idea that the Secretariat is somehow aggrandising itself by finding everything illegal. First, in the status quo-like alternative world you imagine, the lack of binding (but only somewhat) precedent based on "doctrine" makes it easier to make stuff up on the fly. Second, it doesn't accord with the facts. There were 14 challenges brought this year. Just three were sustained. You complain about a lack of engagement. All challenges received prompt comment from GenSec members. The longest delay was two days (Repeal "Epidemic Investigation Act", 2022-01-19) and the shortest delay was -4 days, when the argument was already explicitly dismissed before a challenge was brought (Repeal "Museums of Musical Heritage", 2022-07-18). Seven had GenSec replies the same day.

[Potted Plants United]

The GenSec's power to discard proposals or even decide which are against the rules, is not quite the same as making the rules more understandable.

It's true many people don't read the rules before writing a proposal, but some, like the honest mistake rule, could really do with an addition of how it's actually applied. I haven't been very active in recent times, but last I was here, outright lying was allowed in repeals, as it didn't fall under an honest mistake, and was thus put under political shenanigans. (If that's no longer the case, then yeay, obviously.)

[Bananaistan]

The GenSec's power to discard proposals or even decide which are against the rules, is not quite the same as making the rules more understandable.

It's true many people don't read the rules before writing a proposal, but some, like the honest mistake rule, could really do with an addition of how it's actually applied. I haven't been very active in recent times, but last I was here, outright lying was allowed in repeals, as it didn't fall under an honest mistake, and was thus put under political shenanigans. (If that's no longer the case, then yeay, obviously.)

As far as I am aware, outright lying was only permitted in repeals for a brief period in 2016 before GenSec was set up, and this was reversed after outcry form the community.

Generally speaking, GenSec has done two things: in a handful of fairly specific cases, such as the most recent challenge, we have broadened the application of a rule where the result is a fairly clear and easy to apply standard. In most instances, we have narrowed the application of particular rules, either through rewriting the rule or issuing a relevant precedent. Examples off the top of my head are:
- the committee rule no longer requires member state action entirely independent of the committee
- house of cards only applies to fairly explicit reliance on a passed resolution and the mere mention of another resolution no longer makes a proposal illegal
- metagaming does not automatically mean that a proposal opening with something like "all nations must ..." is illegal
- the category and AoE rules no longer require a proposal to put into the best fit - any reasonable one will do
- the blocker rule was substantially narrowed

I'm sure there's more. My feeling is that GenSec has done the opposite of Unibot's claims of making an unpredictable environment for authors.

And we are still working on rewriting particular rules to make them more easily understand and I'm sure this will continue in perpetuity as the community and its standards change over time.

[Potted Plants United]

As far as I am aware, outright lying was only permitted in repeals for a brief period in 2016 before GenSec was set up, and this was reversed after outcry form the community.

As a rule, yeah, but on some case-to-case basis I think that's been "ruled" (as in, GenSec peeps posting on drafting thread, not in a legality challenge) to be ok since then?

Anyway, if lies aren't permitted in repeals, that's good enough for me, regardless of when it was put into effect.

[Unibot III]

The impacts and warrants you marshal for those impacts are both causally disconnected and go in reverse of how you think they do. If the other person seems to have suffered suffered from blunt force head trauma, that's not a coincidence.

You're correct, it's not a coincidence - you set up a false argument to beat up on it.

If you think discard should be abolished, that's a separate topic from what you're arguing for, which is that everyone somehow doesn't disagree and that any disagreements are resolved magically or without the tools necessary to effect final resolution.

• I've never argued Discards should be abolished completely, I said limit them to the cases of spam and "Bloody Stupid" legislation because the use of Discards encourages post-quorum challenges that are disruptive to the actual day-to-day drafting of legislation. If legislation was to get to vote that was obviously spam, it would be useful however to have a fire-alarm to pull in case of emergency.
• I never said that everybody will just not disagree, nor did I suggest that disagreements are resolved magically without a final resolution. I was suggesting:
  
  • more casual and pro-active interaction between secretariat members in drafting threads especially when called upon for input
  • no structured "challenges" - calls for review should be done in the thread
  • if a secretariat feels a ruling is needed they can call a vote among GenSec
  • rulings should be plainly written without a mock court style

Your first point (abolish discard except for spam) is a non sequitur.

It is not a non sequitur. The point about Discard was logically related to the disruptive and unpredictable environment that it creates for authors because it encourages post-quorum challenges after the dust is settled, and everything appears tidy and appropriate for submission.

The next one and a half points are the status quo. Players raise issues with proposal legality? People do that all the time. They even do it in the drafting thread too. Players ask for GenSec members to weigh in? People do that all the time. Does this work?

To answer your question, yes it does work - it worked for many years, long before GenSec, and it still works today. My issue is with the formal process that occurs with GenSec in attempting to mimic a mock court - the official "challenge" threads launched by players often after a resolution is submitted, or even while voting is taking place, and the doctrinal responses that these challenges inspire from a body of players that likes to pretend it is a court.

You think the rulings create an unpredictable rules environment, but then advocate for minimalist "non-doctrinal" opinions that intrinsically offer no general guidance. That is what creates the unpredictable rules environment. Predictable rulings require clear reasons, which are themselves "maxims and doctrine", which are the things you want to abolish.

Predictable rulings are based soundly in how the rules has conventionally been applied and a plain reading of the ruleset.

Unpredictable rulings are based on new and creative ways to apply written rules, perhaps with the good intentions of offering "guidance."

The unpredictability of GenSec rulings stems from its mock court character - it treats the ruleset as a set of laws, not rules, and applies them with a complexity that is helpful in a court room resolving real world problems, and unhelpful in a game resolving much simpler problems.

You think rulings are delayed and too slow. I wrote and posted my draft opinion 39 minutes after Wally informed people that we had made a decision. Maybe that's not fast enough for you, but why did it take so many days to post? Other members needed to vote on it; I needed to take its Flesch-Kincaid score from 17 to 13. If you want to give me all the power and get your 30 minute authoritative ruling, I'm game. I don't think anyone else is though.

This supports what I said. Decisions shouldn't require that kind of lengthy thought process - the whole thing was overthought, resulting in a decision that in seeking clarity brings confusion.

If you're developing a complicated world theory around this frankly rather basic ruleset so much so that it takes you days to expound on it, you're weaving a doctrine that may appear impenetrable and simple and full of guidance and direction to you... but it is unnecessary and a source of unpredictability to everyone else.

There were 14 challenges brought this year. Just three were sustained. You complain about a lack of engagement. All challenges received prompt comment from GenSec members. The longest delay was two days (Repeal "Epidemic Investigation Act", 2022-01-19) and the shortest delay was -4 days, when the argument was already explicitly dismissed before a challenge was brought (Repeal "Museums of Musical Heritage", 2022-07-18). Seven had GenSec replies the same day.

I was talking about how it took six days for a ruling to be published explaining why you discarded a resolution (that previously would have been legal before GenSec decided to reinvent the optionality rule).

The GenSec's power to discard proposals or even decide which are against the rules, is not quite the same as making the rules more understandable.

It's true many people don't read the rules before writing a proposal, but some, like the honest mistake rule, could really do with an addition of how it's actually applied. I haven't been very active in recent times, but last I was here, outright lying was allowed in repeals, as it didn't fall under an honest mistake, and was thus put under political shenanigans. (If that's no longer the case, then yeay, obviously.)

I'll just add this by saying that my biggest beef with today's GenSec lies with the "Honest Mistakes" rule and how it has been expanded. The change in interpretation to the Optionality rule is unnecessary, but authors can easily avoid the new rule's interpretation - whereas the HM rule can be stretched now in unpredictable ways by GenSec.

As far as I am aware, outright lying was only permitted in repeals for a brief period in 2016 before GenSec was set up, and this was reversed after outcry form the community.

Outright lying was absolutely illegal with the HM rule before 2016, but the way in which it was applied was much more narrow than it was today. Generally, the balance was on allowing a repeal to be pursued. If a statement was unknowable (a kind of prediction or extrapolation) or flimsy, the moderators would allow it to be voted on; if a statement was completely false, the moderators would flag it as an HM. With the way that GenSec applies the HM rule today, the language used in a repeal not only has to be airtight, but it allows GenSec simply to reject premises as untruthful when they're clearly subjective. That creates an unpredictability to drafting any repeal because ultimately there is always something subjective about the interpretations that we make about the resolutions we're analyzing.

My feeling is that GenSec has done the opposite of Unibot's claims of making an unpredictable environment for authors.

All I can say is it was fairly easy to predict how mods would rule on the Hackian rules, GA regulars almost never were challenged of having submitted an illegal resolution - partly because there was no point, the damn thing was legal either way once it made it to voting floor. The big fights were over metagaming and the rule itself, in relation to compliance and the WA Army. The only time I recall being really dinged by moderation in the GA was they decided I couldn't title the resolution "Decriminalization of Suicide" as that because it would be abbreviating DoS and I had to add an "A" to the beginning of the title. I disliked some of the dogma that had been built up around the GA and the GA ruleset, particularly surrounding compliance (which was seen as "magic compliance"), but I think it'd be unfair to someone like Ard to say it was an unpredictable rules environment - I typically knew what she was going to say, and I didn't always like it!

Nowadays, it seems like there are frequently challenges against polished, drafted resolutions based on torqued reasoning - especially with the Honest Mistake provision. I would find it an absolute nightmare to draft a resolution thoughtfully, make a last call, then have someone sneakily make a post-quorum challenge about the resolution's "legality" on a basis that defies decades of precedent, and have the GenSec can my resolution mid-vote, and wait a week to post a long, drawn-out explanation over "what the optionality rule is now." That's pretty much the worst and my sympathies are with the authors whose efforts are impacted.

[Sierra Lyricalia]

You think rulings are delayed and too slow. I wrote and posted my draft opinion 39 minutes after Wally informed people that we had made a decision. Maybe that's not fast enough for you, but why did it take so many days to post? Other members needed to vote on it; I needed to take its Flesch-Kincaid score from 17 to 13. If you want to give me all the power and get your 30 minute authoritative ruling, I'm game. I don't think anyone else is though.

This supports what I said. Decisions shouldn't require that kind of lengthy thought process - the whole thing was overthought, resulting in a decision that in seeking clarity brings confusion.

If you're developing a complicated world theory around this frankly rather basic ruleset so much so that it takes you days to expound on it, you're weaving a doctrine that may appear impenetrable and simple and full of guidance and direction to you... but it is unnecessary and a source of unpredictability to everyone else.

Leaving aside the hilarious absurdity of you, of all people, scolding another NS player for "developing a complicated world theory around this" game, what you are describing GenSec doing is precisely what the community demanded to address the shortcomings of moderator-administered legality rulings. In the golden age you're pining for, their opinions tended to be shorter because they had other shit to do on the site. This considerably constrained their attention spans, and I don't see how that could possibly be seen as a positive. The ad-hoc nature of legality moderation resulted in far less consistent application of the rules. Your belief that reversals of precedent and "in this case and in this case only" type of rulings made it easier to write resolutions is self-evidently false. To whatever extent it may once have seemed easier to get a resolution passed without being challenged, the difference is due to a cultural change in the way the GA is played (perhaps your idea that broad availability of the Discard function for "mere" rule breakage has encouraged this, has some merit; if so, that would be a good thing to focus on rather than this generalized crusade against the entire modern General Assembly).

To the extent that we have rules at all that govern what and how proposals may be submitted, they should not be subject to the whims of time and personnel changes. To the extent that GenSec rulings result in a shift of the ruleset and the way it's interpreted, surely it is more desirable to have those shifts be justified in terms of the way the community understands, and has understood, the rules; and driven by the desire to make the game more consistent and predictable (w/r/t the expectations authors have about what the rules mean).

TL;dr - trying to make the rules more predictable means cataloguing what they mean and then living by it, which is the polar opposite of the ad hoc regime you're trying to return to based on your belief that disregard of existing precedent somehow leads to better consistency.

[Imperium Anglorum]

Unibot. Wow. What a disaster of an advocacy. "GenSec should engage informally with players!" Players receive responses within a day. "Oh! I didn't mean engage informally with players, I meant engage formally in opinions, which are the things I'm also saying you should move away from." What astonishing dissembling. "The good rulings are the ones which are based on a plain reading of the ruleset." GenSec changes application to meet a plain reading of the ruleset. "Oh! Not like that; when you change it to reflect the text, it's unpredictable."

Ara. How can it possibly be that you truthfully claim that when you were "last" here, outright lying was allowed in repeals? You filed a challenge on those grounds! viewtopic.php?f=9&t=410614. You told new players many times that they should not submit their proposals because you thought the claims were untruthful!

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=489568&p=37522393&hilit=honest+mistake#p37522393 (qua lies)
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=488481&p=37401508&hilit=honest+mistake#p37401508 (qua lies)
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=488360&p=37393541&hilit=honest+mistake#p37393541 (extended to general fact claims)
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=469784&p=36902694&hilit=honest+mistake#p36902694 (qua lies)
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=469784&p=36901628&hilit=honest+mistake#p36901628 (qua lies)
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=468492&p=35957806&hilit=honest+mistake#p35957806 (qua lies)
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=468492&p=35954366&hilit=honest+mistake#p35954366 (qua lies)

You even gave receipt of notice about how the moderators were reverting their HM change! viewtopic.php?p=28553384#p28553384

Edit. Apparently because the addressing was too hard to read.

[Unibot III]

Unibot. Wow. What a disaster of an advocacy. "GenSec should engage informally with players!" Players receive responses within a day. "Oh! I didn't mean engage informally with players, I meant engage formally in opinions, which are the things I'm also saying you should move away from." What astonishing dissembling. "The good rulings are the ones which are based on a plain reading of the ruleset." GenSec changes application to meet a plain reading of the ruleset. "Oh! Not like that; when you change it to reflect the text, it's unpredictable."

Ara. How can it possibly be that you truthfully claim that when you were "last" here, outright lying was allowed in repeals? You filed a challenge on those grounds! viewtopic.php?f=9&t=410614. You told new players many times that they should not submit their proposals because you thought the claims were untruthful!

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=489568&p=37522393&hilit=honest+mistake#p37522393 (qua lies)
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=488481&p=37401508&hilit=honest+mistake#p37401508 (qua lies)
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=488360&p=37393541&hilit=honest+mistake#p37393541 (extended to general fact claims)
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=469784&p=36902694&hilit=honest+mistake#p36902694 (qua lies)
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=469784&p=36901628&hilit=honest+mistake#p36901628 (qua lies)
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=468492&p=35957806&hilit=honest+mistake#p35957806 (qua lies)
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=468492&p=35954366&hilit=honest+mistake#p35954366 (qua lies)

You even gave receipt of notice about how the moderators were reverting their HM change! viewtopic.php?p=28553384#p28553384

I am not Araraukar?

To be transparent, I recall questioning many years ago whether Knootoss should be able to extrapolate in a repeal of a GR resolution, but I felt the ultimate ruling was fair - extrapolating in a repeal argument was unheard of up until that point.

[Wallenburg]

Also to be honest the standard is too high.
WA resolutions used to be like one paragraph but they had everything needed in them but in the paragraph, now its like a million paragraphs and a low chance still, the expectation are too high.

Maybe in 2003, but 19 years have passed and the WA culture has changed quite a bit from that of the UNmentionable organization's most early experiments. As it is, if good policy can actually be fit into few words, the WA is in the habit of supporting that. The data show that the WA broadly doesn't care how long resolutions are, with the distribution of votes non-correlative to resolution length. Most writers, however, seem to prefer to use the bulk of their 5000-character allowance.