[DEFEATED] World Assembly Website Act (WAWA)

[Goobergunchia]

Furtherment of Democracy - Mild

Whereas the World Assembly has never formally established a website,

And whereas the creation of an official World Assembly website would prove beneficial for individuals to stay up-to-date on World Assembly affairs,

Therefore, be it resolved by the World Assembly that the following provisions are enacted:

1. The World Assembly Website Management Committee (WAWMC) shall be established.
   
   1. The WAWMC shall create and publish a website within one calendar year of the passage of this resolution. Upon this initial publication, the website shall follow all parameters for the website as laid out within this resolution for the time of publication. During this time, the WAWMC shall purchase a domain that shall be under the ownership of the WAWMC and the World Assembly, on which the website shall be hosted. If this domain becomes jeopardized for any reason, the WAWMC shall convene to discuss potential options, and agree upon a solution as efficiently as possible, porting the website over to the new domain, if necessary.
   2. The WAWMC shall be responsible for advertising the website to all existing and new World Assembly members, and shall inform any new member of its existence within three business days of their acceptance into the world Assembly.
   3. The WAWMC shall be responsible for updating the website so that it is as up-to-date as it can possibly be, with regards to the standards of this resolution.
   4. In the event that the website crashes, goes down, or otherwise has an outage, the WAWMC shall restore full functionality to the website as quickly as the committee possibly can.
   5. If someone targets the website with a hack, a denial of service attack, or any other unlawful malicious action, the WAWMC shall engage the perpetrator with legal action to get proportionate retribution for the act committed.
   6. The WAWMC shall maintain a backup version of the servers, updating it whenever major, World Assembly-wide news or changes are made or published onto the website.
   7. The WAWMC shall ensure that the Website is compatible with all prominent Internet protocols used within member nations.
2. The website shall be equipped with the following features:
   
   1. All passed World Assembly resolutions shall be published promptly after their passage, with vote margin, date passed, resolution number, authoring delegation and resolution title. This shall also have a search feature to make resolutions easily browsable.
   2. Every member-nation shall be granted a page that they can freely edit, to publicly post any information as it pertains to their nation, their delegation, their relationship to the World Assembly, legislative agenda, voting policy, or anything else that they deem fit. These pages shall not be used to encourage noncompliance with any World Assembly resolution, but they may be used to express disappointment with a resolution's passage or failure, or to express disagreement with an action of the World Assembly.
   3. All committees of the World Assembly shall have a webpage to post committee updates, reports, or any other information pertinent to the committee's function and purpose.
   4. For proposed legislation being debated, livestreams of the debates shall be broadcast on the website.
   5. If the WAWMC deems any other features necessary for the maintenance, functionality, or purpose of the World Assembly website, they may institute those features at their discretion.
3. No member shall censor the World Assembly website from anyone within their nation, and must ensure that access to the World Assembly site is free and open to the public, insofar as internet access can be reasonably established.
4. All official notices of the World Assembly shall be posted on the World Assembly website.

Taking up another debate chambers, the still-mysterious representatives of The Serene appear once again. Time is seemingly looping in the World Assembly headquarters, and although some may certainly claim to see the trio in two places at once, it is certainly impossible that this is the case. Regardless, they appear here now, this time with a seemingly more sophisticated piece of legislation. Though seemingly redundant to mention at this point, they once again speak in unity:

"We have often absorbed species and planets who have sophisticated internet protocols. The World Assembly assuredly has some of the most powerful Internet servers of the time, and as such, the organization lacking a presence online is a waste of resources that should be remedied. We decided to reserve a room in the "Furtherment of Democracy" hallway in order to debate this bill, on the grounds that increasing individual access to the World Assembly, its happenings, and other foreign nations and their happenings increases visibility and thus increases democratic practices. We also considered reserving a room in the "Free Press" corridor, but after light consideration, have deemed it more fitting for "Furtherment of Democracy".

We have designed this bill in such a way that, if it is passed and then later repealed, there should still be a functioning World Assembly website for at least four to five years, with an absolute minimum of six months. It may not be up-to-date, but this should give adequate time for all member-nations and relevant entities to export any unsaved information, and will hopefully effectively accomplish the goals of this bill.

We have also put a cap on the spending that shall go towards the committee created by the bill, so that no more than one ten-thousandth of the World Assembly's funds can go towards the committee. We feel that this is a sensible and reasonable restriction, given the low-operating cost of such an operation. Almost certainly, this number could be placed lower, but we wanted to set it up so that the website may be operational and robust, even if the World Assembly stumbles upon hard times, while having minimal effect on other functions of the World Assembly. We hope that this number can be agreed upon, but we are willing to change it."

[Tinhampton]

Opposed to Article 2b. Mandated restrictions on speech should be on the member state level; if a member state encourages illegal activity, it is not their responsibility if somebody is silly enough to follow through on it.

Also concerned by Article 5. There is no good reason why a domain cannot technically be maintained in perpetuity.

[The Serendipitous]

Opposed to Article 2b. Mandated restrictions on speech should be on the member state level; if a member state encourages illegal activity, it is not their responsibility if somebody is silly enough to follow through on it.

Also concerned by Article 5. There is no good reason why a domain cannot technically be maintained in perpetuity.

"We hear your criticism. While we have no particular horse in this race, the World Assembly is well within its right to not allow member states to encourage non-compliance on the World Assembly's official website. We will not change that for now, but if that thought is carried by other delegations, we have to qualm with removing the provision.

Article five will be reevaluated."

[Yxnadalsoxl]

What is the password?

[Yxnadalsoxl]

Under no circumstances shall the combination of the World Assembly website and the WAWMC constitute more than one ten-thousandth (0.01%) of the World Assembly's yearly budget.

Also, as of right now, "The World Assembly has 24,409 member nations”.

Does it mean that the equivalent of the contributions of MORE THAN TWO ENTIRE NATIONS will be used to maintain a website!?!?

[The Serendipitous]

Under no circumstances shall the combination of the World Assembly website and the WAWMC constitute more than one ten-thousandth (0.01%) of the World Assembly's yearly budget.

Also, as of right now, "The World Assembly has 24,409 member nations”.

Does it mean that the equivalent of the contributions of MORE THAN TWO ENTIRE NATIONS will be used to maintain a website!?!?

“It is a maximum. It is unlikely that the website will be budgeted this much, but it is a failsafe.”

[The Serendipitous]

Together in the chamber, the delegates say as follows:

"We have removed what was previously known as clause five and have consolidated it into the first subclause of clause one. We have also fixed a clerical error that occurred during the printing of this version, in which the two "t"s of the word "committed" became smudged together to spell "commited". Lastly, we have added a subclause "f" to clause one, which we felt was pertinent to the functioning of an ultimately fallible website."

[Kenmoria]

Having now grown more used to the presence of the Serendipitous, only a few encounters being sufficient, given his conditioning to this sort of occurrence, James Lewitt hands one a note, covered in purple notes. “Here is some of my feedback on this draft.”

Whereas the World Assembly has never formally established a website,

And whereas the creation of an official World Assembly website may prove beneficial for individuals to stay up-to-date on World Assembly affairs, I would be more direct, since this is your only preambulatory argument, as opposed to statement of fact. “Would prove beneficial” is the wording that I would use.”

Therefore, be it resolved by the World Assembly that the following provisions are enacted:

1. The World Assembly Website Management Committee (WAWMC) shall be established.
   
   1. The WAWMC shall create and publish a website within one calendar year of the passage of this resolution. Upon this initial publication, the website shall follow all parameters for the website as laid out within this resolution for the time of publication. During this time, the WAWMC shall purchase a domain that shall be under the ownership of the WAWMC and the World Assembly, on which the website shall be hosted. If this domain becomes jeopardized for any reason, the WAWMC shall convene to discuss potential options, and agree upon a solution as efficiently as possible, porting the website over to the new domain, if necessary.
   2. The WAWMC shall be responsible for advertising the website to all existing and new World Assembly members, and shall inform any new member of its existence within three business days of their acceptance into the world Assembly.
   3. The WAWMC shall be responsible for updating the website so that it is as up-to-date as it can possibly be, with regards to the standards of this resolution.
   4. In the event that the website crashes, goes down, or otherwise has an outage, the WAWMC shall get the website back up and running as quickly as the committee possibly can. More formal wording would be clearer here: “restore full functionality to the website” might be better.
   5. If someone targets the website with a hack, a denial of service attack, or any other malicious action, the WAWMC shall engage the perpetrator with legal action to get proportionate retribution for the act committed. A “malicious action” is awfully broad. Perhaps, an “unlawful malicious action” would be more restrained.
   6. The WAWMC shall maintain a backup version of the servers, updating it whenever major, World Assembly-wide news or changes are made or published onto the website.
2. The website shall be equipped with the following features:
   
   1. All passed World Assembly resolutions shall be published promptly after their passage, with vote margin, date passed, resolution number, and resolution title. This shall also have a search feature to make resolutions easily browsable. You might want to add the authoring delegation to this list of features.
   2. Every member-nation shall be granted a page that they can freely edit, to publicly post any information as it pertains to their nation, their delegation, their relationship to the World Assembly, legislative agenda, voting policy, or anything else that they deem fit. These pages shall not be used to encourage noncompliance with any World Assembly resolution, but they may be used to express disappointment with a resolution's passage or failure, or to express disagreement with an action of the World Assembly.
   3. All committees of the World Assembly shall have a webpage, and the staffers of those committees may edit those webpage at their discretion, so long as all edits are pertaining to the committee's business and jurisdiction. If a staffer makes irrelevant, excessive, or incorrect edits, their access to edit that committee's webpage may be taken away by their supervisor. This seems slightly micromanaging. I would simply say that the committee can make and edit a webpage, leaving it to the committees to decide how to do it.
   4. For proposed legislation being debated, livestreams of the debates shall be broadcast on the website.
   5. If the WAWMC deems any other features necessary for the maintenance, functionality, or purpose of the World Assembly website, they may institute those features at their discretion.
3. No member shall censor the World Assembly website from anyone within their nation, and must ensure that access to the World Assembly site is free and open to the public, insofar as internet access can be reasonably established.
4. All official notices of the World Assembly shall be posted on the World Assembly website.
5. Under no circumstances shall the combination of the World Assembly website and the WAWMC constitute more than one ten-thousandth (0.01%) of the World Assembly's yearly budget. In the event that the annual budget is projected to exceed this threshold, the WAWMC shall meet with the WA General Accounting Office, and develop a way to ensure that this threshold is not exceeded. This may be through downsizing of the committee, lowering the cost of the website, or any other means that the WAWMC and the General Accounting Office decide on in a mutual agreement. I do concur that specifying a maximal budget is odd. Perhaps simply specifying that a reasonable budget be used would be sufficient.

[The Serendipitous]

Having now grown more used to the presence of the Serendipitous, only a few encounters being sufficient, given his conditioning to this sort of occurrence, James Lewitt hands one a note, covered in purple notes. “Here is some of my feedback on this draft.”

Whereas the World Assembly has never formally established a website,

And whereas the creation of an official World Assembly website may prove beneficial for individuals to stay up-to-date on World Assembly affairs, I would be more direct, since this is your only preambulatory argument, as opposed to statement of fact. “Would prove beneficial” is the wording that I would use.”

Therefore, be it resolved by the World Assembly that the following provisions are enacted:

1. The World Assembly Website Management Committee (WAWMC) shall be established.
   
   1. The WAWMC shall create and publish a website within one calendar year of the passage of this resolution. Upon this initial publication, the website shall follow all parameters for the website as laid out within this resolution for the time of publication. During this time, the WAWMC shall purchase a domain that shall be under the ownership of the WAWMC and the World Assembly, on which the website shall be hosted. If this domain becomes jeopardized for any reason, the WAWMC shall convene to discuss potential options, and agree upon a solution as efficiently as possible, porting the website over to the new domain, if necessary.
   2. The WAWMC shall be responsible for advertising the website to all existing and new World Assembly members, and shall inform any new member of its existence within three business days of their acceptance into the world Assembly.
   3. The WAWMC shall be responsible for updating the website so that it is as up-to-date as it can possibly be, with regards to the standards of this resolution.
   4. In the event that the website crashes, goes down, or otherwise has an outage, the WAWMC shall get the website back up and running as quickly as the committee possibly can. More formal wording would be clearer here: “restore full functionality to the website” might be better.
   5. If someone targets the website with a hack, a denial of service attack, or any other malicious action, the WAWMC shall engage the perpetrator with legal action to get proportionate retribution for the act committed. A “malicious action” is awfully broad. Perhaps, an “unlawful malicious action” would be more restrained.
   6. The WAWMC shall maintain a backup version of the servers, updating it whenever major, World Assembly-wide news or changes are made or published onto the website.
2. The website shall be equipped with the following features:
   
   1. All passed World Assembly resolutions shall be published promptly after their passage, with vote margin, date passed, resolution number, and resolution title. This shall also have a search feature to make resolutions easily browsable. You might want to add the authoring delegation to this list of features.
   2. Every member-nation shall be granted a page that they can freely edit, to publicly post any information as it pertains to their nation, their delegation, their relationship to the World Assembly, legislative agenda, voting policy, or anything else that they deem fit. These pages shall not be used to encourage noncompliance with any World Assembly resolution, but they may be used to express disappointment with a resolution's passage or failure, or to express disagreement with an action of the World Assembly.
   3. All committees of the World Assembly shall have a webpage, and the staffers of those committees may edit those webpage at their discretion, so long as all edits are pertaining to the committee's business and jurisdiction. If a staffer makes irrelevant, excessive, or incorrect edits, their access to edit that committee's webpage may be taken away by their supervisor. This seems slightly micromanaging. I would simply say that the committee can make and edit a webpage, leaving it to the committees to decide how to do it.
   4. For proposed legislation being debated, livestreams of the debates shall be broadcast on the website.
   5. If the WAWMC deems any other features necessary for the maintenance, functionality, or purpose of the World Assembly website, they may institute those features at their discretion.
3. No member shall censor the World Assembly website from anyone within their nation, and must ensure that access to the World Assembly site is free and open to the public, insofar as internet access can be reasonably established.
4. All official notices of the World Assembly shall be posted on the World Assembly website.
5. Under no circumstances shall the combination of the World Assembly website and the WAWMC constitute more than one ten-thousandth (0.01%) of the World Assembly's yearly budget. In the event that the annual budget is projected to exceed this threshold, the WAWMC shall meet with the WA General Accounting Office, and develop a way to ensure that this threshold is not exceeded. This may be through downsizing of the committee, lowering the cost of the website, or any other means that the WAWMC and the General Accounting Office decide on in a mutual agreement. I do concur that specifying a maximal budget is odd. Perhaps simply specifying that a reasonable budget be used would be sufficient.

Having grown more used to the presence of Ambassador Lewitt, the trio give a response.

"We have updated the bill with all proposed amendments, barring that regarding now-clause five. This is not due to any particular opposition in changing this clause, but rather because we would like to hear the feedback of other delegations on the subject."

[The Serendipitous]

A small, autonomous drone flies out of the pocket of the Mammalian. It flies into the common room, seemingly anxious to get the attention of the lounging ambassadors.

“Attention all. The World Assembly Website Act is being pushed by its sponsors. Further feedback is requested.”

[Jedinsto]

OOC: I could be wrong on this, but I'm fairly sure all mandates have to be in effect immediately after passing, so this may be illegal on those grounds due to the "within one calendar year" part.

[Zanderlock]

I for one really admire and am for this idea. Although it requires refinement and such things, it seems like a great thing should it be done correctly.

[Imperium Anglorum]

OOC: I could be wrong on this, but I'm fairly sure all mandates have to be in effect immediately after passing, so this may be illegal on those grounds due to the "within one calendar year" part.

Yes and no. Traditionally, this was the case. Even traditionally, it didn't matter because you can write "Begin at once to POLICY such that one year hence CONDITIONS". See GA 301 "Ban on Leaded Fuel". I largely don't care about requiring policy commencement be in line with the statistical change; I therefore wouldn't enforce such a limitation. I have no idea whether the other Secretariat members would concur.

[The Serendipitous]

OOC: After telegramming Jedinsto and doing a bit of Googling, I've figured out what "OOC" means, haha! I'm still getting used to this format of writing but it's fun. I guess since I'm here I'll thank everyone for their feedback.

I can remove "within one calendar year" if deemed inappropriate for the rules, but hopefully Imperium Anglorum's thought is consistent with the rest of the Secretariats. To me, this is the most realistic and genuine way of passing a resolution like this, which is why I phrased it that way, but I'm not particularly attached. I changed some content I was told broke the rules in one of my other drafts, too.

[Imperium Anglorum]

OOC. While it's at least partially clear that this WA website isn't the same as the NS website, it does bear some resemblance to features that we've wanted for a long time (search especially among them). I'm not sure what to think about that, though I would lean towards it being legal under the current rules.

[The Serendipitous]

OOC. While it's at least partially clear that this WA website isn't the same as the NS website, it does bear some resemblance to features that we've wanted for a long time (search especially among them). I'm not sure what to think about that, though I would lean towards it being legal under the current rules.

OOC:

I have no idea to what degree intention is considered, but in writing this I just took the ideas that a WA Website would logically have. This is not meant to be a resolution telling site staff to hurry up; that’s far beyond my level of politicking.

[Simone Republic]

OOC: A web site costs, what, US$10 a month on Wix or Wordpress or whatever?

IC: It's effectively going to be only a blog according to clause 2 with the logo of the World Assembly on it. The Bear understands that plenty of blog software are available for free. Please don't use our hard earned tax dollars on it as per clause 5. Put some ads on it or something.

Stick a livestream of the World Assembly Strangers Bar and the Three Walled Bar on the web site and the Bear reckons viewership would be through the roof - not sure if anyone will ever watch the actual debates though.

[The Orwell Society]

"Support in concept, a WA website would be very convenient."

[The Serendipitous]

The three beings, seemingly in unison (although the gelatinous being was ever so slightly delayed), pause for a moment, and then announce as follows.

"While section five was merely a maximum spending amount, we see that it has caused controversy, so we have taken it out. We thank all the delegations for their input on the subject. We are not friendly towards putting advertisements on the website.

We will consider implementing a livestream of on-campus dining establishments, but we wager that it will be impossible (OOC: Illegal) to do so effectively. We thank you, mammalian, for your input on the subject."

[Potted Plants United]

OOC: Did someone repeal the resolution that requires all passed resolutions be made known in member nations and all previously passed resolutions be easily available in member nations for their citizens? Like, why double the work already done?

[Imperium Anglorum]

Let's no put adverts on the WA website.

[Potted Plants United]

Let's no put adverts on the WA website.

OOC: Or advertize the website itself elsewhere on the webs...

[The Serendipitous]

OOC: Did someone repeal the resolution that requires all passed resolutions be made known in member nations and all previously passed resolutions be easily available in member nations for their citizens? Like, why double the work already done?

OOC:

I am not familiar with previous legislation, but I'm new and not all-knowing. If it exists, it does not fully dampen the purpose of this bill. There is still a genuine practical purpose for the World Assembly to establish itself a website.

[Kenmoria]

OOC: Did someone repeal the resolution that requires all passed resolutions be made known in member nations and all previously passed resolutions be easily available in member nations for their citizens? Like, why double the work already done?

OOC:

I am not familiar with previous legislation, but I'm new and not all-knowing. If it exists, it does not fully dampen the purpose of this bill. There is still a genuine practical purpose for the World Assembly to establish itself a website.

(OOC: It’s GA #442: Circulation of World Assembly Law. I concur that the creation of a website for the World Assembly can be useful, even if the WA’s law is already being disseminated.)

[The Serendipitous]

OOC:

I am not familiar with previous legislation, but I'm new and not all-knowing. If it exists, it does not fully dampen the purpose of this bill. There is still a genuine practical purpose for the World Assembly to establish itself a website.

(OOC: It’s GA #442: Circulation of World Assembly Law. I concur that the creation of a website for the World Assembly can be useful, even if the WA’s law is already being disseminated.)

OOC:

I see. I believe that this resolution would be a good supplement to 442.