[PASSED] Repeal "Commend Quote of the Day"

[Skyrim Diplomacy]

Delegates can approve here!!

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This is the last try, I swear.

Repeal "Commend The Quote of the Day"
A resolution to repeal previously passed legislation

Category: Repeal | Resolution: SC#45 | Proposed by: Skyrim Diplomacy

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Description: The Security Council,

RECOGNIZING that The Quote of the Day (TQOTD) failed to deliver the "quotes of wisdom" in the days leading to the fall of the nation,

POINTING OUT that many nations travel to regions to leave congratulations and greetings, and that TQOTD was not unique in these activities,

COGNIZANT that as a member of The Featured Region Followers, TQOTD now holds, in essence, two commendations for the same activities,

ACKNOWLEDGING that TQOTD wrote very minimalistic greetings, and that many messages left by TQOTD contained the same, copied content with a minor salutation,

CONCERNED by the refusal of TQOTD to visit featured regions the nation did not personally agree with ideologically, contrary to what is stated in the Commendation in question,

NOTING that The Quote of the Day does not perform any unique or special world-changing activities, nor do the actions of The Quote of the Day affect the world or the World Assembly at large, in antithesis to the commonly-held belief of this council,

FURTHER NOTING that TQOTD no longer exists as a nation, and wishing to remove a Commendation from a nation that no longer exists,

ENDEAVORING to strike down the redundancies presented in the SC#45 as well as blatant factual inaccuracies in the original proposal in favor of SC#93,

HEREBY REPEALS Commend The Quote of the Day.

[Cromarty]

This is the last try, I swear.

Don't believe you.

Against.

[A Million Voices]

I rather like this one actually. I am certainly in support.

[Eist]

I voted against the commendation in question originally, and would vote for a repeal it if it reached vote. That said, I still have issues with Skyrim's prose. I really could have picked any sentence, and this was honestly the first I really looked at, but instead of:

"DISTURBED by the cherry-picking policies employed by TQOTD and the refusal to visit regions that did not agree with TQOTD's policy, and that the original Commendation in question blatantly lies about this point,"

While the text below is far from perfect (particularly "they did not personally agree with" could be better -- but then I'd have to think about it), I think it would be better as:

"CONCERNED by the refusal of TQOTD to visit featured regions they did not personally agree with, contrary to what is stated in the Commendation in question,"

[DAVEYPROD]

yes, I agree; you get my full support on this one.

[Skyrim Diplomacy]

I don't see any blatant issues with the prose. It may just be your personal preference at this point, Eist.

[Eist]

I don't see any blatant issues with the prose. It may just be your personal preference at this point, Eist.

Sure. I didn't say blatant, you did. I don't think there is much grammatically wrong with it. In saying this, it should be: "...unique or special world-changing activities, nor does the actions of The Quote of the Day...", because you are referring to a singular object (a single nation). Also, because TQOTD only greeted featured regions (one action multiple times), I think it should be: "...in essence, two commendations for the same activity.... There are probably more; these two just jumped out at me.

More importantly, as you acknowledge, it is just awkward reading for me. I’ll give just one example: "...many nations participate in the same activities described in the minimal commendation..." is referencing two separate ideas in the same sentence (many nations do the same things as TQOTD, and the commendation sucks). Going on, you restate this same idea in the second part of the same sentence!: "…and that The Quote of the Day is only one of multiple nations that leave such greetings for regions". The paragraph in its entirety currently reads as "many nations do the same thing as TQOTD did, the commendation sucks, and many nations do the same thing as TQOTD did".

I don't want to seem to be biting your head off, but if you are going to write proposals, I feel somewhat justified in critiquing any aspect of it that I want to. While I think it is lacking grammatically, I think the ideas in it are great, and it is certainly a worthy proposal to repeal. I hope this both clarifies what I mean and helps you turn this into a good proposal. I am happy to debate this with you extensively if you like, but as of right now I'll spare you the details.

[Paffnia]

POINTING OUT that many nations participate in the same activities described in the minimal commendation of The Quote of the Day, including traveling to regions and leaving quotes of wisdom and congratulations,

And, you could add, many of those arguably do so better than TQotD (and for a longer time, too, I believe).

DISTURBED by the cherry-picking policies employed by TQOTD and the refusal to visit regions that did not agree with TQOTD's policy, and that the original Commendation in question blatantly lies about this point,

If you want to appeal to the broadest base of support here, perhaps rephrase this clause. At least personally, I am not in the least disturbed that TQotD skipped over certain distasteful regions. Pointing out that the proposal is factually inaccurate is fine, but the rest of the clause I don't see as a reason for repeal.

NOTING that The Quote of the Day does not perform any unique or special world-changing activities, nor do the actions of The Quote of the Day affect the world or the World Assembly at large,

Meh, I dislike this clause. It reads like you are saying that any and all featured-region following is not commendation-worthy. Add some more specificity here or strike the clause.

[Skyrim Diplomacy]

<snip>

A fair assessment-I'll get to editing later today.

<snip>

Same goes for you.

[The Great Destruction]

Paffnia wrote:

And, you could add, many of those arguably do so better than TQotD (and for a longer time, too, I believe).

Skyrim, you may loose some nations with this (myself included) if you implement it. It does not necessarily make TQOTD non-commendable if there exist others out there that provide the same function only better. That argument very specifically leads to the conclusion that you should commend the others, not repeal this one.

[Skyrim Diplomacy]

Paffnia wrote:

And, you could add, many of those arguably do so better than TQotD (and for a longer time, too, I believe).

Skyrim, you may loose some nations with this (myself included) if you implement it. It does not necessarily make TQOTD non-commendable if there exist others out there that provide the same function only better. That argument very specifically leads to the conclusion that you should commend the others, not repeal this one.

Indeed, that part I don't intend to merge in.

[Solorni]

DISTURBED by the cherry-picking policies employed by TQOTD and the refusal to visit regions that did not agree with TQOTD's policy, and that the original Commendation in question blatantly lies about this point,

I think we should be careful about confusing being incorrect on a basis of a lack of knowledge with deliberately being incorrect. I'm not sure if the nation behind the original commendation lied, but I think that it's up to you to prove it thus. If that nation didn't know about it, then I would prefer the proposal to simply say that it is incorrect.

FURTHER NOTING that TQOTD no longer exists as a nation, and wishing to remove a Commendation from a nation that no longer exists in order to prune the halls of the Security Council,

Secondly, I'm not sure I agree with this one. I wouldn't assume commendations to simply be for nations who exist.

[Skyrim Diplomacy]

I think we should be careful about confusing being incorrect on a basis of a lack of knowledge with deliberately being incorrect. I'm not sure if the nation behind the original commendation lied, but I think that it's up to you to prove it thus. If that nation didn't know about it, then I would prefer the proposal to simply say that it is incorrect.

The original proposal in question states the following:

IDENTIFIES that the nation The Daily Congratulations of The Quote Of The Day visits every region that is featured in the world’s ‘Today’s Featured Region’ section

Which is untrue. If you read the previous threads on this proposal, there are multiple examples of regions TQOTD refused to visit on ideological grounds.

Secondly, I'm not sure I agree with this one. I wouldn't assume commendations to simply be for nations who exist.

That's why it's not the only argument in the proposal-it's a supporting clause, not a defining one.

[Solorni]

Thank you for your swift reply and while I may not agree with your supporting clause, I agree with you heavily on the first and would lobby my region to vote for this proposal.

[Skyrim Diplomacy]

Thank you for your swift reply and while I may not agree with your supporting clause, I agree with you heavily on the first and would lobby my region to vote for this proposal.

No problem-thanks for your initial input.

And for Eist and Paffnia, the draft has been updated in the OP.

Edit for spelling

[The Great Destruction]

FURTHER NOTING that TQOTD no longer exists as a nation, and wishing to remove a Commendation from a nation that no longer exists in order to prune the halls of the Security Council,

I don't know if I agree with the concept that a nation that cease to exist in the present day no longer deserves a commendation. The rest is ok but try focusing more on the fact that TQOTD does not, by itself, deserve the commendation.

[Eist]

It looks better

I think the next issue you have is things like: "in the days leading to the fall of the nation". This makes it sound like his nation was annexed, so why not just say that he CTE soon after his commendation? Also, "..many nations participate in the same activities described in the minimal commendation of The Quote of the Day, including traveling to regions and leaving quotes of wisdom and congratulations". Why not just "many other nations (from FRF) congratulate featured regions"? Then you can fill that out by saying that there is on reason why TQOTD deserved a commendation over the other FRF nations. THEN your proceeding paragraph should be that the region as a whole has been commended negating any need for the commendation you are seeking to repeal -- right now this paragraph is sandwiched between him CTEing (the second time you have stated this elsewhere) and your final clause. Other terms I find ambiguous or overly poetic: "antithesis to the commonly-held belief"; "did not personally agree with ideologically" (do you have proof that it was ideology? The fact is he just did not visit them. This is all you have to say.); "minor salutation"; "in order to prune the halls" (is there a limit to the SC that I don't know about?); "remove the redundancies presented" (you are not removing redundancies presented, you are seeking to repeal a commendation -- just say it!); "blatant factual inaccuracies" (they are not blatant, if they were I hope that the commendation wouldn't have passed at all, and, furthermore, you have also already stated that there are inaccuracies, so there is no need to repeat yourself). Finally, I agree with someone above that the paragraph starting "NOTING" is detrimental to the proposal. Name a nation in this game that is "world-changing". What does this mean exactly?

Basically, your proposal would be much better if you stick to an arc. For example, 1) Many nations of the FRF region do the same stuff, and the region already has a commendation, so there no need to single out TQOTD, 2) TQOTD didn't live up to expectation because he did not go to every featured region and then he CTE soon after he was commended, 3) The commendation itself was based on false information and was poorly written. You have to separate these out. Then, each arc is made up of one or more paragraphs that each contain a separate idea within the arc (I've kind of spelled this out above). Next, each paragraph is made up of one or more sentences, each ideally containing just a single clause. Finally, and I can't stress this enough, each sentence should say what you are really trying to say. Don't get poetic or you will just get yourself into a big mess. You will find it much easier to argue your case if you just say you are looking to repeal the resolution, rather than pruning halls or removing redundancies.

Finally, travelling is spelt wrong. Traveling is a basketball term for an illegal move of walking while holding the ball

[Skyrim Diplomacy]

I think the next issue you have is things like: "in the days leading to the fall of the nation". This makes it sound like his nation was annexed, so why not just say that he CTE soon after his commendation?

Rule compliance issues on that one. Cease to exist is a game mechanic for all I am aware of, ergo it would be an R4 violation to include it.

Also, "..many nations participate in the same activities described in the minimal commendation of The Quote of the Day, including traveling to regions and leaving quotes of wisdom and congratulations". Why not just "many other nations (from FRF) congratulate featured regions"?

It's not just the nations in the FRF is the problem there. But I could still finagle with it a bit I suppose.

Then you can fill that out by saying that there is on reason why TQOTD deserved a commendation over the other FRF nations. THEN your proceeding paragraph should be that the region as a whole has been commended negating any need for the commendation you are seeking to repeal -- right now this paragraph is sandwiched between him CTEing (the second time you have stated this elsewhere) and your final clause.

That's an excellent point. It was reading strange to me as well, and I couldn't figure out why.

Other terms I find ambiguous or overly poetic: "antithesis to the commonly-held belief";

I personally like the overly-poetic-ness.

"did not personally agree with ideologically" (do you have proof that it was ideology? The fact is he just did not visit them. This is all you have to say.);

TQOTD did not visit, most memorably, Nazi Europe when they were featured. If that isn't a blatant ideological difference, I don't know what else it would have been.

"in order to prune the halls" (is there a limit to the SC that I don't know about?);

Similar phrases have been used multiple times in proposals of the same nature, here most recently.

"remove the redundancies presented" (you are not removing redundancies presented, you are seeking to repeal a commendation -- just say it!);

Yes, which would, in turn, remove the redundancies that TQOTD holds in terms of commendations.

"blatant factual inaccuracies" (they are not blatant, if they were I hope that the commendation wouldn't have passed at all, and, furthermore, you have also already stated that there are inaccuracies, so there is no need to repeat yourself).

I'm "meh" on this point. I see no real dire need for change here.

Finally, I agree with someone above that the paragraph starting "NOTING" is detrimental to the proposal. Name a nation in this game that is "world-changing". What does this mean exactly?

As I've mentioned in the previous drafts of this proposal, this clause refers to this post that I've taken as a guiding mantra to the SC.

Finally, travelling is spelt wrong. Traveling is a basketball term for an illegal move of walking while holding the ball

Aaaaaand got it. Thank you for your attention to detail. I lied, it stays! Or, more accurately, here. Either spelling is acceptable, so it would seem.

[Skyrim Diplomacy]

And the OP is updated.

[Eist]

Ah, my mistake... I didn't realise the American spelling was different

[Skyrim Diplomacy]

Ah, my mistake... I didn't realise the American spelling was different

Can't say I've never made that error before.

[Sanctaria]

I don't like the use of "wishing to" twice in such close proximity.

[Skyrim Diplomacy]

I don't like the use of "wishing to" twice in such close proximity.

Another good point; the "WISHING TO" clause has been altered to read "ENDEAVORING" instead.

[Skyrim Diplomacy]

Another bumpily bump for this! Any more suggestions/qualms/nitpickeries to be had before this is solidified?

[The Great Destruction]

Post it. I'll approve.


...but I think it needs WAY more nation tags. Like everytime TQOTD gets mentioned. Lol