Suggested Modification of WA Endorsement System

[Imperium Anglorum]

That doesn't change the fact that TNP's Delegate alone can make a resolution passing by 1,000 votes actually fail by 200. Just one single person. Combine that with the advent of a multi-regional voting pacts, and it's an even more serious disparity.

In fact, if Plembobria changed their vote from "for" to "against" (as occurred with Compliance Commission), a resolution passing by 2200 votes would be failing by 200.

They did. It's still passing.

---

I want you to explain to me, however, why this policy change is something that we ought do. All you've given are bland platitudes to increasing democracy without explaining why it would do that and without giving reasons for why democracy is something we ought strive for in the World Assembly. The fundamentals of your argument really ought be substantiated.

[Bedetopia]

How about a non-WA member's point of view?

If I understand correctly, the only benefit the delegate multivotes bring to gameplay are for liberations, where defenders or raiders only need to convince the big ones to get them approved.

How common are liberations that get passed thanks to the big ones? If the answer is uncommon, I think multivotes should be abolished.

[Imperium Anglorum]

How about a non-WA member's point of view?

If I understand correctly, the only benefit the delegate multivotes bring to gameplay are for liberations, where defenders or raiders only need to convince the big ones to get them approved.

How common are liberations that get passed thanks to the big ones? If the answer is uncommon, I think multivotes should be abolished.

[Imperium Anglorum]

The size of the feeders is the main issue. More feeders to distribute population will reduce the strength of the WA voting blocks. No matter what changes are made there will always be regions that form a voting block and should the feeders do that it is a valid political move.
Keep changes simple and not convoluted and confusing.

That doesn't address the imbalance that really large regions have, though. A simple change to the formula would be a much simpler and across-the-board fix than adding double the number of new GCRs, plus that also addresses the super-large UCRs out there.

There isn't an imbalance though. The imbalance right now is based on the fact that large regions have gotten better at recruiting people. That there even is an imbalance is hugely subjective. Nobody has been able to substantiate a bright-line for this 'imbalance'. Lets say we go for the method which Nilla is supporting. Is 260 an imbalance for TNP? Unless we are going to seriously consider a delegates-get-1-vote system, there is no way to clearly distinguish between what is an imbalance and what isn't an imbalance.

I don't even know why Nilla is supporting this change, other than some vague notion of 'democracy' and their own self-interest. I don't know why they think that having large delegate votes is a bad thing. Nobody has even substantiated why the impacts of an imbalance are bad in of themselves. Before a case for that is even plausibly presented — we ought hold off on any changes while people can actually consider the impacts of such a change on the World Assembly.

[Nilla Wayfarers]

In fact, if Plembobria changed their vote from "for" to "against" (as occurred with Compliance Commission), a resolution passing by 2200 votes would be failing by 200.

They did. It's still passing.

I'm well aware of that. I said that if it were passing by 2200 votes (which it wasn't), Plembobria's vote switch would tip the resolution to failure (which it didn't).

I want you to explain to me, however, why this policy change is something that we ought do. All you've given are bland platitudes

I wouldn't consider my arguments to be platitudes when I've seen no one else make them.

to increasing democracy without explaining why it would do that

Because instead of a majority of the WA holding the minority of power, they'd hold a majority. That's democracy.

and without giving reasons for why democracy is something we ought strive for in the World Assembly.

Because if people's votes mattered, we'd pass legislation that corresponded to the WA as a whole, not 6.3% of it. Maybe you don't think that's important, but I do.

The fundamentals of your argument really ought be substantiated.

I hope I've made it clearer to you now.

[Nilla Wayfarers]

That doesn't address the imbalance that really large regions have, though. A simple change to the formula would be a much simpler and across-the-board fix than adding double the number of new GCRs, plus that also addresses the super-large UCRs out there.

There isn't an imbalance though. The imbalance right now is based on the fact that large regions have gotten better at recruiting people.

So there isn't imbalance... but there's imbalance. Okay. Also, I don't think it takes much effort to have people pour into GCRs by default.

That there even is an imbalance is hugely subjective.

1227 > 5. That's pretty objective.

Nobody has been able to substantiate a bright-line for this 'imbalance'.

A tiny minority of the WA has the majority of the power. That isn't really open for interpretation.

Lets say we go for the method which Nilla is supporting. Is 260 an imbalance for TNP? Unless we are going to seriously consider a delegates-get-1-vote system, there is no way to clearly distinguish between what is an imbalance and what isn't an imbalance.

How about once delegates don't have the majority of power anymore? That's a clear distinction.

I don't even know why Nilla is supporting this change, other than some vague notion of 'democracy' and their own self-interest. I don't know why they think that having large delegate votes is a bad thing. Nobody has even substantiated why the impacts of an imbalance are bad in of themselves. Before a case for that is even plausibly presented — we ought hold off on any changes while people can actually consider the impacts of such a change on the World Assembly.

Read my other post.

[Imperium Anglorum]

I want you to explain to me, however, why this policy change is something that we ought do. All you've given are bland platitudes

I wouldn't consider my arguments to be platitudes when I've seen no one else make them.

People have been making the exact same arguments in the World Assembly for years. That you don't know anyone who has made them before doesn't make them not new.

to increasing democracy without explaining why it would do that

Because instead of a majority of the WA holding the minority of power, they'd hold a majority. That's democracy.

It really isn't. Democracy is the idea that the people are those who should rule. Your conception of democracy seems to be one which is identical to that of the tyranny of the majority. One must consider democracy not as a good in of itself (unless proven to be so), but rather, the means to some end. I would say that end ought be the passage of better legislation — since changing the current system would lead to a massive change in the ability to pass such legislation.

Legislation needs to be analysed by those who actually want to analyse them. I've provided clear reasons above why most voters don't want to analyse legislation. People who don't want to analyse legislation means that nuanced proposals which enact sensible policies but don't 'feel good' don't get passed. Given that is the case, the entire General Assembly community, which is part of this game, would basically be over. There is no reason to participate in the GA if it is impossible to pass anything other than popular platitudes.

and without giving reasons for why democracy is something we ought strive for in the World Assembly.

Because if people's votes mattered, we'd pass legislation that corresponded to the WA as a whole, not 6.3% of it. Maybe you don't think that's important, but I do.

WA participation doesn't actually increase in a world where delegate votes are less powerful. It would probably go down. This is for four reasons:

1. Most of the reason why the GA community is so small is because of the fact you need to be ridiculously well-versed in GA legality crap to be able to write anything and come up with the arguments you need to defend against GA over-litigation. It has nothing to do with delegate vote power. Even if you don't believe anything below, your policy wouldn't increase GA participation.

2. Having the ability to influence tons of votes in the GA through your forum community attracts people to actually get involved. This leads people to get involved in the World Assembly. Also, this means that there is more feedback to authors about issues with their resolutions as well, because more people are active and respond in their regional WA community. Regional participation also helps because it provides resources to help authors. For example, Europe provides approval, voting, and campaigning support. Regional participation also gets more people into drafting proposals. For example, Europe has gotten three authors into the World Assembly over the last year. Europeia has also done some similar excellent work.

3. Your premise is wrong because you can participate in your region's voting structure, as most large regions use forum voting. Europeia has a law which requires it. TNP uses forum voting. TEP uses raw regional voting. XKI uses a forum poll. Almost all large regions use a regional decision system which lifts the delegate out of the direct voting process. This democracy which you're preaching already exists through various processes. In your world, there are less people with in-depth knowledge of how the GA and SC works, which means that there is a smaller community which is less active.

4. The world you are supporting is one where democracy doesn't actually exist. Rather, it is controlled by those with money. In the current world, authors can appeal to a group of people who can be convinced with argumentative exchange. In your world, the only way to get things passed without basically relying on chance would be to send huge amounts of telegrams. It is actually impossible to canvas the WA population by the API before the voting period ends. That means the only way to do this is to pay 20 dollars for stamps. This creates a pay-to-win atmosphere, which leads to comparatively larger barriers to entry and stratifies the WA based on real-world wealth. Most players don't have 20 dollars to pay into a game like this, so won't get involved.

The fundamentals of your argument really ought be substantiated.

I hope I've made it clearer to you now.

It seems that you simply haven't thought through the implications of this change. There are changes which effect preexisting communities, many of whom are long-standing parts of this game. I am active not because I am a delegate, but rather, because I am a GA author. There's a community there, and changing the voting system so that it is much harder for people to be involved in such a community would basically destroy it.

[Imperium Anglorum]

There isn't an imbalance though. The imbalance right now is based on the fact that large regions have gotten better at recruiting people.

So there isn't imbalance... but there's imbalance. Okay. Also, I don't think it takes much effort to have people pour into GCRs by default.

That there even is an imbalance is hugely subjective.

1227 > 5. That's pretty objective.

Nobody has been able to substantiate a bright-line for this 'imbalance'.

A tiny minority of the WA has the majority of the power. That isn't really open for interpretation.

Lets say we go for the method which Nilla is supporting. Is 260 an imbalance for TNP? Unless we are going to seriously consider a delegates-get-1-vote system, there is no way to clearly distinguish between what is an imbalance and what isn't an imbalance.

How about once delegates don't have the majority of power anymore? That's a clear distinction.

I don't even know why Nilla is supporting this change, other than some vague notion of 'democracy' and their own self-interest. I don't know why they think that having large delegate votes is a bad thing. Nobody has even substantiated why the impacts of an imbalance are bad in of themselves. Before a case for that is even plausibly presented — we ought hold off on any changes while people can actually consider the impacts of such a change on the World Assembly.

Read my other post.

All of this. How does it affect the game? When I say that nobody has even substantiated why the impacts of an imbalance are bad in of themselves, I mean exactly that. Why is TNP or whatever having tons of votes a bad thing? You haven't said anything other than 'they have tons of votes, that is bad'. When I ask you why having tons of votes is bad, you either accuse me of hating democracy or repeat that having tons of votes is bad. What are the negative impacts?

Lets say we go for the method which Nilla is supporting. Is 260 an imbalance for TNP? Unless we are going to seriously consider a delegates-get-1-vote system, there is no way to clearly distinguish between what is an imbalance and what isn't an imbalance.

How about once delegates don't have the majority of power anymore? That's a clear distinction.

Also, this is never going to happen. Let's say, in the most extreme case, delegates get 1 vote. That doesn't stop them from out campaigning everyone within their region. That doesn't stop their name from appearing under the voting list ('WA Delegate NameMcNameFace: For'). The only way to actually eliminate this imbalance is to prevent regions from lobbying their own members. That isn't ever going to happen, because (1) stamps pay for the site and (2) regional community dynamics are a fundamental part of the game. Eliminating regional community dynamics would create something like NS2.

[The Kolam Brotherhood]

In fact, if Plembobria changed their vote from "for" to "against" (as occurred with Compliance Commission), a resolution passing by 2200 votes would be failing by 200.

---

I want you to explain to me, however, why this policy change is something that we ought do. All you've given are bland platitudes to increasing democracy without explaining why it would do that and without giving reasons for why democracy is something we ought strive for in the World Assembly. The fundamentals of your argument really ought be substantiated.

Here is the problem; a problem that is called unrepresentative voting. Every region encourages you to endorse your delegate. That usually means that the delegate's vote determines the region's vote. You, being a delegate, love this system, as you get a lot of political power. Us, as non-delegates, dislike how the minority of the system can override the majority.

---

Here is the catch that may make us all happy. I like the idea of regional representation through delegacy, but only if the popular vote is still represented well. I believe that we should reduce the overwhelming influence this minority of delegates produces, by only cutting their power down by 40-50 percent. Delegates will still control a portion of the votes, while non-delegates will have a good say that they didn't have before.

Again, my method for solving this:

If e=>62, then v=1+e(1/2)
If e=<62, then v=1+e(3/5)

Please, tell me what you think, everyone.

[Imperium Anglorum]

Here is the problem; a problem that is called unrepresentative voting. Every region encourages you to endorse your delegate. That usually means that the delegate's vote determines the region's vote. You, being a delegate, love this system, as you get a lot of political power. Us, as non-delegates, dislike how the minority of the system can override the majority.

I've also been a non-delegate as well. I passed my first ~5 resolutions before I became a Delegate. (1) Prove that unrepresentative voting is bad for the WA. (2) Most delegates already act in line with their regional populaces. Most GCRs and large UCRs already do so. (3) Prove that the correct action is always that chosen by the majority.

Here is the catch that may make us all happy. I like the idea of regional representation through delegacy, but only if the popular vote is still represented well. I believe that we should reduce the overwhelming influence this minority of delegates produces, by only cutting their power down by 40-50 percent. Delegates will still control a portion of the votes, while non-delegates will have a good say that they didn't have before.

Checks on delegate exercise of voting power already exist.

My region's WA Delegate is an evil dictator who abuses her power! Make her stop!

Delegates are elected: If you don't like yours, it's up to you to get that nation unelected! Delegates are free to use and abuse their power as they see fit.

[Nilla Wayfarers]

I wouldn't consider my arguments to be platitudes when I've seen no one else make them.

People have been making the exact same arguments in the World Assembly for years. That you don't know anyone who has made them before doesn't make them not new.

Give me an example.

Because instead of a majority of the WA holding the minority of power, they'd hold a majority. That's democracy.

It really isn't. Democracy is the idea that the people are those who should rule.

Yes. And the people can't rule if they don't have the majority of power.

Your conception of democracy seems to be one which is identical to that of the tyranny of the majority.

Even under my system, individual nations wouldn't hold power proportional to their number. How weak does a change have to be for you to consider it democracy and not tyrrany?

One must consider democracy not as a good in of itself (unless proven to be so), but rather, the means to some end. I would say that end ought be the passage of better legislation — since changing the current system would lead to a massive change in the ability to pass such legislation.

Why? Would giving the majority of member nations some actual power eliminate the ability to pass resolutions?

Legislation needs to be analysed by those who actually want to analyse them.

It still will.

I've provided clear reasons above why most voters don't want to analyse legislation. People who don't want to analyse legislation means that nuanced proposals which enact sensible policies but don't 'feel good' don't get passed.

Delegates will still have plenty of power. Sensible nations woukd have plenty of power. Things would still get passed.

Given that is the case, the entire General Assembly community, which is part of this game, would basically be over. There is no reason to participate in the GA if it is impossible to pass anything other than popular platitudes.

Quit acting like the WA is primarily comprised of bufoons. This wouldn't destroy the WA. You're the only person who seems to think it would.

Because if people's votes mattered, we'd pass legislation that corresponded to the WA as a whole, not 6.3% of it. Maybe you don't think that's important, but I do.

WA participation doesn't actually increase in a world where delegate votes are less powerful. It would probably go down. This is for four reasons...

I'm not saying participation would increase. I'm saying individual member nations would be represented in WA legiation.

I hope I've made it clearer to you now.

It seems that you simply haven't thought through the implications of this change. There are changes which effect preexisting communities, many of whom are long-standing parts of this game. I am active not because I am a delegate, but rather, because I am a GA author. There's a community there, and changing the voting system so that it is much harder for people to be involved in such a community would basically destroy it.

This system would make it no harder to participate in the community. It's not getting rid of the WA forums. It's not getting rid of endorsements. It's not going to do anything that would impede the collaboration of prominent WA members.

[Frisbeeteria]

Checks on delegate exercise of voting power already exist.

My region's WA Delegate is an evil dictator who abuses her power! Make her stop!

Delegates are elected: If you don't like yours, it's up to you to get that nation unelected! Delegates are free to use and abuse their power as they see fit.

Just wanted to pop in and address this one point. That FAQ entry was written long before endo caps existed. It doesn't take into account scripts that identify and/or eject nations that violate endo caps. Given that surprise "revolutions" have been made virtually impossible by electronic watchdogs, the argument that you have free choice in large region elections is pedantic at best. Your only real choice is to move elsewhere.

[Separatist Peoples]

Checks on delegate exercise of voting power already exist.

My region's WA Delegate is an evil dictator who abuses her power! Make her stop!

Delegates are elected: If you don't like yours, it's up to you to get that nation unelected! Delegates are free to use and abuse their power as they see fit.

Just wanted to pop in and address this one point. That FAQ entry was written long before endo caps existed. It doesn't take into account scripts that identify and/or eject nations that violate endo caps. Given that surprise "revolutions" have been made virtually impossible by electronic watchdogs, the argument that you have free choice in large region elections is pedantic at best. Your only real choice is to move elsewhere.

Maybe, in the interests of dynamics, those scripts should be disallowed? I dunno, I don't do much Gameplay.

[Imperium Anglorum]

People have been making the exact same arguments in the World Assembly for years. That you don't know anyone who has made them before doesn't make them not new.

Give me an example.

Talk with any of the GA regulars.

It really isn't. Democracy is the idea that the people are those who should rule.

Yes. And the people can't rule if they don't have the majority of power.

The people already hold the majority of power. There are 27 thousand WA member votes. Guess how many delegate votes there are in the game.

One must consider democracy not as a good in of itself (unless proven to be so), but rather, the means to some end. I would say that end ought be the passage of better legislation — since changing the current system would lead to a massive change in the ability to pass such legislation.

Why? Would giving the majority of member nations some actual power eliminate the ability to pass resolutions?

All the reasons I gave. Also, I haven't claimed that there won't be an ability to pass resolutions. I've claimed that the ability to pass meaningful resolutions, anything even close to controversial, anything which isn't extremely simple, anything which requires analysis, would be adversely affected.

Legislation needs to be analysed by those who actually want to analyse them.

It still will.

I've provided clear reasons above why most voters don't want to analyse legislation. People who don't want to analyse legislation means that nuanced proposals which enact sensible policies but don't 'feel good' don't get passed.

Delegates will still have plenty of power. Sensible nations woukd have plenty of power. Things would still get passed.

Given that is the case, the entire General Assembly community, which is part of this game, would basically be over. There is no reason to participate in the GA if it is impossible to pass anything other than popular platitudes.

Quit acting like the WA is primarily comprised of bufoons. This wouldn't destroy the WA. You're the only person who seems to think it would.

WA participation doesn't actually increase in a world where delegate votes are less powerful. It would probably go down. This is for four reasons...

I'm not saying participation would increase. I'm saying individual member nations would be represented in WA legiation.

It seems that you simply haven't thought through the implications of this change. There are changes which effect preexisting communities, many of whom are long-standing parts of this game. I am active not because I am a delegate, but rather, because I am a GA author. There's a community there, and changing the voting system so that it is much harder for people to be involved in such a community would basically destroy it.

This system would make it no harder to participate in the community. It's not getting rid of the WA forums. It's not getting rid of endorsements. It's not going to do anything that would impede the collaboration of prominent WA members.

All of this is basically you saying the opposite of what I said without providing any reasons why what I said was wrong. I gave very clear reasons why all the impacts which I say are going to happen are going to happen. You basically spent a few sentences asserting they aren't going to happen without addressing any of the reasons I gave for why they are going to happen. I'll pull it up again.

WA participation doesn't actually increase in a world where delegate votes are less powerful. It would probably go down. This is for four reasons:

1. Most of the reason why the GA community is so small is because of the fact you need to be ridiculously well-versed in GA legality crap to be able to write anything and come up with the arguments you need to defend against GA over-litigation. It has nothing to do with delegate vote power. Even if you don't believe anything below, your policy wouldn't increase GA participation.

2. Having the ability to influence tons of votes in the GA through your forum community attracts people to actually get involved. This leads people to get involved in the World Assembly. Also, this means that there is more feedback to authors about issues with their resolutions as well, because more people are active and respond in their regional WA community. Regional participation also helps because it provides resources to help authors. For example, Europe provides approval, voting, and campaigning support. Regional participation also gets more people into drafting proposals. For example, Europe has gotten three authors into the World Assembly over the last year. Europeia has also done some similar excellent work.

3. Your premise is wrong because you can participate in your region's voting structure, as most large regions use forum voting. Europeia has a law which requires it. TNP uses forum voting. TEP uses raw regional voting. XKI uses a forum poll. Almost all large regions use a regional decision system which lifts the delegate out of the direct voting process. This democracy which you're preaching already exists through various processes. In your world, there are less people with in-depth knowledge of how the GA and SC works, which means that there is a smaller community which is less active.

4. The world you are supporting is one where democracy doesn't actually exist. Rather, it is controlled by those with money. In the current world, authors can appeal to a group of people who can be convinced with argumentative exchange. In your world, the only way to get things passed without basically relying on chance would be to send huge amounts of telegrams. It is actually impossible to canvas the WA population by the API before the voting period ends. That means the only way to do this is to pay 20 dollars for stamps. This creates a pay-to-win atmosphere, which leads to comparatively larger barriers to entry and stratifies the WA based on real-world wealth. Most players don't have 20 dollars to pay into a game like this, so won't get involved.

Now, on to each point you pulled up.

1. 'Legislation will still be analysed'. Analysis doesn't mean anything with the ability for that analysis to actually mean something. In a world with significantly weaker Delegate voting, it would become impossible for that analysis to actually win. That analysis must also have forceful backing so that it is not ignored. To be able to pass good legislation is the entire point of the World Assembly. Harming that goal doesn't do the World Assembly any good.

2. 'Quit acting like the WA is primarily comprised of bufoons'. I gave you a number of reasons why most WA members wouldn't bother analysing the proposals which they are to vote on. I even have empirical evidence to back up my reasoning. Most voters only want to get a notification to disappear and they vote very quickly to get it to go away. This is clear in the data.

On 25 November 2005, there were 30,903 member nations of the United Nations. Around that time, the resolution IT Education Act was passed 9,457 votes to 4,441, and implemented in all UN member nations. That is a proportion of 45%.

On 11 April 2006, there were 29,768 member nations of the United Nations. Around that time, the resolution "Auto Free Trade Agreement" was defeated 7,465 votes to 4,477. That is a proportion of 40.1%.

On 13 January 2007, there were 26,972 member nations of the United Nations. Around that time, resolution Sexual Privacy Act was passed 9,771 votes to 2,323, and implemented in all UN member nations. And a day from ending, Quintessence of Dust's (heh) proposal "Extraordinary Rendition" was passing 6,280 to 3,058 (I won't calculate this one, because it obviously isn't over). That is a proportion of 45%.

Rift was introduced in December 2014. On 29 December 2014, the last decision was that "Foreign Patent Recognition" was defeated 6,106 votes to 5,198. There were 15,899 member nations. That is a proportion of 71%.

On 29 March 2015, there were 18,382 member nations. Around that time, "Repeal "Nuclear Arms Possession Act"" was defeated 10,544 votes to 3,320. That is a proportion of 75.4%.

On 2 August 2015, there were 18,767 member nations and around that time, Repeal "World Space Administration" was passed 10,051 votes to 3,432 (god-bless). That is a proportion of 72%.

Since the introduction of the notification system, there has been an increase in turnout by nearly 25 pc. If people are apathetic, legislation simply won't be analysed because they won't put their effort into analysing it. That means that the quality of legislation put out by the World Assembly decreases, simply because delicate matters which require nuance become untenable politically.

3. 'I'm not saying participation would increase. I'm saying individual member nations would be represented in WA legiation'.

How would member nations be represented in WA legislation? Branding is illegal. You can't put your region or your nation name in the proposal. Creating a committee called UNIBOT is illegal. Proposing proposals through the name 'European WA Office' is illegal. Participation in the WA game is the only way by which member nations can increase their 'representation'. And the policy you're calling for is one which would lead to less people joining the WA game. This is because (1) knowing that your regional delegate has your back helps confidence in something which is called the Festering Snakepit for very clear reasons, (2) having the ability to influence tons of votes in the GA through your forum community attracts people to actually get involved, and (3) this means that there is more feedback to authors about issues with their resolutions as well, because more people are active and respond in their regional community. You haven't done anything to refute those reasons.

4. 'This system would make it no harder to participate in the community'. There are two things which are necessary conditions to action: willingness to act and ability to act. This proposed policy massively decreases the willingness to act. See above for why that is the case. Doing the policy, therefore, means that there is less participation in the WA.

---

What would happen if the policy actually gets implemented:

(1) Regional communities lose much of their incentive to actually engage in the World Assembly. Because much of engagement comes from those regional communities (myself, Douria when he was active, many of the voters on the off-site forums), this means that there is less engagement overall.

(2) Worse legislation is passed. This is because the amount of information provided to players decreases. Instead of people who have thought about the implications of the proposal being able to influence the vote, the vote is conducted mostly without thought to the legislation. This is the case because of the empirics on why apathy reigns in the voting base. If the notification system is the tipping point for why people vote, there is no reason to expect that they will read far beyond the title. Given that is the case, it is harder to actually pass nuanced proposals like those on war crimes, since the people who would vote for them are unable to do so.

(3) Concentrated voting blocs allow for easier campaigning. The world in which this policy is enacted is one where the only communication channel to get votes is by telegram. Since API campaigns to 27 thousand nations take longer than 4 days, it is not possible. The only way then, is to pay some 27 dollars to send those telegrams out. That amount of money poses a much clearer barrier to organisation and politics than anything we have now. This game is a political simulator. If you imposed a 30 dollar entry fee, it isn't much of a political simulator anymore.

[Gruenberg]

People have been making the exact same arguments in the World Assembly for years. That you don't know anyone who has made them before doesn't make them not new.

Give me an example.

These arguments predate the existence of the World Assembly itself.

[Frisbeeteria]

Maybe, in the interests of dynamics, those scripts should be disallowed?

It's not possible. The only requirement we have for those sorts of scripts are that they require a human to click a button for each action taken in game. There's not a thing we can do to restrict or prevent scripts from reading lists of endos and popping up a notice, or sending a text, or doing whatever the programmer thinks saying

"Here Is Problem. Click Here To Resolve."

If they leave off the "Click Here", there wouldn't even be the remotest bit of interaction with the site. All they need to do is say "Eject Examplestan for endocap exception", and it's technically not even a script.

I dunno, I don't do much Gameplay.

To put it in non-gameplay terms, let's just pass a law stating "I wish we could all get along like we used to in middle school... I wish I could bake a cake filled with rainbows and smiles and everyone would eat and be happy..."

[Separatist Peoples]

Maybe, in the interests of dynamics, those scripts should be disallowed?

It's not possible. The only requirement we have for those sorts of scripts are that they require a human to click a button for each action taken in game. There's not a thing we can do to restrict or prevent scripts from reading lists of endos and popping up a notice, or sending a text, or doing whatever the programmer thinks saying

"Here Is Problem. Click Here To Resolve."

If they leave off the "Click Here", there wouldn't even be the remotest bit of interaction with the site. All they need to do is say "Eject Examplestan for endocap exception", and it's technically not even a script.

I dunno, I don't do much Gameplay.

To put it in non-gameplay terms, let's just pass a law stating "I wish we could all get along like we used to in middle school... I wish I could bake a cake filled with rainbows and smiles and everyone would eat and be happy..."

Haha, fair enough. Was worth asking!

[Imperium Anglorum]

Checks on delegate exercise of voting power already exist.

My region's WA Delegate is an evil dictator who abuses her power! Make her stop!

Delegates are elected: If you don't like yours, it's up to you to get that nation unelected! Delegates are free to use and abuse their power as they see fit.

Just wanted to pop in and address this one point. That FAQ entry was written long before endo caps existed. It doesn't take into account scripts that identify and/or eject nations that violate endo caps. Given that surprise "revolutions" have been made virtually impossible by electronic watchdogs, the argument that you have free choice in large region elections is pedantic at best. Your only real choice is to move elsewhere.

This game is still a political simulator. Such things exist in the real world too. It's why we have dictatorships. One could always move to a region in which such behaviour is frowned upon. Europe is such a region. We don't have an endorsement cap. One could also try to basically enter that region's government and try reforms from within. I believe TSP is currently in such a reform stage right now. Coups still happen.

[Gruenberg]

1. Most of the reason why the GA community is so small is because of the fact you need to be ridiculously well-versed in GA legality crap to be able to write anything and come up with the arguments you need to defend against GA over-litigation. It has nothing to do with delegate vote power. Even if you don't believe anything below, your policy wouldn't increase GA participation.

WA forum participation has shrunk, but it was never huge, even before the legalism became the norm. It's just a niche part of the game.

2. Having the ability to influence tons of votes in the GA through your forum community attracts people to actually get involved. This leads people to get involved in the World Assembly. Also, this means that there is more feedback to authors about issues with their resolutions as well, because more people are active and respond in their regional WA community. Regional participation also helps because it provides resources to help authors. For example, Europe provides approval, voting, and campaigning support. Regional participation also gets more people into drafting proposals. For example, Europe has gotten three authors into the World Assembly over the last year. Europeia has also done some similar excellent work.

But there isn't much correlation between endorsement count and WA activity. TNP has very few, if any, active authors, and most of the other GCRs, each of which have huge endorsement levels, are basically dead fishes in WA drafting. I pointed out before that the three regions that have produced the greatest number of resolutions are Antarctic Oasis, IDU, and Monkey Island - all very small in endorsement terms compared to the GCRs.

4. The world you are supporting is one where democracy doesn't actually exist. Rather, it is controlled by those with money. In the current world, authors can appeal to a group of people who can be convinced with argumentative exchange. In your world, the only way to get things passed without basically relying on chance would be to send huge amounts of telegrams. It is actually impossible to canvas the WA population by the API before the voting period ends. That means the only way to do this is to pay 20 dollars for stamps. This creates a pay-to-win atmosphere, which leads to comparatively larger barriers to entry and stratifies the WA based on real-world wealth. Most players don't have 20 dollars to pay into a game like this, so won't get involved.

We did use to pass resolutions before the telegram system was changed, you know.

Most voters only want to get a notification to disappear and they vote very quickly to get it to go away. This is clear in the data.

It's really not. The stats you've posted are interesting, but not conclusive. Multiple changes have been made since the historic resolutions you cite: Rift, yes, but also the changed telegram system, increased regional involvement in the WA because of the SC, increased use of scripts powering higher endorsement levels and get out the vote operations, the development of the "stacking"/"stomping" tactic, changes to the WA voting page, not to mention the creation of the WA itself! You need to be able to account for all of these to "clearly" establish that Rift has been the only change.

(1) Regional communities lose much of their incentive to actually engage in the World Assembly. Because much of engagement comes from those regional communities (myself, Douria when he was active, many of the voters on the off-site forums), this means that there is less engagement overall.

Good. The WA is an organization of nations, not regions.

[Nilla Wayfarers]

Give me an example.

Talk with any of the GA regulars.

You are one. Give me an example.

Yes. And the people can't rule if they don't have the majority of power.

The people already hold the majority of power. There are 27 thousand WA member votes. Guess how many delegate votes there are in the game.

Read the data in my OP.

It still will.


Delegates will still have plenty of power. Sensible nations woukd have plenty of power. Things would still get passed.


Quit acting like the WA is primarily comprised of bufoons. This wouldn't destroy the WA. You're the only person who seems to think it would.


I'm not saying participation would increase. I'm saying individual member nations would be represented in WA legiation.


This system would make it no harder to participate in the community. It's not getting rid of the WA forums. It's not getting rid of endorsements. It's not going to do anything that would impede the collaboration of prominent WA members.

All of this is basically you saying the opposite of what I said without providing any reasons why what I said was wrong. I gave very clear reasons why all the impacts which I say are going to happen are going to happen. You basically spent a few sentences asserting they aren't going to happen without addressing any of the reasons I gave for why they are going to happen. I'll pull it up again.

WA participation doesn't actually increase in a world where delegate votes are less powerful. It would probably go down. This is for four reasons:

1. Most of the reason why the GA community is so small is because of the fact you need to be ridiculously well-versed in GA legality crap to be able to write anything and come up with the arguments you need to defend against GA over-litigation. It has nothing to do with delegate vote power. Even if you don't believe anything below, your policy wouldn't increase GA participation.

That's great. And again: I'm not saying participation would increase. I'm saying individual member nations would be represented in WA legislation.

2. Having the ability to influence tons of votes in the GA through your forum community attracts people to actually get involved. This leads people to get involved in the World Assembly. Also, this means that there is more feedback to authors about issues with their resolutions as well, because more people are active and respond in their regional WA community. Regional participation also helps because it provides resources to help authors. For example, Europe provides approval, voting, and campaigning support. Regional participation also gets more people into drafting proposals. For example, Europe has gotten three authors into the World Assembly over the last year. Europeia has also done some similar excellent work.

Okay? They can keep doing that, you know.

3. Your premise is wrong because you can participate in your region's voting structure, as most large regions use forum voting. Europeia has a law which requires it. TNP uses forum voting. TEP uses raw regional voting. XKI uses a forum poll. Almost all large regions use a regional decision system which lifts the delegate out of the direct voting process. This democracy which you're preaching already exists through various processes.

...Except in the actual WA.

In your world, there are less people with in-depth knowledge of how the GA and SC works, which means that there is a smaller community which is less active.

What are you talking about? I'm not kicking delegates out of the WA. There will be the same number of people as before with ample experience in the WA. There is no reason for those devoted members, such as yourself, to suddenly leave and thereby shrink the community.

4. The world you are supporting is one where democracy doesn't actually exist. Rather, it is controlled by those with money. In the current world, authors can appeal to a group of people who can be convinced with argumentative exchange. In your world, the only way to get things passed without basically relying on chance would be to send huge amounts of telegrams. It is actually impossible to canvas the WA population by the API before the voting period ends. That means the only way to do this is to pay 20 dollars for stamps. This creates a pay-to-win atmosphere, which leads to comparatively larger barriers to entry and stratifies the WA based on real-world wealth. Most players don't have 20 dollars to pay into a game like this, so won't get involved.

There's a wonderful thing called Communique.

Now, on to each point you pulled up.

1. 'Legislation will still be analysed'. Analysis doesn't mean anything with the ability for that analysis to actually mean something. In a world with significantly weaker Delegate voting, it would become impossible for that analysis to actually win. That analysis must also have forceful backing so that it is not ignored. To be able to pass good legislation is the entire point of the World Assembly. Harming that goal doesn't do the World Assembly any good.

Delegates and logical people will still have ample power to pass meaningful legislation. You still don't seem to get that.

2. 'Quit acting like the WA is primarily comprised of bufoons'. I gave you a number of reasons why most WA members wouldn't bother analysing the proposals which they are to vote on. I even have empirical evidence to back up my reasoning. Most voters only want to get a notification to disappear and they vote very quickly to get it to go away. This is clear in the data.

On 25 November 2005, there were 30,903 member nations of the United Nations. Around that time, the resolution IT Education Act was passed 9,457 votes to 4,441, and implemented in all UN member nations. That is a proportion of 45%.

On 11 April 2006, there were 29,768 member nations of the United Nations. Around that time, the resolution "Auto Free Trade Agreement" was defeated 7,465 votes to 4,477. That is a proportion of 40.1%.

On 13 January 2007, there were 26,972 member nations of the United Nations. Around that time, resolution Sexual Privacy Act was passed 9,771 votes to 2,323, and implemented in all UN member nations. And a day from ending, Quintessence of Dust's (heh) proposal "Extraordinary Rendition" was passing 6,280 to 3,058 (I won't calculate this one, because it obviously isn't over). That is a proportion of 45%.

Rift was introduced in December 2014. On 29 December 2014, the last decision was that "Foreign Patent Recognition" was defeated 6,106 votes to 5,198. There were 15,899 member nations. That is a proportion of 71%.

On 29 March 2015, there were 18,382 member nations. Around that time, "Repeal "Nuclear Arms Possession Act"" was defeated 10,544 votes to 3,320. That is a proportion of 75.4%.

On 2 August 2015, there were 18,767 member nations and around that time, Repeal "World Space Administration" was passed 10,051 votes to 3,432 (god-bless). That is a proportion of 72%.

This evidence can in no way even suggest that voters vote carelessly to get rid of notifications, so I don't know where you're getting that from.

Since the introduction of the notification system, there has been an increase in turnout by nearly 25 pc. If people are apathetic, legislation simply won't be analysed because they won't put their effort into analysing it. That means that the quality of legislation put out by the World Assembly decreases, simply because delicate matters which require nuance become untenable politically.

In what way does your data suggest that? If anything, what you've provided suggests that voter participation will continue to increase, since there's a clear trend.

3. 'I'm not saying participation would increase. I'm saying individual member nations would be represented in WA legiation'.

How would member nations be represented in WA legislation? Branding is illegal. You can't put your region or your nation name in the proposal. Creating a committee called UNIBOT is illegal. Proposing proposals through the name 'European WA Office' is illegal.

I meant "by legislation." My apologies.

Participation in the WA game is the only way by which member nations can increase their 'representation'. And the policy you're calling for is one which would lead to less people joining the WA game. This is because (1) knowing that your regional delegate has your back helps confidence in something which is called the Festering Snakepit for very clear reasons,

Except, as Frisbeetria pointed out, WA Delegates often don't properly represent the interests of their region-mates.

(2) having the ability to influence tons of votes in the GA through your forum community attracts people to actually get involved,

And having a grossly insignificant amount of power in your vote marginalizes people and makes them not want to be involved.
People aren't going to just up and leave the WA because their delegate has less power.

and (3) this means that there is more feedback to authors about issues with their resolutions as well, because more people are active and respond in their regional community.

They still have the regional community. They can still offer feedback. And in regions where the WA is important, they still will.

You haven't done anything to refute those reasons.

Well, now I have.

4. 'This system would make it no harder to participate in the community'. There are two things which are necessary conditions to action: willingness to act and ability to act. This proposed policy massively decreases the willingness to act. See above for why that is the case. Doing the policy, therefore, means that there is less participation in the WA.

No, it doesn't. The individuals most affected by this policy, those with high endorsement counts, are far too devoted to the WA to just stop participating.

What would happen if the policy actually gets implemented:
(1) Regional communities lose much of their incentive to actually engage in the World Assembly. Because much of engagement comes from those regional communities (myself, Douria when he was active, many of the voters on the off-site forums), this means that there is less engagement overall.

There's no reason for that to happen. We're not deposing WA delegates, dissolving regions, or dismantling off-site communities or forums.

(2) Worse legislation is passed. This is because the amount of information provided to players decreases.

There's no reason for that to happen, either. The same autors who would campaign, debate and provide information to the majority of nations would still be there to do so.

Instead of people who have thought about the implications of the proposal being able to influence the vote, the vote is conducted mostly without thought to the legislation. This is the case because of the empirics on why apathy reigns in the voting base. If the notification system is the tipping point for why people vote, there is no reason to expect that they will read far beyond the title. Given that is the case, it is harder to actually pass nuanced proposals like those on war crimes, since the people who would vote for them are unable to do so.

As I've said multiple times, the vote cast by well-informed, vote-conscious nations will be ample.

(3) Concentrated voting blocs allow for easier campaigning. The world in which this policy is enacted is one where the only communication channel to get votes is by telegram.

We're not getting rid of regions. We're not getting rid of WA delegates. These kinds of statements act like we are.

Since API campaigns to 27 thousand nations take longer than 4 days, it is not possible.

So because something takes 4 days to occur, it's impossible? You're running a TG campaign right now. If it's started before the resolution comes to vote, it can get to more than enough WA member nations.

[Imperium Anglorum]

You are one. Give me an example.

About half this page of posts found from 2010 are people complaining about delegate voting power. They're using the exact same arguments you're using. search.php?st=0&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&keywords=delegates+power&fid%5B%5D=9&start=200

Read the data in my OP.

In the current at vote, 762 delegates voted. There are 8690 (5892 + 2036 + 762) individual votes. This means that by arithmetic, there were 8468 votes granted solely from Delegate status (i.e. votes granted on top of those given to delegates). (8468 / (11942+5216)) is 49.353 per cent. Congratulations, you've already solved the problem to the level at which you said you wanted it solved. Your methodology is wrong and inflates the delegate vote count. What matters more is the number of votes granted on top of the 1 vote which all delegates already receive.

That's great. And again: I'm not saying participation would increase. I'm saying individual member nations would be represented in WA legislation.

I haven't claimed that you're claiming that participation would increase. I have claimed that the actual result of your policy change is that participation would decrease. You still haven't drawn any impacts from this democracy. Secondarily, I don't know what this 'representation' means. Please explain what this representation you're speaking about actually is.

2. Having the ability to influence tons of votes in the GA through your forum community attracts people to actually get involved. This leads people to get involved in the World Assembly. Also, this means that there is more feedback to authors about issues with their resolutions as well, because more people are active and respond in their regional WA community. Regional participation also helps because it provides resources to help authors. For example, Europe provides approval, voting, and campaigning support. Regional participation also gets more people into drafting proposals. For example, Europe has gotten three authors into the World Assembly over the last year. Europeia has also done some similar excellent work.

Okay? They can keep doing that, you know.

You don't understand my argument. My argument is that people won't get involved. It is an argument not that people will leave, but rather, that new people won't join. These are very different things.

(edit: in response to delegate votes being determined by voting) ...Except in the actual WA.

I don't see a difference. If Delegate votes are decided by democratic principles, there is no reason to change the system. Democracy already exists, because all decisions are already made democratically by regional internal votes.

(edit: in response to their being fewer people involved in the WA) What are you talking about? I'm not kicking delegates out of the WA. There will be the same number of people as before with ample experience in the WA. There is no reason for those devoted members, such as yourself, to suddenly leave and thereby shrink the community.

That isn't what I'm arguing. I am arguing that people won't join. I've already given reasons for why this is the case. Just read the post you were responding to.

(edit: In response to pay-to-play,) There's a wonderful thing called Communique.

Curious you ask. If I go to Communique and ask it to query all WA members, it calculates that it will take 9d:11h:8m:41s. Considering that resolutions are at vote for 5 days and in the queue generally for one day, that means you cannot reach quite a lot of people. Then considering that WA members vote against for dumb reasons, like telegramming them asking for approvals when they are not delegates, that means you cannot send telegrams before it goes to vote in front of the body. This means that you have 5 days. But considering that telegrams not read also count, you really only have 4 days to send telegrams that people will actually read. This means you cannot even reach a majority of WA members. Most people probably won't read them anyway, so this isn't practical. The only way to send telegrams is via stamps. That costs 27 dollars.

Delegates and logical people will still have ample power to pass meaningful legislation. You still don't seem to get that.

I've explained and given reasons to why this doesn't and won't happen already and am getting quite tired of typing them out again. Why ought anyone prefer your assertions to the contrary when clear reasoning for why impacts would occur are provided? Provide reasons for why this isn't the case.

This evidence can in no way even suggest that voters vote carelessly to get rid of notifications, so I don't know where you're getting that from.

This evidence is a before-and-after examination of turnout before and after the introduction of the notifications system. The variable which changed was whether or not there was a notification. The result was a 25% increase in turnout. Given that quite a lot of those votes are already delegate votes, the change comes from voters who voted because of a notification. If that is the tipping point, there is no reason to expect that they would read and deliberate on the proposal itself. If you believe that people will offer such deliberation, give reasons to support this assertion.

In what way does your data suggest that? If anything, what you've provided suggests that voter participation will continue to increase, since there's a clear trend.

Turnout in WA resolutions, however, has stabilised. It hasn't really increased.

Except, as Frisbeetria pointed out, WA Delegates often don't properly represent the interests of their region-mates.

Competent Delegates generally want to do the best by their region. Making their region great is going to have to involve support in the World Assembly. They will have to provide support for such endeavours. An example of this is Europeia's WA drive around 2012-2013. That was quite successful. UCRs and GCRs strive both on recruitment and retention. Provision of services to people is retention. But if there aren't major returns for some action, people don't invest their time and energy. Lower regional returns to GA activity mean that there is less investment in that activity.

And having a grossly insignificant amount of power in your vote marginalizes people and makes them not want to be involved. People aren't going to just up and leave the WA because their delegate has less power.

This isn't the case. The main reason why people are not involved is because of the GA's ridiculous level of legality challenges. People need support and motivation to go through such a process. Regions help provide that support. And again, you're not responding to my actual argument, which is that there will be fewer people entering the GA.

They still have the regional community. They can still offer feedback. And in regions where the WA is important, they still will.

Again, see all the arguments which I've already given about why regional investment of time and effort decreases, which leads to less support, which leads to fewer participants.

No, it doesn't. The individuals most affected by this policy, those with high endorsement counts, are far too devoted to the WA to just stop participating.

Most Delegates do not actively involve themselves in the GA. They are involved in the SC. Less influence means that fewer people will get involved, mostly because people get involved into things where they believe they can make a difference or get power. If what the WA does is unimportant to gameplay, like the GA, they will generally stay away. Your policy removes the last reason for any participation.

There's no reason for that to happen. We're not deposing WA delegates, dissolving regions, or dismantling off-site communities or forums.

I am not arguing that this will depose delegates, dissolve regions, or cause forum destruction. Stop strawmanning my arguments and actually address them.

There's no reason for that to happen, either. The same autors who would campaign, debate and provide information to the majority of nations would still be there to do so.

Right now, they don't need to do so. This is a good thing because the alternative is paying to play. I give analysis above about why using the API is impossible. This is a summary of that analysis. Authors which campaign aren't able to campaign to 27 thousand nations without paying 27 dollars.

As I've said multiple times, the vote cast by well-informed, vote-conscious nations will be ample.

Yup. You've said. You haven't provided any reasons, warrants, arguments, data... really anything, which proves that nations, which I already proved are mostly apathetic about the GA, would change their behaviour due to this change in voting structures. In fact, you've simply asserted that it is the case. Please provide reasons for why people will suddenly change their behaviour and solve the lemming effect.

We're not getting rid of regions. We're not getting rid of WA delegates. These kinds of statements act like we are.

These kinds of statements carry truths about the impacts of your policies. You haven't provided any reasons for why they aren't the case. You certainly have asserted that it won't happen, but you haven't attacked any of the reasons for why I believe they will happen. I gave tons of those reasons above, in the image I posted of my notes on this topic, in the last two posts I made in response. Given that I haven't argued that you want to get rid of regions and WA delegates, stop strawmanning and actually address my arguments.

[Nilla Wayfarers]

Read the data in my OP.

In the current at vote, 762 delegates voted. There are 8690 (5892 + 2036 + 762) individual votes. This means that by arithmetic, there were 8468 votes granted solely from Delegate status (i.e. votes granted on top of those given to delegates). (8468 / (11942+5216)) is 49.353 per cent. Congratulations, you've already solved the problem to the level at which you said you wanted it solved.

I don't know what you're looking at, but the current vote is 45.7% individual nations and 54.3% delegates. So no, it hasn't been solved.

Your methodology is wrong and inflates the delegate vote count.

The data I have in the OP is based on a specific time for the vote on another resolution. My math isn't wrong.

What matters more is the number of votes granted on top of the 1 vote which all delegates already receive.

That one vote is still one of each delegate's votes. I'm not just going to ignore it.

That's great. And again: I'm not saying participation would increase. I'm saying individual member nations would be represented in WA legislation.

I haven't claimed that you're claiming that participation would increase. I have claimed that the actual result of your policy change is that participation would decrease. You still haven't drawn any impacts from this democracy. Secondarily, I don't know what this 'representation' means. Please explain what this representation you're speaking about actually is.

By representation, I mean that instead of resolutions being able to be decided independently of the opinions of individual nations, the interests and ideals of those member nations will be better represented because they will have the majority of the vote that they deserve.

(edit: in response to delegate votes being determined by voting) ...Except in the actual WA.

I don't see a difference. If Delegate votes are decided by democratic principles, there is no reason to change the system. Democracy already exists, because all decisions are already made democratically by regional internal votes.

A delegate is elected first-past-the-post. There could be 1000 WA nations in a region, with 4 of them garnering 199 endorsements, but a fifth gets 200 and thereby becomes regional delegate. The majority of member nations wanted someone else, but that 5th nation is the delegate. That's not democratic.

(edit: In response to pay-to-play,) There's a wonderful thing called Communique.

Curious you ask. If I go to Communique and ask it to query all WA members, it calculates that it will take 9d:11h:8m:41s. Considering that resolutions are at vote for 5 days and in the queue generally for one day, that means you cannot reach quite a lot of people. Then considering that WA members vote against for dumb reasons, like telegramming them asking for approvals when they are not delegates, that means you cannot send telegrams before it goes to vote in front of the body. This means that you have 5 days. But considering that telegrams not read also count, you really only have 4 days to send telegrams that people will actually read. This means you cannot even reach a majority of WA members. Most people probably won't read them anyway, so this isn't practical. The only way to send telegrams is via stamps. That costs 27 dollars.

Start the campaign early. Problem solved.

Delegates and logical people will still have ample power to pass meaningful legislation. You still don't seem to get that.

I've explained and given reasons to why this doesn't and won't happen already and am getting quite tired of typing them out again. Why ought anyone prefer your assertions to the contrary when clear reasoning for why impacts would occur are provided? Provide reasons for why this isn't the case.

Here's something to consider: nearly every piece of WA legislation is sensible and logical. That's because logical authors, logical delegates, and logical individual nations outnumber illogical ones. If this weren't the case, it would be clearly reflected in the legislation of the WA. Therefore, I don't think it can be assumed that giving individual nations power more proportional to their number will have a considerably adverse effect on the relevance and meaning of WA legislation.

This evidence can in no way even suggest that voters vote carelessly to get rid of notifications, so I don't know where you're getting that from.

This evidence is a before-and-after examination of turnout before and after the introduction of the notifications system. The variable which changed was whether or not there was a notification. The result was a 25% increase in turnout. Given that quite a lot of those votes are already delegate votes, the change comes from voters who voted because of a notification. If that is the tipping point, there is no reason to expect that they would read and deliberate on the proposal itself. If you believe that people will offer such deliberation, give reasons to support this assertion.

You're basing this conclusion on observations. Observations cannot determine causation, because extraneous factors are not accounted for. For example, it's just as likely that this trend is attributable to an increase in the popularity of NationStates.
So no, your evidence can not be used to assume that the increase in voter turnout is due to the notification system.

In what way does your data suggest that? If anything, what you've provided suggests that voter participation will continue to increase, since there's a clear trend.

Turnout in WA resolutions, however, has stabilised. It hasn't really increased.

The data you provided showed a 25% increase in voter turnout. So yes, it has increased.

Except, as Frisbeetria pointed out, WA Delegates often don't properly represent the interests of their region-mates.

Competent Delegates generally want to do the best by their region. Making their region great is going to have to involve support in the World Assembly. They will have to provide support for such endeavours. An example of this is Europeia's WA drive around 2012-2013. That was quite successful. UCRs and GCRs strive both on recruitment and retention. Provision of services to people is retention. But if there aren't major returns for some action, people don't invest their time and energy. Lower regional returns to GA activity mean that there is less investment in that activity.

I'm aware that some prominent delegates do have their region-mates's interests at heart. But that doesn't mean all delegates do - as they should.

(edit: all the discussion about regional participation and such)

Okay. I want to address this for the last time. Hopefully this will make clear whatever wasn't before:

Let's go to those four arguments you provided:
1. Most of the reason why the GA community is so small is because of the fact you need to be ridiculously well-versed in GA legality crap to be able to write anything and come up with the arguments you need to defend against GA over-litigation. It has nothing to do with delegate vote power. Even if you don't believe anything below, your policy wouldn't increase GA participation.

---

Already addressed. I'm not saying it would increase participation.

---

2. Having the ability to influence tons of votes in the GA through your forum community attracts people to actually get involved. This leads people to get involved in the World Assembly. Also, this means that there is more feedback to authors about issues with their resolutions as well, because more people are active and respond in their regional WA community. Regional participation also helps because it provides resources to help authors. For example, Europe provides approval, voting, and campaigning support. Regional participation also gets more people into drafting proposals. For example, Europe has gotten three authors into the World Assembly over the last year. Europeia has also done some similar excellent work.

---

Under this system, the most powerful regional delegates from before would still be the most powerful regional delegates. So people would still be attracted to them, because they would still have the most power. That regional community will be able to continue.

---

3. Your premise is wrong because you can participate in your region's voting structure, as most large regions use forum voting. Europeia has a law which requires it. TNP uses forum voting. TEP uses raw regional voting. XKI uses a forum poll. Almost all large regions use a regional decision system which lifts the delegate out of the direct voting process. This democracy which you're preaching already exists through various processes. In your world, there are less people with in-depth knowledge of how the GA and SC works, which means that there is a smaller community which is less active.

---

Based on what I said to argument (2), member nations would still participate in powerful regional communities. So if not having member nations be spoon-fed the intricacies of the WA was your concern, that'll still be happening.

---

4. The world you are supporting is one where democracy doesn't actually exist. Rather, it is controlled by those with money. In the current world, authors can appeal to a group of people who can be convinced with argumentative exchange. In your world, the only way to get things passed without basically relying on chance would be to send huge amounts of telegrams. It is actually impossible to canvas the WA population by the API before the voting period ends. That means the only way to do this is to pay 20 dollars for stamps. This creates a pay-to-win atmosphere, which leads to comparatively larger barriers to entry and stratifies the WA based on real-world wealth. Most players don't have 20 dollars to pay into a game like this, so won't get involved.

---

Already addressed. It's your responsibility to efficiently manage a campaign.

In this post, I have tried to address your arguments to the best of my ability. If my statements appeared to be an act of strawmanning or non-sequitur, I give my sincerest apologies, as that was not my intention.
And if it wasn't made clear by anything I said earlier in this post, I'll summarize:

Your argument, as it appears to me, is that a reduction in delegate power as I have outlined would disincentivize the participation by member nations in the WA communities of large regions, because said member nations would not be drawn to regions that do not have as much power.
However, under the system that I propose, each region would still hold the same rank of power as it used to. There would still be massive regions with massive voting power, particularly if individual nations vote in accordance with the vote of their regional delegate. The regions that were the most powerful before the implementation of this system would still be the most powerful afterward. So as far as the participation of WA members in regional communities is concerned, people would still be naturally drawn to the largest and most powerful regions.
And since it is your belief that communities like these are critical in properly informing the voting body of the WA, that shouldn't be a problem, either; because, as I've explained, nations will still be drawn into those communities.

Best wishes,
Nilla

[Imperium Anglorum]

In the current at vote, 762 delegates voted. There are 8690 (5892 + 2036 + 762) individual votes. This means that by arithmetic, there were 8468 votes granted solely from Delegate status (i.e. votes granted on top of those given to delegates). (8468 / (11942+5216)) is 49.353 per cent. Congratulations, you've already solved the problem to the level at which you said you wanted it solved.

I don't know what you're looking at, but the current vote is 45.7% individual nations and 54.3% delegates. So no, it hasn't been solved.

I'm looking at the data from a few hours ago. The data show 8690 (5892 + 2036 + 762) individual votes. There. were 8468 votes granted solely from Delegate status (i.e. votes granted on top of those given to delegates). (8468 / (11942+5216)) is 49.353 per cent. Delegate votes are already not the majority.

In your analysis in the OP, you have two major errors: (1) you're counting delegate votes directly from the page, that's wrong, it should be the number of votes added on top of the delegate's nation vote and (2) you counted at an early time before most nations could actually vote. Because large delegates vote early, of course there were more delegate votes. If you counted the votes at the first two minutes of this current resolution, you would get overwhelming Delegate vote margins as well. In fact, if you counted in the first 5 seconds on this resolution, you would have found that I cast not only the majority of the votes, but also around 70 per cent of them. Obviously, that is still the case now and we should formulate all of our policies around those first five seconds. You should count them right before voting completes to get an accurate picture of what is going on.

Your methodology is wrong and inflates the delegate vote count.

The data I have in the OP is based on a specific time for the vote on another resolution. My math isn't wrong.

It is. Using a delegate-vote added formula, you would do this: (9225-3848-257) / 9225, (total – raw individual data – # of delegates), getting around 55 per cent instead of 58 pc. This is because you have to remove the vote to which a delegate is given with or without delegate status. If I have 5 endorsements, I get 6 votes because my own nation still gets to vote. That vote should count as a nation vote since I still have it even if delegate votes were removed.

What matters more is the number of votes granted on top of the 1 vote which all delegates already receive.

That one vote is still one of each delegate's votes. I'm not just going to ignore it.

Basically then, your data pretends that delegates don't actually have votes. That is blatantly unrealistic and sheer disenfranchisement. It ought be frowned upon. The entire thing you're complaining about is that delegates have more votes than everyone else. Everyone has at least 1 base vote. Your maths pretend that delegates actually have 0 base votes.

I haven't claimed that you're claiming that participation would increase. I have claimed that the actual result of your policy change is that participation would decrease. You still haven't drawn any impacts from this democracy. Secondarily, I don't know what this 'representation' means. Please explain what this representation you're speaking about actually is.

By representation, I mean that instead of resolutions being able to be decided independently of the opinions of individual nations, the interests and ideals of those member nations will be better represented because they will have the majority of the vote that they deserve.

They already have that majority. Let's come back to it when the voting period ends and we can look at whether the majority is delegate votes or not. I can guarantee you that delegate votes will be under 50 pc. Under your own standard, there is no reason to pursue any changes.

I don't see a difference. If Delegate votes are decided by democratic principles, there is no reason to change the system. Democracy already exists, because all decisions are already made democratically by regional internal votes.

A delegate is elected first-past-the-post. There could be 1000 WA nations in a region, with 4 of them garnering 199 endorsements, but a fifth gets 200 and thereby becomes regional delegate. The majority of member nations wanted someone else, but that 5th nation is the delegate. That's not democratic.

What was described is first-past-the-post. How delegates are actually selected, however, is not first-past-the-post. FPTP requires that people be allowed to vote once. We use an approval voting system. The person most endorsed, or approved, is made delegate. Because people can vote more than once, the analysis and analogy is wrong. Secondarily, ignoring that, FPTP is democratic. The person who people wanted least lost. The person who won was the person which the fewest people voted against.

Curious you ask. If I go to Communique and ask it to query all WA members, it calculates that it will take 9d:11h:8m:41s. Considering that resolutions are at vote for 5 days and in the queue generally for one day, that means you cannot reach quite a lot of people. Then considering that WA members vote against for dumb reasons, like telegramming them asking for approvals when they are not delegates, that means you cannot send telegrams before it goes to vote in front of the body. This means that you have 5 days. But considering that telegrams not read also count, you really only have 4 days to send telegrams that people will actually read. This means you cannot even reach a majority of WA members. Most people probably won't read them anyway, so this isn't practical. The only way to send telegrams is via stamps. That costs 27 dollars.

Start the campaign early. Problem solved.

Yea, and tell me, person familiar with the arcane things of the GA, the voting process, and the passing of resolutions, how people are going to make up their minds on a proposal they cannot see? Also, you haven't addressed any of the arguments which I brought up for why this is impractical. You simply dismissed them without any level of analysis.

I've explained and given reasons to why this doesn't and won't happen already and am getting quite tired of typing them out again. Why ought anyone prefer your assertions to the contrary when clear reasoning for why impacts would occur are provided? Provide reasons for why this isn't the case.

Here's something to consider: nearly every piece of WA legislation is sensible and logical. That's because logical authors, logical delegates, and logical individual nations outnumber illogical ones. If this weren't the case, it would be clearly reflected in the legislation of the WA. Therefore, I don't think it can be assumed that giving individual nations power more proportional to their number will have a considerably adverse effect on the relevance and meaning of WA legislation.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. World. Space. Administration. And if anyone recalls the WSA, there were two reasons why it passed: (1) massive Bitely campaigning which led to very high voter turnout and (2) democratic regions voting in line with their democratic polls. Most delegates voted against, but the ones which had to follow regional law and their constituents voted for... so it passed. Stuff like Promotion of Solar Panels. Things like Max Barry Day. Or perhaps, we should Condemn the Axis of Evil. Maybe, we should even consider the Marine Debris Accord and Habeas Corpus Act. Please, if you want to use examples about WA/UN resolutions, actually look them up.

You're basing this conclusion on observations. Observations cannot determine causation, because extraneous factors are not accounted for. For example, it's just as likely that this trend is attributable to an increase in the popularity of NationStates.

Increased number of nations has no impact on the likelihood of each nation voting. That's why those numbers are coached not on the raw vote tallies, but rather, on a proportion of nations which voted. Most of the factors which Gruen talks about, I think, are minor. There are few telegrams, most regions don't go out of their way to encourage nations to vote, stomping doesn't affect people's chances of voting, and WA-UN splits don't change the fact that resolutions are still up for vote. I did remark in the original posting of this data (in the GA forum), that this clearly isn't a causative relationship. It certainly lends credence to this explanation. However, it doesn't really lend credence to any other explanations.

The data you provided showed a 25% increase in voter turnout. So yes, it has increased.

:facepalm: The data I provided also shows that within each period, i.e. after notifications have been implemented, it stayed roughly the same. It didn't increase within that period.

Competent Delegates generally want to do the best by their region. Making their region great is going to have to involve support in the World Assembly. They will have to provide support for such endeavours. An example of this is Europeia's WA drive around 2012-2013. That was quite successful. UCRs and GCRs strive both on recruitment and retention. Provision of services to people is retention. But if there aren't major returns for some action, people don't invest their time and energy. Lower regional returns to GA activity mean that there is less investment in that activity.

I'm aware that some prominent delegates do have their region-mates's interests at heart. But that doesn't mean all delegates do - as they should.

Such delegates then get removed, people move to different regions. Europe loses 10 nations a day from CTEs alone. If I did a shitty job and left everyone to move out or cease to exist, then Europe would fall off the top 20 page by next month. But of course, please, tell us about your months of experience running large regions and how easy it all is. You have consistently dismissed all the people telling you that it is hard to run large regions with 'how hard can it be to get nations spawned into your region'. That isn't the hard part. The hard part is getting them to stay.

1. Most of the reason why the GA community is so small is because of the fact you need to be ridiculously well-versed in GA legality crap to be able to write anything and come up with the arguments you need to defend against GA over-litigation. It has nothing to do with delegate vote power. Even if you don't believe anything below, your policy wouldn't increase GA participation.

Already addressed. I'm not saying it would increase participation.

Okay. I've also already addressed this argument. You've admitted that it wouldn't increase participation. This means that the only way participation can go is either down or the same. I've provided tons of arguments why it would go down. You've provided no arguments to why it would stay the same. What should we believe?

2. Having the ability to influence tons of votes in the GA through your forum community attracts people to actually get involved. This leads people to get involved in the World Assembly. Also, this means that there is more feedback to authors about issues with their resolutions as well, because more people are active and respond in their regional WA community. Regional participation also helps because it provides resources to help authors. For example, Europe provides approval, voting, and campaigning support. Regional participation also gets more people into drafting proposals. For example, Europe has gotten three authors into the World Assembly over the last year. Europeia has also done some similar excellent work.

Under this system, the most powerful regional delegates from before would still be the most powerful regional delegates. So people would still be attracted to them, because they would still have the most power. That regional community will be able to continue.

You're basically pretending that things operate in a discrete binary. They don't. They operate in a continuum. Large regions like Europeia have much WA involvement because of their size and because of how strong their WA presence is. Secondarily, I provided tons of reasons earlier about regional time investment incentives. Lowering regional power decreases those incentives, less investment would occur.

3. Your premise is wrong because you can participate in your region's voting structure, as most large regions use forum voting. Europeia has a law which requires it. TNP uses forum voting. TEP uses raw regional voting. XKI uses a forum poll. Almost all large regions use a regional decision system which lifts the delegate out of the direct voting process. This democracy which you're preaching already exists through various processes. In your world, there are less people with in-depth knowledge of how the GA and SC works, which means that there is a smaller community which is less active.

Based on what I said to argument (2), member nations would still participate in powerful regional communities. So if not having member nations be spoon-fed the intricacies of the WA was your concern, that'll still be happening.

Then I just refuted this point with the last one. But you failed also, to cross-apply the other points from this: namely, that democracy already exists. Democracy already is exercised in voting patterns. People already have a say in how their region votes. Next, you'll probably tell me that it isn't democratic how only some part is represented, those people who don't vote aren't represented because of the fact they didn't vote. If they had voted, they would have been represented. Given that voting is easy, it isn't the onus of the region to make them or force them to vote. All of that is to ignore the fact that you still haven't proven why democracy is a good thing in of itself in the World Assembly. I've already given lots of warrants why legislative action is disaffected by shifting power from people who are willing to analyse resolutions to people who are not willing to analyse resolutions. There have been no arguments why democracy in of itself is a good thing.

Already addressed. It's your responsibility to efficiently manage a campaign.

This argument is terrible. It completely fails to address any of the intricacies of campaigning: the need to be timely, the need to act quickly, the fact that people don't like getting sent telegrams on proposals that haven't even been submitted yet, the fact that people don't usually read their telegrams until nearly a day later.

And, I love your standard though. If it is the case that it is the responsibility of an author to efficiently manage a campaign, I am happy to apply it to this statement: It's your responsibility to cope with large delegate votes. Given that an author can't really change the structure by himself, why ought it be the author's responsibility to fight delegates but not the telegram system?

Also, I love that you've basically dropped the contentions about apathy and how an individual voter makes their decision. That's fantastic, since it is the main reason why I get the impacts I get.

Your argument, as it appears to me, is that a reduction in delegate power as I have outlined would disincentivize the participation by member nations in the WA communities of large regions, because said member nations would not be drawn to regions that do not have as much power.
However, under the system that I propose, each region would still hold the same rank of power as it used to. There would still be massive regions with massive voting power, particularly if individual nations vote in accordance with the vote of their regional delegate. The regions that were the most powerful before the implementation of this system would still be the most powerful afterward. So as far as the participation of WA members in regional communities is concerned, people would still be naturally drawn to the largest and most powerful regions.
And since it is your belief that communities like these are critical in properly informing the voting body of the WA, that shouldn't be a problem, either; because, as I've explained, nations will still be drawn into those communities.

You've dropped a crucial argument: regions will be less willing to invest in their WA offices. That is where the reduction comes from, not fewer people arriving. Regions don't take such an effort because there are comparatively more interesting things to pursue. The WA simply moves down in the list of regional priorities.

[Flanderlion]

Firstly, a ton of voters do vote just to get rid of the notification - unless they think it is important (e.g. their delegate asks everyone to vote against this due to it being their allies, the GA is threatening their nukes etc.) and often just vote with the majority. I've made posts listing random nations reasons for voting before in other topics, and although it isn't every nation, there is a lot who do vote because of the notification. The notification appeared, participation increased dramatically.

WA delegates exert influence proportionally to their region, bar stacking which causes the lemming effect - which could be reduced significantly by hiding the world votes from nations while still leaving a nations own regions' votes visible to them.

I'm still not sure why the actual vote formula should be changed. I'm not going through this entire topic as it has too much text on it for me to delve into these metre long text walls. Can you just explicitly state in a sentence or two (again?) why you believe the current system isn't working and why this is a problem. Before we look for a solution, we have to have a problem.

[Imperium Anglorum]

Well, Flanderlion, the leader of this push to revise the system believes that delegate votes should be under 50 per cent of the vote total. They already are under 50 per cent of the vote total and will continue falling in the current resolution. I don't believe there is a problem to solve...