[DISCUSSION] Multiple WA Campaign Telegrams

[Sedgistan]

A trend I have noticed is that if a proposal is close to quorum with a few hours remaining until being removed from queue, people will often disregard the rule limiting nations to one WA campaign telegram per proposal and send out a second telegram regardless.

This was most recently done yesterday, with Repeal: “Wartime Journalism Protection Act”. With approximately 10 hours until it was to be removed from queue, the proposal was a dozen approvals shy of quorum and looked extremely unlikely to make it. The proposal's author sent out a second tag:delegates campaign telegram, and the proposal subsequently made quorum and now sits at 86 approvals (64 required). Of course I can't be certain whether this is being done deliberately or not, but this is far from the first time I've seen a similar tactic used. This takes advantage of the fact that moderators are often too slow to remove the duplicate telegram, leaving the author to get their proposal to reach quorum using a tactic that is against the rules of the game.

I'll also add that one way to effectively bypass this rule is to have another player send a second telegram out on behalf of your proposal, which achieves exactly the same thing and results in the same amount of campaign telegrams arriving in a player's inbox, but this way technically isn't against the rules.

Given this, I have to question the effectiveness of the current rules regarding campaign telegrams, and whether the current rules really make sense. Should a proposal that almost certainly only reached quorum as the result of illegal telegram spam not be manually removed from the queue? And why is a different player sending out effectively the same telegram for a given proposal considered legal, but sending a second telegram yourself is not, when they achieve exactly the same thing?

[Refuge Isle]

In fairness to me, this was not a rule that I knew about, and it's not one that's linked in the help page covering telegrams, including in the advanced information. So I became aware of this from a nondescript warning in my inbox with no additional information. Digging through the OSRS, I found the specific text that says "More than one request per proposal may be considered spam.", which is vague and indicates that the practice itself may be fine so long as none of the recipients file a GHR.

Improvements to rules clarity, particularly in the manual about mass mailers, would be appreciated.

[Praeceps]

I don't have a source for this but I have always understood it (based on off-site conversations) that it was one campaign telegram per person.

[Sedgistan]

Moved to Moderation (where rules / enforcement discussions belong) and tagged as "[DISCUSSION]" in the title.

I agree the rule is vague; to an extent that is deliberate. Some controversial proposals get campaign telegrams flying back and forth from various different parties - we don't want to discourage that politicking and lobbying. However an author who sends out 5 mass TGs just to get a proposal to vote is definitely spamming.

(This comment isn't meant to shut down discussion on the rules re. campaign TGs - it's meant to encourage it.)

[Katganistan]

In fairness to me, this was not a rule that I knew about, and it's not one that's linked in the help page covering telegrams, including in the advanced information. So I became aware of this from a nondescript warning in my inbox with no additional information. Digging through the OSRS, I found the specific text that says "More than one request per proposal may be considered spam.", which is vague and indicates that the practice itself may be fine so long as none of the recipients file a GHR.

Improvements to rules clarity, particularly in the manual about mass mailers, would be appreciated.

Just to clarify: "warned for duplicate wa campaign telegram" is pretty specific.

[Refuge Isle]

Just to clarify: "warned for duplicate wa campaign telegram" is pretty specific.

Alright, but it wasn't a duplication, it was an entirely different telegram that campaigned for the same resolution.

I remain concerned that the way I was informed this was a rule was by this warning, and the place that I would expect this to be, which is the section of the help page called "What are the rules on sending telegrams?" does not mention this is a thing. The only mention of campaign rules was that WA campaigns have to be labelled as such - they were.

I agree the rule is vague; to an extent that is deliberate. Some controversial proposals get campaign telegrams flying back and forth from various different parties - we don't want to discourage that politicking and lobbying. However an author who sends out 5 mass TGs just to get a proposal to vote is definitely spamming.

Granted mine wasn't 5 mass telegrams, but surely there is a way that you can wordsmith a clarification that says the same player cannot send more than one telegram for the same issue. I'm not a delegate anymore so I don't get to see exactly how much spam is coming and going but, if this is truly a recurring issue, it has to be a better idea to improve the wording and make the rule more accessible before it gets to be a warning on the player's account. Regardless of whether "it is understood" from conversations off-site, it would certainly be an aid to players who are not a part of those spaces.

[Lamoni]

Alright, but it wasn't a duplication, it was an entirely different telegram that campaigned for the same resolution.

I remain concerned that the way I was informed this was a rule was by this warning, and the place that I would expect this to be, which is the section of the help page called "What are the rules on sending telegrams?" does not mention this is a thing. The only mention of campaign rules was that WA campaigns have to be labelled as such - they were.

That still counts as duplication, under the rules, I am compelled to point out. As for the lack of specific rules, that is something that will need discussion amongst the mod team.

[Attempted Socialism]

Alright, but it wasn't a duplication, it was an entirely different telegram that campaigned for the same resolution.

I remain concerned that the way I was informed this was a rule was by this warning, and the place that I would expect this to be, which is the section of the help page called "What are the rules on sending telegrams?" does not mention this is a thing. The only mention of campaign rules was that WA campaigns have to be labelled as such - they were.

That still counts as duplication, under the rules, I am compelled to point out. As for the lack of specific rules, that is something that will need discussion amongst the mod team.

A duplication normally indicates that it is identical, a copy. I would not see two different TGs about the same resolution to be duplicates, for instance, and I understand how Refuge Island would be under the impression that what they did was legal.

[Nepleslia]

[...]

Given this, I have to question the effectiveness of the current rules regarding campaign telegrams, and whether the current rules really make sense. Should a proposal that almost certainly only reached quorum as the result of illegal telegram spam not be manually removed from the queue? And why is a different player sending out effectively the same telegram for a given proposal considered legal, but sending a second telegram yourself is not, when they achieve exactly the same thing?

Although this admittedly doesn’t affect me given my lack of participation in the WA, in my opinion proposals that - to quote Shrew - “reached quorum as the result of illegal telegram spam“ should indeed be manually removed from the queue; similarly, in my opinion “ a different player sending out effectively the same telegram for a given proposal” should be just as illegal as the aforementioned proposal’s author sending out a second telegram related to their proposal.

Why? Simple - a proposal that reached the queue through illegal means (of any kind) does not deserve the chance to be voted upon by the WA, as proposals are supposed to be judged on their merits (or lack thereof), not how many telegrams the proposal’s author(s) can shove down other delegate’s throats.

[Araraukar]

That still counts as duplication, under the rules, I am compelled to point out. As for the lack of specific rules, that is something that will need discussion amongst the mod team.

A duplication normally indicates that it is identical, a copy. I would not see two different TGs about the same resolution to be duplicates, for instance, and I understand how Refuge Island would be under the impression that what they did was legal.

This is marked as discussion so I think it's ok to post here... I agree with AS; "duplication" in general means "identical or with a couple of word changes". Not being a delegate I haven't actually seen the TGs in question, but if it's basically completely different with only "please approve this" being in common, how would it count as duplication? If there had been a counter-campaign and then a counter-counter-campaign, would the counter-counter-campaign have been illegal for duplicate message? Despite what Sedge said.

What happens if there is an author and a co-author, and the latter sends out their own campaign, unknown to the first, possibly even using the exact same TG text? Would they both get dinged for duplicate campaign? Or would it not count because they're different people?

If it is a clear-cut situation in the eyes of moderation, then surely the rule could be made easier to find (I was completely unaware of this until the last time it came up with a GA proposal) and easier to understand?

[Refuge Isle]

If it is still going to be a topic of discussion, it may be in the public interest for me to disclose the exact content of the campaigns, which I will now do.

Delegates,

Journalism in times of war can not only protect the lives of civilians in harm's way, but prevent misdeeds and atrocities from occurring by holding nations to the scrutiny of international eyes. The journalists that take on these pursuits should enjoy the legal protections of the World Assembly for those reasons.

GAR#501 aimed to grant those legal protections to journalists; however, it also allowed their protections to be terminated if they "interrupt active combat situations" or "jeopardize military efforts". This would account for nearly all types of reporting, and thereby grant no protection at all.

If ending civilian lives becomes the military goal, press coverage alerting them to danger would be considered a threat to the aggressor nation, and the World Assembly would tell reporters that they're on their own. It also allows aggressor nations to terminate wartime journalists' legal protections if they are in possession of an item that could be considered a weapon, or report any military-related story that a warring nation might not like to have shared.

Since it's not possible to edit passed GA resolutions, the law must be repealed in order for these problems to be solved.

Please approve this measure to bring this repeal to a vote: https://www.nationstates.net/page=UN_vi ... 1596349264

Hi,

Forgive the repeat spam, but summers in NationStates tend to be a bit slow as people fill up with other jobs and activities, so World Assembly stuff gets a little harder.

As a result, there's only a few hours left to get this proposal to the voting floor, and just ten more delegate approvals could get it there.

I would greatly appreciate your help. Please consider approving this proposal so we can vote on it in a few days: https://www.nationstates.net/page=UN_vi ... 1596349264

- L

[Sedgistan]

We have made a small change to the rule (underlined):

WA Advertising Spam: Non-natives and region-hoppers are forbidden to post WA advertisements or requests for proposal approval outside of their native region. The game-created regions (Listed above) are no exception to this rule. Requests for proposal approval may be telegrammed to WA delegates, but must be tagged appropriately. ***More than one request per proposal may be considered spam if the telegrams are materially the same.*** WA campaign telegrams shouldn't be sent to non-WA members

That applies to the content of the telegram, not the intent. So:

• A "final push" campaign TG from an author that has distinct content from their first TG is now okay.
• If someone runs a counter-TG the author can then run a counter-counter-TG but cannot just restate the same points from their original campaign TG.
• If an author sends out a TG to get approvals they can later send a separate TG when the proposal is at vote; again the TG will need to be different.
• Both the author and a co-author could send out campaign TGs, so long as the're different.
• An author could theoritically send multiple TGs looking for approvals (or votes) splitting up their arguments between each one... however they are likely to find Delegates blocking TGs from them if they do that.

Essentially so long as the telegrams are materially different then we're comfortable that telegram filters and the block list are sufficient tools for players to address what they consider unnecessary telegrams.

As part of this, Refuge Isle's appeal of his warning has been granted.

[Marxist Germany]

Thank you for this much-needed change!