The following rules apply to all proposals submitted to the Security Council. Every proposal is reviewed by Moderators for legality, and illegal ones are held from going to vote. All authors are strongly encouraged to draft their proposal in a new thread in the Security Council forum, seeking advice from other experienced players to ensure their proposal's quality and legality prior to submission.
- Proposal Contents
- World Assembly legislation: Proposals must be written from the perspective of the World Assembly or Security Council, not that of your nation, region or another organisation.
- Relevant argument: Proposals must contain an argument for the proposal, which must be relevant to what it is doing; for example if Commending a nation you should include reasons why that nation warrants a Commendation. If your proposal is a Repeal it must address the contents of the resolution it is repealing.
- Duplication: Nations that are currently Commended or Condemned for a certain set of actions can't be Commended or Condemned again for that set of actions. Equally, Liberations cannot duplicate the reasons for any existing ones for that region.
- Operative clause: Proposals must contain an operative clause that states what the proposal is actually doing - e.g. Hereby Condemns Sedgistan.
- No further actions: A Proposal cannot attempt to do more than what it is able to do; Commendations/Condemnation can only Commend/Condemn the nominee, Liberations can only Liberate the targeted region, and Repeals can only repeal the targeted resolution. For example, your proposal cannot impose fines, sanctions or a boycott on a Condemned nation.
- World Assembly legislation: Proposals must be written from the perspective of the World Assembly or Security Council, not that of your nation, region or another organisation.
- 4th Wall
- NationStates game: Proposals cannot refer to the game, or events or actions in it, as part of a game.
- Real world: Proposals cannot reference the "real world" outside of NationStates. In particular, they must refer to nations as nations, not as the player behind them. This includes avoiding the use of personal pronouns such as "he" or "she"; instead use "they".
- NationStates game: Proposals cannot refer to the game, or events or actions in it, as part of a game.
- Appropriate Topics
- Site staff: Proposals cannot Commend or Condemn members of the site staff (Moderators, Administrators, Issues Editors, Roleplay Mentors, General Assembly Secretariat etc.) for actions taken as part of their role.
- Beyond the SC's capacities: Don't use proposals to raise issues that should be dealt with elsewhere, such as rules violations and technical suggestions. In some circumstances rules violations may be legal to refer to in a proposal - you must always request a ruling prior to submission if you wish to do this.
- Site rules: The Site Rules apply to any content submitted to the site - i.e. including proposals. In particular, note the Copyright section, which prohibits plagiarism.
- Site staff: Proposals cannot Commend or Condemn members of the site staff (Moderators, Administrators, Issues Editors, Roleplay Mentors, General Assembly Secretariat etc.) for actions taken as part of their role.
- Miscellaneous Rules
- Links: In-game links to nations, regions and UN/WA resolutions are allowed within proposals so long as they are formatted not to show the url. Links to Dispatches, RMB posts, the NationStates forum or offsite webpages are not permitted.
- Branding: Listing co-authors of a proposal is permitted; note these must be nations, and each listed co-author has the right to request a proposal be removed from the submission queue. Lists of supporters or similar are not permitted.
- Symbolic proposals: these are ones that target a nominee that is named after something else; e.g. Commend The Security Council Proposal Rules. Each is judged on a case-by-case basis and you must request a Moderator ruling prior to submission.
Consequences of Violations
Violation of the Security Council Proposal Rules will result in your proposal being marked illegal and being held before it can go to vote. Violation of the Site Rules in a proposal may result in more serious punishment, which can include ejection from the World Assembly.
Commentary
The Security Council ruleset is deliberately minimalist; while the ruleset has evolved from its original format in 2009, the intention remains to keep the SC as accessible as possible for those new to it, without the complex rules lawyering seen in other chambers of the World Assembly.
The primary responsibility for determining the standards of Security Council resolutions lies with delegates. Unless a proposal violates one of the above rules, it is unlikely to be deleted. If you don't like misspelled proposals, or proposals Condemning raiders just because they're raiders, or proposals Commending your region's bitterest enemies, or the way a group of nations has got together to push a particular line, it's up to you to do something about it. And the "something" is not "call the mods".
Finally, please note that the following are not rules violations:
- Self-Commending: widely frowned upon, but if you think you warrant a Commendation but no-one else is writing it for you, knock yourself out.
- Speling and grammer errors: Moderators are not spellcheckers. So long as your spelling and grammar don't inadvertantly cause a rule violation or descend into spam, it's up to WA members to decide whether they want to pass a resolution filled with errors.
- Joke proposals: international politics is inherently funny, and that is sometimes reflected in Security Council legislation. There is a point where "joke proposal" becomes "spam proposal" but we're relatively lenient on this. Especially around April 1st.
- Factual inaccuracies: Moderators are not arbiters of truth. It may come as a surprise to some, but real-world nations can occasionally be liberal with their approach to the truth. The same applies to NationStates nations, and it's up to you to distinguish your facts from the alternative facts.
- Tit-for-tat: Sedgistan hereby Condemns Jakker for Condemning Sedgistan. If you want to get into a tit-for-tat war with another player, so long as you aren't violating the Proposal Rules, that's up to you.
- General Assembly Rules: belong in the General Assembly, thank you very much. They don't apply here.