D: Simplifying the Rules

[Potted Plants United]

IA: I am still logging in here occasionally to catch up on what GA as a whole is up to, and throw feedback at drafts and such. So "when I was last here" is a bit nebulous. I'm fairly sure it's been quite a long time since I last filed a legality challenge, however.

I have too much stuff going on in life to remember what all was done when, here, by me or others, and as I mostly log in on mobile from the waiting rooms of hospitals or docs' lounges for momentary distraction, I pretty much don't really care about your personal opinions about me anymore. Have a nice life. <3

It's a discussion thread, gave my two eurocents, nothing more.

*waves at other GenSec members* Stay pretty in pink!

[Gruenberg]

What an absolutely useless comment lmao

Anyway:

Firstly, the rules are not even consistent with how they are actually enforced.

Never have been. What's legal and what's not has never had all that much to do with what's written in the rules.

The GA already has a very steep learning curve. NS is played by users as young as 13, and being able to find a policy idea, write it into World Assembly law, ensure that it is politically viable, and be clear in avoiding oversights and loopholes, is already quite difficult, and this is not helped by players having their proposals marked illegal for something that a new player would only find by mining through old precedent when it should be clear from the text of the ruleset itself.

The steep learning curve is because RL lawyers got their claws into what was once meant to be a fun roleplaying game. That said, does it matter? It's so easy to get a proposal to quorum now -- anyone can get any proposal to quorum at any time, with a couple of bucks' worth of stamps or for free with a script -- that whether or not that proposal ends up being legal/failing/repealed/etc. is irrelevant, they can just keep brute forcing them through.

Besides the numerous typoes and errors in the text of the rules, the solution is a complete rework of the ruleset.

Well, yes, it's absolutely fucking bonkers that the first thing that the pink power rangers did wasn't to comprehensively redraw the rules and literally laugh out loud hilarious that they still haven't done so years later. But they're obviously not going to. So better ideas:

* Ban RL lawyers.

* Ban automatic TGing.

* Do a full WA reset.

[Potted Plants United]

What an absolutely useless comment lmao

These threads tend to be useless. *tickles you anyway*

* Do a full WA reset.

...if only we could...

Unfortunately as far as I know, Max is still opposed to this idea?

[Omigodtheykilledkenny]

I think I remember reading a comment from [violet] saying that another reset would not happen. However, that was years ago.

[BEEstreetz]

The GA already has a very steep learning curve. NS is played by users as young as 13, and being able to find a policy idea, write it into World Assembly law, ensure that it is politically viable, and be clear in avoiding oversights and loopholes, is already quite difficult, and this is not helped by players having their proposals marked illegal for something that a new player would only find by mining through old precedent when it should be clear from the text of the ruleset itself.

Precedent itself can be filled with legal jargon and complicated language that would, once again, make it incomprehensible to the average 13 year old who only just joined NS/started participating in the WA. The Flesch-Kincaid readability scale shows the latest precedent with a grade level of 12.2, with all precedents having a GL scale of no less than 11. Likewise, the ruleset itself has a GL scale of 12.5. While I do not find that such complexity in GenSec rulings is inherently bad, it makes it even more important that the rules be clear and able to be understood by anyone.

I agree with all of these, but instead of seeing it as an issue I see it as a justification. Generally, NS should be available to every demographic but not cater to a specific one. 13 year old users are more likely to engage in aspects other than a simplified version of international law.
The legalese you mention being used in WA is already very watered down when compared to international treaties. Any attempt of further simplification would just render it into a low-effort parody.

[El Lazaro]

The vast majority of illegal proposals are very low quality regardless, and wouldn’t have a chance of serious consideration even if they weren’t illegal.

[Sedgistan]

I think I remember reading a comment from [violet] saying that another reset would not happen. However, that was years ago.

That was probably pre-Development Managers. It would be Goob's call now. It got discussed in Technical when Mall was originally appointed DM, and that discussion could be revisited there if people want.

[Bears Armed]

I think I remember reading a comment from [violet] saying that another reset would not happen. However, that was years ago.

That was probably pre-Development Managers. It would be Goob's call now. It got discussed in Technical when Mall was originally appointed DM, and that discussion could be revisited there if people want.

It was due to the fuss raised by various authors of 'historical' resolutiions, following the reset iinvolved in the UN=>WA transition, so probably in the latter days of the Jolt forum... and IIRC was said then by [violet] to be a promise from Max himself.
No, Gruen; No, IA; I'm not going to dig through any archived version of that forum to try finding the post in question: As I said when resigning from GenSec I no longer care particularly about what happens to the GA as a whole allthough -- for as long as it continues without a general reset -- I might step in from time to time to defend resolutions that I authored or co-authored.This post is just a FYI for the Development Managers in case they might want to check.
(However I have checked the News pages for 2008 8 2009, and this topic isn't menioned at all on either of those.)

[Wallenburg]

The vast majority of illegal proposals are very low quality regardless, and wouldn’t have a chance of serious consideration even if they weren’t illegal.

I'm not so sure on the latter point. Plenty of low quality proposals pass into law, and pretty much any proposal of any quality has a chance at going to Vote as long as someone advertises it sufficiently to the delegates.

[El Lazaro]

The vast majority of illegal proposals are very low quality regardless, and wouldn’t have a chance of serious consideration even if they weren’t illegal.

I'm not so sure on the latter point. Plenty of low quality proposals pass into law, and pretty much any proposal of any quality has a chance at going to Vote as long as someone advertises it sufficiently to the delegates.

When I say low quality, I mean this:
https://www.nationstates.net/page=UN_vi ... 1669223492
https://www.nationstates.net/page=UN_vi ... 1669301049
https://www.nationstates.net/page=UN_vi ... 1669425753
https://www.nationstates.net/page=UN_vi ... 1669427381

So yeah, no way they’d pass if they were legal.