[LAST CALL] General Assembly Authorship Guidelines

[Daan Island]

As part of their six point GA overhaul plan, mods nuked the old ruleset and built a new one from the ground up. Many people made salient points about issues with this ruleset, which were entirely ignored. Fast forward a few months and they're rebuilding the Relevance rule from first principles after the blank repeal. As such, I bring to you a declaration concerning a community standard for General Assembly authors. The aim is to have this be enough of a community consensus to have it effectively apply by default, and I believe that is mostly already the case. Nonetheless, I think it would be optimal to formalize this as a declaration. Of course, this is not intended to be something people get crucified over if they have one similar clause to a previous resolution, just a bare minimum that should be trivial to follow if you do your due diligence. One big advantage here is formalizing blockers though clause 1 of the main list.

Someone will inevitably bring up the issue of legality due to rule 3a, but I think this is legal as written. It doesn't explicitly mention the rules overhaul or even frame itself specifically as a fix to that, it exists independently to any site staff decision. In July last year Sedge wrote:

A ruleset along the lines of the one in Violet's proposal would be much easier for players to comply with, and it leaves decisions on standards directly in the hands of players.

General Assembly Authorship Guidelines

category: Declaration | Co-authors: Cretox State

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The Security Council,

Valuing certain practices in General Assembly proposal drafting as fostering a healthier, more democratic, and more efficient international legislative body,

Finding that formal and informal rules have both varied greatly over the existence of the General Assembly and its predecessor which shall not be named, often being driven by international community standards,

Wishing therefore to adopt a formal community standard more stringent than current legal rules and timeless in its domain,

Defines such a community standard as follows, which nations are urged to conform to when writing General Assembly legislation:

1. Proposals and their mandates should not be contradictory to those of extant resolutions; contradicting laws significantly undermine the integrity and enforceability of the whole body of General Assembly law,
2. Proposals should not overtly mention or advertise any nation or region; the Security Council already provides mechanisms to recognize deserving nations and regions while the General Assembly risks losing legislative credibility if it is hijacked for such purposes,
3. Proposals should not duplicate the contents or mandates of standing resolutions; requiring the same acts or omissions multiple times produces entirely unnecessary complications in logistics, enforcement, and potentially other areas,
4. Repeals of passed resolutions should make a good faith effort not to misrepresent the target resolution; arguing for the repeal of standing legislation should be feasible using truthful information if it is in fact flawed or unnecessary,
5. Repeals should contain an argument for repeal which is relevant to the specific contents of the target resolution; such helps filter away vague assertions which could apply to any resolution,

Promotes the following additional guidelines for authoring nations to follow, as a matter of common courtesy:

1. Proposals should be drafted in public forums for a lengthy enough time period to receive feedback from other nations; public drafting and consideration of feedback results in less instances of faulty writing and gives WA members a chance to openly voice their concerns,
2. No proposal should be written with the aid of artificial intelligence; the Security Council has previously denounced the use of artificial intelligence for creative and diplomatic purposes in SC#578 for its theft of ideas and use in achieving recognition without authentic effort.

As much as I support you and ethnon, I think that this just highlights already established guidelines.. so sorry, but, AGAINST

[Heavens Reach]

As much as I support you and ethnon, I think that this just highlights already established guidelines.. so sorry, but, AGAINST

No guidelines have been established for how the General Assembly operates post-reset or under the new rules, particularly not as a statement of community expectations.

[Grenartia]

The discussion is turning out not to be so simple, and two competing visions for tweaking the rule are being considered.

Out of curiosity, has there been any movement on this?

And what are the two competing visions?

[Lipizia]

Ok, For.
Anyway, I suggest to use "World Assembly" instead of "General Assembly": if there a SC proposal have been submitted, and it's completely made with IA, it's ok because it's SC and not GA?

[Saint Halo]

Proposals should be drafted in public forums for a lengthy enough time period to receive feedback from other nations; public drafting and consideration of feedback results in less instances of faulty writing and gives WA members a chance to openly voice their concerns,

What would you consider "lengthy?" Does that amount of time changer per author?

[Northern Slatavia]

Proposals should be drafted in public forums for a lengthy enough time period to receive feedback from other nations; public drafting and consideration of feedback results in less instances of faulty writing and gives WA members a chance to openly voice their concerns,

What would you consider "lengthy?" Does that amount of time changer per author?

Well GA#6 took almost 3 months of drafting, and GA#7 took a little less than two weeks. Both recieved a recommendation for the vote from the author of this proposal. I think it's really matters what the topic is, as a resolution on War Crimes will most likely take more time than one on limiting power.

[Islandwalk]

I have implemented Grenartia's feedback and slightly modified the phrasing as follows (relevant section underlined):

No proposal should be written with the aid of artificial intelligence; the Security Council has previously denounced the use of artificial intelligence for creative and diplomatic purposes in SC#578 for its theft of ideas and use in achieving recognition without authentic effort.

No proposal should be written using large language models; the Security Council has previously denounced the use of artificial intelligence for creative and diplomatic purposes in SC#578 for its theft of ideas and use in achieving recognition without authentic effort.

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Proposals should be drafted in public forums for a lengthy enough time period to receive feedback from other nations; public drafting and consideration of feedback results in less instances of faulty writing and gives WA members a chance to openly voice their concerns,

What would you consider "lengthy?" Does that amount of time changer per author?

As this is a matter of common courtesy and not a firm rule, I avoid specifying a strict standard amount. The real answer is that it depends on the topic. Something simple like a liberation repeal (the non-contentious ones) can be up for 2 weeks before submission, first time GA proposals and the like would benefit from at least a month of drafting, and more if feedback is scarce.

[Dengist China]

I have implemented Grenartia's feedback and slightly modified the phrasing as follows (relevant section underlined):

No proposal should be written with the aid of artificial intelligence; the Security Council has previously denounced the use of artificial intelligence for creative and diplomatic purposes in SC#578 for its theft of ideas and use in achieving recognition without authentic effort.

No proposal should be written using large language models; the Security Council has previously denounced the use of artificial intelligence for creative and diplomatic purposes in SC#578 for its theft of ideas and use in achieving recognition without authentic effort.

I think it should be the following instead, which is editing Grenartia's edit:

No proposal should be written using large language models (LLMs); the Security Council has previously denounced the use of LLMs for creative and diplomatic purposes in SC#578 for its theft of ideas and use in achieving recognition without authentic effort.

[Heavens Reach]

I have implemented Grenartia's feedback and slightly modified the phrasing as follows (relevant section underlined):

I think it should be the following instead, which is editing Grenartia's edit:

No proposal should be written using large language models (LLMs); the Security Council has previously denounced the use of LLMs for creative and diplomatic purposes in SC#578 for its theft of ideas and use in achieving recognition without authentic effort.

I may as well follow up on this. Specifying LLMs is a mistake. Generative AI (GAI) is the more general use case and encompasses LLMs and future generative architectures.

[Dengist China]

I may as well follow up on this. Specifying LLMs is a mistake. Generative AI (GAI) is the more general use case and encompasses LLMs and future generative architectures.

Fair point. I agree.

[Adriatic Democratic Empire]

my main questions regarding this have been answered so I'm pretty comfortable voting FOR

[Nolrem]

my main questions regarding this have been answered so I'm pretty comfortable voting FOR

If they ever let us vote on it

[Hesitant Dispatch 440]

my main questions regarding this have been answered so I'm pretty comfortable voting FOR

If they ever let us vote on it

Jury's still out on that.

[Grenartia]

Thank you for the nod, Islandwalk.

I think it should be the following instead, which is editing Grenartia's edit:

I may as well follow up on this. Specifying LLMs is a mistake. Generative AI (GAI) is the more general use case and encompasses LLMs and future generative architectures.

The primary reason I avoid "GAI" or even "GenAI" for "Generative AI" is because it shares the same abbreviation as "General AI", which is widely understood to refer to the kind of AI that many people would understand to be 'deserving of rights as a person'.

That's also why I specified Large Language Models. To be clear about the kind of technology that we're trying to condemn the use of. While all LLMs are 'generative AI', not all 'generative AI' are LLMs, but only LLMs are capable of being used to generate textslop. AFAIK, other forms of generative AI generate imageslop, which isn't relevant for stopping slop proposals. I'm not opposed to another resolution to condemn imageslop on here, but I think it should be a separate resolution.

If they ever let us vote on it

Jury's still out on that.

How do we poke Sedge to get an update, anyways?

[Dushina]

Proposals should be drafted in public forums for a lengthy enough time period to receive feedback from other nations; public drafting and consideration of feedback results in less instances of faulty writing and gives WA members a chance to openly voice their concerns,

Should this clause make explicit exception for cases of especially time-sensitive proposals, or is this something wholly unacceptable in the GA? If so, why or why not? I do admittedly share New Halo's concern in this regard.

[Heavens Reach]

Thank you for the nod, Islandwalk.

I may as well follow up on this. Specifying LLMs is a mistake. Generative AI (GAI) is the more general use case and encompasses LLMs and future generative architectures.

The primary reason I avoid "GAI" or even "GenAI" for "Generative AI" is because it shares the same abbreviation as "General AI", which is widely understood to refer to the kind of AI that many people would understand to be 'deserving of rights as a person'.

That's also why I specified Large Language Models. To be clear about the kind of technology that we're trying to condemn the use of. While all LLMs are 'generative AI', not all 'generative AI' are LLMs, but only LLMs are capable of being used to generate textslop. AFAIK, other forms of generative AI generate imageslop, which isn't relevant for stopping slop proposals. I'm not opposed to another resolution to condemn imageslop on here, but I think it should be a separate resolution.

Jury's still out on that.

How do we poke Sedge to get an update, anyways?

The term you are concerned about is "artificial general intelligence" (AGI). That is a distinct acronym, and has a distinct meaning from "generative artificial intelligence" (GAI).

Proposals should be drafted in public forums for a lengthy enough time period to receive feedback from other nations; public drafting and consideration of feedback results in less instances of faulty writing and gives WA members a chance to openly voice their concerns,

Should this clause make explicit exception for cases of especially time-sensitive proposals, or is this something wholly unacceptable in the GA? If so, why or why not? I do admittedly share New Halo's concern in this regard.

I cannot think of a scenario in which any GA proposal has ever been treated with that sort of urgency or under which it should be. Almost invariably, except for when it's in service of a power play, submitting straight to the queue renders your proposal DOA.

[Grenartia]

Thank you for the nod, Islandwalk.



The primary reason I avoid "GAI" or even "GenAI" for "Generative AI" is because it shares the same abbreviation as "General AI", which is widely understood to refer to the kind of AI that many people would understand to be 'deserving of rights as a person'.

That's also why I specified Large Language Models. To be clear about the kind of technology that we're trying to condemn the use of. While all LLMs are 'generative AI', not all 'generative AI' are LLMs, but only LLMs are capable of being used to generate textslop. AFAIK, other forms of generative AI generate imageslop, which isn't relevant for stopping slop proposals. I'm not opposed to another resolution to condemn imageslop on here, but I think it should be a separate resolution.



How do we poke Sedge to get an update, anyways?

The term you are concerned about is "artificial general intelligence" (AGI). That is a distinct acronym, and has a distinct meaning from "generative artificial intelligence" (GAI).

I'll concede on the AGI thing, but I'm still unconvinced that specifying LLMs is a bad move.

Proposals should be drafted in public forums for a lengthy enough time period to receive feedback from other nations; public drafting and consideration of feedback results in less instances of faulty writing and gives WA members a chance to openly voice their concerns,

Should this clause make explicit exception for cases of especially time-sensitive proposals, or is this something wholly unacceptable in the GA? If so, why or why not? I do admittedly share New Halo's concern in this regard.

I cannot think of a scenario in which any GA proposal has ever been treated with that sort of urgency or under which it should be.

I concur.

[United Calanworie]

Hello,

Let me first lead with apologies for how long this took. We're still hashing out exactly how we want the wording to look, but ultimately we did come to the conclusion that this proposal really does belong in the General Assembly under the new ruleset. Broadly speaking you can expect the rule change to say "if you're regulating the GA, it should belong in the GA."

Again, apologies for how long this ruling took to deliver.

[Grenartia]

Hello,

Let me first lead with apologies for how long this took. We're still hashing out exactly how we want the wording to look, but ultimately we did come to the conclusion that this proposal really does belong in the General Assembly under the new ruleset. Broadly speaking you can expect the rule change to say "if you're regulating the GA, it should belong in the GA."

Again, apologies for how long this ruling took to deliver.

Given this ruling, and the fact that I have a draft in the works in the GA addressing this, I'd like to invite Islandwalk to co-author.

[Heavens Reach]

Hello,

Let me first lead with apologies for how long this took. We're still hashing out exactly how we want the wording to look, but ultimately we did come to the conclusion that this proposal really does belong in the General Assembly under the new ruleset. Broadly speaking you can expect the rule change to say "if you're regulating the GA, it should belong in the GA."

Again, apologies for how long this ruling took to deliver.

Given this ruling, and the fact that I have a draft in the works in the GA addressing this, I'd like to invite Islandwalk to co-author.

Not acceptable. Islandwalk is the original author on this topic.

[Inevitable Poverty]

Hello,

Let me first lead with apologies for how long this took. We're still hashing out exactly how we want the wording to look, but ultimately we did come to the conclusion that this proposal really does belong in the General Assembly under the new ruleset. Broadly speaking you can expect the rule change to say "if you're regulating the GA, it should belong in the GA."

Again, apologies for how long this ruling took to deliver.

I'm curious as to how a purely non-binding list of encouragements denotes "regulation". If regulation means any commentary on a body whatsoever, should C/C's for a nations, say, GA contributions be made as a GA proposal since it discusses that body?

[Grenartia]

Given this ruling, and the fact that I have a draft in the works in the GA addressing this, I'd like to invite Islandwalk to co-author.

Not acceptable. Islandwalk is the original author on this topic.

I'm feeling some kinda way about this request.

First I was pressured into promising not to submit my draft before Islandwalk. Which, fine, I knew this question would likely be settled one way or another before mine was ready, and I actually do recognize the wisdom behind "don't snipe someone else's draft, even if its in a different chamber". But now that the question has been decided in such a way that he doesn't get to submit his draft, I don't feel a need to be bound by any unwritten rule.

So now, because the good ol boy from a GCR, with 2 current authorships, didn't get his way, the small-fry noob that actually put her draft in the right chamber, and with teeth, is expected to stand back and brownnose the good ol boy for the slightest chance that even some small amount of her hard work making it into his future GA draft?

If that's not what this situation is, by all means, correct me. But that's exactly what this feels like to me: picking on the noob from a small UCR because she's a noob from a small UCR with unpopular opinions on WA legislation.

[Heavens Reach]

Not acceptable. Islandwalk is the original author on this topic.

I'm feeling some kinda way about this request.

First I was pressured into promising not to submit my draft before Islandwalk. Which, fine, I knew this question would likely be settled one way or another before mine was ready, and I actually do recognize the wisdom behind "don't snipe someone else's draft, even if its in a different chamber". But now that the question has been decided in such a way that he doesn't get to submit his draft, I don't feel a need to be bound by any unwritten rule.

So now, because the good ol boy from a GCR, with 2 current authorships, didn't get his way, the small-fry noob that actually put her draft in the right chamber, and with teeth, is expected to stand back and brownnose the good ol boy for the slightest chance that even some small amount of her hard work making it into his future GA draft?

If that's not what this situation is, by all means, correct me. But that's exactly what this feels like to me: picking on the noob from a small UCR because she's a noob from a small UCR with unpopular opinions on WA legislation.

It's pretty obviously not the situation that Voopmont's level of influence has anything to do with this. Before you wrote anything on the topic, I forewarned you that because Voopmont had a draft on this that I would not support it until and unless this draft had its time at vote. Nothing has changed on that front. But it is completely and totally normative within the etiquette of both of these chambers to expect that when someone precedes your work with a well-developed idea that your own attempt at it will be seen as the competing satellite to that work. What is unacceptable in this instance isn't that you have a competing article, but that you think that a moderation decision that precludes this being handled in this chamber, where most of us believe it is appropriate to handle this, means that Voopmont should now be relegated to a co-author of your attempt at a legislative draft on this (or rather a related) topic that you were discouraged from making in the first place.

[Grenartia]

I'm feeling some kinda way about this request.

First I was pressured into promising not to submit my draft before Islandwalk. Which, fine, I knew this question would likely be settled one way or another before mine was ready, and I actually do recognize the wisdom behind "don't snipe someone else's draft, even if its in a different chamber". But now that the question has been decided in such a way that he doesn't get to submit his draft, I don't feel a need to be bound by any unwritten rule.

So now, because the good ol boy from a GCR, with 2 current authorships, didn't get his way, the small-fry noob that actually put her draft in the right chamber, and with teeth, is expected to stand back and brownnose the good ol boy for the slightest chance that even some small amount of her hard work making it into his future GA draft?

If that's not what this situation is, by all means, correct me. But that's exactly what this feels like to me: picking on the noob from a small UCR because she's a noob from a small UCR with unpopular opinions on WA legislation.

It's pretty obviously not the situation that Voopmont's level of influence has anything to do with this.

Not from where I'm sitting.

Before you wrote anything on the topic, I forewarned you that because Voopmont had a draft on this that I would not support it until and unless this draft had its time at vote. Nothing has changed on that front.

It arguably has.

But it is completely and totally normative within the etiquette of both of these chambers to expect that when someone precedes your work with a well-developed idea that your own attempt at it will be seen as the competing satellite to that work.

And I completely understand that. That is part of why I agreed to bow to the pressure and hold off until this question was decided, and until his draft came to a vote if the decision was in his favor. That did not happen, thus, I feel no need to be bound by that promise, because the conditions it was predicated on no longer hold.

What is unacceptable in this instance isn't that you have a competing article, but that you think that a moderation decision that precludes this being handled in this chamber, where most of us believe it is appropriate to handle this,

I.e., "small fry UCR noob has unpopular opinion on WA legislation."

means that Voopmont should now be relegated to a co-author of your attempt at a legislative draft on this (or rather a related) topic that you were discouraged from making in the first place.

If he really cares about making meaningful legislation against AI slop resolutions, he can help me improve my draft.

[Hesitant Dispatch 440]

-Snip-

Grenartia, I'm going to be very honest with you. I don't mean to be rude, I just think you're earnestly trying to engage in GA affairs and deserve as much.

Your proposal was not very good, if I remember it correctly. The first post from Heaven's Reach still points out its flaws very adequately. This is fine - everyone has to start somewhere and no one is born knowing how to write GA resolutions of all things - but it's a bad draft and that underpins what kind of reception you'll get to it in more ways than just feedback.

Exactly one thing has changed with this proposal's (il)legality decision: the GA community will now have to adapt to the idea of some of its resolutions broaching on meta topics to itself out of necessity. A stupid thing to force the community to do when it's clear many people here thought that the Security Council was by far the more suitable venue for a meta declaration about OOC authorship, but I digress. This means that your proposal will no longer have this one objection against it, but conceptually it still has many fundamental problems that need to be addressed. It's simply not ready for submission, not even close. Voopmont's is, of course, and as I pointed out in the NSGP server it only needs to change the first mention of Security Council to General Assembly to be legal as a GA proposal. Now that moderation has cut short a venue that was seen by the community as most natural, this is the next best thing.

The second big, arguably bigger, problem here is that you seem to perceive Voop's draft as competition when it really isn't beyond one of its mandates (item 1 of "Promotes"). Your proposal is about generative AI, while his is about re-enforcing the old GA ruleset as a matter of community consensus (of the "Defines" clause, item 1 is "Contradiction", 2 is "Branding", 3 is "Duplication", 4 is "Honest Mistake/Veracity", 5 is "Relevance", all rules of the old GA Rules Compendium). Your two proposals can coexist but you'd nevertheless run into the big issue that the SC already has a declaration condemning GAI, cited by the resolutions itself, SC#578! If you want to fill this niche of GAI as it pertains to authorship beyond just saying "don't use it" that's great, but you have to be aware that this is what you're doing. Your proposal is not an overarching declaration of authorship standards (contrary to what its title implies), it's a very specific meta denouncement of GAI use by authors.

You do not get to come here and proclaim victory, saying you were right all along and that you'd written the draft for the "right chamber" and graciously offering the author of this proposal a co-authorship, when what you wrote was a bad draft that went against the community's standards at the time and had very little to do with this proposal in the first place. You are embarrassing yourself here and have only damaged your GA prospects by doing this.

Take some time off, meditate on your proposal, contact established authors and community figures for guidance and help. Maybe you'll find that the topic idea itself doesn't merit a proposal, for reasons HR also pointed out to you on a skim of your proposal's draft, and that a single mandate in a broader authorship standards proposal would be far more appropriate, which is what Voopmont's draft does currently. Maybe you'll find some other related idea. Maybe not. Perhaps you'll just move on to the next one and have more success there.

You are a "UCR noob" from my point of view, despite your nation's age, so act like a good one. Get help. You're not being persecuted, you're being judged for bad decisions and worse attitudes. Far from irreversible, but it will be if you keep this combativeness up.