[PASSED] Commend Northern Chittowa

[Unibot II]

Waste of the Council's time? I'm sorry to tell you this, but the whole point of the council is to talk about this stuff. There is no other function. We can't make up other duties or regions to liberated or something.

While we can't make up regions to be liberated, we can find something else to do. The point of the council is to "Spread interregional peace and goodwill...", and I don't exactly see how commending a nation spreads peace or goodwill. All we're saying is, "Hey, great job on doing whatever you've done. Of course, if you screw up, we'll just repeal this resolution and you'll be frowned upon by anyone who's ever held you in good favor"

I'd oppose most reprisal commendations unless it really really undermined what the nominee has done, like helping out a region.. then destroying the region.. or something. Recognizing our peace and interregional heroes is a big part of creating an education in peace. We often only focus on the infamous people of NS and don't give enough recognition to the people that bring our worlds together for the good.

[Falconias]

First of all, don't get me wrong. I have a tremendous amount of respect for NC, he's one of the game's more intellectual and respectable players.

That being said, replying to Sedge's post...

That clause was included as I believe that NC rescuing the FRA from the situation it was left it in was one of his finest achievements - it was something that required a great amount of diplomacy and effort. It's not there to serve as an insult as you. Yes, I could've omitted your nation's name, but I think it gives context to the clause, in the same way that I listed the other founders of the FRA in an earlier clause.

I can understand that you're upset by it - clearly it doesn't reflect well on you, but as explained above, it was not included to annoy you. As for the question of whether you single-handedly sent the FRA to its deathbed - that is not what I said. I claimed that your term as Arch Chancellor was ultimately a failure, and resulted in the FRA being close to death. I stand by that claim - activity in the organisation had dropped to a whisper, the Rangers and Intel departments did very little work, and most damaging of all, the FRA's reputation had been besmirched by the closure of all its embassies - resulting in the loss of several allies and friends. It gave the impression that the FRA didn't care for others (member regions included), and many regions were hostile towards the organisation as a result.

Northern Chittowa helped to solve all of these problems as Arch Chancellor, as activity rocketed, the Rangers and Intel department went from strength to strength (notably acquiring the password to Belgium, and organising the liberation of that region and Feudal Japan), and embassies were re-opened, resulting in the renewal of friendships lost over the previous few months.

That's all well and dandy Sedge, but your intentions are much different than the implications of such a statement.

There's absolutely no need to include my name in this commendation. I don't wish to be associated with that. Did you include, perhaps, that the FRA was on the brink of collapse largely due to the fact that the entire administration went into semi-retirement before I took office? The only reason I was successfully elected to the Arch-Chancellorship was because Big Killer Babys, Northern Chittowa, Sir Lans and The Merlion were all but completely invisible. There was zero of the same support staff that my predecessors had to work with. I wasn't elected to run the show myself, but then for you to also imply that Northern Chittowa turned around the FRA single-handedly is also ridiculous. There are several characters who have received jack shit credit for their work after my term. Yourself included, but also Numero Capitan et al, and I myself had a significant role. I closed the embassies, you are correct, but I don't believe the response was as hostile as you believe, and part of my policy still stands -- we don't have embassies with raiders. My contributions to the Rangers and intel department during my major tenure during the FRA also went uncredited... which is fine, I don't really seek credit for it, but I certainly don't deserve the negative backlash that this f*ing commendation will permanently store in the main NationStates database.

But anyway, of course, you were kind enough to summarize all that into a statement that would be better off honestly written as "Falconias nearly killed the FRA, but Northern Chittowa single-handedly recovered it." That's what your statement implies, and that's why I'm so bloody offended by the whole thing. Retired or not, nobody likes a stain like that post-mortem so to speak.

What's even further ironic is that I fought for a while before I retired to try and keep defender-raider stuff out of the WA and SC, which of course has been a miserable failure and I still stand by my belief that it has had a negative impact on the dynamics of the game...

[Unibot II]

What's even further ironic is that I fought for a while before I retired to try and keep defender-raider stuff out of the WA and SC, which of course has been a miserable failure and I still stand by my belief that it has had a negative impact on the dynamics of the game...

The dynamics of the game being your legacy?

[Jedi-Gangsters]

@ Falconias: Do you think Sedge is alone in his opinion about your influence on the FRA during your tenure as AC? Just asking a question...

[Agersia]

Though I voted for this commendation, I agree with Falc (probably would have voted against if i saw this thread first, but anyway...) on both of his points.

1.) That line was not necessary, could have reworded in a number of ways that didn't hurt any one's reputation such as "NC helped bring the FRA back from the brink of death during [time period instead of "Falc's Term as Arch-Chancellor"]. Me and Falc may have argued a lot and yes he may have switched sides, but he never did anything that would warrant pinning his name to this and forever tying him to this.

2.) The SC is not meant to be a battleground at least not directly. The liberation resolutions are fine, but the commend/condemn thing is ridiculous, because I have not seen one that didn't involve a nation on either side. True enough, defending/raiding is a dynamic of the game, but with these it is treated as the only dynamic. What about the nations that have been here for 3 years+ that never involved themselves (at least willingly) in that part of the game. The ones that just roleplay, debate, etc. I think commendations should just be like an achievement type thing, where if your nation has been active continuously for x amount of time then you get a commendation (a medal or something) that appears on your nation's factbook. Now condemnations are a bit different, but they shouldn't be focused on those that raid, or declare war on other regions because some players roleplay that way, but on things that people universally agree ruins the game for people. Like disruptive posts on rmb or forum.

However to balance it out. Since we have a liberation resolution that forces secretly passworded regions to lose their passwords we should have something like sanctions that if a region gets sanctioned then no nations can move out of that region for x amount of time (never permanent) even if those nations are ejected/banned, they won't be moved out of the region until the sanction is over. That way, people can't break the sanction simply by banjecting the nations that want out. These can be used defensively and offensively, however there has to be a "cool down" period so that a series of sanctions won't be able to essentially make a permanent sanction (say if a sanction is placed on a region for 3 months, then once the sanction expires, you have to wait 3 months before another sanction is placed on that same region. And the minimum length a sanction can last is 14 days.)

[Unibot II]

What about the nations that have been here for 3 years+ that never involved themselves (at least willingly) in that part of the game. The ones that just roleplay, debate, etc.

They get a commendation too?

[Struthiones]

What about the nations that have been here for 3 years+ that never involved themselves (at least willingly) in that part of the game. The ones that just roleplay, debate, etc. I think commendations should just be like an achievement type thing, where if your nation has been active continuously for x amount of time then you get a commendation (a medal or something) that appears on your nation's factbook. Now condemnations are a bit different, but they shouldn't be focused on those that raid, or declare war on other regions because some players roleplay that way, but on things that people universally agree ruins the game for people. Like disruptive posts on rmb or forum.

While I agree that commendations shouldn't be based purely on things like raiding, defending, and your part in the liberation of a region, I don't think that commendations should be as common as this would make them. While commendations are pretty much a "pat on the back", so to speak, they should be given to nations whose in-game debating, role playing, and peaceful negotiations (provided that they can compare to some of the most infamously great nations), have affected their regions or the whole of NS. I know that raiding and defense are some of the most common aspects of this game, but commendations and condemnations should not be based purely on that. If someone didn't decide to raid a nation or region (whatever the reason) then nobody would ever have to have defended that nation/region, and if no one actively defended their nation/region, even before there was a threat of a raid, then nobody would have thought to raid the nation, because nobody would have payed attention the the undefended nation.

In the end, commendations and condemnations should be awarded through a separate council devoted to the research of members who are influential (in anyway) in the forums because of their role playing and debating. The same is true of condemnations, Hitler was influential too.

[Charlotte Ryberg]

Congrats on passing the 50th SC Resolution.

(Cue, Muttley laugh)

- Ms. S. Harper.