[ACCEPTED; #1135] - My Eyes Are Up Here

[Sacara]

Changed the premise in the latest draft, number two. Renamed it to "My Eyes Are Up Here".

Name: My Eyes Are Up Here
The Issue: At the latest round of meetings between Brancaland and @@NAME@@, the feminine graces of one of the foreign female diplomats caused @@DEMONYM@@ aides to stare at her in every place other than her eyes
Validity: adult

Option 1: “These damn men need to keep their eyes north of the equator!” shouts @@RANDOMFEMALENAME@@, leader of 'The Alliance For Empowering Women Who Agree With Me'. "Our culture raises men to believe they can treat women they want to, which is utterly not the case! The only way to fix this is to ban anything that objectifies women, no matter their intent."
[Effect] school videos teaching the female anatomy system are prohibited

Option 2: "Seems a little harsh, no?" stoically interjects @@RANDOMMALENAME@@, a human resources manager at law firm in downtown @@ANIMAL@@ City. "Our firm has an impeccable reputation at treating women correctly, and that is because we ensure all new hires go through a mandatory training policy teaching them that women are to be respected and treating as queens. Maybe you can introduce this nationwide, and you will see the same results we have.
[Effect] working in @@NAME@@ has become even more boring

Option 3: “It’s not my fault she decided to wear a pretty flattering dress to the meeting,” counters one of the aides in question, simultaneously looking at your personal secretary across the room. “So what if I like to give women attention? It’s naturally who I am! They need to grow up and realize that the world can't be cats and rainbows all the time. Are we seriously considering regulating who I can look at? Of course not! After all, a focused man is a productive one."
[Effect] men who look women in the eyes while speaking are a rare sight

Option 4: "Hah! You really think we won't do just that?” challenges your Minister of Being Somewhat Equal. “We must ban these lecherous pigs we call 'men' from looking at anyone for more than a few seconds at a time. Women will be liberated once and for all, and only then can we get on par with our progressive counterparts across @@REGION@@!"
[Effect] cameramen never actually see what they’re filming

Name: No More Eye Contact
The Issue: Intense debate was sparked by @@A@@ @@MAJORINDUSTRY@@ company after they adopted the ’Six-Second Rule’, an anti-harassment policy that prohibits workers from looking at another co-worker for longer than six seconds. Some have been left to wonder if this goes too far, or if @@NAME@@ should introduce this policy nationwide.
Validity: is capitalist, adult?

Option 1: “Finally, an idea I can get behind!” applauds noted feminist, @@RANDOMFEMALENAME@@, while constantly looking from your feet to your eyes every five and a half seconds. “For far too long have we women been objectified by men in the workplace, and it is only fit for you to mandate this policy in government offices as well. No longer we will have to live in fear of men staring at us!"
[Effect] politicians never look directly in the camera

Option 2: “Are you kidding me? So what if I like to give women attention; it’s who I am!” argues @@RANDOMALENAME@@, all the while looking at your secretary across the room. “I mean, I don’t try to be creepy, but it’s no right of the government to say how long I can look at someone. When I grew up, it was polite to look someone in the eyes while they’re speaking, and that’s all I’m trying to…”. He forgets to finish his sentence as an aide walks in the room.
[Effect] staring at people is the latest trend

Option 3: “This doesn’t even go far enough,” ponders liberal think-tank member, @@RANDOMMALENAME@@. “What about the people outside of the government? The best thing to do is introduce this policy and mandate that all businesses follow it, even private ones. Only then can we have a dispute free society."
[Effect] cameramen can never tell where they are actually filming

[Jutsa]

Very nice draft, Sacara.

Only problems I can find are as follows:
a) At first I didn't even realize that option 1 is only for government offices, and tbh I still can't help but feel it suggests implementing it for everyone including people in government just a little.
b) Option 2 is a bit of a "do-nothing" option, imo. Then again, I'm not really sure if you can do much else about it.
c) I'd love if this issue could arise for communist nations too; perhaps you could tweak the description a little to suggest that an individual place put that policy into effect?
(unless that doesn't work for communist nations...)

That's really all I have atm.

[Australian rePublic]

So, is this only for men looking at women? What about men looking at men? Women looking at wonen? Women looking at men? Or are they exempt. Good premise either way, but I feel as if you should specify. The narrative needs to be slightly changed to suite either situation and changes are based on which path you go down

[Sacara]

a) At first I didn't even realize that option 1 is only for government offices, and tbh I still can't help but feel it suggests implementing it for everyone including people in government just a little.
b) Option 2 is a bit of a "do-nothing" option, imo. Then again, I'm not really sure if you can do much else about it.
c) I'd love if this issue could arise for communist nations too; perhaps you could tweak the description a little to suggest that an individual place put that policy into effect?

A) I will change it to all government officials
B) I thought the same thing while writing this, but I'm stuck as to what it should do. To be honest, a player choosing this already signals their social conservatism more or list.
C) Another idea I had while writing. I'll see what I can think of when I get home. Thanks for the feedback!

So, is this only for men looking at women? What about men looking at men? Women looking at wonen? Women looking at men? Or are they exempt. Good premise either way, but I feel as if you should specify. The narrative needs to be slightly changed to suite either situation and changes are based on which path you go down

Extremely fair point. I will attempt to make edits when I get home. Thanks for the feedback!

[Candlewhisper Archive]

I love the idea, though I think it would work better if the premise was an incident of excessive staring, and the six-second rule was presented as an option instead. This'd ground the issue more with some sense of reality. For example you could have a visiting dignitary complaining that one of your staff spent almost the whole two hours of her visit staring at her cleavage.

[Australian rePublic]

I love the idea, though I think it would work better if the premise was an incident of excessive staring, and the six-second rule was presented as an option instead. This'd ground the issue more with some sense of reality. For example you could have a visiting dignitary complaining that one of your staff spent almost the whole two hours of her visit staring at her cleavage.

And another staff member saying it's her fault for not covering it up

[Sacara]

I love the idea, though I think it would work better if the premise was an incident of excessive staring, and the six-second rule was presented as an option instead. This'd ground the issue more with some sense of reality. For example you could have a visiting dignitary complaining that one of your staff spent almost the whole two hours of her visit staring at her cleavage.

New draft is up to work with this new premise.

I love the idea, though I think it would work better if the premise was an incident of excessive staring, and the six-second rule was presented as an option instead. This'd ground the issue more with some sense of reality. For example you could have a visiting dignitary complaining that one of your staff spent almost the whole two hours of her visit staring at her cleavage.

And another staff member saying it's her fault for not covering it up

Option two of draft two.

[Trotterdam]

People can sometimes stare at you for reasons other than sexual attraction.

Also, needs a speaker who approves of staring. Either in a "if people don't want to be stared at, they should deal with it themselves rather than whine to the government" manner (this could be done by adjusting option 2 to be more pro-freedom, but beware #368 2, "women wear burqas to avoid unwanted male attention"), or an outright "staring should be encouraged" manner.

@@DEMONYM@@ aids

"Aides".

Option 1: “Women are not just toys that men can do with as they please!” shouts @@RANDOMFEMALENAME@@, leader of the National Organization of @@DEMONYM@@ Women. "It’s our culture we live in! We must ban advertisements and videos that objectify women, no matter their intent. Teaching men that women are equal to them will end our system of sexism."

How will that work? If people have a hard time acquiring pinups of attractive women, then meeting an attractive woman in real life would be even more of a treat.

[Effect] women are prohibited from even showing their ankles

This is very similar to the effect line for #101 2, "women who display their ankles are shunned by society".

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Agree with Trotterdam, and this should probably be option 2. If someone enjoys staring at women, they're hardly going to be the advocate for them covering up.

[Sacara]

To be honest, I wasn't quite confident in this draft when I released it. I'm glad I received criticism, and I will implement them later today.

[Sacara]

Putting this one on hold for now.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Don't you dare abandon this one. Even if there are improvements to be made, it's already starting at a quality point where we'd add it to the "yes" pool.

Polish it up and make changes, for sure, but please don't ditch it.

[Trotterdam]

One thing I'm concerned about is that we already have various issues about sexual harrassment in the workplace, such as #368 and #918. The main difference is that merely staring is a much milder form of harrassment, and easy to do subconsciously without any ill intent, and therefore more controversial about whether it should actually be criminalized.

As I said, though, there are reasons to stare at people other than finding them sexually attractive. For example (since you're talking about a foreign diplomat in this issue), you might simply be curious about the weird foreigners and their funny outlandish clothing and mannerisms. Or you might be paranoid and think they're up to something. Or for that matter, you might suspect someone else of staring at you and so keep looking back at her to see where her eyes are pointing. In awkward social situations, staring can easily turn circular.

I find yet another "any man who so much as thinks sexual thoughts about a woman is evil" issue to be tiresome, so try to make the dilemma more interesting than that.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

One thing I'm concerned about is that we already have various issues about sexual harrassment in the workplace, such as #368 and #918.

Fair point, that. Though in the light of #metoo you might argue that we're under-representing sexual harassment in the game, given how endemic it seems to be.

Broadly though, as long as the premise feels like a different premise, I think we're not going to worry too much about the topic trends of the issue base: it'd be too hard a thing to actively engineer, and there's always going to be biases in topic selection depending on what interests authors and editors. To give an example, there's 343 issue options in the game that directly affect the IT industry, and 63 that affect Insurance. Ultimately, it's just more likely that a bunch of youngish folk playing an internet game are going to pick topics relating to computers than to insurance. Likewise there's almost twice as many opportunities to change police spending compared to military spending, twice as many relating to military spending compared to welfare spending, and twice as many of those as opportunities to change foreign aid. Just so happens we get a lot of people interested in writing about crime and enforcement, and not many wanting to write about foreign aid.

So yeah, trends gonna trend. As long as each issue has a unique selling point in its story, that doesn't concern me.

[Sacara]

Don't you dare abandon this one. Even if there are improvements to be made, it's already starting at a quality point where we'd add it to the "yes" pool.

Polish it up and make changes, for sure, but please don't ditch it.

I didn't realize people liked this draft. I'll update it tomorrow sometime.

[Sacara]

By 'tomorrow' I meant August 6th.

Did an overhaul to the draft in general. I like this one quite a bit, actually. Let me know about option two's effect line.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Issues can be adult-only, but effect lines will always be visible to class nations by visiting front pages of nations who have answered adult issues.

Therefore all effect lines should be child-friendly as possible, and that includes not referring to porn.

[Trotterdam]

Therefore all effect lines should be child-friendly as possible, and that includes not referring to porn.

#323 3. the fastest growing demographic of porn viewership is twelve to seventeen
#446 1. late night adverts for breast milk co-ops regularly win pornography industry awards
#832 1. internet sites are legally unable to stop their users from posting pornography

[Jutsa]

Love the last few posts...

Quite different from last I saw it! I've got nothing to add other than:
1) Option 1: "The culture we live raises" ... seems strange. Should "in" be between "live" and "raises", or is this fine as-is?
2) Option 3: Being Somewhat But Not Too Much Equal; kinda clunky, idk if it's even proper grammar tbh .-.
What about "Being Somewhat But Not Too Equal" or "Having Some But Not Too Much Equality"?

That's it, really. I don't even see a porn reference in any of the current effect lines,
unless that's what "adult actress" means... though, I kinda just assumed that was a safeguard
against potential implications of child actresses also showing up.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Therefore all effect lines should be child-friendly as possible, and that includes not referring to porn.

#323 3. the fastest growing demographic of porn viewership is twelve to seventeen
#446 1. late night adverts for breast milk co-ops regularly win pornography industry awards
#832 1. internet sites are legally unable to stop their users from posting pornography

Good points there, I'll discuss reviewing those.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Current discussion suggests that mentioning the existence of porn is okay on effect lines. Bringing "adult actresses to motivate their employees" definitely straddles that line, though. I'd definitely change that if I was editing.

[Sacara]

Current discussion suggests that mentioning the existence of porn is okay on effect lines. Bringing "adult actresses to motivate their employees" definitely straddles that line, though. I'd definitely change that if I was editing.

Okay, thanks for the clarification. I'll attempt to come up with a new one.

[Sacara]

New effect line for option two. Anymore feedback?

[Shwe Tu Colony]

Orange words are suggestions, orange ellipsis are removed phrases (unless connected to a word, in which case it is a suggested addition), underlined words are comments. Man, I really need to be more active here...

Code: Select all

[color=#FF6A00][/color]

Name: My Eyes Are Up Here
The Issue: At the latest round of meetings between Brancaland and @@NAME@@, the feminine graces of one of the foreign female diplomats caused @@DEMONYM@@ aides to stare at her in every place other than her eyes ... .
Validity: adult

Option 1: “Men need to keep their eyes north of the equator!” shouts @@RANDOMFEMALENAME@@, leader of 'The Alliance For Empowering Women Who Agree With Me'. "The culture we live in raises men to believe they can treat women however they so please, which is definitely not the case! To fix this, we need to ban anything that objectifies women, no matter its original intent. Teaching men that women are equal to them in every sense will finally end our system of sexism."
[Effect] female dolls are banned for "objectifying woman" (entirely optional; it's just an alternative)

Option 2: “It’s not my fault she decided to wear a pretty flattering dress to the meeting,” counters one of the aides, ... simultaneously gazing at your personal secretary across the room. “So what if I like to give women attention? It’s just who I naturally am! They need to grow up and realize that the world can't be cats and rainbows all the time. Are we seriously considering regulating who I can look at? Of course not! After all, a focused man is a productive one."
[Effect] women often cover themselves in as much clothing as possible to avoid perverted gazes

Option 3: "Hah! You really think we won't do just that?” challenges your Minister of Being Somewhat But Not Too Much Equal. “We must ban these lecherous pigs we call 'men' from looking at anyone for more than a few seconds at a time. Women will be liberated once and for all, and only then can we get on par with our progressive counterparts across @@REGION@@!"
[Effect] cameramen never actually see what they’re filming

[Sacara]

Orange words are suggestions, orange ellipsis are removed phrases (unless connected to a word, in which case it is a suggested addition), underlined words are comments. Man, I really need to be more active here...

Code: Select all

[color=#FF6A00][/color]

Name: My Eyes Are Up Here
The Issue: At the latest round of meetings between Brancaland and @@NAME@@, the feminine graces of one of the foreign female diplomats caused @@DEMONYM@@ aides to stare at her in every place other than her eyes ... .
Validity: adult

Option 1: “Men need to keep their eyes north of the equator!” shouts @@RANDOMFEMALENAME@@, leader of 'The Alliance For Empowering Women Who Agree With Me'. "The culture we live in raises men to believe they can treat women however they so please, which is definitely not the case! To fix this, we need to ban anything that objectifies women, no matter its original intent. Teaching men that women are equal to them in every sense will finally end our system of sexism."
[Effect] female dolls are banned for "objectifying woman" (entirely optional; it's just an alternative)

Option 2: “It’s not my fault she decided to wear a pretty flattering dress to the meeting,” counters one of the aides, ... simultaneously gazing at your personal secretary across the room. “So what if I like to give women attention? It’s just who I naturally am! They need to grow up and realize that the world can't be cats and rainbows all the time. Are we seriously considering regulating who I can look at? Of course not! After all, a focused man is a productive one."
[Effect] women often cover themselves in as much clothing as possible to avoid perverted gazes

Option 3: "Hah! You really think we won't do just that?” challenges your Minister of Being Somewhat But Not Too Much Equal. “We must ban these lecherous pigs we call 'men' from looking at anyone for more than a few seconds at a time. Women will be liberated once and for all, and only then can we get on par with our progressive counterparts across @@REGION@@!"
[Effect] cameramen never actually see what they’re filming

Much thanks! I really think your suggestions improve the quality of the draft.