[INSTA-REPEAL] Repeal Preventing the Execution of Innocents

[Wallenburg]

I gave my opinion on the legality in this thread, before the proposal was submitted. None of the other GenSec members who posted here gave an opinion on that point. The author would have done better to ask for their opinion -- and perhaps to let most of the more blatantly illegal attempts disappear from the list -- before going ahead with the submission.

This is very pertinent advice. While you can complain about the delay in other GenSec members declaring their opinion via the control panel, you shouldn't have submitted in the first place without addressing legality concerns to the satisfaction of at least a couple members of GenSec.

I am still curious, though, as to why BA switched to a "legal" vote.

[Jebslund]

I gave my opinion on the legality in this thread, before the proposal was submitted. None of the other GenSec members who posted here gave an opinion on that point. The author would have done better to ask for their opinion -- and perhaps to let most of the more blatantly illegal attempts disappear from the list -- before going ahead with the submission.

This is very pertinent advice. While you can complain about the delay in other GenSec members declaring their opinion via the control panel, you shouldn't have submitted in the first place without addressing legality concerns to the satisfaction of at least a couple members of GenSec.

I am still curious, though, as to why BA switched to a "legal" vote.

[OOC: Except that is not an average rate. Asserting that it is is the same as asserting that I can walk into a supermarket and get ten gallons of milk because the sale said, "No more than two per customer per transaction" and I went five transactions without buying milk. Unless the mandate says otherwise, there is no carryover. If a nation has less than 100000 citizens, it has no way of submitting cases, because any case would put them over the 1/1,000,000 limit for that year. To suggest otherwise is nothing more than twisting the words of the resolution to suit your purposes.]

The perceived Honest Mistake was not, in fact, a mistake.

[Wallenburg]

This is very pertinent advice. While you can complain about the delay in other GenSec members declaring their opinion via the control panel, you shouldn't have submitted in the first place without addressing legality concerns to the satisfaction of at least a couple members of GenSec.

I am still curious, though, as to why BA switched to a "legal" vote.

[OOC: Except that is not an average rate. Asserting that it is is the same as asserting that I can walk into a supermarket and get ten gallons of milk because the sale said, "No more than two per customer per transaction" and I went five transactions without buying milk. Unless the mandate says otherwise, there is no carryover. If a nation has less than 100000 citizens, it has no way of submitting cases, because any case would put them over the 1/1,000,000 limit for that year. To suggest otherwise is nothing more than twisting the words of the resolution to suit your purposes.]

The perceived Honest Mistake was not, in fact, a mistake.

I see. There you go. If the author had waited for that discussion to yield its fruit, the proposal wouldn't have been stuck in the illegal queue, and might have been on track to reach quorum.

[Jebslund]

The perceived Honest Mistake was not, in fact, a mistake.

I see. There you go. If the author had waited for that discussion to yield its fruit, the proposal wouldn't have been stuck in the illegal queue, and might have been on track to reach quorum.

It shouldn't have had to, especially since it didn't even start until the resolution was submitted. Also, just looked, and BA still hasn't switched, so the discussion apparently hasn't bore fruit yet.

[Wallenburg]

I see. There you go. If the author had waited for that discussion to yield its fruit, the proposal wouldn't have been stuck in the illegal queue, and might have been on track to reach quorum.

It shouldn't have had to, especially since it didn't even start until the resolution was submitted. Also, just looked, and BA still hasn't switched, so the discussion apparently hasn't bore fruit yet.

Oops. Must have mistaken another repeal attempt for the one. In that case, the author should have waited for other members of GenSec to express their opinions once BA raised a legality concern.

[Jebslund]

It shouldn't have had to, especially since it didn't even start until the resolution was submitted. Also, just looked, and BA still hasn't switched, so the discussion apparently hasn't bore fruit yet.

Oops. Must have mistaken another repeal attempt for the one. In that case, the author should have waited for other members of GenSec to express their opinions once BA raised a legality concern.

Or BA should have realised that the idea of there being carryover where one wasn't stated made no sense.

[Wallenburg]

Oops. Must have mistaken another repeal attempt for the one. In that case, the author should have waited for other members of GenSec to express their opinions once BA raised a legality concern.

Or BA should have realised that the idea of there being carryover where one wasn't stated made no sense.

GenSec members don't change their opinions just because you want them to. Sometimes that's bad, but that's the way of things.

[Jebslund]

Or BA should have realised that the idea of there being carryover where one wasn't stated made no sense.

GenSec members don't change their opinions just because you want them to. Sometimes that's bad, but that's the way of things.

Yeah, no shit, buddy. But one would hope they do when they are shown to be demonstrably wrong.

[Wallenburg]

GenSec members don't change their opinions just because you want them to. Sometimes that's bad, but that's the way of things.

Yeah, no shit, buddy. But one would hope they do when they are shown to be demonstrably wrong.

One would set their hopes too high.

[Bears Armed]

You're blaming me for the fact that ...

I only blame you for poor quoting practices. It looks like you quoted yourself.

Oops! Fixed.

I see. There you go. If the author had waited for that discussion to yield its fruit, the proposal wouldn't have been stuck in the illegal queue, and might have been on track to reach quorum.

It shouldn't have had to, especially since it didn't even start until the resolution was submitted. Also, just looked, and BA still hasn't switched, so the discussion apparently hasn't bore fruit yet.

Are you sure that that was after the proposal was submitted, rather than -- even if only slightly -- before? It was certainly before I'd seen the pproposal submitted, and I normally check that list before this forum... If it was later then I must have been confusing my post here with the post expressing the same argument that I'd already made in the target resolution's own debate thread (in which case, again, "Oops!"... and my apologies).
I still hold, though, that as the relevant clause in the target resolution does not say that there is no carryover -- for example, by saying specifically that the limit applies "in each year" -- it is a reasonable reading of the wording used to presume that there is.
Can we at least agree that 'Preventing the Execution of Innocents' could have been written more clearly?

[Jebslund]

I only blame you for poor quoting practices. It looks like you quoted yourself. :rofl:

:blush:
Oops! Fixed.

It shouldn't have had to, especially since it didn't even start until the resolution was submitted. Also, just looked, and BA still hasn't switched, so the discussion apparently hasn't bore fruit yet.

Are you sure that that was after the proposal was submitted, rather than -- even if only slightly -- before? It was certainly before I'd seen the pproposal submitted, and I normally check that list before this forum... If it was later then I must have been confusing my post here with the post expressing the same argument that I'd already made in the target resolution's own debate thread (in which case, again, "Oops!"... and my apologies).
I still hold, though, that as the relevant clause in the target resolution does not say that there is no carryover -- for example, by saying specifically that the limit applies "in each year" -- it is a reasonable reading of the wording used to presume that there is.
Can we at least agree that 'Preventing the Execution of Innocents' could have been written more clearly?

"In each year" means just that. In. Each. Year. Not, "well, if it averages out, you're good.". In. Each. Year. A year is a finite period. It's not five years. It's not 500 years. Events which occur in a given year occur in the span between day one of that year and day 365.25 for an actual year, and day 365/366 for a calendar year. It would be unreasonable (see my milk example. I'm not going to say it a third time) to assume that skipping one year, for instance, means you can have double the cases the next. There is nothing stating such an absurd interpretation is correct, because it does not mention an average, it mentions a hard limit. One per one million citizens in *each* year.

It was written clearly. You're just trying to read what isn't there in your effort to not overlook anything. I never thought I'd say this, but you're trying too hard to be fair (IE: so hard, you're seeing what simply isn't there.).

[Battlion]

So, are we agreed if no repeal makes quorum we’re not going to spam the submission list again with repeal attempts?

[Bears Armed]

"In each year" means just that. In. Each. Year. Not, "well, if it averages out, you're good."

Yes? You seem to have missed the point that, as I have been arguing throughout, 'PtEoI' does not say "in each year": All that it says when setting the maximum rate is " no more than than one capital case per million inhabitants per year", instead, and that language is loose enough -- if one takes the whole line, rather than just the "per year" in isolation -- to allow the interpretation that gives nations with populations that are only fractions of one million the right to submit one case every [reciprocal of that fraction] years.
Anyway, I'm finished arguing the point here.

[Jebslund]

"In each year" means just that. In. Each. Year. Not, "well, if it averages out, you're good."

Yes? You seem to have missed the point that, as I have been arguing throughout, 'PtEoI' does not say "in each year": All that it says when setting the maximum rate is " no more than than one capital case per million inhabitants per year", instead, and that language is loose enough -- if one takes the whole line, rather than just the "per year" in isolation -- to allow the interpretation that gives nations with populations that are only fractions of one million the right to submit one case every [reciprocal of that fraction] years.
Anyway, I'm finished arguing the point here.

... Go. Back. To. The. Example. I. Gave. You.

[Bananaistan]

OOC: I didn't get a chance to post yet because RL. IIRC BA raised his concern before the resolution was submitted. The author had every chance to either change the proposal or request an official ruling based on it being a finished proposal before submitting it so I don't see how it's BA's fault that this failed (or is failing).

And the allegation that it's somehow a politically motivated act against the repeal is bat shit insane given BA's publicly stated opposition to the target in its drafting thread.

Out of interest, was there a campaign for delegate approval?

[Sciongrad]

And y'all wonder why people detest the Secretariat system. Well played, sir, for at least giving the impression that the Secretariat's office is another political tool in the game.

OOC: I understand it must be frustrating for some gameplayers-turned-authors that the GA can't just be used like another one of your play things where you can simply get your way by brute force or by whining the loudest, but in this part of the game, we have rules and norms and a well-defined system of determining whether those rules and norms have been followed. You rightly note that most of GenSec disagrees with him, but that does not mean he is not entitled to hold that opinion after years of consistently and coherently defending his position, or that he can't act on that opinion by holding your proposal. You may be frustrated, after having participated in the GA for all of one week, to find that a player trusted by the moderators to enforce the rules found your proposal illegal for reasons that he has consistently and explicitly held for literally hundreds of times longer than you've been in this particular forum, but that doesn't mean the system is malfunctioning.

What I really find insulting, though, is that you're throwing this tantrum even though BA's opinion was not a secret — he has said, before you submitted this proposal, that he thought there was an honest mistake violation. You either did not make the effort to learn how GenSec works or simply thought you knew better and that things would magically work out for you. But that's not how things work here. If you want to pass this proposal, follow the advice of any GenSec member that posts here. If there are conflicting opinions from us, file a challenge before you submit the proposal, otherwise, it will probably be held. Even if the legal issue ends up being nothing, as was the case here, you do not submit your proposal until the question has been resolved. GenSec works really well for most players on this forum. It seems like the ones that are most likely to complain about us are the ones least likely to bother trying to play by the rules.

GenSec members don't change their opinions just because you want them to. Sometimes that's bad, but that's the way of things.

Yeah, no shit, buddy. But one would hope they do when they are shown to be demonstrably wrong.

It doesn't matter if we're wrong. If we're wrong about an interpretation at some point, either we can be made to realize we're wrong through dialogue, or, because there are six of us, we will generally, on balance, reach the right conclusion, which would have been the case here had the author decided to either hold off on submitting briefly, or file a challenge. But if your expectation is that not a single one of us can ever be wrong, then you're living in la-la land.

EDIT: Said meta-gaming, meant honest mistake.

[Wallenburg]

Can we at least agree that 'Preventing the Execution of Innocents' could have been written more clearly?

I mean, it could have been, but then it would have probably been illegal for plagiarizing "Ban on Capital Punishment".

[Jebslund]

Yeah, no shit, buddy. But one would hope they do when they are shown to be demonstrably wrong.

It doesn't matter if we're wrong. If we're wrong about an interpretation at some point, either we can be made to realize we're wrong through dialogue, or, because there are six of us, we will generally, on balance, reach the right conclusion, which would have been the case here had the author decided to either hold off on submitting briefly, or file a challenge. But if your expectation is that not a single one of us can ever be wrong, then you're living in la-la land.

EDIT: Said meta-gaming, meant honest mistake.

I don't expect GENSEC to always be right. I expect them (you included) to admit when they're wrong and change rulings accordingly.

Speaking of... My bad. I didn't notice the discussion until after it was submitted and assumed the submission had happened first.

[Wallenburg]

I don't expect GENSEC to always be right. I expect them (you included) to admit when they're wrong and change rulings accordingly.

Again, your expectations are too high. From my experience, their rulings and the content of their rulings are final.

[Rkr]

I don’t care how we do it but we need to so everyone make a copy of it and submit it ok

[Rovikstead]

I don’t care how we do it but we need to so everyone make a copy of it and submit it ok

OOC: That would be considered plagarism, an offence that can get you ejected from the World Assemly.

[Fahran]

Again, your expectations are too high. From my experience, their rulings and the content of their rulings are final.

OOC: I do disagree quite forcefully with BA's ruling on the matter, since his interpretation does not appear to stem logically from the wording of either the target resolution or the recently floundered resolution here. It might be worthwhile to discuss the matter with him at length and then submit a resolution which can muster more support.

So, are we agreed if no repeal makes quorum we’re not going to spam the submission list again with repeal attempts?

OOC: One well-written attempt should be enough. It might be worthwhile to send out telegrams and dispatches detailing the faults of the target resolution and explaining that it protects the majority of assassins, murderers, and rapists from capital punishment before hand.

[Kenmoria]

“There still needs to be an apostrophe to make ‘resolutions’ into ‘resolution’s’ in the uneasy clause. Also, you can change the GA XXX to the actual number of the target seeing as it has now been passed.”

[Bears Armed]

I don’t care how we do it but we need to so everyone make a copy of it and submit it ok

OOC: That would be considered plagarism, an offence that can get you ejected from the World Assemly.

OOC
If the author gave their consent in advance, somewhere verifiable such as here, then it wouldn't be plagiarism... but, either way, it would be spam. Do not do this,

OOC: I do disagree quite forcefully with BA's ruling on the matter, since his interpretation does not appear to stem logically from the wording of either the target resolution or the recently floundered resolution here. It might be worthwhile to discuss the matter with him at length and then submit a resolution which can muster more support.

OOC
Don't worry. As I'm clearly outvoted on this matter by other GenSec members, as discussion currently stands, I won't bother to label a resubmitted copy as illegal unless either they do so first or the wording has been changed by enough to make it so (in my opinion, at least) for some other reason instead.

[Fahran]

OOC
Don't worry. As I'm clearly outvoted on this matter by other GenSec members, as discussion currently stands, I won't bother to label a resubmitted copy as illegal unless either they do so first or the wording has been changed by enough to make it so (in my opinion, at least) for some other reason instead.

OOC: Cool beans. I just wanted to clarify that I wasn't trying to rage at you or be petty with my remark. And, if anything is changed, I'm going to strongly advise anyone writing the draft to revise it and discuss its legality at length before submitting it.