Draft Security Council rules re-write - feedback wanted

[Sedgistan]

Security Council Proposal Rules

The following rules apply to all proposals submitted to the Security Council. Every proposal is reviewed by Moderators for legality, and illegal ones are held from going to vote. All authors are strongly encouraged to draft their proposal in a new thread in the Security Council forum, seeking advice from other experienced players to ensure their proposal's quality and legality prior to submission.

1. Proposal Contents
   
   1. World Assembly legislation: Proposals must be written from the perspective of the World Assembly or Security Council, not that of your nation, region or another organisation.
      
      Note that this is "from" the perspective of the WA, not "addressed to" the WA. Most authors will start their proposal with "The Security Council" or "The World Assembly" - you are not required to, but it helps to ensure the rest of your proposal is written in line with this rule.
   2. Relevant argument: Proposals must contain an argument for the proposal, which must be relevant to what it is doing; for example if Commending a nation you should include reasons why that nation warrants a Commendation. If your proposal is a Repeal it must address the contents of the resolution it is repealing.
      
      If your argument uses a different name to refer to the nominee in the argument (e.g. a Condemnation of "Sedgistan" refers to "Sedge") you need to clearly state that this is an alternate name for the nominee (e.g. "Noting that Sedgistan is more commonly referred to as Sedge").
      
      Repeals are essentially arguing that the WA has changed its opinion on a subject - and this can sometimes be due to reasons not discussed in the resolution being repealed. However, the repeal should still address the arguments made in the original resolution. A good example was Repeal "Commend Sedgistan" which mentioned new events (the Devonitians coup in The South Pacific) to argue that the original Commendation's citation of defending as a reason to Commend had been undermined by those non-defender actions.
   3. Duplication: Nations that are currently Commended or Condemned for a certain set of actions can't be Commended or Condemned again for that set of actions. Equally, Liberations cannot duplicate the reasons for any existing ones for that region.
      
      This still allows you to Condemn or Commend a different nation or region for the same or similar action or set of actions.
      
      Additionally, nations/regions can be Commended/Condemned more than once - so long as the proposals are based on different sets of actions. In general, if you've Condemned someone for X behaviour, and then want to Condemn the same nation/region for more X behaviour, you're going to have to explain what's different about it now that means that it warrants a further Condemnation.
      
      A region can 'stack up' multiple Liberations, so long as they do not duplicate each other in content.
   4. Operative clause: Proposals must contain an operative clause that states what the proposal is actually doing - e.g. Hereby Condemns Sedgistan.
      
      Operative clauses must be clear that they're targeting the nominee, rather than the actions cited in the argument clauses. You must clearly state the name of the nominee in the operative clause, not a nickname, and misspelling the name is liable to get your proposal removed.
      
      The action that a resolution does (Condemning, Commending, Liberating or Repealing) does not have to be attributed to any body - however, if it is, it must be attributed to an appropriate authority - ie. the World Assembly or The Security Council. A proposal cannot have "Sedgistan Hereby Condemns Jakker" as its operative clause.
   5. No further actions: A Proposal cannot attempt to do more than what it is able to do; Commendations/Condemnation can only Commend/Condemn the nominee, Liberations can only Liberate the targeted region, and Repeals can only repeal the targeted resolution. For example, your proposal cannot impose fines, sanctions or a boycott on a Condemned nation.
2. 4th Wall
   
   1. NationStates game: Proposals cannot refer to the game, or events or actions in it, as part of a game.
      
      This is the hardest area of the rules to get right for newcomers. Note, the NationStates world is different to the real world, and we permit language used to describe the unique aspects NationStates world - not just the gameplay aspects, but also ones from roleplay and other communities.
      
      We often get asked if a certain term is legal within this rule - it is hard to give a definitive answer, as words can be used in so many different ways. For example "player" referring to the person playing the game is illegal, but saying a nation is a "major player" within a region is legal. The list below is a non-exhaustive guide to the most commonly raised queries:
      
      

      • NationStates or NationStates community - fine, it's considered synonymous with "the world" or "the world's community".
      • Multiverse - legal, same as NationStates.
      • Personal pronouns - illegal when referring to the nation; most commonly seen with "he" or "she". However, using the personal pronoun "who" to refer to a nation, while discouraged, is considered a grammatical error, not a rules violation.
      • Terms included within NationStates the game - eg. passwords, World Factbook Entries, founders, eject, Regional Message Board, 'black helicopters transporting nations between regions' - legal. However that does not apply to "OOC" pages or parts of pages, such as the News page, FAQs and Getting Help page.
      • Cards, and associated cards minigame related terms - legal, although the more commonly used and more "IC" term is "international artwork".
      • Store features, stamps, Postmaster General etc. - all references to commercial aspects of NationStates are forbidden.
      • Feeder (as in 'feeder region') or Sinker - legal.
      • Roleplayer, Gameplayer - illegal.
      • Forums - legal unless it "plainly refers to the electronic entity".
      • Thread (as in a forum topic) - illegal - simply describe what is done within the thread.
      • Post (as in 'post' on the forums or an RMB) - legal; it's another unique feature of NationStates that nations can post on RMBs etc.
      • "Tag" (and other variants - "tagging", "detagging" etc.) - legal when referring to the raider/defender practices.
      • April Fool's Day and its various events - not automatically illegal, but ask for a ruling before submitting.
   2. Real world: Proposals cannot reference the "real world" outside of NationStates. In particular, they must refer to nations as nations, not as the player behind them. This includes avoiding the use of personal pronouns such as "he" or "she"; instead use "they".
      
      Note that reference to solely real world ideologies without reference to NationStates is prohibited. Real world ideologies are ones such as Thatcherism, Fabian Socialism, or Peronism that refer to particular real world people or groups, as against ideologies that are not considered real world dependent, such as communism, capitalism, fascism. Nazism is not considered a RW ideology - it is considered synonymous with national socialism, and also has an established presence within the NS multiverse (e.g. in Issues).
      
      See the guide on specific terms in the Expanded details of the above rule for more.
3. Appropriate Topics
   
   1. Site staff: Proposals cannot Commend or Condemn members of the site staff (Moderators, Administrators, Issues Editors, Roleplay Mentors, General Assembly Secretariat etc.) for actions taken as part of their role.
      
      Staff may still be Commended or Condemned for non-staff actions. Note that there are some "niche" staff roles such as Northrop-Grumman's work on the Dark Theme that are still covered by this rule.
      
      Issues Editors - Any issue-related work carried out by Issues Editors while on the staff is covered by this rule, including issues authoring. You may still Commend or Condemn for issues added to the game before joining the team or after leaving the team.
      
      General Assembly Secretariat - Authoring GA resolutions is fine to mention in proposals, as their role doesn't impact on this.
   2. Beyond the SC's capacities: Don't use proposals to raise issues that should be dealt with elsewhere, such as rules violations and technical suggestions. In some circumstances rules violations may be legal to refer to in a proposal - you must always request a ruling prior to submission if you wish to do this.
      
      Commendations and Condemnations exist to Commend/Condemn nations/regions, Liberations to Liberate a region; Repeals to repeal a resolution. If you're looking to do something else with a proposal, you shouldn't be.
      
      WIth regards to rules violations, these should be reported via the normal channels. If a rule violation has been handled by Moderators already, it may be possible to refer to this in a proposal - for example if a nation was operating multiple WA nations. Any attempt to cite rules violations in a proposal must have a Moderator ruling prior to submission; otherwise your proposal will be marked as illegal. Permitting reference to rules violations is purely at the Mod team's discretion.
   3. Site rules: The Site Rules apply to any content submitted to the site - i.e. including proposals. In particular, note the Copyright section, which prohibits plagiarism.
      
      Plagiarism applies not just to copying an entire proposal, but also to lifting individual clauses from other proposals. Plagiarising the framework of another proposal is generally not a good idea either, and will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
4. Miscellaneous Rules
   
   1. Links: In-game links to nations, regions and UN/WA resolutions are allowed within proposals so long as they are formatted not to show the url. Links to Dispatches, RMB posts, the NationStates forum or offsite webpages are not permitted.
   2. Branding: Listing co-authors of a proposal is permitted; note these must be nations, and each listed co-author has the right to request a proposal be removed from the submission queue. Lists of supporters or similar are not permitted.
   3. Symbolic proposals: these are ones that target a nominee that is named after something else; e.g. Commend The Security Council Proposal Rules. Each is judged on a case-by-case basis and you must request a Moderator ruling prior to submission.
      
      At a minimum, any "symbolic" proposal must make sense when read about the actual nation/region it is targeting; that applies to all the proposal text. So "Condemn The Security Council Proposal Rules because my proposals keep violating them" is not going to pass muster.
      
      Symbolic proposals must target a "concept" that is part of NationStates in some way. So even if you can write a Condemnation of Twitter that otherwise makes sense, it's still illegal as Twitter is not part of NationStates. Use the General forum if you want to express your opinion on non-NationStates affairs.

Consequences of Violations

Violation of the Security Council Proposal Rules will result in your proposal being marked illegal and being held before it can go to vote. Violation of the Site Rules in a proposal may result in more serious punishment, which can include ejection from the World Assembly.

Commentary

The Security Council ruleset is deliberately minimalist; while the ruleset has evolved from its original format in 2009, the intention remains to keep the SC as accessible as possible for those new to it, without the complex rules lawyering seen in other chambers of the World Assembly.

The primary responsibility for determining the standards of Security Council resolutions lies with delegates. Unless a proposal violates one of the above rules, it is unlikely to be deleted. If you don't like misspelled proposals, or proposals Condemning raiders just because they're raiders, or proposals Commending your region's bitterest enemies, or the way a group of nations has got together to push a particular line, it's up to you to do something about it. And the "something" is not "call the mods".

Finally, please note that the following are not rules violations:

• Self-Commending: widely frowned upon, but if you think you warrant a Commendation but no-one else is writing it for you, knock yourself out.
• Speling and grammer errors: Moderators are not spellcheckers. So long as your spelling and grammar don't inadvertantly cause a rule violation or descend into spam, it's up to WA members to decide whether they want to pass a resolution filled with errors.
• Joke proposals: international politics is inherently funny, and that is sometimes reflected in Security Council legislation. There is a point where "joke proposal" becomes "spam proposal" but we're relatively lenient on this. Especially around April 1st.
• Factual inaccuracies: Moderators are not arbiters of truth. It may come as a surprise to some, but real-world nations can occasionally be liberal with their approach to the truth. The same applies to NationStates nations, and it's up to you to distinguish your facts from the alternative facts.
• Tit-for-tat: Sedgistan hereby Condemns Jakker for Condemning Sedgistan. If you want to get into a tit-for-tat war with another player, so long as you aren't violating the Proposal Rules, that's up to you.
• General Assembly Rules: belong in the General Assembly, thank you very much. They don't apply here.

[Sedgistan]

Legality Checks

If you require a legality check for an aspect of your proposal, make that request in your drafting thread. If it's not answered within a few days, then post in Moderation linking to the thread and asking for a check. We do not generally carry out full proposal legality checks - it is the author's responsibility to write a legal proposal. Moderators will simply clear up cases when there is an uncertainty with the application of an aspect of the rules.

If your check is urgent or requires confidentiality, we may occasionally entertain legality requests via Getting Help Request; this is entirely at our discretion, and whatever ruling is made will likely be made public in due course.

Use of Puppets in Debate Threads

Puppetwank for gameplay purposes is generally tolerated (obviously unless done to break the rules). For example, if a player operates under several identities, then posting as more than one of them in the thread would be fine. However, using puppets to boost the apparent support for a proposal is frowned upon and mods will take action to stop it, which may include calling the nations out publicly.

Further Advice and Resources

Your best bet is always to post a thread in the Security Council forum for your proposal. There is an experienced community of Security Council players who can give you advice on authoring, campaigning and legality. The following threads are also worth reviewing:

• SC Questions & Answers
• SC Rules discussion
• Passed Security Council Resolutions
• Defeated Security Council Proposals

[Sedgistan]

As promised...

The above two posts are a draft new ruleset for the Security Council. This is intended to replace both the existing rules thread and the Compendium. It achieves that by using spoilers for the "Expanded details" (i.e. fodder for rules lawyers).

I churned this out this morning. There will definitely be room for improvement, whether that by the organisation, ordering, names of the rules, or explanations. I might well have missed bits. Feedback is wanted, as this is not the finished article.

The intention was to try to keep things short, and numbered (or lettered) as with the current ruleset. However, having to refer to two documents to get an understanding of the rules is not ideal, hence moving it all to one. I have also substantially re-ordered, re-grouped and re-named the rules so they are no longer in the order Ardchoille wrote them in 2009, and instead flow a bit better. For example, Rule 1 goes through the process of what content you need in your proposal.

Experienced SCers, myself included, will find this annoying. I like Rule 4 being Rule 4. Rule 1 is what I like to bash Cretox with. But for the sake of those who come after us, I think the re-ordering is worthwhile.

You may notice a small change here or there to the rules, if you look carefully through my posts.

[Starfyre]

I already gave quite a bit of feedback on the WA discord, so I'll be pretty brief. This new rule set looks fine to me as an SC player, and I like how everything is now compiled into one place. A question I didn't ask is that what will happen when future rulings are made? Will they be added into the rule set, or will they be added at the bottom as a spoiler of mod rulings?

[Sedgistan]

The intention is to keep everything in one place - so rulings will go in the "Expanded details" under the relevant rule when appropriate; if a new rule is required that'll get added to the Miscellaneous Rules. As far as is possible I'd prefer for people not to have to follow lots of links to see old rulings. If I can compress them sufficiently to go in the ruleset (under the spoilers) that would be best.

[Bhang Bhang Duc]

My first impressions Sedge are that this looks pretty good. Mind you I will miss Rule 4. I will go through it in more detail later.

Can I suggest you pin this thread so that it stays prominent - prevent it being out of sight, out of mind.

[Starfyre]

The intention is to keep everything in one place - so rulings will go in the "Expanded details" under the relevant rule when appropriate; if a new rule is required that'll get added to the Miscellaneous Rules. As far as is possible I'd prefer for people not to have to follow lots of links to see old rulings. If I can compress them sufficiently to go in the ruleset (under the spoilers) that would be best.

Thanks Sedge, that makes sense. I think it'll take awhile to get used to the new numbering, but this rule set looks better than any of the ones we as players tried to come up with. Speaking for myself I can live with this and don't think it needs any corrections, except one that I'll suggest now. Is this a good time to enshrine the 3 co-author rule into the SC rules, while previously it wasn't?

[Sedgistan]

My preference is to leave the rules as minimalist as possible. If someone wants to list 20 co-authors then they can take the risk that WA voters reject the proposal for looking like a laundry list.

[Starfyre]

My preference is to leave the rules as minimalist as possible. If someone wants to list 20 co-authors then they can take the risk that WA voters reject the proposal for looking like a laundry list.

I'd rather have a set in stone limit of three like the GA has, but that's just me and I dont know how the others feel about it. What about this ruling dealing with listing your own nations as co-authors? Shouldn't that be included in the new rule set??

[Sedgistan]

I can't say I'm bothered if someone does that, but I guess it could come under "only list co-authors; you can't co-author something with yourself". I'm open to hearing what others think on that.

[A mean old man]

Hyperlink in 4c is broken.

EDIT: didn't understand; I get it now.

[Tinhampton]

Can't we just merge the old rules thread and the Compendium?

[Jakker]

It seems like the biggest change of this other than a rewrite is that tit-for-tat would be allowed (as far as I can see). I would be curious to see what newer SC players think about the rewrite compared to the old. It is definitely good to combine things together. I wonder if 3b "irrelevant to the SC" might make sense to be reworded as "beyond the SC's capacities" or something to that effect? I'm just thinking out loud about the concept of something being irrelevant to the Security Council versus something that the SC is not designed to deal with if that makes sense.

[Flanderlion]

I like this - allowing joke proposals especially. "Speling" got me though.

[Morover]

Feedback:

1d mildly duplicated 1a, if you care.
1c - Clarify extant resolutions. Probably "Nations that are currently C/C'd" as opposed to "have already been C/C'd" would work best.
2 - could "Metagaming" be used as opposed to "4th wall"? I feel that it's more self-explanatory and more in-line with what it actually means, regardless of internal phrasing. The rules should be catered towards new players, not the veterans.
2a - I know that this was copy-pasted from the rulings compendium, but perhaps a new format would be ideal? I think ideally a table that is organized into legal and illegal categories would be ideal - if not a table, then at least rearrange them into a different order than "date ruling was made", which is unintuitive for newcomers.
2b - "as against" -> "as opposed to"
3a - Clarifications as to GenSec may be ideal here, as it is not entirely intuitive when compared to IE work.
3b's title is wonky and should probably be changed.
3c - I don't like the last paragraph; I don't think that it really follows and instead should be left up to the voters. Additionally, the way it's phrased may vaguely suggest that any recognition of regions/nations named after unrelated entities is disallowed, even if not symbolic.

Overall, a good draft with much-needed changes. In on-site illegalities, might I suggest using formats like "1c (duplication)"?

[Sedgistan]

1d/a duplicating - I'd prefer to keep them separate as they are different points (albeit related).

1c - reworded to "Nations that are currently Commended or Condemned".

2 - I'm open to other names for this rule. I dislike the word "metagaming" in the SC, but only because it's one we've not really used before (it was always a GA term).

2a - I've slightly reordered this. Open to suggestions on layout / further changes to ordering.

2b - changed.

3a - added something under the spoiler re. GenSec.

3b - renamed as per Jakker's suggestion.

3c - you mean 4c? I'm open to re-wording of the last paragraph, but I do think it's necessary. Someone once tried a Condemnation of the Holocaust, and that's really not something the SC is the appropriate venue for.

In on-site illegalities, might I suggest using formats like "1c (duplication)"?

Makes sense. Keep the "numbers" and "names" camps happy.

[Lord Dominator]

2 - I'm open to other names for this rule. I dislike the word "metagaming" in the SC, but only because it's one we've not really used before (it was always a GA term).

If you flip the ordering on 2a and 2b, 'Real World References' would probably be close enough + obvious to new people, since that's basically what both are about.

[Sedgistan]

I had them the other way around originally, but the list of terms (which are mainly game-related ones rather than non-NS "real world" terms) fitted better under "NationStates game" and I wanted to have that list in the first part of Rule 2. It's also what trips people up more than referring to random RL stuff.

That's not a "no", just an explanation of the ordering.

[Morover]

I did mean 4c, sorry!

Much better now - thinking more about rule 2, it might not be as big an issue as I initially thought. "4th Wall" is a term used quite a bit in my industry, and I was unaware of how well-known it was outside of that industry, and I think I overcompensated for that unfamiliarity.

1a/d and 4c - it's probably not that big of a deal. The former I figured I might as well point out, and the latter is probably not going to be an issue for any newcomer as symbolic resolutions are usually done by more experienced players.

[Unibot III]

My own opinion is the new ruleset draft is more complicated than the old set, and less minimalist because the points don’t flow together.

You’ve cut one rule down by consolidating two rules into one, but I think it’s not worth the trouble. Changing all of the numbers also is just confusing for no real gain.

My opinion is a reformed SC Ruleset would be more comprehensible *and minimalistic* with a fifth rule. Trying to keep the ruleset down to four points complicates the ruleset rather than minimizes it.

I’ll take a stab at an alternative draft today since I’ve got some time. And I don’t like criticizing something without being prepared to present an alternative.

[Tinhampton]

Should I take the lack of response to my earlier comment as an indication that the replacement of the 2009 ruleset will be non-negotiable, but its proposed contents are the only topic at stake?

[Sedgistan]

There was no intention to limit the number of rules to 4; they were grouped as they were because that's how I felt they best fitted together.

Should I take the lack of response to my earlier comment as an indication that the replacement of the 2009 ruleset will be non-negotiable, but its proposed contents are the only topic at stake?

The after your post made me think it was a non-serious suggestions, so I didn't address it. I don't think merging the Compendium (which has large sections of redundant information) with the existing rules thread is the solution. You'd still have a split between the main rule and then scrolling down to find the more detailed explanation in the Compendium posts.

[Unibot III]

Here's what I've done Sedge ... I've mostly used your text. I would also strongly urge dropping the rule against linking to forum.nationstates.net - there's no rational reason for it anymore, not with internal links to Dispatches & RMB posts that can also be edited.

I think using terms like "Duplication" and "Branding" as stuff are handy for moderators, but they're not helpful for new players because they're not clear. The new terms bring the SC ruleset in line with the GA ruleset, but they complicate the ruleset for the uninitiated.

I've tried to write a ruleset that is clear, but more collequial for newcomers. Graphics draw the new author to focus on the area of a resolution you're speaking about. I've reordered the rules based around the traditional order, in part because I think an effective ruleset should follow the order in which you're writing things. When a new player starts writing a resolution, first, they choose a nominee. Then, they write a header. Then they write an argument. Then, they conclude with an operative clause and co-authors.

So why not have a ruleset that acts partly as a guide, step by step, as they're writing a resolution? Asking questions like: who can you legally commend/condemn? What's legal to put in the text? How should I write it? Who can I credit? The success of the original ruleset was it was relatively short and its ordering was more intutive than we gave it credit for.

EDIT: The table looks lousy in mobile. I’d want to figure out a different way to present the images. But you can see the proof of concept - the graphics are a visual guide for newcomers.

---

1. Select your nominee carefully. Proposals cannot Commend or Condemn members of the site staff (e.g., Moderators, Administrators, Issues Editors, Roleplay Mentors, General Assembly Secretariat etc.) for actions taken as part of their role. Staff may still be Commended or Condemned for non-staff actions. Note that there are some "niche" staff roles such as Northrop-Grumman's work on the Dark Theme that are still covered by this rule. Issues Editors - Any issue-related work carried out by Issues Editors while on the staff is covered by this rule, including issues authoring. You may still Commend or Condemn for issues added to the game before joining the team or after leaving the team. General Assembly Secretariat - Authoring GA resolutions is fine to mention in proposals, as their role doesn't impact on this.
Most authors will start their proposal with "The Security Council" or "The World Assembly" - you are not required to, but it introduces the organization adopting the proposal. See Rule 4 below.
2. A proposal must make an argument for commending/condemning/liberating a nominee. When making this argument: Be original. No plagerizing past resolutions! Be relevant. You can use site links - but no external links please! Don't raise issues that should be dealt with elsewhere, such as rules violations and technical suggestions. Remember, the Site Rules still apply to any content submitted. A: Nations that are currently Commended or Condemned for a certain set of actions can't be Commended or Condemned again for that set of actions. Equally, Liberations cannot duplicate the reasons for any existing ones for that region. This still allows you, however, to Condemn or Commend a different nation or region for the same or similar action or set of actions. Additionally, nations/regions can be Commended/Condemned more than once - so long as the proposals are based on different sets of actions. In general, if you've Condemned someone for X behaviour, and then want to Condemn the same nation/region for more X behaviour, you're going to have to explain what's different about it now that means that it warrants a further Condemnation. A region can 'stack up' multiple Liberations, so long as they do not duplicate each other in content. B: Proposals must contain an argument for the proposal, which must be relevant to what it is doing; for example if commending a nation you should include reasons why that nation warrants a Commendation. If your proposal is a Repeal it must address the contents of the resolution it is repealing. If your argument uses a different name to refer to the nominee in the argument (e.g. a Condemnation of "Sedgistan" refers to "Sedge") you need to clearly state that this is an alternate name for the nominee (e.g. "Noting that Sedgistan is more commonly referred to as Sedge"). Repeals are essentially arguing that the WA has changed its opinion on a subject - and this can sometimes be due to reasons not discussed in the resolution being repealed. However, the repeal should still address the arguments made in the original resolution. A good example was Repeal "Commend Sedgistan" which mentioned new events (the Devonitians coup in The South Pacific) to argue that the original Commendation's citation of defending as a reason to commend had been undermined by those non-defender actions. C: In some circumstances rules violations may be legal to refer to in a proposal - you must always request a ruling prior to submission if you wish to do this.
3. Proposals must conclude by stating what the proposal is 'doing' - and only what it is doing (e.g., Hereby Condemns Sedgistan.) Operative clauses must be clear that they're targeting the nominee, rather than the actions cited in the argument clauses. You must clearly state the name of the nominee in the operative clause, not a nickname, and misspelling the name is liable to get your proposal removed. The action that a resolution does (Condemning, Commending, Liberating or Repealing) does not have to be attributed to any body - however, if it is, it must be attributed to an appropriate authority - ie. the World Assembly or The Security Council. A proposal cannot have "Sedgistan Hereby Condemns Jakker" as its operative clause. A Proposal also cannot attempt to do more than what it is able to do; Commendations/Condemnation can only Commend/Condemn the nominee, Liberations can only Liberate the targeted region, and Repeals can only repeal the targeted resolution. For example, your proposal cannot impose fines, sanctions or a boycott on a Condemned nation.
4. Remember, proposals must always be written from the perspective of the World Assembly. That means you cannot refer to: Nations as players. This includes the use of pronouns such as "he" or "she" (rather than then "they"). The "real world" outside of NationStates. The game, or events or actions in it, as part of a game. This is the hardest area of the rules to get right for newcomers. Note, the NationStates world is different to the real world, and we permit language used to describe the unique aspects NationStates world - not just the gameplay aspects, but also one from roleplay and other communities. We often get asked if a certain term is legal within this rule - it is hard to give a definitive answer, as words can be used in so many different ways. For example "player" referring to the person playing the game is illegal, but saying a nation is a "major player" within a region is legal. The list below is a non-exhaustive guide to the most commonly raised queries: NationStates or NationStates community - fine, it's considered synonymous to "the world" or "the world's community". Multiverse - legal, same as NationStates. Personal pronouns - illegal when referring to the nation; most commonly seen with "he" or "she". However, using the personal pronoun "who" to refer to a nation, while discouraged, is considered a grammatical error, not a rules violation. Terms included within NationStates the game - eg. passwords, World Factbook Entries, founders, eject, Regional Message Board, 'black helicopters transporting nations between regions' - legal. However that does not apply to "OOC" pages or parts of pages, such as the News page, FAQs and Getting Help page. Cards, and associated cards minigame related terms - legal, although the more commonly used and more "IC" term is "international artwork". Store features, stamps, Postmaster General etc. - all references to commercial aspects of NationStates are forbidden. Feeder (as in 'feeder region') or Sinker - legal. Roleplayer, Gameplayer - illegal. Forums - legal unless it "plainly refers to the electronic entity". Thread (as in a forum topic) - illegal - simply describe what is done within the thread. Post (as in 'post' on the forums or an RMB) - legal; it's another unique feature of NationStates that nations can post on RMBs etc. "Tag" (and other variants - "tagging", "detagging" etc.) - legal when referring to the raider/defender practices. April Fool's Day - not automatically illegal, but ask for a ruling before submitting. Note that reference to solely Real World ideologies without reference to NationStates is prohibited. Real World ideologies are ones such as Thatcherism, Fabian Socialism, or Peronism that refer to particular Real World people or groups, as against ideologies that are not considered Real World dependent, such as communism, capitalism, fascism. Nazism is not considered a RW ideology - it is considered synonymous with national socialism, and also has an established presence within the NS multiverse (e.g. in Issues).
5. At the bottom of the proposal, you may list co-authors of a proposal, however ... these must be nations, and each listed co-author has the right to request a proposal be removed from the submission queue. Lists of supporters or similar are not permitted.

[Sedgistan]

The forums threads links isn't a new ruling - viewtopic.php?p=24571672#p24571672 and viewtopic.php?p=7500192#p7500192 for example. It's actually a loosening of standards (see Ransium here: viewtopic.php?p=36908221#p36908221 ) as the prohibition on linking to Dispatches is gone.

Duplication / Branding; I get your point for Branding, less so for Duplication. It seems a clear title for a rule against duplicating content. "Branding" is mainly about co-authors, but it touches on some other stuff too (e.g. supporter lists). What better title can you suggest? Credits?

Graphics... I get the desire to use them. However, the forum software is old and clunky, and the way your table looks is just ugly :/

Ordering of rules... I would argue that most people looking at the rules are either veterans just checking on something, or an occasional newbie wanting to know how to write a resolution -- and I would think most newbies people who have come as far as reading the ruleset probably have a target in mind for their resolution already.

That's why I went with the "proposal contents" rule first, as that's what I think most newcomers will be looking for advice on. After content/format, the next most likely problem is the current Rule 4, which is why it's been bumped up the list to 2.

I really am open to reordering rules - I'd like to hear from others about that. The downside to keeping the current Rule 4 in 4th position in my draft, is that you then have "Miscellaneous rules" above it -- which doesn't really fit.

If others have views on Unibot's points / draft ruleset, please share them.

[Unibot III]

I’m very familiar with the forum ruling - I’m saying it should be dropped because the new rulings (RE: dispatches) contradict the reasoning for the old forum ruling. At this point, there’s no rational reasoning behind banning one and not the other.

I agree that newbies probably (sometimes?) have a target in mind before they begin drafting, but I think it’s important to establish first that they can pursue a nominee before they draft further. That’s why the original ruleset’s order, in a way, worked (I think unintentionally).

I have an idea about how to make the images a lot prettier, but it would take a bit of work. If people like the idea of images accompanying the the ruleset, I could venture off and create that.

I should add that I like the text you’ve written, my problem is with the structuring and the terminology mostly; it doesn’t have much of a logical connection behind its order and categorization (and it breaks up all of the SC’s customary numbering too) - jumping around from fourth wall stuff, stylistic, structural and moderation stuff back and forth making it hard to follow; the accompanying terminology/jargon brings the new ruleset in line with the GA ruleset, but without serving much of a purpose except confusing things.

I’m not sure who this new ruleset is supposed to help? For seasoned SC authors, it renumbers all of their rules rather needlessly and disrupts the SC culturally. For inexperienced SC authors, it bounces around subject to subject. I mean I think most authors would want to keep the order they’re familiar with, so they can continue to say ‘that’s a Rule 1-4’ violation as they always have. And I think a newbie would want a ruleset that progresses from the initial considerations to the basic necessities to stylistic considerations.

I also suspect what will happen is you’ll create a situation where the rules change but the culture doesn’t adopt the change. If thread contributors are still responding to people in threads saying stuff like “That’s a R4 violation,” as shorthand for Real World violations, you’ve just made the ruleset infinitely more confusing for new players because they would now need to learn not only the current ruleset but also the history of the old ruleset and why players culturally refer to Rule 1.A & 2 as Rule 4 etc. That’s a worse case scenario, but I think it might happen.