Security Council (Amendment) Bill 2013

The formula that's been made public can't be quoted in the Regional Assembly because... because what exactly?

Please can we be provided with a link?

It used to be that you gain influence at a rate directly proportional to your endorsement count. I'm not making this up am I?

That would mean that the average endorsement count required to gain an SPDR must be proportional to the target level of influence.

These are reasonable, basic assumptions which lead to the idea that the function is linear, but the figures provided by COE imply that it might not be, and you say it's implemented non-linearly.

Wouldn't it be clearer if you just stated the function? I know I haven't earned it but I thought I'd ask anyway.
 
I am proposing this change:

Security Council (Amendment) Bill 2013

1. Article 3, Clause 8 of the Constitution of The North Pacific is hereby amended to read as follows,

8. The Vice Delegate will hold the second most endorsements in the region. The Delegate may eject or ban any nation which exceeds any legally mandated endorsement limit.
Click to expand...

1. Chapter 5 of the Codified Law of The North Pacific is hereby renamed to “Regional Security Law”

2. Chapter 5, Section 5.1 of the Codified Law of The North Pacific is hereby amended to read as follows,

Section 5.1: Council Requirements
4. The influence requirement for members of the Council consists of an influence score (Soft Power Disbursement Rating) within The North Pacific greater than or equal to 270, though when a nation's influence score within The North Pacific is unknown as the displayed score may include significant influence within other regions, an influence rank within The North Pacific greater than or equal to Vassal may be substituted.
5. The minimum endorsement count for members of the Council is defined as 200 endorsements, or 50 per cent of the serving Delegate's endorsement count, whichever is lower.
6. The Vice Delegate must maintain an endorsement level of at least 75 per cent of the Delegates endorsement count.
7. Where the computation results in fractions, the count shall be rounded down.
8. The serving Delegate is exempt from endorsement requirements.
Click to expand...

3. The following is hereby inserted after Section 5.3 of the Codified Law of The North Pacific,

Section 5.4: Endorsement Gathering
20. The Delegate may eject or ban for reckless endorsement gathering any nation in The North Pacific which meets all of the following criteria:
21. It is not in the Council or holding the office of Delegate or Vice Delegate.
22. It has been reported to the Delegate as a possible threat to regional security by the Council.
23. It has continued actively gathering endorsements after two warnings against gathering endorsements sent at least two days apart from each other.
24. It has more endorsements than 50 fewer than the Vice Delegate or 75 per cent of the Delegate's endorsement level, whichever is least.
25. The Delegate may eject or ban for reckless endorsement gathering any nation in The North Pacific which exceeds the Vice Delegate's endorsement count.
26. Nations banned for reckless endorsement gathering must remain banned at least until they update outside The North Pacific.
Click to expand...

4. The existing Section 5.4 will be renumbered to 5.5, and the existing clause 20 of Chapter 5 will be renumbered to 27.
Click to expand...

I have changed the SPDR requirement so that it matches the endorsement requirement from what I understand after some discussion with COE and SillyString.

On top of that, I have added in a minimum endorsement level for the Vice Delegate of 75%. Sanctaria is well above that level, so it will not effect him at all. This is to address situations in the past where the Vice Delegate has failed to tart and the Regional Assembly has not held that individual to account for it.

It will also address situations where the Vice Delegates endorsements are kept deliberately low, as this will mean that the Security Councils influence growth will be significantly lower than the Delegates which could cause potential issues in the future.

The maximum endorsement level for Security Council members would be limited by the constitution that specifies that the Vice Delegate must have the second most endorsements in the region. Obviously this will need to be applied with a degree of sanity during transitional periods.
 
I can't see any problem with this latest version, but before we vote can we please check that all points have actually been answered?
 
I like this new version. I believe it addresses the issues raised by COE and SillyString, and keeps in place the TNP tradition of having a floating endo cap. I fully support moving this to a vote.
 
The move to a vote just puts this into formal debate Chasmanthe, we still have time to answer questions and make some changes if necessary.
 
Hmm. I'm still uncertain about the setup here - specifically the pre-existing influence requirement for SC members.

Previously, any nation could achieve 270 SPDR by simply sitting still in TNP long enough, and could accelerate this gain by joining the WA and tarting for endorsements. However, with the new change, 270 SPDR will be a benchmark only attainable by people with at least 200 endorsements - someone who sits at 199 will never reach it. And even once this threshold is reached, it can be lost - if a delegate served a couple terms at ~400 endorsements, they'd have 380-something SPDR gathered... but if they then wanted to try out R/D for a while and resigned WA, that gathered influence would decay back down to 63 SPDR. If that individual then got tired of R/D and wanted to join the Security Council, the nature of the influence limit means that they'd have to become WA immobile, get at least 200 endorsements, and then sit for approximately six months waiting for their influence to rise high enough.

That seems... inefficient, particularly for long-time and highly trusted TNPers who merely took a few months away from being WA.

But at the same time, we obviously don't want to be making a habit of admitting people to the SC who aren't going to have the commitment to stay there.

Just throwing out a thought, here, but what if we removed the SPDR minimum entirely, since anybody who hits the SC minimum for 6 months will reach it, and instead add a clause saying that if you resign from the SC within, say, six months of joining it, you're not eligible to rejoin for another six months (time periods flexible). That would keep the doors open to long-time TNPers who temporarily go WA mobile, while also discouraging frivolous joining from people who don't intend to commit to it.
 
This is perfect. Good work, McMaster.

If I may suggest one small tiny change though? Remove the sanity clause. It's only holding us back!

SillyString also makes some very good points, and I think we may come to regret not following her suggestion.
 
Asta, I think that frivolous joining would be prevented by the Security Council. And we included the SPDR requirement as like a "waiting period" for joining the SC.

The other option would be to make it at the discretion of the Security Council whether they consider both of these factors, or just one of them.
 
I think the sanity clause must remain because of the drafting decision to anticipate how the changes in influence will play out, plus the need for there to be statutory authority to adjust for the odd transition situation when there is an election or vacancy in the offices of Delegate and Vice Delegate.

I would have preferred that the bill contain a fail-safe mechanism for these coming months while the influence changes work their way throughout the game, which would be a different form of sanity clause, for the unique circumstances this has presented.
 
Grosse, so long as the current SC members maintain a minimum endorsement count of 200 (and currently they all do), they will not drop below 270 SPDR. Given the 200-endo requirement for membership, and given that they needed a minimum of 300 to even join in the first place, what sort of fail-safe do you imagine would actually provide any kind of protection?
 
SillyString:
Grosse, so long as the current SC members maintain a minimum endorsement count of 200 (and currently they all do), they will not drop below 270 SPDR. Given the 200-endo requirement for membership, and given that they needed a minimum of 300 to even join in the first place, what sort of fail-safe do you imagine would actually provide any kind of protection?
Click to expand...
In the early days of the Security Council, and especially after the first introduction of the influence measurement, there was a level of uncertainty about how that would work, even though some consequences were deduced from the observations of how the influence ranking changed in various environments.

The law at the time provided that the Security Council would recommend endorsement level adjustments every 90 days (IIRC) or sooner if circumstances warranted, and the law provided for a special RA vote procedure that was shorter and faster than the normal process.

I'm thinking that something similar ought to be available for the remainder of the six month implementation period and for a reasonable time thereafter that is long enough the observe and collect data to verify the impact of the influence changes on endorsement levels and SPDRs for TNP WA nations not on the SC, or who are not Delegate or Vice Delegate. We could make that provision expire at the end of the period without requiring further action by the RA, unless a need was seen later to extend the monitoring period on the effects on the influence changes.

I'm always nervous about making assumptions about how future impacts will work out and drafting laws based on those assumptions. What I suggest is designed as a safety value or fail safe mechanism to quickly adjust for unforeseen consequences, and is a prudent approach to the concerns I raise.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top