Annotation
Original title: The Right to Socks: What's Left for the WA?
Date: Jan 9, 2014.
Comments: Originally by Gruenberg; reproduced with author's permission.
[Source]
Document
Unibot approached me with the idea of writing an essay on the history of the WA, but I did not feel that there would be sufficient interest in this topic, while he felt that my proposed topic of "Why The Moderators Are Wrong About Everything And By The Way I Still Hate The Security Council: 5,000 Words Of Shouting" might prove needlessly controversial. The compromise we reached was for me to discuss where the WA is currently at and what it still offers, from the perspective of one of the relatively few active "regulars" who (a) was around at a similar point in the history of the NSUN, (b) is still active in the current WA, and (c) is still on speaking terms with Unibot. This is not a formal academic thesis in the style of some of the contributions to the Lecture Hall but more of a personal essay, and it should obviously be understood as only my argument and not representing regions or organizations I am associated with. This essay represents a considerably pared down version of my origina book-length screed.
The Right to Socks: What's Left for the WA?
The World Assembly is a melting pot that did not melt, combining every aspect of NationStates - game mechanics, gameplay, roleplay, out-of-character interaction, and the original satirical intent of the game - under one multi-dimensional roof. It has a long and storied history in the game, and over time it has evolved into a mostly in-character, roleplayed source of international law that nonetheless rests heavily on the gameplay world. Yet despite its long and storied history and the fantastic opportunities it offers players to get involved on many different levels - I can personally attest that at its best it is a rewarding and enjoyable aspect of the game - it is currently suffering from stagnation and inactivity, with relatively low levels of participation compared to its historic peaks, and a sense that it is running out of novel ideas.
The World Assembly was preceded by an organization known as the United Nations (here called the NSUN, to avoid confusion). In terms of days of existence and number of resolutions passed, the WA has now surpassed the NSUN. This is a cause for note, as the end of NSUN brought claims that it was suffering from legislative exhaustion and that a fresh start was needed to revitalise the organization. This happened, in the form of the notorious April Fool's Day prank that wasn't really a prank at all: on April 1, 2008, the moderators claimed that the NSUN would be rebooted as the WA as a result of a cease-and-desist order from the Real World UN; on April 2, it was confirmed that this was not a joke, and that we really would be starting over, archiving all passed resolutions as what are now known as "Historical Resolutions", and legislating anew.
The sense that there is a malaise setting in is easy to understand. The WA is not currently at anywhere near the activity levels of the UN in its prime, and although there is still a steady stream of quorate proposals, the majority of these within the last few months have been repeals. Indeed, since the first World Fair in November 2012, 23 of the 53 passed resolutions have been repeals, 13 targeting substantive resolutions passed in this time, and several of the remaining 17 proposals being replacements of previously repealed laws. New topics of legislation have thus been in a distinct minority. Furthermore, a number of even those few original proposals have covered relatively marginal areas of legislation: one could understand a belief that most of the "big issues" have already been covered.
This very belief has led to discussion of various reforms of the WA in the past couple of years, including permitting amendments, permitting "repeal-and-replace" resolutions rather than the current system of passing a repeal and having to separately produce a replacement, and the introduction of "Sunset" clauses on resolutions. These discussions have tended to die in the Technical forum, without a concrete suggestion emerging or a strong indication of admin preference one way or the other. Though I will discuss some mechanical changes to the WA later on, I am not for the purposes of this essay going to consider these broader reforms, partly to avoid becoming entrenched in technicalities, and partly because I believe they are unnecessary to spur greater activity.
1. Legislation
The WA is nowhere close to legislative exhaustion. The perception that it is not only does a disservice to prospective legislators who may be dissuaded from pursuing the many avenues actually available to them, but also risks repeating the situation towards the end of NSUN, which was also, while at times struggling for activity, definitely nowhere close to "completing" the book of international law. Then, the admins interpreted the situation as requiring a hard reboot, something they subsequently tried to blame on the players, to general disgust (and the reawakening of the dormant conspiracy theory that the cease-and-desist had been a ruse to grant them an excuse to execute such a reboot). Such an obliteration of player effort would be as intensely damaging to the community now as it was then, and all efforts to avoid it should be taken.
Certainly, some of the "big" issues have already been tackled, which may be frustrating to newer players who had wished to legislate on them. Nonetheless, while slavery and biological weapons have dedicated resolutions, freedom of conscience and the arms trade do not. While the WA has managed to pass an astonishing 63 Human Rights resolutions, far more than in any other category, it has not managed to discuss key human rights issues such as the right to self-determination, the prospect of humanitarian intervention, or the rule of law; nor has it managed to expand the understanding of human rights to include social, economic and cultural rights, as was seen during the recent debate on a proposal to recognise a "right to housing".
Indeed, the sheer scope of some of the areas left uncovered in almost six years of WA activity is mind-boggling. There are virtually no laws of war, banning territorial aggression, preventing collective punishment, or protecting civilians. The WA has spent less time debating how to tackle infectious disease than it has subtly different wordings of proposals enshrining the right to habeas corpus. Environmental policy is in a particularly bad state. After years of terrible resolutions, including the infamous "Promotion of Solar Panels" that nearly reduced every nation to a pre-industrial state, the NSUN managed to produce some environmental resolutions of a high quality. The WA has largely not done so, returning to wrong-headed and damaging missteps, or steering clear of the issues entirely: there is still no comprehensive approach to greenhouse emissions, or air pollution, or waste disposal.
A further concern is that too much WA legislation is needlessly restrictive, or as it is sometimes characterised, "untrusting", of member nations. There are few resolutions that give an affirmative, positive benefit to joining the WA. Creating resolutions of this type requires balance, as they often require working out who will pay for these benefits, but it should not always be the case that resolutions seek to deprive member states of their rights: continuing to do so leaves little incentive for participation in the WA, and increases the likelihood of the in-character nature of the organization losing focus as only the gameside mechanical aspect of region play is considered a benefit.
The actual argument of which particular policies the WA should and should not endorse, and in which direction, I will leave for others to argue over; my case is not here a political one, that a certain particular path needs to be followed. It might even be that large numbers of proposals of this type would be roundly defeated, which is of almost secondary importance to pursuing them in the first place. Rather, I simply wish to counter and dismiss the notion that the WA is in any danger whatsoever of running out of things to legislate on: indeed, to someone who wrote the 9th resolution passed by the WA, it is quite shocking that over five years later, the concept of command responsibility has still not been considered further.
2. Mechanics
I am not at this time prepared to endorse radical changes to the structure of the WA, nor to the means by which resolutions are passed and subsequently considered, chiefly because few proposals in this regard have been subjected to a thorough and consistent argument that does not end up spiralling off in a dozen different directions or dissolving into petty animus. There is, however, one obvious area in which relatively slight mechanical changes to the WA could reinvigorate activity and spur a new wave of authors and contributors: reforming the proposal category system.
Proposal categories perform a valuable function. By tying proposals to game mechanics they retain the link between the WA and the game of NS, and prevent it drifting off into an irrelevant bubble; by requiring legislation adhere to category guidelines, they ensure focus, preventing resolutions that are overly broad or that have no clear mandates. But defending the existence of a category system is not the same as defending the current category system, and it is surely in need of overhaul. I believe it is important that players work together to come up with a clearly defined set of changes, and then make their case emphatically to the admins for such a change.
The last time new categories were introduced (not counting Bookkeeping, which was never seriously entertained as an actual addition, or the C&C bullshit) was way back in 2006, with the "Education & Creativity" and "Advancement of Industry" categories. These were something of a surprise, as while players had been lobbying loosely for new categories such as "Science" or "Health", many of the new categories' areas of effect seemed of limited value. Indeed, the latter category has hardly ever been used at all, and there is currently only one extant Advancement of Industry resolution. Education & Creativity has been more popular, especially in the Educational and Cultural Heritage areas of effect, yet at the time it was introduced still seemed to offer mixed blessings to an NSUN that had already passed resolutions on press and artistic freedom.
There are several key areas where the current categories fail. Above all, there is no category corresponding to "development", despite this being one of the major goals of most Real World international organizations. Categories promoting Social Justice or Environmental protection inhibit economic growth, while the Advancement of Industry category has areas of effect that explicitly deprive workers of rights or, rather bizarrely, imposes tort reform. An "International Development" category would be a means of passing progressive legislation that would benefit member nations and provide a positive incentive for involvement; it would also redress the current imbalance in the categories.
The Social Justice and Environmental categories could also stand to be reformed, though convincing the admins to change categories in which existing legislation has been passed may be more difficult. Nonetheless, the current situation, in which proposals on health - another major concern for many international organizations - have to be crudely shoehorned into the Social Justice category is needlessly complex, while the Environmental category is overly restrictive, the absence of a "Mild" function serving to virtually assure that legislation will frequently overreach and be so restrictive as to be actively harmful. Nonetheless, I believe lobbying for reform of these categories would be more fruitful than wasting time chasing after removal of the sillier categories, such as Gun Control, Gambling and Tort Reform, which it is difficult to imagine - no matter how satisfying the thought - being removed altogether.
This change would require players to set aside political differences, work together on a concrete and tightly worded set of proposals, and make their case firmly and clearly, but I believe that such cooperation prove possible, it would measurably improve the playing experience of the WA, and afford many new avenues for productive legislation.
3. Rules
Together, the NSUN and WA have gone through three sets of rules. The first, "Enodian" rules date from late 2003, and formalised the most basic principles: that resolutions were in-character pieces of international law applicable to all member nations and not means of enacting game mechanical changes; the second, "Hackian" rules were drafted in early 2005, in extensive consultation with players, to update the rules to the increasing complexity of the game and sophistication required of resolutions; the third, which I will for now call "completely asinine" rules were updated somewhat at the time of the changeover from the NSUN to the WA, and have seen gradual changes since, mostly without any consultation or discussion with players, such as adding the words "peace-keeping" to the "No WA Army" rule, after years without such a term ever being included, or the confusing rewriting of the "Game Mechanics" section to prohibit, but not really, but sort of, "blocker" resolutions.
Waging war on the gods is generally a taxing endeavour, and waging war on the mods little less so. Nonetheless, the current situation regarding the proposal rules is becoming increasingly injurious to the playing of the game - and this is, after all, just a game. Rules are there to make sure everyone can play fairly, no one gets hurt or disadvantaged, and that the game is not broken. That's it. Yet increasingly, the proposal rules and their opaque interpretation serves only to confuse and convolute matters, to a point where mountains of precedent and a legal dictionary are needed before wading into any debate.
This does not matter much to "regulars" and "old-timers", who may well access to such precedent, and be able to spend time arguing the finer points of what, exactly, "On Abortion" really does. But to newer players, it is a tremendous disincentive to activity. Rulings are no longer clear, to a point where proposals may be deleted without new players even understanding what rule they are breaking, or in what way. Furthermore, the WA has a long tradition of relying on experienced players to guide newer ones on legal matters, with the moderators only getting involved as a matter of last and final resort. This is simply no longer possible, as even more experienced players cannot predict the arbitrary and capricious manner in which proposal rules and past resolutions are interpreted by moderators who have become increasingly divorced from the original purpose of the proposal rules.
A good example of this is the "forced roleplaying" rule, which has been used with increasing regulatory. The rule in this instance dates way back to 2004 and the NSUN, when Hersfold attempted to propose a resolution implementing an "Olympic Games" for all NSUN nations. His proposal was removed for mandating forum-side activity, and the 2005 revision to the category rules, partly in response to the difficulties the various iterations of The Pretenama Panel had faced, further restricted "MetaGaming" offences. Nonetheless, the rule at that time still permitted activities that could be conducted on the forums: all that was strictly forbidden was to actually mandate such in a proposal. However, this rule has now swollen, and is used to squash a far larger array of proposals, even those that could have led to fun and involving roleplay on the forums.
Undoubtedly, the unpaid, volunteer moderators of this free, online game do us a service of their time and should be respected for that. But having undertaken to make such a commitment, there is nothing wrong with asking that they make rulings in a manner that is clear and open, and that they engage with players to make sure the rules only limit what is necessary for the functioning of the game, and do not have the effect of actually discouraging activity.
4. Roleplay
The final section of my essay calls for a return to an emphasis on roleplay in, and related to, the World Assembly. The amount of roleplaying in the actual WA forum has always been limited, rightly, to in-character Ambassadorial discussions, and occasional in-character Ambassadorial libations. But if WA resolutions are treated only as laws-in-themselves to be discussed during drafting and voting, and then more or less forgotten once passed, this aspect of the game loses its relevance.
Roleplaying was emphasised during the NSUN's periods of greatest activity, and that is surely no coincidence. Restoring such an emphasis would offer a means of involving even those players who find that their favourite topic has already been legislated on: there is no need to "Sunset" the "Ban on Slavery and Trafficking" if a concerted diplomatic effort, as called for in the resolution, could be orchestrated; "On Multilateral Trade Talks" may render some efforts to promote international trade moot, but it also offers wonderful opportunities to use the WA as a means to develop our nations and characters through the medium of roleplaying.
A number of roleplays in the NSUN were essentially irrelevant to the particular resolution being discussed on any given day, whether it was diplomatic intrigue of the Great Dodgeball War or the emotional drama of the epic romance between the Ecopoeian and Telidian Ambassadors. But they greatly enhanced immersion, the sense that we were participating in a genuine international assembly, that our characters were real people interacting with real people and not merely a means of flaming someone on an internet messageboard with a quick sig appended to the post delivering the cover of claiming "it's all IC", that what we were doing mattered. However pompous that may sound, and however much derisive scorn it brings from those who undoubtedly do feel that the WA is completely irrelevant, the game only really has meaning if we can believe that it is making some measurable difference to the world of NationStates. Passing resolutions into oblivion does not do that.
Roleplaying also helps develop common community standards on controversial issues such as interpretation and compliance. These have been discussed much elsewhere so I will not expand much here, but I will say that most conflicts on these points are more easily resolved when people understand a common set of principles guiding the world in which their nations exist. When they become remote and isolated, not really roleplaying partners at all but merely atomistic delegations barking at one another across a debate floor and then retreating to mutually incompatible spheres, there ceases to be any real concern for reaching inclusive consensus agreements.
Conclusion
The proposals contained within this essay do not guarantee any return to the "golden age of the UN". Such a fantasy would be a mere exercise in nostalgia, and it is the case in every culture that there will be those complaining that things aren't like they used to be: no doubt Glog Firemaker could inform us that there are those who feel his pointed stone spears are dangerous radicalism and that mammoth steaks just aren't as juicy and tender any more. But rather than wallow in the past, I would rather move forward and try to both recapture what has made this aspect of the NationStates experience rewarding in the past, and seek new challenges and opportunities offered by the funny amalgam of different styles that is the World Assembly.
We should review the current state of WA laws for areas that have not been covered, or where replacements have never been delivered for resolutions repealed some years ago. We should push for new categories or changes to existing ones that will better enable to write law that is vital, relevant, and effective. We should get actively involved in discussions with moderators towards developing a common understanding of the proposal rules that can be easily shared with all and that remains accessible even to newer or more casual players. And we should remember that the WA is ultimately a roleplaying environment, and take every opportunity to explore, develop and engage with that environment.
And if that doesn't work, we should just all invade Chechnya.