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WA Digest
The month of October saw four General Assembly resolutions passed, and the Security Council observed four proposals reach quorum, of which two were passed, one failed, and the last was quickly withdrawn. Of the Security Council proposals brought to vote during the month, two have stood out of particular interest.
The first was a resolution that passed without much issue, and yet seemed to be surprisingly controversial among The North Pacific citizens. On October 16th, Morover, an accomplished World Assembly author and a former Minister of World Assembly Affairs for The North Pacific, submitted a proposal to the Security Council that aimed to commend the nation Kuriko, a highly influential player in NationStates. Kuriko is perhaps best known for her service to the region 10000 Islands as its longest-serving WA Delegate. She might also be more recently recognized as NationStates’s World Assembly Secretary-General, having won the position during the Secretary-General election event of last April.
While the proposal saw broad approval and ultimately passed at vote with 84.1% support, on The North Pacific forum voters seemed somewhat more divided. The Ministry of World Assembly Affairs issued a recommendation to vote “For” the proposal, stating that the proposal clearly makes an excellent case for why Kuriko is deserving of a commendation. The Ministry also indicated that this proposal would serve as a far superior replacement for the first commendation of Kuriko, which had been previously repealed due to criticisms of poor writing.
However, despite the Ministry’s recommendation, on The North Pacific’s forum voting thread a number of citizens voted against the proposal, with only a few stating why. Of those who chose to voice their reasoning, it was a mix between simply disliking the writing of the proposal itself and a more targeted dislike of 10000 Island’s actions abroad and of Kuriko’s alleged stance against condemning raiders in the Security Council.
Without hearing the thoughts of the others who voted against, much is still left to conjecture, although it is easy to deduce that the age-old tensions between raiding and defender ideologies are likely at play here. A look into the NationStates forum thread in which this proposal was debated shows a similar trend to what was observed in TNP’s forum- most were approving of the proposal, with the few who stood opposed stating criticisms of Liberate Syria, a recent defender operation in which Kuriko was involved. It is clear that in this case, the voting sample in The North Pacific forum thread reflects the same general voting patterns of the wider NationStates community. The vote we have seen for this proposal is, perhaps, a symptom of the fact that TNP houses citizens of all sorts of ideologies, including both raider and defender leaning individuals.
The second notable Security Council proposal of October failed at vote, managing to gain only 23.6% support. On October 20th, Tinhampton submitted a proposal to condemn the nation Northern Borland. What made this proposal somewhat unique was that it aimed to condemn this nation based purely off of NationStates statistics, which is an oddity for the Security Council but not completely unprecedented, since the nation Kindjal has been commended for their impressive statistics back in March of this year. The North Pacific’s Ministry of World Assembly Affairs issued no recommendation for this vote, choosing instead to let others debate and decide for themselves. TNP voters seemed to be vocally divided on the issue, but ultimately the forum vote ended in favor of the proposal, with 18 votes “For” and 15 “Against.”
The arguments for and against were rather simple- Tinhampton, the proposal’s author, argued that Northern Borland had spent almost seventeen years answering issues in a manner dedicated to working towards these statistics, and that being able to pay close attention and religiously answer issues for that sheer length of time is worthy of a condemnation. However, others remained unconvinced, citing that Northern Borland was not even in first place for many of the statistics they were being condemned for. Additionally, both in The North Pacific voting thread and in the NationStates onsite discussion thread, there were many voters who were convinced that the mere act of answering issues for long enough is not commendable or condemnable on its own.
On the other hand, some players take the stance that issues answering and statistics planning is just as valid an area of the game as others, and therefore just as worthy of recognition. While the proposal to condemn Northern Borland was shot down tremendously at vote, there are likely many players who would support other stat-based proposals to commend or condemn exemplary nations, as evidenced by the words of support seen in the debate threads and by the nation Kindjal’s commend. It will be interesting to see if, in the future, stat-based Security Council proposals can succeed and become more prominent.
The month of October saw four General Assembly resolutions passed, and the Security Council observed four proposals reach quorum, of which two were passed, one failed, and the last was quickly withdrawn. Of the Security Council proposals brought to vote during the month, two have stood out of particular interest.
The first was a resolution that passed without much issue, and yet seemed to be surprisingly controversial among The North Pacific citizens. On October 16th, Morover, an accomplished World Assembly author and a former Minister of World Assembly Affairs for The North Pacific, submitted a proposal to the Security Council that aimed to commend the nation Kuriko, a highly influential player in NationStates. Kuriko is perhaps best known for her service to the region 10000 Islands as its longest-serving WA Delegate. She might also be more recently recognized as NationStates’s World Assembly Secretary-General, having won the position during the Secretary-General election event of last April.
While the proposal saw broad approval and ultimately passed at vote with 84.1% support, on The North Pacific forum voters seemed somewhat more divided. The Ministry of World Assembly Affairs issued a recommendation to vote “For” the proposal, stating that the proposal clearly makes an excellent case for why Kuriko is deserving of a commendation. The Ministry also indicated that this proposal would serve as a far superior replacement for the first commendation of Kuriko, which had been previously repealed due to criticisms of poor writing.
However, despite the Ministry’s recommendation, on The North Pacific’s forum voting thread a number of citizens voted against the proposal, with only a few stating why. Of those who chose to voice their reasoning, it was a mix between simply disliking the writing of the proposal itself and a more targeted dislike of 10000 Island’s actions abroad and of Kuriko’s alleged stance against condemning raiders in the Security Council.
Without hearing the thoughts of the others who voted against, much is still left to conjecture, although it is easy to deduce that the age-old tensions between raiding and defender ideologies are likely at play here. A look into the NationStates forum thread in which this proposal was debated shows a similar trend to what was observed in TNP’s forum- most were approving of the proposal, with the few who stood opposed stating criticisms of Liberate Syria, a recent defender operation in which Kuriko was involved. It is clear that in this case, the voting sample in The North Pacific forum thread reflects the same general voting patterns of the wider NationStates community. The vote we have seen for this proposal is, perhaps, a symptom of the fact that TNP houses citizens of all sorts of ideologies, including both raider and defender leaning individuals.
The second notable Security Council proposal of October failed at vote, managing to gain only 23.6% support. On October 20th, Tinhampton submitted a proposal to condemn the nation Northern Borland. What made this proposal somewhat unique was that it aimed to condemn this nation based purely off of NationStates statistics, which is an oddity for the Security Council but not completely unprecedented, since the nation Kindjal has been commended for their impressive statistics back in March of this year. The North Pacific’s Ministry of World Assembly Affairs issued no recommendation for this vote, choosing instead to let others debate and decide for themselves. TNP voters seemed to be vocally divided on the issue, but ultimately the forum vote ended in favor of the proposal, with 18 votes “For” and 15 “Against.”
The arguments for and against were rather simple- Tinhampton, the proposal’s author, argued that Northern Borland had spent almost seventeen years answering issues in a manner dedicated to working towards these statistics, and that being able to pay close attention and religiously answer issues for that sheer length of time is worthy of a condemnation. However, others remained unconvinced, citing that Northern Borland was not even in first place for many of the statistics they were being condemned for. Additionally, both in The North Pacific voting thread and in the NationStates onsite discussion thread, there were many voters who were convinced that the mere act of answering issues for long enough is not commendable or condemnable on its own.
On the other hand, some players take the stance that issues answering and statistics planning is just as valid an area of the game as others, and therefore just as worthy of recognition. While the proposal to condemn Northern Borland was shot down tremendously at vote, there are likely many players who would support other stat-based proposals to commend or condemn exemplary nations, as evidenced by the words of support seen in the debate threads and by the nation Kindjal’s commend. It will be interesting to see if, in the future, stat-based Security Council proposals can succeed and become more prominent.