jamescfm wrote:[list][*]Resolution 29 may need a slight amendment or at least a clarification about what "active status in the World Congress itself"; it is enforceable, though, since it refers to the WC and not the GA
Its reference to the World Congress is precisely the problem. The "world congress" = SC+GA+GS. Resolution 29 says "
2/3rds vote of those representatives of the nations of the World Congress." Who are "the nations of the World Congress?" Are they the members of the SC? Are they the "members" of the GA? Do they include the GS? Does the GS get a vote? Twice now, I've taken time at length to emphasize that the general assembly is not a group of nations -- it's a group of players, and it can include representatives of both the game system countries and the third world countries, and it could also include any RPed "subnational countries" that players create within the borders of the 58 game system nations from time to time. Which of these groups is resolution 29 referring to as "nations of the World Congress?" Presumably, Zanz meant to refer to only the 58 game system governments, as I emphasized above. If that's correct, Resolution 29's reference to the World Congress is entirely unenforceable since, again, the World Congress as currently constituted includes entities and persons in addition to the 58 game system nations. Please address this point specifically because, as I have repeatedly said, it is the crux of the problem here.
jamescfm wrote:[*]Resolution 30 has no issues as far as I can see and is absolutely enforceable
It has the same issues as Resolution 29.
jamescfm wrote:Aquinas' post shouldn't be considered the rules which govern the WC, my 'Structure of the World Congress' post should.
You should've made that clear to me when I PMed you before writing the DGS's ruling because I specifically told you that I would be rejecting all four resolutions on grounds of rules violations. Also, do I remember correctly that you wrote the "Structure of the World Congress" post when you were the RP Team WC member? If so, that obviously isn't reasonable to expect that a policy written by a non-mod should be taken to be a rule. Just as I expect my GS characters' policies could well be overturned by the next WC RP Team member, I considered your "Structure" post to be just as ephemeral and enforceable just for the period during which you controlled the GS. I intended to ask you to edit the "Structure" post when I noticed its contradictions with Aquinas's rules, but wanted to resolve the current activities before doing so. If on the other hand you wrote the "Structure" post after becoming a mod, then that was a genuine case of misunderstanding on my part due to your having played both the RP Team and mod roles back to back. If you wrote it as a RP Team member and are now using your authority as mod to make it a rule, you need to inform the whole game of that in a dedicated post in General Discussion so everyone's aware, and you should probably make a note in the Game Rules thread too.
Zanz wrote:We should have been given more advanced warning that what we were doing was not going to fly. When everyone started RPing in response to the resolutions we passed (particularly Resolution 29), we should have been given the benefit of the doubt - the rules also say that acknowledging RP means accepting its validity. Plenty of the most active RPers on this forum now acknowledged Resolution 29. What has effectively happened, regardless of your justification for it happening, is that one person's interpretation of rules written by someone no longer here has led us to void the active role play efforts of multiple people. Then, once that action to void was taken, we've gone about 3 days now without clarity on what exactly we can do going forward. I'm not questioning you in particular, because as I said, I think your intent is good, but your actions here have meant that several of us have been unable to continue the storyline we were undertaking.
Yea I get that, and I did consider contacting you, Auditorii and Axxell before writing the ruling. The problem was that I was PMing with James and Maxington from the start of this, and before we all got our responses back to one another, some players had begun acting on the presumption that they'd be able to expel countries with your resolution. Rather than step in and ask players to stop making those in character comments -- since they were only statements of intent as far as I saw, please correct me if I'm wrong here -- I decided to let them be since their political positions presumably wouldn't change just because the expulsion power wasn't implemented. The other IC reactions I saw were that some belligerents and interventionists in the Badaran conflict pulled out in part on the strength of the expectation that Resolution 29 could be used to expel some opponents. I didn't intervene there because my reading of the RP was that most players wanted those parties to withdraw from Badara, so the effect as far as I could see seemed to be the same with or without official passage of the resolution. My bottom line impression was that the RPs could go on without official implementation of R29. Please inform if I missed any important details here.