[PROPOSAL] Regional Message Board Act, 2021

The Magisterium
1

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BE IT ENACTED by the Magisterium of the East Pacific:

SECTION I. CITATION

…1.1- This act shall be known and cited as the “Regional Message Board Regulation Act, 2021” (RMBRA 2021).

SECTION II. SPAM

…2.1- For the purposes of this act, spam is hereby defined as any action as of the following:
…2.1.1- “Multiposting”-  posting the same post, or posts similar enough to each other that they convey the same message, at least five times within the span of thirty minutes on the Regional Messaging Board (hereinafter “RMB”).
…2.1.2- “Chainposting”- where one posts three or more messages on the RMB without any other nation posting in between those messages. Chainposting shall not be considered multiposting.
…2.1.3- “Posts of Excessive Length”- any message over 20 lines of text or ASCII text art over four lines of text posted on the RMB without the use of dispatches or spoiler tags to hide the length.
…2.1.4- “Pingspam”- mentioning or quoting (hereinafter “pinging”) one person over ten times within two pages of the RMB or pinging over ten people, without reasonable cause.

…2.2- Any Citizen who spams more than three times within a one month period shall be considered to be committing an indictable offense, with a maximum sentence of a two year ban from the East Pacific.

…2.3- Any non-Citizen Resident who spams shall receive a warning for the first time. If they spam a second time or more, they may be subject to warnings, ejection, or indefinite ban by the Delegate or a Regional Officer.
……2.4- Punishments may be appealed to the Conclave via hearing.

…2.5- Any messages suspected of being spam may be immediately suppressed at the discretion of the Delegate or Regional Officers.
……2.5.1- The Conclave may order the reversal of suppression of the affected messages under Conclave Order.

SECTION III. HARASSMENT

…3.1- For the purposes of this act, harassment is hereby defined as any action as of the following:
…3.1.1- “Flaming”- any offensive personal attack against another player expressed via name-calling, obscene comments (such as “f— you”) or depictions of obscene gestures (such as “the finger”), and/or other comments posted out of line which are designed explicitly to insult and provoke anger.
…3.1.2- “Flamebaiting”- any writing or image that, within its context, can reasonably only be understood as offending someone indirectly to provoke or solicit a reaction.
…3.1.3- “Malicious Quote Editing”- the act of altering the contents of a quote to anger or falsely discredit a resident or citizen of The East Pacific. The act of cutting out inappropriate words or content from a quote shall not be considered Malicious Quote Editing.
…3.1.4- “Impersonation”- any attempt to maliciously impersonate another nation or region without consent, or any attempt to falsely claim a position of governmental or otherwise administrative authority.
…3.1.5- “Explicit Material”- the detailed explanation or solicitation of any type of lewd or sexual content, and/or the explicit perpetration of any lewd or sexual acts.
…3.1.6- “Promotion of Distasteful Ideologies”- the promotion of Fascism, Nazism, or similar extremist philosophies prone to racism and harassment of specific groups of people.

…3.2- Any Citizen who commits harassment offenses shall be considered to be committing an indictable offense, with a maximum sentence of a permanent ban from the East Pacific.

…3.3- Any non-Citizen Resident who commits harassment offenses shall be indefinitely banned from the East Pacific by the Delegate or a Regional Officer.
……3.3.1- This action may be appealed to the Conclave via hearing.

…2.5- Any messages suspected of being harassment may be immediately suppressed at the discretion of the Delegate or Regional Officers.
……2.5.1- The Conclave may order the reversal of suppression of the affected messages under Conclave Order.

SECTION IV. ADVERTISEMENT

…4.1- Any region advertisement posted on the RMB is hereby considered a transgression against the East Pacific public.
……4.1.1- Repeated and offensive violations constitute an insult to the East Pacific, its right to an active RMB, and sovereignty. This shall be dealt with accordingly by the government.

…4.2- The Delegate or a Regional Officer may, at their discretion, suppress any advertisements posted on the RMB.
……4.2.1- The Conclave may order the reversal of suppression of the affected messages under Conclave Order.

…4.3- All advertisers/recruiters shall be considered to be committing a summary offense, and may face summary punishment from the Delegate, including but not limited to message suppression, ejection, and/or banishment from the East Pacific.
……4.3.1- All residents reserve the right to appeal this punishment to the Conclave.

…4.4- Nothing in this Section shall apply to messages intended to promote the East Pacific.

SECTION V. ENACTMENT

…5.1- Upon the enactment of this bill as law, the Regional Message Board Regulation Act, 2013 shall be repealed.

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It has returned

Proposing this again. Currently, it’s unclear whether the government has the extant responsibility to moderate the RMB or not- but if the government does, we need law. IC/OOC debate regardless, that’s the fact- if it’s our responsibility, it needs to fall under our law. Should Administration decide differently in its deliberations, I will be fine with reconsidering and even dropping this. But for now, here we are. I’ll only motion this to vote after Administration makes a ruling on what will happen w/ RMB moderation (check #government-plaza for context). If no ruling is made, I’ll motion this to vote one month from now, so that we have time for calm and proper debate!

Credit to Lerasi, whose draft I basically copied and slightly edited.

2

I am open on suggestions to the severity of Section 2.2.

3

Full support.

4

Frankly, I would be in favor of motioning this to vote now, just to have something on the books, and then perhaps amending it later after a longer discussion. My impression from the conversation with Em is that the Admin Team straight up cannot/will not enforce content moderation rules on the RMB. Every day that there are no rules in place is another risk that something terrible could happen. Again.

5

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Frankly, I would be in favor of motioning this to vote now, just to have something on the books, and then perhaps amending it later after a longer discussion. My impression from the conversation with Em is that the Admin Team straight up cannot/will not enforce content moderation rules on the RMB. Every day that there are no rules in place is another risk that something terrible could happen. Again.

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If other Magisters are fine with it, I’ll do it.

6

I’m fine with it as well, we need to have a basis to work on ASAP

7

After discussing with a couple of Magisters, I hereby motion this to vote.

For purposes of not letting this go without proper debate, this will be treated as an on-going draft despite being at-vote.

8

I second.

9

Possibly make the punishment for spam a bit shorter (I think 2 years is a bit too much, maybe 1 year or half a year would be better), and double posting maybe make it a lesser offence, but otherwise, I support this.

10

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Possibly make the punishment for spam a bit shorter (I think 2 years is a bit too much, maybe 1 year or half a year would be better), and double posting maybe make it a lesser offence, but otherwise, I support this.

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I think it’s fine as is because it is a maximum sentence. The Conclave could, theoretically, give someone a 0 day ban if they felt like it, so we should be fine I think

11

From this point forward, this thread shall be considered an amendment proposal.

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Possibly make the punishment for spam a bit shorter (I think 2 years is a bit too much, maybe 1 year or half a year would be better), and double posting maybe make it a lesser offence, but otherwise, I support this.

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  1. It’s the maximum punishment. I don’t think the conclave would be insane enough to apply the Max punishment for a first offense.

  2. It’s triple posting, actually.

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…2.1.2- “Chainposting”- where one posts three or more messages on the RMB without any other nation posting in between those messages. Chainposting shall not be considered multiposting.

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13

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Possibly make the punishment for spam a bit shorter (I think 2 years is a bit too much, maybe 1 year or half a year would be better), and double posting maybe make it a lesser offence, but otherwise, I support this.

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Not very long ago, the residents of TEP were polled as to whether Doubleposting should be allowed or not. The majority chose Yes on doubleposting and no on tripleposting, hence this part of the bill.

14

On second thought, I’m going to make another thread for further debate. I’ll lock this- Dylan can overturn my action if nessecary. (Just doing it for now to guide discussion).

new thread:

15

Obviously I’m in favor - Hell I wrote most of it - but even since I wrote it, it has been made abundantly clear that this change is long overdue, and to not implement it would be to allow a loophole in moderation to stay. The best possible course of action is to make this change.