[Amendment] Law Standards Act

[Ladona]

I’m still wary of including merging the changes into the Law Standards Act simply because it has impacts beyond just defining a standard format for laws to follow. Maybe if the Act were renamed to the Formatting Standards Act, Section III renamed to LAW FORMATS and a new Section IV added called DATE AND TIME FORMATS?

Regardless of where the amendment gets made, I would very much like to see:

1. Removal of UTC as a mandatory timezone to use.
2. Removal of term “Discourse standard”, as while this is all addressed in ISO 8601, there’s three formats that need to be followed; one for dates, one for times, one for datetimes.

So, ultimately something like this:

@Magisterium

Section I. CITATION

1. This Act shall be referred to as the “LawFormatting Standards Act”.

Section II. DEFINITIONS

1. “Format of this Act” refers to the section, clause, and subclause style used by this Act.
2. “Legislative Proposal” or “Proposal” refers to a proposal to exercise legislative action through a Bill.
3. This Act uses the same definitions for each category of Bill that can be found in the Standing Orders of the Magisterium.
4. This Act uses the same definition for “Sponsor” that can be found in the Standing Orders of the Magisterium.

5. “The Forums” refers to https://forum.theeastpacific.com

Section III. LAW FORMATS

1. Unless specified elsewhere in this Act, the Standing Orders of the Magisterium, as well as all legislation and amendments thereto, must be written according to the Format of this Act.
   …1. Until it is amended, any legislation that was passed on or before Tuesday, September 9, 2025 4:13 AM does not need to comply with this Act.
2. All amendments being brought to vote must be made with the [add][/add] and [remove][/remove] tag pairs to indicate where changes are being made.
   …1. If the amendment is a rewrite that requires the entire Legislative Proposal to be considered as a whole, then tag pairs are not mandatory, especially if their inclusion affects readability or comprehension.
3. Nominations, Repeals, Removals, and Overrides are not required to follow a particular format. The Sponsor must clearly identify the target of the Legislative Proposal and why they introduced it.
4. Resolutions should be written with the first section being titled “CITATION”, the second section being titled “FINDINGS”, and a third section titled “RESOLUTIONS”.
5. Treaties and Declarations of War must use the Format of this Act where practical.
   …1. Sections may be referred to as Articles instead.

Section IV. DATE AND TIME FORMATS

1. All dates and times used for official purposes on the Forums must be expressed using the [date] tag for an individual date, or the [date-range] tag for a range of dates.
2. All uses of the [date] tag must include date=YYYY-MM-DD, time=hh:mm:ss and timezone="tz".
   …1. YYYY is the year the event will occur;
   …2. MM is the month the event will occur;
   …3. DD is the day that the event will occur;
   …4. hh is the hour the event will occur, in 24-hour notation;
   …5. mm is the minute that the event will occur;
   …6. ss is the seconds that the event will occur, typically 00; and
   …7. tz is the appropriate timezone for the event.
3. All uses of the [date-range] tag must include from=YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss, to=YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss, and timezone="tz".
4. Compliant examples, including a list of appropriate timezones have been included in Appendix A.

Section IV. RESPONSIBILITIES

1. The Sponsor is responsible for formatting a Legislative Proposal according to the standards defined in this Act.
2. The Office of the Provost may, at its discretion, request that a Sponsor reformat a Legislative Proposal to comply with the standards defined in this Act.
3. The Office of the Provost may reformat a Legislative Proposal to comply with the standards defined in this Act before the Proposal is brought to a vote.

Section V. ALTERATIONS

1. A Sponsor may alter their implementation of the Format of this Act as necessary. They must provide a justification for the alteration.
2. The Office of the Provost may alter a Legislative Proposal’s implementation of the Format of this Act as necessary. They must provide a justification for the alteration.
3. The Office of the Provost must not make unreasonable alterations when reformatting a Legislative Proposal to comply with this Act, including changing the intended meaning of a Resolution or the legal effect of a binding Legislative Proposal.
   …1. The Conclave may, by majority vote, reverse any edit that violates this paragraph of this Act.

Appendix A. COMPLIANT EXAMPLES

• Individual date & time: [date=2023-02-07 time=11:30:00 format="LLLL z" timezone="UTC"]
• Date & time range: [date-range from=2023-01-07T11:30:00 to=2023-01-07T11:30:00 format="LLLL z" timezone="America\Los_Angeles"]
• A list of appropriate timezones can be found here: List of tz database time zones - Wikipedia