[DISCUSSION] Legislative Templates

I have become increasingly impatient that my Provost campaign ideas were not acted upon. I’ll act on them each in turn anyway. Here is the revised legislative templates, give me any suggestions you have:

Acts

Here is an example of a new law:

Amendments

Here is an example of an amendment proposal:

Example law as amended:

Use:

[add][/add]

and:

[remove][/remove]

to add or remove text in an amendment. To add text that has an empty line inbetween, use \ in the empty line like this:

Resolutions

Here is an example of a new resolution:

Repeals

Laws that repeal an act must add this section to the end. Edit the section Roman numeral and repealed act as needed.

Interesting proposal, I don’t think we have legislated about this in a while. I’d say “The Praesidium” instead of “the Viziers” in order to refer to the institution instead.

imma be honest i’m not a big fan of “be it resolved” / “be it enacted” at the top, i think it’s superfluous and kinda annoying

the first thing i think is that a big textwall for each section is annoying and we could maybe do:

…1.1. My name is johnny and it might be a sin

…1.2. But I’ll take that bet you son of a bitch I’m the best that’s ever been

instead of

…1.1. Fire on the mountain run boy run
…1.2. The devil’s in the house of the rising sun

Because the distance makes it so much more readable in my opinion

another thing is smth i do which is:

…1.1. Sksskskskssksksksks
……1.1.1 Skeeet

vs

…1.1 Lorem ipsum dolor
…1.1.1. In nomine patri

i think the extra indentation sets it apart as a subclause and makes it more recognizable. this is ESSSPEECIALLY important imo if you ignore the previous suggestion but i think it’s important anyway

it gets ugly with an extra subclause layer but no one actually needs an extra layer.

that said i’m a huge fan of everything else here

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fwiw I do like the enacting thing, i think it’s fun

and iirc discourse removes any such indents, which is why imo we should probably try considering a different format beyond using the dots at this point (perpas 1.1. and …1.1.1.)

in any case, seems alr

I haven’t edited the original post but I created a small version of it here:

What does everyone think of this over the OP?

i still oppose the removal of the enacting preamble. One, single line doesn’t hurt anyone, and on the contrary it adds some minimal RP character to our laws that I think is pretty neat. Small RP things like a preamble or city locations add to the unique idea of our regional identity, and I abhor seeing a part of that potentially being left at the way side. It’s not the most terribly important thing obviously, but I see more benefit in keeping said preamble around than not. It’s not like the finding clauses that substantially impacted law readability - it’s one sentence.

I also wonder if it may be a good idea to do something like
2.1. For the purposes of this Act, the following are defined as:
…2.1.1. “Advertising” - Any form of promotion of a nation or region through the Regional Message Board, telegram correspondence with a nation, NationStates forums, or any other means.

instead? so we don’t need weird bbc code to get six dots

The OP still uses three dots for each clause, which is how I would prefer it. Each clause is indented into each section but subclauses aren’t indented further.

I agree with Aivintis on removing the preamble. It doesn’t serve a purpose. I don’t find it convincing that it should be kept for RP purposes but I’ll wait for more people’s opinions on this before making a final decision on the template.

As long as there is discussion, I’ll consider this unfinished.

i would prefer to use the least minimal amount of BBC or markdown coding possible. as far as I can tell, putting up six dots requires some trickery/BBC coding - which makes it harder to format laws. Aesthetic preferences should not come before practical reality - we shouldn’t make the law writing process more difficult just to have a specific version of an indent.

the enacting preamble’s purpose is being a small rp thing. hurts no one to have it there since it doesn’t really affect a law’s readibility or the process of writing law. in any way. we loose more by removing it than keeping it. That being said, if it is to be removed would it be possible for there to be some header for a law itself? It feels a bit awkward to go right into the law itself, although that may just be me.

will note that I heavily prefer subclauses to be indented further. makes it slightly easier to read.

Tagging on to this, I’d prefer the following format be used.

The overall format, I agree with. But I’m generally against the use of the ...X.Y notation.

Forum Code
### SECTION I. CITATIONS

1. This Act shall be known and cited as the "Example Act".

### SECTION II. DEFINITIONS

1. For the purposes of this Act, the following are defined as:
   1. "Advertising" - Any form of promotion of a nation or region through the Regional Message Board, telegram correspondence with a nation, NationStates forums, or any other means.

   2. "Hostiles" - A nation or region that is in a state of war against The East Pacific.

### SECTION III. GENERAL PROVISIONS

1. All nations found Advertising Hostiles are to be ejected and banned permanently.

Perhaps I’m old fashioned. I strongly prefer:

…X.Y.

Over the new numbering system.

It makes citating a specific clause easier since it’s at the beginning of the clause. It also is the most used, familiar, and historically consistent one.

Ultimately, it’s what most people prefer. These are just my reasons for not liking it.

For the record, this isn’t forgotten. My time is more scarce now. I have a few Executive projects and EPNS to complete before I can turn back to this.

I am also in favor of the preamble, short as it may be. It adds a level of flavor in our laws that, in my opinion, have already been stripped to the point of practicality.

Besides that, I also like the x.y. system, since it does make it easier to cite a specific clause. It’s just easier to write

The Danke Memes Act, Article 6.9

rather than

The Danke Memes Act, Article 6, Section (Clause?) 9

I’m in favor of the first one, as it provides a level of “zooming into” the specific law, from the Law, to the Article, to the clause, while also keeping things short and simple.

if you do option and semicolon on macbook twice, you get six dots

7 posts were split to a new topic: [AMENDMENT] Formatting the Standard Date & Time Act