Some things to know about the General Assembly forum:
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It is mostly an in-character (IC) forum, and most people, when posting in IC, roleplay (RP) an ambassador of their nation. You can create an ambassador character for yourself, or you can post out-of-character (OOC). If you do the latter, I suggest you mark your posts “OOC” to avoid people responding to them in IC. I would suggest using both markings if your post contains both IC and OOC comments.
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If you do create an ambassador character, remember that your character is supposed to be an ambassador, a diplomat, and thus generally polite to people you don’t know very well.
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However, don’t take IC comments personally; some people’s ambassadors are more polite than others’. Also, criticism of your draft is not criticism of you, the player. Someone else’s ambassador saying “It is an absurd idea to require everyone to wear a yellow shirt, only a fool would propose that!” is not the same as them OOCly calling you, the human player behind the account, a fool.
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Not everyone’s ambassador or nation’s population is human. And even the humans around are not necessarily the RL human species. Additionally, the Earth doesn’t exist in everyone’s RP reality so references to Real Life (RL) nations, laws and events should always be marked OOC. Also remember that their RP is just as valid as yours.
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Many WA nations don’t exist even in the same universe (not to mention planet) as others, and nations’ RP sizes vary from small islands to vast intergalactic empires. People posting in IC will likely refer to their nations’ RP reality, so be prepared for that.
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Connected to the last point, gameside statistics and issue choices have generally nothing to do with IC stats and values. For example, many people have been around for long enough to have ridiculously high population numbers, due to how quickly the gameside nation’s population grows. Also, someone whose gameside nation is, say, a psychotic dictatorship, may roleplay as a democratic utopia.
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If you partake the GA forum debates with a WA nation - which is not mandatory, and many people who debate on non-WA nations, have a WA nation - stating that you’re ignoring a resolution that would affect your nation (if your nation has no schools, then school-related resolutions wouldn’t affect your nation, but if you do have schools, they do), is considered a breach of forum etiquette (godmodding) and will quickly get you ignored.
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If, on the other hand, you partake with a non-WA nation but keep flaunting your non-WA status and thus not needing to conform to the resolutions, it will quickly get you ignored. The best way to deal with that is that if something comes up that your non-WA nation deals with in a very different manner, you mention it, but try to stay on the topic of the proposal nevertheless.
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Bothering to read through the proposal rules and at least eyeballing through the passed resolutions list (both threads are stickies at the top of the forum) is generally a good idea before partaking the drafting process. You can see the kinds of formatting people have used for their proposals, and also the thread can be searched with key words easily.
Proposal rules: NationStates • View topic - GA Proposal Compendium: Rules & General Advice
Passed resolutions: NationStates • View topic - Passed General Assembly Resolutions
- If you’re not sure of something, ask! Most people are willing to reply to polite questions, be they IC or OOC, and explain things or at least link to explanations.
The official GA Q&A thread is here :NationStates • View topic - General Assembly Q&A
That’s a lot of stuff, I admit, but it helps to understand how the forum works. 
Written by NationStates | The Grand Nation of Araraukar , thanks for sharing with us!