WA Deputy Burning Bridges In World Assembly

[HEM]

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"WA Deputy Burning Bridges In World Assembly"
HEM
Managing Editor

World Assembly Affairs Deputy Councilor Izzy caused a stir in the WA General Assembly last week with his Standards On Police Accountability, which many General Assembly experts felt was being rushed to a vote before it was ready. While the Deputy Councilor initially took some feedback on the proposal, about ten days after being posted, Izzy began pushing for the resolution to go to the floor and was reticent to accept further alterations.

Members of the Nationstates General Assembly forum had many different critiques of the proposal, with some saying that regulating policing was an overreach into nation's "national sovereignty." But other nations who otherwise would've supported the resolution had concerns about perceived loopholes in the proposal, such as a requirement that police wear body cams but no requirement that said camera be on.

"There is literally no part of the proposal that mandates the cameras ever be turned on. As far as I understand, GenSec doesn't normally take a purposivist approach to interpreting resolutions, so this proposal does not require that the cameras be turned on," Pope Saint Peter the Apostle argued to Izzy.

“I think it's pretty clear what nations are intended to do with the cameras. If nations choose not to do that, that isn't the fault of my proposal, that is their choice made in bad faith. It may not be the written law they need to do so but it is fairly apparent they ought to. It's comparable to returning the shopping cart at the grocery store. No one is going to punish you if you don't but you'll look like an asshole for not doing it,” Izzy responded to Pope Saint Peter the Apostle about this potential loophole.

As the discussion went on, things grew more acrimonious still.

At one point World Assembly veteran Araraukar told Izzy that he has the "right to disagree with feedback given" but that "when the overwhelming majority tells you that you are wrong to disagree, at some point you will have to either concede the point or abandon this idea."

In response, Izzy apparently sent Araraukar a telegram telling him to "Grow the hell up."

"Yeah, I sent you that because you keep trying to misrepresent what I said in this thread. Please stop doing that." Izzy responded when the message became public knowledge in the thread. A few posts later Izzy does acknowledge he "could've done better" but maintained Araraukar hadn't been "an angel" either.

Araraukar told ENN that the message seemed to come "out of nowhere," but that he's inclined to be gracious due to Izzy being a "newbie."

"He's a newbie author who can't take criticism and doesn't understand the WA multiverse and GA forum, so there's really no reason for me to add to his adversities. Like I've told him in TGs and the forum, a newbie temper tantrum won't make me not help him."

A little bit later Araraukar also revealed that he had been blocked by Izzy, saying, "Well... He has apparently TG-blocked me now, but that's common newbie tantrum thing too. LOL"

When Wayneactia called out Izzy for this hostile telegram, Izzy doubled down by asking: "Are you sure you're not just mad I have almost 7,000 votes despite what you and others are saying?"

Izzy also took his lobbying for the resolution outside of the Nationstates forum and to Europeian ally The North Pacific, when he responded to a citizen there, protesting claims that his proposal didn't require body cams to be turned on:

"Saint Peter is incorrect and I have addressed why in my thread on the NS forum. I also can't help but wonder why no one mentioned these things when I posted my draft to the WALL forum, well before submission!" Izzy posted in TNP.

At least one nation, Attempted Socialism, openly said they were leaning for the proposal until seeing the back-and-forth in the thread.

"Standards On Police Accountability" was defeated on Saturday 10,163 votes to 7,075, though the WA "GenSec" had concurrently ruled it was void due to being put forward in the wrong category and so would've been yanked regardless.

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[Common-Sense Politics]

This was brought to my attention a couple days ago. Shame it went the way it did. Bad look for Izzy and a bad look for us.

 

[Pichtonia]

Thank you for this article, HEM. It's great that you're giving us this window into WA Affairs on NS.

 

[Calvin Coolidge]

Excellent coverage by ENN on this issue, it's rare WA gets any press in Europeia, shame it's not for something more positive.

 

[Izzy]

I'll have more to say on this later but the fact I blocked telegrams from Araraukar now being public knowledge confirms a suspicion I had about him, and that's really sad. I have the right to block unwanted communications and attempting to weaponize that against me is frankly a disturbing thing to do.

Edit: I was going to say a lot more but I'll just sum up I don't think this is an entirely fair representation of the events. I'm going to leave it at, though, because I don't really see what the point is in standing up for myself on NationStates anymore.

 

[Lime]

This was a well written article and as Calvin said, on a topic that isn't usually given much coverage so I commend the ENN for covering this. I agree that this doesn't look the best for Izzy and truthfully he probably should have handled it better. However, I think it is also important that we remember that this was a topic Izzy was clearly very passionate about, and the GA forums aren't exactly known for being "friendly" or even a place where you can receive constructive criticism - people tend to just criticise. This isn't to say Izzy's reaction was appropriate, however I'd be more than prepared to give him some leeway based on those factors.

 

[SkyGreen]

I was aware of the situation unfolding, but I was not aware of these details, great article.

As a WAA Deputy Councilor myself I gotta say; I do it because I enjoy this side of NS, but once it stops being fun, I think it's good to take a step back.

 

[Prim]

In response, Izzy apparently sent Araraukar a telegram telling him to "Grow the hell up."

Ouch....

That's when you know you've taken something too personally, when you DM someone an insult.

 

[Prim]

I'll have more to say on this later but the fact I blocked telegrams from Araraukar now being public knowledge confirms a suspicion I had about him, and that's really sad. I have the right to block unwanted communications and attempting to weaponize that against me is frankly a disturbing thing to do.

Izzy, come on. You blocking someone after sending them hate mail isn't really "weaponizing" that against you. You sort of brought that on yourself. After now reading the GA thread on the draft, it does look like you got put on the defensive and started lashing out at everyone. Honestly, it looks like IA's suggestion, about creating a list instead of having separate clauses, could have helped free up word count for bolstering the camera clause that people had an issue with.

 

[HEM]

This was a well written article and as Calvin said, on a topic that isn't usually given much coverage so I commend the ENN for covering this. I agree that this doesn't look the best for Izzy and truthfully he probably should have handled it better. However, I think it is also important that we remember that this was a topic Izzy was clearly very passionate about, and the GA forums aren't exactly known for being "friendly" or even a place where you can receive constructive criticism - people tend to just criticise. This isn't to say Izzy's reaction was appropriate, however I'd be more than prepared to give him some leeway based on those factors.

I think the article as a summary, and the full thread linked within, allows everyone to make their own judgment. I quoted Izzy's assessment that others were not behaving as "angels" because I think that's a fair characterization.

 

[Forilian]

I mean, the NS forums are very frustrating. I get that. They sometimes make you want to kill other people.

But sending someone a telegram telling them to grow up wasn’t exactly the right action to make. There could have been another path, but I understand the motive behind it. Regardless, I know that Izzy is very passionate about his proposal and I look forward to seeing it in the WA Voting floor again.

 

[Izzy]

I'll have more to say on this later but the fact I blocked telegrams from Araraukar now being public knowledge confirms a suspicion I had about him, and that's really sad. I have the right to block unwanted communications and attempting to weaponize that against me is frankly a disturbing thing to do.

Izzy, come on. You blocking someone after sending them hate mail isn't really "weaponizing" that against you. You sort of brought that on yourself. After now reading the GA thread on the draft, it does look like you got put on the defensive and started lashing out at everyone. Honestly, it looks like IA's suggestion, about creating a list instead of having separate clauses, could have helped free up word count for bolstering the camera clause that people had an issue with.

There's a lot more to it than that, Prim. It wasn't a thing where I sent him that one telegram and then blocked him. We had an exchange of messages that made me feel incredibly uncomfortable and so I blocked him. However, unlike him, I have yet to take the incredibly poor form step of putting our private telegrams on public blast.

 

[HEM]

After discussing with Izzy, ENN is shifting our policy regarding requesting comment.

Historically, ENN has not proactively asked for comment on articles that summarized news vs. broke news. For example, we wouldn't ask for comment on a summary of a contentious thread in the region, because the full context is there for all readers to review (and most probably have). But we would ask for comment on an article like this where original news is being broke that otherwise wasn't in the full view of Europeia.

This article was in a bit of a grey area, as it was a "summary" but the full view of events weren't really visible to most Europeians before the article was published. After chatting with Izzy and hearing his perspective, I've decided that articles covering events like this outside of Europeia should be held a reasonable duration for comment.

That being said, ENN still stands fully by our (my) article here, but do think the comment perspective was valid and that's why we are changing our process going forward.

 

[Prim]

I'll have more to say on this later but the fact I blocked telegrams from Araraukar now being public knowledge confirms a suspicion I had about him, and that's really sad. I have the right to block unwanted communications and attempting to weaponize that against me is frankly a disturbing thing to do.

Izzy, come on. You blocking someone after sending them hate mail isn't really "weaponizing" that against you. You sort of brought that on yourself. After now reading the GA thread on the draft, it does look like you got put on the defensive and started lashing out at everyone. Honestly, it looks like IA's suggestion, about creating a list instead of having separate clauses, could have helped free up word count for bolstering the camera clause that people had an issue with.

There's a lot more to it than that, Prim. It wasn't a thing where I sent him that one telegram and then blocked him. We had an exchange of messages that made me feel incredibly uncomfortable and so I blocked him. However, unlike him, I have yet to take the incredibly poor form step of putting our private telegrams on public blast.

I mean, if things had stayed in the public thread, there wouldn't need to be any of that issue of releasing private messages.... Not sure why that discussion needed to go private.

 

[Le Libertie]

I mean at least now, I better understand the failure of the proposal despite having some merit. Very informative article.