If the court may allow this, can I ask for a recess of 5 days due to ailing health IRL ? I beg of you, I have been hit with a swollen throat, aching muscles, a fever of 39 Degrees Celcius and over-salivation simultaneously.

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Malayan Singapura

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While the Court will not recess, and indeed expects Pencil Sharpeners and Seraph to answer the questions presentnted to them, it will give due consideration to Malayan Singapura's health, and will allow a delay in the presentation of his answers for the five days requested.

Former Delegate of the South Pacific
Posts outside High Court venues should be taken as those of any other legislator.
I do not participate in the regional server, but I am happy to talk through instant messaging or on the forum.

Legal Resources:
THE MATT-DUCK Law Archive | Mavenu Diplomatic Archive | Rules of the High Court | Case Submission System | Online Rulings Consultation System

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Thank you very much...

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Malayan Singapura

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For Seraph:

• [1]If the posts provided by Pencil Sharpeners do not fully reflect the attitudes for which Malayan Singapura was banned, yet you insist that the attitude existed, which posts do reflect this attitude?
  
• [2]Do you believe that the lack of explicit and publicly available posting guidelines is an impediment of any kind on the delivery of objective moderation?
  
• [3]Do you believe Malayan Singapura had a reasonable opportunity to defend themselves and confront the accusations levied against them?
  

Your Honour,

1) What I meant by saying that the quoted posts do not fully reflect the nature of Singapura's offence is in how they work in context, both of other's posts and the sheer volume of verbiage Malayan Singapura managed to produce in general. His posts were frequent, relatively long and, intentional or not, suffused with a smug tone from the start. This can be seen from a quick search of his posts on the RMB. Actually experiencing them at the time, they were a greater nuisance in their context than they tend to appear in isolation.

2) I think that the guidelines available at the time (those listed on the WFE) are vague and difficult to define, allowing a considerable degree of personal interpretation, which leads such decisions more open to complaint, also. I believe the new RMB etiquette guide to be better in this regard.

3) I do. Even in lieu of any formal warning, the responses to his messages were increasingly guiding or warning him about his posting habits, particularly from Sam/SJS Republic. The same is also true here on the forums, where the topic arose in his blog thread (in this post).

Founder of the Church of the South Pacific [Forum Thread] [Discord], a safe place to discuss spirituality for people of all faiths and none (currently looking for those interested in prayer and/or "home" groups);
And The Silicon Pens [Discord], a writer's group for the South Pacific and beyond!

Yahweo usenneo ir varleo, ihraneo jurlaweo hraseu seu, ir jiweveo arladi.

Salma 145:8

translate

The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.
Psalm 145: 8

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Your honour,

In answer to your questions:
Sources [16], [18], and [22] from my first post clearly state that roleplaying should be done in our dedicated region, Knowhere. Source [17], while not from a government official, clearly states that the offence is double (or triple) posting. Source [23] clearly states that the bragging is an offence.

While the LC had no official warning structure in place at the time (and still doesn't, to the best of my knowledge), the opinions from RMBers, particularly regular ones, were valued, seeing as the moderation of the board was for the benefit of its users.

There was no publication of official warnings, as there were no official warnings. RMB moderation was always done on an informal basis, mainly because most users were able to exhibit common courtesy, and would stop doing something when told not to.

The standard employed by the LC was more about the volume of warnings, rather than individual ones themselves. The LC believed that Malayan Singapura was unlikely to change their ways due to ignoring a wide range of warnings from a range of both government and non-government RMB users.

There was no codified ruleset at the time, other than the 'no RMB recruiting' in the WFE, which is irrelevant to this case.

The public had no way of knowing what standards they were held to. Unless they were told about it. Like Malayan Singapura was. Repeatedly.

I believe the nature of the RMB makes it hard to deliver any objective moderation, given the eclectic range of topics, conversations of varying lengths, and constant stream of new users. The LC therefore, operated with lenience, waiting until many warnings had been given out before committing to action.

Article III section 3 applies to nations who had joined in good faith. Malayan Singapura had joined due to being banned from TNP, and stated that his time in TSP would be temporary (until the ban ended), and that his end goal was in TNP not TSP, thus we believed he was not here in good faith. The then COA Farengeto agreed, rejecting Malayan Singapura's legislator application, stating "After investigation of your TNP activities and motives for applying, your application has been rejected on the grounds you are seeking membership in bad faith."

Did some LC, MoRA, CRS stuff in the past. Do a lot of World Census stuff now.

Reply

The Court extends its thanks to Pencil Sharpeners and Malayan Singapura for their respective testimonies, and would like to ask them the following questions

To Malayan Singapura:

• Were you aware that your line of posting was contrary to the posting guidelines established by the Local Council?
  
• Were you informed of, referred to, or shown, said guidelines at any point between your first warning and your ban from the region?
  
• Did you consider the warnings given by various members, with the exception of those given by Most Benevolent Tyranny and SJS Republic, as official warnings from the Local Council?
  
• Why did you continue posting in such a way that you continued to be called out, either by the Local Council or by individual members of the region, on your behaviour and attitude?
  
• Do you believe a lack of ill intent is an excuse for ignoring or violating regional posting guidelines?
  

The Court reserves the right to ask additional questions.

1: Not entirely. I would like to point out that not everything I posted at TSP was against Local Council posting guidelines

2: Only a few times. If I was honest, those guides needed a bit of an update when I read it. I'm not sure about it now though.

3: I did not as none of the other denizens implied anything serious as the warnings given by LC members. They were like "Calm down" instead of "Cease and desist"

4: I am not entirely sure, but I think it had something to do outside of NationStates. Around the time I joined TSP, I tried to join a discord server with friends but accidentally went in a political debate one. I thought it was harmless but it had too many national socialists. By the time I got kicked out of TSP, I immediately quitted the group as I realised it slowly changed my perspective into something which I now find unacceptable. However, I don't see this as an excuse as I had the chance to cut my losses and leave it.

5: No, I do not believe lack of ill intent is an excuse to be blind to regional posting guidelines.

I would like to end with a note that at that time, regional post guidelines should've been easier To find. Finding them after each warning given was hard by going back hundreds of post to find the link on a post

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Malayan Singapura

Reply

The Court thanks Pencil Sharpeners and Malayan Singapura for their answers, and further asks the following questions:

For Pencil Sharpeners:

• You have conceded that "there were no official warnings". If that is the case, under what reasonable basis could warnings delivered by external parties, unofficial by their very nature, be considered binding for Malayan Singapura? In other words, why should they have considered them any more binding or relevant than if a complete stranger approached them to reprimand them for a random action?
  
• If there was no official ruleset that members could consult or be referred to, what rules did Malayan Singapura broke?
  
• If there was no official ruleset, how can the Court assume that the rules that were enforced on Malayan Singapura were lawful and equally applied to other members, rather than being an excuse for a discriminatory or arbitrary treatment against Singapura?
  
• Even if Malayan Singapura was told to which standards they were being held to, how could they verify that they were the lawful standards of the region? Would it not be possible for one official to lie and hold an opponents to different standards, without anyone having any recourse to claim that said standards are unlawful?
  
• Article III, Section 3 of the Charter applies to members who join the Coalition, whereas Chair Farengeto denied an application to join the Assembly. Do you believe a denial of the latter on grounds of bad faith involves a bad faith determination for the former?
  
• If the answer to the above question is yes, how would that interact with the implication in Members of the Coalition [HCLQ1708], where the Court suggests that bad faith corresponds to illegitimate invades and usurpers? Would Malayan Singapura fit that definition?

For Malayan Singapura:

• Pencil Sharpeners indicates that there were no official posting guidelines in place at the time of your warnings and ban. What exactly were you referred to, that you considered to be the guidelines?
  

Former Delegate of the South Pacific
Posts outside High Court venues should be taken as those of any other legislator.
I do not participate in the regional server, but I am happy to talk through instant messaging or on the forum.

Legal Resources:
THE MATT-DUCK Law Archive | Mavenu Diplomatic Archive | Rules of the High Court | Case Submission System | Online Rulings Consultation System

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It was a Factbook or two about RMB courtesy that has been read a few hundred times. I might add that it was published Long ago and didn’t specifically mentioned TSP law. The only thing that was TSP was its author, but then again it didn’t specifically said it was for TSP RMB life

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Malayan Singapura

Reply

Could you find and link said dispatch?

Former Delegate of the South Pacific
Posts outside High Court venues should be taken as those of any other legislator.
I do not participate in the regional server, but I am happy to talk through instant messaging or on the forum.

Legal Resources:
THE MATT-DUCK Law Archive | Mavenu Diplomatic Archive | Rules of the High Court | Case Submission System | Online Rulings Consultation System

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I’ll try, but it’ll take me quite some time to comb through the TSP RMB files your honor

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Malayan Singapura

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