Ah, the World Assembly. A place for either recognition and progress, or ego-stroking and legalese, depending on how you look at it. But if you've ever taken a look at the rules of the General Assembly, or just hang out in the WA discord, you might have noticed a term: General Assembly Secretariat, or, as they're frequently shortened to, Gen-Sec.
Gen-Sec are, according to themselves, "a panel of nations who judge the legality of WA General Assembly proposals." Straightforward enough, but what do these elusive people really do? Gen-Sec is comprised of players who are experienced with the General Assembly, and their job is to manage everything contentuous about the GA.
Their most important duty is making sure that the GA rules are up-to-date and modern. Gen-Sec rewrite the rules as they please (read them
here if you want to make a proposal), although they usually keep in mind the wishes of the community. Just a few weeks ago, the Metagaming rule was rewritten to overturn a previous legality ruling (more on that later) and enshrine into law that no proposal may touch on the specific canon of a specific nation. This means that fake religions, languages, etc. cannot be referenced, as they are usually specific to a small group of nations, but things like nuclear weapons may be referenced because a lot of nations have it as canon that such weapons exist.
(Quick note here to add that if you write a resolution, NS rules apply as much as GA ones)
Their almost as equally important job is to judge whether a proposal is legal under the ruleset and past precedent. Once they are done making their decision, they can mark a proposal one of three ways. Legal - meaning the proposal is legal and can be allowed to proceed to the voting floor (assuming it gets enough approvals - more on that in a future issue). Illegal - meaning the propoal is illegal and will not proceed to the voting floor, and instead will expire in a few days. And finally, Discard - which means the proposal is so blatantly illegal that it should be removed from public viewing immediately. Whichever category has the most Gen-Sec votes will be implemented.
Finally, they respond to challenges. Challenges are a request from a non Gen-Sec player to change the legality of a proposal (usually from Legal to Illegal) due to a particular interpretation of the rules, or something Gen-Sec might have missed. Challenges establish precedent for future legality decisions, and sometimes get enshrined in the rules.
(PS: if you want to know more about challenges and Gen-Sec in general, read
this thread)
Gen-Sec are, according to themselves, "a panel of nations who judge the legality of WA General Assembly proposals." Straightforward enough, but what do these elusive people really do? Gen-Sec is comprised of players who are experienced with the General Assembly, and their job is to manage everything contentuous about the GA.
Their most important duty is making sure that the GA rules are up-to-date and modern. Gen-Sec rewrite the rules as they please (read them
(Quick note here to add that if you write a resolution, NS rules apply as much as GA ones)
Their almost as equally important job is to judge whether a proposal is legal under the ruleset and past precedent. Once they are done making their decision, they can mark a proposal one of three ways. Legal - meaning the proposal is legal and can be allowed to proceed to the voting floor (assuming it gets enough approvals - more on that in a future issue). Illegal - meaning the propoal is illegal and will not proceed to the voting floor, and instead will expire in a few days. And finally, Discard - which means the proposal is so blatantly illegal that it should be removed from public viewing immediately. Whichever category has the most Gen-Sec votes will be implemented.
Finally, they respond to challenges. Challenges are a request from a non Gen-Sec player to change the legality of a proposal (usually from Legal to Illegal) due to a particular interpretation of the rules, or something Gen-Sec might have missed. Challenges establish precedent for future legality decisions, and sometimes get enshrined in the rules.
(PS: if you want to know more about challenges and Gen-Sec in general, read