Jump to content

C.O.P.S. Treaty Discussion


Westwind

Recommended Posts

As an FYI, there is a discussion at the NS Worlds Fair on updated the C.O.P.S Treaty.

The current Treaty, originally ratified by The West Pacific and ACCEL:

The Convention on Off Site Property Security (C.O.P.S.)

Preamble:

We, the undersigned, disgusted with the inexcusable practice of forum crashing and its attendant evils, wish to use this treaty as a means to work for the eradication of the practice.

Definitions:

Crashing: any action which could cause a forum to go out of service or lose information, including: the deletion of posts, the deletion of the forum, spamming, or any other act of this kind.

Legal: In accordance with the rules of Nationstates as set out on the site.

Off-site property: Any forums, websites or Wiki pages owned or maintained by a Nationstates nation, organization or region.

Signatories: The regions and nations who sign and the organizations on whose behalf they sign the treaty.

Spamming: Any action undertaken by non-region nationals to waste space on forums or to cause forums to crash. This includes any attempts to force a DOS error on forums and any attempts to flood the RMB of a region which is not your normal abode.

Phishing: Any attempts to gain forum controls or passwords by deception, especially by posing as administrators or moderators.

I

We, the undersigned, do agree to adhere to all the regulations set out below and do hereby accept the right of all nations, regions and alliances to create and maintain off-site property without hindrance, annoyance or any behaviour which could prevent the free exercise of this right. We commit to specifically refrain from all forms of forums crashing, spamming and phishing and condemn these acts as illegal and destructive. We also agree that no such act shall be ordered, condoned or accepted as legal by us or those nations and regions whom we represent and influence.

II

We agree that proper geopolitical requirements and cooperation are a key to preventing those who engage in acts proscribed in this treaty from continuing to do so. Signatories to this treaty agree to multilateral cooperation and further agree to enact laws against acts proscribed in this Treaty on a regional or organisational basis as one of the requirements for full membership. To fulfill the second requirement of membership we further agree that nations and entities that engage in these acts will gain no safe haven in member regions and organizations. To that effect we assert the right of all members to bring charges and try those that engage in these acts within their court system.

III

In order to be a member of this Treaty, a prospective member region or organization must meet the above requirements of Section II, ratify it within their region or organization and send a legal signatory to post their acceptance of the Treaty terms within the ACCEL and TWP areas where the original Treaty will be held in trust for all member regions and organizations. This treaty shall be binding and shall remain in effect from the time a signatory is added to the list, to the time they post a request to leave the Treaty. While the decision of a signatory to leave this treaty shall be unfortunate, it shall not be construed as support for, or intention to commit any of the acts condemned in this treaty. This treaty shall be considered supplementary to and not a replacement for any treaty in force between any and all of the signatories.

IV

Given the scope and purpose of this treaty, signing the treaty does not necessarily mean that signatories are in political or diplomatic agreement on any other matter bar the matters attended to in the text of this treaty. It is the hope of the signatories that, given that forum crashing may affect regions of all sizes and political views, this treaty shall be signed by as many regions and organizations as possible. Any and all signatories are hereby granted the right and encouraged to invite others to sign this treaty.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Always agree with the idea that nothing should be done to damage offsite forum, I've seen a few regions get majorly screwed up because of jerks messing with offsites.

Having said that perhaps the "phishing" part could be interpreted a bit too broadly. I think pretending to be people to get access to passworded sections of forums is a totally normal part of intelligence work. Obviously I don't mean pretending to be a moderator and asking someone for their account password or that crap but I feel some people could use the phrasing there to claim perfectly reasonable intelligence gathering was not in the spirit of the treaty.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

While it may be completely legitimate in Real World Intelligence gathering, it's cross over a very large, very illegal line for a game. Phising is a form of Fraud and should be frowned upon fully and without exception for the purposes of a game.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

While it may be completely legitimate in Real World Intelligence gathering, it's cross over a very large, very illegal line for a game. Phising is a form of Fraud and should be frowned upon fully and without exception for the purposes of a game.

I'm not a techy guy so what exactly is phishing? Is it pretending to be another real person?

I kind of meant when you pretend to be a newbie go to a region, get elected to be their intel minister so you get access to all their password protected forum and what not and then feed all their intel to your home region, I was just worried the wording might preclude that sort of activity. Not that I have ever done anything like that of course.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

*chuckles* The Intel side of the game in NS is pretty much dead. There's still room for it, but with different aims than before. On the other hand, for anyone that may be interested, I do have intel targets for potential agents.

Phishing is essentially trying to obtain personal information via fraud. (like those bogus email that claims to be from a bank, saying they need your account information)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

While it may be completely legitimate in Real World Intelligence gathering, it's cross over a very large, very illegal line for a game. Phising is a form of Fraud and should be frowned upon fully and without exception for the purposes of a game.

And when it is done with the purpose to delete the forum, that is a criminal act of destruction against someone's property which should be treated with the utmost severity.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was asked to split the conversation from the treaty and thought it might be easier to simply repost the treaty and then lock it so that this dialogue might continue. I hope no one feels slighted by this action. If you do, please contact me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Agreed. In my mind, COPS was intended as a way for forum communities to express themselves collectively about the issue of forum destruction, while leaving enforcement to the legal bodies and Admins of each region. A joint protest against such actions that respects the sovereignty of each region.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

COPS was written to provide a game justification to banject weasily forum-destroying bastards from regional forums. If a player was a known destroyer, member regions' admin would confer and protect their communities by shunning the perp(s). COPS was a TWP idea but the guts of the treaty was the brainchild of Schwartzchild.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Honestly, they can agree to whatever they want. Known Forum/Community Destroyers will be banned on sight here regardless. Speaking of which, I should really dig up my old ban list and re-add that to the IP Blocks.

Council of reps put forward by universal acclaim of regions sounds like it would be VERY hard to maintain or get anything done.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 8 years later...

This is rater an interesting topic.

Generally I had a big distaste and hate for misinformation given what is going lately. What is worse is people editing wrong info for malicious reasons. Yet to me it would be somewhat childish if people would waste their time in attempting to screw seriously around nationstates though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, setne550 said:

This is rater an interesting topic.

Generally I had a big distaste and hate for misinformation given what is going lately. What is worse is people editing wrong info for malicious reasons. Yet to me it would be somewhat childish if people would waste their time in attempting to screw seriously around nationstates though.

This treaty was enacted long ago already. I'm not sure why did you gravedig a thread from 9 years ago.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
On 6/20/2021 at 8:59 PM, Giovanniland said:

This treaty was enacted long ago already. I'm not sure why did you gravedig a thread from 9 years ago.

My apologies, the thread just float itself in this forum for no reason so I just check it up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...