SyndicatedINC

Congratulations, and good luck to you all. At the very least while many perhaps draw issue with aspects of your charter, you clearly spent significant time on it, and it looks rather well planned out.

Apologies, unfortunately Union contracts being what they are, the Royal speech writer is paid by the word! :/

If you wanted our Senate support you could have come to our government and asked. Unlike treaty discussions or the like, mass messaging the entire Purple sphere is a rather public act.

As stated above, essentially yes. What is so wrong with approaching a minor issue such as this by a simple appeal to basic human decency and politeness?

Avalon is not declaring that you have no right to do so. Rather we are declaring that we feel that it is rude to do so. Thus in regards to our Isle we stated our intent in the original statement: "Avalon does not seek any sort of apology or other political mechanization. We are seeking only to make a public awareness of how and why such violation of common political etiquette can be construed as rude. It is our desire to see this rectified by the cessation of further such occurrences." We do not tell you "lol stop" we explain to you that we desire you to cease from this in the future. It is a request, based on decency and respect. The same way that while I may retain my right to whistle during staff meetings, I have the self restraint not to since it annoys the other cabinet members.

Not at all, unseemly to us would be if Avalon was actively involving itself in playing Senate politics without actively involving itself in the rest of the sphere. We stayed out of Politics out of respect for the alliances who were more actively involved in them and had an actual stake in things. Given our lack of interest in that world of things, it seemed the only 'Polite' choice. Therefore we do not see it as unseemly to endorse involvement at this time, given that we are not actively involving ourselves this round, only redressing an injustice. Given that those who committed no offense to us (PEACE) understand our neutrality and accept our deviation this one time, we do not see it as rude or unseemly behavior. The apparent disconnect here is that Avalon policy revolves around specific code of honour and a desire to be polite. We view what the Stickmen did as violating that and are acting within the confines of utmost class in responding. If PEACE wishes Avalon to cease the votes we shall, since it would be rude to ignore that. If Stickmen cease vote spam, it would likewise be rude for Avalon to hold a grudge or continue to cast votes.

Perhaps in your eyes. In our eyes it is Stickmen being unseemly with these messages. So again what is wrong with the proposed course of events (no more attempts to sway votes from us and we won't vote for anyone actual candidates on either side)? Seems to me doubly interesting since we both see the end to what we view as unseemly behavior.

Correction, that was until you decided to involve us in Senate politics. Once again however, how does this matter either way to the issue at hand?

We are suspending our neutrality to counteract what we saw as an insult against us. So yes we are not neutral at the moment, but there is a big difference between "not neutral" and "temporarily suspended neutrality". The former implies that we have not been nor shall be neutral, the latter implies the actual situation. The difference may not matter to others, but it does to us. I see not what the high road is here, I was composing my response to you when the screen shot was posted. No screen shot was needed to prove a policy that we publicly stand behind. We are in the public because we do not fear public scrutiny of our actions here. In fact we welcome it for if we were truly out of line, a public venue such as this would bring it to light. The bottom line is that you appear to not have any remorse over the messaging. That is fine as we stated we seek no apologies, nor resolution other than a public understanding of our position, and the hope that you will respect that.

I know not what this 'in-game' that you speak of is, however if you wish to look at things from that perspective then in a manner of speaking yes, so long as there is an attempt to involve Avalon citizens in the Senate voting process, then Avalon shall temporarily suspend her normal neutrality and support opposition candidates to those who attempted to coax Avalon away from neutrality. The issue at hand is that you seem to either misunderstand the order of events, or do not consider them relevant, to us however they are the pinnacle of relevance. 1st- Avalon is Politically Neutral in Purple Senate Matters 2nd- Stickmen mass spam Avalon sequestering votes for their candidate to win a seat 3rd- Avalon posts this announcement and supports opposition candidates to the Stickmen candidate Now for us we would like to see the next steps be: 4th- Next election cycle no one attempts to garner Avalon votes 5th- Avalon returns to stance of not voting/voting for non-competitive candidates 6th- Everyone lives happily every after with perfect trade circles and tech deals galore. Once again, what exactly is wrong with that situation?

No we do not agree. We wish our members to not vote or vote for someone other than the actual senators. Thus allowing us to have no place int he Senate politics. Your messages attempted to change this situation and have Avalon nations voting for an actual senate candidate. round. History tells us that the best way to discourage improper behavior is to do the opposite. Thus we do the opposite and support your opposition this So we do not agree, as Avalon feels that we are protecting our neutrality by this first and only endorsement of Senate candidates. Next cycle you shall have neither support nor opposition from us, so long as we are left alone. We still do not comprehend why that is so difficult a request?

Darn this thread is moving too swiftly.... I could see how someone may hold that view. Our position has been to up until now to encourage Avalon nations not to vote or if they desire to vote then do so for someone not in the competitive running. We pursued a neutrality around NOT signing onto treaties that would force us to involve ourselves with Senate candidates and votes. We pursued a neutrality on not selecting whom to vote for, and if possible skipping the entire process. How is a public thread screenshot a spy? and yes we are not party to PEACE for the reasons stated above.

I am unsure as to how this matters but indeed we could state as much here if you prefer. Since Stickmen attempted to undermine our policy of non-involvement in Purple Senate matters, we determined that supporting their opposition would be the most poetic justice course of action. Actually I suppose that would tie in to Potato's question. Assuming this continues, Avalon is prepared to temporarily to vote for whomever is not spamming us.

Then we have a great deal of pity for you. Nothing military if that is what you are implying. No, at this point in time everything that we are prepared to do we are currently doing right here. This is after all a matter of etiquette and protocol not national security.

Esteemed Potato of the Mushroom Kingdom. I direct you to our original post as we in essence have already answered your query there:

Has it really been a year? Amazing, it seems like only yesterday I was reading the Declaration of Existence of SLCB. Well congratulations are in order on the milestone. Onwards to your second anniversary!

Hmmm what is with the X years and 1 month anniversary announcements? Well regardless of the date congratulations VA, you are a fine group of folk. May you make it another 2 years!

Greetings assembled rulers, The government of Avalon convenes this day and comes before you all with a troubled heart. We unfortunately finds ourselves forced to lodge a formal public grievance with the Stickmen BLOC (SLCB,FCO,iFOK). Our complaint is in regards to the apparent onslaught of spam sent by Stickmen-affiliated nations late yesterday evening and early this morning. We awoke this morning to receive reports coming in from across our beloved Isle of messengers from members of the Stickmen BLOC delivering various forms of the following missive to our fellow citizens: As this spamming has taken on an inherently public character, we feel compelled to give a response that may be filed on the public record. This mass spamming of another sovereign entity is not in keeping with the standards of civilized conduct on Planet Bob. Just as an alliance seeking to merge ought not to spam recruitment messages to the citizens of another foreign entity, those seeking the Senate votes of a foreign entity should speak to that entity's government, not spam their citizens. Such tactics are the tools of underground guerrilla campaigns and the like, not for use by upstanding formal alliances of honour. Avalon can neither endorse, nor condone through our public silence, the use of alliance-wide spamming for the purposes of a Senate election. Avalon has long held a policy of political neutrality in regards to the matters of Purple Senate. To do otherwise, given our history of limited participation in other areas of the sphere politics would be unseemly of us. Intended or not, this spam constituted a direct attempt to undermine Avalon's policy of non-involvement in Purple senate matters. Those seeking senate votes from Avalon should have requested endorsement by His Majesty's government before messaging the provinces directly. By doing otherwise the Stickmen have created an unnecessary burden upon our bureaucracy and have undermined our policy of political neutrality. Avalon does not seek any sort of apology or other political mechanization. We are seeking only to make a public awareness of how and why such violation of common political etiquette can be construed as rude. It is our desire to see this rectified by the cessation of further such occurrences. This incident has started off relations with our new Purple brethren in the Stickmen on the wrong foot. And despite any such incident we continue to hold a special place in our hearts for our Purple brethren and especially the Finnish Cooperation Organization. We hope that future incidents of this nature can be avoided and that our relations with the Stickmen can improve after this unfortunate start. Long Live Stickmen! Long Live Avalon! Long Live Purple Decreed this Seventh day of October in the year of our Lord Admin 2009, Issued by SyndicatedINC, Foreign Secretary of Avalon, for First Lord Suboai, Prime Minister of Avalon, on Behalf of His Majesty's Government Summation: (ie tl;dr) Avalon has always been politically neutral in regards to Purple Senate matters. Such that Avalon members are encouraged NOT to vote or to null vote (vote someone who is at the very bottom). Avalon views the Stickmen spam campaign as an attempt to get Avalon members to break our official neutral policy. Though no Avalon nation has done so, it did create quite a bit of extra unnecessary message traffic for us. We find both causing the extra work and attempt to undermine our long standing policy to be somewhat rude. Thus we publicly explain such for ease of permanent reference. There is no ultimatum, and we harbor no ill-will towards the Stickmen. *reason for edit* forgot to include the necessary blessings before the signature and added a tl;dr by request.

A thosuand curses upon you System, that was gonna be MY pun!!! Anyway a heartfelt congratulations to Boris and his fellow Epic citizens.

Goodluck to Shavar may he lead NAC to an even brighter future.

Well then a belated Congratulations to you all FoB. Do Pirates celebrate with cake?

Congratulations to the German people and their leadership on this achievement!

Congratulations to both of you! Boris just had to make the FEAR flag a tad bigger huh?

Schattenmann I think that I may just hate you for making me agree with you so strongly here. Vilien keep fighting the good fight.

congratulations to both parties, may your relationship stay strong.