Join the new world

Woot!

+1

Also funny that now people see it as a problem. Tonie has been sending food to people for months now trying to get people to play the game.

Never seen such a weak defence before, wondering if you yourself believe a word of what is written on this paper?

[Principle Mode ON] As far as I know, DemNL never practiced foodsharing. It is a despicable practice, worthy of sending one to the innermost circle of Hell.

Just wondering: I guess you made a standard message for your campaign. What what that message? Was it really unbiased, for example by presenting all candidates' programs?

@Curerofthought: I wonder what words you exactly don't believe. I can't indeed not defend myself but weak on comments like those.
@Broersje: It was not really unbiased, as it was still me campaigning for my candidature.

I paid NoTie 10 gold to make this article.

The defence is quite week indeed. Let's analyze it, shall we?

1. 'First of all, I DID send most of our citizens a message regarding my presidential candidature with 5 Q1 food pieces attached.'

NoTie admits to be guilty of performing actions which the Grote Van Dale, his mother tongue's authoritative dictionary, refers to as 'omkopen', with the following definition: 'op een ongeoorloofde wijze beïnvloeden, voor zich winnen door het geven van geld, geschenken enz.'

2. 'I DID not force them or ask them in return to vote for me, which is the real definition of bribing.'

As we've seen, that is not the real definition. By the way, if the message was biased, the suggestion was there anyway.

3. 'It actually involves people in to our politics, as the total amount of votes has radically increased (and not only because of our recent population growth).'

Sending people messages involves them in politics, the food - and a miserly bit of that, too - not so much. Indeed, the total amount of votes has increased, but how can you prove that it's not just because of the recent population growth? It could well be that other candidates, too, have used mass-messaging to increase their output. Or it could be a coincidence.

4. 'Mass-messages/Foodsharing is COMPLETLY 'salonfähig' as every party commits this 'crime'. I think it's hypocritical to blame the other for doing so too.'

Disregarding the fact that some parties do not use foodsharing as a tactic, is it OK to commit a crime because others do so too?

5. 'Does it really matter much? People vote by party lines without these 'crimes', which is possibly worse than people getting stimulated by food/messages, which might actually get them to read the programm of the oponnents and also gets non-political players involved.'

Yes, it does matter. For someone with principles, that is. And now you're saying that you prevented people from committing the heinous act of voting by party lines by committing a morally dubious act yourself?

@NoTie, if I recall correctly you stalk people as soon as they get into this game with message friend invites and such "generosities " as far as other parties are concerned I do not know, But you seem to do it for the fact to "help" people, however what you reach is completely the opposite.

What you did today is exactly the same, on the day of voting you are handing out little presents to the younger players who have no political allignment, or just joined a party. It is part of a recognition cycle, they see your picture and recall the gift you send them, no matter how small it was or that there was no question to vote for you, they recognize your picture and vote for you. It is the same as if you would hand out 10 euro's to everyone that is going to vote, without giving them voting advice, but having a huge banner over your head with your name on it while you're handing out the money.

It is sad, and finally your true self has leaked out after the discussion over not bribing and willing to sacrifice the CoC over your own little plan. Everyone that read your statements and posts over the past few months knows how hypocrite and rediculous your party program is.

Also +1 for Broersje

By the way, do not take my comments personal, Tonie. I made the analysis purely out of rhetorical interests; since I followed a course about ancient rhetoric I cannot help but analyze almost every single reasoning presented to me 😁

+1 broersje

resign tomorrow is the best option to solve this issue.

@broersje
1. 'NoTie admits to be guilty of performing actions which the Grote Van Dale, his mother tongue's authoritative dictionary, refers to as 'omkopen', with the following definition: 'op een ongeoorloofde wijze beïnvloeden, voor zich winnen door het geven van geld, geschenken enz.'
This is very subjective, as eRepublik Law is by no means RL Law. Some things are permitted ingame, which in real life would be frowned upon. This is one of those borderline cases

2. 'As we've seen, that is not the real definition. By the way, if the message was biased, the suggestion was there anyway.'
Stimulating it might be yes, forcing/exchanging not, which is a requirement for bribing.

3. 'Sending people messages involves them in politics, the food - and a miserly bit of that, too - not so much. Indeed, the total amount of votes has increased, but how can you prove that it's not just because of the recent population growth? It could well be that other candidates, too, have used mass-messaging to increase their output. Or it could be a coincidence.'
You see, other candidates using tactics like these too, to increase the total amount of votes. 🙂

4. 'Disregarding the fact that some parties do not use foodsharing as a tactic, is it OK to commit a crime because others do so too?'
It is not a crime, hence the annotation marks I repeatedly put around them.

5. ''Yes, it does matter. For someone with principles, that is. And now you're saying that you prevented people from committing the heinous act of voting by party lines by committing a morally dubious act yourself? ''
I honestly do not see what you are trying to state here.

Gezien dat vandaag, zelfs nog voordat de officiele uitslag bekend is, er sprake is van een mogelijk omkoopschandaal wil ik aangeven dat ik onder geen beding plaats zal nemen in een regering die hiervan verdacht wordt.

Het Nederlandse volk verdiend in deze kwestie openheid en eerlijkheid inzake deze kwestie. Ik vraag hierbij dus ook om een samenstelling van een groep mensen die dit gaan onderzoeken en met bewijs komen als dat er is. Het hoogste verraad binnen Nederland vind ik persoonlijk het omkopen van mensen en ben voorstander om hier mensen ook op te straffen alleen laat ik me niet uit zonder bewijs ofdat iemand schuldig is of niet.

Wel heb ik besloten dat ik geen deel wil uitmaken van de regering omdat ik vind dat er nu teveel speculatie is en de bevolking ten eerste recht heeft op een eerlijke verklaring van de betrokken in deze kwestie: Beide kandidaten (Elgorro van DemNL en NoTie112 van TDP). Ik hoop dat beide personen eerlijkheid en openheid geven in deze kwestie en niet dat ons land hierdoor verscheurd wordt.

@Tonie:
1. 'This is very subjective, as eRepublik Law is by no means RL Law. Some things are permitted ingame, which in real life would be frowned upon. This is one of those borderline cases'
There is no eRep Law. My definition stems from a dictionary, not a lawbook. We're not speaking legal here. And what makes you think this game has nothing to do with RL morality?

2. 'Stimulating it might be yes, forcing/exchanging not, which is a requirement for bribing.'
Forcing someone to do something is not a requirement for bribing; that's what we call intimidation or blackmailing. Stimulating someone to do something by giving things is the exact definition of bribing, because bribing doesn't need an explicit statement of intent from the receiving party.

3. 'You see, other candidates using tactics like these too, to increase the total amount of votes.'
Indeed, tactics like these, minus the bribing part.

4. 'It is not a crime, hence the annotation marks I repeatedly put around them.'
I noticed those. Let me put it this way: if you see someone handing out food as a stimulus for voting, which may not be a crime, but is considered questionable, are you justified in doing the same?

5. I was commenting on a lack of moral insight. If you say bribing is not that big of a matter, and it even helps to cure some other perceived evil, you are justifying the practice of bribing both of itself and as a means to some goal. That is wrong, at least for those with an adequately working moral compass.

Which candidate is worrying about going to eJail?
http://i39.tinypic.com/wv905h.png

What is this fuss all about? this is all about having a good campaign and getting in touch with possible voters in the eStreets of our eCountry. There is absolutely nothing wrong in doing so.
to illustrate: this is Wouter Bos handing out flowers on the local market during his election campaing in 2006. http://i42.tinypic.com/2v8l2d3.jpg Do you think his actions also were illegal at the time? No of course not, it's called an election campaign!

@Shakerr: No. Illegal.

+1 broersje and curer.

+1 Shakerr

@ tonie as you say it doesn't matter anyway if you send people food or not then why should you give your opposition such a wonderful chance to piss on you?

All of you stop being such hypocrites. when there was a vote started in congress on a law to make bribery illegal it got completely shot down. Even in the debate section there was HEAVY opposition to the idea of even doing such a thing (by renowned DemNL member Artemivanov and NoTie112 himself amongst others)

At the least NoTie openly talks about his tactics, wich you can't say about others.

broersje, curer, ElGorro plus 1
Tonie; how low 🙁
Shakerr; dido
Ellana; are you familiar with the term "NSBer" ?
Mc Laren; nice!

I think we are all in agreement here that bribery is immoral and the death of any democracy. However, we have to take into consideration whether or not bribery actually applies in this case. For this we will have to look at the terms used in the definition of bribery.

For the sake of everyone we will stick to the definition of 'De van Dale' rather than using the more lengthy definition of actual legal dictionaries.

Let's focus first on the question whether sending 5 packages of Q1 food is actually influencing anyone's decision. This is a tough call, the 'gift' is hardly worth anything and is extremely cheap. Is any player really going to be thankful of such a gift? Will he like Tonie more because of it? Let's suppose some players will.

Now an even trickier clause: 'impermissible' which by grammatical interpretation would be considered illegal. Which as Tonie pointed out isn't the case here. However broersje pointed out that 'impermissible' also has a moral meaning. It would mean that Tonie is deceiving his voters by giving them little presents. Is this indeed so? cureofthought pointed out that you 'stalk people' from the moment they join the game and continue to award them with little generosities and befriending them. Thus no one is being deceived, you are a genuine benevolent person.

Thereby there clearly is no case of impermissible influencing other players.

Sjonge jonge jonge... er verandert ook niets in eNL. Het zijn altijd weer dezelfde figuren en altijd weer dezelfde streken. Het verbaasd mij dat eNL dit maar blijft pikken. Maar goed, niet de eerste keer dat ik het zeg maar een land verdient de regering die het krijgt.

@Mael: If I remember correctly, anti-bribery legislation was completely shot down because corruption cannot be proved in most, if not all, cases. Which means that the subject is not related to this instance of questionable behaviour.

@DimlightHero: I completely agree with your analysis, at least until you come to the point of deception and genuine benevolence. It may be true that NoTie is indeed a genuinely benevolent person, but this turn of events would also mean he lacks some political instinct, as he probably should have known that handing out food together with election messages would be perceived as somewhat questionable, especially after the very recent discussion about electoral corruption, in which he himself participated. Secondly, his defense, when it came, even before public accusations, wasn't that strong, as I have shown, but I don't know if I had come up with a better one, if the tables were turned.

By the way, but there is now way to either prove or disprove this hypothesis, what if the people NoTie 'stalked' from day one aren't the same as those he sent goods to during his campaign?

To summarize the issue at han😛

NoTie112 approached prospective voters with a campaign message, accompanied by a minor gift of Q1 food. In all instances, this behaviour is termed 'bribery', but the acceptability of this kind of bribery varies from culture to culture. In RL Dutch culture, as was pointed out by Shakerr, it isn't really frowned upon; all elections, from national to provincial, from county to university council elections, are marked by handing out goodies to prospective voters.

While this RL practice may be condemned as immoral in a strict sense, because people are influenced not by arguments or ideas but by gifts, are we really justified in condemning it in this game, as well? The funny thing is: we, the players, form our own society, including morals and ethics. We don't need to follow RL practice, we don't even need to follow RL legal inclinations, if we so choose.

So what is there to be done after this upheaval? Should we condemn this practice of bestowing gifts, great or small, on voters or just accept it as part of the system? This doesn't mean I want to start a debate about legislation again, because, as was noted before, proving actions like these is very difficult, if not impossible in most cases. Lacking the possibility of writing adequate legislation, it comes down to the principles of each and every person. If you are prepared to use these tactics, you should be aware of the possible moral and ethical implications and the reactions they might engarner in the general populace. I, for one, wouldn't even think about distributing goods in election time, not so much out of principle, as much as out of fear for the reactions. But in the end, every politician will need to make his own choice and use all methods available to him or her - bearing in mind their moral acceptability and associated risks - in order to reach their goal.

@broersje: I totally agree. In this community we can set our own standards. And we don't have to follow the things other people do, just because it is already done and we have no other choice of winning the elections. We have the choice. To stop this now and not stare ourselves blind at individual or political power, but to be a politician because you want to achieve things that are called for by the people within our community. I said it before and I will say it again: I'd rather have 10 people vote for my ideas, then a 1000 for a breadcrumb. Empty power is a total waste of time and energy.

dispicable... 'nuff said

ik keur dit soort praktijken als congreslid ten strengste af, iemand die zich hiertoe verlaagd, verdiend het niet om cp van eNL te mogen worden!

naja of je de praktijken goedkeurt of niet, het is een strategie.
ikzelf zou het niet doen, echter ik vertrouw op dat mensen mij willen.
Echter de laatste 6 maanden zien we dat de nederlandse politiek sinds jvdg steeds harder en feller is geworden en dat we amerikaanse prkatijken qua verkiezingen krijgen.
We hebben ineens MU van politieke partijen (puur omdat dit meer nieuwe leden trekt).
Daarnaast zijn er berichten die naar alle nieuwe leden gestuurd worden.
tijdens verkiezingstijd word de shoutbox gigantisch volgespamt met berichten van verschillende partijen.
Vroeger werd er al brood aan iedereen uit gedeeld om goodwill te kweken, jvdg deed het ook.
ik hou er zelf niet van, echter het is niet verboden en het is zeker geen omkoping

TL;didnot read all the comments.

''First of all, I DID send most of our citizens a message regarding my presidential candidature with 5 Q1 food pieces attached. I DID not force them or ask them in return to vote for me, which is the real definition of bribing.'' This is like handing out money IRL and hoping they'll vote for you. Might not be the definition of bribing, but I don't approve of such an act. It is quite low.

I was sent food a few times since I joined, but only when elections were coming up. As a matter of fact I said to a friend this week: "if I didn't already know that elections are coming up, I would know now because someone sent me food again".
Even if you didn't specifically ask for my vote, the timing of your gift wasn't accidental. I did see it as a soft bribe attempt and thats why I didn't even consider voting for you.

+1 frankieVB!

what i wonder frankie, is from who u got food, how much, when?? i mean u say its multiple times, thereby u imply that it where multiple people.
also ur comment shows that it probably doesnt matter if he send food or not, because apparently people vote against him after getting food (ur not the only one).

vind dat iedereen maar moeilijk doet, want durf te wedden dat al deze mensen als ze op straat een stikker petje pen button weet ik het wat voor campagne troep aangeboden krijgen het maar al te graag aannemen
mensen moeten geprikkeld worden en politiek gaat puur hierom en om strategie, en achteraf heb je altijd huilenbakken 🙁

@dimlighthero, you are my hero for sure 🙂

+1 vleermuis

@ Antiko
I didn't keep track of who sent me what over time. Is it really important? None of them got my vote.

@ vleermuis
You're comparing apples with oranges. If during real-life elections someone wants to give you a cap, pen or button you can refuse to accept. In eRe people can send you all kinds of stuff and its added to your account whether you like it or not.

frankie that is not true, u can send that food back.
the problem is that most people like the food and just ignore the rest.
or people dislike the food, but not that much to send the food back.
its sad u dont have a list, because that would put some facts to ur accusations (would be nice to know how many new citizens get).
anyway as vleermuis said, u dont have to take the food and its part of strategy.

Nederland op z'n smalst.
Hij/zij stuurde 5 Q1 bammetjes blijkbaar met een mailtje.

Goh, en als je de bammetjes lekker eet en op iemand anders stemt?
Of anders de bammetjes terugstuurt en dan alsnog op iemand anders stemt?

~if someone hands you a gun, its your decision to shoot~

Sure, I could have sent the food back but why would I make an effort to return something I didn't ask for in the first place? They made a conscious decision to send it to me, hoping I would feel obligated to return the favour with my vote. They were wrong. Their loss.

NoTie112 opened herself up for this discussion with her article. I didn't make my comments personal and I didn't attack NoTie112, I simply explained my view on things. So please return that courtesy and don't suggest that I'm making false accusations because I can't (and wouldn't if I could) name and shame those who sent me similar pre-election donations.
Yours is a tactic too and not a particularly nice one...

well i was just curious, i dont blame u for not having the numbers.
but if we are dealing with this subject and blaming people then every fact should be available.
food can be send back, just like the nutguy who send plastic baby fetus to all rl 2e chamber members.
its not like they asked for it, but some will just throw it in the trashcan and others will send it back.
maybe this gesture will cause everybody to send food and weapons to new citizens, then u must ask urself, is that bad?
i mean i dont think the new citizens will be bothered if they got loads of food and weapons.

There is a huge difference between supporting new members (I think there's already an eNL scheme for that? I know the Fins have a good one) and election candidates sending food right before elections hoping to gain votes. Its obvious you don't see it that way so further discussion seems useless.
I have to work on my 2nd Mercenary anyway...

+100 FrankieVB

omg frankie u are happy u got that food.
but for me the mercenary medal is a medal that only noob and traitor get, because if u only fight for the good of the country it will take u probably 1 year to archive this medal.
i am fighting around 180 fights a day, but still i am only about 28/50 and this is because i only fight where my alliance needs me.
also i think u are wrong about the difference between food just before elections and food when u just get started, the only difference might be that food before elections u get every month and food at the beginning u only get once, so new players get more value for food every elections.