The First Day of Ackanomic

It is instructive, if not amusing, to examine the events of the first twenty-four hours of Ackanomic's existence. In many ways they were extremely similar to any other day in Ackanomic. One cannot help but wonder how much of Ackanomic's flavor was set by the events of this day, and how much of it was simply inevitable.

Mitchell Harding (now known as Robert Sevin) joined the game two hours after it began. Within the next three hours he submitted the first ten proposals.

The very first proposal, Proposal 301, introduced the concept of harf to Ackanomic. It attempted to add a third class of rules called "Harfy Rules". Harfy Rules were mutable, but could only be changed if the new rule would be sillier or more difficult to understand.

In response to Proposal 307, which would decrease the number of point earned for a successful proposal and raise the number of points needed to win from 100 to 500, Sean Crystal wrote: "You are insane. Do you realize how long a game would take with your proposal 307? Games really should not last much longer than a month or two at the most."

Paul Swan, who would later be known as chess piece face, also joined on the morning of the first day (less than two hours after Robert Sevin, in fact).

Sean Crystal submitted two proposals during the first two hours of Ackanomic's existence, Proposals 305 and 306. The latter proposal introduced the Magic Potato, which was successful in becoming a rule, and in fact remains a rule to this very day.

Proposal 304, Consecutive NO Votes, proposed to made it illegal to vote No more than seven times in a row. It was a bit controversial, because players recognized that it would require extra bookkeeping, and furthermore could be abused by a single player submitting a series of bad proposals. Nonetheless, it was the only one of Mitchell Harding's first proposals to be accepted. (Surprisingly, no one really attempted to take advantage of this potential for abuse until seven months later, whereupon the rule was quickly repealed.) And, since at that time the voting period could end as soon as everyone's votes were received by the Speaker, it was adopted that evening, becoming Ackanomic's first new rule.

Proposal 314, "Politeness Moon", was also accepted during the first day, making it the oldest proposed rule that is still on the books.

Proposal 316 was named "The Enough's Enough Rule (also known as the Save My Mailbox Rule)". Ackanomic was only nineteen hours old, and already people were complaining about the amount of email it generated. This proposal attempted to set an upper limit for each player of only ten proposals in the queue at any given time. (Despite being publicly supported by the Speaker, it received four out of seven votes, and therefore failed to pass.)

Proposal 323, again created by Mitchell Harding, proposed that the Speaker should have the job of sending out weekly status reports on the current proposals and who had voted on them. Speaker Sean Crystal objected on the grounds that "[t]he Speaker already has enough to do without this additional work." In response, Mitchell Harding submitted Proposal 327, the last proposal of the day, which nicely complemented the first proposal of the day by introducing to Ackanomic the use of harf as a noun. It attempted to created the title of Helpful Harfer, which the Speaker could appoint to player to have them assist in his functions. (Proposal 327 did not pass, but half an hour into the second day, Sean Crystal submitted proposal Proposal 329, "The Office of the Tabulator", and this was accepted, creating the first new office.)

CFJ 101 was also issued, and judged, that same day. It found that six of Mitchell Harding's first ten proposals were invalid, because they described more than one rule change, which the rules did not at that time permit.

Two other players also joined in the last hours of the first day: Austin Appleby (who submitted Proposal 344, "Vacationing", hours into day two), and Rusty Brooks (who less than 24 hours later became the first player to quit Ackanomic).

By the end of day one, Ackanomic had seen no less than twenty-seven proposals (four by Sean Crystal, three by Anthony Polito, one by Paul Swan, and nineteen by Mitchell Harding), four new players, two new rules, two Calls For Judgement, and one verdict.

In a way, not much has changed since then.


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