PROPOSAL ARCHIVE (2001-2050)




Proposal 2001 - Wed, 14 May 1997 18:22:31 -0500
The Flat Earth Preservation Society
Red Barn (Daniel Knapp)
Decision: Rejected
I was young and foolish then, I feel old and foolish now.

Create a rule that reads:

The Flat Earth Preservation Society exists. Its goal to prevent the Round Earth Restoration Society from restoring a round shape to the Earth by building enormous scissor-like machines to cut the tethers of the Earth's two dangling fragments. Unfortunately, the cost of such machines is very high -- 15,000 A$.
At any time, a player may make a contribution to the Flat Earth Preservation Society by posting a public message containing a non-negative amount of A$ less than that player's current balance that they wish to transfer to the Treasury on behalf of the Flat Earth Preservation Society. If taxes should ever exist in Acka, such contributions are tax-deductible.
The first player to make such a contribution becomes Chairman of the Flat Earth Preservation Society, and it is his duty to keep track of how much money has been transferred to the Treasury on the Society's behalf. Should this player ever go on vacation or leave the game, the next player to contribute shall take over this title and duty.
Once the Round Earth Restoration Society has raised 15,000 A$, a large machine shall be built, and the southern fragment severed from the earth, and causing the text in R1319 which reads "Once an additional 15,000 A$ has been raised, the southern fragment will be likewise joined, restoring a spherical shape to the Earth" to be removed. Once an additional 15,000 A$ has been raised, the southern fragment will be likewise severed, maintaining a flat shape to the Earth. When that happens, the text reading "Once the Round Earth Restoration Society has raised 15,000 A$, a large machine shall be built, and the northern fragment joined to the earth, giving it a roughly hemispherical shape." shall be removed from R1319.
{{[This leaves the Round Earth Restoration Society in existence, since it may well wish to undertake new, prohibitively expensive, lifting-machines to recover the fragments (or even to become an organization), but revokes its power.]}}


Proposal 2002 - Thu, 15 May 1997 08:21:28 -0500
Widget Repair
Guy Fawkes (Robert Shimmin)
Decision: Rejected

This is a Modest proposal. In Rule 942, replace, "The Widget will automatically change its state to tweaked if it is in the frobbed state" to "The Widget will automatically change its state to tweaked if it is in the frobbed state when traded or". Delete section 2). Renumber sections 3) and 4) to 2) and 3), respectively.

Proposal 2003 - Thu, 15 May 1997 08:48:35 -0500
Ackanomic Roulette
Guy Fawkes (Robert Shimmin)
Decision: Accepted

Create a new rule, numbered 904 and entitled "The Anti-Gumball", with text as follows:

There exists a unique entity called the Anti-Gumball, which may be chewed only on days whose dates are prime numbers greater than seven. It tastes much like the Gumball in many ways, but has a distinctly opposite flavor.

If any player legally announces he is chewing both the Gumball and the Anti-Gumball in the same message, the Officer in Charge of Random Things shall determine which of the following equally probable events happen:

1) Quantum Inflation: The fabric of the Universe strectches, forming new mass-energy, and the chewing player is awarded a Boon of the Ancients.

2) Thermonuclear Annhilation: A (REALLY) big explosion occurs. All trinkets in the player's possession are obliterated (their monetary value goes to the Treasury), along with all eir non-indestructible Gadgets. In addition, e receives a Victory Eggplant and suffers a -10 point penalty for each player (emself included) in eir current location, and e, along with all other players in the same location, is sent to the Ackanomic Afterlife. It is a Crime to cause Thermonuclear Annhilation where other players are present. In addition, both the Gumball and the Anti-Gumball are blown into the Stratosphere and cannot be chewed for the remainder of the day.

{{[ Yes, I realize this has the potential to create suicide cults seeking paranormal powers, among other things. Ain't Acka great? ]}}


Proposal 2004 - Thu, 15 May 1997 12:22:01 -0500
Preventing Near-Infinite Appeals
Guy Fawkes (Robert Shimmin)
Decision: Accepted

This is a Modest Proposal.

In Rule 217, change,
"A player may not make more than 3 appeals of the same CFJ."
to
"A single CFJ may not be appealed more than three times."


Proposal 2005 - Thu, 15 May 1997 12:46:26 -0500
Point Win Finesse (Brute Force is No Fun)
Guy Fawkes (Robert Shimmin)
Decision: Rejected

Amend Rule 603 to read in full:

Points are entities. It is possible for a Player to have a negative number of points.

The number of points a Player has is commonly referred to as his or her score; when it is specified that a Player's score is changed, the appropriate number of points are created or destroyed in order to accomplish the specified change.

The Magic Number is the number of points needed to end a cycle by points. The base value of the Magic Number is 541. The Magic Number, and its base value, may only be changed as specified by the rules.

If one or more players ever have a score greater than or equal to the Magic Number, the cycle immediately ends. The winner(s) of the cycle shall be those player(s) with the second highest score.

(For the purposes of this rule, "the second highest score" is the second highest number which is the score of one or more players. Though three players might have the same score, it is still only one score.)


Proposal 2006 - Fri, 16 May 1997 07:39:26 -0500
CV1701 Makes Good
CV1701 (Chris Vogt)
Decision: retracted by author

If a Proposal is said to be Modest by the author it must contain one of the following words: "Up" "Down" "On your head" or the current 3 word phrase set forth by R207.1

If the Modest Proposal is passed without the proper words, the player who submitted it is given points using this formula: Let a = Current # of points for an approved proposal. (a+2)3 / 5 rounded down.

However is the Modest Proposal is passed with the proper phrases the player who submitted it is given a bounus 3 points for paying attention.

If the player submits a Modest Proposal without the proper phrases and the proposal fails they are given 5 points for avoiding the complicated mathmatical formula described above.

However if, with in the past 27 days the person has been deemed silly they are exempt from this rule if the month contains a blue moon or if the temperature has droped to -3degreesF ar above 100 degreese F.


Proposal 2007 - Fri, 16 May 1997 19:27:25 -0500
Meanwhile, a thin surfer nuked PCs.
Mohammed (Jason Orendorff)
Decision: retracted by author

[My reasoning is there are already plenty of awards in the game for playing well. Probably too many. PCs aren't harfy and they are a royal pain to track. If acka is getting too bureaucratic it's because someone has to track all this *stuff* and understandably, nobody wants to.

The Chalice Win depends on PCs. I changed it to trinkets for lack of anything better. I also considered bonds.. if anyone has a better idea please don't hesitate to propose it.]

1. Amend Rule 607 (Winning by Finding the Crystal Chalice) by changing the paragraph that reads:

The Bronze Key may only be given to a Player possessing one or more Processing Chips. After seven (7) days the Key shall destroy one Processing Chip owned by the Player possessing the Bronze Key and will destroy an additional Processing Chip each week until it is transferred or all Processing Chips owned by the Player are destroyed. If at any time the Player possessing the Bronze Key should have no Processing Chips , the Key shall be immediately transferred back to the Chartreuse Goose. The owner of the Goose must then distribute the Key as an initial distribution in accordance with distribution Rules.

to read:

The Bronze Key may only be given to a Player possessing one or more Trinkets that were created by other Players. After seven (7) days the Key shall transfer one such Trinket from the Player possessing the Bronze Key to the Player who created the Trinket. If at any time the Player possessing the Bronze Key should have no Trinkets that were created by other Players, the Key shall be immediately transferred back to the Chartreuse Goose. The owner of the Goose must then distribute the Key as an initial distribution in accordance with distribution Rules.

2. Rule 935 (Processing Chips) is amended to read:

{{ All existing Processing Chips are destroyed. }}


Proposal 2008 - Sat, 17 May 1997 13:59:07 -0500 Salary Cap
Alfvaen (Aaron Humphrey)
Decision: Rejected

This is a Modest Proposal.

Amend Rule 401 ("Offices, Commonalities") by appending the following sentence to clause (v), "Salaries":

If any one player would otherwise receive more than A$100 per salary period, that player will instead receive A$100 for each period.


Proposal 2009 - Sat, 17 May 1997 13:59:08 -0500
Blue Chips
Alfvaen (Aaron Humphrey)
Decision: Accepted

{{[Since it has been stated that Processing Chips are useless and should perhaps be dispensed with, I thought I'd give them some use, that more or less makes sense to me...]}}

Amend Rule 594, "Blueprints", in the following ways:

Replace clause (i) (delimited by FOO)

FOO
(i) Blueprints are unownable entities. A Scientist can create a new Blueprint by posting its text publicly. In this case, the Scientist is the creator of the Blueprint. A Rule can also create a new Blueprint by specifying that it is doing so, and specifying the text of the new Blueprint. In this case, the author of the Rule is considered the creator of the Blueprint.

An attempt to create a new Blueprint fails if its text does not (a) introduce exactly one new type of Gadget, (b) name the new Gadget type, and (c) unambiguously define the behavior of such a Gadget. A blueprint may state a requirement of various raw materials. If no raw material are mentioned then none are required.

A Scientist may create no more than 4 Blueprints per calendar month.
FOO

with the following (delimited by BAR)

BAR
(i) Blueprints are unownable entities. A Scientist can create a new Blueprint by posting its text publicly. If the Scientist has no Processing Chips, then the Blueprint is not created; otherwise, one Processing Chip is destroyed for every ten sentences, of fraction thereof, in the Blueprint. In this case, the Scientist is the creator of the Blueprint. A Rule can also create a new Blueprint by specifying that it is doing so, and specifying the text of the new Blueprint. In this case, the author of the Rule is considered the creator of the Blueprint.

An attempt to create a new Blueprint fails if its text does not (a) introduce exactly one new type of Gadget, (b) name the new Gadget type, and (c) unambiguously define the behavior of such a Gadget. A blueprint may state a requirement of various raw materials. Such raw materials must include a number of Processing Chips equal to at least half those used in creating the original Blueprint; if no other raw materials are specified, then the Processing Chips are all that is required.

A Scientist may create no more than 4 Blueprints per calendar month.
BAR


Proposal 2010 - Sun, 18 May 1997 15:51:22 -0500
Literature
Vynd (John McCoy)
Made harfy by fnord at Fri, 23 May 1997 08:37:57 -0700. Decision: Accepted

This is a Modest proposal.

Create a new rule with the following text:

{{[This is an idea I've been toying with for quite some time, and I think I've finally managed to come up with a reasonable way of implementing it. I had originaly hoped to assemble a list of websites with online books and the like, but this proved more than a little bit unfeasible. So I decided that, Ackanomic being the proposal writting, ammendment making place that it is, why not just make a list that people can try to get their favorite authors and tapes and whatever onto themselves. If this passes, it should not only lead to more interesting proposals, but actually directly stimulate a number of proposals ammedning and building off of it.]}}

I. Some special proposals are literature. These are, of course, the proposals in which actual literature is quoted. To be considered a piece of literature, a proposal must meet the following requirements:

A) The proposal must contain in it's body [as opposed to title] one or more quotations from sources listed on the Literature list found below in section IV. This quotation must be an exact copy of words found in, written, uttered or otherwise communicated by the source, enclosed in quotation marks. It must be either a complete sentence of 7 words or more, or a contiguous phrase of at least 14 words in length. [This last bit is to try and stop people from trying to pass off "to be" as a quote from Hamlet, and the like.]

B) The source of the quotation must be cited in brackets [like this] immediately following the quotation itself. This citation should include the author or orator of the quotation, and also the work and page number(s) [or scene, act, lines, stanzas, etc] where it can be found, if applicable. [Note that I am deliberately not making any penalty for failing to cite a quotation, beyond the fact that it won't let your proposal qualify as literature. I considered including a "plagarism" penalty here, but I think it's better to have the quote uncited than to not have them at all because so and so couldn't remember the page number for the line he's thinking of].

II. Whenever a proposal that is literature passes, it's author gains X points. X is either the number of sentences quoted according to section I of this rule, or the number the total number of words quoted according to section I divided by 14, whichever is smaller.

III. If a proposal consisting entirely of quotations and citations as described in section I passes, and was not a Modest proposal, then that proposal is known as a Great Work. In adition to the point gain described in section II, the author of the proposal shall recieve A$200 in royalties. Any player who voted against a Great Work will lose 7 points for their bad taste.

IV. The Literature list is the list of all sources that can be cited according to section 1 of this rule to cause a proposal to become literature. There are two forms of entries on the Literature list, Artists and Works. Artists can be any individual or, any group of people that collaborated to produce quotable material [for example, The Beatles]. The format for an Artist entry on the Literature list is "Artist: name(s) of artist(s)." Works are some type of recording of words. The format for a Works entry on the Literature list is "Work: name of work." Collections of connected works [for example, The Star Wars trilogy] are permissible as a single entry, but not collections of unconnected works [such as an anthology of poetry by multiple authors]. The Literature list can be changed through the normal method of submitting proposals, but anything on the list which is not in the proper format is not considered a source and cannot be quoted according to section I.

The Literature list:

Artist: William Shakespeare
Work: The Bible, Old and New Testaments
Artist: The Beatles
Artist: They Might Be Giants
Artist: J.R.R. Tolkein
Artist: Confucious
Work: The Constitution of the United States of America


Proposal 2011 - Wed, 21 May 1997 21:36:50 -0500
Anti-Penicillin
Alfvaen (Aaron Humphrey)
Decision: Rejected

This is a Modest Proposal.

In Rule 1250.16, "Viruses", in section 5, remove clause "e", "Uninfect", from the list of available moves.

{{[ I've established to my satisfaction that there is no benefit to accrue to a player through any means of using this move, so I feel the game would be no worse off without it. ]}}

In the same rule, in section 10, change the paragraph

If a player retires from the game or leaves Ackanomic and nobody takes over his virus by the end of the turn after the one during which he retired, all cells infected by his virus are uninfected just before the moves are evaluated.

to

If a player retires from the game or leaves Ackanomic and nobody takes over his virus by the end of the turn after the one during which he retired, all cells infected by his virus are uninfected(replaced by clean cells)just before the moves are evaluated.

{{[Just to make sure there's no ambiguity about the meaning of "uninfect" once the prior clause is removed.]}}


Proposal 2012 - Thu, 22 May 1997 00:03:58 -0500
Expanding Contracts (Get It?)
Alfvaen (Aaron Humphrey)
Decision: retracted by author

Amend the text of Rule 1995, "Contracts(Or, How To Play Lawyer)" as follows:

Replace the sentence "Contracts are entities." with "Contracts are named, tradeable entities." {{[Suitable for auctioning and burying...]}}

Append the following:

Contracts may be destroyed under the following circumstances:

1) If the signers of the contract all publicly agree to destroy it, it will be destroyed.

2) If there is a clause in the contract specifically dealing with its destruction, and the conditions in that clause are met, then it will be destroyed as soon as this fact is publicly recognized.

3) If it is noted in a public message that the conditions in the contract will never arise under the ruleset at the time of the message.

{{[ Not sure about that last clause, but it seems reasonable that a one-time contract be destructible... ]}}

Finally, renumber the rule to 517. {{[ Seems the most reasonable place to put it, to me... ]}}


Proposal 2013 - Thu, 22 May 1997 15:51:33 -0500
Contracted Expanding Contracts
Alfvaen (Aaron Humphrey)
Decision: Accepted

Amend the text of Rule 1995, "Contracts(Or, How To Play Lawyer)" as follows:

Replace the sentence "Contracts are entities." with "Contracts are named, tradeable entities." {{[Suitable for auctioning and burying...]}}

Append the following(delineated by BAZ):

BAZ
Contracts may be destroyed under the following circumstances:

1) If the signers of the contract all publicly agree to destroy it, it will be destroyed.

2) If there is a clause in the contract specifically dealing with its destruction, and the conditions in that clause are met, then it will be destroyed as soon as this fact is publicly recognized.
BAZ

{{[ Not sure about that last clause, but it seems reasonable that a one-time contract be destructible... ]}}

Finally, renumber the rule to 517. {{[ Seems the most reasonable place to put it, to me... ]}}


Proposal 2014 - Sun, 25 May 1997 03:00:07 -0500
Complying With Eir Last Wishes
Alfvaen (Aaron Humphrey)
Decision: Accepted

This is a Modest proposal.

{{[In compliance with the wishes of the departed IdiotBoy...]}}

Cause the undead IdiotBoy to cease haunting everything that it is currently haunting. Then, transfer those items to the possession of the Church of Odo In The Wormhole. Finally, destroy the undead IdiotBoy.


Proposal 2015 - Sun, 25 May 1997 14:27:24 -0500
"See the Ancient Wonders of Pumpkin Patch!"
two-star (Alexandre Muniz)
Decision: Rejected

The optional Office of Assistant Curator of the Extra-Acka Collection, (refered to heretofore as ACEAC) exists. The ACEAC is responsible for promoting cultural exange between Acka and its trade partners, by bringing exotic entities from other nomics to the Museum in exchange for loaning entities from the Museum to other nomics. The ACEAC has the following privileges:

i)E may nominate an entity capable of receiving tradeable entities within a trade partner of Acka to be Rather Like a Museum, to be confirmed by a majority vote in the Senate. No more than three entities within any trade-partner may be Rather Like a Museum, and no entity may be declared Rather Like a Museum except according to the rules.
ii)E may declare an entity that is Rather Like a Museum to no longer be so.
iii)E may direct the museum to give any tradeable entities it posseses to a Rather Like a Museum entity, in exchange for an entity or entities possesed by it, with the understanding that the entities traded in this manner should be traded back to their previous owners within 60 days. Any entity received by the Museum in this manner is part of the Extra-Acka collection.
iv)Consequently, e may also direct the museum to trade entities in the Extra-Acka collection to a Rather Like the Museum entity, in exchange for entities previously owned by the Museum.
v)E may set an exclusive admission fee, which is a positive number of AckaDollars, for any entity in the Extra-Acka collection. Any player, with the exception of the ACEAC, may pay the museum the exclusive admission fee; in exchange, that player will possess that entity for the next four days, after which it is transfered back to the Museum. No player may pay the exclusive admission fee more than twice per entity. When the entity is returned to the museum, the Museum will pay 1/3 of the exclusive admission fee, rounded down, to the ACEAC. If the ACEAC does not set an exclusive admission fee, it is 300 A$ by default.

The ACEAC has the following duty:
i)To ensure that any entity given to a Rather Like a Museum entity under eir direction is returned to the Museum within 60 days, or before e leaves the office of ACEAC, if e leaves voluntarily.

Additionally, the ACEAC should arrange for a list of entities that are Rather Like a Museum, and the entities from the museum that were traded to them to be kept on the web.


Proposal 2016 - Sun, 25 May 1997 23:18:33 -0500
Why are we here anyways?
Vynd (John McCoy)
Decision: Accepted

This is a Modest proposal.

Ammend Rule 603 by changing the sentence "The base value of the Magic Number is 541" to read: The base value of the Magic Number is 199.


Proposal 2017 - Mon, 26 May 1997 00:33:42 -0500
More Harfy Aliens
/dev/joe (Joseph DeVincentis)
Decision: Rejected

{{[Having seen that there is not nearly the level of xenophobia in Acka that I believed, I'm going to try something different.]}}

{{[Gist: The aliens have improved their technique. While it is still possible for them to take any rule, rules that form the basic structure of Ackanomic make poor abductees, and abducting them may undermine future abduction attempts, while harfy rules taste the best to the aliens. Their new technique results in more frequent abductions overall, and more frequent abductions of harfy rules, but less frequent abductions that kill the game for a week.]}}

Amend rule 1131, The Sinister Alien Abduction Act, by changing the second paragraph of section I to read:

The selection of the Rule to be abducted by Sinister Aliens occurs as follows: as soon as possible after the distribution of the magic potato, the Officer in Charge of Random Things shall select a random integer in the range [1100,1199]. This number is called the Alien Target Designation Number, or ATDN. If the ATDN selected is the number of a rule, then that rule is abducted as described below, and no further ATDNs are selected that week. If the ATDN is not the number of a rule, a new ATDN is selected as above, except that the second ATDN chosen in a week is taken from the range [1300,1399], the third ATDN chosen in a week is taken from the range [M,N] where M and N are respectively the lowest and highest numbers of rules in the present rule set, and no more than 3 ATDNs will be chosen in a week. If 3 ATDNs are chosen in a week and the Aliens fail to abduct a rule, the aliens are deemed incompetent, and no rule can be abducted until the next Magic Potato distribution.

Delete the sentence "This Rule defers to all other Rules which do not contain this sentence." from Rule 106.


Proposal 2018 - Mon, 26 May 1997 12:39:18 -0500
vote for me or I'll break your knee caps
Mr. Nacho (Phil Ackley)
Decision: Rejected

{{Upon the aceptance of this rule, Mr. Nacho's score shall be increased by whatever sum nessacary to make in one less than the magic number. Mr. Nacho will than be magically transformed into a pumpkin.}}

Proposal 2019 - Mon, 26 May 1997 13:27:30 -0500
The Aliens Are Very Sorry Now
Alfvaen (Aaron Humphrey)
Decision: Accepted

Amend Rule 1131, "The Sinister Alien Abduction Act", as follows:

Replace the sentence "Any deadlines that would be violated because of the abduction shall be extended one week." with the sentence "Any deadlines that had been specified by the abducted rule that would otherwise fall within the week of the rule's absence shall be extended one week." Immediately after that sentence, insert the sentence "This deadline extension takes precedence over all other rules."

Also, in all Rules, replace all instances of the sentence "This rule defers to all other Rules which do not contain this sentence." with "This rule defers to all other Rules which do not contain this sentence outside of quotation marks."


Proposal 2020 - Tue, 27 May 1997 01:03:59 -0500
No pay for declining to mentor
/dev/joe (Joseph DeVincentis)
Decision: Accepted

This is a modest proposal.

{{[The whole purpose of CFJ 380 was to determine whether this amendment was necessary. The judge's reasoning is entirely unconvincing :-), but we have a judgement now so I'm going to make the proposal and get it over with. The problem, for those who have forgotten, is that when a mentor is selected, he gets A$25 even if one had to be chosen from the general populace due to lack of volunteers, and the chosen mentor does not accept.]}}

Amend rule 252, "Joining the Game", as follows:

1. In the first section 4, change the sentence:

The Mentor receives A$25 from the Treasury.
to:
If the Mentor was chosen from the volunteer pool, e receives A$25 from the Treasury immediately; otherwise, e receives A$25 if and when e accepts the mentorship.
{{[ While we're here, make it easier to refer to the parts of this rule. ]}}

2. Insert headers reading "I.", "II.", "III.", "IV.", "V.", and "VI." respectively, at the beginning of the following paragraphs:

  I. the first one
  II. the second one
  III. the third one
  IV. the one beginning with "A person", just after the first section 4
  V. the one beginning with "Upon", just before the second section 1
  VI. the last one

Proposal 2021 - Tue, 27 May 1997 11:30:22 -0500
Level Playing Field
ThinMan (John Bollinger)
Decision: Accepted

Create a new rule with the following text (delimited by double percent signs):

%%
{{[ In carrying out my duties as acting Officer in Charge of Random Things, I have discovered a relatively minor loophole which this proposal is intended to plug. I have not made use of it, nor do I currently intend to do so. Among the things which I could do but won't is to cause the Sinister Aliens to be repealed. Indeed, I could set weights for any "random" determination I have to make in such a way that I the outcome is virtually guaranteed to be whatever I choose for it to be. This appears to be an unsatisfactory state of affairs. ]}}

Whenever the rules call for a random determination to be made, each of the alternatives shall be assigned the same probability. [I.e. use uniform weights.] This rule defers to any rule that specifies an alternative weighting scheme.

{{ Renumber this rule to 230. [I wasn't sure exactly where to put this, but I decided that it was appropriate to put it in the relatively low numbers. It didn't seem to quite fit with anything else, and it didn't seem sufficiently fundamental to go into the 100's, so 230 is what I chose.] }}
%%


Proposal 2022 - Tue, 27 May 1997 14:30:05 -0500
It's Too Easy To Be Short If You're Modest
Alfvaen (Aaron Humphrey)
Decision: Rejected

This is a Modest proposal.

Amend the text of Rule 209 in the following way:

Replace the paragraph

Whenever a Modest proposal is adopted, its author shall receive half the number of points that rule 207 would have directed that they receive if the proposal had not been Modest(rounded down).

with

Whenever a Modest proposal is adopted, its author shall receive half the number of points that rule 207 would have directed that they receive if the proposal had not been Modest(rounded down), with the exception that no "Short Proposal Bonus" shall be counted.


Proposal 2023 - Tue, 27 May 1997 17:48:48 -0500
More Nasty Aliens
Antimatter (Ross Morgan-Linial)
Decision: Rejected

Amend rule 1131 [The Sinister Alien Abduction Act] by replacing the first occurence of the word "three" with "ten" and the first occurence of "all three" with "any three".
-------------------------------
Antimatter * rmorganl@fhcrc.org
You have the power of negation.

Proposal 2024 - Wed, 28 May 1997 13:48:33 -0500
Generic Proposal Title #2024
ThinMan (John Bollinger)
Decision: Accepted

This is a modest proposal.

Amend rule 348 by inserting the following text (delimited by double percent signs) between the first and second paragraphs:
%%
No named entity may have a name that matches a former name of any current or former player, except that a player may change his name to one that he previously held.
{{ [ Current names are already protected by the previous paragraph. ] }}
%%

Amend rule 251 by deleting the third paragraph.

Amend rule 250 by appending the following text (delimited by double ampersands) as a seperate paragraph: &&
No matter how many times a person legally registers as a player in Ackanomic, that person is always considered the same player. [That is, if a player quits and later rejoins, he is considered the same player.]
&&

{{ [ Harfy as they may be, NachoMan's and Antimatter's name squabbles do not strike me as something that we want to go on continuously. ICOCBW. Names can be very personal things, and I do not want to have to continuously safeguard mine. Players are already forbidden from taking the current or past names of other players; these amendments will extend the same restrictions to other entities.

The amendment to R348 is the functional part. The last part of R251 then becomes redundant. The amendment to R250 is grease to make sure things work correctly for players who quit and later rejoin; it may prove useful for more than just names. ] }}


Proposal 2025 - Thu, 29 May 1997 03:00:08 -0500
Sender-ship is in the eye of the recipient
Mohammed (Jason Orendorff)
Decision: Accepted

[As many of you know, I'm the tabulator. The system I currently use for finding out who is the sender of a message has a few problems. First of all, if you're sending mail from a computer other than the one the acrobot recognizes, the bot will not recognize your new/temporary/unusual address and your votes or whatever will not be counted. Second, it's a little fishy from a security standpoint. Thus far the first problem has been much, much more difficult than the second...

The way the rules are now I have to make a good-faith effort to match unknown e-mail addresses to player names and it's becoming more and more annoying to have to do so. I'd rather set up a little password system so that players can send bot mail from any address in the world. The bot would recognize players not by their email addresses, but rather by their name and password.

Passwords would not be mandatory for mail sent from your normal address, for the convenience of the non-paranoid. I think this solution is reasonable on all sides. This proposal's effects would facilitate all that.

This proposal leaves open the question of validation of *public* messages. We can burn that bridge when we come to it.
]

The following paragraph is added into rule 422 (Postmaster), immediately after the paragraph that begins "A message is a public message if":

A private message qualifies as being "from" a certain Player if and only if the recipient is satisfied that the sender of the message was in fact the Player in question. An officer who receives private messages in the course of his Duties may set a reasonable protocol in place for verifying the authorship of such messages.


Proposal 2026 - Thu, 29 May 1997 03:00:10 -0500
Renaissance, Rebirth, Phoenix... You Get The Picture
Calvin N Hobbes (Thierry Joffrain)
Decision: Rejected

{{ This is a modest proposal

Renumber this rule to 150}}

AckaEnfants (hereafter called AEs for short) are part of the Game of Ackanomic (hereafter called Acka for short). They are self-modifying games of rules which claim Acka as its parent and considers themselves an AE. All players in an AE must always abide by all the rules then in effect in that AE, in the form in which they are then in effect, and interpreted in accord with current game custom in that AE.

The rules and the game state of an AE may only be changed as described in the rules of that AE. Actions described in the rules may only be performed, and shall only have those effects, as specified by the rules of that AE. Whatever is not explicitly prohibited or regulated by the rules of an AE, however, is permitted and unregulated. Game custom, spirit of the game, and linguistic interpretation are external concepts to AEs and are not regulated or part of the game state of an AE.

An AE may be created by any voting player of Acka, by that player sending a message in Acka starting with "Rejoice for an AckaEnfant is born!" and making public the entire original rule set of that AE in the same message. That player is considered the Founding Player of that AE. The initial rule set of a new AE cannot be the same as that of the current or initial rule set of either Acka or any another AE, nor can it have the same name. Any player of Acka is free to join an AE provided they follow the rules of that AE to join it. If so allowed by the rules of the AE, persons not players in the game of Ackanomic may also join the AE; this does not make them players of Acka.

Rules of the Game of Ackanomic which claim legal scope in an AE only have that legal scope if accepted, word-for-word, in an AE according to the procedure set down in that AE. Rules of an AE cannot have legal scope in Ackanomic unless the same holds true. The only exception is for this rule which always has legal scope over all AEs. Should the wording of a rule no longer be the same in both an AE and Acka then those two are considered different and neither can have legal scope in Acka if in the AE, or the AE if in Acka.

An AE is no longer a recognized AE if it no longer describes itself as an AE, thereby losing all privileges and responsibilities associated with being an AE. In such an event the ex-AE is now considered an AckaColony by Acka. No rule in Acka may affect the rules of an AckaColony. No rule of an AckaColony may affect the rules of the Game of Ackanomic. AckaColonies are considered completely distinct nomics (but with a common heritage) and relations with them should be established as such.

All AEs must have the following rule as their first rule, replacing <AE's name> with the actual AE's name: "<AE's name> is an autonomous self-modifying game of rules that claims the Game of Ackanomic as its parent and as such describes itself as an AckaEnfant (AE). The rules of this game will be the rule set of this nomic and those of the Game of Ackanomic which have legal scope over AEs. The rule set of <AE's name> may only affect its own game state and rules unless rules in Ackanomic which have legal scope of this AE grant them a greater scope.

All players must always abide by all the rules then in effect, in the form in which they are then in effect, and interpreted in accord with current game custom.

The rules and the game state may only be changed as described in the rules. Actions described in the rules may only be performed, and shall only have those effects, as specified by the rules. Whatever is not explicitly prohibited or regulated by the rules, however, is permitted and unregulated. Game custom, spirit of the game, and linguistic interpretation are external concepts and are not regulated or part of the game state.

This rule cannot be modified unless 90% of all players in <AE's name> vote in favor of such a change, irrespective of how other rule changes are made in <AE's name>. This rule has precedence over all other rules in <AE's name>."

This rule takes precedence over all other rules that deal with AEs or AckaColonies.


Proposal 2027 - Thu, 29 May 1997 17:09:59 -0500
Whole-Day Deadlines
Alfvaen (Aaron Humphrey)
Decision: Rejected

{{[ 'Cause I get tired of people getting penalized for being late by only an hour or two ]}}

Create a new rule, numbered 381, named "Deadlines", whose text is the following:

This rule takes precedence over all other rules that specify deadlines, except for rules that specify that they take precedence over this rule.

{{[Definition of terms]}}

Whenever a rule specifies a maximum time that can elapse between one event occurring(here called a "trigger") and another event occurring(here called the "result"), possibly with some penalty accruing to players involved in the result, the "deadline" for the result is the latest time that event can occur without penalty.

{{[The real meat]}}

When a deadline is specified to occur N days after the trigger, then the actual deadline will be 11:59 P.M. AckaTime on the Nth day after the trigger.


Proposal 2028 - Thu, 29 May 1997 19:35:52 -0500
Leaping! Leaping! Leaping!
two-star (Alexandre Muniz)
Decision: retracted by author

The length of an Ackanomic day is 23 hours and 30 minutes. Every 47 days, starting with the day following June 17 1996, is a leap day. The date of a leap day is .5 plus the date of the previous day. [for example, the first leap day is June 17.5] The date of the day following a leap day is the date that would otherwise be used for the day following the day preceding the leap day. All dates following are numbered in the normal succession.

Proposal 2029 - Fri, 30 May 1997 03:00:09 -0500
Last Wills
Mohammed (Jason Orendorff)
Decision: Accepted

[This makes it so a player can make a bunch of trade offers and leave the game, and then the player's undead will carry out the transactions. We've had several players try to do this in the past (last wills) and it's time the rules actually allowed it.

I know, anybody else but me would have done this in ten lines but I'm not comfortable with any proposal shorter than 5 pages.]

. Rule 515 (Trading and Gifts) is amended by changing the word "player" in the following sentence to "entity":

An offer made in this way stands until it is legally retracted or accepted, or the player who offered it no longer owns the entities offered, or the offer has been standing for at least three days, whichever comes first.

. Rule 252 (Joining the Game) is amended by replacing the following paragraph:

For the purposes of this rule, a player whose most recent departure from Ackanomic prompted the creation of a still-extant Undead is considered a Returning player. All other players are considered New.

with this:

For the purposes of this rule, a player whose most recent departure from Ackanomic caused him or her to become an Undead that still exists is considered a Returning player. All other players are considered New.

and by replacing this:

Upon the registration of a Returning player, the following procedure takes place:

1) The Undead created in response to their most recent departure from Acka, who bears the Ackanomic name that player had immediately prior to his most recent departure from Acka, transfers all entities it is haunting to the Returning player. These entities are now no longer haunted.

2) That Undead is destroyed.

with this:

Upon the registration of a Returning player, the following procedure takes place:

1) The Undead with that player's Ackanomic name changes from an Undead to a player.

and by renumbering the paragraphs that follow that from 3) and 4) to 2) and 3).

. Rule 256 (Leaving the Game) is amended by deleting "every rented entity in his possession reverts to its owner," from section 3; and by deleting sections 7 and 8; and by changing section 6 to read:

6) The player ceases to be a player and becomes an Undead.

[--current text: Upon a player leaving, the following procedure takes place, in the order shown.
(snip)
6) An Undead is created; its name is that of the player.
7) All entities in the player's possession are taken away, considered unowned, haunted by the just-created Undead, and in the Treasury.
8) The player is deregistered.]

[The thing about rented entities is old stuff; we don't have rental anymore.]

. Rule 258 (Undead) is amended to read, in full, as these two paragraphs (not including the note that follows):

There exists the class of named, unownable entities known as the Undead.

Entities that are owned by Undead cannot be manipulated in any way except by an action of the Undead. This rule takes precedence over all other rules except those pertaining to the transferrence of the Chartreuse Goose and Rule 666. This rule defers to Rule 666 (End of Cycle).

The location of an Undead is known as its "haunt".

[-- current text

There exists the class of named, unownable entities known as the Undead.
a) Each Undead can act to "haunt" some number of entities.
b) The Undead only act as specified in the Rules.
c) Entities that are haunted by Undead cannot be manipulated in any way except by an action of the Undead. This clause takes precedence over any Rule that would otherwise allow haunted entities to be manipulated, except that it defers to rules pertaining to the transferrence of the Chartreuse Goose.
[The Undead _haunt_ rather than possess entities.]

. Rule 426 (Undead-Harfer) is amended by changing "the entities they are haunting" to "the entities they own".

. Rule 500.3 (Entity Uniqueness) is amended by changing "haunted" to "owned" in the note. [It reads: {Mimsy entities cannot be haunted by Undead. See Rule 962.2 .} ]

. Rule 505/12 (Treasury and AckaDollars) is amended by changing "being haunted by" to "owned by" in part V. and by replacing this:

b) Each Undead stops haunting 10% (round up) of the A$ it is haunting.

with this:

b) Each Undead transfers 10% (round up) of its A$ to the Treasury.

. Rule 666 (End of Cycle) is amended by replacing this:

b) All Undead stop haunting all Chartreuse Goose Eggs, Right-Handed Grapefruit, and Victory Eggplants. Then, all Chartreuse Goose Eggs, Right-Handed Grapefruit, and Victory Eggplants are destroyed.

with this:

b) All Chartreuse Goose Eggs, Right-Handed Grapefruit, and Victory Eggplants are destroyed.

and by changing the last sentence of section e) to read: "20% (round down) or each Undead's A$ balance is transferred to the Treasury."

. Rule 670 (Commission d'Arts) is amended by changing "their Undead begin haunting said entities" to "their Undead is awarded said entities" in section 6.

. Rule 841 (Towers) is amended by changing "owned by no player, and is not haunted by an Undead" to "owned by no player or Undead".

. Rule 1313 (Tornado) is amended by changing "possession or haunt" to "possession".


Proposal 2030 - Fri, 30 May 1997 10:30:20 -0500
A Good Source of Phosphorus
Alfvaen (Aaron Humphrey)
Decision: Accepted

Amend the text of Rule 923, "The Amber Banana", to read as follows:

The Amber Banana Tree(which, in this rule, shall also be referred to as the Tree) is a unique, mimsy, nontradeable entity. Whenever the player who last performed the Acid Rain Dance is in the game(and not undead), the Amber Banana Tree shall be in their possession. It shall go Somewhere Else if that players leaves the game.

Any player who has a proposal in the queue whose number, when having its digits added together, equals exactly 21 [ex. prop 777], shall have the right to purchase one Amber Banana from the owner of the Tree, if it is not Somewhere Else. The price for one Amber Banana shall be A$10, payable to the owner of the Tree. Amber Bananas are tradeable entities.

A player who owns an Amber Banana may publicly announce that e is eating the Amber Banana as "cows eat grass". Upon eating the Amber Banana(which destroys it), said player may inform the owner of the Tree how e should vote on a single proposal, which must be in the current queue and whose digits must also sum to 21. (It may be the same proposal as allowed em to buy the Amber Banana in the first place, but it need not be.) This effect takes precedence over any other Rules which may specify how the Tree's owner shall vote on that proposal. A player may only eat one Amber Banana per week.

If the Amber Banana Tree is Somewhere Else, then a player who would otherwise be eligible to purchase an Amber Banana may instead purchase an Amber Banana Tree Seed(also referred to in this rule as the Seed)by paying A$50 to the Ackanomic Institute of Genetic Replication(which had the foresight to preserve one so that the species would not die out), unless such a seed already exists. The Amber Banana Tree Seed is a unique, tradeable entity. At any time, the owner of the Seed may publicly declare that e is planting it. At that point, the Seed is destroyed, and in two weeks time, the Amber Banana Tree will appear in eir possession.

Also, amend the text of Rule 921, "Acid Rain Dance", to read as follows:

The player who most recently submitted a proposal whose number, when having its digits added together, equals exactly 28, may perform the Acid Rain Dance. The player performing the Acid Rain Dance shall post a public description of the dance. Immediately after the public description of the Acid Rain Dance, the Acid Rain shall fall, destroying the Amber Banana Tree(so that it goes Somewhere Else), unless the Amber Banana Tree is protected by the Bronze Umbrella. If the Amber Banana Tree was destroyed, the player who performed the Acid Rain Dance receives the Amber Banana Tree Seed.

Only the Amber Banana Tree can be destroyed by Acid Rain unless permitted by other rules.

{{ Finally, create the Amber Banana Tree Seed in the possession of the player Alfvaen. }}


Proposal 2031 - Fri, 30 May 1997 16:45:31 -0500
Changing Resolving Conflicts
Mohammed (Jason Orendorff)
Decision:

This is a Modest Proposal. [It will change our conflict resolution from the original Suber to a scheme like Kelly Martin's. This shouldn't change the interpretation of our rules as they are. But, it solves the deference-loop problem! Cool, huh? This also changes "effective ordinal number" to "rule number".]

. Rule 102 (Resolving Conflicts) is amended to read:

---

Two or more rules may conflict with one another. When this occurs, if the conflicting rules themselves specify a single, coherent, unambiguous method for resolving the conflict, then that method is applied to determine which rule or rules take precedence. Otherwise, the rule with the lowest rule number takes precedence.

If two statements in the same rule conflict with each other, and the rule doesn't define a way to resolve the conflict, then the statement which appears later in the rule takes precedence.

If two rules have different base numbers, use the base number to determine which is lowest. Among rules with the same base number, use the sub rule numbers to determine which rule has the lowest number, treating a rule without a sub rule number as if the sub rule number was zero.

---

[-- current text

Rule 102/5
Resolving Conflicts

If two or more rules conflict with one another, then the rule with the lowest effective ordinal number takes precedence. If at least one of the rules in conflict explicitly says of itself that it defers to another rule (or type of rule) or takes precedence over another rule (or type of rule), then such provisions shall supercede the numerical method for determining precedence. If two or more rules claim to take precedence over one another, or to defer to one another, then the numerical method must again govern. If two statements in the same rule conflict with each other, and the rule doesn't define a way to resolve the conflict, then the statement which appears later in the rule takes precedence.

If two rules have different base numbers, use the base number to determine which is lowest. Among rules with the same base number, use the sub rule numbers to determine which rule has the lowest number, treating a rule without a sub rule number as if the sub rule number was zero.
]

. Rule 307 (Revision Numbers) is amended by changing "effective ordinal number" to "rule number" wherever it appears.

. Rule 303 (Proposal and Rule Numbering) is amended by changing "Each rule has an effective ordinal number, hereafter referred to simply as the rule's number." to "Each rule has a rule number."


Proposal 2032 - Sat, 31 May 1997 16:44:01 -0500
Senate Stuff Again I
Niccolo Flychuck (Uri Bruck)
Decision: Rejected

This is a Modest proposal.
In R411 "Senate" replace the text "four seats" with the text "six seats"

Proposal 2033 - Sat, 31 May 1997 16:44:02 -0500
Senate Stuff Again II
Niccolo Flychuck (Uri Bruck)
Decision: Rejected

Append to R411 "Senate" the following text:
"A Senator's term in office is 12 weeks"

Proposal 2034 - Sat, 31 May 1997 17:50:22 -0500
ParlePlace
Niccolo Flychuck (Uri Bruck)
Made harfy by Vynd at Mon, 2 Jun 1997 00:03:11 -0400 (EDT).
Decision: Rejected

The number of Seats of the the Office of Parlor is the highest of 5 and the number of players divided by 8. The Parlors are collectively known as an Institution known as the ParlePlace. Whenever there is more than one unoccpied Seat of Office of Parlor, and the begining of the nomination period on the unoccupied Seats has not been anounced yet, the Speaker anounces the nomination period for all of the unoccupied Offices in a single message. In such a case, players do not volunterr for a specific Seat, but for any unoccupied Seat of the Office of Parlor. During the Voting period, players may vote for at most (2/n)+1 candidates, where n is the number of unoccupied Seats . The players who receives the 1st to nth highest number of votes win the elections. Whenever the number of Seats of the Office of Parlor decreases then governement Cutbakcs are declared and the following things occur to determine which Parlor ceases to be Parlor: Any Parlor may Challenge any other Parlor to a Parlor Duel. The loser of the Parlor Duel ceases to be Parlor. Once a challenge for a Parlor Duel has been accepted, no other Duels are considered to be Parlor Duels. If no Challenge for a Parlor Duel has been made and accepted within a week of the declaration of Cutbacks, and no Parlor has resigned of eir own volition, then the Speaker anounces Full Parlor elections - All Parlors cease to be Parlors.

A Parlor's term in office is 14 weeks.


Proposal 2035 - Sun, 1 Jun 1997 15:48:34 -0500 Otzma Card Impeach Officer
Niccolo Flychuck (Uri Bruck)
Decision: Rejected

Create a new rule which is a member of the Otzma Card Rule Suite, entitled "Otzma Card of type Impeach Officer" Which contains the following text:
"
1. This rule defines an Otzma Card type called "Impeach Officer"
2. An Otzma Card of type Impeach Officer can only be used in the public forum.
3. An Otzma Card of type Impeach Officer can't be owned or possesed by a player who owns an Otzma Card of type 'Go Fish'
4. An Otzma Card of type Impeach Officer is used in the following manner- a player posts a message to the public forum naming an Officer he would like to Impeach. The officer is immediately Impeached. It Counter-Acts Untouch Me Cards.
5. Counter-Action: The Impeached Officer is reinstated. The player who played the card loses 20 points. If he holds any Offices. He is Impeached from an Office chosen at random. Otherwise, he becomes ineligible to hold political Office for a period of 21 days.

Proposal 2036 - Sun, 1 Jun 1997 17:48:08 -0500
Increasing the Alien's Odds
Malenkai (Randy Hall)
Decision: retracted by author

This is a Modest proposal.

Repeal Rule 2014, "Complying With Eir Last Wishes". {{[This rule probably should have been created with self-deletion braces]}}


Proposal 2037 - Sun, 1 Jun 1997 21:54:17 -0500
Slide, Charlie Brown, Slide!
Alfvaen (Aaron Humphrey)
Decision: retracted by author

This is a Modest proposal.

{{Change the score of the player Alfvaen to 76 points. [So that he may have the Great Trombone. Actually, if he times this right, he can just retract this proposal and do that anyway. I think it was Robert Sevin who said that retracing CFJ's(and, I'm sure, Proposals too)to decrease your score was silly...]}}


Proposal 2038 - Sun, 1 Jun 1997 21:54:18 -0500
Improving The Aliens' Changes Even More, Or, The Mini-Renumbering
Alfvaen (Aaron Humphrey)
Decision: Accepted

This is a Modest proposal.

Renumber Rule 2010, "Literature", to 210.
{{[Right after "Modesty And Pride"...]}}

Renumber Rule 1906, "Foolishness", to 207.3.
{{[Affects proposal scoring, so it fits in that rule suite]}}

Renumber Rule 1910, "Thank You Yakko", to 1399.
{{[As far out as we want to go. :-)]}}

Renumber Rule 1502, "Experts", to 450.
{{[Not quite sure where it _does_ go, but it is marginally relevant to "Offices"...]}}


Proposal 2039 - Sun, 1 Jun 1997 21:54:19 -0500
More workable Works
Vynd (John McCoy)
Decision: retracted by author

This is a Modest proposal.

Ammend Rule 2010 Literature in the following manner:

Change the first sentence of section III to read: If a proposal creates a rule that consists entirely of quotations and appropriate citations, as described in section I, and that proposal was not Modest, then that rule and the proposal which created it are known as a Great Work.


Proposal 2040 - Sun, 1 Jun 1997 21:54:20 -0500
Stop Bascule before he kills again!
Vynd (John McCoy)
Decision: retracted by author

Ammend Rule 517 Contracts in the following manner:

Add the following sentence to the end of the first paragraph: Each contract is initially owned by the player that created it.

Add the following to the end of the third paragraph:

If, however, two or more contracts signed by a player require him to take mutually exclusive actions (or inactions), then the contract which that player signed earliest will take precedence over the other, more recent, contracts. In this case, it is not a crime for the player to fail to honor the more recent, superceded contracts.

Alter part 1) to read:

1) If the signers and owner of the contract all publicly agree to destroy it, it will be destroyed.


Proposal 2041 - Sun, 1 Jun 1997 22:54:27 -0500
The Cabinet
Vynd (John McCoy)
Decision: Accepted

Create a new rule numbered 945 with the following text:

The Cabinet is a unique, nontradeable entity. The Cabinet is a very fine piece of furniture, about 5 and one half feet in height, made out of teak. It has a number of drawers, in several different sizes, all of which have well wrought golden handels. It is otherwise much like any other cabinet, with the sole exception that it seems to have an infinte amount of storage space inside it.

The purpose of The Cabinet is to advise the President of Ackanomic. The Cabinet is always owned by the current President. When there is no President, The Cabinet is Somewhere Else. Whenever a new player becomes President, The Cabinet immediately comes into his possesion.

No one is exactly sure how The Cabinet is supposed to advise the President. One idea which has gained some popularity is that players should put advice inside The Cabinet for the various Presidents to turn to in times of need. This advice takes the form of trinkets, preferably trinkets whose descriptions or names actually contain advice. No player eccept the current President is allowed to actually place trinkets inside The Cabinet, however, due to long standing custom.

Any President may place no more than three (3) trinkets into The Cabinet durring one term in office. These trinkets may be trinkets that the President himself has created, or trinkets created by other players and given to the President with the express wish that they be placed into The Cabinet. The President is strongly discouraged from pocketing trinkets given to him for such a purpose, he should return them if he does not wish to place them in The Cabinet.

Trinkets inside The Cabinet are owned by The Cabinet, and travel with it whever it goes. If the President wishes to remove a trinket or group of trinkets from The Cabinet, he must first seek approval from the Senate. The President may post a public message requesting permission to remove a trinket (or trinkets) from The Cabinet only once per term. Once such a call has been made, the Senate has one week to vote on the issue. This vote is known as a Confirmation hearing, but is not, in fact, a Hearing. YES votes are in favor of granting permission, NO votes against it, and majority rules. If the Senate fails to complete such a Confirmation hearing in the alloted week, then the Senators will be placed in Comtempt.


Proposal 2042 - Mon, 2 Jun 1997 11:51:28 -0500
Which trinket??
/dev/joe (Joseph DeVincentis)
Decision: Accepted

This is a modest proposal.

{{[ This fixes the dilemma with Beldin's Parka. The speaker will choose trinkets for Thursday, May 29 and Thursday, June 5, when this amendment takes effect, assuming the rule is still eating trinkets on June 5.]}}

Amend section 6 of Rule 405, Speaker, by adding to the end of the section the following text:

"
When the rules require one of a set of distinct objects to be chosen or operated on without specifying how one is to be chosen, the Officer in charge of random things shall choose one of the possible choices at random, with equal probabilities for all possible choices.

When this sentence first takes effect, the Officer in Charge of Random things shall have three days to announce such choices for all such undecided cases which have occurred within the past two weeks, and the appropriate objects will be created, destroyed, transferred, or otherwise manipulated to restore the game state to that which is would have arrived at had these choices been made whenever the events originally occurred; after such choices have been made, this sentence will delete itself.
"


Proposal 2043 - Mon, 2 Jun 1997 17:18:57 -0500
The world is full of amatures.
two-star (Alexandre Muniz)
Decision: Rejected by Invalid Bribe

Bribe: If this is an invalid bribe, or if the validity of this bribe is impossible to determine, each player who votes YES on this proposal shall receive a trinket, the name of which contains the string "Inky Bloater Decoy" and an integer corresponding directly to that player^Rs position in the alphabetical list of players who have voted YES. Otherwise each player who votes YES on this proposal shall receive an Otzma Card of type: Self-Flagellation.

Create a rule entitled Amature Hobbyists with the following text:

A class of gadgets known as homecrafted gadgets exists.

Any non-scientist with at least 3 processing chips in eir possesion may announce that e is making a homecrafted gadget, if e has not done so previously within the calendar month. When e does this, e must choose an extant blueprint for a non-homecrafted gadget as the basis for creating the gadget. The name of the homecrafted gadget to be created is "A Homecrafted N", where N is the name of the gadget that the homecrafted gadget is based on, except that any preceding article is removed. The blueprint for the homecrafted gadget is the same as the blueprint for the gadget that that it is based on, except that any occurance of the name of the gadget is replaced by the name of the homecrafted gadget, and the following text, delineated by "here comes the text delineated by this line." and "there went the text delineated by this line." is appended to the end of the blueprint:

"here comes the text delineated by this line."
Whenever this gadget manipulates a protected entity as described in this blueprint, it becomes broken immediately afterward. If this blueprint does not describe different behaviors for this gadget depending upon whether it is in a broken or non-broken state, it is destroyed immediately upon becoming broken.
"there went the text delineated by this line."

At the time that a player legally makes an announcement that e is making a homecrafted gadget, three processing chips in eir possession are destroyed. One week after that player makes that announcement, a homecrafted gadget is created in that player's possession according to its blueprint. That player is said to be the creator of that gadget.

{{Renumber this rule to 598}}


Proposal 2044 - Tue, 3 Jun 1997 15:18:21 -0500
Acka does not come equipped with a floating-point unit
/dev/joe (Joseph DeVincentis)
Decision: Accepted

1. All trinkets which are worth a fractional number of A$ are transformed into their value in A$, which is given to the treasury. All fractional A$ are returned to the treasury, then recombined into whole A$. All non-A$ fractional entities are destroyed.

2. Amend Rule 594, "Blueprints", as follows:
In the second paragraph of section (i), change "Such raw materials must include a number of Processing Chips equal to at least half those used in creating the original Blueprint; if no other raw materials are specified, then the Processing Chips are all that is required."
to:
"If a blueprint does not require raw materials of at least half the number of processing chips (rounded up) used in creating the original blueprint, then the text ' Raw materials of N processing chips are required.' (with N replaced by the minimum number described above) is immediately appended to the blueprint, and any other existing requirement of processing chips as raw materials in that blueprint is deleted."

3. Amend rule 506, "Trinkets", as follows:
In the second paragraph, change "Trinkets always have a value in positive A$." to "Trinkets always have a positive, integral value in A$; this takes precedence over all other rules."

4. Amend rule 500, "Entities", as follows:
Add a new paragraph at the end of the rule, reading: "Entities may not be broken into fractional pieces, and fractional pieces of entities may not be created. When any rule or anything else empowered by the rules specifies a fractional number of entities are created, destroyed, transferred, or otherwise operated upon, that action uses the least integer greater than the fractional number in place of the fractional number. This paragraph takes precedence over all other rules."

{{[ This replaces other fraction-bans: ]}}

5. Amend rule 505, "Treasury and AckaDollars" by deleting section IV ["No Ackapennies"] and renumbering sections V and VI to IV and V, respectively.

6. Amend rule 507, "PF Bonds", by deleting the sentence "They may not be broken into fractional PF bonds."

{{[ I've never been convinced that this really works correctly, though our game custom says it does. ]}}

7. Amend rule 508, "Bond Yields", to read in full:
"At the end of every two weeks, PF Bond dividends are calculated. For each PF bond, the dividend earned is 1% of the change over that bond cycle in the score of the player in whose name the bond was issued, if that player's score increased, or 0.5% of the change, if the score decreased. The total of the dividends from the PF bonds each entity owns is calculated, and that number of A$ is paid to the player from the treasury if it is positive; else the negative of that number of A$ is transferred from the player to the treasury.

Two week cycles for PF Bonds shall end on at 12:00 on Mondays of the appropriate weeks."


Proposal 2045 - Wed, 4 Jun 1997 13:33:16 -0500
Half-a-chip Restoration
two-star (Alexandre Muniz)
Made harfy by Vynd at Sun, 8 Jun 1997 20:45:57 -0400 (EDT)
Decision: Rejected

This is a modest proposal.
{{For each Fractional Processing Chip (FPC) destroyed according to P2044, if it passed, create a FPC in the possession of each player who owned it before the destruction of fractional entities caused by P2044. The fraction of the FPC shall be the same as that of the corresponding destroyed FPC.}}

Proposal 2046 - Wed, 4 Jun 1997 23:03:34 -0500
I knew there was some bit I was forgetting...
/dev/joe (Joseph DeVincentis)
Decision: Accepted

This is a modest proposal.

{{[ This section doesn't go well with the new required-processing-chip blueprints. ]}}

Amend section (iv) (c) of Rule 595, "Gadgets", by changing
"If it required no raw materials"
to:
"If it required no raw materials other than half the number of processing chips (rounded up) used in creating the original blueprint"


Proposal 2047 - Thu, 5 Jun 1997 23:18:34 -0500
Terror on the High Seas
Vynd (John McCoy)
Decision: Accepted

{{[This proposal has nothing to do with the high seas, and is only vaguely associated with terror. Sorry, I just always wanted to write a proposal called Terror on the High Seas]}}

This is a Modest proposal.

Ammend Rule 597 The Frankenstein Monster(s) in the following manner:

Delete part i) of the sectioning begining A Frankenstein Part is dug up in the following manner: and replace it with the text encased withinthe symbols $$$ below.

$$$
i) A complete sentence of no more than 30 words is copied from either some current Rule, some past version of a Rule, or the text of a Blueprint for something other than a Frankenstein Monster. The sentence is valid if and only if it is not already to be found in the current blueprint-under-construction, or in the completed Blueprint of a Frankenstein Monster.
$$$

{{[Previously, the rule disqualified anything that had ever been submited as a Frankenstein part, rejected or otherwise. This seems more or less impossible, since no one has been keeping track of this sort of thing, IdiotBoy is gone and took his blueprint-under-construction with him. Furthermore, despite being funny and even logical, in a twisted sort of way, the "a body cn only be dug up once" stipulation is (all together now) a bother to track, and I see no reason to bog down the Mad Scientist with it.]}}

Further ammend Rule 597 by deleting parts v) vi) and vii) and replacing them with the text encased within ??? below.

???

v) Its construction is such that any new parts would be rejected.
vi) No player other than the Mad Scientist has submited a Frankenstein Part that was not rejected in the past 30 days.
vii) It is over 500 words long.
viii) It consists of more than 20 complete sentences.
???

{{[my primary goal here is to make it a little easier to actually get some Frankenstein Monsters into the game. First off, there is now something that will allow the Mad Scientist toend the blueprint early if no one is sending him parts. it also will let him end things if the blueprint is almost, but not QUITE, constructed such that any new part would be rejected, instead of forcing him to plod on alone for what could be months. The other two changes are more blatant attempts to speed construction. The old 1000 word requirement was impossible to reach, 25 sentences of 30 words in length is only 750 words. I cut the sentences down to 20 to speed things up a tad, and then chopped the total words down to 500 so that it could actually serve some purpose. Don't you just hate it when your notes are longer than the real proposal part...]}}


Proposal 2048 - Fri, 6 Jun 1997 06:57:15 -0500
Phoebe Post Legalization
Malenkai (Randy Hall)
Decision: Accepted

{{[This is a Modest proposal. Removing the potential for nit-picking]}}

--------------------------------------------------------

Amend rule 909, "The Steel Flea", to replace

"
, by publically posting a message headed "Acka: Misc: What Phoebe Says",
"

with:

"
in a public message,
"


Proposal 2049 - Fri, 6 Jun 1997 16:00:32 -0500
The Player Who Submitted This Proposal Is Azpiazu
Alfvaen (Aaron Humphrey)
Decision: Accepted

This is a Modest proposal.

Amend Rule 597, "The Frankenstein Monster(s)", as follows:

Replace the following text(bounded by "STINKY")

STINKY

ii) A single noun is selected from this sentence.

iii) All instances of the selected noun is replaced by <name> (in whatever grammatical form is appropriate.)

iv) The modified sentence, if it fulfills all the above conditions, is a valid Frankenstein Part.

STINKY

with the following(bounded by "AZPIAZU")

AZPIAZU

ii) A single noun phrase is selected from this sentence.

{{[ "Noun phrase" is a well-established grammatical term, so I don't feel the need to describe it for the purposes of the game. But just to give you a general idea, noun phrases would be things like "The Godfather", "This rule", "the player who last submitted a proposal that was declared harfy", "Calling an auction", etc. ]}}

iii) All instances of the selected noun is replaced by <name> (in whatever grammatical form is appropriate.) Any verbs, pronouns, or other nouns that corresponded in number with the original noun phrase are modified if necessary to correspond in number with <name>. Any pronouns for which the original noun phrase was an antecedent should also be modified to a neuter or otherwise gender-nonspecific form.

{{[ So if the sentence was "All players who vote YES on a proposal have their scores increased by ten points", "All players who vote YES on a proposal" was the noun phrase selected, and <name> was to be replaced by "Stinky", the sentence would become "Stinky has its score increased by ten points". ]}}

iv) The modified sentence, if it fulfills all the above conditions, is a valid Frankenstein Part.

AZPIAZU


Proposal 2050 - Fri, 6 Jun 1997 22:06:46 -0500
Its all in the details
Malenkai (Randy Hall)
Decision: Accepted

This is a Modest proposal

Amend rule 211, "Invoking Judgement", to replace "current ruleset" with "game state" where it appears in the second paragraph.




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