________________________________________ Date: Thu, 01 Jul 1999 01:04:53 CDT From: Wbfu Xbegorva Subject: Nomic: Interesting note on iff Someone on sci.math noted: By tradition, when you make a definition using "if" it means "if and only if". Paul Halmos did not like this, so he invented the word "iff", which he said should be used in definitions in place of the traditional "if", and should mean "if and only if". He did NOT propose using "iff" in place of "if and only if" in other places: Except in definitions, "if and only if" should be written out in full. Hardy & Wright, p. 2, says: "A number p is said to be prime if (i) p > 1 and (ii) p has no positive divisors except 1 and p." Halmos would prefer to replace the "if" by "iff", but perhaps still pronounce it the same way. But before you say anything, Ole... 'iff' has nevertheless replaced 'if and only if' in mathematical/logical usage. :) Josh -- Following the tour, Mercury Rev again went their separate ways; its members found menial jobs, moved in with their parents, or earned money by participating in medical experiments. - from the AMG ________________________________________ Date: Thu, 01 Jul 1999 11:12:33 CDT From: Jeff N Schroeder Subject: Re: Nomic: new player proposal >I propose that Nate Ellefson be added to the game. (He was a charter player >that got booted last week, and is now interested in playing again.) I call for a vote, he didn't respond when he was about to be kicked out only a week ago... and let him speak his consent publicly! ________________________________________ Date: Thu, 01 Jul 1999 11:24:18 CDT From: Tom Plagge Subject: Re: Nomic: new player proposal In message <199907011612.LAA09429@isua5.iastate.edu>, Jeff N Schroeder writes: >>I propose that Nate Ellefson be added to the game. (He was a charter player >>that got booted last week, and is now interested in playing again.) > >I call for a vote, he didn't respond when he was about to be kicked out >only a week ago... > >and let him speak his consent publicly! Jeff, you hoser. :) Nate emailed me yesterday, and I told him he didn't have to send anything to the list to get added as a player. ________________________________________ Date: Thu, 01 Jul 1999 10:55:46 -0600 From: Xylen Subject: Re: Nomic: new player proposal Tom Plagge wrote: > > In message <199907011612.LAA09429@isua5.iastate.edu>, Jeff N Schroeder writes: > >>I propose that Nate Ellefson be added to the game. (He was a charter player > >>that got booted last week, and is now interested in playing again.) > > > >I call for a vote, he didn't respond when he was about to be kicked out > >only a week ago... I agree with the call for a vote. He had ample time in the past to become active, but failed to do so. If he wishes to lurk and just read the email, fine, but I am concerned about him becoming another long time Limbo Player. I would like to hear his views on this matter prior to accepting him back. Mary -- ----- cut here to destroy monitor -----8<----- ________________________________________ Date: Thu, 01 Jul 1999 12:02:06 CDT From: Wbfu Xbegorva Subject: Re: Nomic: new player proposal Xylen writes: > > >Tom Plagge wrote: >> >> In message <199907011612.LAA09429@isua5.iastate.edu>, Jeff N Schroeder write >s: >> >>I propose that Nate Ellefson be added to the game. (He was a charter playe >r >> >>that got booted last week, and is now interested in playing again.) >> > >> >I call for a vote, he didn't respond when he was about to be kicked out >> >only a week ago... > >I agree with the call for a vote. He had ample time in the past to >become active, but failed to do so. If he wishes to lurk and just read >the email, fine, but I am concerned about him becoming another long time >Limbo Player. I would like to hear his views on this matter prior to >accepting him back. Oh, jesus christ, is it that hard to believe that he's been inactive for more than like 6 months, and now wants to be active again? It's just a point of bad luck that he was booted before he could just reactivate; Joel didn't warn him quickly enough. Josh votes yes on admitting Nate, for the record -- Joel is a sex machine. ________________________________________ Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 12:50:21 -0500 From: Matthew J Kuhns Subject: Nomic: The Ellefson Controversy >>I agree with the call for a vote. He had ample time in the past to >>become active, but failed to do so. If he wishes to lurk and just read >>the email, fine, but I am concerned about him becoming another long time >>Limbo Player. I would like to hear his views on this matter prior to >>accepting him back. > >Oh, jesus christ, is it that hard to believe that he's been inactive >for more than like 6 months, and now wants to be active again? >It's just a point of bad luck that he was booted before he could >just reactivate; Joel didn't warn him quickly enough. Well, I don't know about that. If someone gets removed from the game after six months of admitted disinterest, it is pretty much something he/she allowed to happen. Nevertheless I don't see Nate's allowing himself to be removed as any reason not to readmit him. Having looked over old emails, Nate made a good contribution to the game. Plus, if we have Nate back in the game as an active player, there's always a chance (albeit a small one) that Jensen might rejoin just to spite him. Whatever. I vote yes on adding Nate Ellefson to Berserker Nomic. Matt Kuhns /// mjkuhns@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~mjkuhns "I either want less corruption, or more chance to participate in it." -Ashleigh Brilliant ________________________________________ Date: Thu, 01 Jul 1999 13:45:26 CDT From: Tom Plagge Subject: Re: Nomic: The Ellefson Controversy Kuhns writes: >Nevertheless I don't see Nate's allowing himself to be removed as any >reason not to readmit him. Having looked over old emails, Nate made a good >contribution to the game. Plus, if we have Nate back in the game as an >active player, there's always a chance (albeit a small one) that Jensen >might rejoin just to spite him. Whatever. I vote yes on adding Nate >Ellefson to Berserker Nomic. I also vote yes. Even if he is a lousy red-haired Republican puke (of Harwood), Mr. Ellefson contributed a great deal to the game. Despite his acknowledged dealings with Jensen, I say we let him rejoin. ________________________________________ Date: Thu, 01 Jul 1999 14:06:10 CDT From: Wbfu Xbegorva Subject: Re: Nomic: The Ellefson Controversy Matthew J Kuhns writes: >>>I agree with the call for a vote. He had ample time in the past to >>>become active, but failed to do so. If he wishes to lurk and just read >>>the email, fine, but I am concerned about him becoming another long time >>>Limbo Player. I would like to hear his views on this matter prior to >>>accepting him back. >> >>Oh, jesus christ, is it that hard to believe that he's been inactive >>for more than like 6 months, and now wants to be active again? >>It's just a point of bad luck that he was booted before he could >>just reactivate; Joel didn't warn him quickly enough. > >Well, I don't know about that. If someone gets removed from the game after >six months of admitted disinterest, it is pretty much something he/she >allowed to happen. The point at which he became reinterested, and the point at which Joel booted him, were very close together, is what I am saying. -- I am large; I contain multitudes ________________________________________ Date: Thu, 01 Jul 1999 17:02:37 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Re: Nomic: The Ellefson Controversy At 02:06 PM 7/1/99 , Josh wrote: > >Matthew J Kuhns writes: >>>>I agree with the call for a vote. He had ample time in the past to >>>>become active, but failed to do so. If he wishes to lurk and just read >>>>the email, fine, but I am concerned about him becoming another long time >>>>Limbo Player. I would like to hear his views on this matter prior to >>>>accepting him back. >>> >>>Oh, jesus christ, is it that hard to believe that he's been inactive >>>for more than like 6 months, and now wants to be active again? >>>It's just a point of bad luck that he was booted before he could >>>just reactivate; Joel didn't warn him quickly enough. >> >>Well, I don't know about that. If someone gets removed from the game after >>six months of admitted disinterest, it is pretty much something he/she >>allowed to happen. > >The point at which he became reinterested, and the point at which >Joel booted him, were very close together, is what I am saying. Woah. _I_ did not boot him -- R319/2 did that. I simply made him aware of that fact. J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Thu, 01 Jul 1999 17:41:11 CDT From: Wbfu Xbegorva Subject: Re: Nomic: The Ellefson Controversy Joel Uckelman writes: >>The point at which he became reinterested, and the point at which >>Joel booted him, were very close together, is what I am saying. > >Woah. _I_ did not boot him -- R319/2 did that. I simply made him aware of >that fact. Joel, you're so predictable. Josh -- Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself. ________________________________________ Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 10:48:37 -0500 From: Matthew J Kuhns Subject: Nomic: predictably predictable >Joel Uckelman writes: >>>The point at which he became reinterested, and the point at which >>>Joel booted him, were very close together, is what I am saying. >> >>Woah. _I_ did not boot him -- R319/2 did that. I simply made him aware of >>that fact. > >Joel, you're so predictable. Which generally works out for the better, I think. We couldn't have Osborn running the game, could we? 'Sides, about a week ago Joel turned "unpredictable" and it didn't go over too well at all. Viva administrator predictability. Matt Kuhns | Hope is the path to the DARK SIDE. mjkuhns@iastate.edu | Hope leads to trying. Trying leads to failure. | Failure leads to CYNICISM. ________________________________________ Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 11:10:19 -0500 From: Matthew J Kuhns Subject: Nomic: 'nother proposal Citizens of Nomic, as much as we all love the tasteful shrubbery growing in our game for its natural beauty and impeccable taste, Berserker is a growing community and progress cannot be held in check by a short wall of bushes. Plus, this is probably the closest most of us will get to having decent parking at Iowa State in our lifetimes. My proposal: -------------- Strike rule 376 and rule 377 and amend rule 375 to be the following PAVEPARADISE delimated text: PAVEPARADISE [some decent parking] PAVEPARDISE -------------- Matt Kuhns - mjkuhns@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~mjkuhns The truth is not "out there;" it's right in front of us, but most people refuse to recognize it. ________________________________________ Date: Fri, 02 Jul 1999 16:28:39 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Re: Nomic: 'nother proposal At 11:10 AM 7/2/99 , Kuhns wrote: >Citizens of Nomic, as much as we all love the tasteful shrubbery growing in >our game for its natural beauty and impeccable taste, Berserker is a >growing community and progress cannot be held in check by a short wall of >bushes. > >Plus, this is probably the closest most of us will get to having decent >parking at Iowa State in our lifetimes. > >My proposal: >-------------- > >Strike rule 376 and rule 377 and amend rule 375 to be the following >PAVEPARADISE delimated text: > >PAVEPARADISE > >[some decent parking] > >PAVEPARDISE > >-------------- Your delimiters don't match. J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 16:53:10 -0500 From: Matthew J Kuhns Subject: Nomic: revised proposal, and slack > >Your delimiters don't match. Where would I be without you, Joel? I transfer you a slack for being helpful. And, I revise my proposal thusly: My proposal: -------------- Strike rule 376 and rule 377 and amend rule 375 to be the following PAVEPARADISE delimated text: PAVEPARADISE [some decent parking] PAVEPARADISE -------------- Matt Kuhns // mjkuhns@iastate.edu // http://www.public.iastate.edu/~mjkuhns "When I die, I hope to go to Heaven, whatever the Hell that is." -A. Rand ________________________________________ Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 18:04:20 -0400 From: Dan Waldron Subject: Re: Nomic: 'nother proposal >Citizens of Nomic, as much as we all love the tasteful shrubbery growing in >our game for its natural beauty and impeccable taste, Berserker is a >growing community and progress cannot be held in check by a short wall of >bushes. > >Plus, this is probably the closest most of us will get to having decent >parking at Iowa State in our lifetimes. > or anywhere. Poulenc ________________________________________ Date: Fri, 02 Jul 1999 16:52:02 -0600 From: Xylen Subject: Re: Nomic: revised proposal, and slack Matthew J Kuhns wrote: > > > > >Your delimiters don't match. > > Where would I be without you, Joel? I transfer you a slack for being helpful. > > And, I revise my proposal thusly: > > My proposal: > -------------- > > Strike rule 376 and rule 377 and amend rule 375 to be the following > PAVEPARADISE delimated text: > > PAVEPARADISE > > [some decent parking] > > PAVEPARADISE > -------------- I am not opposed to decent parking, but I am opposed to the destruction of shrubbery. There are not enough green growing things in the world, and to replace such beautiful plants with a barren asphalt parking lot is abhorrent to me. The plants provide oxygen, habitat for sweet little bunnies, and provide shade on hot days. I urge all Beserkers to vote no on this prop. Don't allow your nomic to become hot, dry and barren. Support shrubbery's and ride a bike! Committee For a Green Nomic Xylen -- ----- cut here to destroy monitor -----8<----- ________________________________________ Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 18:36:47 -0500 From: Matthew J Kuhns Subject: Nomic: let's pave something >I am not opposed to decent parking, but I am opposed to the destruction >of shrubbery. There are not enough green growing things in the world, >and to replace such beautiful plants with a barren asphalt parking lot >is abhorrent to me. The plants provide oxygen, habitat for sweet little >bunnies, and provide shade on hot days. I urge all Beserkers to vote no >on this prop. Don't allow your nomic to become hot, dry and barren. >Support shrubbery's and ride a bike! > >Committee For a Green Nomic > >Xylen While I respect Mary's committment to preserving happy green plantlife in all its natural goodness, I believe that replacing a few pieces of shrubbery with some decent parking is a worthwhile sacrifice in the pursuit of loftier goals. For those interested in what sort of world we could contribute to with this simple act, I offer the following link: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~sbrewing/pave/pease.html Help make this glorious future a reality. Vote yes on some decent parking. --- Matt Kuhns mjkuhns@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~mjkuhns ________________________________________ Date: Fri, 02 Jul 1999 18:57:13 -0500 From: Jeff Schroeder Subject: Re: Nomic: let's pave something At 06:36 PM 7/2/99 -0500, you wrote: >>I am not opposed to decent parking, but I am opposed to the destruction >>of shrubbery. There are not enough green growing things in the world, >>and to replace such beautiful plants with a barren asphalt parking lot >>is abhorrent to me. The plants provide oxygen, habitat for sweet little >>bunnies, and provide shade on hot days. I urge all Beserkers to vote no >>on this prop. Don't allow your nomic to become hot, dry and barren. >>Support shrubbery's and ride a bike! >> >>Committee For a Green Nomic >> >>Xylen > >While I respect Mary's committment to preserving happy green plantlife in >all its natural goodness, I believe that replacing a few pieces of >shrubbery with some decent parking is a worthwhile sacrifice in the pursuit >of loftier goals. For those interested in what sort of world we could >contribute to with this simple act, I offer the following link: > >http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~sbrewing/pave/pease.html > >Help make this glorious future a reality. Vote yes on some decent parking. I think we should all join the People for the Paving of the Planet[tm] An even better link with animation of the Paved Earth[tm]: http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/~cjs/pave/ ________________________________________ Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1999 13:28:26 +0200 From: "Ole Andersen" Subject: Nomic: Judge Pool If I am not in the Judge Pool, I hereby place myself therein. Ole ________________________________________ Date: Sat, 03 Jul 1999 14:48:29 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: 2 J93 In the matter of RFJ 93, Nomics may not be added as players to Berserker Nomic, because nomics are not single players. I rule TRUE. As per R2/2, "A Player is a game entity represented by one and only one real, living, human being who consents to said representation and is not already represented in the game as another Player." This statement hinges on whether being a "single player" is a precondition for entry into the game. Admitting a nomic as a Player would entail admitting its rules AND customs AND players _as a single Player_. However, since Players may only be consenting humans, and "consenting human" is in no way equivalent to "rules, customs, and players", I must rule TRUE. J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Sat, 03 Jul 1999 14:16:17 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: judicial reform (take 3? 4?) The following is a further judicial reform proposal. The substantial change can be found in section 11. In essence, this would create an elected Supreme Court to replace our current higher level courts. ------------------------ 1. Amend R214 to read: "Any Player, hereafter known as the Complainant, may at any time request a Judgment on a Statement to receive clarification on any rules-related matter. Upon each Request for Judgment, a corresponding Case is opened. Any Player, hereafter known as the Appellant, may appeal a Judgment iff less than 36 hours have passed since its public issuance and it was not issued by the Supreme Court." 2. Amend R215 to read: "Players in the Judicial Pool, with the following exceptions, are eligible to become Lower Court Judges on a Case: i. Supreme Court Justices ii. the Complainant iii. a Player explicitly selected by the Complainant Exceptions shall be waived from greatest to least in the event that such restrictions prevent a Lower Court from being chosen. Whenever it is necessary to select a Judge for a Lower Court, the Administrator shall randomly select an eligible Player." 3. Amend R216 to read: "A Judge selected to a Lower Court must issue a public Judgment on the Case within four days or be subject to a ten point fine. A Lower Court is dissolved if it lapses or its Judges return the same response within the allowed time. A Lower Court Judge's tenure ends upon the dissolving of eir Court, at which time e relinquishes the title of Judge and its associated powers and privileges." 4. Repeal R217. 5. Amend R220 to read: "Rules must be followed in accordance with the final response to a Statement in each Case, with the exception that no Judgment by a Lower Court may prevent the Supreme Court from reviewing said Judgment. Game actions found to be illegal must be undone, as must all actions made possible solely or in part by said illegal actions, but only as allowed by the Statute of Limitations." 6. Amend R228 to read: A Judgment must consist of a legal response to the Statement to be judged, and either a) the Judge’s analysis of the Statement and response, or b) an explicit statement of concurrence with an opinion issued by another Judge on the Court. Only Statements and their corresponding responses are considered to have official legal standing, and only Judges chosen in accordance with the rules may issue Judgments. The set of legal responses to Statements is defined as {TRUE, FALSE, DISMISSED}. DISMISSED indicates that a Statement cannot be evaluated as to its veracity, or does not address a rules-related matter. TRUE indicates that a Statement can be evaluated as to its veracity, addresses a rules-related matter, and is logically true. FALSE indicates that a Statement can be evaluated as to its veracity, addresses a rules-related matter, and is logically false. No other responses are allowed. All decisions by all Judges must be made in accordance with all the rules then in effect; but when the rules are silent, inconsistent, or unclear on the point at issue, then Judges shall consider game-custom and the spirit of the game before applying other standards." 7. Amend R230 to read: "Upon each Request for Judgment, the following procedure is executed: 1. A Case is opened on the Request for Judgment. 2. A Lower Court is selected to rule on the Statement. 3. If, at any time after the initial selection, the Lower Court has no Judge, or if the Lower Court lapses, it is dissolved; if possible, a new Lower Court is selected; if not, the procedure skips to step 6. 4. The Lower Court issues a Judgment, at which time the Court dissolves. 5. If a legal Appeal of the Lower Court’s Judgment is made, the Supreme Court must either grant the Appeal, and then may issue a Judgment; or deny the Appeal. 6. At such time as no further legal Appeals in the Case are possible, the Case is closed and the Lower Court Judge on the Case is paid. This Rule takes precedence over all other Rules dealing with the Judiciary." 8. Amend R231 to read: "A Case consists of a Statement and all judicial documents produced by the Complainant, Appellant, and Courts assigned to the Statement." 9. Amend R232 to read: "The Judicial Pool shall consist only of all Players having publicly consented to selection as Judges. A Player may, at any time, add or remove only emself from the Judicial Pool. Players entering Limbo are automatically removed from the Judicial Pool. Justices are automatically in the Judicial Pool. In the event that no Players are in the Judicial Pool, all Players not in Limbo are automatically placed in the Judicial Pool." 10. Amend R390 to read: "Upon the closure of a Case, the Lower Court Judge on the Case receives 3 points iff the final ruling on the Statement is TRUE or FALSE." 11. Create R233 from the following "SUPREME COURT"-delimited text SUPREME COURT Justices are Judges serving on the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court shall consist of five elected Justices. {{A special election shall be held immediately to fill the Supreme Court. Each Player may vote for up to five candidates. The initial term for each Judgeship shall end during the (6-n)th turn, where n is the rank in voting the Justice holding the Judgeship received. All subsequent terms are five turns long.}} If, within 48 hours of an Appeal, at least two Justices explicitly declare their willingness to grant said Appeal, the Supreme Court shall hear the Case. The Supreme Court issues a Judgment on a Case to which it has granted a hearing when a simple majority of the Justices have publicly returned the same response to the Statement. If the Supreme Court fails to issue a Judgment within seven days on a Case to which it has granted a hearing, the Lower Court Judgment stands. SUPREME COURT J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Sat, 03 Jul 1999 17:04:09 CDT From: Wbfu Xbegorva Subject: Re: Nomic: judicial reform (take 3? 4?) Joel Uckelman writes: >A Judgment must consist of a legal response to the Statement to be judged, >and either a) the Judge’s analysis of the Statement and response, or b) an Skank "smart" quote here ^ >10. Amend R390 to read: > >"Upon the closure of a Case, the Lower Court Judge on the Case receives 3 >points iff the final ruling on the Statement is TRUE or FALSE." So the judgments need not agree any longer? >{{A special election shall be held immediately to fill the Supreme Court. >Each Player may vote for up to five candidates. The initial term for each >Judgeship shall end during the (6-n)th turn, where n is the rank in voting >the Justice holding the Judgeship received. All subsequent terms are five >turns long.}} Are you sure you want this last sentence to be deleted? Nowhere else in this rule is it stated how long a normally elected justice's term is. Josh -- Joel is a sex machine. ________________________________________ Date: Sun, 04 Jul 1999 00:57:41 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: voting reminder Voting begins at 02:23 CDT 4 July 1999. J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Sun, 04 Jul 1999 01:05:40 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: prop adjustments I set P535 and P538 to inactive. I intend to flesh them out during the next turn. J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Sun, 04 Jul 1999 01:00:31 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Re: Nomic: judicial reform (take 3? 4?) At 05:04 PM 7/3/99 , Josh wrote: > >>10. Amend R390 to read: >> >>"Upon the closure of a Case, the Lower Court Judge on the Case receives 3 >>points iff the final ruling on the Statement is TRUE or FALSE." > >So the judgments need not agree any longer? Just rendering a judgment should bring compensation. >>{{A special election shall be held immediately to fill the Supreme Court. >>Each Player may vote for up to five candidates. The initial term for each >>Judgeship shall end during the (6-n)th turn, where n is the rank in voting >>the Justice holding the Judgeship received. All subsequent terms are five >>turns long.}} > >Are you sure you want this last sentence to be deleted? Nowhere else >in this rule is it stated how long a normally elected justice's term >is. Terms for elected offices are five turns by default. J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Sun, 04 Jul 1999 09:56:23 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: ballot Voting ends at 02:23 CDT 6 July 1999. -------------- P528 Amend rule 215 by appending the follwing paragraph: In all cases judging the legality of action a, the judges are chosen and the legality is determined based on the game state immediately preceding that action a. ----------------- P529 Amend R463/0 to read: Fora are arenas in which Players may communicate. Fora may be public or private. Actions may only be taken in public fora, with the exception of creating a new public forum when there are no extant public fora. Only the Administrator may designate fora as public, and only if said fora are reasonably accessible to all layers. Specifically, all Players must either be notified of or subscribed by the Administrator to new email fora before they may become public. Only the Administrator may designate previously public fora as private, and only if such changes do not eliminate all public fora. The Administrator must notify ten days in advance all Players using or subscribed to a public forum before redesignating it as private. The Administrator may redesignate fora at any time. The Administrator must, in a timely fashion, maintain and make available to all Players a list of all public fora. {{The majordomo list nomic@iastate.edu is a public forum.}} ------------- P530 Any proposal may be designated by its author a "shared proposal." This designation may be added or removed at any time before the proposal is voted on. When designating a proposal shared, its author must also specify players with whom to share. The number of players which may be shared with is limited by the number of current players, but otherwise any number of players may be specified. If a shared proposal passes, the points which would be rewarded to its author under rule 222 are instead divided amongst the author and the players e specified. Points shall be divided in integral amounts, and the author receives any leftover points which cannot be split evenly amongst the author and the players specified. If a shared proposal fails, its author alone takes the penalties, according to any other rules which deal penalties for failed proposals. -------------- P531 Change the first sentence of R466/3 to: A Player receives one UPC for each failed Proposal for which e voted favorably but did not propose. -------------- P532 Amend R384/0 to read: There exists a homunculus, hereafter known as Osborn's Demon, who is an eligible voter only during proposal voting. Osborn's Demon shall vote with the Player or a plurality of the group of Players having the minimal score among eligible voters, or auto-abstain if no such plurality exists. It Osborn's Demon has voted with a single Player more than five times consecutively and said Player has a nonnegative score at no time during those five turns, e is excluded from consideration in the above voting method until e has a nonnegative score at the time the Demon's votes are determined. This rule takes precedence over all rules concerned with voting. ------------- P533 Create a rule with the title "Playerlike Entities" and the following "-------" delimited text. ------- Entities may be Playerlike. Playerlike entites may only be created and destroyed as specified in the Rules of Berserker. A Playerlike Entity may destroy itself. Playerlike entites are subject to all rules and restrictions which affect Players. Unless otherwise specified in the rules, a rule which applies to Players also applies to playerlike entities. Playerlike entities are not required to meet the definition of Player. Any non-player entity with voting priviliges is playerlike. ------- Append the following "\\\\\\\" delimited text to rule 384: \\\\\\\ Osborne's Demon is a playerlike entity. \\\\\\\ Append the following "///////" delimited text to rule 466: /////// The Grand Prize is a playerlike entity. /////// ------------- P534 If there is a rule with the title "Playerlike Entities", then Create a rule with the title "Kryten" and the following "+++++++" delimited text, and the number 420 +++++++ Kryten is a playerlike entity within Berserker Nomic, and has voting priviliges. {{ Kryten's personal ruleset is as follows: 1. (mutable) Once per turn, each Player may submit a proposal to change one of my mutable rules. These proposals are voted on using the same method as Proposals to change the Rules of Berserker. At the conclusion of voting, the proposal that recieved the most votes in favor is adopted. 2. (mutable) Immediately before each voting period, I submit a Proposal entitled "Clean Up the Ruleset" with the text "Repeal rule x" where x is the number of a randomly selected mutable rule of Berserker Nomic. 3. (mutable) Immediately before the end of each voting period, I cast my vote on each ballot-item in the same way as do a majority of the other Players voting on that item. If there is no majority, I do not vote on that item. }} Kryten's Personal Ruleset may only be changed as defined in Kryten's Personal Ruleset. +++++++ ------------- P536 1. Transmute R2. 2. Amend R2 to read: A Player is a game entity representing one and only one real, living, human being who consents to said representation and is not already represented in the game as another Player. A Player shall be identified, for recordkeeping purposes, by eir corresponding real human fore- and surnames or eir email address if eir real name does not uniquely identify em within the game; and by any unambiguous name in all else. 3. Transmute R2. -------------- P537 Strike rule 376 and rule 377 and amend rule 375 to be the following PAVEPARADISE delimated text: PAVEPARADISE [some decent parking] PAVEPARADISE -------------- J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Mon, 05 Jul 1999 11:57:36 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: judge selection (2 J93) Because each member of the 2 Court for RFJ 93 returned a different verdict the Court was unable to reach a majority decision. Matt Kuhns, Tom Mueller, and Joel Uckelman have been selected to 2 Court for RFJ 93: Nomics may not be added as players to Berserker Nomic, because nomics are not single players. J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Mon, 5 Jul 1999 12:30:45 -0500 From: Matthew J Kuhns Subject: Nomic: it's back--J93 part III >Because each member of the 2 Court for RFJ 93 returned a different verdict >the Court was unable to reach a majority decision. > >Matt Kuhns, Tom Mueller, and Joel Uckelman have been selected to 2 Court >for RFJ 93: Since 2/3 of this new court were on the last court, maybe we should discuss this a bit before returning judgments. I still lean towards dismissal, for the reasons I stated in my email. Is there really any compelling need for this judgment in light of J97? Matt Kuhns "Gravity doesn't exist, mjkuhns@iastate.edu the Earth sucks." http://www.public.iastate.edu/~mjkuhns -anonymous ________________________________________ Date: Mon, 05 Jul 1999 17:23:34 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Re: Nomic: it's back--J93 part III At 12:30 PM 7/5/99 , Kuhns wrote: > >Since 2/3 of this new court were on the last court, maybe we should discuss >this a bit before returning judgments. I still lean towards dismissal, for >the reasons I stated in my email. Is there really any compelling need for >this judgment in light of J97? I'm not sure I see why J97 making this statement moot entails that it should be dismissed. J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Mon, 5 Jul 1999 22:12:50 -0500 From: Matthew J Kuhns Subject: Nomic: why we should dismiss J93 >At 12:30 PM 7/5/99 , Kuhns wrote: >> >>Since 2/3 of this new court were on the last court, maybe we should discuss >>this a bit before returning judgments. I still lean towards dismissal, for >>the reasons I stated in my email. Is there really any compelling need for >>this judgment in light of J97? > >I'm not sure I see why J97 making this statement moot entails that it >should be dismissed. Well, I'm not saying J93 should be dismissed just because it is unnecessary; as I stated in my original decision, I believe the statement in question is poorly worded, making any true-or-false judgment's significance highly questionable. Therefore it should be dismissed in favor of a better-worded statement about the issue, which conventiently has already been submitted. Just something random that people may find interesting: someone has made existentialist icons inspired by Jean-Paul Sartre. http://www.bedope.com/media_center/icons.html Matt Kuhns <<>> mjkuhns@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~mjkuhns Nobody ever says "I wanna be a graphic designer when I grow up." ________________________________________ Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 02:40:16 -0400 From: Dan Waldron Subject: Re: Nomic: it's back--J93 part III >At 12:30 PM 7/5/99 , Kuhns wrote: >> >>Since 2/3 of this new court were on the last court, maybe we should discuss >>this a bit before returning judgments. I still lean towards dismissal, for >>the reasons I stated in my email. Is there really any compelling need for >>this judgment in light of J97? > >I'm not sure I see why J97 making this statement moot entails that it >should be dismissed. The reasoning behind my appeal was that the statement did not fully cover the issue, and that any judgement from it will be inconclusive at best. The question of nomic membership is a complicated one and the wording of the RFJ is not sufficient to solve it. I was not just appealing a ruling that was against what I was trying to do at the time. Poulenc ________________________________________ Date: Tue, 06 Jul 1999 20:05:36 CDT From: Wbfu Xbegorva Subject: Nomic: For Allan Dudding, wherever he is out there "Now you know, and knowing is half the battle. The other half is mostly treachery and groin kicks." -- "Fuck you," whispers Slothrop. It's the only spell he knows, and a pretty good all-purpose one at that. ________________________________________ Date: Wed, 07 Jul 1999 20:08:19 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: voting results P528 failed (3-5-0-5). P529 failed (4-4-0-5). P530 passed (5-2-1-5). P531 passed (5-3-0-5). P532 passed (7-1-0-5). P533 passed (5-3-0-5). P534 failed (2-6-0-5). P536 passed (8-0-0-5). P537 failed (4-4-0-5). Scoring and UPCs to follow... J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Wed, 07 Jul 1999 19:37:08 -0600 From: Xylen Subject: Re: Nomic: voting results Joel Uckelman wrote: > > P528 failed (3-5-0-5). > P529 failed (4-4-0-5). > P530 passed (5-2-1-5). > P531 passed (5-3-0-5). > P532 passed (7-1-0-5). > P533 passed (5-3-0-5). > P534 failed (2-6-0-5). > P536 passed (8-0-0-5). > P537 failed (4-4-0-5). ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ YEAH!!! Beserker will remain a Green Nomic. :) Xylen -- ----- cut here to destroy monitor -----8<----- ________________________________________ Date: Wed, 07 Jul 1999 21:04:57 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: scoring Scoring from last turn: +35 Josh Kortbein +27 Joel Uckelman +13 Jeff Schroeder 0 Dan Waldron (the changes cancelled each other) -4 Matt Kuhns --------- UPCs earned: +2 Ole Andersen +2 Jeff Schroeder +2 Mary Tupper +1 Josh Kortbein +1 Joel Uckelman --------- The GRAND PRIZE voted with Matt Kuhns. J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 22:07:59 -0500 From: Matthew J Kuhns Subject: Re: Nomic: voting results >^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >YEAH!!! Beserker will remain a Green Nomic. :) HA! You've won this round Tupper, but this scorched-earth war is only beginning! Muhhahahaaah.. (So in one turn, I manage to get an immutable rule changed, and have a proposal with nothing substantively objectionable fail by one vote, despite getting the Grand Prize to vote with me. Damn, this is one wacky game.) Matt Kuhns "Gravity doesn't exist, mjkuhns@iastate.edu the Earth sucks." http://www.public.iastate.edu/~mjkuhns -anonymous ________________________________________ Date: Wed, 07 Jul 1999 22:11:22 CDT From: Wbfu Xbegorva Subject: Re: Nomic: voting results Matthew J Kuhns writes: > >>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >>YEAH!!! Beserker will remain a Green Nomic. :) > >HA! You've won this round Tupper, but this scorched-earth war is only >beginning! > >Muhhahahaaah.. > >(So in one turn, I manage to get an immutable rule changed, and have a >proposal with nothing substantively objectionable fail by one vote, despite One might take its failure as an indicator of strongly objectionable content. Josh -- Following the tour, Mercury Rev again went their separate ways; its members found menial jobs, moved in with their parents, or earned money by participating in medical experiments. - from the AMG ________________________________________ Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 22:40:14 -0500 From: Matthew J Kuhns Subject: Nomic: what's to object to? >>(So in one turn, I manage to get an immutable rule changed, and have a >>proposal with nothing substantively objectionable fail by one vote, despite > >One might take its failure as an indicator of strongly objectionable >content. Such as? I mean, I knew that one (and apparently 4) people objected to the proposal, but it's pretend, man. There IS no shrubbery to begin with. I certainly didn't expect a kind of... well, actually I didn't really have any idea how it would turn out. But I'm assuming most of the votes against it had to do with people valuing a chance at points more than the proposal. Matt Kuhns /// mjkuhns@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~mjkuhns "I either want less corruption, or more chance to participate in it." -Ashleigh Brilliant ________________________________________ Date: Wed, 07 Jul 1999 22:52:01 CDT From: Wbfu Xbegorva Subject: Re: Nomic: what's to object to? Matthew J Kuhns writes: >>>(So in one turn, I manage to get an immutable rule changed, and have a >>>proposal with nothing substantively objectionable fail by one vote, despite >> >>One might take its failure as an indicator of strongly objectionable >>content. > >Such as? I mean, I knew that one (and apparently 4) people objected to the >proposal, but it's pretend, man. There IS no shrubbery to begin with. >I certainly didn't expect a kind of... well, actually I didn't really have >any idea how it would turn out. But I'm assuming most of the votes against >it had to do with people valuing a chance at points more than the proposal. IS no shrubbery? You might as well say there is no Santa Claus no Easter Bunny no faith no love no hope no God. Soulless devil. Josh -- Joel is a sex machine. ________________________________________ Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 23:18:23 -0500 From: Matthew J Kuhns Subject: Re: Nomic: what's to object to? >IS no shrubbery? > >You might as well say there is no Santa Claus no Easter Bunny no >faith no love no hope no God. > >Soulless devil. Probably. But I did try to provide some decent parking. People rejected the offer though, and it's on to bigger and better things. And hopefully recovering this last turn's losses, through some means or another. Matt Kuhns | Hope is the path to the DARK SIDE. mjkuhns@iastate.edu | Hope leads to trying. Trying leads to failure. | Failure leads to CYNICISM. ________________________________________ Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1999 03:25:27 -0400 From: Dan Waldron Subject: Re: Nomic: what's to object to? > >IS no shrubbery? > >You might as well say there is no Santa Claus no Easter Bunny no >faith no love no hope no God. > >Soulless devil. Unlike these things, the shrubbery does exist, because it's in the rules. Poulenc ________________________________________ Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1999 11:48:01 +0200 From: "Ole Andersen" Subject: Nomic: RFJ: Santa Claus is Nomic-related Poulenc quoted Josh, and wrote: : : > : >IS no shrubbery? : > : >You might as well say there is no Santa Claus no Easter Bunny no : >faith no love no hope no God. : > : >Soulless devil. : : : Unlike these things, the shrubbery does exist, because it's in the rules. : I would like the sentence Santa Claus is Nomic-related judged. Ole ________________________________________ Date: Thu, 08 Jul 1999 12:43:35 CDT From: Wbfu Xbegorva Subject: Re: Nomic: RFJ: Santa Claus is Nomic-related "Ole Andersen" writes: >Poulenc quoted Josh, and wrote: >: >: > >: >IS no shrubbery? >: > >: >You might as well say there is no Santa Claus no Easter Bunny no >: >faith no love no hope no God. >: > >: >Soulless devil. >: >: >: Unlike these things, the shrubbery does exist, because it's in the rules. >: > >I would like the sentence > >Santa Claus is Nomic-related > >judged. > > >Ole > Deja vu.... -- Following the tour, Mercury Rev again went their separate ways; its members found menial jobs, moved in with their parents, or earned money by participating in medical experiments. - from the AMG ________________________________________ Date: Thu, 08 Jul 1999 16:32:07 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Re: Nomic: what's to object to? At 10:40 PM 7/7/99 , Kuhns wrote: >>>(So in one turn, I manage to get an immutable rule changed, and have a >>>proposal with nothing substantively objectionable fail by one vote, despite >> >>One might take its failure as an indicator of strongly objectionable >>content. > >Such as? I mean, I knew that one (and apparently 4) people objected to the >proposal, but it's pretend, man. There IS no shrubbery to begin with. >I certainly didn't expect a kind of... well, actually I didn't really have >any idea how it would turn out. But I'm assuming most of the votes against >it had to do with people valuing a chance at points more than the proposal. No, I actually liked the shrubbery. J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Thu, 08 Jul 1999 18:13:14 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: reproposal I'm unsure why people voted against P529, as the sole objection to it was addressed and remedied. Please make your objections known if you voted against. Also, the new proposal does contain a change, and it is probably a good thing that the old one failed, as limiting actions to public fora would have prevented secret voting -- an unintended effect that I didn't notice until yesterday evening. -------------------- Amend R463/0 to read: Fora are arenas in which Players may communicate. Fora may be public or private. Actions may be taken only in public fora, unless otherwise specified in the rules. Creation of a public forum if there are no extant public fora need not be public. Only the Administrator may designate fora as public, and only if said fora are reasonably accessible to all layers. Specifically, all Players must either be notified of or subscribed by the Administrator to new email fora before they may become public. Only the Administrator may designate previously public fora as private, and only if such changes do not eliminate all public fora. The Administrator must notify ten days in advance all Players using or subscribed to a public forum before redesignating it as private. The Administrator may redesignate fora at any time. The Administrator must, in a timely fashion, maintain and make available to all Players a list of all public fora. {{The majordomo list nomic@iastate.edu is a public forum.}} J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1999 22:10:29 -0500 From: Matthew J Kuhns Subject: Nomic: objections to P529 >I'm unsure why people voted against P529, as the sole objection to it was >addressed and remedied. Please make your objections known if you voted >against. I voted against. I had no objections to it; I was just attempting to grab some opposed-minority points in what was otherwise a round of merit-based voting. Now, however, I object to the fact that it is the work of an anti-paver, and therefore may be nothing more than a bunch of tree-hugging hippie crap. Tough luck, huh? Matt Kuhns // mjkuhns@iastate.edu // http://www.public.iastate.edu/~mjkuhns "When I die, I hope to go to Heaven, whatever the Hell that is." -A. Rand ________________________________________ Date: Thu, 08 Jul 1999 22:59:10 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Re: Nomic: objections to P529 At 10:10 PM 7/8/99 , Kuhns wrote: >>I'm unsure why people voted against P529, as the sole objection to it was >>addressed and remedied. Please make your objections known if you voted >>against. > >I voted against. I had no objections to it; I was just attempting to grab >some opposed-minority points in what was otherwise a round of merit-based >voting. > >Now, however, I object to the fact that it is the work of an anti-paver, >and therefore may be nothing more than a bunch of tree-hugging hippie crap. >Tough luck, huh? ~(x)(Hx -> Px) Translation: can't please 'em all. J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1999 01:24:44 -0400 From: Dan Waldron Subject: Re: Nomic: objections to P529 >At 10:10 PM 7/8/99 , Kuhns wrote: >>>I'm unsure why people voted against P529, as the sole objection to it was >>>addressed and remedied. Please make your objections known if you voted >>>against. At the last moment I noticed something with P529 that made think that it could cause problems: "Actions may only be taken in public fora..." Now I don't know for certain whether we are actually _in_ the email list, or just posting to it, but I do see a potential for some nasty problems if this issue is not fixed. Then I will vote for it. Sorry, I was too wrapped up in the discussion of my own bills to notice this until I voted. I would suggest changing that to "Actions may only be taken by announcing them in a public forum...", as I think that this is more clear. If this change is made I will vote for the proposal at next voting. Poulenc ________________________________________ Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1999 01:52:02 -0400 From: Dan Waldron Subject: Nomic: Anti-Shrubbers vs Anti-Pavers The following Text delimited by "START PROPOSAL" and "END PROPOSAL" is a proposal. START PROPOSAL Create a Rule entitled "Paver Wars" with the following text Player are either Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime or Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippies. These groups of players are continually at odds, and recieve points for their voting as follows: For each proposal, each Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime recieves ten points for each Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippie who voted in the opposite manner, and three points for each other Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime who voted in the same manner as them. For each proposal, each Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippie recieves ten points for each other Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippie who voted in the same manner, and three points for each Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime who voted in the opposite manner to them. Whether a Player is an Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime or an Anti-Paver-Tree-Huggin-Hippie is a player attribute, and may be referred to as that players Green/Black status. The Administrator is responsible for tracking and recording the Green/Black status of each Player. A Player may only change eir Green/Black status when it is eir turn, or if that Player is in a period of grace. Upon the passage of this Rule, each Player is declared in a period of grace for a duration of one turn, commencing as soon as they come out of limbo if they are in limbo, otherwise immediately. Whenever a new player joins e is in a period of grace also for one turn. Initially, all players are Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippies. END PROPOSAL Poulenc ________________________________________ Date: Fri, 09 Jul 1999 01:09:11 CDT From: Josh Kortbein Subject: Re: Nomic: objections to P529 Dan Waldron writes: >>At 10:10 PM 7/8/99 , Kuhns wrote: >>>>I'm unsure why people voted against P529, as the sole objection to it was >>>>addressed and remedied. Please make your objections known if you voted >>>>against. > >At the last moment I noticed something with P529 that made think that it >could cause problems: > >"Actions may only be taken in public fora..." > >Now I don't know for certain whether we are actually _in_ the email list, >or just posting to it, but I do see a potential for some nasty problems if >this issue is not fixed. Then I will vote for it. Sorry, I was too >wrapped up in the discussion of my own bills to notice this until I voted. >I would suggest changing that to "Actions may only be taken by announcing >them in a public forum...", as I think that this is more clear. If this >change is made I will vote for the proposal at next voting. Actually, Joel and I talked about this a little, and I believe a good way to clarify the problem can be found in J.L. Austin's _How to Do Things With Words_, which tries to illucidate the differences between speech acts (i.e., messages to the list) which do things, cause effects in the listeners/readers, and so forth. It's a short book and I plan to read it this weekend and make a proposal based on Austin's ideas. Josh -- Following the tour, Mercury Rev again went their separate ways; its members found menial jobs, moved in with their parents, or earned money by participating in medical experiments. - from the AMG ________________________________________ Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1999 11:29:35 -0500 From: Matthew J Kuhns Subject: Nomic: don't collapse into anarchy this weekend The Paver Wars proposal sounds fun, but right now I'm rather bitter about the whole affair. All I wanted was some decent parking--it that so wrong? Also, I'm gonna be gone for a couple days, again, so if anyone is planning another coup d'etat, could you at least wait until Sunday? Thanks. Matt Kuhns - mjkuhns@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~mjkuhns The truth is not "out there;" it's right in front of us, but most people refuse to recognize it. ________________________________________ Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1999 16:58:24 -0400 From: Dan Waldron Subject: Re: Nomic: don't collapse into anarchy this weekend >The Paver Wars proposal sounds fun, but right now I'm rather bitter about >the whole affair. All I wanted was some decent parking--it that so wrong? > >Also, I'm gonna be gone for a couple days, again, so if anyone is planning >another coup d'etat, could you at least wait until Sunday? Thanks. Oh, well... I guess it can wait.. about the paver wars proposal, the only thing I am worried about is that it could potentially give away a large number of points. should I make it so that players lose points too, to balance it out a little? Poulenc ________________________________________ Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 10:15:41 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Re: Nomic: don't collapse into anarchy this weekend At 03:58 PM 7/9/99 , Dan wrote: >>The Paver Wars proposal sounds fun, but right now I'm rather bitter about >>the whole affair. All I wanted was some decent parking--it that so wrong? >> >>Also, I'm gonna be gone for a couple days, again, so if anyone is planning >>another coup d'etat, could you at least wait until Sunday? Thanks. > >Oh, well... I guess it can wait.. > >about the paver wars proposal, the only thing I am worried about is that it >could potentially give away a large number of points. should I make it so >that players lose points too, to balance it out a little? > >Poulenc That is also my concern. Based on the point awards in the proposal, it would become the dominant scoring mechanism, to the extent of rendering our current scoring mechanism insignifigant. Additionally, this would lead us back to the same problem of it being to someone's advantage to make proposals intended to fail. If the point awards were reduced and applied only to proposals that pass (or some other clever way of circumventing the problem), I woudln't be opposed to the proposal. J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 10:22:51 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: Ellefson reminder We are still voting on whether to allow Nate Ellefson back into the game. As he seems extremely interested in it (in fact, he's emailed me several times now about it) those of you who have not yet voted are asked to do so (or be bludgeoned with a herring). J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 16:58:11 -0400 From: Dan Waldron Subject: Re: Nomic: Anti-Shrubbers vs Anti-Pavers The following text delimited by "START PROPOSAL" and "END PROPOSAL" is a revision to my previous proposal quoted below. START PROPOSAL Create a Rule entitled "Paver Wars" with the following text. Player are either Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime or Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippies. These groups of players are continually at odds, and recieve points for their voting as follows: For each passed proposal, each Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime recieves ten points for each Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippie who voted in the opposite manner, and loses ten point for each Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime who voted in the opposite manner as them. For each passed proposal, each Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippie recieves ten points for each other Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippie who voted in the same manner as them, and loses ten points for each Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime who voted in the same manner as them. Whether a player is an Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime or an Anti-Paver-Tree-Huggin-Hippie is a player attribute, and may be referred to as that players Green/Black status. The Administrator is responsible for tracking and recording the Green/Black status of each Player. A player may change eir Green/Black status when it is eir turn, or if that player is in a period of grace. Upon the passage of this Rule, each player is declared in a period of grace for a duration of one turn, commencing as soon as they come out of limbo if they are in limbo, otherwise immediately. Whenever a new player joins e is in a period of grace also for one turn. Initially, all players are Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippies. END PROPOSAL >The following Text delimited by "START PROPOSAL" and "END PROPOSAL" is a >proposal. > > >START PROPOSAL > >Create a Rule entitled "Paver Wars" with the following text > >Player are either Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime or >Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippies. These groups of players are continually >at odds, and recieve points for their voting as follows: > >For each proposal, each Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime recieves ten >points for each Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippie who voted in the opposite >manner, and three points for each other >Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime who voted in the same manner as them. > >For each proposal, each Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippie recieves ten points >for each other Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippie who voted in the same manner, >and three points for each Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime who voted >in the opposite manner to them. > >Whether a Player is an Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime or an >Anti-Paver-Tree-Huggin-Hippie is a player attribute, and may be referred to >as that players Green/Black status. The Administrator is responsible for >tracking and recording the Green/Black status of each Player. > >A Player may only change eir Green/Black status when it is eir turn, or if >that Player is in a period of grace. Upon the passage of this Rule, each >Player is declared in a period of grace for a duration of one turn, >commencing as soon as they come out of limbo if they are in limbo, >otherwise immediately. Whenever a new player joins e is in a period of >grace also for one turn. Initially, all players are >Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippies. > >END PROPOSAL > >Poulenc ________________________________________ Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 19:48:02 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: judge selection (1 J98) Dan Waldron has been selected to 1 Court for RFJ 98: Santa Claus is Nomic-related J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 19:59:19 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Re: Nomic: reproposal (P539) Here is a further revision of P539. I changed "in" in the first sentence to "through" in response to Waldron's objections. Does this resolve them? ------------------- Amend R463/0 to read: Fora are arenas through which Players may communicate. Fora may be public or private. Actions may be taken only in public fora, unless otherwise specified in the rules. Creation of a public forum if there are no extant public fora need not be public. Only the Administrator may designate fora as public, and only if said fora are reasonably accessible to all Players. Specifically, all Players must either be notified of or subscribed by the Administrator to new email fora before they may become public. Only the Administrator may designate previously public fora as private, and only if such changes do not eliminate all public fora. The Administrator must notify ten days in advance all Players using or subscribed to a public forum before redesignating it as private. The Administrator may redesignate fora at any time. The Administrator must, in a timely fashion, maintain and make available to all Players a list of all public fora. {{The majordomo list nomic@iastate.edu is a public forum.}} ----------------- J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 20:47:34 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: further thoughts on P540 Under P540, in a turn in which nine players vote -- five of whom are Shrubbers and the remaining four Pavers -- on eight proposals at 60% passage: In a straight vote on all proposals each Shrubber would score 192 points, with each Paver scoring 240 points. Total scoring would be 1920 points. (I belive this to be the maximum given the constraints.) In a split vote, i.e., 3 Shrubbers and 2 Pavers vs. 2 Shrubbers and 2 Pavers, the prevailing group would score no points, while the Shrubbers in the minority would lose 10 points and the minority Pavers would gain ten points. Total scoring would be 0 points. In a defection vote, i.e. 4 Pavers and 1 Shrubber vs. 4 Shrubbers, the Pavers would score 40 pointes each, the defecting Shrubber would lose 40 points, and the other Shrubbers would gain 30 points. Total scoring would be 240 points. -------------------- What can be drawn from this: 1. P540 appears to strongly discourage defection. (Is it an inverse prisoners' dilemma?) 2. P540 has the potential, even in its revised form, to award vast quantities of points. In the maximal case, a player could score almost half of the points necessary for a win in a single turn. A general conclusion: P540 would drastically alter our scoring/win system. J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 20:03:04 -0600 From: Xylen Subject: Re: Nomic: reproposal (P539) Joel Uckelman wrote: > > Here is a further revision of P539. I changed "in" in the first sentence to > "through" in response to Waldron's objections. Does this resolve them? Perhaps it does, but now I see a problem with the "in" in the second sentence. If we are not 'in' a public fora, how can we take action 'in' the fora? > > ------------------- > > Amend R463/0 to read: > > Fora are arenas through which Players may communicate. Fora may be > public or private. > > Actions may be taken only in public fora, unless otherwise specified in > the rules. Xylen, Working for a Greener Nomic. -- ----- cut here to destroy monitor -----8<----- ________________________________________ Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 02:38:05 -0400 From: Dan Waldron Subject: Re: Nomic: Anti-Shrubbers vs Anti-Pavers Below I have included the scoring chart for any one player per passed proposal, under this proposal. As you can see, it would have some rather serious problems. For pavers, the titles should be "Shrubbers who disagree" across the top and "Pavers who disagree" on the left. For shrubbers, the titles should be "Shrubbers who agree" across the top and "Pavers who agree" on the left. (self not counted). I have solved for nine players. The problem is, if one group has a majority they can score vast numbers of points, and it becomes impossible for members of the other group to score any. The maximum possible point gain or loss is 80 points per proposal. Pavers are at an advantage when outnumbered, because they score points from dissention amongst shrubber voters (it still doesn't make them even with the shrubbers, though). Shrubbers can only score points by agreeing with other shrubbers, and have the potential to score vast numbers of points when in the majority. In either case, however, a majority even of one player is quite unbalancing. I think this needs to be fixed. I will send another revision in a subsequent post. Poulenc SCORIRNG CHART 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 1 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 2 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 3 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 4 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 5 -50 -40 -30 -20 6 -60 -50 -40 7 -70 -60 8 -80 >The following text delimited by "START PROPOSAL" and "END PROPOSAL" is a >revision to my previous proposal quoted below. > > >START PROPOSAL > >Create a Rule entitled "Paver Wars" with the following text. > >Player are either Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime or >Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippies. These groups of players are continually >at odds, and recieve points for their voting as follows: > >For each passed proposal, each Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime >recieves ten points for each Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippie who voted in >the opposite manner, and loses ten point for each >Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime who voted in the opposite manner as >them. > >For each passed proposal, each Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippie recieves ten >points for each other Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippie who voted in the same >manner as them, and loses ten points for each >Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime who voted in the same manner as them. > >Whether a player is an Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime or an >Anti-Paver-Tree-Huggin-Hippie is a player attribute, and may be referred to >as that players Green/Black status. The Administrator is responsible for >tracking and recording the Green/Black status of each Player. > >A player may change eir Green/Black status when it is eir turn, or if >that player is in a period of grace. Upon the passage of this Rule, each >player is declared in a period of grace for a duration of one turn, >commencing as soon as they come out of limbo if they are in limbo, >otherwise immediately. Whenever a new player joins e is in a period of >grace also for one turn. Initially, all players are >Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippies. > >END PROPOSAL > > > >>The following Text delimited by "START PROPOSAL" and "END PROPOSAL" is a >>proposal. >> >> >>START PROPOSAL >> >>Create a Rule entitled "Paver Wars" with the following text >> >>Player are either Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime or >>Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippies. These groups of players are continually >>at odds, and recieve points for their voting as follows: >> >>For each proposal, each Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime recieves ten >>points for each Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippie who voted in the opposite >>manner, and three points for each other >>Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime who voted in the same manner as them. >> >>For each proposal, each Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippie recieves ten points >>for each other Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippie who voted in the same manner, >>and three points for each Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime who voted >>in the opposite manner to them. >> >>Whether a Player is an Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime or an >>Anti-Paver-Tree-Huggin-Hippie is a player attribute, and may be referred to >>as that players Green/Black status. The Administrator is responsible for >>tracking and recording the Green/Black status of each Player. >> >>A Player may only change eir Green/Black status when it is eir turn, or if >>that Player is in a period of grace. Upon the passage of this Rule, each >>Player is declared in a period of grace for a duration of one turn, >>commencing as soon as they come out of limbo if they are in limbo, >>otherwise immediately. Whenever a new player joins e is in a period of >>grace also for one turn. Initially, all players are >>Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippies. >> >>END PROPOSAL >> >>Poulenc ________________________________________ Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 02:50:53 -0400 From: Dan Waldron Subject: Re: Nomic: Anti-Shrubbers vs Anti-Pavers I have included revision 2. The scoring system is a little bit more complicated, and does not give away nearly so many points, but please inspect it for balance because I don't know if I've got it right yet. I want to find a system that will actually work. Poulenc Here is revision 2 (changed scoring calculation and fixed a typo in the first paragraph of the text) START PROPOSAL Create a Rule entitled "Paver Wars" with the following text. Players are either Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime or Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippies. These groups of players are continually at odds, and recieve points for their voting as follows: for each passed proposal, each Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime recieves one point for each other Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime who voted in agreement with em, and one point for each Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippie who voted contrary to em. E loses one point for each Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime who voted contrary to em. For each passed proposal, each Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippie recieves one point for each Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime who voted contrary to em, and one point for each other Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippie who voted in agreement with em. E loses one point for each Anti-Shrubber-Parking-Obsessed-Slime who voted in agreement with em. Whether a player is an Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime or an Anti-Paver-Tree-Huggin-Hippie is a player attribute, and may be referred to as that players Green/Black status. The Administrator is responsible for tracking and recording the Green/Black status of each Player. A player may change eir Green/Black status when it is eir turn, or if that player is in a period of grace. Upon the passage of this Rule, each player is declared in a period of grace for a duration of one turn, commencing as soon as they come out of limbo if they are in limbo, otherwise immediately. Whenever a new player joins e is in a period of grace also for one turn. Initially, all players are Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippies. END PROPOSAL > > >START PROPOSAL > >Create a Rule entitled "Paver Wars" with the following text. > >Player are either Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime or >Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippies. These groups of players are continually >at odds, and recieve points for their voting as follows: > >For each passed proposal, each Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime >recieves ten points for each Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippie who voted in >the opposite manner, and loses ten point for each >Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime who voted in the opposite manner as >them. > >For each passed proposal, each Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippie recieves ten >points for each other Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippie who voted in the same >manner as them, and loses ten points for each >Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime who voted in the same manner as them. > >Whether a player is an Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime or an >Anti-Paver-Tree-Huggin-Hippie is a player attribute, and may be referred to >as that players Green/Black status. The Administrator is responsible for >tracking and recording the Green/Black status of each Player. > >A player may change eir Green/Black status when it is eir turn, or if >that player is in a period of grace. Upon the passage of this Rule, each >player is declared in a period of grace for a duration of one turn, >commencing as soon as they come out of limbo if they are in limbo, >otherwise immediately. Whenever a new player joins e is in a period of >grace also for one turn. Initially, all players are >Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippies. > >END PROPOSAL > > > ________________________________________ Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 10:32:27 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Re: Nomic: Anti-Shrubbers vs Anti-Pavers At 01:50 AM 7/11/99 , Waldron wrote: > > >Create a Rule entitled "Paver Wars" with the following text. > >Players are either Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime or >Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippies. These groups of players are continually >at odds, and recieve points for their voting as follows: > >for each passed proposal, each Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime ^^^ typo >recieves one point for each other Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime who >voted in agreement with em, and one point for each >Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippie who voted contrary to em. E loses one point >for each Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime who voted contrary to em. > >For each passed proposal, each Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippie recieves one >point for each Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime who voted contrary to >em, and one point for each other Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippie who voted >in agreement with em. E loses one point for each >Anti-Shrubber-Parking-Obsessed-Slime who voted in agreement with em. > >Whether a player is an Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime or an >Anti-Paver-Tree-Huggin-Hippie is a player attribute, and may be referred to >as that players Green/Black status. The Administrator is responsible for >tracking and recording the Green/Black status of each Player. > >A player may change eir Green/Black status when it is eir turn, or if >that player is in a period of grace. Upon the passage of this Rule, each >player is declared in a period of grace for a duration of one turn, >commencing as soon as they come out of limbo if they are in limbo, >otherwise immediately. Whenever a new player joins e is in a period of >grace also for one turn. Initially, all players are >Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippies. Due to the final paragraph, the rate of change for the Green/Black ratio would be glacial. Are there good reasons to limit changing one's alignment to one's turn? J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 12:08:57 -0400 From: Dan Waldron Subject: Re: Nomic: Anti-Shrubbers vs Anti-Pavers Oooh okay I fix that typo. yes I want the rate of change to be glacial. People should have to pick a side and stick with it. I want it to be something that changes very gradually, so that people are not camp-hopping all the time to get the best points. What do you think of the latest version of the scoring system? is it fair? does it prevent it from getting too one-sided? does it give away too many or too few points? Poulenc >At 01:50 AM 7/11/99 , Waldron wrote: >> >> >>Create a Rule entitled "Paver Wars" with the following text. >> >>Players are either Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime or >>Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippies. These groups of players are continually >>at odds, and recieve points for their voting as follows: >> >>for each passed proposal, each Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime > ^^^ > typo > >>recieves one point for each other Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime who >>voted in agreement with em, and one point for each >>Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippie who voted contrary to em. E loses one point >>for each Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime who voted contrary to em. >> >>For each passed proposal, each Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippie recieves one >>point for each Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime who voted contrary to >>em, and one point for each other Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippie who voted >>in agreement with em. E loses one point for each >>Anti-Shrubber-Parking-Obsessed-Slime who voted in agreement with em. >> >>Whether a player is an Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime or an >>Anti-Paver-Tree-Huggin-Hippie is a player attribute, and may be referred to >>as that players Green/Black status. The Administrator is responsible for >>tracking and recording the Green/Black status of each Player. >> >>A player may change eir Green/Black status when it is eir turn, or if >>that player is in a period of grace. Upon the passage of this Rule, each >>player is declared in a period of grace for a duration of one turn, >>commencing as soon as they come out of limbo if they are in limbo, >>otherwise immediately. Whenever a new player joins e is in a period of >>grace also for one turn. Initially, all players are >>Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippies. > >Due to the final paragraph, the rate of change for the Green/Black ratio >would be glacial. Are there good reasons to limit changing one's alignment >to one's turn? > > >J. Uckelman >uckelman@iastate.edu >http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 11:59:47 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: P540 analysis Shrubber scoring with a 5 Shrubber, 4 Paver split and no abstentions: > Pavers in opposition 0 1 2 3 4 -------------------- 0 | -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 | -2 0 1 2 3 2 | 0 1 2 3 4 3 | 2 3 4 5 6 4 | 4 5 6 7 8 ^ Shrubbers in agreement Under mixed votiting, each player would likely face a score change from ranging from -2 to 2 points for each passed proposal. At 8 proposals per turn and a 0.6 passage rate, a player could score in the range of -19 to 38 points per turn. In absence of any Shrubber/Paver sentiments, I think it would be to one's advantage to always be in the small faction, as that would minimize losses from voting against one's faction. As such, I would expect faction sizes to tend toward equality as players leave their faction for the smaller one. J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 13:40:25 -0400 From: Dan Waldron Subject: Re: Nomic: P540 analysis >In absence of any Shrubber/Paver sentiments, I think it would be to one's >advantage to always be in the small faction, as that would minimize losses >from voting against one's faction. As such, I would expect faction sizes to >tend toward equality as players leave their faction for the smaller one. > Good, that's what I wanted. It still discourages dissention but its not so bad now. Poulenc. ________________________________________ Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 13:46:50 -0600 From: Xylen Subject: Nomic: Crime Bill I've been working on a set of rules to deal with Crimes in Beserker. Below is the first part of my Criminal Law. I would appreciate any comments. This is not a proposal at this time. 1) Any entity who performs an action defined by the Rules to be a Crime, or fails to perform an action where such failure is defined by the Rules to be a Crime, shall be subject to whatever penalty the Rules prescribe for that Crime upon the execution of a Sentencing Order executed consequent to a judicial finding that e did in fact commit that Crime. 2) The imposition of penalties for the commission of a Crime shall be by Sentencing Order(s). Upon a judicial finding that an entity has committed a Crime, the Judge(s) so finding shall execute Sentencing Orders sufficient to implement the penalty required by the Rules for that Crime. If the Rules specify a range of penalties, then the Judge(s) executing the Sentencing Order shall determine the exact penalty within the stated range. 3) The punishment for a Crime shall be whatever was specified by the Rules at the time the action so designated as a Crime was committed, even if the Rule or Rules which specified the punishment, or which designated the action as a Crime have since been amended or repealed. This Rule takes precedence over any Rule which specifies a different penalty for a Crime. 4) No action is a Crime unless defined as such by the Rules. If the Rules define an act to be a Crime but fail to prescribe a penalty for that act, then there is no penalty for that act. 5) Any RFJ whose Statement alleges that an entity has, through action or inaction, committed a Crime shall be dismissed if there is a prior RFJ, the statement of which alleges that the same entity has, through the same action or inaction, committed the same Crime, and which was itself not dismissed. 6) A RFJ alleging that a Player has committed a Crime shall not be judged TRUE unless the evidence is sufficient to be certain of that Judgment beyond reasonable doubt. Furthermore, it is a defense to any accusation of a Crime that the Player reasonably believed that eir actions were not a Crime at the time e performed them, or that e reasonably did not know that e was required to perform an action, when such nonperformance is defined as a Crime. No Player shall be convicted of a Crime if this defense applies. Xylen -- ----- cut here to destroy monitor -----8<----- ________________________________________ Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 00:23:58 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Re: Nomic: reproposal (P539) I changed the first paragraph again. Does this resolve the problem of being "in" the mailing list? ------------------- Amend R463/0 to read: Fora are arenas in and methods by which Players may communicate. Fora may be public or private. Players receiving communication from or sending communication to a forum are considered to be in that forum. Actions may be taken only by announcing them in public fora, unless otherwise specified in the rules. Creation of a public forum if there are no extant public fora need not be public. Only the Administrator may designate fora as public, and only if said fora are reasonably accessible to all Players. Specifically, all Players must either be notified of or subscribed by the Administrator to new email fora before they may become public. Only the Administrator may designate previously public fora as private, and only if such changes do not eliminate all public fora. The Administrator must notify ten days in advance all Players using or subscribed to a public forum before redesignating it as private. The Administrator may redesignate fora at any time. The Administrator must, in a timely fashion, maintain and make available to all Players a list of all public fora. {{The majordomo list nomic@iastate.edu is a public forum.}} ----------------- J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 00:39:43 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: 2 J93 In the matter of RFJ 93: Nomics may not be added as players to Berserker Nomic, because nomics are not single players. I rule TRUE. To begin, I apologize for my failure to follow through on the requested discussion of the matter. Mea culpa. In response to Kuhns' contention that the above should be dismissed because 1) it is an if-then construct, 2) the antecedent and consequent are not sufficiently related, I respond: 1) The statement isn't a simple material implication; rather, it indicates a causal relationship, so there should be no vacuous true values. (I think?) 2) As per R228/1, "DISMISSED indicates that a Statement cannot be evaluated as to its veracity, or does not address a rules-related matter." Neither of these obtain in this case. There are no prima facie obstacles to determining the veracity of the statement, nor does it appear to be unrelated to the rules. Therefore, the statement demands a TRUE or FALSE response. The analysis for a TRUE response is quoted from my earlier judgment on the matter: >As per R2/2, "A Player is a game entity represented by one and only one >real, living, human being who consents to said representation and is not >already represented in the game as another Player." > >This statement hinges on whether being a "single player" is a precondition >for entry into the game. Admitting a nomic as a Player would entail >admitting its rules AND customs AND players _as a single Player_. However, >since Players may only be consenting humans, and "consenting human" is in >no way equivalent to "rules, customs, and players", I must rule TRUE. J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 09:34:24 -0500 From: Matthew J Kuhns Subject: Nomic: 2 J93 >In the matter of RFJ 93: > >Nomics may not be added as players to Berserker Nomic, because nomics are >not single players. > >I rule TRUE. TRUE --- Matt Kuhns mjkuhns@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~mjkuhns ________________________________________ Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 19:18:34 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: outstanding judgments The following judgments have yet to be issued: 1 Judgment 98 is due from Dan Waldron by 19:48 CDT, 13 July 1999. J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 00:08:10 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: voting reminder Voting (on proposals) begins at 02:23 CDT, 14 July 1999. Also, only 5 of 12 players (Josh Kortbein, Matt Kuhns, Tom Plagge, Joel Uckelman, Dan Waldron) have voted on whether to allow Nate Ellefson into the game. Regardless of your opinion, please vote so I can let Nate know if he's playing again ASAP! J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 11:16:18 -0400 From: Dan Waldron Subject: Re: Nomic: judge selection (1 J98) >Dan Waldron has been selected to 1 Court for RFJ 98: > >Santa Claus is Nomic-related > >J. Uckelman >uckelman@iastate.edu >http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ With the exception of some passing reference in a the shrubber/paver debate, there has been no mention of Santa Claus up to this point, we have no definition of Santa Claus, e seems to be something that exists outside of this game, which we have no control over, made no reference to, etc. Therefore Santa Claus is not Nomic-Related. This is not to say that Santa Claus can never be Nomic Related, because if we somehow manage to incorporate Santa Claus in the game, then e will become Nomic Related. Therefore I return the ruling FALSE. At this point in time, Santa Claus is not Nomic Related Poulenc ________________________________________ Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 11:11:19 -0600 From: Xylen Subject: Re: Nomic: voting reminder Joel Uckelman wrote: > Also, only 5 of 12 players (Josh Kortbein, Matt Kuhns, Tom Plagge, Joel > Uckelman, Dan Waldron) have voted on whether to allow Nate Ellefson into > the game. Regardless of your opinion, please vote so I can let Nate know if > he's playing again ASAP! I vote NO, for reasons I gave when this first came up. Xylen -- ----- cut here to destroy monitor -----8<----- ________________________________________ Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 19:33:47 +0200 From: "Ole Andersen" Subject: Re: Nomic: voting reminder : : Joel Uckelman wrote: : > Also, only 5 of 12 players (Josh Kortbein, Matt Kuhns, Tom Plagge, Joel : > Uckelman, Dan Waldron) have voted on whether to allow Nate Ellefson into : > the game. Regardless of your opinion, please vote so I can let Nate know if : > he's playing again ASAP! : : I vote NO, for reasons I gave when this first came up. : : Xylen I do, too. Ole ________________________________________ Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 12:58:40 CDT From: Jeff N Schroeder Subject: Re: Nomic: voting reminder I still want to hear from Nate, he lives right above me and hasn't mentioned wanting to be a Player to me. : Joel Uckelman wrote: : > Also, only 5 of 12 players (Josh Kortbein, Matt Kuhns, Tom Plagge, Joel : > Uckelman, Dan Waldron) have voted on whether to allow Nate Ellefson into : > the game. Regardless of your opinion, please vote so I can let Nate know if : > he's playing again ASAP! : : I vote NO, for reasons I gave when this first came up. : : Xylen I do, too. Ole ________________________________________ Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 19:20:38 -0500 From: Nathan D Ellefson Subject: Nomic: Reinstatement Hey everyone. Joel mentioned to me that there was some resistance to my rejoining the game so soon after having been dropped after having been in limbo for so long. I'll try to keep this concise but will happily answer any questions that those of you unsure as to whether to let me back in or not care to fire off at me. When the game started taking up more time than I was willing to give while school was in session I decided to place myself in indefinate limbo with the expectation that this would allow me to easily reinstate myself when I felt I had enough time to justify my active presence in the game. When this last year ended and I no longer had school to think about I began thinking of reinstating myself. The rule that was passed that was to drop all players in extended limbo got me thinking that perhaps I should reinstate sometime soon. I began following what was going on by reading Jeff Schroeder's messages (he lives just below me) and realized that the game that was in progress would soon be ending one way of another. Since I hadn't been involved in the game at all I wanted to aviod jumping in right at the end, right when some potentially very important decisions were to be made; therefore I decided to wait to rejoin until just before the game ended so that I would not be drug into a CFJ about which I had no prior experience within the context of this game or anything like that. However, I don't think I adequately conveyed my thoughts to Joel, and, as a result, was not warned a few days before the next game actually started, like I thought I would be so that I could make the reinstatement when it would have the smallest possible impact on the current game. The new game started and I was automatically booted. Which leaves us where we are now. I do regret the hassle and hope everyone understands what I was trying to do. As I said before, I'll be happy to stand at the dispatch box and answer whatever questions anyone would care to ask on this matter. Nate ********************************************************************** "There is nothing more exhilerating than being shot at without result." -Sir Winston Churchill ________________________________________ Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 17:20:08 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: voting Voting has started... I'll get the ballot out after I eat supper. J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 18:50:02 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: ballot Voting ends at 02:23 CDT, 16 July 1999. ---------------- P539 Amend R463/0 to read: Fora are arenas in and methods by which Players may communicate. Fora may be public or private. Players receiving communication from or sending communication to a forum are considered to be in that forum. Actions may be taken only in public fora, unless otherwise specified in the rules. Creation of a public forum if there are no extant public fora need not be public. Only the Administrator may designate fora as public, and only if said fora are reasonably accessible to all Players. Specifically, all Players must either be notified of or subscribed by the Administrator to new email fora before they may become public. Only the Administrator may designate previously public fora as private, and only if such changes do not eliminate all public fora. The Administrator must notify ten days in advance all Players using or subscribed to a public forum before redesignating it as private. The Administrator may redesignate fora at any time. The Administrator must, in a timely fashion, maintain and make available to all Players a list of all public fora. {{The majordomo list nomic@iastate.edu is a public forum.}} ----------------- P540 Create a Rule entitled "Paver Wars" with the following text. Players are either Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime or Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippies. These groups of players are continually at odds, and recieve points for their voting as follows: For each passed proposal, each Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime recieves one point for each other Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime who voted in agreement with em, and one point for each Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippie who voted contrary to em. E loses one point for each Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime who voted contrary to em. For each passed proposal, each Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippie recieves one point for each Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime who voted contrary to em, and one point for each other Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippie who voted in agreement with em. E loses one point for each Anti-Shrubber-Parking-Obsessed-Slime who voted in agreement with em. Whether a player is an Anti-Shrubbery-Parking-Obsessed-Slime or an Anti-Paver-Tree-Huggin-Hippie is a player attribute, and may be referred to as that players Green/Black status. The Administrator is responsible for tracking and recording the Green/Black status of each Player. A player may change eir Green/Black status when it is eir turn, or if that player is in a period of grace. Upon the passage of this Rule, each player is declared in a period of grace for a duration of one turn, commencing as soon as they come out of limbo if they are in limbo, otherwise immediately. Whenever a new player joins e is in a period of grace also for one turn. Initially, all players are Anti-Paver-Tree-Hugging-Hippies. ----------------- J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 00:23:18 CDT From: Tom Plagge Subject: Re: Nomic: ballot In message <4.1.19990714184714.0091df00@pop-2.iastate.edu>, Joel Uckelman write s: >Voting ends at 02:23 CDT, 16 July 1999. > >---------------- > >P539 YES >P540 NO ________________________________________ Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 00:33:38 CDT From: Tom Plagge Subject: Re: Nomic: ballot In message <199907150523.AAA22677@isua4.iastate.edu>, I, like an idiot, wrote: >>Voting ends at 02:23 CDT, 16 July 1999. >> >>---------------- >> >>P539 YES >>P540 NO Damn it. Well, now at least you all know I'm still alive. :) I've been fucking around with my new (in a manner of speaking) computer for the last week or so, which is why I've been quieter than usual. Obviously I'm out of practice. ________________________________________ Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 21:17:48 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Re: Nomic: Crime Bill At 02:46 PM 7/11/99 , Mary wrote: >I've been working on a set of rules to deal with Crimes in Beserker. >Below is the first part of my Criminal Law. I would appreciate any >comments. This is not a proposal at this time. I like this idea, but haven't yet grokked the quasi-proposal... J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 21:16:25 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: voting results, scoring, UPCs Last turn saw unusually low voter participation... P539 passed (6-1-0-5). P540 failed (3-4-0-5). ------- Scoring: +17 Joel Uckelman +9 Jeff Schroeder -10 Dan Waldron ------- UPCs: +1 Mary Tupper +1 Joel Uckelman ------- It is now Roger Carbol's turn. J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 21:21:57 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: new player voting Now that Ellefson has posted an explanation, is anyone willing to change eir vote? (NB: I presume that players may change their votes before voting ends so long as there is no prohibition on it.) J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 21:35:11 -0600 From: Xylen Subject: Re: Nomic: new player voting Joel Uckelman wrote: > > Now that Ellefson has posted an explanation, is anyone willing to change > eir vote? (NB: I presume that players may change their votes before voting > ends so long as there is no prohibition on it.) Well as long as it is allowed, and considering the explanation, I change my vote to Yes. If he has stuck around this long trying to get back in, then I figure he will be around for awhile. Xylen -- ----- cut here to destroy monitor -----8<----- ________________________________________ Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1999 18:16:32 -0600 From: Xylen Subject: Nomic: Crime Bill Okay here they are. 6 new proposals to for everyone to chew over. ====================== Create the following CRIMEFIGHTING delimited proposal CRIMEFIGHTING 1) Any entity who performs an action defined by the Rules to be a Crime, or fails to perform an action where such failure is defined by the Rules to be a Crime, shall be subject to whatever penalty the Rules prescribe for that Crime upon the execution of a Sentencing Order executed consequent to a judicial finding that e did in fact commit that Crime. 2) The imposition of penalties for the commission of a Crime shall be by Sentencing Order(s). Upon a judicial finding that an entity has committed a Crime, the Judge so finding shall execute Sentencing Orders sufficient to implement the penalty required by the Rules for that Crime. If the Rules specify a range of penalties, then the Judge executing the Sentencing Order shall determine the exact penalty within the stated range. 3) The punishment for a Crime shall be whatever was specified by the Rules at the time the action so designated as a Crime was committed, even if the Rule or Rules which specified the punishment, or which designated the action as a Crime have since been amended or repealed. This Rule takes precedence over any Rule which specifies a different penalty for a Crime. 4) No action is a Crime unless defined as such by the Rules. If the Rules define an act to be a Crime but fail to prescribe a penalty for that act, then there is no penalty for that act. 5) Any RFJ whose Statement alleges that an entity has, through action or inaction, committed a Crime shall be dismissed if there is a prior RFJ, the statement of which alleges that the same entity has, through the same action or inaction, committed the same Crime, and which was itself not dismissed. 6) A RFJ alleging that a Player has committed a Crime shall not be judged TRUE unless the evidence is sufficient to be certain of that Judgment beyond reasonable doubt. Furthermore, it is a defense to any accusation of a Crime that the Player reasonably believed that eir actions were not a Crime at the time e performed them, or that e reasonably did not know that e was required to perform an action, when such nonperformance is defined as a Crime. No Player shall be convicted of a Crime if this defense applies. CRIMEFIGHTING ========================= Create the following DOESNTPAY delimited proposal: DOESNTPAY The following Classes of Crime are defined, with the listed penalties or range of penalties: Misdemeanor I Fine of 1 point II Fine of 3 points III Fine of 5 points Felony I Fine of 1-5 points and loss of 1-3 Subers II Fine of 5-10 points and loss of 3-5 Subers III Fine of 10-15 points and loss of 5-10 Subers Capital I Fine of 15-30 points, loss of 10-25 Subers, and loss of 1-5 Slack II Fine of 30-45 points, loss of 25-40 Subers, and loss of 5-10 Slack III Fine of 45-60 points, loss of 40-55 Subers, and loss of 10-15 Slack DOESNTPAY =============================== Create the following GONEJUDGE delimited proposal: GONEJUDGE Any Player who goes into Limbo while serving as the Judge of one or more RFJs commits the Crime of Judge Inactivity. This Crime is a Felony I for each RFJs for which the Player was selected as Judge when e went into Limbo. GONEJUDGE ========================== Create the following JOINME delimited proposal: JOINME Any Player who joins a Mob commits the Crime of Accessory to Incitation. This is a Felony III Crime. JOINME ================================== Create the following NOTME delimited proposal: NOTME Any Player who knowingly attempts to act as, or purports to be, someone other than imself commits the Crime of Impersonation. This is a Capital I Crime. NOTME ================= Create the following NEWMOB delimited proposal: NEWMOB Any Player who incites a Mob commits the Crime of Incitation. This is a Capital I Crime. NEWMOB ================================== Xylen -- ----- cut here to destroy monitor -----8<----- ________________________________________ Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 00:06:45 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Re: Nomic: Crime Bill At 07:16 PM 7/18/99 , Mary wrote: >========================= >Create the following DOESNTPAY delimited proposal: > >DOESNTPAY >The following Classes of Crime are defined, with the listed penalties or >range of penalties: >Misdemeanor > I Fine of 1 point > II Fine of 3 points > III Fine of 5 points >Felony > I Fine of 1-5 points and loss of 1-3 Subers > II Fine of 5-10 points and loss of 3-5 Subers > III Fine of 10-15 points and loss of 5-10 Subers > >Capital > I Fine of 15-30 points, loss of 10-25 Subers, and loss of 1-5 >Slack > II Fine of 30-45 points, loss of 25-40 Subers, and loss of 5-10 >Slack > III Fine of 45-60 points, loss of 40-55 Subers, and loss of >10-15 Slack >DOESNTPAY Although I am strongly in favor of such a setup, I think the penalties are rather weak. E.g., we all (except Potter) have S1000, so a fine of even S55 isn't that significant, and I could currently commit almost five Capital III crimes and still maintain a nonnegative score. Maybe the ultimate crime, i.e Capital III, should result in expulsion from the game. Also, it seems that the Statute of Limitations should be expanded to cover crimes. The idea of Sentencing Orders fits well with something I was planning to propose this turn regarding Orders in general. J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 00:17:02 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: administrative update Just a few words on what's going on with page updates: Due to some problems with the munge of late, I've been neglecting the page to attend to some things which should result in a better, more effecient update system in the future. Toward this goal I have installed Linux, ported the munge code to Linux, and began teaching myself Perl. I eventually intend (by the end of the summer, if possible) to automate more of the update process and maybe to create scripts that automatically use what I get sent by the list to select judges, assign proposal numbers, and count votes. This is all off in the future, but I thought everone might want to know what is going on behind the scenes. If anyone has suggestions, as always, let me know, and I'll try to implement them as soon as I can (and yes, Josh, I still remeber the thing about the calendar on the main page -- I just haven't made it to that yet). J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1999 23:49:30 -0600 From: Xylen Subject: Re: Nomic: Crime Bill Joel Uckelman wrote: > > > Although I am strongly in favor of such a setup, I think the penalties are > rather weak. E.g., we all (except Potter) have S1000, so a fine of even S55 > isn't that significant, and I could currently commit almost five Capital > III crimes and still maintain a nonnegative score. Maybe the ultimate > crime, i.e Capital III, should result in expulsion from the game. Well considering that many people in real life can commit several crimes, serve a jail term, and then go on to commit other crimes (or not), I want to make this a little bit realistic. Of course, we could add another punishment called the Death Penalty. btw, committing 5 Capital III crimes would also go a long way towards making a person VERY pink, and that has it's own penalty. > > Also, it seems that the Statute of Limitations should be expanded to cover > crimes. Hmmm, I'll think about that one. What about 1 turn for misdemeanor, 3 turns for Felonies, and no limitations for Capital crimes. Of course, I will have to add something about no punishments for crimes committed prior to the passage of this proposals. So if your going to incite a mob, you had better do it soon. :) Xylen -- ----- cut here to destroy monitor -----8<----- ________________________________________ Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 01:21:20 CDT From: Josh Kortbein Subject: Re: Nomic: Crime Bill Xylen writes: >btw, committing 5 Capital III crimes would also go a long way towards >making a person VERY pink, and that has it's own penalty. Eh? Am I forgetting something? I seem to recall pinkness still not being much of a penalty. More like a state of undesirability. Josh -- Is that a real poncho or a Sears poncho? ________________________________________ Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 13:57:35 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: turn correction It is actually Gabe Drummond-Cole's turn now, not Roger Carbol's (his was last turn). J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 14:08:43 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: removal At 02:23 CDT, 16 July 1999, Aaron Woell automatically forfeited. The Treasury inherits his S1000. J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 13:52:47 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: final plea Those of you who have not yet voted (or wish to change your vote) on whether to allow Nate Ellefson to become a player, PLEASE do so. We've kept him waiting since 30 June. J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 15:23:52 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: further mailing list fix proposal I just noticed that R106/1 also contians the name of our mailing list. To fix that, I offer the following disinterested proposal: ------------ Transmute Rule 106/1, and amend it to read: "All Proposals shall be made publicly before they can be voted on, and if adopted, shall guide play in the form on which they were voted." J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 15:23:56 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: fixed time proposal This addresses a few persistent problems that we have faced, viz. rejection of proposal attempts during voting, interminable turns due to judicial hold-ups. Additionally, it establishes a fixed turn length, so that it will be possible to exaclty predict the dates an times of scheduled, regularly-occuring future events (e.g. elections) that we seem to have a bad habit of forgetting. Furthermore, a fixed time of day for the onset and closure of voting will allow me to mail ballots more promptly after voting begins and calculate results soon after it ends. -------------------- 1. Amend Rule 202/5 to read: "One turn consists of three parts, in this order: (1) a debate period, (2) a voting period, (3) a voting-related scoring period. The debate period shall be 192 hours (8 days) in duration. Immediately upon the expiration of the debate period, a call for votes is made on all and only active Proposals at that time, thus beginning the 48 hour voting period. Voting-related scoring occurs instantaneously upon the expiration of the voting period. A new turn shall begin immediately following the completion of each turn." 2. Create Rule 547 from the following ALLPROPOSALSALLTHETIME ALLPROPOSALSALLTHETIME Any Player may, at any time, make a number of new Proposals restricted only by the total Proposal limit. ALLPROPOSALSALLTHETIME 3. Amend 307/3 to read: "If at least a simple majority of the total number of vote-casting entities fail to submit a ballot during the voting period, Proposals receiving insufficient votes to either pass or fail them neither pass nor fail, but remain active. Vote-casting entities eligible but failing to cast votes during the voting period shall have their votes recorded as automatic abstentions." 4. Repeal Rule 217/2. 5. The turn following the passage of this Proposal shall begin at 21:00 CDT, 26 July 1999. J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 15:34:50 CDT From: Josh Kortbein Subject: Re: Nomic: further mailing list fix proposal Joel Uckelman writes: >I just noticed that R106/1 also contians the name of our mailing list. To Just noticed? You've mentioned this to me on many occasions. :) Josh -- Jon like pictures. Pretty pictures make Jon happy. Ugly Greek letters make Jon very angry. ________________________________________ Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 17:50:59 -0500 From: Jeff Schroeder Subject: Re: Nomic: final plea i vote yes (notice that I am not changing my vote as this is my first one...) jeff At 01:52 PM 7/19/99 -0500, you wrote: >Those of you who have not yet voted (or wish to change your vote) on >whether to allow Nate Ellefson to become a player, PLEASE do so. We've kept >him waiting since 30 June. > >J. Uckelman >uckelman@iastate.edu >http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 17:58:06 -0500 From: Jeff Schroeder Subject: Fwd: Nomic: fixed time proposal >1. Amend Rule 202/5 to read: > >"One turn consists of three parts, in this order: (1) a debate period, (2) >a voting period, (3) a voting-related scoring period. > >The debate period shall be 192 hours (8 days) in duration. > >Immediately upon the expiration of the debate period, a call for votes is ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ So what happens if you do not send out the ballet/call for vote IMMEDIATELY when the time runs out? We will still get our 48 hour voting period, thus lengthening the turn. Unless you are shortening the voting period as necessary to get out the ballot, which I don't like. What happens if you are gone for a weekend and can't send out the ballot IMMEDIATELY? It is not very clearly worded in these circumstances, instead of using words like IMMEDIATELY, why not give some time for the process to actually happen? I guess that it has the potential for making the Players have to find the current proposals themselves and send their votes in, though. >made on all and only active Proposals at that time, thus beginning the 48 Maybe the 48 hour voting period could be defined at the top, just for consistancy? >hour voting period. > >Voting-related scoring occurs instantaneously upon the expiration of the >voting period. Good use of INSTANTANEOUSLY. :) >A new turn shall begin immediately following the completion of each turn." > >2. Create Rule 547 from the following ALLPROPOSALSALLTHETIME > >ALLPROPOSALSALLTHETIME > >Any Player may, at any time, make a number of new Proposals restricted only >by the total Proposal limit. Isn't this already defined in Rule 225/0? I suspect Joel is simply trying to rack up the points... >ALLPROPOSALSALLTHETIME > >3. Amend 307/3 to read: Are you getting rid of the first sentance? That could be put into Rule 205. >"If at least a simple majority of the total number of vote-casting entities >fail to submit a ballot during the voting period, Proposals receiving >insufficient votes to either pass or fail them neither pass nor fail, but >remain active. Joel, because I'm curious, how many proposals have failed through automatic abstinations? I would say that none have because those proposals did not have the support of the voters, thus not enough "yes" votes = failure. Does this proposal change the voting rules such that a proposal now needs a majority vote to fail? You do realize that, according to rule 203/1 a majority is needed to pass, everything else is failure. So by this reasoning, no proposal will ever stay active (2 states: pass, fail). However if you are including the automatic abstinations as an actual voting power, then there will be these three states that you suggest (3 states: pass, fail, abstain) and whichever one gets the majority decides the outcome. Rule 305/2 says that abstinations are neutral, thus there cannot be 3 states. >Vote-casting entities eligible but failing to cast votes during the voting >period shall have their votes recorded as automatic abstentions." > >4. Repeal Rule 217/2. > >5. The turn following the passage of this Proposal shall begin at 21:00 >CDT, 26 July 1999. ________________________________________ Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 20:47:30 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Re: Fwd: Nomic: fixed time proposal At 05:58 PM 7/19/99 , Schroeder wrote: >>1. Amend Rule 202/5 to read: >> >>"One turn consists of three parts, in this order: (1) a debate period, (2) >>a voting period, (3) a voting-related scoring period. >> >>The debate period shall be 192 hours (8 days) in duration. >> >>Immediately upon the expiration of the debate period, a call for votes is > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >So what happens if you do not send out the ballet/call for vote IMMEDIATELY >when the time runs out? We will still get our 48 hour voting period, thus >lengthening the turn. Unless you are shortening the voting period as >necessary to get out the ballot, which I don't like. What happens if you >are gone for a weekend and can't send out the ballot IMMEDIATELY? It is >not very clearly worded in these circumstances, instead of using words like >IMMEDIATELY, why not give some time for the process to actually happen? I >guess that it has the potential for making the Players have to find the >current proposals themselves and send their votes in, though. But there's nothing here about the ballot. The ballot is merely something that I produce for the convenience of the players -- often, you could vote BEFORE I send out a ballot, because I usually post it after the voting period starts. The CFV happens independently of what any of us do, now and in my proposal. >> >>2. Create Rule 547 from the following ALLPROPOSALSALLTHETIME >> >>ALLPROPOSALSALLTHETIME >> >>Any Player may, at any time, make a number of new Proposals restricted only >>by the total Proposal limit. > >Isn't this already defined in Rule 225/0? I suspect Joel is simply trying >to rack up the points... Since this is all one proposal, separating this out into a rule of its own doesn't get me any more points. R225 actually sets the limit -- it isn't specified here. >>ALLPROPOSALSALLTHETIME >> >>3. Amend 307/3 to read: > >Are you getting rid of the first sentance? That could be put into Rule 205. It already is. My version of R205 sets the voting period to 48 hrs. from the time of the CFV: "...a call for votes is made on all and only active Proposals at that time, thus beginning the 48 hour voting period." >>"If at least a simple majority of the total number of vote-casting entities >>fail to submit a ballot during the voting period, Proposals receiving >>insufficient votes to either pass or fail them neither pass nor fail, but >>remain active. > >Joel, because I'm curious, how many proposals have failed through automatic >abstinations? I don't know offhand, but my guess is not more than 3. >I would say that none have because those proposals did not >have the support of the voters, thus not enough "yes" votes = failure. >Does this proposal change the voting rules such that a proposal now needs a >majority vote to fail? No. This is directed at times when a majority of voters don't vote at all. It is essentially a quorum rule. (Maybe I should rewrite it so it says that.) > You do realize that, according to rule 203/1 a >majority is needed to pass, everything else is failure. So by this >reasoning, no proposal will ever stay active (2 states: pass, fail). R203 defines a condition sufficient (and necessary) for passage. However, it does not address conditions necessary for failure, nor do we have a law of excluded middle for passage-failure. So, I would disagree. >However if you are including the automatic abstinations as an actual voting >power, then there will be these three states that you suggest (3 states: >pass, fail, abstain) and whichever one gets the majority decides the >outcome. Rule 305/2 says that abstinations are neutral, thus there cannot >be 3 states. I think R305 is addressing the counting of votes after the close of voting, especially since the current R307 (which talks about failure by AA) takes precedence over it. J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 21:14:21 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: P548 revision This may or may not address some of Jeff's concerns -- I'm not sure. --------------- 1. Amend Rule 202/5 to read: One turn consists of three parts, in this order: (1) a debate period, (2) a voting period, (3) a voting-related scoring period. The debate period shall be 192 hours (8 days) in duration. Immediately upon the expiration of the debate period, a call for votes is made on all and only active Proposals at that time, thus beginning the 48 hour voting period. Voting-related scoring occurs immediately upon the expiration of the voting period, and is instantaneous in duration. A new turn shall begin immediately following the completion of each turn. 2. Create Rule 547 from the following ALLPROPOSALSALLTHETIME-delimited text: ALLPROPOSALSALLTHETIME Any Player may, at any time, make a number of new Proposals restricted only by the total per-player Proposal limit. ALLPROPOSALSALLTHETIME 3. Amend 307/3, to be entitled "Quorum", to read: A quorum for Proposal voting purposes is a simple majority of eligible vote-casting entities. If a quorum has not cast votes by the end of a Proposal voting period, the Proposals whichg were up for voting neither pass nor fail, but are held over for the next turn and remain active. Vote-casting entities eligible but failing to cast votes during the voting period shall have their votes recorded as automatic abstentions. 4. Repeal Rule 217/2. 5. The turn following the passage of this Proposal shall begin at 21:00 CDT, 26 July 1999. J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 22:07:52 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: nomic longevity >From poking around on the web: As far as I can tell, the four longest-running nomics currently in existence are: 1. Agora Nomic 2. Ackanomic 3. Radio Free Nomic 4. Berserker Nomic I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate us all on making it this far. Sometimes (e.g., in May 1998) it seemed that we wouldn't, yet we're now close to entering our 17th month. :) J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 22:11:18 CDT From: Josh Kortbein Subject: Re: Nomic: nomic longevity Joel Uckelman writes: >From poking around on the web: > >As far as I can tell, the four longest-running nomics currently in >existence are: > >1. Agora Nomic >2. Ackanomic >3. Radio Free Nomic >4. Berserker Nomic > >I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate us all on making it this >far. Sometimes (e.g., in May 1998) it seemed that we wouldn't, yet we're >now close to entering our 17th month. :) Now we just need to find ways to end the first 3 so that their lead times are shot. Josh -- all doughnuts have names that sound like prostitutes ________________________________________ Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 15:08:27 CDT From: Andrew D Proescholdt Subject: Nomic: randomstuff I come out of Limbo I vote yes on adding Nate Ellefson as a player I transfer one slack from myself to Nick Osborn I go back into Limbo. I expect to remain in Limbo no longer than six months. Ed ________________________________________ Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 22:50:36 -0600 From: Roger Carbol Subject: Nomic: Real-Life Nomic Well, I just got out of a Society Annual General Meeting, and let me say: it was very, very Nomic-ish. [Note: Please feel free to distribute this note, in full, to any other Nomic-related group.] Essentially, the leadership of the Board of this Society is under attack from within. Nomic players will recognize some of the strategies. First of all, there was a significant attempt to fiddle with the membership list (the Active Players.) Renewal notices were only sent out to certain people. There was a last minute rush to swell the membership ranks. And an attempt to show that the newest members were, for various arcane reasons, not allowed to vote. As far as I know, no one tried to obtain multiple memberships, but I'm sure they would have tried if they had thought they could get away with it. Perhaps the closest scam was that technically a "Family Membership" entitled that family to only one vote -- not a vote for each member of the family -- although this was apparently not enforced. There were other, bigger, issues on the topic of who could vote. This brought up a VERY Nomic-ish situation -- it almost brought tears to my eyes: We had a vote to determine who could vote. I *tried* to impress upon people that we could do no such thing, and should suspend the meeting until the issue had been clarified. Alas, my words fell upon deaf ears. We also apparently have a Treasurer who is trying to push through legislation which would allow her to audit herself. Unfortunately (for her) there is extra-Societal governmental rules which expressly forbid it. Still, it's a nice try at a scam. The Society had slowly fallen into a casualness with the Rules and its own Bylaws. And, just as it always does, it came back to bite them all in the ass with a vengence. There was also considerable abuse of the Rules of Order. For some bizarre reason, the President decided to Chair the meeting (ie, declare herself Administrator) even though she *clearly* did not have the knowledge or the will to properly enforce the Rules. At one point I believe we had 5 seperate Motions on the Floor. We had Motions introduced *in the midst of Voting*! It was *very* irregular, if I may say so. It didn't help that the Secretary couldn't find her butt with both hands. (Note that virtually every successful Nomic has an extremely competent "Secretary", who essentially disseminates the Game State.) I suddenly understood why Nikita took off his shoe and started pounding on tables, and why fistfights break out in Parliaments. And, I suppose, why flamewars erupt on Nomics. It also makes me appreciate in a new light what Suber's goal with Nomic really is. It's not "just" a game; it's an opportunity to practice a field of human endeavour which many people do not often get to directly influence, but yet remains an intensely strong force in everyone's lives. .. Roger Carbol .. rcarbol@home.com ________________________________________ Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 00:37:47 CDT From: Josh Kortbein Subject: Re: Nomic: Real-Life Nomic Roger Carbol writes: >Well, I just got out of a Society Annual General Meeting, and let me >say: it was very, very Nomic-ish. I think you should propose, at your next meeting, that the Society, or General, whichever the more appropriate key noun is, should ratify itself a name change. What the fuck do they do? Josh -- all doughnuts have names that sound like prostitutes ________________________________________ Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 00:03:57 -0600 From: Roger Carbol Subject: Re: Nomic: Real-Life Nomic Josh Kortbein wrote: > I think you should propose, at your next meeting, that the Society, > or General, whichever the more appropriate key noun is, should > ratify itself a name change. My apologies if that was unclear; it was my intention to keep the identity of the Society in question protected. They've got enough problems as it is. .. Roger Carbol .. rcarbol@home.com ________________________________________ Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 14:40:21 -0600 From: Xylen Subject: Nomic: Change to CrimeFighting Bill Here are two changes to the crime fighting proposals. The first change sets a statue of limitations to 3 turns for crimes. The second change increases the penalties for Capital crimes. ============================ Change section 1 of CRIMEFIGHTING to read as follows: 1) Any entity who performs an action defined by the Rules to be a Crime during the current or previous 3 turns, or fails to perform an action where such failure is defined by the Rules to be a Crime during the previous 3 turns, shall be subject to whatever penalty the Rules prescribe for that Crime upon the execution of a Sentencing Order executed consequent to a judicial finding that e did in fact commit that Crime. =============== Change the DOESNTPAY proposal to the following: DOESNTPAY The following Classes of Crime are defined, with the listed penalties or range of penalties: Misdemeanor I Fine of 1 point II Fine of 3 points III Fine of 5 points Felony I Fine of 1-5 points and loss of 1-3 Subers II Fine of 5-10 points and loss of 3-5 Subers III Fine of 10-15 points and loss of 5-10 Subers Capital I Fine of 15-45 points, loss of 10-40 Subers, and loss of 1-5 Slack II Fine of 45-75 points, loss of 40-70 Subers, and loss of 5-10 Slack III Fine of 75-100 points, loss of 70-100 Subers, and loss of 10-15 Slack DOESNTPAY Xylen -- ----- cut here to destroy monitor -----8<----- ________________________________________ Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 20:36:41 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: new player announcement As of 15:58 CDT today, sufficient votes were received to readmit Nate Ellefson to the game. Thanks for waiting so long, Nate. :) J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 00:04:20 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: P538 reactivation I am reactivating P538, and would like to initiate some discussion on it. Judicial conflict of interest seems to be an important thing to address here, especially since this creates a court of last resort. Solutions I have considered, with my opinions of them in (): 1. Elect more justices than are necessary, so alternates are available in case of a CoI. (This runs counter to the stability I'd like to have from a Supreme Court.) 2. Prevent justices from acting as players, i.e. complete judicial independence. (This is Nate's idea. I'm not sure we have enough players willing to do this, nor do I think it would be advisable to effectively reduce our active player roster by, e.g., 5 at this time even if we did.) 3. Do nothing. (My prediction is that CoI problems would be rampant at first, but would soon settle down after people realized that it isn't as much fun that way, i.e. a sort of judicial-tampering ethics would develop organically. Josh disagrees, I believe.) I was unable to find any other games that have adopted a system like 1 or 2. Agora seems to get by somehow with a small judiciary endowed with (comparatively) substantial discretionary powers. I'm not sure how Acka or Nomic MU handles CoI. Maybe Mueller and Waldron, respectively,could elaborate on that. For my part, I still harbor some doubts about the practicality of 3 as well, but haven't been able to formulate a better alternative. Presentation of justiceship as a nearly sacred trust and expecting players to respect that may be naive, or may be a situation in which an idealistic solution is applicable. I'm not certain such a thing would be successful, either, and welcome suggestions, both for further refinement of the above and for yet-unmentioned paradigmes. Settling this issue before I bring P538 to a vote is crucial, as I am loath to exchange our current judiciary for one equally (or more?) problematic. J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 18:46:11 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Re: Nomic: Change to CrimeFighting Bill At 03:40 PM 7/21/99 , Mary wrote: > >Change section 1 of CRIMEFIGHTING to read as follows: > >1) Any entity who performs an action defined by the Rules to be a >Crime during the current or previous 3 turns, or fails to perform an >action where such failure is defined by the Rules to be a Crime during >the previous 3 turns, shall be subject to whatever penalty the Rules >prescribe for that Crime upon the execution of a Sentencing Order >executed consequent to a judicial finding that e did in fact commit that Crime. Will a one-turn difference between the judicial and criminal statutes of limitations cause any problems. It would be an awkward situation if a court could find someone guilty of a crime, but not enforce the penalty because it happened more than two turns ago. J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 20:17:37 -0600 From: Xylen Subject: Re: Nomic: Change to CrimeFighting Bill Joel Uckelman wrote: > > At 03:40 PM 7/21/99 , Mary wrote: > > > >Change section 1 of CRIMEFIGHTING to read as follows: > > > >1) Any entity who performs an action defined by the Rules to be a > >Crime during the current or previous 3 turns, or fails to perform an > >action where such failure is defined by the Rules to be a Crime during > >the previous 3 turns, shall be subject to whatever penalty the Rules > >prescribe for that Crime upon the execution of a Sentencing Order > >executed consequent to a judicial finding that e did in fact commit that > Crime. > > Will a one-turn difference between the judicial and criminal statutes of > limitations cause any problems. It would be an awkward situation if a court > could find someone guilty of a crime, but not enforce the penalty because > it happened more than two turns ago. Since a court is considering a Crime, and I have specified a 3 turn limit, specifically for Crimes, I don't think there would be a problem. Although, I am willing to change the three days to two if this really is a problem. Xylen -- We used to think a thousand monkeys on a thousand typewriters could produce all of the works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to Usenet, we know this is not true. ================================================= ________________________________________ Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 22:42:17 -0500 From: Nathan D Ellefson Subject: Nomic: Thoughts on the Judiciary Well. A few minutes ago I had nearly completed writing my thoughts on changes to the Judiciary when a URL came over my ICQ; without thinking about it I clicked to go to said URL, forgetting until it was too late that opening Netscape while Eudora is open crashes Eudora; suffice it to say, I had not saved my message at any point. SO, what you are all reading now is the SECOND time I'll have written this. :P As I am now ticked off and somewhat impatient I'll dispense with the justification for my thoughts until a later time; the origional message had these but they are now lost to time and history. What follows will pretty much be simply my thoughts on the Judiciary and little more. The overwhelmingly key component to the changes that I would offer up is the creation of a Supreme Court (members of which will hereafter be refered to as The Supremes or a Supreme (with apologies to the group)). This will be made up of three members. They will be decided upon by a special vote/election at the beginning of each game. Only Players are eligable to be elected a Supreme, and a Player may only become a Supreme by a vote where all players are eligable. A Supreme shall remain on the Court until the current game ends, they are impeached, or they resign from the Court. At this point they revert to being regular Players. A Player cannot serve two consecutive terms as a Supreme. A Supreme shall be considered in Judicial Limbo; a Supreme is eligable to participate in virtually no aspects of the regular game. A Supreme may not earn points within each game, nor earn Subers, nor make, or vote on, proposals. Rather The Supremes will for all purposes of the game be considered their own group that can only be altered through the action of individual Supremes to remove themselves from the Court or the democratic process of all the Players. The most important role of the Supreme Court, as I see it, is to determine whether the game ends or not. If someone claims that the game has ended a Review by the Supreme Court MUST be made within a certain time (two or three days I would think), with the result either being to concur with the person making the claim that the game has ended or to reject the claim. Moreover, in the event of any action taken by any Player, any entity who was a Player the instant before the action in question was taken can make an Emergency Appeal to the Supreme Court. The action that was appealed to the Supreme Court is instantly suspended without any impact on the game pending the decision of the Supremes. In the absence of an Emergency Appeal the Supreme Court functions as the third level of the judicial system that is currently in place. A opinion of an appellate court can be appealed to the Supreme Court. Any Emergency or regular Appeal made to the Supreme Court will be heard by the Court providing at least one Supreme chooses to hear it. The Court must render a decision within a certain time frame to be decided later. A claim that a Game is concluded must be heard by the Supreme Court. If a case of any kind that comes to the Supreme Court is deemed by a unanimus vote of The Supremes to be frivilous and contemptuous the Court may assign a penalty to the claimant they deem appropriate. A penalty may be overturned by a 3/4 vote of the Players. Becuase a Supreme will have no ablilty to earn anything within the context of the individual game in which s/he is a Supreme a wider scale of points must be created. For instance, the winner of each individual game might receive seven inter-game points. More points might be assigned for other cases as the group can determine. For their services, each Supreme would receive some inter-game points; in this example lets say two. Of course, I'm open to other far-reaching compensation plans for Supremes. Well, I am beginning to tire. As I mentioned earlier, the message I wrote before this one detailed many of my personal thoughts and motiviations for my proposals that I thought may help explain my ideas. Tragically, time no longer permits such things and I've stopped thinking as clearly as I would normally like under these circumstances. I woudl very much like to know what everyone thinks about this idea. I know Joel is rather set against the notion of an independent Supreme Court, but I firmly believe that this is the only way to prevent the Judiciary from being fundamentally corrupted on an ongoing basis. Without reform I also think the results of games will continued to be somewhat convoluted and subject more to consensus outside of the scope of the game than the actual procedures of the game. Nate ************************************************************** "There is nothing which can better deserve our patronage than the promotion of science and the arts. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness." -George Washington ________________________________________ Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 22:09:08 -0600 From: Xylen Subject: Re: Nomic: P538 reactivation Joel Uckelman wrote: > > I am reactivating P538, and would like to initiate some discussion on it. > > Judicial conflict of interest seems to be an important thing to address > here, especially since this creates a court of last resort. Solutions I > have considered, with my opinions of them in (): > > 1. Elect more justices than are necessary, so alternates are available in > case of a CoI. (This runs counter to the stability I'd like to have from a > Supreme Court.) This doesn't seem to make much sense. We may as well say everybody is a potential justice. I don't see any change from what we already have. > > 2. Prevent justices from acting as players, i.e. complete judicial > independence. (This is Nate's idea. I'm not sure we have enough players > willing to do this, nor do I think it would be advisable to effectively > reduce our active player roster by, e.g., 5 at this time even if we did.) What about 3 players who serve for one turn. I don't think we really need 5 Supreme court justices. An alternative to this is a rotating 3 turn term. For example, Player A serves for turn 3-6, Player B serves for turn 4-7 and Player C serves for turns 5-8. There are always three judges, and the changing court would not become stagnant. > > 3. Do nothing. (My prediction is that CoI problems would be rampant at > first, but would soon settle down after people realized that it isn't as > much fun that way, i.e. a sort of judicial-tampering ethics would develop > organically. Josh disagrees, I believe.) Doing nothing is a bad idea. With certain players CoI problems could be really bad. FYI, FRC essentially uses version 2. The winner of the last round, becomes the judge for the entirety of the next round. Good luck on working this out. :) Xylen -- We used to think a thousand monkeys on a thousand typewriters could produce all of the works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to Usenet, we know this is not true. ================================================= ________________________________________ Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 00:10:51 -0500 From: Matthew J Kuhns Subject: Re: Nomic: Thoughts on the Judiciary >Well. A few minutes ago I had nearly completed writing my thoughts on >changes to the Judiciary when a URL came over my ICQ; without thinking >about it I clicked to go to said URL, forgetting until it was too late that >opening Netscape while Eudora is open crashes Eudora; suffice it to say, I >had not saved my message at any point. SO, what you are all reading now is >the SECOND time I'll have written this. Versions of Eudora and Netscape that aren't compatible. I just can't imagine how you put up with that. >The overwhelmingly key component to the changes that I would offer up is >the creation of a Supreme Court (members of which will hereafter be refered >to as The Supremes or a Supreme (with apologies to the group)). This will >be made up of three members. A... Triumvirate of judges, as it were? >I woudl very much like to know what everyone thinks about this idea. I >know Joel is rather set against the notion of an independent Supreme Court, >but I firmly believe that this is the only way to prevent the Judiciary >from being fundamentally corrupted on an ongoing basis. Without reform I >also think the results of games will continued to be somewhat convoluted >and subject more to consensus outside of the scope of the game than the >actual procedures of the game. I'm not entirely sold on the threat of curruption or this idea's ability to prevent corruption. It does seem to have merit on the basis of enhancing the game's ability to maintain itself, which seems like a useful thing. I do wonder about the need to completely remove "Supremes" from the game. Might this not even encourage corruption, or at least some amount of disingenuousness, ie. Supremes might end up trying to interact with the game through other players or some other indirect means? I'll wait to asess this completely later; I'd like to see the lost reasons, and the lengthy responses from Joel, et al. before I make up my mind--but I figured I would get things started (y'know, keep things moving...). Matt Kuhns /// mjkuhns@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~mjkuhns "I either want less corruption, or more chance to participate in it." -Ashleigh Brilliant ________________________________________ Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 01:28:29 CDT From: Tom Plagge Subject: Nomic: The Supremes Well, Nate, as much as I rather like the idea of an independent judicial body, I'm not sure we can swing it. Or rather, we could, but not without removing half the players from action--and one would hope they would be three of the best players. If we maybe someday end up with a dozen or so active players, then fine. But right now, I think we should consider an option that has worked for other nomics. Let's just go ahead and trust the judges. Presumably the fact that the supreme court will be elected means it will be self-policing; i.e., elected judges would be reluctant to violate the trust of their constituancy. Perhaps I'm being idealistic, but then so are you by assuming we could play a decent game with three or four active participants. I like the rest of the proposal, but let the judges play. A thought: What about setting term limits (5 turns or so) and then saying that a player cannot gain a win during a turn in which e is a judge? Granted this introduces problems of its own, but if judicial impartiality is of such prime concern, this might be a better way to go at it. -Tom ________________________________________ Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 10:55:56 -0400 From: Dan Waldron Subject: Re: Nomic: Thoughts on the Judiciary >>Well. A few minutes ago I had nearly completed writing my thoughts on >>changes to the Judiciary when a URL came over my ICQ; without thinking >>about it I clicked to go to said URL, forgetting until it was too late that >>opening Netscape while Eudora is open crashes Eudora; suffice it to say, I >>had not saved my message at any point. SO, what you are all reading now is >>the SECOND time I'll have written this. > >Versions of Eudora and Netscape that aren't compatible. I just can't >imagine how you put up with that. My eudora and netscape are compatible, but netscape will eventually crash if ICQ is running. Dan Waldron ________________________________________ Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 11:11:39 CDT From: Josh Kortbein Subject: Re: Nomic: Thoughts on the Judiciary Dan Waldron writes: >>>Well. A few minutes ago I had nearly completed writing my thoughts on >>>changes to the Judiciary when a URL came over my ICQ; without thinking >>>about it I clicked to go to said URL, forgetting until it was too late that >>>opening Netscape while Eudora is open crashes Eudora; suffice it to say, I >>>had not saved my message at any point. SO, what you are all reading now is >>>the SECOND time I'll have written this. >> >>Versions of Eudora and Netscape that aren't compatible. I just can't >>imagine how you put up with that. > >My eudora and netscape are compatible, but netscape will eventually crash >if ICQ is running. Hah, lynx doesn't crash. Josh -- I am large; I contain multitudes ________________________________________ Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 16:31:40 -0500 From: Jeff Schroeder Subject: Re: Nomic: Thoughts on the Judiciary At 11:11 AM 7/23/99 -0500, you wrote: > >Dan Waldron writes: >>>>Well. A few minutes ago I had nearly completed writing my thoughts on >>>>changes to the Judiciary when a URL came over my ICQ; without thinking >>>>about it I clicked to go to said URL, forgetting until it was too late that >>>>opening Netscape while Eudora is open crashes Eudora; suffice it to say, I >>>>had not saved my message at any point. SO, what you are all reading now is >>>>the SECOND time I'll have written this. >>> >>>Versions of Eudora and Netscape that aren't compatible. I just can't >>>imagine how you put up with that. >> >>My eudora and netscape are compatible, but netscape will eventually crash >>if ICQ is running. > >Hah, lynx doesn't crash. Yay, lynx! I use Eudora, Netscape and ICQ all at the same time and I dont' have problems with those... now my Win98... I won't even go there... jeff ________________________________________ Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 18:56:02 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Re: Nomic: Thoughts on Eudora/Netscape incompatibility At 12:10 AM 7/23/99 , Kuhns wrote: >>Well. A few minutes ago I had nearly completed writing my thoughts on >>changes to the Judiciary when a URL came over my ICQ; without thinking >>about it I clicked to go to said URL, forgetting until it was too late that >>opening Netscape while Eudora is open crashes Eudora; suffice it to say, I >>had not saved my message at any point. SO, what you are all reading now is >>the SECOND time I'll have written this. > >Versions of Eudora and Netscape that aren't compatible. I just can't >imagine how you put up with that. For the record, this problem does not happen consistently -- at least not on my system. But I've still lost the full texts of several proposals that way. I just don't understand why this issue hasn't been resolved. I would imagine that it would be in Netscape's interest to fix it (unless they think that people will get frustrated an start using Netscape Mail ... yuk). J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 19:00:13 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Re: Nomic: Thoughts on the Judiciary At 09:55 AM 7/23/99 , Waldron wrote: >>>Well. A few minutes ago I had nearly completed writing my thoughts on >>>changes to the Judiciary when a URL came over my ICQ; without thinking >>>about it I clicked to go to said URL, forgetting until it was too late that >>>opening Netscape while Eudora is open crashes Eudora; suffice it to say, I >>>had not saved my message at any point. SO, what you are all reading now is >>>the SECOND time I'll have written this. >> >>Versions of Eudora and Netscape that aren't compatible. I just can't >>imagine how you put up with that. > >My eudora and netscape are compatible, but netscape will eventually crash >if ICQ is running. > >Dan Waldron > Lucky bastard. What verisons? I use Eudora Pro 4.1 with Netscape Communicator 4.51. J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 20:46:22 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: deactivation (P538) I am deactivating P538 (to be reactivated in the next turn) because it obviously won't be ready for a vote by 2 am. J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 20:45:12 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: updates and voting reminder 1. Some things that haven't been current in a *very* long time (e.g., voting records, stats) have just been updated. Sorry, no updated ruleset index yet, though. :( 2. Proposal voting begins at 02:23 CDT, 24 July 1999. Sorry about the short notice on this one... I wasn't paying attention to the time because of the activity this turn. I think I'll eventually set up a script that automatically sends reminders at regular intervals before and during voting... J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 22:09:55 -0500 From: Matthew J Kuhns Subject: Re: Nomic: Thoughts on Eudora/Netscape incompatibility >>Versions of Eudora and Netscape that aren't compatible. I just can't >>imagine how you put up with that. > >For the record, this problem does not happen consistently -- at least not >on my system. But I've still lost the full texts of several proposals that >way. I just don't understand why this issue hasn't been resolved. I would >imagine that it would be in Netscape's interest to fix it (unless they >think that people will get frustrated an start using Netscape Mail ... yuk). Well, maybe they think that people will just put up with it. Are they wrong? Matt Kuhns - mjkuhns@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~mjkuhns The truth is not "out there;" it's right in front of us, but most people refuse to recognize it. ________________________________________ Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 01:34:51 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Re: Nomic: Thoughts on the Judiciary At 10:42 PM 7/22/99 , Nate the Red (as in hair, not communism) wrote: > >The overwhelmingly key component to the changes that I would offer up is >the creation of a Supreme Court (members of which will hereafter be refered >to as The Supremes or a Supreme (with apologies to the group)). This will >be made up of three members. They will be decided upon by a special >vote/election at the beginning of each game. Only Players are eligable to >be elected a Supreme, and a Player may only become a Supreme by a vote >where all players are eligable. A Supreme shall remain on the Court until >the current game ends, they are impeached, or they resign from the Court. >At this point they revert to being regular Players. Would 3 justices be sufficient to capture the variety of opinion that exists among our players? Yet I'm not sure we could survive having more than that removed from normal play. As for the justices removed from normal play, isn't there the very real possibility of protracted case drought? Maintaining justices' interest in the game during such periods might prove to be a challenge. Also, a game could go on indefinately without a win. I'd hate to lose otherwise active players through disinterest generated by removing them from the rest of the game for a potentially endless peroid. Could a justice leaving the court not be awarded the average score, etc., instead? And in conjunction with such, make SC terms shorter than an entire game induration? >A Player cannot serve two consecutive terms as a Supreme. Why not? If someone can garner sufficient votes to be reelected, what's the problem? >A Supreme shall be considered in Judicial Limbo; a Supreme is eligable to >participate in virtually no aspects of the regular game. A Supreme may not >earn points within each game, nor earn Subers, nor make, or vote on, >proposals. Rather The Supremes will for all purposes of the game be >considered their own group that can only be altered through the action of >individual Supremes to remove themselves from the Court or the democratic >process of all the Players. Is there any particular reason that justices shouldn't retain their voting rights? >The most important role of the Supreme Court, as I see it, is to determine >whether the game ends or not. If someone claims that the game has ended a >Review by the Supreme Court MUST be made within a certain time (two or >three days I would think), with the result either being to concur with the >person making the claim that the game has ended or to reject the claim. > >Moreover, in the event of any action taken by any Player, any entity who >was a Player the instant before the action in question was taken can make >an Emergency Appeal to the Supreme Court. The action that was appealed to >the Supreme Court is instantly suspended without any impact on the game >pending the decision of the Supremes. So the SC essentially has original jurisdiciton over anything anyone wants to bring before it? In any case, I think that approaching acions as performative statements (a la J.L. Austin) that are *attempts* at action and are true if the specified action obtains but false otherwise. Attempts declared legal by courts or not challenged after a set time are successful; unchallenged actions before such time are presumed successful, but are always subject to judicial review. Josh will likely say more about this during the next turn, in any case. >In the absence of an Emergency Appeal the Supreme Court functions as the >third level of the judicial system that is currently in place. A opinion >of an appellate court can be appealed to the Supreme Court. What purpose does the intermediate level court serve? If appeals may always move past it, regardless of its decision, it seems superfluous. >Any Emergency or regular Appeal made to the Supreme Court will be heard by >the Court providing at least one Supreme chooses to hear it. The Court >must render a decision within a certain time frame to be decided later. A >claim that a Game is concluded must be heard by the Supreme Court. > >If a case of any kind that comes to the Supreme Court is deemed by a >unanimus vote of The Supremes to be frivilous and contemptuous the Court >may assign a penalty to the claimant they deem appropriate. A penalty may >be overturned by a 3/4 vote of the Players. > >Becuase a Supreme will have no ablilty to earn anything within the context >of the individual game in which s/he is a Supreme a wider scale of points >must be created. For instance, the winner of each individual game might >receive seven inter-game points. More points might be assigned for other >cases as the group can determine. For their services, each Supreme would >receive some inter-game points; in this example lets say two. Of course, >I'm open to other far-reaching compensation plans for Supremes. J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 01:50:44 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: ballot This is the ballot for the voting peroid running from 02:23 CDT 24 July 1999 to 02:23 CDT 26 July 1999. Because it is being created prior to the start of the voting period, it cannot reflect any proposal activity between now and then. If such activity should occur, a revised version will be sent. ----------------------- P541 1) Any entity who performs an action defined by the Rules to be a Crime during the current or previous 3 turns, or fails to perform an action where such failure is defined by the Rules to be a Crime during the previous 3 turns, shall be subject to whatever penalty the Rules prescribe for that Crime upon the execution of a Sentencing Order executed consequent to a judicial finding that e did in fact commit that Crime. 2) The imposition of penalties for the commission of a Crime shall be by Sentencing Order(s). Upon a judicial finding that an entity has committed a Crime, the Judge so finding shall execute Sentencing Orders sufficient to implement the penalty required by the Rules for that Crime. If the Rules specify a range of penalties, then the Judge executing the Sentencing Order shall determine the exact penalty within the stated range. 3) The punishment for a Crime shall be whatever was specified by the Rules at the time the action so designated as a Crime was committed, even if the Rule or Rules which specified the punishment, or which designated the action as a Crime have since been amended or repealed. This Rule takes precedence over any Rule which specifies a different penalty for a Crime. 4) No action is a Crime unless defined as such by the Rules. If the Rules define an act to be a Crime but fail to prescribe a penalty for that act, then there is no penalty for that act. 5) Any RFJ whose Statement alleges that an entity has, through action or inaction, committed a Crime shall be dismissed if there is a prior RFJ, the statement of which alleges that the same entity has, through the same action or inaction, committed the same Crime, and which was itself not dismissed. 6) A RFJ alleging that a Player has committed a Crime shall not be judged TRUE unless the evidence is sufficient to be certain of that Judgment beyond reasonable doubt. Furthermore, it is a defense to any accusation of a Crime that the Player reasonably believed that eir actions were not a Crime at the time e performed them, or that e reasonably did not know that e was required to perform an action, when such nonperformance is defined as a Crime. No Player shall be convicted of a Crime if this defense applies. ------------- P542 The following Classes of Crime are defined, with the listed penalties or range of penalties: Misdemeanor I Fine of 1 point II Fine of 3 points III Fine of 5 points Felony I Fine of 1-5 points and loss of 1-3 Subers II Fine of 5-10 points and loss of 3-5 Subers III Fine of 10-15 points and loss of 5-10 Subers Capital I Fine of 15-45 points, loss of 10-40 Subers, and loss of 1-5 Slack II Fine of 45-75 points, loss of 40-70 Subers, and loss of 5-10 Slack III Fine of 75-100 points, loss of 70-100 Subers, and loss of 10-15 Slack --------------- P543 Any Player who goes into Limbo while serving as the Judge of one or more RFJs commits the Crime of Judge Inactivity. This Crime is a Felony I for each RFJs for which the Player was selected as Judge when e went into Limbo. --------------- P544 Any Player who joins a Mob commits the Crime of Accessory to Incitation. This is a Felony III Crime. --------------- P545 Any Player who knowingly attempts to act as, or purports to be, someone other than imself commits the Crime of Impersonation. This is a Capital I Crime. --------------- P546 Any Player who incites a Mob commits the Crime of Incitation. This is a Capital I Crime. --------------- P547 (disinterested) Transmute Rule 106/1, and amend it to read: All Proposals shall be made publicly before they can be voted on, and if adopted, shall guide play in the form on which they were voted. ---------------- P548 1. Amend Rule 202/5 to read: One turn consists of three parts, in this order: (1) a debate period, (2) a voting period, (3) a voting-related scoring period. The debate period shall be 192 hours (8 days) in duration. Immediately upon the expiration of the debate period, a call for votes is made on all and only active Proposals at that time, thus beginning the 48 hour voting period. Voting-related scoring occurs immediately upon the expiration of the voting period, and is instantaneous in duration. A new turn shall begin immediately following the completion of each turn. 2. Create Rule 547 from the following ALLPROPOSALSALLTHETIME-delimited text: ALLPROPOSALSALLTHETIME Any Player may, at any time, make a number of new Proposals restricted only by the total per-player Proposal limit. ALLPROPOSALSALLTHETIME 3. Amend 307/3, to be entitled "Quorum", to read: A quorum for Proposal voting purposes is a simple majority of eligible vote-casting entities. If a quorum has not cast votes by the end of a Proposal voting period, the Proposals whichg were up for voting neither pass nor fail, but are held over for the next turn and remain active. Vote-casting entities eligible but failing to cast votes during the voting period shall have their votes recorded as automatic abstentions. 4. Repeal Rule 217/2. 5. The turn following the passage of this Proposal shall begin at 21:00 CDT, 26 July 1999. -------------- J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 20:02:54 -0400 From: Dan Waldron Subject: Re: Nomic: Thoughts on the Judiciary >> > >Lucky bastard. What verisons? I use Eudora Pro 4.1 with Netscape >Communicator 4.51. > I'm using eudora light and navigator 4.08 on my mac DW ________________________________________ Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 17:32:22 -0500 From: Nathan D Ellefson Subject: Re: Nomic: Thoughts on the Judiciary OK. Now that I have some time, I'll explain why I believe the outline that I have provided deserves to be tested. The real problem I see with the game at present is that the Judges of all courts in the game are also the Legislators in the game, and moreover will be trying to win or at least advance themselves within the game. Considering that the scope of this game is so samll (around a dozen people usually) the idea that conflicts of interest can be avoided is frankly absurd, particularly with reguards to the most fundamental elements of the game, ie, who wins, whether something is a paradox, what the time frame of events is, etc. I believe it to be impossible for people who are actually in the game to evaluate the legality of extraordinary events entirely objectively. For someone who has a stake in how the game actually turns out, human nature practically dictates that that which they would rather were the case they are more likely to conclude and justify to themselves. It is only when a person has no stake in something that they can make an objective evaluation. For this reason I think the only way to avoid the chaos that seems to envelop the game every few months (around the time that someone makes an extraordinary move), and to guarantee as best we can that legitimately creative moves within the game are rewarded, is to remove this conflict of interest; the only way to do that is to remove from the game the judges who have final say in what is right. This, of course, is the main area of contention with my plan, and justifiably so. But I truly think it is the only way to ensure order and (dare I say) justice in the game. Speaking for myself, when I was active before I was reinstated a few days ago, I seldom had a full and working knowlege of all the rules of the game; trying to stay current with all the messages and proposals flying around was taxing enough on my sanity. I suspect this is the case for other players as well; I/we know enough to get by. For me, if I were separated from the daily grind of legislating I would be much better able to really learn and understand all the nuances of the game; if I didn't have to also take time to respond to legislative matters I would be able to spend more time on my decisions, hopefully incresing the overall quality of my judgements. It is for reasons such as this that tens or hundreds of thousands of people in this country and others have full time jobs being judges. Again speaking for myself, I believe that the judicial aspect of this game can be just as interesting as the legislative. We have what must be dozens of pages of rules; if nine or ten people (or more) are making rules, surely it is the case that three people can spend their game-related time trying to really understanding the rules being made and their implications rather than adding to the blizzard of legislation, and still be relatively content. But, of course, I could be wrong (*gasp!*). If I'm alone or in a small minority of people who think that interpreting the rules isn't worthy of a full time job then of course the plan can't work; there must be people willing to be a Supreme to even fill the court. Would everyone please let me know what you think on this issue? Would you personally be willing to stand as a Supreme Court Justice for a certain amount of time and, while on the Court not be allowed to legislate? Messages either to me personally or to the list would be greatly appreciated. As this message is already quite long I'll send a follow-on with reguards to a few other points on this matter. Nate ********************************************************************** "It is not the function of our government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the goverment from falling into error." -U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, 1950 ________________________________________ Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 19:56:12 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Re: Nomic: Thoughts on the Judiciary At 05:32 PM 7/26/99 , Nate wrote: >OK. Now that I have some time, I'll explain why I believe the outline that >I have provided deserves to be tested. > >The real problem I see with the game at present is that the Judges of all >courts in the game are also the Legislators in the game, and moreover will >be trying to win or at least advance themselves within the game. >Considering that the scope of this game is so samll (around a dozen people >usually) the idea that conflicts of interest can be avoided is frankly >absurd, particularly with reguards to the most fundamental elements of the >game, ie, who wins, whether something is a paradox, what the time frame of >events is, etc. I actually agree with you on this... but it seems odd first to declare a problem insoluble and then proceed to offer a solution. By way of explanation, I'd like to offer a brief account of the origins of CoI. An individual's objectivity appears to vary inversely with es proximity to the locus of dispute. I offer that the conjunction of self-bias, i.e. the tenancy for one to resolve disputes in one's favor, and self-interest is the cause of this relation. Seldom does one encounter an individual who has totally set aside self-bias (would this even be desirable? healthy?), and the same could be said of self-interest. So seems that we must work within the confines of self-bias and self-interest. A workable judicial system should, it would appear, utilize (or minimize) self-biases and -interests toward the rendering of good judgments. Nate claims that his system eliminates both essentially by removing the justices as players. Since the justices will not be party to disputes, he (rightly) claims they will not be influenced by self-bias, and since justices could not gain wins, they could not hope to influence the game to that end, thus removing self-interest. Perhaps I state Nate's claims too strongly; however, I think the criticism that follows applies equally to a weaker formulation as well: Removing justices from the player population, while I concede that it may mostly eliminate game-internal (as opposed to game-external) self-bias problems, will, I suspect, merely relocate the self-interest problem. Presumably, anyone playing has some interest in the state of the game, the direction it is taking, etc., and that, for some, may prove to be important *far* in excess of wins and scoring. Such a thing can be (is, in this case) part of self-interest -- one's wanting a certain game state still affects one's decisions. Since justices will (one would hope) return as players after a win, their interest in game affairs may not be appreciably lessened. And why shouldn't justices be concerned with how the game will be when their tenure on the court ends, since that game is what they'll return to? Because interest and bias tend to be closely tied with the motivations for being in the game in the first place, it may be misguided to minimize them; rather, a clever utilization of self-interest would, in my mind be a better solution (I do not claim that the current state of my proposal reflects this, either.) > I believe it to be impossible for people who are actually >in the game to evaluate the legality of extraordinary events entirely >objectively. For someone who has a stake in how the game actually turns >out, human nature practically dictates that that which they would rather >were the case they are more likely to conclude and justify to themselves. >It is only when a person has no stake in something that they can make an >objective evaluation. Q.v. above. >For this reason I think the only way to avoid the chaos that seems to >envelop the game every few months (around the time that someone makes an >extraordinary move), and to guarantee as best we can that legitimately >creative moves within the game are rewarded, is to remove this conflict of >interest; the only way to do that is to remove from the game the judges who >have final say in what is right. > >This, of course, is the main area of contention with my plan, and >justifiably so. But I truly think it is the only way to ensure order and >(dare I say) justice in the game. > >Speaking for myself, when I was active before I was reinstated a few days >ago, I seldom had a full and working knowlege of all the rules of the game; >trying to stay current with all the messages and proposals flying around >was taxing enough on my sanity. I suspect this is the case for other >players as well; I/we know enough to get by. For me, if I were separated >from the daily grind of legislating I would be much better able to really >learn and understand all the nuances of the game; if I didn't have to also >take time to respond to legislative matters I would be able to spend more >time on my decisions, hopefully incresing the overall quality of my >judgements. It is for reasons such as this that tens or hundreds of >thousands of people in this country and others have full time jobs being >judges. (Or near full-time jobs being nomic admins.) :) >Again speaking for myself, I believe that the judicial aspect of this game >can be just as interesting as the legislative. We have what must be dozens >of pages of rules; if nine or ten people (or more) are making rules, surely >it is the case that three people can spend their game-related time trying >to really understanding the rules being made and their implications rather >than adding to the blizzard of legislation, and still be relatively content. > >But, of course, I could be wrong (*gasp!*). If I'm alone or in a small >minority of people who think that interpreting the rules isn't worthy of a >full time job then of course the plan can't work; there must be people >willing to be a Supreme to even fill the court. > >Would everyone please let me know what you think on this issue? Would you >personally be willing to stand as a Supreme Court Justice for a certain >amount of time and, while on the Court not be allowed to legislate? >Messages either to me personally or to the list would be greatly appreciated. I would likely *never* serve on such a court under your plan, as I would find being out of the legislative process for an indefinite period (weeks? months? over a year?) simply intolerable. That said, I would definitely miss being a judge. -- J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 23:24:56 -0500 From: Nathan D Ellefson Subject: Re: Nomic: Thoughts on the Judiciary The purpose of this message is to respond to some direct points that were made. *JOEL* >As for the justices removed from normal play, isn't there the very real >possibility of protracted case drought? Maintaining justices' interest in >the game during such periods might prove to be a challenge. Also, a game >could go on indefinately without a win. I'd hate to lose otherwise active >players through disinterest generated by removing them from the rest of the >game for a potentially endless peroid. > >Could a justice leaving the court not be awarded the average score, etc., >instead? And in conjunction with such, make SC terms shorter than an entire >game induration? I believe this is what the resignation clause was included for. Awarding a retiring Justice the average score is a good point. >>A Player cannot serve two consecutive terms as a Supreme. > >Why not? If someone can garner sufficient votes to be reelected, what's the >problem? This was in the interest of keeping things on the Court fluid; I believe it is a good idea to have varing opinions on the Court; to that end I think the non-consecutive clause is a good one; however, if enough people find this unnecessary it can easily be removed. >>Moreover, in the event of any action taken by any Player, any entity who >>was a Player the instant before the action in question was taken can make >>an Emergency Appeal to the Supreme Court. The action that was appealed to >>the Supreme Court is instantly suspended without any impact on the game >>pending the decision of the Supremes. > >So the SC essentially has original jurisdiciton over anything anyone wants >to bring before it? Yes. I cannot think of single type of case that cannot go directly to the US Supreme Court should the Justices choose to hear it. Naturally, this circumventing of the normal process does not happen excpet in the case of emergencies (eg United States vs. Nixon) or extraordinary circumstances (eg Guideon vs. Wainwright if I'm not mistaken) when the Justices decided that circumstances merited them hearing the case without going through normal channels; in the case of our game the declaration of a paradox seems to me to certainly qualify as such an emergency and other things might as well. It will, however, have to be up to the person who would seek to make such a jump. And bear in mind that such an action carries risk; note that the Supremes can assign a fine in the event that they unanimously find a case frivilous, or in the case of the emergency clause, not worthy of circumventing the normal process. >In any case, I think that approaching acions as performative statements (a >la J.L. Austin) that are *attempts* at action and are true if the specified >action obtains but false otherwise. Attempts declared legal by courts or >not challenged after a set time are successful; unchallenged actions before >such time are presumed successful, but are always subject to judicial >review. Josh will likely say more about this during the next turn, in any case. My thoughts exactly. >>In the absence of an Emergency Appeal the Supreme Court functions as the >>third level of the judicial system that is currently in place. A opinion >>of an appellate court can be appealed to the Supreme Court. > >What purpose does the intermediate level court serve? If appeals may always >move past it, regardless of its decision, it seems superfluous. First, bear in mind the threat of being fined for a frivilous case. Additionally, the lower courts here will serve exactly the same purpose of the lower courts in any liberal democracy; many cases will simply be solved by the lower courts, or the higher courts refuse to hear the appeal. The lower courts will wean out the less controvercial and earthshattering issues, leaving the Supreme Court to decide the really important ones. Also, it has been brought up that even though the Supremes will be out of the normal scope of the game there can still be conflict on interest, and they can still exert influence, or at least try to. This I do not dispute. I had intended to include a provision for punishing either current or former Supremes for fraud or influence peddling but the part with that didn't quite make it in the final version. But even these measures cannot entirely prevent Supremes from being part of the game, but there remains the fact that there is considerably less incentive for such activities under my proposal, and just because perfection is impossible doesn't mean that we can't and shouldn't strive for the best circumstances possible. Nate ********************************************************************** "It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness." -Adage ________________________________________ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 00:05:54 -0500 From: Nathan D Ellefson Subject: Re: Nomic: Thoughts on the Judiciary At 07:56 PM 7/26/99 -0500, you wrote: >At 05:32 PM 7/26/99 , Nate wrote: >>OK. Now that I have some time, I'll explain why I believe the outline that >>I have provided deserves to be tested. >> >>The real problem I see with the game at present is that the Judges of all >>courts in the game are also the Legislators in the game, and moreover will >>be trying to win or at least advance themselves within the game. >>Considering that the scope of this game is so samll (around a dozen people >>usually) the idea that conflicts of interest can be avoided is frankly >>absurd, particularly with reguards to the most fundamental elements of the >>game, ie, who wins, whether something is a paradox, what the time frame of >>events is, etc. > >I actually agree with you on this... but it seems odd first to declare a >problem insoluble and then proceed to offer a solution. I don't believe I declared the problem insoluble. The point I was trying to convey, and which, frankly, I think I said, is that having legislators as judges creates in inherant conflict on interest, which can be mostly taken care of by making it so that the legislators no longer serve as the last level of judges. >By way of >explanation, I'd like to offer a brief account of the origins of CoI. An >individual's objectivity appears to vary inversely with es proximity to the >locus of dispute. I offer that the conjunction of self-bias, i.e. the >tenancy for one to resolve disputes in one's favor, and self-interest is >the cause of this relation. Seldom does one encounter an individual who has >totally set aside self-bias (would this even be desirable? healthy?), and >the same could be said of self-interest. So seems that we must work within >the confines of self-bias and self-interest. > >A workable judicial system should, it would appear, utilize (or minimize) >self-biases and -interests toward the rendering of good judgments. Nate >claims that his system eliminates both essentially by removing the justices >as players. Since the justices will not be party to disputes, he (rightly) >claims they will not be influenced by self-bias, and since justices could >not gain wins, they could not hope to influence the game to that end, thus >removing self-interest. > >Perhaps I state Nate's claims too strongly; however, I think the criticism >that follows applies equally to a weaker formulation as well: > >Removing justices from the player population, while I concede that it may >mostly eliminate game-internal (as opposed to game-external) self-bias >problems, will, I suspect, merely relocate the self-interest problem. >Presumably, anyone playing has some interest in the state of the game, the >direction it is taking, etc., and that, for some, may prove to be important >*far* in excess of wins and scoring. Such a thing can be (is, in this case) >part of self-interest -- one's wanting a certain game state still affects >one's decisions. Since justices will (one would hope) return as players >after a win, their interest in game affairs may not be appreciably >lessened. And why shouldn't justices be concerned with how the game will be >when their tenure on the court ends, since that game is what they'll >return to? Because interest and bias tend to be closely tied with the >motivations for being in the game in the first place, it may be misguided >to minimize them; rather, a clever utilization of self-interest would, in >my mind be a better solution (I do not claim that the current state of my >proposal reflects this, either.) I'll disagree with the notion that Supremes' decisions will be affected by how they want the game to be when they come back. Every time a game has ended here, if I'm not mistaken, it has been followed by an omnibus reform bill that clears up things that have been noticed as being either ambiguous or used to bring the game to a devious conclusion; I think it's safe to assume that such bills will continue to be used in the future, and so even if the Supremes conclude that, yes, the rules do allow for some action to take place, their having concluded as they did does not hurt them in any direct way, and the problem can/should be resolved by the time the next game begins. And with reguard to the issue of never really being able to completely remove conflict of interest: I don't subscribe to the theory that because we can't remove all elements of self interest it would be "misguided to minimize them". If a first level judge acts in some dubious form of self-serving interest should the group say, "How clever!" and just move on? Of course not; that's why we made the appellate court; to prevent such acts which clearly happened with regularity. But the appellate court has not proven robust enough to prevent the dissolution into anarchy at the end of most of the games that I've seen; most have been brokered by the participants outside the scope of the game. Reference last game. Though I was not receiving the messages myself I read a few of the later messages of the last game on Mr. Schroeder's computer and distinctly recall a few messages where the conclusion of the game was being negotiated. This does not lead to a healthy game when the major decisions are made outside of the rules. Rather this is taking the notion of self interest to, frankly, its logical conclusion. With nothing to solve the game question in a satisfactory way it seems that players will tend to forge their own solution. >I would likely *never* serve on such a court under your plan, as I would >find being out of the legislative process for an indefinite period (weeks? >months? over a year?) simply intolerable. That said, I would definitely >miss being a judge. Question: why exactly would you *never* want to take any kind of hiatus? The game will likely still be there when you come back, and all (or at minimum most) of the proposals that you would like to have made as a Supreme will be just as valad when you come back as while you're on the Court. In the mean time Supremes will be experiencing a different aspect of the game, one that I feel could be a valuable experience and could well lead to better players who might more fully understand the game in which they are participating than if they are simply spraying out proposals for new rules. Nate ********************************************************************** "As children tremble and fear everything in the blind darkness, so we in the light sometimes fear what is no more to be feared than the things children in the dark hold in terror..." -Lucretius "On the Nature of Things" ________________________________________ Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 23:54:10 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: What was wrong with P547? Ellefson and Kuhns: why did you vote against P547? -- J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 00:17:02 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: P538 revision (II) I reactivate P538, and offer the following revised version. Note the changes to sec. 11 and the addition of sec. 12, addressing the conflict of interest problem. ------------------------- 1. Amend R214 to read: "Any Player, hereafter known as the Complainant, may at any time request a Judgment on a Statement to receive clarification on any rules-related matter. Upon each Request for Judgment, a corresponding Case is opened. Any Player, hereafter known as the Appellant, may appeal a Judgment iff less than 36 hours have passed since its public issuance and it was not issued by the Supreme Court." 2. Amend R215 to read: "Players in the Judicial Pool, with the following exceptions, are eligible to become Lower Court Judges on a Case: i. Supreme Court Justices ii. the Complainant iii. a Player explicitly selected by the Complainant Exceptions shall be waived from greatest to least in the event that such restrictions prevent a Lower Court from being chosen. Whenever it is necessary to select a Judge for a Lower Court, the Administrator shall randomly select an eligible Player." 3. Amend R216 to read: "A Judge selected to a Lower Court must issue a public Judgment on the Case within four days or be subject to a ten point fine. A Lower Court is dissolved if it lapses or its Judges return the same response within the allowed time. A Lower Court Judge's tenure ends upon the dissolving of eir Court, at which time e relinquishes the title of Judge and its associated powers and privileges. 4. Repeal R217. 5. Amend R220 to read: "Rules must be followed in accordance with the final response to a Statement in each Case, with the exception that no Judgment by a Lower Court may prevent the Supreme Court from reviewing said Judgment. Game actions found to be illegal must be undone, as must all actions made possible solely or in part by said illegal actions, but only as allowed by the Statute of Limitations." 6. Amend R228 to read: A Judgment must consist of a legal response to the Statement to be judged, and either a) the Judge’s analysis of the Statement and response, or b) an explicit statement of concurrence with an opinion issued by another Judge on the Court. Only Statements and their corresponding responses are considered to have official legal standing, and only Judges chosen in accordance with the rules may issue Judgments. The set of legal responses to Statements is defined as {TRUE, FALSE, DISMISSED}. DISMISSED indicates that a Statement cannot be evaluated as to its veracity, or does not address a rules-related matter. TRUE indicates that a Statement can be evaluated as to its veracity, addresses a rules-related matter, and is logically true. FALSE indicates that a Statement can be evaluated as to its veracity, addresses a rules-related matter, and is logically false. No other responses are allowed. All decisions by all Judges must be made in accordance with all the rules then in effect; but when the rules are silent, inconsistent, or unclear on the point at issue, then Judges shall consider game-custom and the spirit of the game before applying other standards." 7. Amend R230 to read: "Upon each Request for Judgment, the following procedure is executed: 1. A Case is opened on the Request for Judgment. 2. A Lower Court is selected to rule on the Statement. 3. If, at any time after the initial selection, the Lower Court has no Judge, or if the Lower Court lapses, it is dissolved; if possible, a new Lower Court is selected; if not, the procedure skips to step 6. 4. The Lower Court issues a Judgment, at which time the Court dissolves. 5. If a legal Appeal of the Lower Court’s Judgment is made, the Supreme Court must either grant the Appeal, and then may issue a Judgment; or deny the Appeal. 6. At such time as no further legal Appeals in the Case are possible, the Case is closed and the Lower Court Judge on the Case is paid. This Rule takes precedence over all other Rules dealing with the Judiciary." 8. Amend R231 to read: "A Case consists of a Statement and all judicial documents produced by the Complainant, Appellant, and Courts assigned to the Statement." 9. Amend R232 to read: "The Judicial Pool shall consist only of all Players having publicly consented to selection as Judges. A Player may, at any time, add or remove only emself from the Judicial Pool. Players entering Limbo are automatically removed from the Judicial Pool. Justices are automatically in the Judicial Pool. In the event that no Players are in the Judicial Pool, all Players not in Limbo are automatically placed in the Judicial Pool." 10. Amend R390 to read: "Upon the closure of a Case, the Lower Court Judge on the Case receives 3 points iff the final ruling on the Statement is TRUE or FALSE." 11. Create R233 from the following "SUPREME COURT"-delimited text: SUPREME COURT Justices are Judges serving on the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court shall consist of five elected Justices. {{A special election shall be held immediately to fill the Supreme Court. Each Player may vote for up to five candidates. The initial term for each Judgeship shall end during the (6-n)th turn, where n is the rank in voting the Justice holding the Judgeship received. All subsequent terms are five turns long.}} If, within 48 hours of an Appeal, at least two eligible Justices explicitly declare their willingness to grant said Appeal, the Supreme Court shall hear the Case. The Supreme Court issues a Judgment on a Case to which it has granted a hearing when a simple majority of the eligible Justices have publicly returned the same response to the Statement. If the Supreme Court fails to issue a Judgment within seven days on a Case to which it has granted a hearing, the Lower Court Judgment stands. SUPREME COURT 12. Create R234 from the following "CONFLICTOFINTEREST"-delimited text: CONFLICTOFINTEREST A Justice is ineligible with regard to a Case in the event that e is the Complainant or Appellant in that Case. [[This is yet imperfect, as it allows an even number on the court. I intend to fix this tomorrow.]] CONFLICTOFINTEREST -- J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 00:37:14 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Re: Nomic: Thoughts on the Judiciary At 12:05 AM 7/27/99 , Nate wrote: >> >>Removing justices from the player population, while I concede that it may >>mostly eliminate game-internal (as opposed to game-external) self-bias >>problems, will, I suspect, merely relocate the self-interest problem. >>Presumably, anyone playing has some interest in the state of the game, the >>direction it is taking, etc., and that, for some, may prove to be important >>*far* in excess of wins and scoring. Such a thing can be (is, in this case) >>part of self-interest -- one's wanting a certain game state still affects >>one's decisions. Since justices will (one would hope) return as players >>after a win, their interest in game affairs may not be appreciably >>lessened. And why shouldn't justices be concerned with how the game will be >>when their tenure on the court ends, since that game is what they'll >>return to? Because interest and bias tend to be closely tied with the >>motivations for being in the game in the first place, it may be misguided >>to minimize them; rather, a clever utilization of self-interest would, in >>my mind be a better solution (I do not claim that the current state of my >>proposal reflects this, either.) > >I'll disagree with the notion that Supremes' decisions will be affected by >how they want the game to be when they come back. Every time a game has >ended here, if I'm not mistaken, it has been followed by an omnibus reform >bill that clears up things that have been noticed as being either ambiguous >or used to bring the game to a devious conclusion; I think it's safe to >assume that such bills will continue to be used in the future, and so even >if the Supremes conclude that, yes, the rules do allow for some action to >take place, their having concluded as they did does not hurt them in any >direct way, and the problem can/should be resolved by the time the next >game begins. I meant the above comment to be directed more at long-term effects of non-game-ending decisions. >And with reguard to the issue of never really being able to completely >remove conflict of interest: I don't subscribe to the theory that because >we can't remove all elements of self interest it would be "misguided to >minimize them". If a first level judge acts in some dubious form of >self-serving interest should the group say, "How clever!" and just move on? > Of course not; that's why we made the appellate court; to prevent such >acts which clearly happened with regularity. > >But the appellate court has not proven robust enough to prevent the >dissolution into anarchy at the end of most of the games that I've seen; >most have been brokered by the participants outside the scope of the game. That's due to a lack of adequate apparatus, both in defining the metaphysics of actions (Josh?), and in handling eschatological events. The current court system could do just fine with the above in place, as that could prevent its subversion by denial- or corruption-of-judgment attacks, and allow for a more graceful handling of game death. I think we should have a Supreme Court to introduce some measure of judicial stability, not because it is necessary (I think it's unnecesary, in fact) to solve any other problems mentioned here. >Reference last game. Though I was not receiving the messages myself I read >a few of the later messages of the last game on Mr. Schroeder's computer >and distinctly recall a few messages where the conclusion of the game was >being negotiated. This does not lead to a healthy game when the major >decisions are made outside of the rules. Rather this is taking the notion >of self interest to, frankly, its logical conclusion. With nothing to >solve the game question in a satisfactory way it seems that players will >tend to forge their own solution. > Sure. But why do we need a Supreme Court for that? >>I would likely *never* serve on such a court under your plan, as I would >>find being out of the legislative process for an indefinite period (weeks? >>months? over a year?) simply intolerable. That said, I would definitely >>miss being a judge. > >Question: why exactly would you *never* want to take any kind of hiatus? >The game will likely still be there when you come back, and all (or at >minimum most) of the proposals that you would like to have made as a >Supreme will be just as valad when you come back as while you're on the >Court. In the mean time Supremes will be experiencing a different aspect >of the game, one that I feel could be a valuable experience and could well >lead to better players who might more fully understand the game in which >they are participating than if they are simply spraying out proposals for >new rules. > >Nate Because it would bother me too much to be unable to propose fixes for problems. Because I don't think there would be enough for dedicated Justices to do. Because I think I already have the intimate familiarity with the rules you hope that Justices would develop. Because we really need more proposals... -- J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 08:55:04 -0600 From: Xylen Subject: Re: Nomic: Thoughts on the Judiciary Nate wrote: > I had intended to include a provision for punishing either current or > former Supremes for fraud or influence peddling but the part with that > didn't quite make it in the final version. If the Crime Bills pass, it would be very easy to define the crimes of Fraud and Influence Peddling. Xylen -- We used to think a thousand monkeys on a thousand typewriters could produce all of the works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to Usenet, we know this is not true. ================================================= ________________________________________ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 16:55:49 -0500 From: Jeff Schroeder Subject: Re: Nomic: What was wrong with P547? What were the results of the voting? On their way? At 11:54 PM 7/26/99 -0500, you wrote: >Ellefson and Kuhns: why did you vote against P547? >-- >J. Uckelman >uckelman@iastate.edu >http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 17:23:42 CDT From: Josh Kortbein Subject: Re: Nomic: What was wrong with P547? Jeff Schroeder writes: >What were the results of the voting? On their way? I suspect Joel forgot to send them. :) -- Since when the fuck was a long only two fucking bytes? I crap bigger than 16 bits. ________________________________________ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 17:58:07 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Re: Nomic: What was wrong with P547? At 05:23 PM 7/27/99 , Josh wrote: > >Jeff Schroeder writes: >>What were the results of the voting? On their way? > >I suspect Joel forgot to send them. :) That is correct. -- J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 17:57:39 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: voting results, scoring, UPCs Sorry about the delay. I accidentally sent this to myself yesterday instead of the list, so I didn't notice because I still got it. -------------------- Voter turnout was *extremely* low this turn, more auto-abstentions than all other votes combined. (What's causing this?) This batch of propopsals took an exceptional beating, as well (1 in 8 this turn, 54% in the average turn). Ouch. P541 failed (3-3-0-8). P542 failed (1-5-0-8). P543 failed (2-4-0-8). P544 failed (1-5-0-8). P545 failed (2-4-0-8). P546 failed (2-4-0-8). P547 failed (4-2-0-8). P548 passed (4-2-0-8). -------------- Voting (This isn't usually posted until long after it's relevant although the data exists when voting closes. Posting it here first will satisfy the curious until I get it on the page. Hopefully my attempt at creating columns proves readable.) 541 542 543 544 545 546 547 548 Andersen aa aa aa aa aa aa aa aa Carbol aa aa aa aa aa aa aa aa Drummond-Cole aa aa aa aa aa aa aa aa Ellefson y n n n n n n y Kortbein n n n n n n y y Kuhns n n n n n n n n Mueller aa aa aa aa aa aa aa aa Osborn's Demon aa aa aa aa aa aa aa aa Plagge aa aa aa aa aa aa aa aa Potter aa aa aa aa aa aa aa aa Schroeder n n n n n n y n Tupper y y y y y y y y Uckelman y n y n y y y y Waldron aa aa aa aa aa aa aa aa ------------------ Scoring: +13 Joel Uckelman +7 Matt Kuhns +7 Jeff Schroeder -60 Mary Tupper ------------------ UPCs: +4 Joel Uckelman +1 Nate Ellefson +1 Josh Kortbein +1 Mary Tupper +1 Jeff Schroeder -- J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 18:21:35 CDT From: Tom Plagge Subject: Nomic: bookkeeping Noticed that I have a couple inactive proposals I never intend to resurrect. I thus withdraw all of my pending proposals. I also transfer one slack from Kortbein to Nick Osborn. ________________________________________ Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 18:31:27 CDT From: Josh Kortbein Subject: Re: Nomic: bookkeeping Tom Plagge writes: >Noticed that I have a couple inactive proposals I never intend to >resurrect. I thus withdraw all of my pending proposals. >I also transfer one slack from Kortbein to Nick Osborn. WTF? I transfer one slack from Tom to myself. -- I am large; I contain multitudes ________________________________________ Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 17:50:11 -0500 From: Joel Uckelman Subject: Nomic: revision idea Today whilst raking leaves from under a shrubbery, I thought of a way to limit CoI problems: If we force defendant(s) to be named in each case, allow only the plaintiff and defendant(s) to appeal, and either 1) temporarily exclude them from the SC, or 2) if they balance out, allow them to rule anyway, I think much of the problem goes away. Limiting appeals in such a way prevents innocent bystanders from being sucked in and judicially tainted , and a plaintiff v. defendant setup may serve a clarificatory function as well as being interesting. More on this later... -- J. Uckelman uckelman@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/ ________________________________________ Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 18:47:44 +0200 From: "Ole Andersen" Subject: Re: Nomic: bookkeeping Josh wrote: : : Tom Plagge writes: : >Noticed that I have a couple inactive proposals I never intend to : >resurrect. I thus withdraw all of my pending proposals. : >I also transfer one slack from Kortbein to Nick Osborn. : : WTF? : : I transfer one slack from Tom to myself. I transfer one slack from Nick to Matt Kuhns. Ole