The Walrus Scam was an episode in the early history of Agora, wherein a good attempt was made to circumvent a ban on bribery clauses, but became mired in controversy.
- In early 1994, some seven months after starting up, Agora had this rule
Rule 783 Illegality of Bonus Clauses
Proposals which contain clauses awarding, trading, penalizing, or otherwise changing the account of any Nomic Entity's holding of Points or any other form of Currency based on the Vote they cast on that Proposal are invalid, shall not be deemed to have been properly submitted, and shall not be Voted upon. (Was: 326)
- Player Waggie made a pair of proposals that attempted to get themselves passed by bribery, without falling foul of rule 783. The first of the two proposals began
Let there be a type of Nomic Entity called a Walrus. Walruses are not a form of Currency; they may be owned by Players or Groups, but they may not be bought, sold, traded, or owed. Walruses may be created or destroyed only in accordance with the Rules. Each Walrus is either Happy or Sad, but not both; a Happy Walrus nay never become a Sad Walrus, and a Sad Walrus may never become a Happy Walrus. It is the duty of the Registrar to keep a record of the number of Happy and/or Sad Walruses owned by each Player or Group.
- and then went on to award Happy Walruses to Players and Groups who supported the two proposals and Sad Walruses to those who opposed them or just did nothing. It also awarded several Happy Walruses to Waggie emself and to the members of eir Group. The second proposal read
10^(-100) seconds after this Proposal is passed into Rule, the following shall take place:
- for each Happy Walrus, 5 Marks will be created and given to the Player or Group which owns that Happy Walrus;
- for each Sad Walrus, the Player or Group which owns that Sad Walrus will have 50 Points subtracted from their Score or Treasury;
- after the above actions have taken place, all Walruses will be destroyed;
- after the above actions have taken place, this Rule repeals itself and is removed from the RuleSet?.
Both proposals passed in identical fashion: 14 votes FOR (5 Players, 6 Group votes, and 3 votes from the Vototron) and 7 votes AGAINST (3 Players, 4 Group votes). Supposedly, then, a bunch of Walruses were created and awarded to Players and Groups, and then fractionally later these Walruses caused changes to Scores and Currency holdings, and the Walruses were destroyed and the two new Rules self-repealed.
The next two proposals in the queue, voted on in the same batch, constituted a copycat scam. These were proposed by KoJen?, and involved the brief existence of Glad Bunnies and Mad Bunnies. Both of these proposals failed, with 1 vote FOR (a Player) and 20 AGAINST (7 Players, 10 Group votes, and 3 votes from the Vototron). Why one scam was accepted by the voters and an identical one rejected makes for some interesting psychological theory.
It was soon pointed out that 10^-100 s is several orders of magnitude less than the Planck time, with interesting implications for Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. Player DaveBowen?, who held the office of Banker, responsible for tracking Marks, declined to include the effects of Walruses in eir report. E called for judgement (CFJ 120) on the statement "The Registrar erred in failing to consider the quantum mechanical uncertainties when he performed his Walrus calculations.". Eir official argument for the CFJ discussed the inevitable spray of pions, top quarks, and virtual Walruses that would accompany the springing into existence of the Rule-mandated Walruses.
Waggie, in return, called for judgement (CFJ 121) on the statement "The Banker, by refusing to apply the effect of the short-lived Walrus Rules to the Marks accounts of all Nomic Entities, is in violation of Rules 101, 450, and 516.". CFJ 121 was assigned to Chuck, who judged FALSE on a technicality: Rule 450 was of the form of a law of nature, not a demand on players, and so could not be violated. This judgement left open the question of what the proper Mark holdings were.
Waggie was at this point awarded the newly-invented PatentTitle of "Scamster".
At this time judges were assigned randomly, and the judge assigned to CFJ 120 turned out to be KoJen, e of the Bunnies. Somewhat surprisingly, in a very sober judgement of FALSE e ruled that the Uncertainty Principle did not apply to Walruses, as the Rules that defined their interactions made no mention of such effects. This was, of course, in accord with the game custom that invoked infinitesemal durations for some purposes (separation of multiple events triggered by a single message).
Around this time Waggie got fed up with all the fuss about eir perfectly good scam, and LeftInAHuff. E is one of the few players to have left Agora in a huff and not later returned (so far).
Dave Bowen, the Banker, then submitted a proposal the effect of which would be to destroy all the Marks created due to the Walruses. This passed, effectively bringing the game reality into line with the wayward Banker's reports. However, Dave then denied having actually proposed it; e claimed to have only protoproposed it and never properly submitted it. Nevertheless, this was never CFJed, and the Rule created by the proposal remained in the published rulesets.
So the ultimate legal consensus was that the Walruses did exist and worked as intended; they did result in Point penalties and Mark awards; the Point penalties stood but the awarded Marks were later removed. The Rule that destroyed the Walrus Marks, unlike the Walrus rules themselves, did not self-repeal, and was repealed by proposal some months later.
The scam's more lasting effects were on the culture of Agora. This was arguably Agora's first great scam, and produced its first Scamster. It was also the first time anyone had left in a huff, and opened players' eyes to the emotional impact that essentially humorous in-game actions could have on some players. Some of the same psychology was seen writ even larger a year and a half later, in the Mousetrap Scam. Today the Walrus Scam is remembered by Agorans for the immense fuss it caused, and for the silliness of its terminology.