Subject: Ackanomic Research Digest V2 #46
From: [email-masked] (Ackanomic Research Digest)
To: acka-research-digest

Ackanomic Research Digest   Saturday, April 19 1997   Volume 02 : Number 046

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Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 02:02:34 -0500 (CDT)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 1929

> This proposal will break the statute of limitations I added to the crime
> rule, which claims precedence over the rule 103 retroactivity ban
> specifically.
	Yup.  Not enough research on my part.  Well, back to the drawing 
board.  I'll retract tomorrow morning (Odin is due to crash any minute 
now so I gotta go) and resubmit.

- -- 
Mohammed
Happy vampires and fifty macaws from Juneau barely escaped from
televangelists.

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

Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 04:01:12 -0700 (PDT)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ 374 (Malenkai)

> RFC is my pet peeve and I can see it's yours too to some
> extent. Sure, I feel kind of naughty and bad when a rule I created
> creates problems because I missed a comma somewhere in there (or
> badly defined something) but it's part of the fun imho.

Y'know, I don't think anyone disagrees with this. I understand the fun
of not RFC'ing a proposal, and I certainly understand the excitement
of dealing with unintended effects.

I don't think that people need to RFC more often, per se. It's a
choice. Likewise, you shouldn't be surprised if I don't vote for
something you didn't RFC.

It *is* frustrating, though, when a proposal that you agree with in
essence has bugs in it that prevent it from achieving its intended
effect. And I for one am unlikely to vote for such, even if it could
be easily fixed with a followup proposal. Why should players be
awarded points for writing a proposal that doesn't work? (Barring
harfiness and other mitigating circumstances, of course.)

breadbox

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

Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 02:12:30 -0900
From: Phil Ackley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ 374 (Malenkai) 

>It *is* frustrating, though, when a proposal that you agree with in
>essence has bugs in it that prevent it from achieving its intended
>effect. And I for one am unlikely to vote for such, even if it could
>be easily fixed with a followup proposal. Why should players be
>awarded points for writing a proposal that doesn't work? (Barring
>harfiness and other mitigating circumstances, of course.)
>
>breadbox

Okay, fair, but when have I submitted a proposal that hade some major game
effect, that wasn't at least in a sense, harfy?

snowgod
where would the fun be in "the old lightbulb bit" if I RFC's it first to
garuntee that it worked?

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

Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 04:45:55 -0700 (PDT)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ 374 (Malenkai)

> Okay, fair, but when have I submitted a proposal that hade some
> major game effect, that wasn't at least in a sense, harfy?

Hey, just because a proposal is harfy and bug-free doesn't guarantee
that I'll vote for it. "Bob" was undoubtedly harfy, and quite possibly
bug-free, but I did not want it to pass. Sorry!

As far as "Lightbulb" goes: if memory serves, I didn't like it because
it took effect too often. I felt that the novelty would wear off
pretty fast, and just become annoying after the nth time. (Come to
think of it, that was also a problem I had with "Alien Abductions".
Whatever else I felt about randomly mucking with the rules, once a
week is simply much too frequent for my tastes.)

breadbox

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

Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 09:10:23 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ 374 (Malenkai)

> where would the fun be in "the old lightbulb bit" if I RFC's it first to
> garuntee that it worked?

I think the point is being missed here, at least the point *I* was
trying to make.  An idea that Mohammed, Niccolo Flychuck, and myself
spent alot of bandwidth debating (internomc entity exchange), was
submitted by another player as their own without RFC, despite requests
for one, and despite requests that it be a collorabative project.

The issue here, at least for me, is RFCing things that have major game
effects out of the respect for others, not with the motivation of fixing
bugs.  Lets at least get the two issues straight.  Otherwise, I agree
that "idea" proposals generally need not be RFCed, unless it someone
else's idea :)

You can continue to debate the merits of not RFCing the other sorts 
of proposals, and I generally agree with, (including breadbox's sentiment
that buggy proposals should not be awarded points.  In fact, they 
usually get *more* points with the followup proposals to fix them!).

I generally RFC major stuff out of respect for others, not to get the
bugs out, which I consider a personal challenge for myself.  As for harfy
proposals, there is no need to RFC them, but RTP was in no way harfy, and
*that* is the proposal that this issue was brought up with respect to.

Malenkai

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

Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 11:00:53 -0500 (CDT)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 1929

Before I forget--

#retract proposal 1929

I'll get this back out there tonight or tomorrow.

- -- 
Mohammed
Five amorphous aliens stalked a American for cash.

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

Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 13:05:15 -0400 (EDT)
From: John Frederic Mc Coy <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ 374 (Malenkai)

On Fri, 18 Apr 1997, Brian Raiter wrote:

> > RFC is my pet peeve and I can see it's yours too to some
> > extent. Sure, I feel kind of naughty and bad when a rule I created
> > creates problems because I missed a comma somewhere in there (or
> > badly defined something) but it's part of the fun imho.
> 
> Y'know, I don't think anyone disagrees with this. I understand the fun
> of not RFC'ing a proposal, and I certainly understand the excitement
> of dealing with unintended effects.
> 
> I don't think that people need to RFC more often, per se. It's a
> choice. Likewise, you shouldn't be surprised if I don't vote for
> something you didn't RFC.
> 
> It *is* frustrating, though, when a proposal that you agree with in
> essence has bugs in it that prevent it from achieving its intended
> effect. And I for one am unlikely to vote for such, even if it could
> be easily fixed with a followup proposal. Why should players be
> awarded points for writing a proposal that doesn't work? (Barring
> harfiness and other mitigating circumstances, of course.)
> 
> breadbox

I agree.  The new player stuff recommended that you RFC stuff before you
submitted actually proposals, but as you may have noticed, I never did.
For me, half the fun is trying to write something interesting and
surprising, and a proposal that's gone through the RFC process wouldn't be
either.  But I agree entirely with the sentiment that if I don't RFC
something, I should expect it to be more difficult to get it passed, at
least if it is something really detailed or complicated.

                                  - Vynd

[email-masked]

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

Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 08:53:02 -0900
From: Phil Ackley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ 374 (Malenkai) 

>> Okay, fair, but when have I submitted a proposal that hade some
>> major game effect, that wasn't at least in a sense, harfy?
>
>Hey, just because a proposal is harfy and bug-free doesn't guarantee
>that I'll vote for it. "Bob" was undoubtedly harfy, and quite possibly
>bug-free, but I did not want it to pass. Sorry!
>
>As far as "Lightbulb" goes: if memory serves, I didn't like it because
>it took effect too often. I felt that the novelty would wear off
>pretty fast, and just become annoying after the nth time. (Come to
>think of it, that was also a problem I had with "Alien Abductions".
>Whatever else I felt about randomly mucking with the rules, once a
>week is simply much too frequent for my tastes.)
>
>breadbox

Oh, I don't mind you voting against my proposals... That's part of nomic.
As CnH knows, when I author a proposal, I usually don't intend for it to
pass.  I was totally shocked and amazed to find that the aliens did (though
I was pretty sure that it wouldn't hurt much, I knew rules would be
kidnapped only rarely).  As for the lightbulb, I just submitted that for a
few laughs.  Same with Bob, actually bob I didn't even want to pass.

Anyway, what I was talking about was RFCs.  I hate using them, specially
with semi-harfy proposals.  In my opinion they take away from the fun value
of the game.  What fun is a proposal when you are certain its going to pass?

snowgod

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

Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 09:00:20 -0900
From: Phil Ackley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ 374 (Malenkai) 

>> where would the fun be in "the old lightbulb bit" if I RFC's it first to
>> garuntee that it worked?
>
>I think the point is being missed here, at least the point *I* was
>trying to make.  An idea that Mohammed, Niccolo Flychuck, and myself
>spent alot of bandwidth debating (internomc entity exchange), was
>submitted by another player as their own without RFC, despite requests
>for one, and despite requests that it be a collorabative project.

And I still say Niccolo recieved it, and I could have sworn you saw a copy
to.  I don't remember of the top of my head whether I sent it to mohammed,
but I would guess that I did.  I waited two weeks, and having recieved no
reply, told Dr. West I was agreeable to this idea (in a *testing* type of
phase) and submitted it.

By the time you voiced your objection, I was already commited to submitting
something that would work with Dr Wests system.  It was too late to back
out of the whole idea.

As for you proposal to repeal it, one of the reasons it really offends me
(makes me feel neglected even), is that I built in a system that would make
the thing repeal itself if within about two more weeks if it didn't work
out, but you couldn't even wait that long.  I acknowledged that the thing
wasn't perfect, and might need revamping, and allowed a mechanism for that,
but you weren't happy to even use that.

You have made it your personal goal to destroy this idea.

snowgod

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

Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 14:11:58 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ 374 (Malenkai)

snowgod wrote:

> As for you proposal to repeal it, one of the reasons it really offends me
> (makes me feel neglected even), is that I built in a system that would make
> the thing repeal itself if within about two more weeks if it didn't work
> out, but you couldn't even wait that long.  I acknowledged that the thing
> wasn't perfect, and might need revamping, and allowed a mechanism for that,
> but you weren't happy to even use that.

As I have said in previous commentary about the rule at length, I oppose
the acrhitecture (and its implementation), at a fundamental level.
Therefore I do not think it is worth it to attempt to revamp the
existing rule; I'd rather start from scratch with a better architecture.

As far as waiting 2 more weeks, it is my opinion that the rule will not
improve in the next 2 weeks, why wait?  As for being offended at your
rule being repealed, I have nothing to say to that except that I would
prefer if you spoke to me with less rancor about the whole thing.  My
goal here, and my only goal here, is to find a workable solution to
this nomic problem -- something to which I have been pursuing for some
time.  I have made many suggestions for a workable solution, and invited
anyone who was interested, including yourself, to participate.  It is my
opinion  that the current solution is not workable, and all my actions
have been consistent with that adjenda of finding a good solution.

> You have made it your personal goal to destroy this idea.

Again, I would prefer it if your comments towards me were more polite
and accurate.  I have stated my goal in the previous paragraph, and
several times previously.  Even if the above statement is true, which
it is not, it does not give you the license to treat me in the uncivil
manner which you have chosen to over the past few days.

Malenkai

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

Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 13:20:36 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <devjoe>
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ 374 (Malenkai)

snowgod wrote:
> Anyway, what I was talking about was RFCs.  I hate using them, specially
> with semi-harfy proposals.  In my opinion they take away from the fun value
> of the game.  What fun is a proposal when you are certain its going to pass?

Once again, we aren't talking about RFCs of harf.
And as for your last question, the answer is *content*.

Proposal 1240 [The Machine That Goes *ping* (revisited)] is perhaps
the best example of a proposal with fun content that Ackanomic has ever
had -- and coincidentally, it was also one that was first submitted
without RFC (P1194), only to be retracted due to some error, and
resubmitted.  The resubmission was "certain to pass", and it did, 17-1,
and we've had a lot of fun with that rule, although it does pose some
hardship on the scholar.

As far as ETP goes, I don't see that as particularly fun content besides
for the loopholes in it, and the rule set doesn't need more loopholes.
Especially loopholes big and obvious enough to drive the Blue Thing
through on a Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday. :-)

/dev/joe

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

Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 13:44:41 -0500 (CDT)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ 374 (Malenkai)

> And I still say Niccolo recieved it, and I could have sworn you saw a copy
> to.  I don't remember of the top of my head whether I sent it to mohammed,
> but I would guess that I did.  I waited two weeks, and having recieved no
	I got it; I didn't have time to read it..
	Sorrie to all who have been exasperated by ETP; sometimes RL calls.
- -- 
Mohammed
Weird things happen to burger-flipping romantic mutant blind queens.

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

Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 11:50:44 -0700 (PDT)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ 374 (Malenkai)

> Proposal 1240 [The Machine That Goes *ping* (revisited)] is perhaps
> the best example of a proposal with fun content that Ackanomic has
> ever had -- and coincidentally, it was also one that was first
> submitted without RFC (P1194), only to be retracted due to some
> error, and resubmitted.

Not just due to some error: a number of players discovered and pointed
out several problems, poor wording, and potential loopholes in the
proposal. So many, in fact, that Guy Fawkes became quite annoyed at
first. It was just like an RFC thread, really. But he did eventually
retract it and resubmit a new proposal, with changes for every last
problem that was mentioned.

> The resubmission was "certain to pass", and it did, 17-1, and we've
> had a lot of fun with that rule, although it does pose some hardship
> on the scholar.

breadbox

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

Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 21:07:02 +0000
From: "Bascule" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ 374 (Malenkai)

/dev/joe wrote:

> As far as ETP goes, I don't see that as particularly fun content besides
> for the loopholes in it, and the rule set doesn't need more loopholes.

What loopholes? I can't think of any loopholes at the moment; even
Mohammed's Estate Agent loophole has been closed (probably)

> Especially loopholes big and obvious enough to drive the Blue Thing
> through on a Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday. :-)

LOL!

Bascule
Anarchist
Hasn't pressed the button marked ENERGIZE in ages... how does 
/vej/ode sound?

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End of Ackanomic Research Digest V2 #46
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