Subject: Ackanomic Research Digest V2 #112
From: [email-masked] (Ackanomic Research Digest)
To: acka-research-digest

Ackanomic Research Digest   Thursday, July 17 1997   Volume 02 : Number 112

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

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 08:11:47 +0300 (EET DST)
From: Uri Bruck <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Acka:  Senate (Proposal 2212)

On Tue, 15 Jul 1997, Bollinger, John C. wrote:

> grant that the subset of Ackazens who are interested in Internomic
> contains non-Senators, and I would not strongly object to moving the
> decision process out of the Senate _if a suitable replacement can be
> designed_.  I do not find Acka's regular proposal queue suitable.
> 
> ThinMan

Vynd had a good suggestion, setting up an Institution specifically for
the Internomic Interface, open membership.
there would need to be a clause about what happens when the membership
falls below a certain minumum. Let's say, for the sake of afgument that
the minimum is 4 players, below that minimum I see three possibilities

1. the Senate votes
2. The Ambassador votes
3. a Joint Assembly of the new Institution and the Senate

My prefference is for the third, but I could along with any of the others,
whichever more players support.

Niccolo Flychuck

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

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 23:23:01 -0600 (MDT)
From: Aaron Humphrey <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka:  P2219 rejected (Je Te Plumerai)

> Malenkai bribed Tammany A$ 5 to vote NO.

> YES votes:
> 	Malenkai

Wouldn't a Present vote have been cheaper?  :-)  Or was this sort of like
my having discovered that I accidentally voted NO on the OMCL proposal?  (I
don't think that's what I meant to do...)

> ! Amend Rule 1217, "Buried Treasure!", as follows:
> ! 
> ! Insert after the fourth paragraph the following text(delimited by
> ! ALOUETTE):
> ! 
> ! ALOUETTE
> ! 
> ! Unless a particular map specifies otherwise, a treasure map cannot be
> ! destroyed until at least three days have passed since the treasure was
> ! buried.  Any players who achieve the conditions specified by a map before
> ! this time are considered to have achieved the conditions simultaneously
> ! at this time.
> ! 
> ! ALOUETTE

I'm curious...what did people dislike about this proposal.  It seems
harmless enough to me...  Are there others out there who _like_ to be
racing to be the first to solve a treasure, or logging on and finding out
that they missed their chance by about an hour(as I did with the
acrostic)?  Any other comments?

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.terranet.ab.ca/~aaron/)
Current Album--Army of Lovers
Current Book--Heather Spears:The Taming
I am you, and you are me, and we are all together in a Yellow Submarine.

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

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 01:06:40 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <devjoe>
Subject: Re: Acka:  P2219 rejected (Je Te Plumerai)

> > ! Amend Rule 1217, "Buried Treasure!", as follows:
> > ! Insert after the fourth paragraph the following text
> > ! 
> > ! Unless a particular map specifies otherwise, a treasure map cannot be
> > ! destroyed until at least three days have passed since the treasure was
> > ! buried.  Any players who achieve the conditions specified by a map before
> > ! this time are considered to have achieved the conditions simultaneously
> > ! at this time.
> 
> I'm curious...what did people dislike about this proposal.  It seems
> harmless enough to me...  Are there others out there who _like_ to be
> racing to be the first to solve a treasure, or logging on and finding out
> that they missed their chance by about an hour(as I did with the
> acrostic)?  Any other comments?

First off, I'm not sure the rules handle the situation of multiple players
finding a treasure simultaneously.  The officer in charge of random things
should pick one of the tied players to get the treasure, to follow the trend
in this area of rules established by P2042.  But assuming it does work...

I thought about how this rule would interact with something like the acrostic.
If one player posts the answer early, anybody can just copy that answer.
After this happens once or twice, the more serious puzzle solvers will learn
to wait until the three days is almost up, but this doesn't mean everybody
will do so, and it could be a pain (maybe impossible) for some treasure
solvers to send mail at the given time, so they'll either miss it or send
early, letting more people in.  On the other hand, we could be gentlemen
and not try to snatch a treasure like that without having solved the puzzle,
but how likely is that?

Obviously treasure maps could be written better to avoid this, but that
doesn't mean they will be.  Of course, that is the same situation we have
now -- we really want treasure maps that simply won't be solved within
three days.  I just didn't think this proposal was the way to fix the
problem.

/dev/joe

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

Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 22:56:01 -0900
From: Phil Ackley <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Acka:  Senate (Proposal 2212) 

>Hi Bascule!  Good to see you.  I wanted to point out that, if the Senate
>does go over to elections, then I think it would be best for the Senate if
>only one or two offices were filled at a time.  As I've mentioned before,
>and Thinman also pointed out, one of the reasons for having something like
>the Senate in the first place is so you have a group of people who really
>know what their doing (or should).  If you replace all of the senators at
>the same time, there will be a few weeks, at least, where the old Senators
>are going to have a field day putting the new ones in Contempt for the
>various goofy rules they're supposed to take care of.  If one Senator were
>to be elected every few months, or perhaps 2, these problems could be
>eliminated (I hope).  This would get back into the problems of tracking
>that was the begining of this (part) of the discussion, though.

Its not as bad as it seems, I think.  What if 1/4 of the senate (no matter
what the size of the body) was elect on each of the equinoxes/solstices.
It's an easy date to remember, and something is already kept track of on
those days, so it shouldn't add too much burden to anyone.

I think Malenkai would agree that this would be easy to implement.

Mr. Finger

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

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 08:28:06 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka:  P2219 rejected (Je Te Plumerai)

> > Malenkai bribed Tammany A$ 5 to vote NO.
> 
> > YES votes:
> >       Malenkai
> 
> Wouldn't a Present vote have been cheaper?  :-)  Or was this sort of like
> my having discovered that I accidentally voted NO on the OMCL proposal? 

Its called anti-voting.  I was trying to make a point as to how ridiculous
I think anti-voting is; I guess I didn't make it very well :)

> I'm curious...what did people dislike about this proposal.  It seems
> harmless enough to me...  Are there others out there who _like_ to be
> racing to be the first to solve a treasure, 

I think it just moves the Hubert situation to 3 days into the future,
which seemed sort of pointless to me.

Malenkai

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

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 10:03:42 -0600 (MDT)
From: Aaron Humphrey <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka:  P2219 rejected (Je Te Plumerai)

> First off, I'm not sure the rules handle the situation of multiple players
> finding a treasure simultaneously.  The officer in charge of random things
> should pick one of the tied players to get the treasure, to follow the trend
> in this area of rules established by P2042.  But assuming it does work...

I think this specific case is in fact mentioned in Rule 1217.

> I thought about how this rule would interact with something like the acrostic.
> If one player posts the answer early, anybody can just copy that answer.
> After this happens once or twice, the more serious puzzle solvers will learn
> to wait until the three days is almost up, but this doesn't mean everybody
> will do so, and it could be a pain (maybe impossible) for some treasure
> solvers to send mail at the given time, so they'll either miss it or send
> early, letting more people in.  On the other hand, we could be gentlemen
> and not try to snatch a treasure like that without having solved the puzzle,
> but how likely is that?

It could happen.  It can happen with close-but-not-quite guesses as well.
I would suppose that if there's a three-day limit, nobody will know whether
a guess is correct until that time is up(ideally, though of course the Map
Writer/Custodian could slip up...).  This might encourage more gizz to hide
what actions are actually treasure-finding-oriented, which already happens
to some extent...  This might also encourage a private email component to
the maps, which is not so easily duplicated.

> Obviously treasure maps could be written better to avoid this, but that
> doesn't mean they will be.  Of course, that is the same situation we have
> now -- we really want treasure maps that simply won't be solved within
> three days.  I just didn't think this proposal was the way to fix the
> problem.

Fair enough.

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.terranet.ab.ca/~aaron/)
Song In My Head--Army of Lovers:Viva La Vogue
Current Book--Heather Spears:The Taming
Poisoning pigeons on the grass alas alas

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

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 13:03:34 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <devjoe>
Subject: Re: Acka:  P2216 accepted (No More OMCLs/No Last-Minute Scams)

> Proposal 2216

> YES votes:
> 	Dread Pirate Roberts

When these results were posted, Dread Pirate Roberts became active.
The Whamiols last triggered on Jun 29, so their owners get a full 15 points.
(30 for Voting Gnome, 15 Techno, 15 Mr. Lunatic Fringe)

Currently Ben, Sammy, Chalmers, and Lipid are new, pending players and
Darth Vader is a returning pending player.

/dev/joe

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

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 15:24:26 -0500 (CDT)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: P2219 rejected (Je Te Plumerai)

> I'm curious...what did people dislike about this proposal.  It seems
> harmless enough to me...  Are there others out there who _like_ to be
> racing to be the first to solve a treasure, or logging on and finding out
> that they missed their chance by about an hour(as I did with the
> acrostic)?  Any other comments?

I saw it as more red tape.  :oP

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

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 15:56:20 -0500 (CDT)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 2228

> From now on, barring unusual circumstances, I am automatically voting
> NO on any proposal that contains BUAG, unless it is contained in
> double curly braces!
	Double curly braces are unnecessary.  Notes aren't
automatically dumped from a proposal into the ruleset when the
proposal passes.
	The BUAG are not in the ruleset anywhere.
	But if there really are objections to our BUAG on the grounds
we're polluting the proposal archive, my Cabinet and I will gladly
engineer a smaller banner.  I guess 22 lines is a bit much... :o)
	Let me know, okay?

- -- 
Chaos
presiding

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

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 23:19:18 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Stuff

> I am hearby founding a new Organization, it's name is Fort Knocks.

Is anyone gonna fix this loophole?  I find it too amusing to fix,
personally.  It seems we can either

a) repeal the tax
b) define player wealth
c) tax all A$ owned by player-controlled and player-controlled-controlled
entities (I guess the latter would be the Synod)
d) prevent orgs with less than 3 members.

Personally I like d), but don't really care much except for the newbie
money problem.  Repealing the tax seems no fun, because tax loopholes
seem fun to have in the game.

Malenkai
hoping someone else fixes the loophole

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

End of Ackanomic Research Digest V2 #112
****************************************