Subject: acka-research-digest V2 #229
From: [email-masked] (acka-research-digest)
To: [email-masked]

acka-research-digest     Sunday, January 18 1998     Volume 02 : Number 229

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

Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 22:15:49 -0800 (PST)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 2608

> Proposal 2608
> Reduced anti-voting
> else...if (Henry Towsner)
> 
> [...]
> 
> --
> -Henry Towsner, AKA else...if, The Fearless Alibi Posesser, Laefu, and Yilran
> 
> 	<[email-masked]>
> 
> 	No iron can stab the heart with such force as a period put just at
> the right place.
> 	-Isaac Babel

Oh, for crying out loud.

Okay, first of all: The standard .sig separator line is
dash-dash-SPACE. There needs to be a trailing space after the dashes
for the .sig to be automatically removed. If for some reason your
mailer can't do this correctly, you can also put an "#end" after your
proposal.

(I believe this is covered in the help file for using nomicbot. If you
don't have this help, ask me for it.)

I've been trying to remember to remove people's .sigs from proposal
submissions by hand (else...if isn't the only one with this problem),
but this one slipped past me.

Secondly, I don't think I can just edit and redistribute this
proposal. Proposals must be distributed in numerical order. I could
declare that there is no such proposal as 2608, and then redistribute
this as a new proposal. I've been doing that a lot lately, though, and
I'd rather not, as it just complicates mattters. I would recommend
instead that we just let it go. If and when this proposal is accepted,
the contents of the .sig will be treated as ambiguous rule changes, and
ignored as invalid. (else...if also may choose to retract and
resubmit, but that's up to him.)

breadbox

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

Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 06:35:47 -0500 (EST)
From: David Scheidt <[email-masked]>
Subject: acka:  more election vagueness

402 (ii).b says that if the number of Nominees is the same as the number
of vacant Seats, then that is it.  Otherwise, we have an election, in
which a player gets to vote for one player.  Could it ever be the case
that there are two (or more)  seats for the same office at election at the
same time?  If that is the case, then it may make sense to allow a player
to vote once for each seat in the election.   I am not sure that this can
happen as the rules are now, but even so, I would like to see this dealt
with explicitly.

rufus

(of course, I write code with [tested!] error handlers for error
conditions that I *know* will never come up, but which have an entrance on
the state diagram...)

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

Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 10:24:57 -0500
From: Towsner <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 2608

>Okay, first of all: The standard .sig separator line is
>dash-dash-SPACE. There needs to be a trailing space after the dashes
>for the .sig to be automatically removed. If for some reason your
>mailer can't do this correctly, you can also put an "#end" after your
>proposal.
	Sorry about that, it's fixed now.

>(I believe this is covered in the help file for using nomicbot. If you
>don't have this help, ask me for it.)
>Secondly, I don't think I can just edit and redistribute this
>proposal. Proposals must be distributed in numerical order. I could
>declare that there is no such proposal as 2608, and then redistribute
>this as a new proposal. I've been doing that a lot lately, though, and
>I'd rather not, as it just complicates mattters. I would recommend
>instead that we just let it go. If and when this proposal is accepted,
>the contents of the .sig will be treated as ambiguous rule changes, and
>ignored as invalid. (else...if also may choose to retract and
>resubmit, but that's up to him.)
	Couldn't we treat it as a typo?  It seems pretty unambiguous.

- --
- -Henry Towsner, AKA else...if, The Fearless Alibi Posesser, Laefu, and Yilran

	<[email-masked]>

	No iron can stab the heart with such force as a period put just at
the right place.
	-Isaac Babel

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

Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 10:40:12 -0500
From: Towsner <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 2590 rejected

>3/11 YES votes: Proposal rejected
>> Proposal 2590 - Sat 10 Jan 1998 06:51 EST
>> People are Dictionaries too
>> else...if (Henry Towsner)
	I guess this is permission for me to exploit this loophole to the
fullest.  Is it possible to revote in fictionary?

- --
- -Henry Towsner, AKA else...if, The Fearless Alibi Posesser, Laefu, and Yilran

	<[email-masked]>

	No iron can stab the heart with such force as a period put just at
the right place.
	-Isaac Babel

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

Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 15:55:08 +0000 ()
From: Duncan Richer <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 2592 rejected

On Sat, 17 Jan 1998, Brian Raiter wrote:

Results of Proposal 2592
> 
> 13/20 votes: Quorum achieved
> 5/11 YES votes: Proposal rejected
>     NO:
> Goldenmean           (Boomerangs)
> two-star             (MetaMorph)
> ThinMan              (Vulcan)
> Fortunato            (SPAM)
> Rex Mundi
> K 2

Can anyone explain why they voted against this.  After all, the point of
Fictionary is to find words that no-one knows the meaning of.  If we allow
all words in the Definition Dictionaries to be used, it reduces the
likelihood of a boring round with a word that 2 people know already for
some reason.

> > This is a Modest Proposal.
> > Append the following text to Rule 1250.3:
> > "c) URL: http://www.m-w.com/dictionary.htm"
> > Remove all instances of ", from the Official Dictionary" from Rule 1250.10.
> > Remove all instances of "Official Dictionary" from Rule 1250.10.
> > 
> > {{[There are some great words in the lookup dictionaries not in the
> > official dictionaries. Why shouldn't we use them?]}}
> > 
> > {{The current game of Mediocrity now runs according to the updated
> > ruleset.}}
- --
Duncan "" Richer aka
Duncan C. Richer - aka Slakko the Lost Warner Brother - Now Really Lost!
Queens' College -- PhD, Pure Maths, Graph Theory -- Cambridge University
Ackanomic Player - RuneMaker - Chess-Umpire - Map-Harfer - SPAM Swinger

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

Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 09:51:22 -0800 (PST)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 2608

> Couldn't we treat it as a typo?  It seems pretty unambiguous.

I'm not sure what you mean by a "typo". Having already distributed the
proposal, I cannot go back and "edit" it. And it certainly doesn't
qualify as a misspelling.

Anyway, as I said, I think it will simply be ignored by the rules, as
it does not describe a valid effect.

breadbox

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

Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 09:59:58 -0800 (PST)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 2590 rejected

>>3/11 YES votes: Proposal rejected
>>> Proposal 2590 - Sat 10 Jan 1998 06:51 EST
>>> People are Dictionaries too
>>> else...if (Henry Towsner)
> 	I guess this is permission for me to exploit this loophole to the
> fullest.  Is it possible to revote in fictionary?

I should mention that the reason I voted against this (and I imagine
this is true for others as well) is that it's already indicated by the
spirit of the game, and furthermore it's completely unenforceable.

Fictionary is not nomic; there's not much point in playing if you're
going to use loopholes to "cheat".

The original restriction is also unenforceable, admittedly, but its
presence at least makes it clear to a newcomer what the idea of the
game is. (Double Crash, in contrast, has no such restriction, and in
fact it is expected that the players will consult dictionaries during
the game.) Anything after that isn't helpful, IMHO.

breadbox

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

Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 13:55:47 -0700 (MST)
From: [email-masked] (Aaron V. Humphrey)
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 2592 rejected

> Can anyone explain why they voted against this.  After all, the point of
> Fictionary is to find words that no-one knows the meaning of.  If we allow
> all words in the Definition Dictionaries to be used, it reduces the
> likelihood of a boring round with a word that 2 people know already for
> some reason.

I didn't vote against it, but I voted PRESENT because I didn't know what
you were trying to achieve.

This is why I will soon be submitting a Proposal to remove the Short
Proposal Bonus.  Perhaps if Slakko had not been trying to keep eir Proposal
under 5 lines, e might have been able to provide commentary, or phrase it
so that it was clear what eir intention was.  From a cursory glance(and
sometimes that's all the time one has to look at a Proposal), it looked like
you were trying to add the words from the Lookup Dictionary to the Official
Dictionary in general.

But since the word I had been planning as my Ing word for my round of
Fictionary is not in the Official Dictionary, _now_ I'd vote for it...

> > > This is a Modest Proposal.
> > > Append the following text to Rule 1250.3:
> > > "c) URL: http://www.m-w.com/dictionary.htm"
> > > Remove all instances of ", from the Official Dictionary" from Rule 1250.10.
> > > Remove all instances of "Official Dictionary" from Rule 1250.10.

I'm not convinced that this would work, either.  For instance, the one
place where you want to get rid of "from the Official Dictionary", it
is _followed_, not preceded, by a comma, and besides, "all instances"
is misleading when there is only one instance of each.  Again, it looks
like you're trying too hard to be short, even when this is too long to
be Short.

> > > {{The current game of Mediocrity now runs according to the updated
> > > ruleset.}}

And I also don't know why the current game of Mediocrity needs to run
according to an updated ruleset that has only changed the rules of
_Fictionary_...

So maybe you should resubmit with something a bit more readable, and
less buggy...

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/alfvaen/ )
Current Album--The Sundays:Blind
Current Book--Charles Dickens:Great Expectations
I was born to speak all mirth and no matter.

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

Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 14:21:50 -0700 (MST)
From: [email-masked] (Aaron V. Humphrey)
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 2615

> Proposal 2615
> Schedules Plus
> Slakko (Duncan Richer)

I kinda like the idea behind this, but:

1) I voted against it because I don't think we need _another_ office.
It _is_ more convenient for the CotC to maintain the CFJIL, too, and
even the Zuriti'ili guidelines.  (Say, where are those, anyway?  Linked
to Rule 711(?), I'd imagine?)

2) I wouldn't mind seeing the Official Dictionary considered a Schedule
as well.

> {{Yes, I'm willing to do the work on this one}}

Also, this should be in {{[ ]}}...:-)

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/alfvaen/ )
Current Album--The Arrogant Worms:C'est Cheese
Current Book--Charles Dickens:Great Expectations
I've got a fistful of Bufo and I'm not singing The Happy Song...

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

End of acka-research-digest V2 #229
***********************************