Subject: acka-research-digest V3 #43
From: [email-masked] (acka-research-digest)
To: [email-masked]

acka-research-digest      Tuesday, March 17 1998      Volume 03 : Number 043

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Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 04:55:58 -0500 (EST)
From: Duncan Richer <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Cheeses

Do people want to maintain the "no retractions allowed" requirement for
the "Personal Chrome Streak" Cheese?  It would be fairly easy to eliminate
it by making the rule say

"if the last ten proposals by that player whose voting results have been
reported were all accepted."

Simply because voting results are never reported for retracted proposals.

Comments?

- -- 
Duncan C. "" Richer aka
Slakko (Lost) Warner - http://dcr24.quns.cam.ac.uk/ - Queens' College
Cambridge, 1st Yr PhD(PMa) - .Nomic Elector, Frgn Minister, HP(Morpork)
Acka - President "Gumball" Web-Harfer RuneMaker ChessUmpire Map-Harfer

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Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 13:04:00 -0500 (EST)
From: "Tom Walmsley" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 2765 accepted

> > > Amend rule 701 (Crime) by replacing the final sentence of the second
> > > paragraph [Currently " However, an attempt to commit such an action is
the
> > > Crime of Attempting the Impossible [even though the action itself does
not
> > > occur]."] with the following:
> 
> Hadn't noticed this before, but since notes don't nest, if you take them
out
> you get
> 
> ...the second paragraph ."] with the following:
> 
> This probably doesn't do anything though, anymore than if I'd put (!!!)
> in there or something.  At least it didn't say [...[...] increase The
> Gingham Wearer's score to the magic number]...

Bizarrely, I just got round to taking a look at breadbox's scam proposal this
weekend. Looks like something else for a CSR. Speaking of which, can you send
me all the suggestions for CSRs you had received please Vynd?

TGW, CSRR.

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Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 13:03:57 -0500 (EST)
From: "Tom Walmsley" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: My web pages

As I'm sure you are all aware the web pages I maintain (portrait gallery,
treasure, and when I get round to it Clerk of the Court's) are hosted by
Geocities. As I'm equally sure you are aware, there is an annoying window
that pops up. This can be got rid of by putting a "geoguide" at the top of
the page followed by labeling it as #top so you don't actually see the
geoguide at all. Unfortunately, this slows down the page somewhat. Would
people prefer I leave things as they are or put in the geoguide?

TGW, Assistant web harfer, Clerk of the Court and Treasure harfer (amongst
other things).

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

Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 13:04:03 -0500 (EST)
From: "Tom Walmsley" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Cheeses

> Do people want to maintain the "no retractions allowed" requirement for
> the "Personal Chrome Streak" Cheese?  It would be fairly easy to eliminate
> it by making the rule say
> 
> "if the last ten proposals by that player whose voting results have been
> reported were all accepted."
> 
> Simply because voting results are never reported for retracted proposals.
> 
> Comments?

I would support this. It may be a bit difficult to achieve otherwise. I'd
also support changing 5 to 3 in the games and contest one (number of players
involved for it to count.

TGW.

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

Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 13:23:21 -0500 (EST)
From: Guy Fawkes <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Cheeses

On Tue, 17 Mar 1998, Tom Walmsley wrote:

> > Do people want to maintain the "no retractions allowed" requirement for
> > the "Personal Chrome Streak" Cheese?  It would be fairly easy to eliminate
> > it by making the rule say
> > 
> > "if the last ten proposals by that player whose voting results have been
> > reported were all accepted."
> > 
> > Simply because voting results are never reported for retracted proposals.
> > 
> > Comments?
> 
> I would support this. It may be a bit difficult to achieve otherwise. I'd
> also support changing 5 to 3 in the games and contest one (number of players
> involved for it to count.

NO!!! Where's the value of winning if the winning conditions are made
easier.  The only way I would support making the Cheese conditions easier
to acheive is if winning by cheesiness was no longer a winning condition.

GF

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Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 13:45:41 -0500 (EST)
From: Duncan Richer <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Cheeses

On Tue, 17 Mar 1998, Guy Fawkes wrote:

> On Tue, 17 Mar 1998, Tom Walmsley wrote:
> > > Do people want to maintain the "no retractions allowed" requirement for
> > > the "Personal Chrome Streak" Cheese?  It would be fairly easy to eliminate
> > > it by making the rule say
> > > 
> > > "if the last ten proposals by that player whose voting results have been
> > > reported were all accepted."
> > > 
> > > Simply because voting results are never reported for retracted proposals.
> > > 
> > > Comments?
> > 
> > I would support this. It may be a bit difficult to achieve otherwise. I'd
> > also support changing 5 to 3 in the games and contest one (number of players
> > involved for it to count.
> 
> NO!!! Where's the value of winning if the winning conditions are made
> easier.  The only way I would support making the Cheese conditions easier
> to acheive is if winning by cheesiness was no longer a winning condition.
So then what would the cheeses do?  There is enough harfluff around
without turning gameharf into harfluff.

Let's have a look at the Cheese conditions.

Brie is relatively easy, unless there is a particularly intrepid Caped
Crusader around, so let's assume people have a 100% chance of having it.

One (stilton I think) requires 3 harfy proposals to be passed.
Since harfiness was introduced, there have been 1500 proposals or so.
Of them, 32 have been harfy, and only 4 players have had 3 harfy proposals
in the history of the game - Calvin n Hobbes (3), Guy Fawkes (3), Vynd
(4), and TGW (3).  At current rates, I would say it would take on average
500 proposals before one player achieved this Cheese condition.

On average, 500 proposals has taken 5 months in Acka's past.  Currently,
with the proposal queue frobbed, it will take even longer.
This alone makes cheesiness less likely to produce a winner than points.

Another (Cheddar?) needs 10 consecutive proposals passed.
Guy said that he could get proposals to be 80% sure of passing.
What are the odds of a Chrome Streak on any given 10 proposals, then?

(0.8)^10 = 0.107

This is a simplistic estimate when used to consider long runs of sets of
10 proposals, so to be really safe I'll almost double it to 0.2

So it will take a single player approximately 50 props on average to gain
a Cheddar.  With the proposal queue frobbed, this would take a minimum of
17 weeks.

Some cheeses are very hard to get.  I doubt that the currently proposed
waterings down will make the cheese win an easy target.

- -- 
Duncan C. "" Richer aka
Slakko (Lost) Warner - http://dcr24.quns.cam.ac.uk/ - Queens' College
Cambridge, 1st Yr PhD(PMa) - .Nomic Elector, Frgn Minister, HP(Morpork)
Acka - President "Gumball" Web-Harfer RuneMaker ChessUmpire Map-Harfer

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

Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 16:45:17 -0500 (EST)
From: "Tom Walmsley" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Cheeses

> > NO!!! Where's the value of winning if the winning conditions are made
> > easier.  The only way I would support making the Cheese conditions easier
> > to acheive is if winning by cheesiness was no longer a winning condition.
> So then what would the cheeses do?  There is enough harfluff around
> without turning gameharf into harfluff.
> 
> Let's have a look at the Cheese conditions.
> 
> Brie is relatively easy, unless there is a particularly intrepid Caped
> Crusader around, so let's assume people have a 100% chance of having it.
> 
> One (stilton I think) requires 3 harfy proposals to be passed.
> Since harfiness was introduced, there have been 1500 proposals or so.
> Of them, 32 have been harfy, and only 4 players have had 3 harfy proposals
> in the history of the game - Calvin n Hobbes (3), Guy Fawkes (3), Vynd
> (4), and TGW (3).  At current rates, I would say it would take on average
> 500 proposals before one player achieved this Cheese condition.
> 
> On average, 500 proposals has taken 5 months in Acka's past.  Currently,
> with the proposal queue frobbed, it will take even longer.
> This alone makes cheesiness less likely to produce a winner than points.
> 
> Another (Cheddar?) needs 10 consecutive proposals passed.
> Guy said that he could get proposals to be 80% sure of passing.
> What are the odds of a Chrome Streak on any given 10 proposals, then?
> 
> (0.8)^10 = 0.107
> 
> This is a simplistic estimate when used to consider long runs of sets of
> 10 proposals, so to be really safe I'll almost double it to 0.2
> 
> So it will take a single player approximately 50 props on average to gain
> a Cheddar.  With the proposal queue frobbed, this would take a minimum of
> 17 weeks.
> 
> Some cheeses are very hard to get.  I doubt that the currently proposed
> waterings down will make the cheese win an easy target.

The other two aren't particularly easy to get either. There are only three
players who currently hold enough offices to get the offices cheese and only
one other (myself) who stands much chance of getting one in the near future.

The Games and Contests one is vaguely similar to treasure 101 (crystal
grapefruit) which was only found recently. Admittedly, it also allows Grab a
Donkey or Party Chess to count for the entirety of the cheese, but people
winning grab a donkey and party chess aren't the most regular occurrences.

And don't forget that if anyone is getting close to winning by cheese then
someone can just cheez-whiz them.

When I initially made the rule, I thought it would be better to have the
conditions too hard than too easy considering how quickly Slakko had just
achieved eir agenda conditions. I think that the two proposed changes
(non-retracted and three players instead of five) wouldn't make the relevant
cheeses too easy.

Anyhow, by far the most common way of winning the cycle has been points, so
it looks as if we ought to be trying to make points more difficult.

TGW.

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

Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 18:01:57 -0500 (EST)
From: Duncan Richer <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: My web pages

On Tue, 17 Mar 1998, Tom Walmsley wrote:

> As I'm sure you are all aware the web pages I maintain (portrait gallery,
> treasure, and when I get round to it Clerk of the Court's) are hosted by
> Geocities. As I'm equally sure you are aware, there is an annoying window
> that pops up. This can be got rid of by putting a "geoguide" at the top of
> the page followed by labeling it as #top so you don't actually see the
> geoguide at all. Unfortunately, this slows down the page somewhat. Would
> people prefer I leave things as they are or put in the geoguide?

Any idea what size the Geoguide is in K?
And compared to the banner window?

I don't really mind either way - whatever you do by me is fine.

- -- 
Duncan C. "" Richer aka
Slakko (Lost) Warner - http://dcr24.quns.cam.ac.uk/ - Queens' College
Cambridge, 1st Yr PhD(PMa) - .Nomic Elector, Frgn Minister, HP(Morpork)
Acka - President "Gumball" Web-Harfer RuneMaker ChessUmpire Map-Harfer

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

Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 18:24:02 -0500 (EST)
From: Hubert <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: My web pages

On Tue, 17 Mar 1998, Duncan Richer wrote:

> On Tue, 17 Mar 1998, Tom Walmsley wrote:
> 
> > As I'm sure you are all aware the web pages I maintain (portrait gallery,
> > treasure, and when I get round to it Clerk of the Court's) are hosted by
> > Geocities. As I'm equally sure you are aware, there is an annoying window
> 
> Any idea what size the Geoguide is in K?
> And compared to the banner window?
> 
> I don't really mind either way - whatever you do by me is fine.

There are several other free-web-page services around; I don't know if you
have any particular reason for choosing Geocities (better bandwidth,
sentimental reasons, etc.) I know several people who have switched to
another just because of that annoying banner.

www.angelfire.com is one; I don't know if www.juno.com is still offering
them.  There are others around, but I don't remember any off the top of my
head.

- -Hubert

Dog for sale: eats anything and is fond of children. 

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Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 19:32:39 -0500 (EST)
From: Guy Fawkes <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Cheeses

On Tue, 17 Mar 1998, Tom Walmsley wrote:

> Anyhow, by far the most common way of winning the cycle has been points, so
> it looks as if we ought to be trying to make points more difficult.

Then raise the magic number -- it's not hard to do.
GF

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Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 20:24:57 -0500 (EST)
From: [email-masked] (Aaron V. Humphrey)
Subject: Re: Acka: My web pages

> As I'm sure you are all aware the web pages I maintain (portrait gallery,
> treasure, and when I get round to it Clerk of the Court's) are hosted by
> Geocities. As I'm equally sure you are aware, there is an annoying window
> that pops up. This can be got rid of by putting a "geoguide" at the top of
> the page followed by labeling it as #top so you don't actually see the
> geoguide at all. Unfortunately, this slows down the page somewhat. Would
> people prefer I leave things as they are or put in the geoguide?

If there's a way to get rid of it, then I say do it!  'Cause it annoys
me extremely.

Of course, I've got pages on geocities that I haven't done anything with in
ages.  The same thing's probably happening there, but I don't care enough
to fix it.  :-)

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/alfvaen/ )
Current Album--Live:Throwing Copper
Current Book--Ann Marston:The Western King
I repeat myself when under stress...I repeat myself when under stress...

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End of acka-research-digest V3 #43
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