Subject: acka-research-digest V3 #114
From: [email-masked] (acka-research-digest)
To: [email-masked]

acka-research-digest      Saturday, May 30 1998      Volume 03 : Number 114

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Date: Sat, 30 May 1998 00:04:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: JT <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 3079 accepted

On Fri, 29 May 1998, Aaron V. Humphrey wrote:
>> It depends on if you see the 10 point change for myself above (which I
>> really didn't want, but needed to get the requisite word lengths) as 
>> affecting 'how that rule or entity affects score changes', or if you see
>> it as a one-time effect.  I'm ambivalent one way or another regardless of
>> the decision, but I might CFJ it just for clarities sake. (unless you
>> already have/wish to Alfvaen).
>
>> The seven-point penalty as well depends on the reasoning above.
>
>Well, I see it like this.  Before your Proposal passed, Rule 210 awarded
>points in the way we're familiar with, for including Literature quotes in
>accepted Proposals, as well as the 7-point penalty for Great Works.
>After it passed, it also awarded 10 points in certain situations.  This
>doesn't differ in any respect that I can see from Slakko's proposal adding
>points for BAA! voting, and nobody argued that he really got points for
>that one...

In that case.....
When your amendment to a certain rule which you tried to win with passed,
that rule had previously not awarded points, but now did in certain
circumstances :)
Same argument, different rule.

- --JT

[-------------------------------------------------------------------------]
[ Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.                  ]
[ It's hard to seize the day when you must first grapple with the morning ]
[-------------------------------------------------------------------------]

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Date: Sat, 30 May 1998 00:12:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email-masked] (Aaron V. Humphrey)
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 3079 accepted

> In that case.....
> When your amendment to a certain rule which you tried to win with passed,
> that rule had previously not awarded points, but now did in certain
> circumstances :)
> Same argument, different rule.

As far as I can tell, Rule 205 only applies to Rules(and Entities)which
previously granted points.

In any case, I think there's a more rational way to do that whole thing
anyway, and I will propose it soon.

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/alfvaen/ )
Current Album--Pink Floyd:Wish You Were Here
Current Book--Robert Jordan:The Shadow Rising
Give me a black as bright as it is hot.

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

Date: Sat, 30 May 1998 00:58:24 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email-masked] (Aaron V. Humphrey)
Subject: Acka: Scoring Rule Changing Proposal RFC

#begin RFC

{{[ I can see the desire to avoid paradox as the reason for Rule 205's
Section 5), but quite frankly I think there's an easier way to deal
with it. ]}}

Amend Rule 205, "When Score Changes Take Effect", as follows:

Replace the current text of section 5)

{{[ currently:

   5) Scoring on Changes to Rules Which Cause Score Changes
   
   If a score change is due to a rule or entity (e.g. Magic Potato), and
   a rule change is adopted that affects how that rule or entity causes
   score changes (including, but not limited to, destroying the entity),
   then no score changes are generated by that rule or entity for the
   adoption of the specific rule change in question. This paragraph has
   precedence over sections 2), 3) and 4) where there is a conflict. This
   rule defers precedence to R 313 where there is a conflict. [This is to
   handle the "Potato Paradox" when a Proposal passes to repeal the Magic
   Potato, or the 10th proposal passes that repeals the Brass Monkey, no
   scoring is generated by those entities for the proposal which passed.]
]}}

with the following text(delimited by MACAVITY):

MACAVITY
   5) Scoring on Changes to Rules Which Cause Score Changes

   Any scoring based on the adoption of any Proposal is always scored
   according to the Rules as they were before the Proposal took place.
   In other words, if a Proposal passes, and the rules changed by that
   Proposal would generate different score changes than would have
   been generated by the rules before that Proposal's passage, then
   the Proposal's rule changes are ignored for the purposes of scoring
   that Proposal.  [ Thus, any Proposal that changes Rule 207 is scored
   according to the old version of Rule 207, etc.  This is to handle the
   "Potato Paradox" when a Proposal passes to repeal the Magic Potato,
   or the 10th proposal passes that repeals the Brass Monkey, no scoring
   is generated by those entities for the proposal which passed.]
MACAVITY

#end RFC

My biggest concerns here are--does this cause a problem by only dealing
with Proposals, and will it actually work as intended?

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/alfvaen/ )
Current Album--Ween:Pure Guava
Current Book--Robert Jordan:The Shadow Rising
There's no business like a good offense

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Date: Sat, 30 May 1998 01:24:00 -0400 (EDT)
From: K2 <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: The Infrequent Ackan Volume 1 Issue 24

> Grab-a-Donkey

Oh yeah, thats right, I still have to do that don't I...

K 2

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Date: Sat, 30 May 1998 01:24:21 -0400 (EDT)
From: K2 <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Chess Hearing Results

> Several players attempted to cast votes via their Evil Ballot Stuffers.
> Due to a probably-overlooked clause in R69, this caused ThinMan,
> else...if, JT, and Rex Mundi to transfer all their gift entities to the
> Church of the Good Ballot Stuffer.  Financier, take note.

So noted.

K 2

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Date: Sat, 30 May 1998 01:24:23 -0400 (EDT)
From: K2 <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Important Actions

> Hrm... right you are K2 except for one part (quoted from rule 348)
>    An attempt to do anything that requires a name to be chosen [such as
>    creating a Trinket or Organization] fails if the chosen name matches a
>    name already in use.
>
> Since we are required to 'choose' a name for the Entity, (by the trinket
> creation rule) we are by Rule 348 required to choose a unique name even
> though it's a nameless entity as you pointed out.
>
> Therefore the 'Doh!' was not legally created (it failed as above).
>
> --JT, glad to see he's not the only one who occasionally reads the first
> half of a rule and then misses a vital part further down.

I did read that part, except I only applied it to named entities, on reflection it
does apply here as well.

K 2

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Date: Sat, 30 May 1998 01:30:31 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Scoring Rule Changing Proposal RFC

> MACAVITY
>    5) Scoring on Changes to Rules Which Cause Score Changes
> 
>    Any scoring based on the adoption of any Proposal is always scored
>    according to the Rules as they were before the Proposal took place.
>    In other words, if a Proposal passes, and the rules changed by that
>    Proposal would generate different score changes than would have
>    been generated by the rules before that Proposal's passage, then
>    the Proposal's rule changes are ignored for the purposes of scoring
>    that Proposal.  [ Thus, any Proposal that changes Rule 207 is scored
>    according to the old version of Rule 207, etc.  This is to handle the
>    "Potato Paradox" when a Proposal passes to repeal the Magic Potato,
>    or the 10th proposal passes that repeals the Brass Monkey, no scoring
>    is generated by those entities for the proposal which passed.]
> MACAVITY
> #end RFC
> 
> My biggest concerns here are--does this cause a problem by only dealing
> with Proposals, and will it actually work as intended?

I would change "before the Proposal took place" to "before the effects of
the Proposal were applied", and update the part of the comment about
repealing the Brass Monkey to match the way you are changing the rule
to work.

/dev/joe

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Date: Sat, 30 May 1998 01:37:39 -0400 (EDT)
From: K2 <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ 597 (Alfvaen)

>   JT, /dev/joe, Vynd, and Calvin N Hobbes are all Enlightened.

JT was enlightened on 20/05/1998  13:23:41.
/dev/joe: enlightened on Fri, 02 Aug 1996 21:36:16
Vynd: enlightened on Mon, 23 Jun 1997 00:32:37
CnH: enlightened on Mon, 20 May 96 15:20:23

thus all of the senators (except JT)  were enlightened prior to eir being burned
at the stake on 5/05/1998  21:55:17, JT was later by a 'normal' burning. Thus
this CFJ is true, even without considering the initiator's reasoning

K 2

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Date: Sat, 30 May 1998 01:59:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email-masked] (Aaron V. Humphrey)
Subject: Acka: Acting Officer RFC

Since so much of the appointing of Acting Officers, etc., seems to lurk
more in game custom than in the Rules, I'm going to try to codify it
somewhat.  I think I'll probably take it out of Rule 401 and put it in its
own Rule, since this'll make it deserving of that.

The gist is that I want to be clear on when Acting Officers may be
appointed(some places said when the Officer is on Vacation, or something
like that), and who can appoint them.  And the whole finicky thing of 
appointing Acting Officers for oneself when going on Vacation.  I
introduce the terms Supervisor(an Officer who may appoint Acting Officers
for a given Office, and performs the Duties in the absence of one), and
Substitute(an Officer who serves as Acting Officer by default, like
Tabulator for Count Tabula or Financier for Undead-Harfer).

I'm sure it will require some twiddling, but hopefully it won't get
broken too hard first off.

Anyway, the RFC(which still leaves everything in Rule 401, but that's a
minor point):

#begin RFC

Amend Rule 401, "Offices, Commonalities", as follows:

Append to section (iv), "Acting Officers", the following paragraph
(delimited by ARGY):

ARGY
{{[ First of all, clarify under what circumstances an Acting Officer
should be appointed: ]}}

If it is the case that, for a given seat of a non-Capital Office, there is
no holder of that seat who is an Active(or Non-Voting, if such players
are allowed to hold that Office)player, even in an Acting capacity,
then an Acting Officer may be appointed for that seat; otherwise, no
Acting Officer may be appointed for that seat.

For any Office A, there is an Office B which has the Duty of appointing
Acting Officers for any seats of Office A for which it is possible, as
specified above.  Office B is known, in that case, as the Supervisory of
that Office, and the holder of Office B is the Supervisor of Office A.
It is possible for an Office to be its own Supervisory.  If no other
Supervisory is specified for an Office, then the Office of Speaker is
its Supervisory.  If there is no Officer or Acting Officer for a given
seat of an Office, then that Office's Supervisor is its Acting Officer,
except for the purposes of the paragraph above(i.e. the Supervisor may
still appoint an Acting Officer other than emself).

In some cases, an Office C is specified with the Duty of performing
the duties of Office A in an Acting capacity, but without the ability
to appoint Acting Officers for Office A.  In this case, Office C is
said to be the Substitute for Office A.

{{[ Secondly, I was always a bit unsure as to the legality of, say the
Speaker appointing an Acting Speaker when e goes on Vacation.  Let's
try to make this more legal. ]}}

An Officer who is Supervisor for an Office of which e holds a seat may
appointing an Acting Officer for that seat if e goes on Vacation at the
same time.  This takes precedence over the above paragraph.

{{[ Thirdly, this may be covered by the above, but what happens if
an Acting Officer goes on Vacation, becomes Non-Voting, etc.? ]}}

If a player who holds a seat of an Office in an Acting capacity goes on
Vacation, resigns from that Office, or otherwise becomes ineligible
to hold that Office, then at that point e is no longer an Acting Officer
for that seat.  This also occurs just before a player is appointed to that
Office in a non-Acting capacity.
ARGY

Amend Rule 403, "Functional Offices, Commonalities", as follows:

Replace the current text of Section (iv):

{{[
   (iv) Whenever a Functional Office has a vacant Seat, and there is no
   Acting Officer for that Seat, the President is to be the Acting
   Officer for that Seat, unless the rules define another officer to be
   an Acting Officer for that particular office.
]}}

with the following(delimited by BARGY):

BARGY
(iv) The President is the Supervisory Office for all Functional Offices,
unless otherwise specified for that specific Office.
BARGY
   
Amend Rule 405, "Speaker", as follows:

Replace the current section(iv)
{{[
   (iv) Whenever the Speaker goes on vacation, he is considered to be
   temporarily vacating the Office until he returns from vacation. No
   action shall be taken to fill the office. The Speaker shall appoint a
   volunteer to be Acting Speaker for the vacation period immediately
   prior to going on vacation. If there are no volunteers, then the Clerk
   of the Court shall be Acting Speaker for the duration. This section
   takes precedence over section (ii) of this Rule.
]}}

with the following(delimited by JOOLS):

JOOLS
   (iv) The Clerk of the Court is the Substitute for the Office of Speaker.
JOOLS

Also, in the square-bracketed notes in section (viii)c), replace
"duty assure" with "duty to assure". {{[ While I'm here... ]}}

Amend Rule 408, "Tabulator and Count Tabula", to replace the 
current text of section (d) (or the first paragraph thereof, depending
on whether it is considered to have one paragraph or more than one)

{{[
   (d) to handle the duties of Count Tabula when that office is vacant,
   or its holder is on vacation.
]}}

with the following text(delimited by KOOL):

KOOL
   (d) to be the Supervisor for the Office of Count Tabula, except that
       e cannot appoint a player as Acting Count Tabula.
KOOL

#end RFC

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/alfvaen/ )
Current Album--Rush:Fly By Night
Current Book--Robert Jordan:The Shadow Rising
'Fostos, szaros, rah rah rah!'

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

Date: Sat, 30 May 1998 03:50:51 -0400 (EDT)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Scoring Rule Changing Proposal RFC

>    5) Scoring on Changes to Rules Which Cause Score Changes
> 
>    Any scoring based on the adoption of any Proposal is always scored
>    according to the Rules as they were before the Proposal took place.
>    In other words, if a Proposal passes, and the rules changed by that
>    Proposal would generate different score changes than would have
>    been generated by the rules before that Proposal's passage, then
>    the Proposal's rule changes are ignored for the purposes of scoring
>    that Proposal.

This is probably going to sound picky, but ... I really dislike the
idea of dead rules still having jurisdiction, so to speak. A rule that
has been repealed, even if only for an infinitesimal time, shouldn't
have to be obeyed.

Since this idea is only applying to proposals anyway, why not just
specify that an adopted proposal is applied an infinitesimal time
after the score changes?

breadbox

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

Date: Sat, 30 May 1998 04:09:52 -0400 (EDT)
From: K2 <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Go fish

Just a note, since 23rd May 1998 has come and gome rule 1239 should be
applied. I beleive that there are currently 13 go fish in existance, but
the Runemaker should confirm this.

K 2

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

Date: Sat, 30 May 1998 04:10:00 -0400 (EDT)
From: K2 <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Phoebe

Brian Raiter wrote:

> > breadbox has(understandably)failed to post Phoebe's wisdom.
>
> DAMMIT!
>
> breadbox
> three-time loser

An just asking for a third forehead ;)

K 2

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

Date: Sat, 30 May 1998 09:25:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Tom Walmsley" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 3099 accepted

Since this is the first thing I've said about the passage of proposal 3099 I
just thought I'd say WHAT THE <CENSORED>?!?!?!? ARE YOU GUYS *NUTS*?!?!?!?

> > I must say, this is the first time I've been amused by anti-voting :)
> 
> Who was anti-voting?  I liked that Rule.  Makes more sense than many
> others out there.

Never let it be said that Acka is silly and irreverent. :-)

> > --JT, laughing his ass off.
> 
> Does this mean you're eliminated from GAD now?

No, it means he can't select songs to play.

Mr. Tambourine Man.

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

Date: Sat, 30 May 1998 10:49:20 -0400 (EDT)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 3117 accepted

> Results of Proposal 3117
> 
> 18/25 votes: Quorum achieved
> 11/18 YES votes: Proposal accepted

You people hate me, don't you?

breadbox

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

Date: Sat, 30 May 1998 11:16:56 -0400 (EDT)
From: David Scheidt <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 3123 accepted

On Sat, 30 May 1998, nomicbot wrote: 

>     ABSTAINED:
> The Mu-Cow Hunter
> 

Surely e should be pending?

rufus

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

Date: Sat, 30 May 1998 11:43:06 -0400 (EDT)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 3123 accepted

> On Sat, 30 May 1998, nomicbot wrote: 
> 
> >     ABSTAINED:
> > The Mu-Cow Hunter
> > 
> 
> Surely e should be pending?

Rule 1395 specifically states that The Mu-Cow Hunter is an active
player. Also, it wasn't "registered" via Rule 254 (or whatever), so
there's no particular reason for it to be in any other state.

breadbox
just went through all this with himself

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

Date: Sat, 30 May 1998 15:30:34 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email-masked] (Aaron V. Humphrey)
Subject: Re: Acka: Scoring Rule Changing Proposal RFC

> Since this idea is only applying to proposals anyway, why not just
> specify that an adopted proposal is applied an infinitesimal time
> after the score changes?

That might be the simplest way to do it.  Thanks!

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/alfvaen/ )
Current Album--Genesis:Duke
Current Book--Robert Jordan:The Shadow Rising
A rose by any other name would still have thorns.

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

Date: Sat, 30 May 1998 22:05:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Oy!

> BTW, (and this is directed to TGW/Mr. Tambourine Man), if I went and
> wrote a simple CGI script that given a database of CFJs one to a
> file let you search for all the CFJs with specific words, etc, would
> you want it/be able to run it?  Being able to search those archives
> sensibly would be really handy, especially for those of us who don't
> have the time to read them all :)

Sigh. This was one of those things I wanted to do eventually, when I
was still maintaining the CFJ archive. I even wrote a working script,
which accepted simple altavista-like search requests and/or a Perl
regex. Its main problem was that in the process of stripping out the
HTML tags, it lost the ability to tell which of the 15 CFJs in the
file the search had matched on. I had to set it aside after that, in
favor of more pressing needs.

breadbox

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

Date: Sat, 30 May 1998 22:30:16 -0400 (EDT)
From: JT <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Oy!

On Sat, 30 May 1998, Brian Raiter wrote:
>Sigh. This was one of those things I wanted to do eventually, when I
>was still maintaining the CFJ archive. I even wrote a working script,
>which accepted simple altavista-like search requests and/or a Perl
>regex. Its main problem was that in the process of stripping out the
>HTML tags, it lost the ability to tell which of the 15 CFJs in the
>file the search had matched on. I had to set it aside after that, in
>favor of more pressing needs.

The solution to this of course is to keep each CFJ as a seperate file (or
a seperate entry into a database) and build all the pages on the fly.  I
have to write similar code for trinket harfer pages anyway (since I want
to :) so it would be relatively easy to reuse.  The part I was dreading
writing was the search-request parser.  If you want to share the code,
I'll be happy to take a look at it.

- --JT

[-------------------------------------------------------------------------]
[ Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.                  ]
[ It's hard to seize the day when you must first grapple with the morning ]
[-------------------------------------------------------------------------]

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

Date: Sat, 30 May 1998 23:48:08 -0400 (EDT)
From: K2 <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Contaminated Wuleset

Duncan Richer wrote:

> On Fri, 29 May 1998, Tom Walmsley wrote:
>
> > > > If I wecaww cowwectly, someone just wepwaced "Spewwing Bee" with "in
> > > > the Wules", making it possibwe to wepwlace any occuwance of "in the
> > > > Wules" in the Wuleset. I think if the game isn't in a state of
> > > > cwisis now, I don't know when it wiww be...
> > >
> > > Er? When did this happen? Apparently I missed it.
> >
> > IIRC, this was in one of K 2's proposals and was in notes brackets so didn't
> > actually happen. I could of course be wrong though.
>
> It was in a proposal authored by K 2.  K 2, however, never sent a public
> message saying it - the only public message saying it was sent by
> breadbox.  So K 2 obviously could not have said it, even though e authored
> the proposal containing it.
>

[Quite apart from the fact it was in square brackets]

did I just say something ?

K 2

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End of acka-research-digest V3 #114
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