Subject: acka-research-digest V3 #234
From: [email-masked] (acka-research-digest)
To: [email-masked]

acka-research-digest      Monday, October 5 1998      Volume 03 : Number 234

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Date: Mon, 05 Oct 1998 06:11:15 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Duncan C. \"Slakko\" Richer" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: RFC (just about ;-)) - org reform 42

On Sun, 4 Oct 1998, Tom Walmsley wrote:

> Yippee everyones thinking, another reform of orgs up in the air, just
> what we all wanted. It's not too bad though, this doesn't contain 72K of
> new rules with lots of scams implanted purposefully throughout. In fact,
> this is barely even an RFC. It's really just a collection of random
> ideas I've had. They all stem from my opinion that orgs need something
> doing about them once again. "Why do I think this?" you ask. I was
> pondering before what orgs have actually been doing recently and
> compiled this list.
> 
> Political parties have been getting extra votes every now and again.
> Secret labs have been churning out gadgets.
> The Twits have been ammassing money.
> They have been used as a storage place for things like otzma cards where
> people will otherwise exceed their limit.
> Churches have been used essentially as a second voice for the founder
> without listening to the flock.
> 
> There is nothing in the above list that we couldn't do without so I was
> tempted to just propose repealing orgs altogether but:
> 
> a) It would take too long.
> b) It would fail. I only got about 3 votes in favour when I tried
> repealing churches.
> 
> So I decided I'd try to think up something interesting to do with orgs
> and this is what I've got (some of these are probably quite lame but
> still...):
> 
> Make political parties more crucial to the game structure. Have them
> fighting out amongst themselves for votes and supporters and whatever.
> Change things so you can be either a member or a supporter. This would
> mean reducing the number of political parties quite considerably though
> which I think is a decent goal anyway. I would do this in two ways:
> 
> Give an incentive for parties to have something other than 3 members.
> The idea of an extra unity vote at 5 then at 7 instead of 3, 6, 9 sounds
> good for this. Either that or get rid of party unity totally as we
> change the political system.

Perhaps make the political parties crucial by having the President voted
for by the parties, not the players.  (And having the Senate consist of
one Seat for each Political Party, to be filled by a member of that
Party).  If this kind of political patronage is introduced, we may be able
to do away with the need for Party Unity Votes (not that I am opposed to
them in principle - its just that a simpler system for voting might be of
benefit).

> 
> Make political parties that are VSOs into societies

If this is the case, the cost of converting a Society back into a Party
should be lowered.  It is unfair to penalise two people in a Party A$300
just because the third one left before they could find a new recruit.

> The minor problem with iths as I see it is Swingers, but it shouldn't be
> too much of a problem because I see no reason why we can't just stop the
> association of swingers and political parties altogether (it's not as if
> they're overly linked as it is).

I would accept the severing of this link if there was some way for new
people to get into Party Chess.  Currently, with the number of Swingers
involved, you need to either make a new political party or strike a deal
with an existing one in order to get pieces on the board.

(P.S.  Sorry for the delay in Party Chess plays - my Centrex forms arrived
today, so hopefully everything will be BTN RSN).

> Allow orgs to vote in certain circumstances. Maybe an org power allowing
> an org to own bonus votes, use them and bribe tamany. Or maybe just
> somethinglike each prg may vote 5 times a month and not on guarded
> proposals.

Personally I think that Bonus Votes and Tammany should actually be
combined into a single thing.  This would be a separate proposal from the
Org prop, but I'm quickly RFCing it here:

Abolish Bonus Votes and Tammany.  Give people A$40 compensation for each
Bonus Vote.
Any player may cast a Tammany Bonus Vote on any proposal by notifying the
Tabulator they are doing so.  Such a vote is automatically of the same
type (i.e. YES, NO, BAA!) as the ordinary vote they cast, and costs A$50.
Players may not cast a TBV on more than one in any set of three
consecutive proposals.  Only one TBV may be cast by a given player on any
proposal.

(I see no need to maintain the 4 BV only restriction.  I seriously doubt
that a conspiracy of 6 or more people can hold together for long, and it
is not until a conspiracy consists of 6 or more people that this system
allows more votes than the previous one).

Basically, we get rid of the Tammany rule and the Bonus Votes rule, making
a simpler system which has less different entities to track.

> Take religion further. All we have at the moment are churches. Why not
> have Gods as well? This could lead to all sorts of interesting things
> like rewards for devote church members and what have you. We could also
> have a state religion if we wanted, although not too strictly enforced.
> Perhaps also introduce some sort of  benefit for atheism?

Perhaps brain-washing reduces your Wis?
Each month a Church is in existence a Random Boon of the Ancients is given
to one of its members at random? (Divine providence?)

> 
> Well, that's my thoughts (for now :-)). Mainly I just thought I'd share
> them to see what sort of general response they got before I actually try
> working on any of them (don't have the time at the moent if they're just
> going to geet two votes each). Anyone with any further ideas please do
> share. :-)
> 
> Rambo R Minuteman.
> 
> --
> Tom Walmsley [email-masked]
> http://website.lineone.net/~t.walmsley/index.html
> AIM: TGW666 ICQ 2925739
> Bonvolu alsendi la pordiston, lausajne estas rano en mia bideo.
> 
> 
> 
> 

- -- 
Duncan C. "" Richer aka
Slakko (Lost) Warner - http://dcr24.quns.cam.ac.uk/ - Queens' College
Cambridge, 1st Year PhD(Pure Maths), CUDipSoc, CUSFS, CUSTS, CURS etc
Ackanomic - Web-Harfer, ChessUmpire, Map-Harfer, Clerk of the Court

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Date: Mon, 05 Oct 1998 06:14:05 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Duncan C. \"Slakko\" Richer" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: RFC (just about ;-)) - org reform 42

On Sun, 4 Oct 1998, K 2 wrote:

> Randy Hall wrote:
> 
> > > There is nothing in the above list that we couldn't do without so I was
> > > tempted to just propose repealing orgs altogether but:
> >
> > Hear hear!  I knew there was support for this out there!  I think people
> > like the loophole aspects of orgs you pointed out so well, even though
> > they have been around and well-known forever.
> >
> 
> the Otzma "scam" is one of my pet peeves (that and SP->BV).

Everybody's using it these days.  Perhaps we need to ban orgs from owning
Otzma Cards?

Very simple:
If an Otzma Card is owned by an Organisation then that Otzma Card is
destroyed.

Why don't you like SP -> BV?  Swingpoints need to be used for something
other than Party Chess Pieces, and I think that having Otzma Cards as the
only such option (especially when they are so close to their limit) is too
narrow.

- -- 
Duncan C. "" Richer aka
Slakko (Lost) Warner - http://dcr24.quns.cam.ac.uk/ - Queens' College
Cambridge, 1st Year PhD(Pure Maths), CUDipSoc, CUSFS, CUSTS, CURS etc
Ackanomic - Web-Harfer, ChessUmpire, Map-Harfer, Clerk of the Court

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Date: Mon, 05 Oct 1998 09:50:46 -0400 (EDT)
From: Matt Miller <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Polling?

I was considering setting up a semi-anonymous polling service and
associated newspaper.  The whole thing would be database driven and the
emails with results automatically generated.  It would allow anyone to
submit a poll (with [up to 5?] appropriate answers and a comment section.)
It would inform the list that a new poll had been added.  Some [3-4?] days
later it would tabulate the results and send them to the list in the guise
of a newspaper.  (All of this would be on the WWW somewhere.)

What do you think of the above?

Assuming you reacted at least somewhat positively to the above, what do
you think about the following issues:

- - Should I require a login to vote?  It would not be my intention to have
parties who participated identified in any way.  Rather, the login would
be used to enforce a 1 vote per person and perhaps allow me to customize
the view.  Additionally it would insure that only Players voted (not that 
I think that likely to be a problem). 

- - Should I require a login to submit a poll question?  (To ensure that
only Players create them)

- - Should the name of the submitter of a poll be made public?

- - Should the polls be serial or parallel?

I am thinking that this would be a good way to test the waters ["What do
you think of RRMs reorg?"] or just get general info about the Acka
community ["What's your favorite kind of ice cream?"] 

If you have any thoughts on any of this, please feel free to return your
replies to this list or me personally.

IB

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End of acka-research-digest V3 #234
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