Subject: Ackanomic Voting Digest V2 #14
From: [email-masked] (Ackanomic Voting Digest)
To: acka-voting-digest

Ackanomic Voting Digest   Wednesday, March 19 1997   Volume 02 : Number 014

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Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 01:49:58 -0600
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka:  Proposal 1844

Proposal 1844
Riding The Integrity Test
Calvin N Hobbes

{{ This is a Modest proposal

[ This proposal would create riders to be attached to proposals. Note that
the constraints put on when and how a rider is attached make it difficult to
use. As a way to counter this new device, the president is granted a new
Presidential Decision, which itself is subject to review by the Supreme
Court, as well as subject to various impeachment proceedings at the
senatorial or presidential levels (phew!). This rule would add more power
and levels of interaction between political offices themselves, as well as
interactions between political bodies and player groupings. These may be
controversial at times but the system of checks and balances prevails. Note
that Riders have a very good use: correcting spelling and rule number errors
asap ]

1. Create a new rule numbered R428 called "Riding the Integrity Test" to read:

"Each Player that is elected or reelected Senator for a term of office gets
2 Riders. No one may have less than 0 Riders at any one time. If anyone owns
more than 2 Riders at any one time, ((#riders they own) - 2) Riders they own
are destroyed. Riders can be sold by the owning Senator to organizations,
churches or political parties.

At any time during the first 24 hours after a proposal is distributed, a
Senator may attach one rider to that proposal by publicly stating he is
doing so. The Senator may write anything on the rider, all as self deleting
text (and all the text should also be made public). If a group or person
that is not a Senator, but owns a Rider, wants to use that Rider, they
should publicly post the self deleting text of the Rider, asking a Senator
to attach it to a certain proposal. Any Senator may then attach it to that
proposal by replying in the same forum with a message to that effect. No
Rider may be attached if more than 24 hours have passed since a proposal was
made public. Any Rider made public but not attached by a Senator before the
24 hour deadline is considered void and destroyed.

If the proposal to which the rider is attached passes then the Rider takes
effect before the proposal becomes a rule. The Rider is then destroyed as
the proposal becomes a rule. If a Rider repeals the proposal it was attached
to, then both are immediately destroyed. If a proposal is retracted or
destroyed before becoming a rule, or fails to pass, any and all Riders are
attached are made void and destroyed.

Attaching a Rider to a proposal does not affect change the votes already
cast on it nor does it alter the deadline for the proposal."

[Note that the chronology is clear: the rider takes effect before the
proposal. This allows for patches to the proposal before it has a chances to
"hit the rule set".]

2. Amend R415 to add at the end:

"IV. Line Item Veto

The President may destroy a Rider from a proposal. This is considered a use
of the Line-Item Veto and should be accompanied by a speech, preferably
short. Newspapers are encouraged to report this use of the LIV, although the
president can only be criticized for it. It is good form for the newspapers
to misquote the president. The Senator who attached the Rider is fined A$100
to be paid to the treasury as penalty from the Ethics Commission."

[Just a bit of extra fun added with the rather bland LIV. Note the fine to
discourage abuse and ensure the price of the Rider itself is never cheap]

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Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 01:49:58 -0600
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka:  Proposal 1845

Proposal 1845
Sick Days for Sick Players
Calvin N Hobbes

{{ This is a Modest proposal.

[This allows two things. First, that if someone should have technical
problems, then implicitly, there is an additional grace period if the player
kept Sick Days in reserve, that kicks in for him. It also allows players to
take short breaks, without actually going on vacation. Certain players who
are officers have a lot of stuff that comes in waves, this would allow the
work to be spread out more, over another day for example. 24 hours can be
the whole difference between a convenient time and one that isn't ]

Create a rule called "Sick Days for Sick Players", numbered R671 that reads:

"At the beginning of every Cycle, the number of Sick Days a player has is
reset to 3. Then each player will get 1 extra Sick Day for each office they
hold.

If a player misses one or more deadlines on a day then for each additional
days so long as that player still has sick days left, the deadlines will be
pushed back by one day and the player will have one less Sick Day. A player
may explicitly use Sick Days to push back deadlines for as many days as he
has Sick Days at most.

No player misses a deadline during a Sick Day: however many deadlines would
have been missed are pushed back. Sick Days do not affect voting deadlines
and cannot be used to vote after a vote deadline has passed.

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Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 01:49:58 -0600
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka:  Proposal 1846

Proposal 1846
Dealing With The Paranormal
Calvin N Hobbes

{{ This is a Modest proposal.

[this proposal will develop the use of the W-File Pair while giving no extra
required work of the officers, save for one random determination from time
to time and perhaps keeping track of a few things (optional). It is also an
attempt to give serious credibility to this part of the rules, make it more
coherent while keeping and adding some fun. It also makes use of the Evil
Twin rule. It has five parts. There are a number of easter egg type of
references, most for the x-philes among us, but one reference especially for
the musically inclined]

[The following cleans up R1117 to create a clean new rule about the W-File Pair]

1. Amend R1117 by replacing its last two paragraphs by the following:

"So long as a player has the ability to use telepathy and/or telekinesis,
she may make as many uses of it as she likes. However, if a player uses
either telepathy or telekinesis within 17 days (408 hours) of the last time
she used one of them, then that use is considered a Paranormal Power by a
player. Otherwise, it's just considered to be another wind sheared weather
balloon and it is good form for senators to publicly deny everything about
the incident."

[The following creates a new rule that defines the W-File Pair. It also
grants them two powers when paranormal things happen, one over players, one
over nonplayers. Both of these designate someone to be "krykec", who then
writes a report to be rebuffed. This naming has effect only for this rule]

2. Create a new rule, renumbered to R261 called "Dealing with the
Paranormal" to read:

"The W-File Pair is a team of two agents, Mold and Scold. They investigate
paranormal activities and the use of unnatural abilities.

If a player has made use of a Paranormal Power then that player (also called
Krykec for the purposes of this rule) is taken in for questioning. Krykec
will be injected with an alien sedative which destroys one of her doses of
psi-enhancer if she has at least one, and which otherwise removes whichever
Paranoral Power that player has most recently used. They will then question
Krykec about 'alien colonization' for 48 hours, during which time Krykec may
neither take any action that would be prohibited if she were in Gaol, nor
make any use of Paranormal Powers. Krykec is not actually in Gaol during
that time, however, and she is released after the 48 hours are over.

If a non-player entity makes use of a Paranormal Power, then the W-File Pair
will investigate the incident. The first player to volunteer within 24 hours
will be assigned to help them, otherwise one player will be randomly
assigned by the officer in charge of random things, to be called Krykec for
the purposes of this rule.

Within seven days of being called Krykec for the purposes of this rule, the
player must write a report to be called 'W-File Case #number' (where number
is the report number). It is good form for all players to sneer publicly at
the contents of the report. At least one Scientist must write a refuting
report that should contain the phrases 'violates the laws of physics' and 'a
claw is a claw and nobody has seen a talking claw'.

If Krykec has an evil twin, then the twin will be considered to have
volunteered first for the next time this rule needs a volunteer. If Krykec
has more than one evil twin, she may choose one among them.

The W-File pair is a named, unownable entity."

[The following makes the truly harfy and weird Alien attack paranormal]

3. Amend R1743 to read, at the end:

"The selection of an existing Rule to be abducted by Sinister Aliens is
considered a Paranormal Power use by a non player entity.

[The following ensures that special powers granted to organizations can also
be paranormal. Perhaps time for the Alchemist/Illuminati/Cuthulu
Organizations to start collecting them]

4. Amend R1764 to read, at the end:

Any Powers that contain the word 'alien', 'ufo', 'gray', 'green', 'occult',
'subterfuge', 'abduction', 'unnatural' or plural thereof, shall also be
considered Paranormal Powers. Use by an organization of such a power counts
as a non-player entity use of such."

[The following makes using bonus votes a paranormal activity, which,
arguably, it is]

5. Amend R317, replacing part 1 by:

"        1. Bonus Votes are tradeable entities. Use of a bonus vote by a
        player constitutes the use of a Paranormal Power by a player entity."
}}

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End of Ackanomic Voting Digest V2 #14
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