Subject: Ackanomic Digest V1 #22
From: [email-masked] (Ackanomic Digest)
To: ackanomic-digest

Ackanomic Digest        Saturday, June 1 1996        Volume 01 : Number 022

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Date: Fri, 31 May 1996 01:22:08 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Ackanomic: RFC: Rule Ripper II (& discussion of P834)

> Proposal 834 - Thu May 30 22:43:26 EDT 1996
> Ride of the Rule Ripper
> Mohammed  (Jason Orendorff)

I like this.  I was thinking of doing something like this myself, but
I didn't have it finished yet; I also would not have been as good as
Mohammed about making the rules be concise.  I did specifically want to
start by getting rid of the rule with the initial lists of offices, and
adding 'functional office' as needed into the other rules.

Despite this, I still see plenty of stuff for a "Return of the Rule Ripper"
proposal. :-)

> 3.  The rule titled "Office of Registrar" is amended to read:
> 
> "The Office of the Registrar is a Functional Office.  The Duties of
> the Registrar are:
> 	"(a) maintaining a list of all registered players and their
> 	     Ackanomic names.
> 	"(b) furnishing new players with any game information they
> 	     need (current rules, the player list, etc.)
> 	"(c) keeping track of all of the titles and offices the
> 	     players hold, and who holds the Magic Potato."

You should have incorporated R792 'Head Start' into this also.
Oh well, it can happen in another proposal.

> 5.  The rule titled "Office of the Publicist" [426/0] is repealed.

Good move.  All this rule did initially was lead to the Quorum Crisis.
If anybody thinks we have too few players he can go advertise without
having an office or rule to dictate it.

> 6.  The Rule entited "Creation of a Senate" [478/0] shall be amended to read:
> 
> "The Senate is an Office with four Seats, filled by Election for
> Office.  The Speaker or Acting Speaker has the title of ProConsul and
> will be the head of the Senate.  Only when a Senate vote is tied, the
> ProConsul will cast his vote to determine the outcome."

I had wondered what we were going to do when the number of players dropped
below 10, and we needed to do something like confirm a new Justice.  Good
idea getting rid of this part:

>      The Senate will only be be in session
>      (exist) when the number of players in Ackanomic is greater or equal
>      to 10.

OK, so here's my plan for 'Rule Ripper II':

1. Merge R792 'Head Start' into R424 'Office of Registrar', updating the
   list of acronyms in the process.

2. Repeal R794; it has done its work (stupidly I forgot the repealing
   itself part when I rewrote that proposal).

3. Merge R576 into the rules defining the president, senate, and supreme
   court.  Fix up R507 (supreme court) similar to how was done in this
   proposal.

4. Change all references to ARN's in the rules to rule numbers.
   Rules 422, 691, and 709 (3 times) are affected by this; rules 792
   and 794 will be handled as above. 

5. Possibly do something with R579 'There can only be one', though I
   like the title.  At the least delete the last sentence.

6. Now that 110 is mutable, delete the part about the winner of one game
   becoming the speaker for the next game.

[These maybe should be separate from the above.]

7. While I'm amending 422, change it so that the Magic Number also changes
   if that rule is amended to change the Magic Number's starting value,
   and change the starting value to something higher since we already have
   players approaching 257 already, and it was only May 3 when the scores
   were reset.

8. Change the last sentence of 452 'Rule Titles' to 'The title of a rule
   may only be changed when a passed proposal amends the rule, or when
   another rule changes the title.' so that 703 works.

Anything else that should be done like this?

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Date: Fri, 31 May 1996 02:24:50 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <[email-masked]>
Subject: acka: more web stuff

I have finishing changing all references to the old ackanomic-* pages
to use the shorter names, and deleted the symbolic links.

I have added a page for the new Underworld party, as well as one
for What Phoebe Says.

I changed the background on the main page because the original one had
higher contrast between the light and dark portions than I intended, making
it hard to read the text on that page.

I have started on the big job of making links on all Rule references
like the proposal and CFJ references are marked.  I have done this so
far in the rules, and in a few other small places.

I have, of course, added the new proposals, retractions, and CFJ's to the
appropriate pages.

I have been considering the ramifications of rule 798 (Palindromes).
I have looked at some of the dictionaries available on line, and I think
I will choose the one marked on the main Ackanomic web page, but this
is not official (I will officially become the Web-Harfer in about 12 hours
if there are no other volunteers, and soon thereafter I will publish a
decision).  It is unclear whose job it is to determine whether a rule
meets the conditions of this rule, but since the effect is to make a
score change and award a title, I suppose this falls into the hands of
the Scorekeeper and the Registrar.  I don't expect this rule to be
exercised very often, but we need to be ready when it happens.

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

Date: Fri, 31 May 1996 11:14:58 -0400 (EDT)
From: Sean Crystal <[email-masked]>
Subject: Ackanomic: CoC

It is time for the citizens of Ackanomic to embrace the force of the
universe known as Chaos.  If we learn to accept it and utilize it, there
can be only happiness and oneness with the universe.  Trying to fight it
only brings stress and anger, feeling which are wasteful.  So I urge you
to join The Church of Chaos(fern).  Here is a small document outlining
some of our beliefs...

The Church of Chaos(fern)
- -------------------------

THE 9 +- 1 COMMANDMENTS

 1. Thou shalt not commit any action which brings organization or sense of
    order to Ackanomic life.  

 2. Thou shalt not comment any action against a follower of The Church of
    Chaos(fern). 

 3. Thou shalt worship no other idol than The Pope, for his wisdom should
    guide all in The Churh of Chaos(fern).

 4. Thou shalt do unto fellow Ackanomic citizens that which is least
    expected and most confusing.

 5. Thou shalt bring Chaos to Ackanomic in a manner which is creative.

 6. Thou shalt not bring such Chaos unto Ackanomic that its existence is
    threatened.

 7. Thou shalt attempt to obtain office in Ackanomic in order to gain
    more and better opportunities for introducing Chaos.

 8. Thou shalt exploit and challenge rules where ambiguity exists.

 9. Thou shalt respect the elders in The Church of Chaos(fern), for their
    wisdom should guide those of lesser stature.

10. Above all, thou shalt have fun with Ackanomic.

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Date: Fri, 31 May 1996 14:09:28 -0400 (EDT)
From: Sean Crystal <[email-masked]>
Subject: Ackanomic: Meeting

Considering the state that things are in right now, I think we ought to have
a meeting on IRC this weekend.  I will try to be online all weekend on DALnet
in the channel #Ackanomic.  DALnet can be reached on the server:
irc.dal.net.  I will establish it as a permanent channel so we can drop by at
any time and talk.  Hell, we might even attract a few players who stuble onto
the channel.  

The Great Old One
Pope Juan Lopez I of The Church of Chaos(fern)
UnderWorld Party

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Date: Fri, 31 May 1996 16:46:32 -0500
From: Kelly Martin <[email-masked]> 
Subject: new small nomic

we interrupt your regularily scheduled programming to announce Pnomic,
a small nomic just getting started tonight at 00:00 UTC.  the game
will be played on a mailing list, [email-masked].
the mailing list is served by a primitive mailserver at
[email-masked]; send that address a message
containing the word "help" for help on how to use it.  

anyone wanting to observe Pnomic should merely subscribe to the
mailing list; those interested in playing should subscribe and then
announce intent to play.

k.

p.s. the internomic mailing list is now also serviced by this
mailserver. 

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

Date: Fri, 31 May 1996 17:30:38 -0500
From: Kelly Martin <[email-masked]> 
Subject: Re: Ackanomic: Proposal 826 

"826" ==   <[email-masked]> writes:

826>       Any player whose proposal number, when having its digits
826> added together, equals exactly 28, may perform the Acid Rain
826> Dance. 

Players do not have "proposal numbers".

k.

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Date: Fri, 31 May 1996 17:41:35 -0500
From: Kelly Martin <[email-masked]> 
Subject: Re: Acka: Official 

"T" == T Joffrain <[email-masked]> writes:

T> Here are some stats about our rule set...
T> The rule set has 24711 words.
T> -  73 pages with Arial 10 points.
T> -  55 pages with Arial 8 points.
T> As a text file it is 170638 bytes in size.

in case anyone is interested, Agora's Ruleset (a much older document)
is 271318 bytes in size as a text file (this includes a smallish email
header); it is 40,746 words (and 7217 lines) in length.  i have no
idea how many pages it is typeset as i don't have any word processors
on my system.  line printed (60 lines/page) it would be 121 pages.
approximately 1/3 of the published ruleset is not actually rule text.

Agora have 262 Rules.

k.

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Date: Fri, 31 May 1996 17:44:44 -0500
From: Kelly Martin <[email-masked]> 
Subject: Re: Ackanomic: Proposal 828 

"828" ==   <[email-masked]> writes:

828> If any other rule or proposal contradicts this fact, then it is
828> made dormant.

what is made dormant, the fact or the other rule or proposal?

k.

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Date: Sat, 01 Jun 1996 00:33:42 GMT
From: [email-masked] (Stephen F Roberts)
Subject: Ackanomic: Protoproposal 802

Ok, so here's the Lattitude for judges proposal, could someone
help me out with the wording in the part 5 area... Does my
meaning come across? 

ProtoProposal
Lattitude for the Judges
SnafuMoose  (Stephen Roberts)

Preamble: To promote meaningfull CFJ's, judges must be given
more lattitude in thier judgements, to that end, the following
change is proposed.

The rule titled "Three Possible Judgements" shall be changed
from:

There are only three possible Judgements: (1) True, (2) False,
or (3) Undecided. A Judgement may be accompanied by reasons and
arguments, but any such reasons and arguments form no part of
the official Judgement itself.

to read:

1) There are only four possible Judgements: (1) True, (2)
False,  (3) Undecided or (4) Frivolous.

2) The verdict of True shall mean that the statement in the CFJ
is wholy true based on the current ruleset, taking into account
the spirit of the game and the game custom.

3) The verdict of False shall mean that the statement in the
CFJ is wholy false based on the current ruleset, taking into
account the spirit of the game and the game custom.

4) The verdict of Undecided shall mean that the Judge can come
to no conclusion on the truth or falsehood of the given
statement based upon the current ruleset, taking into account
the spirit of the game and the game custom.

5) The verdict of Frivolous shall mean that while the CFJ
statement may be true to a technical degree given the current
ruleset, the spirit of the game and/or game custom would
dictate otherwise.

5a) Unlike True, False, or Undecided, the Judge should include
reasoning in his decision of Frivolous.

5b) When returning a judgement of Frivolous, the Judge should
grant extreeme mercy upon both the player calling for the CFJ,
and the statement for which the CFJ is called upon.

5c) A verdict of Frivolous may be apealed as given in other
rules, and equates to False if not apealed.

5d) example: A player calls a CFJ on the statement "Player X
should not get bonus points for a short proposal because when
wrapped to 79 characters, eir proposal is 6 lines long." The
Judge may return Frivolous, since technically the rules [at the
time of this proposal] do not specify how long the lines can
be, so technically the statement is TRUE. But that would be
just too pedantic.

6) A Judgement may be accompanied by reasons and arguments, but
any such reasons and arguments form no part of the official
Judgement itself excepting where noted in this or other rules
pertaining to Judgements.

- --
just a thought
snafu
aka Stephen F Roberts  /------------------------------------\
/---------------------<  and the truth will set you free... |
| [email-masked]         \--------->--------------------------/
| http://www.io.com/~snafu       |
\--------------------------------/

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Date: Fri, 31 May 96 22:17:32 -0400
From: this is not a name <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Official: History Page Available

I've just finished the first edition of the Ackanomic history page.

http://www.nyiq.net/~epstein/acka-history/

That URL again is

http://www.nyiq.net/~epstein/acka-history/

Please note that there are a lot of blank spaces, question marks and 
omissions. Please help by filling in some of them.

Please tell me what you think of the page. (And if you think I've done a 
good job, consider voting for me for Appointer and President! :-) )

this is not a name
Historian
File Clerk
Candidate for Appointer and President

p.s. /dev/joe, please update the main page to include a link to the 
history page. Thanks.

- --
        Mike Epstein     [email-masked]     Long Island, NY
"Tell me, General, how dead is the Dead Sea?" --George Bush in Jordan
http://www.nyiq.net/~epstein/          Finger for PGP 2.6.2 public key

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Date: Fri, 31 May 1996 22:46:20 +2000 (EDT)
From: Sean Crystal <[email-masked]>
Subject: Ackanomic: CoC

After an extended bad acid trip, I have finally come to my senses.  I
don't know what I was thinking with that whole Church of Chaos thingy.

Now that my head has cleared I can see there is great need for order here.
There are far too many offices vacant.  Speak up people!  Either volunteer
or propose to eliminate the position.

The Great Old One
UnderWorld Party

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

Date: Fri, 31 May 1996 22:45:06 +1900 (CDT)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <[email-masked]>
Subject: acka: IRC meeting, eliminating LAG entirely.

I tried to join The Great Old One on IRC on DALnet, but it sucked big.
There was an unbelievable amount of lag, even when we were on the same
server.  DALnet is not what it once was.  It was worse than EFnet is now.

Anyway, I have set up a private IRC server on wilma, my little workhorse 486
that does everything.  To connect, point your irc client at
  server  wilma.che.utexas.edu
  port    9942
and join channel #ackanomic

So far, it's only private in the sense that I've only told people about it
through the list, and that its on a weird port.  It's brand new and nobody
is using it, and I'd like it to stay that way except for those of us
playing Ackanomic.

I will be there some of the time, and I will set up the server to run all
the time.

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End of Ackanomic Digest V1 #22
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