Subject: Ackanomic Digest V1 #325
From: [email-masked] (Ackanomic Digest)
To: ackanomic-digest

Ackanomic Digest       Friday, November 1 1996       Volume 01 : Number 325

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

Date: Fri, 01 Nov 1996 00:29:48 EST 
From: [email-masked]
Subject: Acka: Rental

Considering how anxious my Whamiols have been lately,  I have no
objection to Renting one of them to snowgod,  for whatever reason e may
have for wanting one now.

Considering the original purchase price for the Whamiols,  I think a fair
sum would be A$5 per day,  or A$15 per week.

If snowgod will ack one of these prices,  I will consider it a done deel.

Habeous Corpus

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

Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 02:51:41 -0900
From: [email-masked] (Phil Ackley)
Subject: Acka: is -- Volume 1 -- Issue 1 

is
Ackanomic's most controversial newspaper
Volume 1 -- Issue 1
**********************************************************************
**********************************************************************
This advertisement is haunted by the undead of Elder Wayne.  To abtain
your own advertisement in is contact snowgod for rates and schedules.
**********************************************************************
**********************************************************************
In This Issue

1) Welcome to is
2) Special: Poll

**********************************************************************
WELCOME TO IS
snowgod - big cheese

We, the publishing house of snowgod, snowgod, and snowgod, would like to
welcome you to this, the premier issue of is.  is will attempt to answer
the tough questions in ackanomic, as while as promote the true shape of the
earth, which is flat.  is will bring you outdated information in a timely
manner.  is, and only is, will bring you fun tid-bits from the extra-nomic
community. finally is will occasionally offer fun contests and prizes for
it's loyal subscribers.

What is isn't: greedy.  We at is do hereby grant every other newspaper the
right to publish the name of our newspaper in their pages - even in
specific reference to this newspaper. additionally, is is not afraid to
speak up when controversy comes to ackanomic.  Ahould the publishers
actually get out of bed early enough to publish a timely issue, we will
gladly cover ANY news story.

Finally, a little tid-bit for those of you who may, for whatever reason,
wish to publish views that you would not like attributed to you: is has no
qualms about publishing anonymous commentary and news.  send your article
to me with your desire to remain incognito!  I promise to never reveal my
sources!

We hope you enjoy is, and find it to be a nice change of pace from the
other rags available to you.  Pplease feel free to send questions,
commentws, suggestion, flames, submissions, or trout to snowgod snowgod and
snowgod publishing.  We promise to ignore them in a timely manner.

**********************************************************************
SPECIAL: POLL
snowgod - big cheese

It is our sincerest desire that each issue of is contain the results of an
exclusive poll.  Of course, we are failing right off the bat, since there
is no previous poll to publish the results of in this issue...  However,
you gotta start somewhere.

Our First Poll:
What is the origin of your ackanomic name?

Please send your responses to [email-masked].  All responses will be
published in the next issue of is.  Also, we are accepting solicitations
for future poll topics.

**********************************************************************

Until the next time....

we is

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

Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 00:55:56 -0900 (AKST)
From: Phil Ackley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Rental

On Fri, 1 Nov 1996 [email-masked] wrote:

> Considering how anxious my Whamiols have been lately,  I have no
> objection to Renting one of them to snowgod,  for whatever reason e may
> have for wanting one now.
> 
> Considering the original purchase price for the Whamiols,  I think a fair
> sum would be A$5 per day,  or A$15 per week.
> 
> If snowgod will ack one of these prices,  I will consider it a done deel.
> 
> Habeous Corpus
> 

I will rent one of Havbeous Corpus Whamiols for A$15 a week, so yes, I
ack.  However, I suppose it is important that Habeous Corpus specify which
whamiol he wishes to rent to me.  Unless he states otherwise, I shall
assume it is his first Whamiol.

snowgod

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

Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 04:13:47 -0900
From: [email-masked] (Acting Tabulator)
Subject: Acka: Test 

This is a proof-of-concept test for a Frontier 4.1 tabulating bot.

Phil Ackley
Acting Tabulator

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

Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 04:16:57 -0900
From: [email-masked] (Acting Tabulator)
Subject: Acka: Party Chess Colors 

I checked out the Party Chess pages in preperation for my move, and I think
that the color concept is a good one.  However, I have a hard time seing
the colors for the FUN party, and my party, (None Yet).  Perhaps is a
faintly contrasting background color was used?  Sorry to complain, it's
just that I'm colorblind.  I have a hard time with any set of colors with
the same hue, however greens are especially bad for me.  I hardly ever
actually see green :)

snowgod

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

Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 04:25:14 -0900
From: [email-masked] (Acting Tabulator)
Subject: Acka: Official Tower Description 

A couple of people have asked me to resend the description for the Tower Of
Bandwdth, so here it is... Perhaps we ought have a towers page? Or perhaps
(evil grin) we ought to make tower builders responsible for maintaining an
official description of all towers they built (and them charge for
maintenance taxes on the plans if they don't :)

snowgod
thinking to early in the morning

- -------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Tower of Bandwidth is to be built, standing free, next to the Library.
It shall stand 40' meters tall.  The tower will be made of only the finest
wool - mostly white.  Weaved into the tower, with black wool, will be the
text of every word publically uttered in Ackanomic during this, the first
year of our existance.  Great foresight and planning will enable the
Tower's creators to actually include the text of messages not yet posted,
so long as they will be uttered within the first year of Ackanomic's
existance,  though they may not be readable until they are publically
revealed by their sender.

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

Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 04:25:17 -0900
From: [email-masked] (Acting Tabulator)
Subject: Acka: Let There Be Votes 

well, okay, voting results.  Let there be voting results, as soon as I wake
back up!  I got busy finishing my bot tonight, and didn't get everything
formatted to send.  Sorry.  I promise I'll get them out soon.... really
soon... as soon as I wake up!

snowgod
busy busy

BTW Malenkai - I will happily use your A$ log format in my voting results
(and everything else)

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

Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 04:35:05 -0900 (AKST)
From: Phil Ackley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: A couple more tabulator bits

When I get the final golden version of my bot completed I will most likely
use the nomic bot format for voting.  Any votes that are not in that
format won't be counted by the bot, but I will be able to add them in by
hand.  Also, reciepts will only be sent when the bot checks my mail (every
6 hours maybe, or whenever I'm online).  I would love to have it always
active, but I do not have that kind of access to a machine right now.  I
am still working on an idea that may make it possible though -- we'll see.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  I post more instructions when I am well
and truly completed with the bot.

Also, If anyone wishes to send me votes with the subject line "Hey, count
these, VoteBoy!" feel free :)  I get a kick out of some of the subject
lines you guys use.  Heck, use anything you want as long as it contains
the word vote in it somewhere... that's all I filter on :)

snowgod

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

Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 08:48:50 -0500
From: "Bollinger, John C." <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Acka: CFJ 315 Verdict

Malenkai wrote:

>I think we've agreed that if R 1276 explicitly regulates donkey
>manipulation, FALSE was indicated, and it boils down to haggling over
>"explicit regulation" and whether the Trombone clause kicks in, which
>is the difference in opinion, hence the difference in verdict.

Agreed.
>
>To my reading, covering your donkey does not have an "indirect"
>effect on the game state, but a "possible" effect.  Covering my
>donkey *may* lead to three points for a player.  Failing to do so
>*may*, as well.  It seems a cop out to say it is explicitly
>regulated in any thread where manipulation or non-manipulation in the
>way specified by the rules actually changes the game state.  The playing
>of Grab-a-Donkey necessarily affects the game state of Acka, even if
>the game is a draw, so to distinguish exactly which instances of
>donkey manipulation affect the game state seems like too much hair
>splitting for me, thus I find that manipulations of the donkeys
>are explicitly regulated by R 1276, therefore by R 592 no others are
>permitted, even if those others, such as feeding the donkey a piece
>of cheesecake, have no effect on the game state.

Slow down.  First, I do not agree that an action which changes
the game state is necessarilly regulated.  Quitting, for instance,
is explicitly _non_-regulated, even though the procedure followed
when a player quits is well-defined.  You do not seem to have made
an argument for any donkey manipulation being regulated except
that donkey manipulation may change the game state, and I do
not acccept that as valid.  Moreover, grabbing your own donkey,
if legal, has no effect on the game state any way about it, for it is
not a Grab-a-Donkey move.  
>
>This last point, which is unfortunate, I suppose, comes about because
>of the wording of the first sentence of the Trombone clause of R 592.
>The distinction here is not that the manipulation need have no effect
>on the game state, but that if the thing is explicitly regulated,
>even these null manipulations are illegal.  I believe we agree on that,
>just rehashing for the audience, (which may be as null as the 
>manipulations).

Yes, we agree here.  I think we also agree that grabbing your
own donkey has no effect on the game state.  Everything boils
down to whether grabbing your own donkey is "explicitly
regulated" by the rules.  I think that the "explicitly" in that
phrase causes your position particular difficulty.
>
>I worded it that way because of the Gumball, all of whose manipulations
>have no effect on the game state, yet some are permitted, and some 
>are not.

It seems to me that donkeys are the flip side of the coin: some
of their manipulations have an effect on the game state and
some do not, but all are permitted.
>
>I must say, I prefer CFJ 315 as unambigiously true, perhaps I will
>look into the wording of R 592 again, unless I come to an agreement that
>that is not necessary.
>  
ThinMan
conceding Malenkai's sig file superiority

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

Date: Fri, 01 Nov 1996 09:17:00 -0500
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Let There Be Votes

Acting Tabulator wrote:

> busy busy
> 
> BTW Malenkai - I will happily use your A$ log format in my voting results
> (and everything else)

Thanks much
malenkai malenkai
who wishes CFJs would be submitted in my format too
busier busier :)

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

Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 08:31:13 -0600 (CST)
From: Guy Fawkes <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ 318 (ThinMan)

On Thu, 31 Oct 1996, Malenkai wrote:

> This should be judged FALSE.  Game custom burns the witch if 50%
> or more of the votes are BURN THE WITCH!  This happened
> within the last 60 days, I believe, check the ftp archive, I could be
> wrong.

I assume you're saying this is game custom because the witch was burnt 
when this happened in the past.  However, if it was not legal to burn the 
witch, then the burning never happened, and so it never became game custom.

In short, if it was legal to burn the witch, then this CFJ is FALSE 
anyway, and there is no need to apply the game custom.  If it was not 
legal to burn the witch, the game custom was made in opposition to the 
rules, and so does not exist to apply.

Guy Fawkes

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

Date: Fri, 01 Nov 1996 09:36:51 -0500
From: randy <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ 318 (ThinMan)

Guy Fawkes wrote:

> In short, if it was legal to burn the witch, then this CFJ is FALSE
> anyway, and there is no need to apply the game custom.  If it was not
> legal to burn the witch, the game custom was made in opposition to the
> rules, and so does not exist to apply.

If it were not legal to burn the witch, then the legality of burning
the witch has been determined with finality.

malenkai
who has joined the sick of paradox cfj camp

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

Date: Fri, 01 Nov 1996 09:43:25 -0500
From: randy <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CFJ 318 Verdict

CFJ 318 has been judged FALSE.

Clerk of the Courts
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Call For Judgement 318
  Subject: Another paradox CFJ
Initiator: Guy Fawkes
    Judge: ThinMan (selected Oct 31, 1996, 22:44h EST)
Judgement: FALSE

Statement:

If a Witchhunt is legally called against a player, and in the
ensuing voting, equal numbers of "No! E said the Earth is flat" and "BURN
THE WITCH!" votes are cast, the legality of burning the alleged Heretic
cannot be determined with finality.

Guy Fawkes's Reasoning:

In the miraculous event that this CFJ escapes the fate of the
rest of Guy Fawkes' paradox win attempts and is judged TRUE, the initator
claims a win under Rule 219.

>From Rule 792:"After the Witchhunt is over, a simple majority (50% or more) will
determine whether or not the alleged Heretic has been burned."

This is a most odd way of defining a simple majority.  In a 50-50 split,
two simple majorities exist -- one determining that he has been burned,
and one determining that he has not been burned.

And for the quantum physicists out there, the wording of the rule
"whether or not the alleged Heretic has been burned" does not admit to
the possibility of him being both burned and not burned.

And so, the legality of burning this heretic cannot be determined with
finality.

ThinMan's Reasoning:

After due consideration, this judge agrees that whether or not the
player is burned under the circumstances in question is indeterminate.
This stems from
an abnormal definition of "simple majority" in R 729.

However, burning the witch is, oddly enough, not a defined Ackanomic
action.  It is paricularly not defined as an action performed by any
player or players, though that is actually beside the point.  Instead,
the rules define a player state of either having been burned or not
having been burned.  (Or having been burned multiple times....)

If burning witches (or other players) is otherwise not a defined
Ackanomic action, then its permissability under any particular
circumstances can be determined with finality by reference to rules 115,
592, and possibly others. The CFJ statement is therefore FALSE.

I also considered ruling this CFJ INVALID based on the non-action nature
of witch burning, because this CFJ is therefore not actually a
paradox-win CFJ
by my reading of R 219.  Upon reflection, however, the judgement
actually rendered seemed more reasonable to me.

I note also that according to Malenkai's records, the initiator of this
CFJ currently has the Charteuse Goose, and therefore would not win even
if this
CFJ were judged TRUE.

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

Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 08:51:25 -0600 (CST)
From: Guy Fawkes <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ 318 (ThinMan)

On Fri, 1 Nov 1996, Malenkai wrote:

> Malenkai wrote:
> 
> I have found the game custom alluded to above.  It is from a politeness
> moon voting results (R 400) mail message from september 8th.  R 400
> has the exact same wording as R 729 in terms of the 50% or more
> qualifier to the word "majority".  I ask the judge to consider this
> game custom, and consider the game custom that allows officers some
> leeway in interpreting the rules, and allows that a non-paradoxical
> interpretation is preferrable to a paradoxical one.

I originally wrote this CFJ for the Politeness Moon, but then noticed an 
important difference between the PM and the Witchhunt -- the wording of 
the PM does not preclude someone being found both polite and impolite, 
while the Witchhunt very much does.  A tie in the PM could easily be 
resolved by assigning the title Jazz JackRabbit and taking a 3 point 
deduction, but in the case of a Witchhunt, it's very clearly "whether or 
not."  BTW, game custom is that an _equally reasonable_ non-paradoxical 
interpretation is preferable to a paradoxical one, and I for one find 
nothing reasonable with an interpretation that says one set of votes is a 
simple majority while an identical set of votes in the opposite direction 
is not -- it's an utterly arbitrary assignment.

Furthermore, even if the game custom says that in the case of the 
Politeness Moon, the "No, he was not polite" votes are preferred (how 
this decision was arrived at I have no idea), there is really no means 
(other than completely arbitrary ones) to determine whether the "No, he 
was not polite" vote of the PM is analagous to the "No! E said the Earth 
was flat!" or the "BURN THE WITCH!" vote of the Witchhunt.  One might say 
it is analagous to the "No! E said the Earth was flat!" because they are 
both the "No" vote, or one might say it is analagous to the "BURN THE 
WITCH!" vote because they both penalize the target player, or one might 
say that no analogy can exist because they are separate institutions.   
IMO, game custom may indicate that one side DOES win depsite the 50% 
simple majority rule, and it indicates that this side is "No, he was not 
polite" in the case of the Politeness Moon, but it gives NO clue as to 
which side the winning side might be in the case of the Witchhunt.

Malenkai, if it bothers you that much because you see it as hypothetical 
when no one budged when it really happened, don't think of it as 
hypothetical -- consider it a long-delayed response to the original 
situation.

Guy Fawkes

- ----
A man who fights for the last crumbling pieces of his dying homeland is a 
man with nothing to lose.

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

Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 08:55:30 -0600 (CST)
From: Guy Fawkes <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ 318 Verdict

On Fri, 1 Nov 1996, randy wrote:

> I note also that according to Malenkai's records, the initiator of this
> CFJ currently has the Charteuse Goose, and therefore would not win even
> if this
> CFJ were judged TRUE.

Actually, if it were judged TRUE, I would have paid off the goose in 3.5 
days, thus winning when the win occurred.

Guy Fawkes

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

Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 09:30:55 -0600 (CST)
From: Guy Fawkes <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Proposal 1393

Proposal 1393 
More Swinger Tweaking
Niccolo Flychuck (Uri Bruck)

1. Let NoS be the the number of Swingers, excludings Swinger on Vacation,
including Acting Swingers.
2. Every two weeks on Tuesday, the following things happen:
  a. All existing Swingpoints are converted to points and are added to the
     scores of the players who own them.
  b. The Chess-Umpire awards Swingpoints to Swingers who have
     positive Weights according to the following scheme:
    (i) The Swinger or Swingers with the highest Absolute Weight
	receives NoS-1 SwingPoints.
    (ii) The Swinger or Swingers with the second highest Absolute Weight
        receives NoS-2 SwingPoints.

    (iii) The Swinger or Swingers with the third highest Absolute Weight
        receives NoS-3 SwingPoints.
    (iv) If NoS>4 then the Swinger or Swingers with the fourth highest
        Absolute Weight receives NoS-4 SwingPoints.
    (v) If NoS>5 the Swinger or Swingers with the fifth highest Absolute
  	Weight receives NoS-5 SwingPoints.
    (vi) If NoS>6 then the Swinger or Swingers with the sixth highest
	 Absolute Weight receives Nos-6 SwingPoints.
c. If it is not possible to find a Swinger that answers the description in any of the above 
sections, then that section is ignored. A Swinger who received Swinger points by one section
cannot receive Swingerpoint by section which follows it.

3. Swingpoints are Tradable.
4. Swingpoints can converted to the following items:
   a. Any set of Swingpoints can be converted to an equal number of points
	 which are added  to the player's score.
   b. A set of four Swingpoints can be converted to a single Bonus-Vote.
   c. Any set of Swingpoints can be converted into an equal number of
      probability points which are added to the CrIndex of an Otzma Card type
      chosen by the player. 

5. The process of conversion. 
  a. A player can only convert Swingpoints that e owns, if a player
	attempts to vonvert more Swingpoints than e owns, the conversion
	does not take place.
  b. A player makes a conversion by publically anouncing the fact the e is
	doing so.
  c. A player can only make a single conversion at a time.
  d. A player can only make a conversion if e has not made any conversion
     of any type in the preceding 7 days. A player cannot make a
     conversion if e has made a conversion of the same type in the 
     preceding 14 days. The default conversion described in 2a, is
     not subject to these restrictions.

6. It is the duty of the Chess-Umpire to track all aspects of Swingpoints.
   If there is no Chess-Umpire, then it is the duty of the
   newest Swinger to keep track of Swingpoints.

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

Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 09:32:14 -0600 (CST)
From: Guy Fawkes <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Proposal 1392

Proposal 1392 -- Fri 1 Nov 9:31 CST 1996
Rationalizing Auctions
mr cwm (Eric Murray)

Amend R1023 (Auction) to replace the last sentance of section 5d with "If
the Auction is Public, bids must be submitted to the public forum."
{{[This will prevent the technique I attempted when bidding on the AsSPEC
Prosthetic Forehead collection from snowgod, namely, submitting a bit
shortly before the deadline in the hope that even a "good faith attempt
the keep the players aprised of the current high bid(s)" would be
insufficient to make my bid truly Public.]}}

Amend R1023 (Auction) to prepend "If the Auction was Public," to the
second sentance of section 5b. 

Amend R1023 (Auction) to insert "If the Auction was Private, the Players
who made the N highest qualified bids shall each recieve an item in
exchange for the amount of A$ in the highest qualified bid(s) less than
their own bid, or for the amount of the minimum bid if there was no such
highest qualified bid(s) less than their own bid." after the second
sentance of section 5b.  {{[This style of Private bidding, which has a
name I'm sure someone else remembers, encourages Players to bid what they
actually think an item is worth to them, rather than A$1 more than what
they guess it's worth to the Player who values it next less than
themselves, as it removes the financial loss associated with of gross
over-bidding.  Nor does a Player see an item going to someone else for
less than they would have been willing to pay, simply because they
underestimated how much someone else wanted the item.]}}

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

Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 09:35:55 -0600 (CST)
From: Guy Fawkes <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Proposal 1394

Proposal 1394 -- Fri 1 Nov 9:35 CST 1996
Majority Rules
ThinMan (John Bollinger)

This is a modest proposal.

Amend R729 by replacing the words "a simple majority (50% or more) will
determine whether or not the alleged Heretic has been burned" with the
words "if a simple majority of the votes were for "BURN THE WITCH!" then
the alleged Heretic is immediately burned".

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

Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 09:36:51 -0600 (CST)
From: Guy Fawkes <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Proposal 1395

Proposal 1395 -- Fri 1 Nov 9:36 CST 1996
Hoping to stop the repeal R 219 movement before its too late
Malenkai (Randy Hall)

This is a Modest proposal.

Amend the first paragraph of R 219 to read:

"
      If the rules are changed so that further play is impossible, 
rule changes are impossible, or a player action which would affect the
game state appears equally legal and illegal, then a player may call
for judgement on a statement to that effect.
"

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

Transmute R 112 to mutable.

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

Repeal R 112 {{[folded into R 219, I've always wanted to do that]}}

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

Amend R 1243 as follows:

1) Amend condition 1) in the "Conditions upon which the Goose is
transferred" section, to read:

"1) Upon a verdict of other than TRUE on a Paradox Win CFJ, the initiator of
the CFJ receives the Goose from wherever it is.  If the initiator 
already has the Goose, however, they shall transfer an A$60 court fee
to the Clerk of the Court."

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

Date: Fri, 01 Nov 1996 10:37:02 -0500
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ 318 (ThinMan)

Guy Fawkes wrote:

> Malenkai, if it bothers you that much because you see it as hypothetical
> when no one budged when it really happened, don't think of it as
> hypothetical -- consider it a long-delayed response to the original
> situation.

It bothers me so much because its clear that if 50% or more of the
players vote: BURN THE WITCH!, the witch is burned.  Its a reverse
majority, in other words, a majority is needed to not burn the witch.

It bothers me that I no longer enjoy this game, yet cannot go on
vacation from it, either.

It bothers me that all this nit-picking is returning.  I'm probably
responsible for that, I don't know, but many of the writers of these
rules we nit-pick to death have either left the game or no longer
write them, and I think the game is worse for it.

We can spend our time looking for wins based on typos (I've done it too),
or spend our time building something fun.  What we are doing right now
is not fun for me, that is all.  We all have our opinions of what is
fun.  The reason it is not fun is the fact that it is clear to me that
several players have been, or are annoyed with nit-picky R 219 win
attempts.  I have deferred from calling them myself, so have put other
players wishes and the long term fun and health of the game ahead of
self-interest.  This is simply a judgement call, and I may be wrong.

You're right though, I have no right to be annoyed, and should not show
it, and apologize for doing so.  The fact of the matter is that I spend
way too much time on *work* for this game, and have no time to actually
play it anymore.  I am grumpy about that right now, and, again, am wrong
for showing this emotion.  The fact of the matter is that I can find
no solution.  I was hoping someone else would volunteer for Financier,
but apparently no one else has time for it either.

I was thinking of replealing all A$ based rules and converting them to
points, but that is just moving the work.  The problem with these 
nit-picky paradox win attempts is that they make it even less fun to
write rules, because you have to proofread them 10 times because if
you make 1 little mistake someone else is just sitting there scanning
the rules for your errors, rather than fixing them, so I don't even enjoy
writing rules that much anymore.

Malenkai
sorry for dumping, but if you're smart, you understand me well enough
by now to have deleted long before getting this far

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

Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 17:52:11 +0200 (EET)
From: Uri Bruck <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 1393 - retract (was supposed to be an ammendment)

On Fri, 1 Nov 1996, Guy Fawkes wrote:

> 
> Proposal 1393 
> More Swinger Tweaking
> Niccolo Flychuck (Uri Bruck)
Due to my carelessness I'm gonna have to retract this one and resubmit.

This was supposed to be an ammendment to replace the current "Newton,
Apples, and Parties" (or is it chess, I forget), and not a proposal for a
seperate rule. I'll resubmit this as soon as I looked the detalis of the
rule I wish to replace.  Note that this rule implicitly allows Swinger to
act to get the at least the same number of points they would receive by
the existing rule.

Niccolo Flychuck

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

Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 10:58:20 -0500
From: "Bollinger, John C." <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Financier

Unless Malenkai actually wants the Financier's job for whatever reason,
I refuse to resign and hand the office over to him.  If no one else is
interested in doing the work, then I will continue to do it in the same
fashion I have been rather than sticking Malenkai with that much more
responsability.  Malenkai has been an enormous help to me as I try to
perform
my job, and it would be a poor expression of grattitude to turn around
and
say "Thanks a lot for the help -- now you can do it all by yourself."

My offer to resign was more an attempt to serve the best interests of
Ackanomic than an effort to get out of the office.  I do not think that
the best interests of Ackanomic would be served by piling even more work
on Malenkai than he already does.

ThinMan
Financier

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

Date: Fri, 01 Nov 1996 10:59:21 -0500
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ 315 Verdict

Bollinger, John C. wrote:

> Everything boils
> down to whether grabbing your own donkey is "explicitly
> regulated" by the rules.  I think that the "explicitly" in that
> phrase causes your position particular difficulty.

It seems we have to agree to disagree on this one.  Perhaps we are
disagreeing on rendering "explicitly regulated".  Websters second
definintion of "regulation" is: "an authoritative rule dealing with
details or procedure".  I believe R 1276 is such a rule dealing with
the procedure and details of manipulating donkeys, and I believe the
language is explicit, and details several types of manipulations 
of donkeys and their effect on the game state.  

We agree that grabbing your own donkey has no effect on the game state,
and I agree the Trombone clause *should* allow that manipulation, but
I keep being drawn to:

[R 592, Trombone clause first paragraph]

> Manipulation of a protected entitiy is permissable if such manipulation
> is not explicitly regulated by the rules

By my first paragraph above, it is clear [to me, :)] that manipulation
of donkeys is explicitly regulated.

I could find for your position from a completly different angle from
different rendering of "such manipulation" in the above quote.  I render
that to mean manipulation of the entity in the generic case, ie "such" is
a rhetorical construct meaning "the act of manipulating the object in
any way".  If that is rendered to "the specific instance of manipulation
in question", then I would agree with you, but I do not render this clause
that way either :(

I'm curious, I may submit a CFJ: "manipulation of donkeys is explicitly
regulated" :)

Malenkai
winner of dueling sig files

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

Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 11:06:44 -0500 (EST)
From: mr cwm <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Let There Be Votes

How about a "formats" page?  I must confess that I never sent Wayne a
proposal in the format he requested, but that was only because I could
never remember what that format was.

- -mr cwm

On Fri, 1 Nov 1996, Malenkai wrote:

>Acting Tabulator wrote:
>
>> busy busy
>> 
>> BTW Malenkai - I will happily use your A$ log format in my voting results
>> (and everything else)
>
>Thanks much
>malenkai malenkai
>who wishes CFJs would be submitted in my format too
>busier busier :)
>

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

Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 11:13:34 -0500
From: "Bollinger, John C." <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Acka: CFJ 318 (ThinMan)

Malenkai wrote:

>It bothers me so much because its clear that if 50% or more of the
>players vote: BURN THE WITCH!, the witch is burned.  Its a reverse
>majority, in other words, a majority is needed to not burn the witch.

As you can see from my CFJ 318 reasoning, I don't agree
with this position.  I have, however, submitted a proposal
to fix it.  I note as I read P 1394 again that iy doesn't say
that the witch is not burned if the majority is not achieved;
again as I pointed out in my CFJ 318 reasoning, however,
we depend on other rules to prevent burnings of non-witches
(or not, as the case may be). 
>
>It bothers me that all this nit-picking is returning.  I'm probably
>responsible for that, I don't know, but many of the writers of these
>rules we nit-pick to death have either left the game or no longer
>write them, and I think the game is worse for it.

It bothers me, too.  At least, paradox-win attempts based on
such nitpicks bother me.  Loophole surfing is another matter
as far as I'm concerned, but there hasn't been much of that
lately.  Paradox wins based on sub-game rules bother me in
a philosophical way, too, though they are perfectly legal under
the current rules.
>
>You're right though, I have no right to be annoyed, and should not show
>it, and apologize for doing so.  The fact of the matter is that I spend
>way too much time on *work* for this game, and have no time to actually
>play it anymore.  I am grumpy about that right now, and, again, am wrong
>for showing this emotion.  The fact of the matter is that I can find
>no solution.  I was hoping someone else would volunteer for Financier,
>but apparently no one else has time for it either.

Sure you have a right to be annoyed.  The fact that nitpicky
R 219 win attempts are legal doesn't mean that you have to
like them.  And if they annoy you, then I see no reason why
you are obliged to hide it.  Indeed, I for one am more than
prepared to give you, Malenkai, a great deal of license based
on the work you have done and continue to do in this game.
>
>I was thinking of replealing all A$ based rules and converting them to
>points, but that is just moving the work.  The problem with these 
>nit-picky paradox win attempts is that they make it even less fun to
>write rules, because you have to proofread them 10 times because if
>you make 1 little mistake someone else is just sitting there scanning
>the rules for your errors, rather than fixing them, so I don't even enjoy
>writing rules that much anymore.

I actually like trying to write my proposals as airtight as possible,
but that's just me.  If I had more time to play this game, then I
would be doing more rule fixing.
>
>Malenkai
>sorry for dumping, but if you're smart, you understand me well enough
>by now to have deleted long before getting this far

Dump away!  The doctor is in.

ThinMan
pop psychologist

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

Date: Fri, 01 Nov 1996 11:14:45 -0500
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Financier

Bollinger, John C. wrote:

> My offer to resign was more an attempt to serve the best interests of
> Ackanomic than an effort to get out of the office. 

My offer to take the job was an attempt to serve the best interests
of Ackanomic as well.  I could take the job if there was broad-based
support for the following rule changes:

1) salaries paid once a month.
2) bond yields paid once a month.
3) the tabulator logs electronic potato activity and posts that
in the results with tammany (if he has a bot that could do it)
4) a transaction does not occur unless it is logged in the format
the financier wants.

In the 4th case, that may be difficult, as I still see posts that are
not logged in /dev/joe's pointlog format (I saw one today), but I
require less data in my format, so it may be easier.  I really really
hate to have a rule like that, I would just hope people would do it
because I asked them nicely.

If there is broad-based support for these rule changes (1 and 2), I 
will take it.

Malenkai

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

Date: Fri, 01 Nov 1996 11:25:03 -0500
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Let There Be Votes

mr cwm wrote:
> 
> How about a "formats" page?  I must confess that I never sent Wayne a
> proposal in the format he requested, but that was only because I could
> never remember what that format was.

I'll put something together sometime.  The CFJ format is the messiest,
and I don't expect people to do it.  All I was suggesting is that if
you are going to try, then do it right.

What is happening is that I see people attempt to do it, and it saves
me no time, because it is not really that close :)  I am really saying
this to save time for the people who are attempting to do it, as it is
not really helping me all that much, and you can use that time elsewhere.

No one has ever gotten it exactly right yet, although breadbox, ThinMan,
and Wayne have come awfully close.  If, at the very least, you can
submit them as:

Statement:

[your statement]

[your name's] Reasoning:

[reasoning]

Don't bother with the header if you don't want, that is relatively easy
to slap on, and no one has gotten the spacing right since breadbox.

The reason I put the name of the initiator in the reasoning header,
and make more work for the web-harfer, who changes it, is that when
reading a long CFJ, it seems nice to have the initiators name there
rather than the phrase "Initiator's Reasoning:".  This is especially
true if there have been appeals, supreme court action, R 563 action,
etc.  I like it right there, and its seems more personal and individual,
and I have on my fingertips the actual person, and can associate better.

I will change it if the web-harfer wants me to, though.

Clerk of the Courts

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

Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 11:30:42 -0500
From: "Bollinger, John C." <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Acka: CFJ 315 Verdict

Malenkai wrote:
>
>It seems we have to agree to disagree on this one.  Perhaps we are
>disagreeing on rendering "explicitly regulated".  Websters second
>definintion of "regulation" is: "an authoritative rule dealing with
>details or procedure".  I believe R 1276 is such a rule dealing with
>the procedure and details of manipulating donkeys, and I believe the
>language is explicit, and details several types of manipulations 
>of donkeys and their effect on the game state.  

I am prepared to agree to disagree.  I think that R 1276 is a
rule defining the _effects_ of manipulating donkeys, not the
details or procedure.  The rule everywhere uses language
of the form "if X performed <some action> on <some donkey>
and <some other condition> then ...."  Clearly this is the crux
of our disagreement, and it doesn't look like either of us will
convince the other.
>
>[R 592, Trombone clause first paragraph]
>
>> Manipulation of a protected entitiy is permissable if such manipulation
>> is not explicitly regulated by the rules
>
>I could find for your position from a completly different angle from
>different rendering of "such manipulation" in the above quote.  I render
>that to mean manipulation of the entity in the generic case, ie "such" is
>a rhetorical construct meaning "the act of manipulating the object in
>any way".  If that is rendered to "the specific instance of manipulation
>in question", then I would agree with you, but I do not render this clause
>that way either :(

Instead of arguing this point, as I'm not sure whether or not
I agree, I am proposing a change that would make R 592
read that way.
>
>I'm curious, I may submit a CFJ: "manipulation of donkeys is explicitly
>regulated" :)

Make sure it doesn't get assigned to me :)

ThinMan

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

End of Ackanomic Digest V1 #325
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