Subject: Ackanomic Digest V1 #478
From: [email-masked] (Ackanomic Digest)
To: ackanomic-digest

Ackanomic Digest       Friday, January 24 1997       Volume 01 : Number 478

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

Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 20:43:20 -0600
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka:  Proposal 1649

Proposal 1649
Witchhunt Reform
Malenkai

This is a Modest proposal

Amend R 1307, "Ackanomic Middle Ages", to replace:

"
If, in a public message, a Player refers to the Earth being round, or
implies that this may be the case, any other Player may start a Witchhunt
by sending a public message that names the alleged witch, quotes his or
her allegedly heretical message, and calls for a Witchhunt.
"

with:

"
If, in a public message, a Player refers to the Earth being round, or
implies that this may be the case, any other Player may start a Witchhunt
by sending a public message that names the alleged witch, quotes his or
her allegedly heretical message, and calls for a Witchhunt, provided a
Witchhunt is not already in progress against that player, and provided
there are less than 5 Witchhunts in progress.
"
 
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Amend R 360, "Hearings", to append the following text onto the end of
the second paragraph:

"
Any response contained in a post that does not unambiguously identify
the Hearing it is in response to, even if only one Hearing is in progress,
is invalid.
"

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

Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 20:43:28 -0600
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka:  Proposal 1670

Proposal 1670
Stop Giving Away Valuables!
Calvin N Hobbes

{The following will stop giving away land and houses. Note that they reside
with their mentors until they do get their house. This is no inconvenience
to the Mentor really, who is supposed to help and guide their protege anyway
and get paid for it}

Amend section 1 of R252 to read:

1) When a new player buys his first kaa of urban land ever, a Small house
will be given to him for free on that plot of land. This building shall be
known as their Home. This building shall also be known as "player name's
House", where "player name" is replaced by their official Ackanomic name.
Until they have their own home, new players reside with their mentors (as
defined in section 4 of this rule). New players may reside with their
mentors for one month maximum.

{The next one is to make sure we don't have cash flow problems anytime soon
when a number of players join, while making sure they can always buy their
first land by making a minimum}

Amend section 2 of R252 to read:

2) The New player is paid from the Treasury the average A$balance of all
other players divided by two, or A$400, which ever is more.

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

Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 20:43:22 -0600
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka:  Proposal 1654

Proposal 1654
Creation of a PartyChessPiece Demon -
Niccolo Flychuck

A proposal to create a rule as a member of the Party Chess Rule Suite
entitled "Creation of a PartyChessPiece Demon" which contains the
following the text:

"
1. A Demon is represented by the ASCII Character D
2. When the square the Demon currently occupies (R,C) is in the 
   range 5<R<15, e<C<o (that is between columns e and o, exclusive)
   it can move a distance of exactly 1 in any given direction, when the 
   square the Demon is on is not included in the above range, the Demon
   can move a distance of exactly 2 squares in any given direction.
3. A Demon is promotable. A Demon can be promoted only if and only if 
    there exist two friendly pieces of the same type (as each other,
    not necessarily the Demon), X and Y such that 
    (xR<R<yR /AND/ xC<C<yC) /OR/ (xR<R<yR /AND/ xC>C>yC) /AND/ the 
    distance between those two pieces is equal too or smaller than 10.
   A Demon can only be Promoted if the Swinger controling the Demon has 
   just Moved or Captured. It cannot be Promoted following a Placement
   or a Pass.

4. A Demon's materail value is 2

{{[With the new restrictions in section 3, I think that the two pawn
   situations is not very likely.]}}

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

Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 20:43:25 -0600
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka:  Proposal 1663

Proposal 1663
Amending "Winning by Paradox"
Calvin N Hobbes

{This will allow *limited* loophole surfing without problematic side
effects. That should allow for a little more clean good fun. It will also
allow us to train at paradox spotting    :o)  }

Amend R219 "Winning by Paradox" to read, in whole:

If any of the following occurs: (i) the rules are changed so that further
play is impossible, or (ii) rule changes are impossible, or (iii) an action
which would affect the game state appears equally legal and illegal, or (iv)
there exist a contradiction or paradox in the rule set that is only resolved
by R210, then a player may call for judgement on a statement to that effect,
identifying clearly in the reasoning with which of the four above cases they
invoke the call for judgement.

Such a call for judgement must also contain in its reasoning a statement to
the effect that the initiator is claiming a win in accordance with R 219 on
a verdict of True. Such a CFJ is called a "Paradox Win CFJ". No CFJ may be
called a Paradox Win CFJ, except as designated by the Rules. 

If the statement is judged True, and the judgement is not overruled, then
the player who called for judgement is declared the winner of the cycle; the
win occurring at the time it becomes illegal to appeal the CFJ under the
current rules.

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

Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 20:43:14 -0600
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka:  Proposal 1632

Proposal 1632
Parents, Children, the Bees and the Gumball
Calvin N Hobbes

{Renumber this rule to number 904, so as to place it right after the gumball
rule}

After chewing the gumball, the player must break it up into three pieces. He
should keep one piece and find two recipients for the others by publicly
posting: "I've got a chewy bit of gumball, will the following two players
parent a child with me by biting a bit?" This message should then list the
names of two players.

Those two players may either accept the offer by replying "Yes, we'll make
wonderful parents together, I'll bite", or to turn it down saying "No, I'm
thinking of running for office and I'll have too much work".

Once someone chews (not bites) the gumball, other players may begin courting
to get a piece of the gumball by saying they would accept a piece. This
courting must be done in the form of poetry. Trinkets can also be traded in
exchange for one of the bits of gumball. Only the person who just chewed the
gumball may give a bit to other players, nor can there be more than three
bits of the gumball at any time.

The player giving out the bits of gumball may give one to any player who
said they would accept one. The Poet Laureate will always accept one, so one
can always be given to him -- his poetry is just awesome and wonderful you
just want to give him a bit of gumball. Players who would accept a bit of
gumball are assumed to acknowledge transfer of the gumball and biting it once.

As soon as three different players have a bit of gumball, the Ackanomic
Institute of Genetic Replication (AIGR) will take the pieces, and process
the three into a whole gumball again. If the AIGR process the pieces, then
the three players who had pieces become eligible parents together. These
three players may each write a poem about the experience.

If the AIGR has not processed the pieces one day before the next time
someone could legally chew the gumball, the pieces are collected and put
back together anyway and the players who had pieces do not become eligible
parents together.

The Registrar should keep a list of eligible parent groups. When a new
player joins, the Registrar must choose the members of the oldest parent
group as parents to the child. All new players in the following week are
said to be children of those parents and no new group need be chosen. Once
the week is over, the parental group disbands. Players who have all the same
parents are said to be Ackasiblings. If there are no parent groups, then
that player has no parents. Players without parents are said to be
immaculately conceived. The Historian must keep track of the families.

Any parental group disbands after 14 weeks if they have had no children.
Players can be eligible parents in more than one parental group at the same
time. The gumball and bits thereof are always the property of the person who
last chewed it, until someone else legally chews it.

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

Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 20:43:21 -0600
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka:  Proposal 1650

Proposal 1650
Sometimes we want to randomly choose non-active players
/dev/joe

This is a modest proposal.

{{[ This has been bugging me.  The problem would really have shown itself
if the tornado had hit, because Malenkai would have found himself
unable to complete the random reassignment, as the non-active players
could never be chosen, and would just be stuck with 0 score, even though
(most likely) somebody else ended up with their scores.  Worse, the
reassignment process would wait around for players to become active.
There are a few other places in the rules where excluding non-active
players from a random assignment doesn't make sense. ]}}

I. Amend Rule 254, "Player States", by changing
   "Only Active players may be randomly selected for anything."
to
   "Only Active players may be randomly selected for anything, except
    where the rules specifically allow non-active players to be selected."

II. Amend Rule 255, "Vacationing", by changing
  "While a player is on vacation, the player shall not be randomly
   selected for anything."
to
  "While a player is on vacation, the player shall not be randomly
   selected for anything, except where the rules specifically allow
   vacationing or non-active players to be selected.

III. Amend Rule 402, "Offices, Related Definitions", by adding to
the end of section (ii) h) 1):
"All tied Nominees shall be ranked this way, including any non-active ones."

IV. Amend Rule 516, "Auction", by adding to the end of section 6d:
"All tied bidders shall be eligible for the random selection, including
non-active ones."

V. Amend Rule 1217, "Buried Treasure!", by adding "All such players
shall be eligible for the random selection, even non-active ones." 
to the end of the paragraph which now ends "If the condition is
achieved simultaneously by 2 or more players, the finder is determined
at random by the Officer in charge of Random Things."

VI. Amend Rule 1313, "Tornado", by inserting after the first sentence
of the second paragraph:
"All non-Sheltered players shall be involved in the random reassignment
of scores, including non-active ones."

VII. Amend Rule 1230.2, "Swingers Like to Play Around II - Let's  play",
by changing the last sentence of section 2.E. from
  "The Chess-Umpire determines the playing-order of the Party Swingers
  randomly."
to
  "The Chess-Umpire determines the playing-order of the other Swingers,
  including any non-active swingers, randomly."

VIII. Create a new rule, with text:
{{ 
Amend the Games & Contest game "Limerick Contest" by adding a new
paragraph to the end with this text:
"If the winner is chosen at random, both players shall be eligible,
even if one or both are non-active."

Amend the Games & Contest game "Ghost" by inserting after the first
sentence of the first paragraph in section 4:
"All players shall be randomly assigned numbers in this way, including
non-active ones."

Amend the Games & Contest game "Fictionary" by adding a period to
the end of section III, followed by:
"All players shall be randomly assigned numbers in this way, including
non-active ones."
}}

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

Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 20:19:58 -0800
From: [email-masked] (John Martin Lotz)
Subject: Renumbering

With all these renumbered, reissued proposals
when were they officailly posted?

Jammer
wondering about a RFJ regarding the Substantially
Simular rule?  :-)
John-Martin Lotz
[email-masked]

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

Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 20:43:22 -0600
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka:  Proposal 1656

Proposal 1656
Reorganization III
Malenkai

I.  [Leftover from Reorg II]

Renumber R 201, "Quorum and Active Players" to 107, and change its
title to "Quorum".  ['Players' moved the definition of active player
out of this rule, it should have changed the title back, too.]

Renumber R 208, "When Score Changes Take Effect", to 205. [putting the
meta-rule before the actual rules.]

Renumber R 210, "Resolving Conflicts" to 102.

Renumber R 1448 "Crazy French-Scotsmen" to 1129.
Renumber R 1630, "Happy Birthday Ackanomic!" to 1131.

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

II.  [Where to put R 1519, "The Size of Things"]

{{[With all due respect, I still wish to decouple making this rule
functional from the intent of this proposal.  As it stands, the
rule is neutered anyway by the fact that the sizes are not defined,
so setting them to 0 really doesn't change much.  Also, until some
officer has the duty of tracking sizes, I wish to not change them.

I suppose it should eventually go to 500.4, with the entity meta-rules,
but it refers to 'items' and 'structures', terms not defined by the
rules, and does not refer to entities.  Moreover, if we change items to
entitites, then both a building and what it holds would be an entity,
and we could put buildings in buildings, etc.  Not that this is necessarly
a bad thing to allow to happen, its just not well defined.  In other words,
I think some of the definitions need to be worked out better before it
is moved up with the meta-rules, so I propose to leave it at 1519 for now.
I do want to fix a couple of things real quick while I'm here, though:]}}

Amend R 1519, "The Size of Things" to replace:

"
I wish to make a modest proposal.

All Items in Acka have a size measured in thingees.
"

with:

"
All Items in Acka have a size measured in thingees.  Unless otherwise
specified in the Rules, an item's size is 0 thingees.
"

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

III.  [In the queue, some of these will be invalid rule changes]

Renumber R 1632, "Parents, Children, the Bees and the Gumball" to 1133;
then amend R 1133 to remove all text enclosed in single curly braces,
inclusive.

Renumber R 1633, "Evil Twins" to 1135; then amend R 1135 to remove all
text enclosed in single curly braces, inclusive.

Repeal R 1644, "Ridiculous!"
Repeal R 1645, "Too Many Hunters"
Renumber R 1646, "Unambiguizing ambiguities" to 714 [crime]
Renumber R 1647, "snowgod's Cure" to 207.3 [scoring]
Repeal R 1648, "Generic Proposal Title #1648"
Renumber the rule entitled "Presidential Debate" to 1137

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

IV.  [Discouraging Drift - assumes P 1623 passes]

Amend R 303, "Proposal and Rule Numbering" to add the following text to
the end of section II, sub-section 2.:

"
[Proposals should specify rule numbers for any rules they create so that
the new rule(s) are numbered into the appropriate section of the rules.]
"

{{[and please start numbering your rule creations.  The passage of P 1623
makes this real easy.]}}

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

V.  [Section Headings]

{{[it occurs to me that the rules document is unregulated, and the
web-harfer could add chapter headings to it now without changing the
game state, if he wants to, so I am going to leave this alone]}}

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

Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 20:43:21 -0600
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka:  Proposal 1653

Proposal 1653
Be Careful with that Thing!
ThinMan

{{ [ Summary: this fixes a couple small bugs with telepathy,
telekinesis, and their side effects, and adds a small touch.  It makes
the language governing when these powers are gained more explicit.  It
also fixes the problem that if a player has gained and subsequently
lost telepathy then they regain telepathy at the same time that they
gain telekinesis (if they ever gain telekinesis).  Most importantly,
I think, it specifies which "powers" may be removed by the W-File
pair.  (The current text would seem to allow any player power
whatsoever to be removed, not just telepathy or telekinesis.)  I also
added a bonus for players who manage to satisfy the conditions more
than twice, and removed the unnecessary protection specification. ] }}

This is a modest proposal.

Rule 1117 "Telepathy, Telekinesis, and Side Effects" shall be amended
to read, in whole:

A player's stars are aligned when, and only when, her score, her number
of A$, and the number of accepted proposals she has authored are all
prime.  A player experiences a minor epiphany if and only if she is
placed in the Ackanomic Afterlife while her stars are aligned.  A player
endures a jolt of personal empowerment only by correctly reporting to a
public forum that within the past 24 hours she has had a minor epiphany
for the first time in at least thirty days.

When a player endures a jolt of personal empowerment, the following
occurs: if she does not already have the ability to use telepathy then
she gains that ability; otherwise, if she does not already have the 
ability to use telekinesis then she gains that ability; otherwise she
receives one newly-created dose of psi-enhancer.  Doses of psi-enhancer
are non-tradeable entities.

When a player uses telepathy she is permitted to send one public or
private message that other rules prohibit her from sending.  This does
not constrain the recipient's interpretation of the message (i.e.
Telepathy does not permit a player to vote when they are otherwise
not permitted to do so, although it does permit them to send a message
labelled as a vote).  One use of telekinesis permits the telekinetic
player to cast one vote even when prohibited to do so by other rules --
she is said to be able to manipulate her (and only her) vote counter.
A player may vote telekinetically even if otherwise prohibited from
sending messages, whether or not she has the ability to use telepathy.

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 she is captured and taken into custody
by the W-File pair.

The W-File pair is a team of two agents, Mold and Scold.  When they take
a player into custody they inject her with an alien sedative which
destroys one of her doses of psi-enhancer if she has at least one, and
which otherwise removes whichever of telepathy or telekinesis that that
player has most recently used.  They will then question the player about
"alien colonization" for 48 hours, during which time the player may
neither take any action that would be prohibited if she were in Gaol,
nor make any use of telepathy or telekinesis.  The player is not
actually in Gaol during that time, however, and she is released after
the 48 hours are over.  The W-File pair is a named, unownable entity.

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

Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 22:27:50 -0600 (CST)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka:  Proposal 1652

Proposal 1652
Presidential Debates
Niccolo Flychuck

1. Every Presidential election where there are at least two candidates, 
   and no more than 30 candidates is preceded by a Presidential Debate.

2. If the Speaker is not a candidate for President, and no other
   player volunteers for the job then e acts as the
   Debate Moderator. If the Speaker is running for President, then
   it is his duty to appoint another player who is not running for
   President as Debate Moderator.
   In any case, the name of the Moderator should be anounced at the
   begining of the nomination period. 
   If a Moderator is not annouced, then it is permissible for the 
   Presidential candidates to engage in an Unmoderated Debate, defined
   elsewhere in this rule, provided all candidates agree to this.

3. Once the nomination period begins players and candidates may send
   debate questions to the Debate Moderator. Each player may send up to
   two questions. Each Candidate sends at least two questions, and at most
   4 questions. If there are two or more substantially similar questions,
   the Debate Moderator may unify them into a single question. 

4. Once the names of the candidates have been anounced, the Debate 
   Moderator anounces the begining of the Presidential Debate

5. All posts which are part of the Debate, must have the word 'Debate' in
   their subject line.

6. The Debate Moderator may post the Debate questions in any order, and in
   any time interval, as long as each post contains at most 5 questions,
   and the last post for any given elections is posted at least 24 hours
   before the end of the elections.

7. Each candidate may post one reply per question. Each reply has the
   folowing limits:
   a. A maximum of 10 lines of qouted text
   b. A maximum of 15 lines of unquoted (original) text.
   c. A maximum of 20 lines altogether.
   The question, if qouted,  is not counted in any of the above clauses .

8. Each candidate may reply to another candidate's reply to a debate
   question, provided the other candidate's reply is a direct reply to a
   Debate question, and not a reply to another candidate's reply. Such
   replies are limited to one reply per candidate per question, and must
   meet the restrictions in section 7 of this rule.

9. In any posting which is outside the context of the Debate, candidates
   may not quote either questions or answers that were posted as part of
   the Debate.

10. If a candidate violates any of the above restrictions, each violation 
    counts as one vote for each of the other candidates.

11. An Unmoderated dabate may take place when the conditions for such 
   a debate as described in section 1 of this rule are met.
   In an unmoderated Deabte, each candidate may post up to 4 questions to 
   the public forum. Any player who is not a candidate may post 
   up to 1 question to the public forum.
   Candidates replies to those questions are subject to all the
   restriction specified in this rule.

12. Should any of the above fail to occur for any reason, the elections
    still end at the prescribed time according to R504.

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

Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 22:28:25 -0600 (CST)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka:  Proposal 1655

Proposal 1655
Fix Guy Fakeks Gambit for multiple check
Niccolo Flychuck

This is a Modest proposal.

In R 1230.2
Append to section 3 D (iv)(e) the following text:
" In any Swinger remain in a state of chech for two consecutive
  iterations of 
 A Special DD-Turn. Then the Chess-Umpire declares that Swinger to have 
 Surrendered, and all pieces of that Swinger immediately become off-board.
 This does not change the value of cp."

Append to section 3 D (iv), preceding section 3 D (iv) (a) the following
text:
"When it is required that an Assitant Chess-Umpire be appointed, the
appointed must be made as soon as possible, and the turn begins as soon as
the Assistant Chess-Umpire is appointed."

{{[The first addresses something that Guy Fawkes pointed out, which is
that the current language allows a single Swinger to fillibuster the
entire move by keeping eirself in checkma and thus forcing a massive
Surrender. GF's suggestion was to ammend this to allow Swingers to be
checked by other swingers then the ones they were checked by at the
begining of the move. I opposed this, because it would have allowed
checked swingers to to make moves that would have otherwise been illegal.
This ammendment removes Swingers who can't can't out of this state of
check

The second fixes a point that might have cost all checked Swingers an
iteration]}}

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

Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 22:38:51 -0600 (CST)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka:  Official (Promoter)

I have now received (from myself, via the listserver) all 40 proposals 
that are currently in queue.  These 40 proposals all have the proper 
numbers.

I have disregarded votes on all proposals numbered higher than 1651.  Your
votes up to 1651 are okay, but anything above that will have to be 
resent.  Only a few players sent votes in for those (ThinMan did; and I 
believe Guy Fawkes or Calvin did, one or the other) so that shouldn't be 
too big a problem.

Good luck!

- --Mohammed
happie, like Eer  =)

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

Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 22:42:22 -0600 (CST)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Official (Promoter)

> I have now received (from myself, via the listserver) all 40 proposals 
> that are currently in queue.  These 40 proposals all have the proper 
> numbers.
	By the way, only those proposals that were wrongly numbered (and 
therefore, according to my current interpretation, were never distributed 
according to the rules) are affected by this.  The old proposals (P1632 
through P1651) were redistributed just for giggles and to remind everyone 
to get their votes in now.
	There will be a 2-day vacation before anything else happens.
	*phew*

- --Mohammed

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

Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 23:58:03 -0500
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka:  Proposal 1656

Jason Orendorff wrote:
> 
> Proposal 1656
> Reorganization III
> Malenkai

Jan 23 23:58 EST: -2 Malenkai: retract P 1656

Due to the redistribution, one of the proposals to create a rule this
would renumber (1652), was distributed with a time later than this
proposal.  The rules require the voting results of this to be reported
before that, so this would would miss that renumbering.

This retraction also allows me to catch everything in the latest batch
for renumbering; stuff distributed after this one.

Malenkai

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

Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 23:11:19 -0600
From: john duncan <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka:  Proposal 1664

Uri Bruck wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 22 Jan 1997, john duncan wrote:
> 
> > That proposal wouldn't cover  a contest like Dueling Limericks
> That is not its intent. IT's just supposed to give a greater choice. Once
> players take the time to propose some more G&C.
> 
> Niccolo Flychuck
> 
Then 1664 is hardly irrelevant.

Lestrade

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

Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 23:20:57 -0600
From: john duncan <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka:  Proposal 1664

john duncan wrote:
> 
> Uri Bruck wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, 22 Jan 1997, john duncan wrote:
> >
> > > That proposal wouldn't cover  a contest like Dueling Limericks
> > That is not its intent. IT's just supposed to give a greater choice. Once
> > players take the time to propose some more G&C.
> >
> > Niccolo Flychuck
> >
> Then 1664 is hardly irrelevant.
> 
> Lestrade

Or should I say 1662.

Lestrade
having to doublecheck all proposals

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

Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 23:56:13 -0600 (CST)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <devjoe>
Subject: Acka: Postmaster

"Zelda" wasn't kidding about returning the webtv box.  Mail for all three
webtv users is now bouncing marked "no such user".  I'm exercising
the privilege to also put Eponimondas on the digest list; sheesh, 130
bounced messages in one day.

/dev/joe
Postmaster

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

End of Ackanomic Digest V1 #478
*******************************