Subject: Ackanomic Digest V1 #479
From: [email-masked] (Ackanomic Digest)
To: ackanomic-digest

Ackanomic Digest       Friday, January 24 1997       Volume 01 : Number 479

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

Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 00:05:01 -0600
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <devjoe>
Subject: Acka: *ping* 

Today is Friday, the 24th day of January, in the Year of Our Lord 1997, 
and the Machine That Goes *ping* Has Gone *ping* today. 
Since I have been scholar, the Machine has gone *ping* 10 times. 

/dev/joe
Scholar of *ping*

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

Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 01:04:14 -0500
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Boons

[Boons]

> Malenkai:   ancient relic: Trinket worth A$75, Must Describe

The Trinket is the 'Amulet of Saaramaa'.  It is a beautifully polished,
rather large, piece of ancient amber on a gold chain.  Encased in the
amber is a frog, with skin of gold.  It is said that when gazing into
the Amulet, a telepathic bond is formed with the Golden Frog, who
whispers ancient Truths.  This is a rather nice feature, because usually
arduous quests are required to gain an audience with the Golden Frog.

- ----

Upon my gazing into the stone, the Frog filled my mind with visions of
a vault, and visions of wealth.

- ----

I am creating the following two Trinkets:

Codex of Jara (value A$1):  The Codex of Jara is a rather tattered old
tome, but it is said that it contains clues to the rather difficult
treasures of Jara, which are revealed to anyone who possesses and
studies it.

The Golden Frog (value A$600):  The Golden Frog is an ancient wonder;
a knower of Truth.  It is also quite valuable.

Malenkai

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

Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 09:02:55 +0200 (EET)
From: Uri Bruck <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: strange bot occurences

On Thu, 23 Jan 1997, Malenkai wrote:

> Jason Orendorff wrote:
> 
> [about the proposal distribution problem]
> 
> >         Crisis Resolution is my personal favorite choice.  I beg the
> > speaker to declare a State of Crisis promptly.

> 
> First of all, the President must also participate in a Crisis fix.  The
> President has been silent on the issue, and I would like his opinion
> before proceeding.

I have been following this discussion closely and I think that this is not
a good enough reason to call a Crisis Fix. It would set a dangerous
precedent, and send a message that we are advocating chaos and
lawlessness.  I like neither the precedent nor the message. The messages
in question are proposal look-alikes. The real proposals are yet to be
distributed, and the sooner the better.

Niccolo Flychuck
Presisdent

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

Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 09:47:59 +0200 (EET)
From: Uri Bruck <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka:  Proposal 1661

I likethis proposal. this is the kind of interaction between Otzma Cards
and other game entities, such as Gadgets, that I'd like to see.
It has sufficient checks built in to make it a safe one to.
Niccolo Flychuck

On Thu, 23 Jan 1997, Jason Orendorff wrote:

> Proposal 1661
> Otzma Card of type Scientist for a Day
> Guy Fawkes
> 
> 
> Create a new rule, a member of the Otzma Cards Rule Suite, with text as 
> follows.
> 
> A Card of this type may be played only in the public forum.  A player who 
> does so pays A$20.
> 
> In the message in which a player states he is playing a card of this 
> type, he may also include exactly one collection of text which he would 
> like to see as a new Blueprint.  This text becomes a new Brueprint in the 
> Blueprint Archive; this Blueprint is said to be created by the player who 
> played the Scientist for a Day Otzma Card.
> 
> If at least 5 active players, or 20% of the active players, whichever is 
> greater, publically protest this Blueprint within 3 days of its creation, 
> it is destroyed,and its creator loses 10 points.
> 
> Counter-Action:  Any Blueprint created by the use of the countered 
> Scientist for a Day Card is destroyed. 
> 

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

Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 10:28:38 +0200 (EET)
From: Uri Bruck <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka:  Proposal 1664

On Thu, 23 Jan 1997, 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

I was aking two different points.
The fact that an earlier proposal migh ammend the same paragraph will make
1664 ineffective, because the text it would attempt to ammend woud no
longer exist. It would probably work if it were to append the part about
restricting voting. My other point was that I disagree with the
ammendment. These two are unrelated to each other. 
I hope this clears this up.

Niccolo Flychuck

 > 

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

Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 00:46:15 -0900
From: Phil Ackley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Internomic Re: ICJ, or What is a Nomic? 

Ackanomians,

I encourage all of you to read this post from Anthony Baily to Internomic
and consider what we should write in reply to it.  Bronze torch holders are
especially encouraged.  I know this is a matter that concerns ThinMan.

snowgod

>Sender: [email-masked]
>Precedence: bulk
>Reply-To: [email-masked]
>Date: Fri, 24 Jan 97 08:40:57 GMT
>From: Anthony Bailey <[email-masked]>
>To: [email-masked]
>Cc: [email-masked]
>Subject: Re: ICJ, or What is a Nomic?
>
>I wish to thank Dr West of Pumpkin Patch for eir comments on the
>proposed InCJ. E has much of interest to say. For the moment I would
>like to look at one section of eir comments in particular, which may
>have opened another interesting can of worms.
>
>
>> As for the authority of the ICJ's ruling, it is true that 320
>> nowhere states that an ICJ judgment must guide the member nomic. But
>> then, the Internomic rules don't explicitly say that a judgment on
>> an Internomic CFJ must guide Internomic play.
>
>My first thought on reading this... *oh nooooo....*
>
>Internomic
>212.  Any nomic may submit a statement for judgement to the moderator.
>      Upon receipt of such a statement, the moderator must randomly
>      select a member to judge the statement.  The moderator must then
>      distribute the statement and the identity of the judge to all
>      member nomics.
>213.  A nomic which has been selected to judge must deliver judgement
>      within two weeks by sending its judgement to the moderator, who
>      must then distribute the judgement to all members.  A legal
>      judgement is either "true" or "false", and must be in accordance
>      with the rules.
>
>E is correct. I think the fact that one particular member nomic has
>formally rather than informally judged the truth of some statement
>means no more than that.
>
>I claim that Internomic is not in any way regulated by the results
>returned by a statement for judgement. For obvious reasons, I do not
>intend to submit this as a statement for judgement. I believe the
>question will have to be decided by collaboartive debate amongst the
>members, and that whatever answer is arrived at, some action should be
>taken to enshrine some workable system unambiguously in the letter of
>the law.
>
>> Neither do the Patch's rules explictly say that players must abide
>> by the results of a CFJ.
>
>Well, this of course started me checking the various rules relating to
>the judgement processes of our member nomics...
>
>Pumpkin Patch's situation is the most similar to Internomic's of all
>the other members. But see my concluding comments.
>> Pumpkin Patch
>> M-213
>> If players disagree about the legality of a move or the interpretation
>> or application of a rule, then a player may invoke judgment by
>> submitting a statement (Call For Judgment, or CFJ) to the Pumpkin...
>
>There are no problems in Peter Suber's initial set:
>> 212. If players disagree about the legality of a move or the
>>      interpretation or application of a rule, then the player
>>      preceding the one moving is to be the Judge and decide the
>>      question... This process is called invoking Judgment...
>>      Unless a Judge is overruled, one Judge settles all questions
>>      arising from the game until the next turn is begun, including
>>      questions as to his or her own legitimacy and jurisdiction as
>>      Judge.
>
>Agora seems fine:
>> Rule 991/3 (Semimutable, MI=2)
>> Invoking Judgement
>>       Any Player who seeks formal resolution of any dispute pertaining
>>       to this Nomic shall be permitted to request such by submitting a
>>       Call for Judgement to the Clerk of the Courts.
>> Rule 591/6 (Mutable, MI=1)
>> Legal Judgements
>>       ...A CFJ has been Judged when a legal Judgement has been
>>       received by the Clerk.
>
>Ackanomic is less water-tight but still pretty clear:
>> Rule 211/10
>> Invoking Judgement
>>      Any active player who has a question or complaint about any
>>      matter concerning the laws and their interpretation may email
>>      their statement to the Clerk of the Court, who will then
>>      distribute it to the rest of the Players. A call for judgement
>>      is then incurred on that statement...
>> Rule 216/0
>> Judgements Are Not Rules
>>      If a statement on which Judgement has been called is Judged to
>>      be true, and that Judgement is not overruled, it does not
>>      thereby become a rule, or any part of a rule. It merely becomes
>>      an explicit part of currently accepted game custom.
>
>Thring is complicated by a two stage process, but nonetheless is again
>fairly clear:
>> Rule 213
>> If a Player is concerned about scores, rule or proposal numbers, the
>> application of a rule or other matters that e considers to be minor, e
>> may raise a Point of Order... The Speaker, or eir nominee, must then
>> decide what is the correct solution to the problem... The Speaker, or
>> eir nominee, may take corrective actions to rectify any previously
>> incorrect actions at this stage... A Player, after raising a Point of
>> Order, may then invoke a Judgement if they are unhappy with the
>> outcome of the Point of Order...
>
>To return to Dr West's comments:
>> The authority of the judgment is rightly assumed--why would you
>> set up a judicial process if that process is not going to have
>> authority?
>
>I think this is at least as strong as the precedent that will be set
>if we consider Ackanomic's win to have been invalid.. why set up a
>points scoring process if that process is arbitrary? I note that there
>is at least considerable debate over this matter in Internomic at
>present. (c:
>
>> In the absence of an explicit statement that the ICJ has only the
>> authority granted to it by member nomics' rules, I would assume that
>> the ICJ's judgments *are* binding for member nomics. This seems to
>> me to be the default.
>
>Crikey. I think there are probably some deep-set philosophical
>differences here that it may be of benefit to explore. I can't really
>agree here, and I think the reasons for my disagreement also apply to
>Internomic's Judgement process. They don't necessarily apply to those
>of any of the other member nomics.
>
>There is some reliance in some of the weaker rule-sets (e.g. Pumpkin
>Patch) on the question of what it commonly means in English to "judge"
>a matter which is not immediately obvious to decide and over which
>their is dispute. I might be inclined to have at least some sympathy
>with this sort of argument, but to be honest I am quite a literalist
>in these matters, and I'm not sure the argument is powerful enough.
>
>In particular, in the case of the InCJ, and of Internomic's sfj
>process itself, the statements submitted are arbitrary things. They do
>not have to be matters connected with interpretations of rules or
>validity of moves in a game of Nomic. Since they may concern things
>which are partly or wholly outside the authority of Internomic, a
>judgement can hardly be seen to be any more than an individual
>formally stated opinion, which people may respect if they feel so
>inclined or if other legislation tells them they must. A "judgement"
>in this context is surely simply a "considered belief."
>
>The only default at work that would give "judgement" a stronger
>meaning here is the way that processes involving abstractions called
>"judgements" have worked in other legal systems, in particular
>Nomics. I do not find these defaults to be a reasonable substitute for
>explicit rules. I think Rule 114 holds sway...
>
>Your thoughts, please, Internomic subscribers?
>--
>@*-.,_,.-`'-=*@@*=-`'-.,_,.-*@  For my contact details, and information on the
>|          Anthony.          |  bands Pulp, Saint Etienne, and the
>Kitchens OD,
>@*-.,_,.-`'-=*@@*=-'`-.,_,.-*@  home's
><URL:http://WWW.CS.Man.ac.UK/~baileya/>.
>Anthony Bailey studies for a CompSci/Maths PhD at the University of Manchester
>

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

Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 01:26:07 -0900
From: Phil Ackley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Intenromic: SFJ 4 Verdict 

Ackanomians,

A verdict of False has been returnedby thring on SFJ 4.  I am distributing
it in the case that I am Moderator.  Verdicts on SFJ 5 (in both
threads)>are still outstanding.

snowgod

>>>Statement:
>>>
>>>     Voting members of Internomic may vote exactly twice per
>>>     proposal.
>>>
>>>Arguments of Caller:
>>>
>>>206.  Each voting member may vote exactly once per proposal. Nonvoting
>>>      members may not vote.
>>>
>>>Per Internomic rule 114 (permissibility of the unprohibited except for
>>>rule changes), this says that each voting member *may* vote exactly
>>>once per proposal, but it does not necessarily prevent them from voting
>>>twice; after all, it doesn't prevent them from voting zero times.
>>
>>Thring finds the statement for judgement to be false.
>>
>>Thring notes that this verdict may have no legal force as we are
>>uncertain as to the change in the official status of a current
>>statement for judgement if a new game is started due to a win of the
>>old one, as may well have occurred.
>>
>>Thring's verdict was reached as follows.
>>
>>The claim would seem to rest on the interpretation of the phrase "may
>>vote exactly once" in the first sentence of Rule 206. There would seem
>>to be two possible ambiguities in this phrase
>>
>>Firstly, what is meant by the word "may", "can", "can only" or "must"?
>>
>>Quoting from the Webster dictionary for "may" as a verb the relevant
>>three clauses seem to be
>>>   1: have the ability to : CAN
>>>   2a: have permission to {you ~ go now} : have liberty to - used
>>>       nearly interchangeably with can"
>>The above definitions support the first meaning.
>>>   5: SHALL, MUST - used in law where the sense, purpose, or
>>>                    policy requires this interpretation
>>Whereas this one supports the latter two. It may be relevant that
>>Internomic rules are phrased and interpreted somewhat like laws.
>>
>>The second ambiguity concerns whether the phrase should be parsed as
>> "(may vote) (exactly once)"
>>or as
>> "may (vote exactly once)"?
>>
>>The caller is pushing for an interpretation where "may" means "can"
>>and the phrase is parsed as "may (vote exactly once)". E argues that
>>with this parsing "may" cannot mean "must" or "can only" since this
>>would exclude members from voting no times.
>>
>>Thring notes that the idea that a member must vote on all proposals is
>>no less contrary to expectation and custom than the idea that a member
>>might vote two times. Whilst game spirit cannot actually be invoked to
>>argue against the statement, nor can it be used to argue for it. For
>>this reason, Thring would be inclined to ignore this argument even if
>>this were the only way to parse the phrase.
>>
>>However, Thring anyway believes that the phrase is better parsed as
>>"(may vote) (exactly once)" with an implicit conjunction between these
>>two sub-phrases, and that the use of "may" is closest to "can only."
>>Thring reads the phrase as "has the ability to vote only as long as
>>they do so exactly once" and finds this reading to forbid voting
>>twice.
>>
>>It is expected that Luke Schubert, former Internomic liaison for
>>Thring, will take up eir post again shortly. It's been fun,
>

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

Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 15:20:06 +0200 (EET)
From: Uri Bruck <[email-masked]>
Subject: acka: Swingpoint conversion

I am converting 4 Swingpoints to 1 Bonus Vote
As a result I now have no Swingpoints, and 1 Bonus Vote.

Niccolo Flychuck

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

Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 08:22:10 -0500
From: "Bollinger, John C." <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Acka:  Proposal 1671

>
>Proposal 1671
>A Small But Non-Trivial Detail
>Guy Fawkes
>
>
>This is a Modest proposal.  Amend Rule 211 as follows:
>
>In the fourth paragraph, change the first occurrence of "to the
>statement
>of a CFJ" to "to the statement of another CFJ".
>
>In the sixth paragraph, change the first occurrence of "to the statement
>of a Paradox win CFJ" to "to the statement of another Paradox Win CFJ".

Once again, I repeat: I already have a proposal in the queue (1636)
to fix this.  Its voting period will expire soon if it has not
already.  Proposal 1671 will, I think, be null because of my
rewrite, assuming the passage of 1636.

ThinMan

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

Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 08:38:51 -0500
From: "Bollinger, John C." <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Acka: new bot command

Mohammed wrote:

[about retraction]
[I wrote:]
>> It seems, however, that one could make a public post out of an
>> Acrobot command.  That would satisfy all legal and technical
>> requirements.
>	Unfortunately, this would not work; Acrobot would not know who was 
>sending the message.

Why not?  Majordomo does not modify the From: header line of the
mail messages that it forwards.  Look for yourself.

ThinMan

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

Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 08:45:50 -0500
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Bartender

In accordance with the rules, I am required to select another
bartender for the current Holiday.  Robert Sevin's tenure is over.

The new bartender is mr cwm.

Malenkai

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

Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 10:08:11 -0500
From: "Bollinger, John C." <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Acka: Internomic Re: ICJ, or What is a Nomic?

Anthony Baily wrote:

>>I wish to thank Dr West of Pumpkin Patch for eir comments on the
>>proposed InCJ. E has much of interest to say. For the moment I would
>>like to look at one section of eir comments in particular, which may
>>have opened another interesting can of worms.
>>
>>> As for the authority of the ICJ's ruling, it is true that 320
>>> nowhere states that an ICJ judgment must guide the member nomic. But
>>> then, the Internomic rules don't explicitly say that a judgment on
>>> an Internomic CFJ must guide Internomic play.

[Internomic rules 212 and 213 deleted]
>
>>E is correct. I think the fact that one particular member nomic has
>>formally rather than informally judged the truth of some statement
>>means no more than that.

I came to the same conclusion after my recent reading of the Internomic
ruleset.  

>>I claim that Internomic is not in any way regulated by the results
>>returned by a statement for judgement. For obvious reasons, I do not
>>intend to submit this as a statement for judgement. I believe the
>>question will have to be decided by collaboartive debate amongst the
>>members, and that whatever answer is arrived at, some action should be
>>taken to enshrine some workable system unambiguously in the letter of
>>the law.

This appears to be a workable, perhaps the only workable, course of
action.

[Deleted: Of Internomic member nomics, only Pumpkin Patch's ruleset
fails to give some official authority to the verdicts of official
judgements.]
>
>>To return to Dr West's comments:
>>> The authority of the judgment is rightly assumed--why would you
>>> set up a judicial process if that process is not going to have
>>> authority?
>>
>>I think this is at least as strong as the precedent that will be set
>>if we consider Ackanomic's win to have been invalid.. why set up a
>>points scoring process if that process is arbitrary? I note that there
>>is at least considerable debate over this matter in Internomic at
>>present. (c:

Being a relatively-strict-constructionist (at least as such things
are measured in Ackanomic), I must concur with Mr. Bailey.  The rules
of a Nomic are not required to be sensible or logical, and only by
general agreement or "game custom" can assumptions such as the one
that Dr. West suggests be given validity.  Personally, I find it
distatsteful to simply handwave away problems with the rules; for me
it is part of the game, and fun, of Nomic to find and fix loopholes
and bugs in the rules (and occasionally to make use of them  :-)  I
think that all members will agree that judgements _should_ have
authority, but I hope that members will agree that they currently
don't.

The matter of the validity of Ackanomic's win attempt is, to me, a
more interesting philosophical question.  Agora seems to be giving
great consideration to an argument that not everything permissible
is possible, and that among the permissible but impossible actions
is that of a member nomic adjusting its own score.  The validity or
invalidity of the underlying assertion, that permissible does not
imply possible, will have far-reaching effects on Internomic.  I
will not further argue the matter here, however.

>>> In the absence of an explicit statement that the ICJ has only the
>>> authority granted to it by member nomics' rules, I would assume that
>>> the ICJ's judgments *are* binding for member nomics. This seems to
>>> me to be the default.
>>
>>Crikey. I think there are probably some deep-set philosophical
>>differences here that it may be of benefit to explore. I can't really
>>agree here, and I think the reasons for my disagreement also apply to
>>Internomic's Judgement process. They don't necessarily apply to those
>>of any of the other member nomics.

It is certainly the case that the majority of member nomics find
it useful, if not necessary, to explicitly grant authority to
their official judgements.  I do not agree that ICJ's should be
binding by default.  I think it would be a dangerous precedent to
decide that we can enforce what the rules _should_ say instead
of what they actually do say.  I guess that Dr. West's argument
is that the rules don't need to explicitly grant authority to
judgements, but that begs the question of which things the rules
need to state specifically and which they don't.  I do not think
that we want to take Internomic there.

>>There is some reliance in some of the weaker rule-sets (e.g. Pumpkin
>>Patch) on the question of what it commonly means in English to "judge"
>>a matter which is not immediately obvious to decide and over which
>>their is dispute. I might be inclined to have at least some sympathy
>>with this sort of argument, but to be honest I am quite a literalist
>>in these matters, and I'm not sure the argument is powerful enough.

Ackanomic gives default recognition to common English usage, but
it also recognizes that the rules appropriate some words for their
own, modified, use.  Common English usage custom does not apply to
such appropriated words, and Ackans might consider "judgement" to
fall into this category.

>>In particular, in the case of the InCJ, and of Internomic's sfj
>>process itself, the statements submitted are arbitrary things. They do
>>not have to be matters connected with interpretations of rules or
>>validity of moves in a game of Nomic. Since they may concern things
>>which are partly or wholly outside the authority of Internomic, a
>>judgement can hardly be seen to be any more than an individual
>>formally stated opinion, which people may respect if they feel so
>>inclined or if other legislation tells them they must. A "judgement"
>>in this context is surely simply a "considered belief."

I have to question this argument, however.  Ackanomic has a rule that
says that the Earth is flat.  For the purposes of Ackanomic, therefore,
the Earth is flat.  I am told that Agora is a toroid, if I recall
correctly.  To whatever extent Internomic judgements and rules
disagree with our knowledge or expectations of the real world, we can
claim that Internomic is seperate from the real world.  The question,
then, is whether such distinction is valid.

>>The only default at work that would give "judgement" a stronger
>>meaning here is the way that processes involving abstractions called
>>"judgements" have worked in other legal systems, in particular
>>Nomics. I do not find these defaults to be a reasonable substitute for
>>explicit rules. I think Rule 114 holds sway...

I must agree.

John Bollinger
ThinMan of Ackanomic
[email-masked]

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

Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 10:09:14 -0500
From: "Bollinger, John C." <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Acka: Internomic Re: ICJ, or What is a Nomic?

snowgod,

Please forward some or all of my comments in response to Anthony Bailey
to the Internomic list, as you feel appropriate.

ThinMan

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

Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 09:36:57 -0600
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka:  Proposal 1674

Proposal 1674
Squeal
breadbox

This is a modest proposal

Any player who submits more than four proposals within any 24 hour
period shall automatically incur a penalty of 3 points. Furthermore,
they shall be deemed to be silly and shall be assigned by the Speaker
the name of a farmyard animal, which must be used in all subsequent
communications when referring to them while they are silly.

If a player was already silly at the time they infringed this rule,
the Speaker shall assign them the name of a different, preferably
larger, farmyard animal.

A player ceases to be silly 7 days after their most recent
infringement of this rule.

{{Renumber this rule to 1128.}}

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

Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 09:36:54 -0600
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka:  Proposal 1673

Proposal 1673
Reorganization IIIa
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"]

{{[you've seen my justification of this a few times, now :)]}}

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 713.1 [crime]
Renumber R 1647, "snowgod's Cure" to 207.3 [scoring]
Repeal R 1648, "Generic Proposal Title #1648"
Renumber R 1652, "Presidential Debate" to 1137

Renumber R 1667, "Free Breakfast" to 1139; then amend R 1139 to remove
the sentence which reads: "This is neither a modest nor a grandeous
proposal", and to replace all left and right curly braces with 
left and right square brackets, respectively.

Renumber R 1672, "Constructions and Architectural Aesthetic" to 846;
then amend R 846 to remove all text enclosed in single curly braces,
inclusive.
 
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------

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: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 10:20:50 -0600 (CST)
From: Guy Fawkes <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 1669

ThinMan's assertion that this would be a null proposal if his P1636 
passes is untrue.  This proposal (1669) contains two rule changes, only the 
second of which would be invalidated by the passage of P1636.  However, the 
first of the two is a necessary rule fix _not_ addressed by P1636: _any_ 
CFJ, paradox win or otherwise, can be invalidated due to self-similarity 
under the current ruleset (see the fourth paragraph of Rule 211, which 
would not be altered by ThinMan's Proposal 1636.)

Note that should both proposals pass, this one will not undo any 
changes made my 1636; the text string to be replaced in the final 
paragraph will no longer exist.

Both of these proposals must pass to wholly fix the two variations 
of the same loophole detected by ThinMan and I.  ThinMan's fixes the 
order of precedence problem with respect to Paradox Win CFJ's; mine fixes 
the self-similarity problem found in any CFJ.  Note that order of 
precedence should not be a problem in the general case -- paragraph four 
states that CFJ's which might be used to invalidate each other must be by 
the same player, so Player A could not write a CFJ to invalidate Player 
B's paradox win.

If ThinMan's alone passes, self-similarity invalidation could still be 
used to deny a paradox win.  If mine alone passes, a cheesy duplicate 
could be used to the same effect.

Guy Fawkes 

On Thu, 23 Jan 1997, Jason Orendorff wrote:

> Proposal 1669
> A Small But Non-Trivial Detail
> Guy Fawkes
> 
> 
> This is a Modest proposal.  Amend Rule 211 as follows:
> 
> In the fourth paragraph, change the first occurrence of "to the
> statement
> of a CFJ" to "to the statement of another CFJ".
> 
> In the sixth paragraph, change the first occurrence of "to the statement
> of a Paradox win CFJ" to "to the statement of another Paradox Win CFJ".
> 
> 

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

Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 11:40:10 -0500 (EST)
From: mr cwm <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Bartender

To:   Ackanomians
From: mr cwm, bartender

Well, this ought to be interesting, since, if I remember correctly, my
frinking experience consists of a coke and a spring water.  All right
then, step on up, but if you order something unusual, you might have to
tell me how to make it, or at least tell me what category it falls in for
billing purposes.  And let's see if we can move some of these munchies!

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

Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 11:49:45 -0500 (EST)
From: mr cwm <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka:  Boon (Must Describe)

To:   Ackanomians
From: mr cwm

Clever, these Ancients, distributing Boons that Must be Described.

Mine is a lovely locket, expertly fashioned of material from the other
side of the Universe, whose name is called The Haddocks' Eyes Locket. 
Engraved on the outside is a monogram, so ornate that its identity cannot
be determined with finality.  Within, on the left, is an incredibly
accurate photograph of the open locket and its contents.  On the right, a
likeness of the Rev. Charles Dodgson, so lifelike that one can almost hear
him reciting "A-Sitting on a Gate."  (Those of us with three ears might
actually be able to hear him ... )

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

Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 09:37:14 +0000
From: "The Day Today" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: The Day Today: Real News!

NO CRISIS IN ACKANOMIA CLAIMS PRESIDENT

PROMOTER BEGS SPEAKER TO INTERVENE

By Querl Xoralundra IV, political correspondent

The President, Niccolo Flychuck, moved today to quash calls for a 
State of Crisis to be declared in Ackanomic, writes Querl Xoralundra 
IV.

He announced, "This is not a good enough reason to call a Crisis Fix.
It would set a dangerous precedent". Declaring a State of Crisis
would "send a message that we are advocating chaos and lawlessness".

The Speaker, Malenkai, had previously been under pressure to declare
a State of Crisis following the distribution of forged proposals
sanctioned by Mohammed, the Promoter.

The bogus proposals have been coming out of the Promoter's office
since Tuesday. The problem was first noticed by Malenkai, who
observed that there was no proposal numbered 1652 although proposal
1653 had already been distributed, a clear breach of Rule 406.
Mohammed blamed the error on the computer system, Acrobot, that was
recently installed to alleviate the chronic staff shortage in the
Promoter's office.

Confusion and indecision over how to remedy the situation brought
voting to a standstill this week. The Speaker urged the Promoter to
issue "dummy" proposals with the missing proposal numbers, before
re-distributing the now correctly numbered proposals. The chronically
overworked Promoter instead begged the Speaker to declare a State of
Crisis in order that the President might declare the proposals valid. 
Meanwhile, the CSRR officer, mr cwm, informed himself that "He won't 
even *think* of touching this one."

Public opinion on the matter, as ever, was split. Guy Fawkes wished
to avoid resubmitting his proposals, Calvin n Hobbes advocated the
use of Crisis Resolution "*only* as the last resort", while Malenkai
and breadbox both described the use of Crisis Resolution as
"abhorrent".

The issue was finally put beyond doubt by the President's
pronouncement. 

* IT'S A FUNNY OLD WORLD

This week's quirky quote was sent in by Bascule from The Den of
Iniquity, Ackanomic. He recieves A$10 for pointing out this gem, from
rule 362: 

"The Speaker may declare a State of Crisis at any time via public
announcement, provided the game is not in a State of Crisis."

And they say that there are no more paradoxes!

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

Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 10:56:29 -0600 (CST)
From: Guy Fawkes <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: more on the "Zelda" crisis

After carefully reviewing the "Players" rules, I have submitted two CFJ's 
to determine the status of the Eponimondas/neitzsche/Joan crisis.  They 
represent two possible interpretations of the situation.  Personally, I 
believe the second one, which asserts that _Joan of Arkansas_ was the only 
one of the trio to ever register as a player, is true.  I regret that 
this is the explanation which will require the most backtracking should 
it be judged the correct one.

Also, I am requesting the Senate vote on naming me an Expert in the 
area of Players.

Guy Fawkes

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

Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 12:07:37 -0500
From: "Bollinger, John C." <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Acka: Proposal 1669

Guy Fawkes wrote:

>ThinMan's assertion that this would be a null proposal if his P1636 
>passes is untrue.  This proposal (1669) contains two rule changes, only the 
>second of which would be invalidated by the passage of P1636.  However, the 
>first of the two is a necessary rule fix _not_ addressed by P1636: _any_ 
>CFJ, paradox win or otherwise, can be invalidated due to self-similarity 
>under the current ruleset (see the fourth paragraph of Rule 211, which 
>would not be altered by ThinMan's Proposal 1636.)

My apologies to GF.  He is correct, and P1669 will neither be a null
proposal nor tromp any effects of P1636.  P 1669 will fix a problem
with R 211 that P 1636 will not fix.

ThinMan

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

Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 12:15:11 -0500
From: "Bollinger, John C." <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Acka: Bartender

mr cwm wrote:

>Well, this ought to be interesting, since, if I remember correctly, my
>frinking experience consists of a coke and a spring water.  All right
>then, step on up, but if you order something unusual, you might have to
>tell me how to make it, or at least tell me what category it falls in for
>billing purposes.  And let's see if we can move some of these munchies!

Still being slightly giddy from that extra fizz, I will have to
go with a more moderate single FrobozzCo Lemon-Lime, on the rocks.
And now that you mention it, I think I _could_ go for some nice
munchies.

ThinMan

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

Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 12:31:19 -0500
From: "Bollinger, John C." <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Acka: CFJ 334 Verdict

Malenkai wrote:

>However, the reasoning of the Judge of this CFJ alleges that this is
>in fact *not* a paradox CFJ at all.  Although that may be true, I'm
>not sure such a claim in the reasoning is sufficient to make it not so.

I have submitted the appropriate CFJ.  However, I would like to
quibble with Malenkai.  CFJ 334 either is or is not a Paradox Win
CFJ. No claim in my reasoning affects this.  The statement in my
reasoning is an observation.  If Malenkai disagrees with that
observation then he has acted correctly.  If he agrees with it,
however, then he has reported information known to be false, i.e.
that the Goose has flown.  Malenkai would have been fully within
his rights to not treat that CFJ as a Paradox Win CFJ, although
that might have itself prompted a CFJ arguing the opposite point
of view.

ThinMan

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

Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 10:04:29 -0800 (PST)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Acka: CFJ 334 Verdict

>> However, the reasoning of the Judge of this CFJ alleges that this is
>> in fact *not* a paradox CFJ at all.  Although that may be true, I'm
>> not sure such a claim in the reasoning is sufficient to make it not so.
> 
> I have submitted the appropriate CFJ.  However, I would like to
> quibble with Malenkai.  CFJ 334 either is or is not a Paradox Win
> CFJ. No claim in my reasoning affects this.

Right. As Red Barn's CFJ mentioned, Rule 219 specifically states that
a CFJ that claims to be a Paradox Win CFJ is a Paradox Win CFJ,
period. And if the judgement is FALSE or INVALID, for whatever reason,
the submitter gets the Chartreuse Goose.

Which also means that I could submit a CFJ that said:

    Statement:

        breadbox is a member of Ackanomic. 

    Initiator's Comments:

        This is a Paradox Win CFJ. Upon a verdict of TRUE, the
        initiator will win in accordance with R 219.

... and the judge would be very unlikely to return a verdict of TRUE.

Which seems a little strange, but in practice it doesn't seem to have
been a problem.

b

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

End of Ackanomic Digest V1 #479
*******************************