Subject: Ackanomic Digest V1 #523
From: [email-masked] (Ackanomic Digest)
To: ackanomic-digest

Ackanomic Digest       Sunday, February 16 1997       Volume 01 : Number 523

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

Date: Sat, 15 Feb 1997 22:29:44 -0800 (PST)
From: fnord <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Correct Hunting

/dev/joe spake thusly
> 
> I am visiting fnord's house.  Nice place, but I have to run.
> I am returning to my home.
> 
> I am holding the baa baa food.
> I would like to visit fnord's house (a.k.a. The House of the
> Techno-Discordians, Ackanomic Activity Department (AAD)) again.
> [By the way, I'm not going to be able to fit all that on the map,
> but I might if I abbreviate the last part as AAD.  The previous name
> of your house was so long I had to write in in 8pt and this is longer.]

Yes, I saw that, not a problem with me.  Also, it's okay to 
abbreviate to AAD, in fact, it is actively encouraged.

> I would also like to visit all of the following:
> The Revolving Shed, Malenkai's Castle, FunkyTown, The Castle on a Cloud,
> and Lestrade's Lighthouse.

My, such a social butterfly you are!  Zigzagging all over Ackanomia
like that.  And, somehow, you managed to find that treasure I buried.
Such a good treasure hunter, as well.  I'm sure that everyone's house
you visit will be happy to see you arrive with No Tea.  And please,
be careful with The Sacred Chao, it's a religious icon!

> Doh! the 5 was really a 5!

*evil grin*

fnord

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

Date: Sat, 15 Feb 1997 22:30:52 -0800 (PST)
From: fnord <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Beldin's Pants

breadbox spake thusly
> 
> I slink home, muttering to myself and hiding my face in shame, as the
> crowds jeer at my feeble attempt at evil.

From somewhere in the back of the crowd comes a cheer.

I thought it was a rather smooth maneuver myself.

fnord

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

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 02:02:25 -0600 (CST)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <devjoe>
Subject: Re: Acka: Correct Hunting

fnord wrote:
> /dev/joe spake thusly
> > I am holding the baa baa food.
> > I would like to visit fnord's house (a.k.a. The House of the
> > Techno-Discordians, Ackanomic Activity Department (AAD)) again.
> 
> > I would also like to visit all of the following:
> > The Revolving Shed, Malenkai's Castle, FunkyTown, The Castle on a Cloud,
> > and Lestrade's Lighthouse.
> 
> My, such a social butterfly you are!  Zigzagging all over Ackanomia
> like that.  And, somehow, you managed to find that treasure I buried.
> 
> > Doh! the 5 was really a 5!

For those interested in my solving technique, read on.

The text was encoded in such a way as to look like hex digits, except
there was a single Q in the encoding.  (Red Barn has a map with a
similar-looking encoding, but about 20 X's in it, which I have not yet
figured out.)

I noticed that there seemed to be a lot of 7's and 8's in there; the 8's
made it look distinctly non-ASCII, but I decoded it as ascii (and simply
into decimal bytes) a couple different ways (including simply ignoring
the Q).  It still didn't look like ASCII or any obvious sort of rotated
ASCII.  So I went back and looked at the ditribution of characters
instead of character pairs.  I found: 6 2's, 14 3's, 22 4's, 8 5's,
18 6's, 20 7's, 22 8's, 7 9's, 4 A's, 3 B's, 1 D, 6 E's, 1 F, and 1 Q.

Hmm, no 0's or 1's at all, what's up with that?

I considered the possibility that it was a straight cryptogram.
However, there were only 14 different characters, and 3 of these appeared
only once each.  It didn't seem likely that a message of this length
used so few letters.  I did try "the treasure" for the first two words,
which matches the A and E near the beginning, and three repeated numbers
match with the same letter twice, but it makes 7 represent both r and s,
and 8 represent both t and u.

It was at this time I thought of a kind of code I'd solved as a puzzle
before.  It's called a "telephone code", where each letter is replaced
by the number it appears with on a telephone dial (in the US; I don't
know if European or other telephones have this same system).
The code is: 2=abc 3=def 4=ghi 5=jkl 6=mno 7=prs 8=tuv 9=wxy
Each number can represent any of 3 different letters.  Q and Z do not
have an encoding in this system, so the Q was obviously a real Q.
I'd already guessed the letters represented themselves in my previous
try, so I set to work decoding the rest of the puzzle.  This was tougher
than the codes of this type I'd solved before, because they usually
give you the spaces between words and punctuation.  On the other hand, I
had a dozen or so free letters.

The first approximately half of the message was pretty easy:
"The treasure will be found by the first player to request to visit
my house and ..."
And what?  The next few characters, 5684E7746, didn't seem to make
any sense.

I continued by working on other parts of the message; two 843's were
probably "the", and the latter of these was followed by "word".
Working backward from the end of the message, the last words were
"in its name", and between that and "word" was B2A which must be "baa".
I tried a couple possible Acka terms that could be named, and found
8746538 for "trinket" shortly before "the word baa in its name";
the word between them was "with".  I made some more guesses which helped
fill in the rest of the message:
"The treasure will be found by the first player to request to visit
my house and 5684E77 in the same public post while holding a trinket
with the word baa in its name."

I couldn't figure out what 5684E77 could possibly represent.  No word
fit this pattern, and few two-word pairs did, and none of them made
any sense here.  It was just one digit away from "mothers" (6684E77)
so I thought it might be that, and posted so.  When I came back to
look at it again after fnord's post earlier tonight, I figured out
that it meant "5 others" -- the 5 was a real 5, not an encoded letter.

I thank fnord for a fun puzzle, and for the trinkets which I will
undoubtedly bury later as treasures.  By the way, I found the hidden
contest in the April GAMES about 2 days after I buried that treasure.
It is in there, and it's not so obscure that even people who are
hunting for it thoroughly will miss it, like the last one. (The last
hidden contest was hidden in the cryptogram titles, which looked like
perfectly ordinary titles, and were appropriate for the encoded
messages, but when each title was decoded by the same code used in
the message, they combined to form a message telling how to enter
the hidden contest.  Only 33 people found it and entered the contest;
usually that number is more like 1000 for a hidden contest.)  If
somebody finds Orion's Crystal I plan to bury another treasure the
next time GAMES has a hidden contest, though it may not have the
extra joke associated with Orion's Crystal.

/dev/joe

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

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 03:28:02 -0500 (EST)
From: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Acka: On vacation 

While on vacation, I send a postacard back to Ackanomia:

<< Not that this has anything to do with anything, but would anyone be
 interested in having Diplomacy as a subgame?  I'll write an RFC if
 there's any interest.
 
 Strider >>

If you do that, I might suggest we try deviant Diplomacy.  It's a Diplomacy
variant that works its way VERY nicely into Ackanomia's ruleset.  Each year,
after builds, each power proposes a rules change, and then we vote on them.
 Each SC you own entitles you to one vote, the rules change that receives the
most votes goes into effect...  It's a wild game.

Narf

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

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 09:14:18 -0500
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Correct Hunting

fnord wrote:

> My, such a social butterfly you are!  Zigzagging all over Ackanomia
> like that.  And, somehow, you managed to find that treasure I buried.
> Such a good treasure hunter, as well.  I'm sure that everyone's house
> you visit will be happy to see you arrive with No Tea.  And please,
> be careful with The Sacred Chao, it's a religious icon!

You must disclose the actual map for the treasure to be found, or 
should I construe /dev/joe's explanation (or at least the map part),
as the verbatim treasure map?

Malenkai
assistant web-harfer

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

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 12:31:52 -0600
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka:  Proposal 1728

Proposal 1728
Adopting Capital Swingers
Niccolo Flychuck

This is a Modest Proposal.

Append the following text to R726 "Party Hall" as section V

"When a Party's Swinger's Office is vacant, it is permissible for the
Party to  Adopt a member of the Party who is also a Capital Swinger as the
Party's Swinger. The Adoption is performeed by posting a public message to
that effect, and notifying the Chess-Umpire. When a Capital Swinger is
Adopted by a Party, e retains eir pieces, board position and Swingscore,
and any other PartyChess related entity or property e posseses. However he
ceases to be a Capital Swinger and becomes a Party Swinger. Eir Office is
renamed to reflect that change, in keeping with section III.A of this
rule."

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

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 12:31:53 -0600
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka:  Proposal 1729

Proposal 1729
BIG GAME RESERVE
Ludwig

BIG GAME RESERVE
Ludwig
	Let there be a location named BIG GAME RESERVE.  It is a location in 
which wild animals can be hunted for a fee.
	1)Cost:  The Membership/Licence fee is A$35 per month.  All 
memberships expire on the last day of the month at 6:00pm, dueto the monthly 
maintainance of the Reserve.  It opens again at 8:00am on the first day of the 
month.  The entry fee is A$2 perday spent hunting with a membership.  It costs 
A$7 for a day without a membership, and you may not keep any trophy that you may 
procure.  This A$2 or A$7 is for the rental of BIG GAME RIFLES.  BIG GAME RIFLES 
are tradable entities owned by the BIG GAME RESERVE.  BIG GAME RIFLES are 
rented for one day at a time, and it is impermissable to take a BIG GAME RIFLE 
of of the BIG GAME RESERVE.
	2)  Warden:  Let there be an Optional Functional Office called the BIG 
GAME WARDEN or WARDEN for short.  If there is no WARDEN, the BIG GAME RESERVE is 
closed.  The duty of the WARDEN is to control the hunting.  The WARDEN randomly 
decides whether a hunter bags (kills) an animal.  The animal can be randomly 
selected or can be chosen by the hunter.  Chances for each animal are below.  If 
the hunter does, the WARDEN sends a letter of congratulations to the hunter and 
the hunter can pick up his TROPHY at the OFFICE.  The WARDEN my also add or 
subtract an animal from the available list once per month.
	3)  TROPHY (pl TROPHIES):  These are Trinkets worth an amount 
proportional to the odds for bagging the animal.  Each is designated as a TROPHY 
for a specific animal (The one bagged) and will have a specific value.
	4)  OFFICE: the office is a small building which houses the records etc.
	5)  FINANCES:  this is a Non Profit Organization.  All extra funds go to 
the treasury.  Animals are purchased at A$10,TROPHIES are created at the value 
depending on the animal.
	6)  ANIMALS:  ANIMALS can NOT escape.  The current list of animals, 
their odds, and their TROPHY values is:
MOOSE AND SQUIRREL: (1 in 4) A$8 [Combination animal...very strange]
DERANGED MUTANT KILLER MONSTER SNOW GOON:  (1 in 8) A$16
COW: (1 in 2) A$4 [COWS EAT GRASS]
UNICORN:  (1 in 8) A$16 [never play leapfrog with]
JABBERWOCKY:  (1 in 8) A$16 [Twas brillig in the slithy toves]
LOCH NESS MONSTER:  (1 in 32) A$64 [Elusive water dweller]
BIGFOOT:  (1 in 16) A$32 [Or Sasquatch]
ROADRUNNER:  (1 in 8) A$16 [BEEP BEEP]
WASCALLY WABBIT:  (1 in 4) A$8 [be vewwy vewwy qwiet]
HONEST POLITICIAN:  (1 in 32) A$64 [Very rare indeed]
WHITE WHALE:  (1 in 16) A$32 [MOBY for short]
WALDO:  (1 in 2) A$4 [Red and White striped shirt appears on the TROPHY]
BUFFALO:  (1 in 2) A$4 [simple old buffalo]

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

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 12:31:54 -0600
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka:  Proposal 1730

Proposal 1730
Seditious Libel: Ackanomic Middle Ages Part Two
snowgod

Bribe: A$50 to every player who votes yes. An additional A$25 will be given
to every player who's party generates a unity vote.  An adition A$25 will
be given to each member of the Church of Seleya should the entire church
vote YES.

Create a new rule entitled "The Seditious Libel Act of 1997" with the
following text:

Be it enacted that there exists the crime of seditious libel, a felony.

And be it further enacted, that if any player shall publically write,
print, utter or publish, or shall cause or procure to be written, printed,
uttered or published, or shall knowingly and willingly assist or aid in
writing, printing, uttering or publishing any false, scandalous and
malicious writing or writings against the government of Ackanomic,
including but not limited to the Senate and any political officers, and not
excluding functional or optional officers, with the intent to defame said
government, or said senate and officers, or to bring them into contempt or
disrepute; or to excite against them, or either or any of them, the hatred
of the good people of Ackanomic, or to stir up sedition within Ackanomic,
or to excite any unlawful combinations therein, for oppoosing or resisting
any rule of Ackanomic, or any act of the president of Ackanomic done in
persuance of any such rule, or of the powers in him vested by the ruleset
of Ackanomic, or to resist, oppose, or defeat, any such rule or proposal,
or to aid, encourage or abet any hostile designs of any foreign nomic
against Ackanomic, it's players or government, then such person, being
thereof convicted by any court in Ackanomic having jurisdiction thereof,
shall be punished by a sentence in the Gaol not exceeding 14 days, and a
fine not exceeding A$1000 or expulsion from the game.

And be it further enacted and declared , that if any person shall be
prosecuted under this act, for the writing and publishing of libel
aforsaid, it shall be unlawful for the defendant, upon the trial of the
cause, to claim in his defence the truth of the matter contained in the
publication charged as libel.

And be it further enacted, that this rule shall continue and be in force
until the thirty-first day of december, one thousand nine hundred and
ninety-seven, and no longer, for on this day it shall be repealed.

{{Renumber this rule to 1199}}

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

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 12:31:55 -0600
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka:  Proposal 1731

Proposal 1731
Speaker Succession
Lestrade

This is a modest proposal.
Amend Rule 405 (iv) from:

"The Speaker shall appoint a volunteer to be Acting Speaker for the
vacation period immediately prior to going on vacation. If there are no
volunteers, then the Clerk of the Court shall be Acting Speaker for the
duration. This section takes precedence over section (ii) of this Rule." 

to:

"The Speaker shall appoint a volunteer to be Acting Speaker for the
vacation period immediately prior to going on vacation. If there are no
volunteers, then the Clerk of the Court shall be Acting Speaker for the
duration. If the Clerk of the Court is also on vacation, then the
procedure outlined in section (viii), of this rule, will be applied."

{{( Since the Speaker, and the Clerk of the Court are currently one and
the same; there is the possiblity of this situation occuring.)}}

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

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 20:55:45 +0200 (EET)
From: Uri Bruck <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka:  Proposal 1730

On Sun, 16 Feb 1997, Jason Orendorff wrote:

> Proposal 1730
> Seditious Libel: Ackanomic Middle Ages Part Two
> snowgod
> 
> 
> Bribe: A$50 to every player who votes yes. An additional A$25 will be given
> to every player who's party generates a unity vote.  An adition A$25 will
> be given to each member ofthe Church of Seleya should the entire church
> vote YES.
> 
> Create a new rule entitled "The Seditious Libel Act of 1997" with the
> following text:
> 
> Be it enacted that there exists the crime of seditious libel, a felony.

Someone's been into the congressional archives :)

Niccolo Flychuck

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

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 13:28:29 -0600 (CST)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Pre-RFC org reorg

This is lengthy.  I deleted all the stuff we agree on in a vain attempt 
to keep it short.  =)

> 1. I'm for keeping a bit of tradition. I don't think existing Parties
>    should be dissolved as part of this proposal. The worst I would expect
>    of this is to to give them sort of a time limit to "buy" their right
>    to remain a Party. I would oppose that as well, but I see it as a
>    lesser evil.
	I thought of that, but it seemed to me it would require a lot of 
language that would not be fun to write.  If the rule passed, and 6 days 
later (None Yet) bought a Big Tent, I would consider (None Yet) still to 
be the oldest Party in the game.  They had a hiatus in their legal 
status, maybe, but they never stopped existing in my mind.  So I figured, 
"what the heck, leave it at that."  It's only a game.
	In any case, it's changed now so that all existing Parties get a 
Big Tent automatically.

> 5. The current Organization rule does not specify that members need
>    to be players. As far as generic Organizations I'd prefer tha they
>    would restricted to players.
	The rfc was carefully written with non-player members firmly in 
mind.  I believe that I put "player members" everywhere that I meant 
"player members".  I don't want to ban NPMs from generic organizations,
unless there's a really heinous reason for it.

> 6. More on keeping existing Organization - you describe in your proposal
>    two kinds of Organizations. Rule - empowered and player empowered, and
>    then you  insist on eliminating the distinction by redfining the
>    currently rule empowered Organizations in terms of player empowered
>    Organizations.
	When I say "rule-sanctioned", what I mean is *specific, unique
organizations that exist only by power of rules*.  All currently existing
organizations, in my mind (unless I'm missing a few) would be
player-sanctioned.  (Churches would be an exception; there's too much rule
material there for me to harf right now.)  Besides, I think the ability to
have an enforceable Policy should be fairly cheap, maybe A$50.

>    You can balance another way. Allow an existing Organization to
>    buy the various powers, for more than what it would cost
>    a generic Organization.
	No, because they can just form a generic Org, buy the power, give
it to the main group, then disband the generic.  I thought about it.  --We
could make them non-tradeable, but I think that hurts things in the long
run.
	As the rfc is written, I think *any* organization can buy 
Powers.  What do you think of that?

	Hey, here's a random thought.  The financier should get minor 
rule-changing power, similar to what the CSRR has, for the sole purpose 
of bringing dollar values in rules in line with one another and the 
market value of the A$.  Comments?

re:  evolution, not revolution.
	There are two main things I'm trying to do with this:  put dollar 
values on the powers organizations wield; and get rid of the (in my 
mind) silliness surrounding Organization creation.

re:  Conspiracy
> Look it up, if you can't find it, I'll summarize the rules for you. Might
> provide some interesting insights.
	I'll do that.

- --Mohammed

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

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 13:42:47 -0600 (CST)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Hunting

> I am holding the baa baa food in front of the Little Lamb's nose.
	You cruel, cruel man.

- --Mohammed

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

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 13:45:45 -0600 (CST)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: poll

> neccessarily true, before the player announced eir consent to join? That would 
> allow for fun organizations which can force players to stay. If you oppose such 
> organizations, don't join any :-)
	I sort of like that.  Maybe someone else could propose it (hint hint).

- --Mohammed

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

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 13:51:46 -0600 (CST)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Pre-RFC org reorg

> This is an extremely interesting concept, however, there may some 
> possibilities that you want to prepare for.  Should there be a time limit
> on how long an Organization has to approve?  Suppose one player in 
> the org decides to not say anything (yea or nay) anbout a suggestion.
> What about Vacation or Gaol or other similar situations?
	The process for getting stuff approved is purposely annoying.  I 
was thinking of making Powers that make the process *much* nicer.. like 
Powerballs.
	One player remaining silent is effectively the same as that 
player denouncing the suggestion.
	It is sort of bad, the way I see it... I like the time limit 
thing; I'll try to put that in.

- --Mohammed

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

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 12:10:00 -0800
From: Stephen McCulley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: On vacation

[email-masked] wrote:
> 
> While on vacation, I send a postacard back to Ackanomia:
> 
> << Not that this has anything to do with anything, but would anyone be
>  interested in having Diplomacy as a subgame?  I'll write an RFC if
>  there's any interest.
> 
>  Strider >>
> 
> If you do that, I might suggest we try deviant Diplomacy.  It's a Diplomacy
> variant that works its way VERY nicely into Ackanomia's ruleset.  Each year,
> after builds, each power proposes a rules change, and then we vote on them.
>  Each SC you own entitles you to one vote, the rules change that receives the
> most votes goes into effect...  It's a wild game.
> 
> Narf
Wicked.  I like it alot!

Strider

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

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 14:24:42 -0600
From: Mitchell Harding <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: On vacation 

>Not that this has anything to do with anything, but would anyone be
>interested in having Diplomacy as a subgame?  I'll write an RFC if
>there's any interest.

I would be interested... It would be best to find a judge to run them on, to
keep them moving quickly. Calvin n Hobbes knows a lot about it.

Robert Sevin

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

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 12:26:44 -0800
From: Stephen McCulley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: On vacation

Mitchell Harding wrote:
> 
> >Not that this has anything to do with anything, but would anyone be
> >interested in having Diplomacy as a subgame?  I'll write an RFC if
> >there's any interest.
> 
> I would be interested... It would be best to find a judge to run them on, to
> keep them moving quickly. Calvin n Hobbes knows a lot about it.
> 
> Robert Sevin
I personally don't care whether we have a computer judge or a person but
others do.  Perhaps the players of a given game could decide amongst
themselves?

Strider

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

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 14:06:57 -0800
From: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Acka: On vacation

I've only played a couple of times, but I liked it.
Ludwig

On Sat, 15 Feb 1997, mr cwm <[email-masked]> wrote:
>I haven't played Diplomacy for 15-20 years, so maybe I'd be an easy
>mark, but I'd give it a shot.
>
>-mr cwm
>
>On Fri, 14 Feb 1997, Strider wrote:
>
>>[email-masked] wrote:
>>> 
>>> I am putting my self on vacation until Monday Feb 17 at 6:00 pm EST.
>>> 
>>> I will be running a ftf Diplomacy tournament at a gaming convention this
>>> weekend.  Have a great 3 day weekend, everyone
>>Not that this has anything to do with anything, but would anyone be
>>interested in having Diplomacy as a subgame?  I'll write an RFC if
>>there's any interest.
>>
>>Strider
>>
>
>

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

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 14:29:16 -0800
From: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Acka: On vacation

good idea
Ludwig

On Sun, 16 Feb 1997, [email-masked] wrote:
>While on vacation, I send a postacard back to Ackanomia:
>
><< Not that this has anything to do with anything, but would anyone be
> interested in having Diplomacy as a subgame?  I'll write an RFC if
> there's any interest.
> 
> Strider >>
>
>If you do that, I might suggest we try deviant Diplomacy.  It's a Diplomacy
>variant that works its way VERY nicely into Ackanomia's ruleset.  Each year,
>after builds, each power proposes a rules change, and then we vote on them.
> Each SC you own entitles you to one vote, the rules change that receives the
>most votes goes into effect...  It's a wild game.
>
>Narf
>
>

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

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 14:29:24 -0800
From: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Acka: Hall of Elders

neat.
Ludwig

On Sat, 15 Feb 1997, Brian Raiter <[email-masked]> wrote:
>> 
>> Guy Fawkes day is traditionally Nov 5.
>> Ludwig
>> 
>> On Fri, 14 Feb 1997, Malenkai <[email-masked]> wrote:
>> >Guy Fawkes received 10 Hall of Elder Nominations.  I count 15 active
>> >players currently.
>> >
>> >Guy Fawkes Day is Sept 5th.  His possessions can
>> >still be found on my undead page: http://www.itw.com/~malenkai/ackaud.htm
>
>Actually, Guy Fawkes once wrote a proposal to have an Ackanomic Guy
>Fawkes Day. And yes, the point of the holiday was to burn him. It
>didn't pass.
>
>b
>
>

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

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 17:28:01 -0500
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Hearing 108 result

Hearing 108: Witchhunt vs Ludwig:

BURN THE WITCH (3)
- --------------
IdiotBoy
mr cwm
snwogod

earth is flat (8)
- -------------
Ludwig
Malenkai
breadbox
Niccolo Flychuck
ThinMan
/dev/joe
Strider
Mohammed

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

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 17:53:09 -0500
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka:  Proposal 1731

Jason Orendorff wrote:
> 
> Proposal 1731
> Speaker Succession

[replace the precedence clause in R 405, section (iv) with the following:]

> [...] if the Clerk of the Court is also on vacation, then the
> procedure outlined in section (viii), of this rule, will be applied."
> 
> {{( Since the Speaker, and the Clerk of the Court are currently one and
> the same; there is the possiblity of this situation occuring.)}}

The existing rule's section (viii) already handles this case, with:

> If it it ever the case that no active Player is Speaker or Acting
> Speaker, and the application of other rules and/or the preceding clauses
> of this rule do not correct that situation

This amendment will remove the precedence clause (which is unnecessary
after the CFJ 256 intra-rule precedence fix), but otherwise I do not
believe it changes the way the rule works now, and the explicitness of
the new language troubles me.  For example, there are ways other than
vacation where no active player is the Clerk of the Court; it seems that
a CotC on vacation is a subset handled by the current section (viii).

Malenkai

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

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 18:02:03 -0500
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Reminders

Just a reminder of some upcoming stuff to the appropriate people:

1) The fortnight for producing the undead list expires on Feb 20, at the
time the results of the proposal that created R 426 were publically
knowable.  If no list is produced, all undead rest in peace.

2) Tomorrow (monday 12:00 EST) is the end of the bond cycle (I think :))

3) The president's holiday adjusted term ends Feb 19th, 19:06, or so.

4) The next player to be removed from the game via vacation will be
BuzzBee, on March 06, by my count, accounting for 8 days of holidays,
unless he becomes active.

Malenkai
Speaker

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

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 14:36:34 -0900
From: Phil Ackley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka:  Proposal 1730 

>On Sun, 16 Feb 1997, Jason Orendorff wrote:
>
>> Proposal 1730
>> Seditious Libel: Ackanomic Middle Ages Part Two
>> snowgod
>>
>>
>> Be it enacted that there exists the crime of seditious libel, a felony.
>
>Someone's been into the congressional archives :)
>
>Niccolo Flychuck

Hehehe,  I had to write up an evaluation of this once in one of my justice
classes, and it just occured to me that it could be a lot of fun if we
imported seditious libel into Ackanomic.

Think of all the (harfy) fueds, etc that this could produce.  AIt would
give new "power" to the supreme court and the president because whoever is
in power would be able to use the court as the final say so on what is and
is not libelous (after all, almost anything can be construed that way :)

Oh yeah, it would give the incumbent officer in any election a great
advantage too :)

"My opponent, Niccolo Flychuck, is the greastest president I have ever
seen.  Everything he has done, he has done right, and I'm sure he has even
done wonderfully in the things he hasn't done and will do in the future.  I
would urge you to votre for me, but I can't legally.  Vote for Niccolo
Flychuck"

Unless both candidate were officers of some sort and then it could REALLY
get intesting!

Finally, it provides an actual, useful tool that could be used to defend
ourself in the event of a "nomic invasion" such as Joan of Arkansas'.

snowgod
feeling silly

looking to persecute someeone :)

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

Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 01:54:17 +0200 (EET)
From: Uri Bruck <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Pre-RFC org reorg

On Sun, 16 Feb 1997, Jason Orendorff wrote:

> This is lengthy.  I deleted all the stuff we agree on in a vain attempt 
> to keep it short.  =)
> 
> > 1. I'm for keeping a bit of tradition. I don't think existing Parties
> >    should be dissolved as part of this proposal. The worst I would expect
> >    of this is to to give them sort of a time limit to "buy" their right
> >    to remain a Party. I would oppose that as well, but I see it as a
> >    lesser evil.
> 	I thought of that, but it seemed to me it would require a lot of 
> language that would not be fun to write.  If the rule passed, and 6 days 
> later (None Yet) bought a Big Tent, I would consider (None Yet) still to 
> be the oldest Party in the game.  They had a hiatus in their legal 
> status, maybe, but they never stopped existing in my mind.  So I figured, 
> "what the heck, leave it at that."  It's only a game.
> 	In any case, it's changed now so that all existing Parties get a 
> Big Tent automatically.

I find this agreeable.

> 
> > 5. The current Organization rule does not specify that members need
> >    to be players. As far as generic Organizations I'd prefer tha they
> >    would restricted to players.
> 	The rfc was carefully written with non-player members firmly in 
> mind.  I believe that I put "player members" everywhere that I meant 
> "player members".  I don't want to ban NPMs from generic organizations,
> unless there's a really heinous reason for it.

OK. I was thinking that somewhere there should be a definition on what
kind of entities can be members of Organizations (either generic or
specific), or better yet, a definition of what kind of entities can't be
members of Organizations. I thought this would be simpler to do for rule
sanctioned Oranizations. 
I have no objection in principal to generic Organization having non-player
members.

 > 
> > 6. More on keeping existing Organization - you describe in your proposal
> >    two kinds of Organizations. Rule - empowered and player empowered, and
> >    thenyou  insist on eliminating the distinction by redfining the
> >    currently rule empowered Organizations in terms of player empowered
> >    Organizations.
> 	When I say "rule-sanctioned", what I mean is *specific, unique
> organizations that exist only by power of rules*.  All currently existing
> organizations, in my mind (unless I'm missing a few) would be
> player-sanctioned.  (Churches would be an exception; there's too much rule
> material there for me to harf right now.)  Besides, I think the ability to
> have an enforceable Policy should be fairly cheap, maybe A$50.

So they are both the same except for one of them? :)
I think Churches are best left as they are.
But since you've brought i tup, let's talk Synod.
Your current RFC does not mention it, and since the Synod is not in
session, and so far hasn't been, there's no rush.
The Synod was conceived as an economical Organizational Institution. 

There are a number of ways to go about it.
1. Leave it as it is. That is for Churches only.
2. Ammend it so that any Organization with a Treasure Chest can buy into
   it. All Delegates of all Oranizations would have equal status.
3. Ammend it so that non-Church Organizations get Delgates of lower
   status. That is, for both voting and profit sharing purposes some
   fraction of their membership would be considered. However, the
   similarity restrictions would be somewhat relaxed for them. 

The latter would be the most complex, and perhaps for many players
undesirable, I rather like it though.
I believe the second option would receive the most support, and be
simplest to implement.

 > 
> >    You can balance another way. Allow an existing Organization to
> >    buy the various powers, for more than what it would cost
> >    a generic Organization.
> 	No, because they can just form a generic Org, buy the power, give
> it to the main group, then disband the generic.  I thought about it.  --We
> could make them non-tradeable, but I think that hurts things in the long
> run.
> 	As the rfc is written, I think *any* organization can buy 
> Powers.  What do you think of that?

I can make two cases for it, this would either promote diversity, or
promote a Powers arms-race, it could make for interesting O/I
interactions. I see that as a favorable result.

But for that we really need more Powers. 
With more Powers some might not go very well when combined with others,
and perhaps give Powers the option to upgrade (something to thing about).

> 
> re:  evolution, not revolution.
> 	There are two main things I'm trying to do with this:  put dollar 
> values on the powers organizations wield; and get rid of the (in my 
> mind) silliness surrounding Organization creation.

> 
> re:  Conspiracy
> > Look it up, if you can't find it, I'll summarize the rules for you. Might
> > provide some interesting insights.
> 	I'll do that.
> 
> --Mohammed

I serached the net for a couple of hours and couldn't find anything. I'll
write up a short description and post it seperately.

Niccolo Flychuck

> 

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

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 19:12:03 -0500
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Mad Scientist

I am appointing ThinMan acting Mad Scientist.

Malenkai

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

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 21:37:28 -0600
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka:  Proposal 1732

Proposal 1732
Speaker Succession
Mohammed

Lestrade
John Duncan

This is a modest proposal.
Amend Rule 405 (iv) from:

"The Speaker shall appoint a volunteer to be Acting Speaker for the
vacation period immediately prior to going on vacation. If there are no
volunteers, then the Clerk of the Court shall be Acting Speaker for the
duration. This section takes precedence over section (ii) of this Rule." 

to:

"The Speaker shall appoint a volunteer to be Acting Speaker for the
vacation period immediately prior to going on vacation. If there are no
volunteers, then the Clerk of the Court shall be Acting Speaker for the
duration. If the Clerk of the Court is also on vacation, then the
procedure outlined in section (viii), of this rule, will be applied."

{{( Since the Speaker, and the Clerk of the Court are currently one and
the same; there is the possiblity of this situation occuring.)}}

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

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 22:20:04 -6:00
From: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Acka: Bonds

I ack this.

Techno

> I hereby transfer 30 PFTechno to Techno, pending his Acking
> 
> snowgod
> 
> 
> 
> 

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

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 20:35:51 -0800
From: [email-masked] (John Martin Lotz)
Subject: Acka: Undead Pages

Beleive it or not but I've been working.  I've got an
extremely basic page at:

http://members.tripod.com/~John_Martin/undead.htm

I've accounted for Idiot boy and will finish tomorrow, after work

Jammer
AKA
John-Martin Lotz
[email-masked]

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

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 23:34:20 -0600 (CST)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Pre-RFC org reorg

> > 	In any case, it's changed now so that all existing Parties get a 
> > Big Tent automatically.
> I find this agreeable.
	It will be a "Special Edition Grandfather Big Tent", 
nonetheless.  Collector's item, anyone?

> I have no objection in principal to generic Organization having non-player
> members.
	*nod*  We just have to be a little more careful when coming up 
with new Org Powers....

> So they are both the same except for one of them? :)
> I think Churches are best left as they are.
> But since you've brought i tup, let's talk Synod.
	*bonk*  Yes, Synod would definitely be rule-sanctioned.  I feel 
Churches should be player-sanctioned in the future (come on, they're 
*churches*) and it's something we'll probably disagree on.  Anyway, that 
isn't where I'm going with this proposal right now.

> There are a number of ways to go about it.
> 1. Leave it as it is. That is for Churches only.
> 2. Ammend it so that any Organization with a Treasure Chest can buy into
>    it. All Delegates of all Oranizations would have equal status.
	I like this option.  By Treasure Chest do you mean the Power I
wrote up as "Safety Deposit Box"?  I actually like the name "Treasure
Chest" better, but it'd be confusing, since it's not actually
Treasure-related.
	The more I think, the more I want to rename that Power.  What 
should it be called?  Maybe "Community Chest"?  or simply "Stash"?  "Cash
Cache"?  "Shingle"?

> 3. Ammend it so that non-Church Organizations get Delgates of lower
>    status. That is, for both voting and profit sharing purposes some
>    fraction of their membership would be considered. However, the
>    similarity restrictions would be somewhat relaxed for them. 
	I like this one as well, Niccolo.  I think a neat way to do it
would be that Churches count for their full Size, and other Organizations
count 1 each (regardless of size).

> But for that we really need more Powers. 
> With more Powers some might not go very well when combined with others,
> and perhaps give Powers the option to upgrade (something to thing about).
	*think*

- --Mohammed

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

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 23:39:57 -0600 (CST)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: RFC eliminating the voting bonus

> I agree thoroughly with mr cwm.  It adds flavor.
	Annoying flavor... like curry.  Or sage.
	Ah, well.  I guess no one's with me on this one.

- --Mohammed
chicken
grump

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

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 23:45:56 -0600 (CST)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 1732

> Proposal 1732
> Speaker Succession
> Mohammed
> 
> Lestrade
> John Duncan
	Interesting mistake here.  Due to a bug (maybe a feature; anyway *I* 
consider it a heinous bug) in Pine, when I move mail from folder to 
folder it changes the From line so that the mail is "From" *me*.
	Here's what happens-- I received this proposal twice, so it's 
being distributed twice.  The second time it appeared, however, it is 
invalid according to R309.
	The language of R309 seems to demand that this be CFJ'd before it 
takes effect; is this so?  There are no penalties to Lestrade for 
accidentally submitting the same proposal twice; the second one just gets 
removed from consideration.
	Anyway, just to summarize:  P1732 is Lestrade's proposal, not 
mine.

- --Mohammed
not a plagiarist

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

End of Ackanomic Digest V1 #523
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