Subject: Ackanomic Digest V2 #190
From: [email-masked] (Ackanomic Digest)
To: ackanomic-digest

Ackanomic Digest        Saturday, July 12 1997        Volume 02 : Number 190

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

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 21:54:20 -0900
From: Phil Ackley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: We have a new player in Ackanomic 

Read the subject line.

His name is Dread Pirate Roberts (20 characters, if I counted right) and
his email address is [email-masked]>.  He has chosen Voting status,
and his real name is Hank Turowski.

In response to the market research question he writes:

>And I didn't just stumble onto your game... I played in a very Nomic like
>game years ago and went looking for a new one.  I followed links from
>www.pbm.com and eventually reached your page.

I have been randomly selected as his mentor

Mr. Lunatic Fringe

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

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 11:38:27 +0300 (EET DST)
From: Uri Bruck <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka:  Proposal 2220

On Thu, 10 Jul 1997, Malenkai wrote:

> > Same old  'why do we need it' argument. That's what they said about
> > Organizations. That's what they said about Institutions. [...]
> 
> The question is still on the table.  I'm not asking about organizations
> or institutions.  My question pertains to rule 1303, "Synod".  (BTW, we
> do *not* need all of orgs, churches, parties and institutions, but that was
> not my question).

I know it was not your question, but that is exactly my point. Over 90% of
acka is things we don't *need*, but we don't repeal them. Acka isn't isn't
about need.
 > 
> > I think it would be an interesting thing to try out. I think that's as
> > good as answer as any to the question of *why*. we need because it hasn't
> > been tried yet.
> 
> For my benefit, and I seem to be the one here that does not understand
> the point or the value of the rule, could you be a bit more concrete?

I find Organizations and interactions between them interesting. The Synod
is a framework for interaction between Organizations. You've got several
Organizations working together, the control over the actions of the
collective Institution and their respective benefits depend on their
relative sizes.  On the one hand they cooperate to make more profit for
the Synod, OTOH, there is incentive for Churches to get more members.
Now, I'm not married to this specific kind of interaction, and the rule
was specifically designed to be unobtrusive when not used, that's a
strength, not a weakness. I'd like to see it used first. If it
doesn't work, we'll change it.

> 
> > Your assertion that is would have been used ignores the fact that, there
> > need to be at least three Delegates for the Synod to do anything, and
> > until recently there weren't enough Churches around. (and TLO are pretty
> > new too)
> 
> Um, TLO's have been around for nearly 4 months.  The Church of Seleya has
> been around longer.  My assertion ignores no such facts.  

Please name the TLO that could join the Synod.  (I know about Seleya, dev
does not apear to be intersted, other than Seleya)

> 
> > The thing is, if acka is ever to have an economy, it would need such
> > entities. Without an economy, there would little meaning to internomic
> > trading.  (Currently acka doesn't really have an economy).
> 
> Again, this is an abstract answer.  Could you be a bit more specific as
> to why we need rule 1303 to have an economy?  I do not see that assertion
> as being true, based on the text of rule 1303 and the customary definition
> of "economy".  The State of Pennsylvania has no such institution or law,
> yet has an economy.

The state of Pensylvania, unlike acka, has many other elements that 'make'
an economy.
> 
> > Of course it is possible that economy does not interest anyone in acka,
> > and in that case, the rule would indeed be useless. The rule establishes
> > a cooperative/competitive environments among Organizations.
> 
> The game environment already establishes a cooperative/competetive 
> environment among player-controlled entities, and has done so since day
> 1.  How, *specifically*, does rule 1303, for all its complexity,
> calculations, and things to track and remember, add value to this?
> Could not the Church of Seleya and Guy Fawkes Mini-Sotrage, for example,
> decide to form an informal cooperative/competetive agreement without
> rule 1303?

If there was no phoeve rule, could not players post ancient wisdoms
occasionally?

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

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 11:46:56 +0300 (EET DST)
From: Uri Bruck <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka:  Proposal 2220

On Thu, 10 Jul 1997, Joseph W. DeVincentis wrote:

> Niccolo Flychuck wrote (about the Synod):
> > Your assertion that is would have been used ignores the fact that, there
> > need to be at least three Delegates for the Synod to do anything, and
> > until recently there weren't enough Churches around. (and TLOare pretty
> > new too)
> 
> Niccolo asked me if the church of seleya was interested in joining the
> synod, making the third delegate needed to get it started.  I e-mailed
> all the other members and asked if anybody wanted to be Seleya's delegate
> to the synod, and nobody responded, so with nobody interested in filling
> the delegate seat, I didn't bother to have Seleya buy one.

Inaccurate. I am a member of Seleya, you didn't ask me.

> 
> Profits are defined as
> (A$ currently owned by the Synod minus (A$ owned by the Synod after the
> previous profit distribution, or on the most recent date the Synod
> was not in Session, whichever was more recent)) 
> 
> [Good here, profits are the change in the Synod's A$ between profit sharing
> days or between the start of a session and a profit sharing day.  I don't
> know why the parentheses are here though.]
> 
> Let TotalMem be the total number of members of all Organizations. 
> For each Organization let NoM be the number of members of that Organization.
> Each Organization receives (NoM*2)/(TotalMem*5), rounded down to the nearest
> integer.
> For the purpose of Profit Sharing Day, vacationing members are counted as
> well.
> 
> All organizations?  This is going to be a piddly small fraction.

I think it is trivial to see that this means all Organization which have
Delegates in the Synod. If that's the whole problem, it only a single
Modest ammendment. Anyone who is truly dedicated to a fixed ruleset would
surely vote for such an ammendment.

> 
> I think the several months of the possibility of the synod getting started
> and it not actually happening is a sign of this lack of interest.
> 
> /dev/joe

As I said,  you never asked me. I would like to be Seleya's Delegate.
I am formally requesting to be Seleya's Delegate. 

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

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 12:11:37 +0300 (EET DST)
From: Uri Bruck <[email-masked]>
Subject: acka : PFAztecGod trade

I am offering the followin trade:

#trasfer aztecgod niccolo : +5 PFAztecgod :trade
#transfer niccolo aztecgod : +20 A$ : trade

Niccolo Flychuck

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

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 08:08:11 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka:  Proposal 2220

> I know it was not your question, but that is exactly my point. Over 90% of
> acka is things we don't *need*, but we don't repeal them. Acka isn't isn't
> about need.

I'd like to get off this topic, and back to discussing the rule in
question, rule 1303, "Synod".  We use and play the other 90% of acka,
that is the difference.  Hopefully we can move back to rule 1303 now.

> Please name the TLO that could join the Synod.  (I know about Seleya, dev
> does not apear to be intersted, other than Seleya)\

GF Mini-storage and Rex Bank.  However, even if there is no TLO that
could join it, my point is still made.  If it was necessary, fun, or 
there was a game advantage to rule 1303, "Synod", a Church or TLO whould
have formed to make it go over the past 4 months (Synod) or 9 months
(church).

> > The State of Pennsylvania has no such institution or law,
> > yet has an economy.

> The state of Pensylvania, unlike acka, has many other elements that 'make'
> an economy.

Um, your quote was:

> > > The thing is, if acka is ever to have an economy, it would need such
> > > entities. 

My example about the state of PA was disproof of your assertion by
counterexample.  I still maintain, because I have demonstrated with the
state of PA example, that we do not need rule 1303 to have an economy.
For example, it is possible for acka's memebership laws, resources, etc
to become identical to those of the state of PA.  A far fetched example,
but since it is common sense, to me anyway, that rule 1303 is not needed
to have an economy, the proof was intentionally far fetched.
  
> If there was no phoeve rule, could not players post ancient wisdoms
> occasionally?

The differences are:

1) The Phoebe rule is fun
2) The Phoebe rule is used
3) The Phoebe rule is simple, easy to understand, and works
4) Before Phoebe, no one posted wisdom, now its part of our culture; 
Before Synod, orgs did not shuffle trivial amounts of money around based
on the arcane perscription of rule 1303, and they still don't.  If they
wanted to, the would either form a contract (a used simple rule), or
make an informal agreement amongst themselves.

Again, why can't we keep the discussion on the merits and failings of
rule 1303, and not try to keep shifting the discussion to other rules
that have nothing to do with it, and no similarities with it?

There is a movement here to simplify the rules.  Some are attempting to
repeal rules that are simple, useful, used, clear, and enjoyed by players:
({{braces}}, gumball, parades, trombones, party chess); I propose to 
repeal a rule that has *none* of those characteristics, that has been
dead weight in the ruleset forever, and people want to save it.  This
makes no sense to me.

Malenkai

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

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 08:44:46 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CFJ 426 Verdict

CFJ 426 has been judged FALSE.

Clerk of the Courts
- ------------------------------------------------------------------

Call For Judgment 426
  Subject: Conventional English Morphology III
Initiator: breadbox
    Judge: /dev/joe (selected Jul 10, 1997, 22:31h EDT)
Judgement: FALSE

Statement:

The trinket "Mr X-Y-Z", created by breadbox, is a Forgery.

breadbox's Reasoning:

Mr X is the name of a former player. The real question here is whether
the hyphen (or dash?) between "X" and "Y" constitutes a word break, or
if "X-Y-Z" should be taken as a single word.

/dev/joe's Reasoning:

All the CFJs 424-428 depend on defining standard English usage.
I am only judging 426 but I will consider the general case, to some
extent.  The other judges should feel free to borrow from my reasoning.

As far as "morphological changes", Webster's 3rd New International
Dictionary, does not define it, but it defines morphology (in dealing
with language) as

   a: a study and description of word-formation in a language
   including inflection, derivation, and compounding --
   distinguished from syntax  b: the system of word-forming
   elements and processes in a language.

Also perhaps relevant is the definition of "morphological
construction", which reads:

   a sequence of morphemes forming a complex or compound word
   (as unlike, baseball) -- compare SYNTACTIC CONSTRUCTION

Syntactical construction is:

   a grammatical construction having only free forms as immediate
   constituents and having no formal characteristics identifying it
   as a compound (as "he went to school") -- compare MORPHOLOGICAL
   CONSTRUCTION

A morpheme is:

   a meaningful linguistic unit whether a free form (as pin, child,
   load, pray) or a bound form (as the -s of pins, the un- and -er
   of unloader, and the -ed of prayed that contains no smaller
   meaningful parts

So with morphology we're dealing with the composition of compound
and complex words.  W3 defines a complex word as one which contains
one or more bound forms while the first definition of a compound
word is one composed of two words, opposed to complex (a second
definition for compound follows which encompasses essentially any
word containing at least two morphemes).

However, I haven't yet answered the question at hand, which is
whether a hyphenated construction such as X-Y-Z is a word or three
words.  For this I turn to the more complete definition of
"compound word" given at the start of the article "The Writing of
Compounds" which is one of several prefaces to this dictionary.
Section 1.1 of this article gives this definition:

  A compound, as the term is used here, is a word or word group of
  two or more elements at least one of which is an independent word
  of the same language.  The elements of an English compound are
  variously written solid, open, or hyphened when they are all English
  words, that can be written independently.  When one of the elements
  in an English compound is not an independent English word, the
  elements are usually solid (watery, anticlerical, predate) or
  hyphened (de-emphasize).

The article goes on to describe almost every imaginable combination of
two different types of words and word parts.  You should be able to find
the full article at any decent library.  The general feel of the article
is that coined combinations like X-Y-Z and Malenkai-run are considered
compound words.

Now then, is X-Y-Z a conventional morphological change from X?  I think
not.  Other English words don't typically have -Y-Z added to them.  The
answer to this part for Malenkai-run may be different; other nouns do
combine with -run in this way (for instance, I live in a student-run
cooperative).  This could be a real tricky area of game custom if
players insist on forcing the issue; I'm sure somebody could find a
modifying form that appears in just enough words to start an argument
over whether it is a conventional change.

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

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 09:26:56 -0500
From: "Bollinger, John C." <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Acka:  Proposal 2220

Niccolo Flychuck wrote:

[/dev/joe wrote:]

> > Let TotalMem be the total number of members of all Organizations. 
> > For each Organization let NoM be the number of members of that
> Organization.
> > Each Organization receives (NoM*2)/(TotalMem*5), rounded down to the
> nearest
> > integer.
> > For the purpose of Profit Sharing Day, vacationing members are
> counted as
> > well.
> > 
> > All organizations?  This is going to be a piddly small fraction.
> 
> I think it is trivial to see that this means all Organization which
> have
> Delegates in the Synod. If that's the whole problem, it only a single
> Modest ammendment. Anyone who is truly dedicated to a fixed ruleset
> would
> surely vote for such an ammendment.
> 
As far as I am concerned, it is not at all trivial that the provision
should be interpreted to mean Organizations that have Delegates in the
Synod.  Indeed, it is "obvious" to me that the correct interpretation
is the one that /dev/joe initially asserted: all organizations in Acka.
In fact, even that is a (reasonable) distinction from the potential
interpretation "all organizations everywhere" (i.e. Ackanomic
Organizations, the U.S. Democratic Party, the AFL-CIO, the IRA, the
United Nations, etc.).

Moreover, it is not obvious to me even that the intent of the
provision in question was as Niccolo describes it.  It makes the profit
sharing bit somewhat less trivial, but that proves nothing.  I have no
problem taking Niccolo's word that that is the intent, but that the
language does not fulfil the intent is no justification for brushing
off criticism of the rule as it now stands.

On the other hand, I agree that the change suggested by NF would
improve the situation, and mitigate /dev/joe's criticism.  I don't
really think that the problem he pointed out has much to do with why
the rule hasn't been used.  To the contrary, it seems to me that it
hasn't been used because there is little interest.  That seems to me
to be sufficient reason to get rid of the rule.

For that matter, the vote on P2220 will surely be an indication of
player interest in the use of R1303.  A supermajority is required to
dump the rule, and I certainly don't intend use any special means to
try to make it so.  If even the minority required to retain the rule
cannot be mustered then IMO we are better off without it.  This
hearkens back to the other discussion Niccolo and I have been
having....

ThinMan

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

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 09:37:26 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <devjoe>
Subject: Re: Acka:  Proposal 2220

> > Niccolo asked me if the church of seleya was interested in joining the
> > synod, making the third delegate needed to get it started.  I e-mailed
> > all the other members and asked if anybody wanted to be Seleya's delegate
> > to the synod, and nobody responded, so with nobody interested in filling
> > the delegate seat, I didn't bother to have Seleya buy one.
> 
> Inaccurate. I am a member of Seleya, you didn't ask me.
> 
> [...] I would like to be Seleya's Delegate.
> I am formally requesting to be Seleya's Delegate. 

I assumed you wanted somebody else to do it since you were already a delegate.
Seleya is buying a Synod seat and I appoint Niccolo Flychuck as Delegate.

/dev/joe

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

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 18:43:12 +0300 (EET DST)
From: Uri Bruck <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka:  Proposal 2220

On Thu, 10 Jul 1997, Joseph W. DeVincentis wrote:

> 
> Let TotalMem be the total number of members of all Organizations. 

ps to my previous note about this - I think the word is used in context
and the meaning is clear as it is, however /dev's interpretation
demonstrated that it could be misconstrued. 

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

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 11:11:42 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <devjoe>
Subject: Acka: Me

I am going out of town for the weekend, leaving right now.
I will be back Sunday to update everything.  I am NOT going on vacation.

It looks like a bunch of proposals just failed, all of them failed.  At least
the rules will still be fully up-to-date.

/dev/joe

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

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 11:17:48 -0700 (PDT)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ 426 Verdict

> CFJ 426 has been judged FALSE.

I am hereby destroying this most tasteless trinket Mr. X-Y-Z. Its
purpose in life has been served.

#award breadbox: -1 Mr. X-Y-Z: trinket destruction
#award breadbox: 7 A$: trinket destruction

breadbox

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

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 13:41:43 -0500
From: "Bollinger, John C." <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: Acka:  Senate (Proposal 2212)

[Warning: long, somewhat rambling, and heading towards tangential]

Niccolo Flychuck wrote:

> On Wed, 9 Jul 1997, Bollinger, John C. wrote:
> 
> > have found it convenient to keep it so.  Or, perhaps more to the
> point,
> > no one has mustered sufficient support to change it.
> Not yet:)
> 
[Niccolo:]
> > > This may also have to do with a difference as to how one views
> such
> > > Institutions.  It seems to me that ThinMan views the Senate as
> > > governing
> > > body. I see Senators as public servants.
> 
> > I don't quite understand that comment.  There is no contradiction or
> > conflict inherent in a governing body being constituted of public
> > servants.  Indeed, I'm not sure whatNiccolo means when he says
> > that I view the Senate as a "governing body."  I suspect that I
> > disagree with his assessment, but I can't be sure until I know what
> > he means.
> 
> It has to do with how one perceives government. On one pole we have
> anarchism. Anarchists choose to be bound by nothing except for the
> social
> contract, which loosely may be phrased as:one can do whatever one
> likes as
> long as one does harm someone else.  On the opposite pole we have
> totalistarianism - a government which controls every aspect of one's
> life.
> Now, a community usualy requires some sort of an administration. In RL
> it
> is the administration which would be responsible for maintenance of
> utilities, among other things. The administration can be said to be a
> function of the community, but it does not need to have any authority
> over
> the members of the community.
> 
Apparently it is Niccolo who sees the Senate as a governing body,
although by his description above, that alone says nothing more than
that he attributes administrative functions to it.  What it seems he
meant by his previous comment is that I think the Senate should wield
authority over the general public, whereas he thinks it should have
little or none (see below).

> IMO an ideal government would have very little authority, if any.
> Since it
> is a function of the community, it should be responsible for the
> welfare
> of the members of the community, as the community's proxy. Other than
> that, it should interfere as little as possible.
> 
I would like to advance my own definition of government: a government
is a tool for taking collective action.  According to that definition,
I certainly do see the Senate as a governing body in that it takes
action on the behaf of the whole of Ackanomic.  The authority that
the Senate has is an entirely seperate question, however, and it is
also important to observe that the Senate is by no means the whole
government of Acka -- in fact, it is not a very large part at all.

Niccolo seems to be arguing less against government authority than
against _centralization_ of government authority.  After all, in a
system that is mostly a democracy, such as Acka's, the citizens are
a large part of the government.  Niccolo doesn't seem to be saying
that the government should have little authority, so much as he is
saying that individual citizens (who are part of the government)
should have as much authority as possible.  From those comments and
his recent proposals, I infer that his largest objection to the
current Senate system is that a relatively small, generally non-cycling
subset of players are making decisions of some (small) import for
Acka.

I see it partly as an efficiency issue.  Certainly it is for
efficiency's sake that the size of the Senate is limited.  Partly it
is for efficiency's sake that Senate terms are unlimited -- less work
devoted to carrying out elections, little time and effort wasted
training new Senators.

And indeed, there are checks on the system.  The everpresent
possibility of impeachment makes all Officers accountable to the
general playership.  A sufficient majority of the playership may
change the rules at any time, and, in fact, established the rules we
currently use.  The ultimate authority, therefore, is always the
general group of players.  The current arrangement is incompatible
with the Senate having any control or authority over players.

I could keep on, but I won't.

ThinMan

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

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 16:00:01 -0900
From: Phil Ackley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: New Player (Mentor: Niccolo Flychuck)

The trend continues.  Are we being invaded? :)

We have another new player in Acknaomic. Non-voting this time. Some of you
may remember him from my snowgod's diseased message of a few days ago.  His
name is Ace Rimmer and his email address is [email-masked].
For those of you who care about such things, his real name is Gregory
McClune.

In response to the market researh question he writes absolutly nothing.

Please give Ace Rimmer a warm round of applause and welcome him to Ackanomic.

Mr. Lunatic Fringe
Registrar

Niccolo Flychuck has been selected as his mentor.

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

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 21:41:55 -0500 (CDT)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 2220

> If there was no phoeve rule, could not players post ancient wisdoms
> occasionally?
	Yes, but it would be off-topic.  The Phoebe rule was like
a public notice that it's acceptable to post long, rambling, off-topic
material, at least once in a while.  So it did serve a purpose.
	We don't need anything to tell us that it's acceptable to
compete and cooperate and try to do well in the game and contribute to
its growth.

- -- 
Mohammed
Maybe seven bossy rude aliens from Canada and a con artist from Juneau
were made for each other.

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

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 22:00:38 -0500 (CDT)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: the 'bot

The steel flea whispered in my ear:

"This situation has bugged me even with Wayne's 'bot, but if it's not
too hard, next time you're tinkering with the 'bot, could you have it
publish the text of failed proposals?  Some of the titles aren't very
informative, and a week after I've voted I usually don't remember them
very well, anyway, and it would be nice to see what had just failed,
especially when I've voted YES.  Unless you think it would confuse
people to have the text of failed proposals included."

I thought about it a moment and said, "sure, that would be easy to do.
As a matter of fact, when I first brought the bot up it worked that
way, but there were complaints."

Does anyone object to my changing the bot to send out texts of failed
proposals? 

(Note that you can still get the text of a proposal by sending

#read file p2021.txt

to the bot.  Even if the proposal is no longer in queue, the file will
probably still be hanging around on the disk for a week or more.)

- -- 
Mohammed
Tabulator

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

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 22:10:51 -0500 (CDT)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Personal Info

> First person to guess 2 of the 3 sports (not neccessarily
> competitive) I engage in gets a PFAntimatter.
	Did anyone ever guess?

- -- 
Mohammed
A funny tall babbling baker from Duluth sold a taxi driver a white
zebra.

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

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 23:09:46 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CFJ 427 Verdict

CFJ 427 has been judged FALSE.

Malenkai-due
Clerk of the Courtski
- ---------------------------------------------------------------
Call For Judgment 427
  Subject: Conventional English Morphology IV
Initiator: breadbox
    Judge: Mohammed (selected Jul 10, 1997, 22:33h EDT)
Judgement: FALSE

Statement:

The trinket "Fon-due Set", created by breadbox, is a Forgery.

breadbox's Reasoning:

fon is the name of a former player. The real question, however, is
whether the name is still a separate word in the eyes of Rule 506
when it is connected to an adjective by a hyphen.

Mohammed's Reasoning:

Following /dev/joe's excellent reasoning on CFJ 426, I conclude that
postfixing someone's name with "-due" is not a conventional English
morphological change.

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

End of Ackanomic Digest V2 #190
*******************************