Subject: ackanomic digest V2 #368
From: [email-masked] (ackanomic digest)
To: [email-masked]

ackanomic digest       Sunday, November 16 1997       Volume 02 : Number 368

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Date: Sun, 16 Nov 1997 07:52:59 +0200 (EET)
From: Uri Bruck <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 2376

I oppose this proposal for a couple of reasons.

First, Ackanomic is a game played by email, and it has always been
recognized, agreed upon, and engraved in many rules, that it is a game
that should be playable by someone who reads eir mail once every three
days. It is granted that Slakko was unaware of this. I don't think that
Swingers should be rewarded for responding in less than three days, or
contrariwise, penalized for  responding in a reasonable time, or penalized
for not responding at all.

The second reason is implementation - the only way the velocity variable
can shrink is when a Swinger does not submit a legal move within eir turn.
Otherwise, it can potentially grow unimpeded, and soon will overshadow all
other components of Swinger Weight, as to make the Swinger's board
position wholly immaterial.

Niccolo Flychuck

 On Sat, 15 Nov 1997, Brian Raiter wrote:

> Proposal 2376
> Prompt Chess Moves Pay
> Slakko (Duncan Richer)
> 
> Amend Rule 1230.3 by replacing
> "For a Swinger whose King is on-board 
> Weight = 
> (Total material value of the on-board pieces) + 
> for each piece (Mobility of that piece) 
> for each piece (add 5 if the piece attacks at least one opponent piece) 
> for each piece (add 4 if the piece defends at least one friendly piece) "
> 
> with the following text delimited by SPEED:
> 
> SPEED
> For a Swinger whose King is on-board 
> Weight = 
> (Total materialvalue of the on-board pieces) + 
> Velocity Variable +
> for each piece (Mobility of that piece) 
> for each piece (add 5 if the piece attacks at least one opponent piece) 
> for each piece (add 4 if the piece defends at least one friendly piece) 
> SPEED.
> 
> In Rule 1230.3, after the phrase "without making a Capture."  insert the
> following text, delimited by BULLOCK:
> 
> BULLOCK
> Each Office of Swinger has an integer associated with it called its
> Velocity Variable.
> {{Each Swinger's Velocity Variable is setto 0.}}
> Whenever a new Swinger Office is created, its Velocity Variable is set to
> 0.  Whenever a Swinger submits eir turn within 24 hours of the last
> turn being made public, eir Velocity Variable is increased by 5
> immediately after eir turn becomes publically knowable, provided they are
> not the Chess-Umpire.  If the Chess-Umpire is a Swinger, and submits eir
> move within 2 hours of the last turn's results being made public, eir
> Velocity Variable is increased by 2 immediately after eir move is first
> publically knowable.  If any player submits an illegal turn or does not
> submit a turn within the deadline, then their Velocity Variable is
> decreased by 7, unless they are the Chess-Umpire, in which case it is
> decreased by 17. 
> {{[This Velocity Variable is designed to encourage quicker play of Party
> Chess, and hopefully therefore a more interesting game.]}}
> BULLOCK
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> End of acka-voting-digest V2 #199
> *********************************
> 

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

Date: Sun, 16 Nov 1997 07:39:31 +0000 ()
From: Duncan Richer <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 2376

On Sun, 16 Nov 1997, Uri Bruck wrote:

> 
> 
> 
> 
> I oppose this proposal for a couple of reasons.
> 
> First, Ackanomic is a game played by email, and it has always been
> recognized, agreed upon, and engraved in many rules, that it is a game
> that should be playable by someone who reads eir mail once every three
> days. It is granted that Slakko was unaware of this. I don't think that
> Swingers should be rewarded for responding in less than three days, or
> contrariwise, penalized for  responding in a reasonable time, or penalized
> for not responding at all.

I personally don't see why anyone would hold the position of Party Swinger
unless they were going to play Party Chess.  If they are going to play
Party Chess, then they will play, and make moves regularly, and they will
hopefully not be penalised too much.  If they are not going to play Party
Chess, then why did they become a Swinger in the first place?

I've been looking for ways to give Party Chess more than its current
absolute minimal impact on the game.  I thought that a modification so as
to encourage some faster development of the game would be a good idea.
Further, I was hoping to encourage more play with this rule, not just
faster play.  If you look at the movement log, you will see that the game
has had 88 moves in 14 months - that's approximately one move every five
days.  Of these moves, 27 have been passes by default, while 5 have been
automatic passes for a Warm Swinger's office (note that the proposal as it
stands does not penalise a Warm office for failing to submit).  This
leaves an average of four moves a month.

Given the rate at which Acka's ruleset is capable of change, I find it
difficult to see how a game with only four moves a month is capable of
being very relevant.  I therefore simply sought a way to encourage people
(1) to play, and (2) to play quickly.

If anyone agrees with my principles but not my methods, then perhaps some
suggestions of yours would be appreciated.  If you only have slight
disagreement with my methods, then get this proposal through and fix it up
with an amendment - I'll be more than happy to go along with an amendment
which does not gut the heart of this proposal.

> 
> The second reason is implementation - the only way the velocity variable
> can shrink is when a Swinger does not submit a legal move within eir turn.
> Otherwise, it can potentially grow unimpeded, and soon will overshadow all
> other components of Swinger Weight, as to make the Swinger's board
> position wholly immaterial.

I can see that this particular part is capable of causing some problems.
However, I don't see that this second reason alone is sufficient for
rejecting the rule.  After all, if enough people were interested I would
be more than happy to set limits on the value of this Variable, or to have
some adjustment mechanism in place when the values get too high.  In the
early days of such a system, though, it should be left in a relatively
simple position to see how it affects the game.

Yours,
Chess-Umpire Slakko
- --
Duncan C. Richer -- aka Slakko the Lost Warner Brother -- Now Really Lost!
Queens' College  -- PhD, Pure Maths, Graph Theory --  Cambridge University
"Equipment malfunction." "Well, whack it." -- Obscure P&TB Quote
http://dcr24.quns.cam.ac.uk/Nomic/27/Index.html <-- Imperial Nomic Game 27

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

Date: Sun, 16 Nov 1997 17:44:15 +0200 (EET)
From: Uri Bruck <[email-masked]>
Subject: acka : Internomic props

Is there currently a Hearing going on for voting on an INP proposal? 
I thought I saw something about this, but I can't remember whether it was
before my vacatiobn or after it.

Niccolo Flychuck

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

Date: Sun, 16 Nov 1997 09:40:55 -0700 (MST)
From: [email-masked] (Aaron V. Humphrey)
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 2376

> I personally don't see why anyone would hold the position of Party Swinger
> unless they were going to play Party Chess.  If they are going to play
> Party Chess, then they will play, and make moves regularly, and they will
> hopefully not be penalised too much.  If they are not going to play Party
> Chess, then why did they become a Swinger in the first place?

Well, maybe they just wanted their Party to have a Swinger at all, which is,
I confess, the only reason I ended up as a Swinger.  Also, the problem is
that not everybody _has_ the time.  I used to, five months ago--now I do
not.  The three-day principle is designed for people who don't have the
time, and penalizing anyone for not being able to check their email more
frequently is against the spirit of Ackanomic, and actually rather rude.

> I've been looking for ways to give Party Chess more than its current
> absolute minimal impact on the game.  I thought that a modification so as
> to encourage some faster development of the game would be a good idea.
> Further, I was hoping to encourage more play with this rule, not just
> faster play.  If you look at the movement log, you will see that the game
> has had 88 moves in 14 months - that's approximately one move every five
> days.  Of these moves, 27 have been passes by default, while 5 have been
> automatic passes for a Warm Swinger's office (note that the proposal as it
> stands does not penalise a Warm office for failing to submit).  This
> leaves an average of four moves a month.

I thought it was just totally dead, but I guess I just wasn't subscribed to
acka-chess.  (Oops...)  In any case, welcome to Ackanomic.  We are not all
slavering at the terminal waiting for another message to come in so that we
can respond to it within minutes.  (Except during certain treasure hunts.)
I used to be, but now I try to check it every day, and don't always have
time to deal with every message I might wish to at the time it comes in.
Especially with Party Chess, where it took me close to half an hour just to
make sure that where I was placing my piece it wasn't going to get captured
right away.  :-)

> Given the rate at which Acka's ruleset is capable of change, I find it
> difficult to see how a game with only four moves a month is capable of
> being very relevant.  I therefore simply sought a way to encourage people
> (1) to play, and (2) to play quickly.

Maybe Party Chess is not intended to be any more intrinsically relevant to
the game than YORL or Viruses is.  Of course, it takes up a whole Rule
Suite to itself, but I believe it is still meant to be something mostly
separate.  I mean, this isn't the chess-based Nomic that I hear Benjamin
Good came up with after leaving Ackanomic...

> If anyone agrees with my principles but not my methods, then perhaps some
> suggestions of yours would be appreciated.  If you only have slight
> disagreement with my methods, then get this proposal through and fix it up
> with an amendment - I'll be more than happy to go along with an amendment
> which does not gut the heart of this proposal.

The problem is that I don't think many people agree with your principles.
:-)

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/alfvaen/ )
Song In My Head--Marillion:Lavender
Current Book--Dave Duncan:Future Indefinite
Back in June we delivered oxygen equipment of the same size.

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

Date: Sun, 16 Nov 1997 17:44:22 +0000 ()
From: Duncan Richer <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Proposal 2376

<Reasonable Factors Pointed Out snipped>

Fair enough.  I'm trying to push the game a way it doesn't want to go.
I hereby retract Proposal 2376.

Yours,
Slakko
- --
Duncan C. Richer -- aka Slakko the Lost Warner Brother -- Now Really Lost!
Queens' College  -- PhD, Pure Maths, Graph Theory --  Cambridge University
"Equipment malfunction." "Well, whack it." -- Obscure P&TB Quote
http://dcr24.quns.cam.ac.uk/Nomic/27/Index.html <-- Imperial Nomic Game 27

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

Date: Sun, 16 Nov 1997 19:10:28 +0000 ()
From: Duncan Richer <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Query on Swingers

Did Ben leave the game before the rule was fixed to eliminate the office
(well, return it to the Treasury)?  If so, should I modestly propose a
one-off fix to clear it all up?

Yours,
Chess-Umpire Slakko
- --
Duncan C. Richer -- aka Slakko the Lost Warner Brother -- Now Really Lost!
Queens' College  -- PhD, Pure Maths, Graph Theory --  Cambridge University
"Equipment malfunction." "Well, whack it." -- Obscure P&TB Quote
http://dcr24.quns.cam.ac.uk/Nomic/27/Index.html <-- Imperial Nomic Game 27

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

Date: Sun, 16 Nov 1997 13:45:22 -0600
From: Mitchell Harding <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Query on Swingers

> Did Ben leave the game before the rule was fixed to eliminate the office
> (well, return it to the Treasury)?  If so, should I modestly propose a
> one-off fix to clear it all up?

I don't know the answer to that question, but I'm still in the game, so
let's just keep that in mind.

Harf.

Robert Sevin
"The few surviving samurai survey the battlefield
 Count the arms, the legs and heads
  And then divide by five"

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End of ackanomic digest V2 #368
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