Subject: ackanomic digest V2 #466
From: [email-masked] (ackanomic digest)
To: [email-masked]

ackanomic digest      Thursday, January 15 1998      Volume 02 : Number 466

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Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 23:29:23 -0500
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Anti-Voting Discussion

> Don't tell me you ENJOYED writting those massive renumbering
> monsters, Malenkai.

I DID enjoy writing them.  In fact, Reorg I was one of my favorites.
What is your point, if I may ask?

> If we eliminate the non-scam point win,
> then what non-scam wins are left?  A paradox win?  There hasn't been a
> paradox win in more than a year.  Other than paradoxes and points, I would
> say that all Cycle wins have come from something that could be called a
> scam. If the agendas ever get off the ground, perhaps that would be
> another viable method for those who aren't loophole surfing adepts.

Paradox and adjendas would both be scam wins too.  The last time
this discussion came up, someone said 'get on with it', at which time
the beldin's pants win occurred.  Despite some of the bugs in the
adjenda rules, I think it is a good replacement for points.

> I disagree with the idea that point wins, assuming the magic
> number isn't very low (and I know that at times it has been), are somehow
> too cheap to deserve to be a win.

I'm not sure I'm promoting that idea.  If I am, that is not the intent.
I shall sum up my position as follows, and that should address all of
your points:

1) proposals require more work on the part of the harfers and acka
at large than the writers.  That makes them a bad candidate for a
win for the writers, imo.

2) scams and other sorts of wins require more work for the winner
than acka at large.  The exact opposite.  Scams also open the door
for players with little time to compete against those that have
all day to play nomic.  Scams generally are more interesting,
elegant, and fun than rolling up points, for some, perhaps a
minority, of nomic players.

3) winning by proposal generally goes to the person who has alot
of time to write them.  I did not mean to imply that that is less
worthy, but it requires more "brute force" and less elegance than
other sorts of wins.  Its sort of the reason serious chess players
use chess clocks -- to level the playing field in the dimension of
time.  Most competetive sports and board games also give all
competetors the same amount of time.  This sort of thing, however,
is not possible in a pbem nomic game, so reward structures that
simulate it are good game design, imo.

4) I do believe writing proposals is the reward in itself.  Don't
you get more satisfaction from someone accepting your proposal
than the points.  Good proposals failing due to competetive things
like anti-voting and scoreboard watching is bad for the development
of the "story".

> I've never actually heard an arguement as to why
> scams are better than points.  Malenkai says that "flooding the proposal
> queue" because you have lots of spare time is how you win by points, and
> that it doesn't really deserve to be a win.  I ask, why not? 

Hopefully the above comments answer these questions and others on my
eliminate anti-voting and points for proposal view.  

> What makes noticing some bizarre little
> loophole in an ill-written rule that allows you to triple your score any
> better than writting 20 odd worthwhile proposals?

Again, I hope I answered that above.  We do disagree on what makes 
nomic different than other sorts of games, I guess.  Nomic was invented
to explore paradox in self-amending law.  Moreover, the inventor of
nomic claimed in some public writing (possibly on his web page), that
he purposely made the winning by points in the initial ruleset boring
so that players would have something off the bat to amend so that 
they get their nomic feet wet.  This sort of ideaology attracted me
to nomic in the first place.  Unfortunately, at least for me, this
nomic has not yet shed the points for proposal concept.  

> I don't think there are any real answers to the questions I asked above.
> Its a matter of opinion, Malenkai has his and I have mine. 

Actually, I feel I've provided some pretty good points.  Why are
winning by points and anti-voting good things?  Presumably because
60% of the voters enjoy them, nothing more.  I'm not sure I've
been saying "forever about how the point win is bad", I just don't
enjoy them, and since I am still here, and since people are discussing
this issue, new players who may not have read the archives and seen
me make these points before, I thought I'd mention them again, because
I believe they are good arguments.

One cycle was won just because the player in question had a pair
of whamiols.  Is that less worthy?  You make the call, but IMO,
its less fun and interesting, and its all about fun on a 
limited amount of time.  At this point, I don't overly care all
that much, but people seemed interested on opinions on the matter.

Malenkai

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