Subject: Nomic: Ping

From: Xylen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2000 12:31:24 -0600

?

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From: Matthew J Kuhns <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2000 14:06:17 CDT

bwahahahahaha... get real.

Berserker is dead. Joel Giveth, Joel Taketh Away.

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From: Dan Waldron <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2000 23:05:22 -0400 (EDT)

If there are enough of us hangers-on who are interested, we could start up
a Nomic of our own.  We could try to make one that is resilient to both
desertions by players and conflicting interpretations of individual rules.

DW

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From: Josh Kortbein <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2000 22:14:40 CDT

>desertions by players and conflicting interpretations of individual rules.

Oh, also: if you think you can write rules in natural language,
and still avoid conflicting interpretations, you're a fool.

Josh

-- 
josh blog listening log:
   http://www.public.iastate.edu/~kortbein/blog/

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From: Josh Kortbein <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2000 22:14:08 CDT

>desertions by players and conflicting interpretations of individual rules.

I note, since, uncharacteristically, Joel hasn't (can I get some more
commas here?), that Joel indeed already has plans along those lines.
Also involving a nifty dedicated nomic server.

However, less than two weeks remain before the end of finals.
Expect nothing before then.

Josh

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From: Dan Waldron <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2000 23:25:52 -0400 (EDT)

> and still avoid conflicting interpretations, you're a fool.

I didn't say kill off conflicts.  They are one of the aspects that
makes the game enjoyable.  Perhaps conflicting interpretations can be made
into something which drives the game, rather than something that
continually threatens to destroy it.

DW

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From: Josh Kortbein <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2000 00:45:59 CDT

>continually threatens to destroy it.

My memory may be hazy, but I think we had our share of both sorts
of conflict.

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From: Joel Uckelman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2000 01:41:51 -0500

> desertions by players and conflicting interpretations of individual rules.

I am very interested in restarting, but won't have time to do anything until 
classes end, as Josh noted.

I attribute the demise of Berserker to both (1) my inability to keep timely 
records for it, and (2) some residual problems from the initial ruleset. 
Before we start again, we should address these.

With regard to (1), a note on my plans: as soon as the semester is over--that 
is, the end of next week--I intend to establish a server of my own to host our 
game--which means that I will no longer be saddled by the limitations of our 
current host, the university, and will be able to implement the bookkeeping 
devices I had originally planned. This alone will help keep the administrative 
side of things running smoothly, but I would be naive to think that it will 
solve all such problems. I've noticed that many nomics handle administrative 
duties by distributing small tasks to everyone, so everyone has a stake in 
keeping records current but no one becomes overwhelmed. Ideally, what I would 
like to see happen is a melding of our system with a distributed one, i.e. 
something in which officers would be responsible for administrative tasks, but 
would be encouraged to delegate tedious ones to my labor-saving scripts as I 
write them. That way, in the event that something stops working, or I don't 
have enough time to make necessary changes, we can temporarily fall back on 
doing things by hand and continue on as normal. Additionally, this has the 
added benefit of encouraging others in the game who may be adept at 
programming to assist in task automation.

With regard to (2), I think that before we start we should hammer out an 
initial ruleset better suited to what we want than Suber's original, perhaps 
with clearer definitions, etc. I have given this some thought, and encourage 
everyone to do the same. So I propose that we do something along the lines of 
a constitutional convention between now and when I have the server ready in 
order to develop an initial rulest that will get us off to a better start. 
Specifically, the judicial rules and general rulest organization are concerns 
of mine; no doubt everyone else has suggestions as well.

Make no mistake, I am eager to play again--but I was hoping to hold this off 
until I once again have time to deal with it. All the same, I hope a 
discussion of this sort erupts in the next few days.

-- 
J. Uckelman
[email-masked]
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~uckelman/

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From: Dan Waldron <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2000 15:41:06 -0400 (EDT)

Okay.  I would like to consider the idea of merging the rulemaking
system with the judicial system.  Game custom can go unwritten until it is
called into question by a Call For Ruling, at which point it is appended
to the rule to which it applies as a sub-rule.

In the case where a player either a: dissagrees with the interpretation of
other rules or b: feels that something is lacking in the ruleset, they
would submit a CFR describing the problem and the changes they feel need
to be made.. Other players could then propose rules that would solve the
described problem.  We would then vote on the rules, and if one recieved
enough support it would be adopted.

Here is an attempt I have made to start a ruleset.  I think it could
actually be played from this point but we should probably add some other
rules first.  I didn't actually get past rule 1.

1  Rules may be changed with the support of a majority of players.

1.1  A player may submit a CFR to the public forum. Other players may then
submit proposals on that CFR to the public forum.  The proposals are voted
on, and if any proposal recieves votes totalling more than half the number
of players, and more votes than any other CFR, the rule changes described
therein will be applied to the ruleset.

1.1.1  The player that submitted a CFR may not submit proposals on it.

1.1.2  Votes for any proposal are not counted until two weeks have
passed
from the submission of the CFR on which that proposal was made.

1.1.3  "CFR" stands for "Call For Ruling".

1.1.4  Rules may not be changed except as described in rule 1.1

DW