Subject: Nomic: idea for dealing with times actions take place

From: Joel Uckelman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 19:49:42 -0500

I thought of this while at work today:

Part of the problem with having actions occur officially at exactly the 
times when people take them is that they affect the game state, but are 
not self-documenting, as it were--i.e., most actions cause a net 
increase in administrative work, so the game is always in a state of 
playing catch-up to what players decide to do.

If, on the other hand, we divided what we now view as actions into two 
parts (or, more accurately, added a second, separate part that must 
follow actions for them to be legally recognized), this problem could 
be eased, if not eliminated. Specifically, I think we should 
distinguish between when actions occur, and when they are recognized by 
the appropriate authorities to have their effect. Such a scheme fits 
well with dividing labor among several officers, e.g.:

Josh makes a proposal. Mary is the registrar or notary or whatever, and 
thus is responsible for processing proposals. The time at which Mary 
does whatever needs doing to Josh's proposal is when it becomes active, 
and not before.

Two things need be noted here, one peculiar to this example, the other 
a general caveat. Firstly, "recognizing" a proposal would, assuming the 
list filter is working correctly, involve little more than verifying 
its output is correct, and maybe not even for each proposal. Secondly, 
and more importantly, this should raise issues about what we do if an 
officer refuses to recognize some action. I would suggest that there be 
some sort of obstruction penalty that can be levied by the courts 
against delinquent officers.

In any case, does this sound like something we should do?

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