Subject: Proposal: The Proprietary Information Act

From: "Hubert Hwang" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2001 03:18:10 -0000

PROPOSAL:

"No player may know the amounts of the various goods present in another 
player's warehouse. The GNDT will reflect this; no information on 
warehouse goods will be displayed to any player not owning those goods. 
Doc will, of course, be given all information on the Gamestate. In 
addition, any player may voluntarily disclose any information regarding 
their current warehouse stock, whether in writing through this Group or 
through the GNDT."

{This message brought to you by ShippingNet, the dot-com without an 
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{Message to Kevan: If you sent my GNDT password to [email-masked] 
and it bounced, it was because I forgot to activate the account; send 
it again if this is the case.}

- Hubert Hwang

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From: John Kipling Lewis <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2001 10:08:43 -0400 (EDT)

Proposal for new NSFR: Winning.

The Winner of Round 3 shall be the Player with the most Plinks when all
Player are members of the same Gang or when there are no longer any Gangs
in the Game. In the event that two or more players have the highest
number of Plinks, then all Players with the highest number of Plinks shall
be declared Winners of Round 3.

---

From: "Kevan Davis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2001 20:03:21 -0000

> warehouse goods will be displayed to any player not owning those 
goods. 

Mm, this would need an extra, initial level of log-in stuff on the 
GNDT, since it'd have to know who you were before displaying any data 
at you. Not impossible to implement, but a fair bit of work, and I 
obviously couldn't have it ready for the nanosecond that this 
Proposal passed. (No point coding it all in advance if Doc rejects 
it, after all.)

> In 

Again, even more work to implement, tracking who's revealed what to 
whom ("I reveal my Spoon and Flour total to Britta, but nothing else 
to anyone").

I'm not so sure this is a good idea, anyway - secret trading is 
perhaps fair enough, but better implemented by hand by Doc, rather 
than expecting him to keep a careful eye on all GNDT stock-purchases 
to check that nobody's making mistakes or blatantly cheating. One of 
the nice things about the GNDT, after all, is that people can pick up 
on other people's errors.

Kevan

--
http://uncertain.org/~kevan
"Leave me alone, I was only singing."

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From: "Hubert Hwang" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2001 20:37:07 -0000

> Kevan

Yeah, I realize that this would be a large amount of work, and, given 
your objections, I'm sure Doc would probably reject it or alter it to 
leave out the GNDT...

If not, I'll re-propose it later to involve the secret trading by 
hand as per your suggestion.

Thanks for the feedback...

-Hubert Hwang

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: 09 Jul 2001 11:27:48 -0400

> {This message brought to you by ShippingNet, the dot-com without an 

REJECTED. As discussed, this proposal is unworkable in its present
form at the present time because the GNDT isn't set up for what you
want it to do. Additionally, this rule (*is* it a new rule? You
don't say.) is self-inconsistent: "No player may know the amounts of
the various goods present in another player's warehouse" conflicts
with "any player may voluntarily disclose any information regarding
their current warehouse stock".

> on other people's errors.

is well taken. And I add that it applies perhaps even more
appropriately to data tracked by hand by me, since I'm even more
likely to make mistakes doing it that way than if it's done via the
GNDT. 

The third sentence ("Doc will, of course...") is problematic. "Of
course" suggests the sentence doesn't even need to be there, that it's
tautological, but in fact since we don't know yet how we will
implement transfer of goods, it's *not* tautological. A clear
statement that Doc *must* receive all information on warehouse
contents would be better.

As for the last sentence, such a clause need not be included in a
rule, since such messages are unregulated anyway. (Or wouldn't be if
it weren't for the fact that your first sentence prohibits them!) A
clause to *prohibit* such disclosures would be needed if such
prohibition were desired, but it'd be impossible to enforce.

-- 
- Doc

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: 09 Jul 2001 11:31:23 -0400

> be declared Winners of Round 3.

ACCEPTED, although I point out that Rule 7 says

When one (and only one) Player achieves the title of The Winner of
Round n, where n is the Round Number, the Round ends.

so that, if multiple players are declared Winners of Round 3 by your
second sentence, that will *not* be the end of the Round. The Round
will continue until there is only one Winner. (Unless Rule 7 is
amended or overridden, of course.)

-- 
- Doc

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From: John Kipling Lewis <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 13:26:36 -0400 (EDT)

PROPOSAL, Not so fundamental rule: Gang Warfare

Once per Dun, a Gang Member can elect to take an action. To take an
action, the player sends a message to the DocNomic Mailing List with the
subject listed clearly as: Gang Action-- <action type>, where action type
is one listed below.

Action Types:

Steal <item type> from Player <active Player>

The Player attempts to steal items from the active Player listed. The
active player must be a member of a different Gang than the Player taking
this action. The item type can be one of the following; Plinks, flour,
beans, machine parts, and plastic spoons. The active player targeted by
this action loses a random amount of that item type from 0 to 10. The
Player attempting this action has a 20% chance of being caught. If
caught, that Player loses all their Plinks. The Player making this action
now gains the amount of items lost by the Active Player.

Fight rival gang <Gang>

The Player initiates a fight between it's Gang and a stated Gang which
is not their own. All active players who are members of these gangs have
their number of Plinks altered by a random number from -10 to +5. The
initiating Player gains a bonus 10 Plinks.

Doc determines the effects of the actions.

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: 23 Jul 2001 11:07:42 -0400

> Doc determines the effects of the actions.

I have a few misgivings: there seems to be nothing preventing a Player
from ending up with a negative number of items, and starting a fight
appears to be a no-lose proposition. It also would "feel" better to
me to have fights affect points, not plinks. But I'll leave those for
others to fix up, if they want, and APPROVE this. +11 Plinks.

-- 
- Rich Holmes
Syracuse, NY

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From: John Kipling Lewis <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 14:26:49 -0400 (EDT)

POO:
Ignore previous requested gang activity... I misread the list and I can
not steal from Micheal as we are in the same Gang.

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: 23 Jul 2001 15:11:57 -0400

> not steal from Micheal as we are in the same Gang.

OK. No need to do this as a PoO, though.

-- 
- Rich Holmes
Syracuse, NY