Subject: MN: Re: Dolly's definitely feeling unwell.

From: "Kevan Davis" <kevan@z...>
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 12:36:00 -0000

>> There have been attempts to introduce a system of that type here (Public
>> Proposals), but they had to be withdrawn due to general apathy. It was
>also
>> deemed to be futile, since if you have an idea you want to discuss, then
>> there's nothing to stop you posting it to the list for comments.
>
>I wonder if ownership of ideas is a problem here. In Thring, for example,
>few people were willing to voice new ideas in case they were either scammed
>or taken and proposed by someone else.

Indeed, yes. Thring was far more victory-based, though - in Mornington
Nomic, managing to score lots of Kudos for a Proposal isn't terribly
impressive. I forget if Thring had any other reward for idea ownership (was
each rule attributed to its proposer, or was that something else?), but I
think that Mornomic falls outside of such copyrighting - in the wider world
of Mornington Crescent, there's a rather beautiful "unspoken ownership" of
ideas. I'm always secretly proud and amused when some spurious game term
I've invented achieves widespread use. (And having Maelberg Variances cited
in a net-magazine review of the York Server pleased me absurdly.)

>I don't know if this is the case
>here, but perhaps we need a system where proposals can be amended while in
>the process of review; before they are voted on.

I think we've been doing alright, really, reproposing things which failed
because of careless yet drastic mistakes, and quietly heralding the more
ambitious Proposals before we make them, to get a bit of feedback.

>Personally, I believe in voting something in and then changing it; this
>being what I consider to be the Nomic Way.

More or less - it's obviously a bad idea to enact-and-fix something that's
going to critically upset the game in its first incarnation, though;
amending a proposal enacted the week before is little different to enacting
a different version of a proposal which failed, after all. And if something
goes drastically against my own vision of what the game should be, I'm
obviously not overly keen to see it enacted at all.

Kevan

--
kevan@d...
http://members.xoom.com/asabove

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