Subject: Tornado Alert!

From: Xylen <mctupper@h...>
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 03:05:16 -0600

As everyone is aware by now, yesterday was a bit hectic in Socialnomic.
It was a fun party with lots going on all at once. Unfortunetly, no one
noticed right away that there was a problem. Fortunetly the effects
only cover a days worth of activities, but it is taking a bit of time
to track everything down. I am curretnly going back thru all of the
actions taken to see which ones really happened, and which ones were
just rumors. Expect to see a full report later. If you feel the urge
to do something, please be very careful. The Rules may not be what you
think they are.

Xylen,
proud to be nominated as Socialnomic's Pariah.
-- 
Email is packaged by intellectual weight, not volume. Some settling of
contents may have occurred during transmission.

---

From: Xylen <mctupper@h...>
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 03:22:39 -0600

On Thu, 22 Jun 2000, you wrote:
> The Rules may not be what you think they are.

Boy is that ever true. Egoups is being a pain to access right now, so I
can't complete my investigations. However, I thought I would post the
intial report.
===================
With the repeal of Rule 3 at 2:18 am Wednesday, Socialnomic
suffered from a severe earthquake (or is that a nomicquake?). To
be really fussy about it, Proposals 13-15 were not made as there were no
Players in Socialnomic at that time. Also the votes from Oloros on 9,
11, 12, and the ill fated 13* were not legal. TopHeavy's votes
on 3 and 9 were also improper. 

Timeline:
2:18--Rule 3 repealed, No players exist! Since there were a few live
proposals at that time, they all passed as they had received more FOR
votes than they needed (which was either one more than half of zero, or
all of zero). These were proposals 3, 5, 7-9, 11-12 (Proposals 4 and 10
were defeated, and 6 was adopted prior to the earthquake). Since the
proposing Players were no longer members of the game, no one gained any
points from their passage. However, all of these proposals were
eligble to be adopted. Unfortunetly, there were no Players to adopt
them.

11:22 --TopHeavy joines the game:
Adoptable proposals --- 3, 5, 7-9, 11-12.
Players: TopHeavy - 0 points. 

11:34--Oloros joins the game
Adoptable proposals --- 3, 5, 7-9. 11-12
Players: TopHeavy and Oloros with 0 points

11:40--Xylen joins the game
Adoptable proposals --- 3, 5, 7-9, 11-12
Players: TopHeavy, Oloros, Xylen (all with 0 points)

Now comes the hard part. Were any of the proposals made after 11:40
legal? That is, did they modify something that didn't exist? Were the
proposals made in the proper form and posted to the right lists,
according to the ruleset _at that time_. As soon as I gain access to
egroups, I will look into this. 

There is one other option to consider. We can invoke the Escape Hatch,
and just fix the points for the players after they joined the game, and
allow any adopted proposal to continue to exist. That will be much
easier to do. The only thing to consider then, would be those proposals
that were declared Defeated, but in reality had passed. 

Xylen,
who is really enjoying this. Maybe we can make ruleset messes a subgame?

---

From: "Oloros the Blue" <oloros@b...>
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 14:50:54 -0000

The question is whether or not to take the escape hatch, or to adhere 
to the timeline. Good thing there's only the four of us.

I would be in favor of peeling it all back to ruleset-discussion, so 
we can apply some of the ideas of the first 20 proposals to the 
initial ruleset. Not only that, it would give us a stable ground-zero 
to which to return. 

I think we have proven the theory that the initial ruleset is a 
fecund enough mass to begin ferment, now let us refine it to a 
criticality.

-Oloros

---

From: Xylen <mctupper@h...>
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 09:50:11 -0600

> initial ruleset. Not only that, it would give us a stable ground-zero 

I agree with that idea, with one reservation. The vast majority of the
20 proposals so far are fixing little things. Ony the Social Standing
and the Points as currency proposals were new items. However, we must
be careful to not set a precedent that we don't want to follow in the
future. (I broke my new toy, so I'm just going to go get a new one). I
think it would be more appropriate to continue the game as is, and just
work with the mess. Every nomic has some problems at it's start, and the
solutions to those problems are an important part of the game itself. 

What I plan on doing is continuing my investigations into the effects
of the timeline, and then posting an Accusation with the results. and
asking the players to approve those results. 

Xylen

---

From: "Oloros the Blue" <oloros@b...>
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 16:25:24 -0000

> [Xylen] 
> What I plan on doing is continuing my investigations into 
> the effects of the timeline, and then posting an Accusation 
> with the results. and asking the players to approve those 
> results. 
> 
But a formal Accusation must be targeted at some Player(s), based on 
some particular (il)legal, or at least disputable, action. 

If the Ruleset invalidated many Players, it was an action of the 
Ruleset, which is not liable to be accused. 

If so many players were invalidated that there were no Players in the 
nomic, then it would be possible to declare the nomic closed and 
over. It is not a question of a tree falling in forest with an 
unheard wail of quiet despair, Socialnomic is a construct of our 
participation.

However, if the Socialnomic starting Ruleset had been more broad with 
repsect to non/statis/active/players the nomic would have continued 
to exist after invalidating its active players and remained available 
to be joined. Like an escaped housecat that adopts a family. 

-Oloros, who will knock on the wooden table, theosophisticatedly.

---

From: Xylen <mctupper@h...>
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 11:03:35 -0600

> some particular (il)legal, or at least disputable, action. 

I see your point. Accusations must be made against a player and not the
game itself. Perhaps I should have said something like a Clarification
will be made, although that term is not defined. 

I have completed rolling the Ruleset back to the point of dispute, and
I am now going thru to see what effects occured at the moment the
nomicquake hit. There is actually less than I had orginally thought, so
it shouldn't take long.

Stayed tuned to this channel for further breaking news.

Xylen

---

From: topheavy@s...
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 17:17:13 -0000

Here's the error, The Repeal of Rule 3 did not cause there to be zero 
players in the game. The ADOPTION of PROPOSAL 3 (and the subsequent 
Alteration of Rule 0) caused there to be zero players in the game. 

Interestingly, it seems that the egroups timestamp is individual.. 
i.e. it is adjusted for your own time zone. Note that my times are 
exactly 1 hour earlier than Xylen's... As long as we only reference 
times to our own archive, we can see what happened first...

Proposal 3 was Adopted at 10 AM.

New Timeline -

Prop 3 adopted at 10AM. No players exist.

>votes than they needed.

Not True... They were eligible for Adoption, but that doesn't mean 
they passed.. So no problem with legality.

Between 10AM and 10:22 (when TopHeavy joins the game), TopHeavy takes 
the following actions.

Defeat of proposal 10
Defeat of proposal 9

These two actions were illegal.

Between 10AM and 10:34 (when Oloros joins the game), Oloros takes no 
actions.

Between 10AM and 10:40 (When Xylen joins the game), Xylen takes the 
following action.

Votes FOR proposal 13

This action was illegal.

Between 10AM and 4:34PM (when Tripper joins the game), Tripper takes 
no acitons.

So we are left with a much smaller laundry list of problems.

1 illegal vote, and 2 illegal Defeats.

-TopHeavy

---

From: Xylen <mctupper@h...>
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 11:26:40 -0600

> they passed.. So no problem with legality.

&&^$$#*( ?THUD THUD <--- sound of head hitting wall.

For some reason I was thinking that rules take effect as soon as they
_can_ be adopted, not necessarily when they are announced to be
Adopted. That does make things a lot easier. 

(Note to self: don't do nomic stuff before coffee)

> 1 illegal vote, and 2 illegal Defeats.

In that case, the simpliest thing to do would be for the posting player
to delete the offending messages. 

VML message 65 - 67 and AML message 34. No changes need to be made to
the RULES list.

With those actions, Points are as follows. 

TopHeavy +10 points Adoption of Proposal 16
Oloros +10 points for Adoption of Proposal 12

Proposals still up for voting (ie, not Adopted or Defeated)
9*, 10*, 11, 13^, 15^, 17^, 18^, 19, 20, and 21

^Eligible for Adoption:
*Eligible for Defeat:

Not that bad. I will delete my improper message, and once the others
have been deleted, we can proceed to muck things up again. :)

Xylen

---

From: topheavy@s...
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 18:11:50 -0000

> to delete the offending messages. 

Done on my end.
Next!

-topheavy

---

From: "Oloros the Blue" <oloros@b...>
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 18:26:09 -0000

> 9*, 10*, 11, 13^, 15^, 17^, 18^, 19, 20, and 21
That's it, then? Alright.

We now return you to your regular programming.
At least on my channel is, our announcement to the Nomic Bulletin 
Board and the Net Nomic Database (Message 60), and the possible 
allowance of accusations against the ruleset (Message 80).

-Oloros

---

From: "Dan Marsh (aka 'The Governor')" <dmarsh@v...>
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 22:45:17 -0400

Xylen wrote:

[An excellent analysis of a Socialnomic "earthquake"]

and just fix the points for the players after they joined the game,
and

easier to do. The only thing to consider then, would be  those
proposals

Invoking the Escape Hatch would be easier.  I encourage you to STRONGLY
resist doing so.  I think it is sort of the -point- of Nomic to work
your way out of messes, within the rules.  If necessary, Accuse your
way out of them, but I think Discussion will reveal that Xylen's chronology
is about right.  The question is, of course, then what.

Proposals probably stay in the hopper if their proposers leave the game,
but votes are another story.  Perhaps all of the votes disappeared
with the players.  I'd suggest that this is an appropriate question
for your legal system to decide.

Xylen,

Well, in my opinion, they are.  It's called "Nomic."  :-)