[s-b] ais523's Refresh Proposal

[Alex Smith <ais523@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Murphy, you probably want to look at some of the contents of this; I
think your Refresh Proposal, as worded, could potentially end up causing
major trouble, especially in relation to Fora. This is a more ambitious
Refresh Proposal than Murphy's, designed to not only fix bugs we know
about but to also fix potential bugs we don't know about, or that
haven't happened yet.

I submit the following Refresh Proposal:
{{{
/* Pragmatise everything that can be sanely pragmatised, to help avoid
emergencies in the future; much of this is based on techniques that
nomics like Agora that don't have emergencies use to avoid permanently
stalling. */

Amend all rules (and create and delete rules if necessary) to match the
forms they were in according to the wiki at the start of this Emergency.

Retitle rule 5e1 to "The Game of B Nomic".

Replace the body of rule 5e2 with:
{{
The game of B Nomic consists entirely of Game Objects (which may be
known simply as Objects), and attributes which are specifically
mentioned by the rules; generally speaking, the rules should only track
attributes on Game Objects, but they are not incapable of tracking
attributes of External Forces that are not Game Objects, or of anything
else.
}}
/* This fixes a whole world of potential breakage; for instance,
Murphy's RP tries to track an attribute on non-Game-Object Fora. Having
something we thought was part of the gamestate be not part of the
gamestate and yet relevant could destroy B outright, even to the extent
an emergency can't fix it. Better to avoid that. */

Append the following to rule 5e3:
{{
The phrases "have the X Property" and "have the property X" are synonyms
for "have an switch called X in the 'On' position". To "gain a property"
is a synonym for turning the switch with the same name On; to "lose a
property" is a synonym for turning the switch with the same name Off.
}}

Replace the body of rule 5e6 with:
{{
Fora are External Forces which are capable of allowing Outsiders in
general to communicate.

Fora which are Outsiders are either Discussion Fora or Public Fora,
Discussion Fora by default; this is a persistent attribute that can be
changed by proposal or by other means generally capable of altering the
gamestate. Fora which are not Outsiders are Private Fora.
}}
/* I think this one works better than Murphy's proposed forum fix, as it
seems impossible to set the Publicity of things that aren't Game
Objects, and /that/ could lead to a huge amount of chaos (and possibly
the end of the game if nobody notices for a month). */

Cause all Fora except the three listed below to cease to be Game
Objects, and cause the three fora listed below to become Game Objects,
and change their attributes as shown:
  * spoon-business@xxxxxxxxx mailing list - Public
  * spoon-discuss@xxxxxxxxx mailing list - Discussion
  * spoon-notices@xxxxxxxxx mailing list - Public
/* The idea shamelessly copied from Murphy. */

Replace "listthem" with "list them" in rule 5e10. /* Normally I wouldn't
typo-fix in an RP, but I want to make sure the rules mean what we think
they mean. */

In rule 5e11, before "A rule may give a different timespan for the
action to be resolved.", add "If no players have Objected to the action,
and at least 5 players have Supported the action, it can alternatively
be taken between 3 and 5 rdays after the intent was announced; players
should refrain from relying on this mechanism except to avoid ambiguity
or to fix bugs in ntime." /* 3 to 5 rdays will often match 2 to 4 ndays;
this lets us Tweak the clock on if necessary or fix other ntime-related
bugs without an Emergency. We need a second non-ntime-related system as
a backup for clock crises... */

In rule 5e11, append "as a Game Action" after "All Players may Object or
Support an action before it is performed". /* Uh oh, this one could have
lead to trouble... */

In rule 5e14, replace:
{{
If the nday would be set to a value greater than 12, instead it is set
to 1, the nweek is incremented by 1, and the Clock becomes Off.

At the beginning of each Voting Period, the Clock becomes Off, and until
the Clock next becomes On, the Chairman may as a Game Action change the
clock to be On, provided he has first published a Ballot.

The Clock may be changed from On to Off as a Game Action by the MoM.

If the Clock is Off, there are no Vacant Ministries and there are no
outstanding Ministerial obligations, the MoM is obligated to turn the
Clock On. When the Clock is turned On, the ndelay is set to zero.
}}
with
{{
The Clock can be turned On or Off by any player as a game action;
however, doing so is a violation of the rules unless the rules
specifically state that it isn't. It can also be turned On or Off
automatically by the rules.

If the nday would be set to a value greater than 12, instead it is set
to 1, the nweek is incremented by 1, and the Clock becomes Off.

At the beginning of each Voting Period, the Clock becomes Off, and until
the Clock next becomes On, the Chairman does not violate the rules by
changing the clock to be On, provided he has first published a Ballot.

The MoM does not violate the rules by changing the clock from On to Off.

If the Clock is Off, there are no Vacant Ministries and there are no
outstanding Ministerial obligations, the MoM is obligated to turn the
Clock On, and fulfilling this obligation does not violate the rules.

Whenever the Clock is turned On, the ndelay is set to zero.
}}
/* A big change, which I think is important; if a different RP wins,
I'll try to do this by proposal. Make sure we know the state of the
clock, always; and that we can turn it on, always. The Clock's just too
important to leave to chance. */

At the end of rule 5e16, add:
{{
Breakday and Winday of the 2nd nweek of an nyear are collectively known
as the Crisis Days, due to a record number of emergencies occuring in a
single nday and ending the Fourth Era /* which of those ndays it was was
unclear for some of those emergencies, so they both get the honour */.
On these days, it is customary for players of B to reflect on how
amazing it is that B has survived so far.
}}
}}}
/* OK, silly, but this needs to be commemorated somehow. I've left the
wording open so that if there are even more emergencies ntoday, it's
still correct. */

In rule 5e17, replace "REAL_START" with "2 Dec 2008".

In rule 5e23, replace
{{
becoming a Possible Candidate
}}
with
{{
causing them to become a Possible Candidate
}}

In rule 5e29, replace
{{
Whenever an entity becomes a Player, if they have less than 50 macks,
all their mackerel are destroyed and they gain m50.
}}
with
{{
Whenever an entity becomes a Player, if they have less than 100 macks,
all their mackerel are destroyed and they gain m100.
}}
/* Don't leave players on the verge of Bumhood as soon as they join! */

Destroy all mackerel. Cause all players to gain m100.

In rule 5e33, replace
{{
Any player may submit a proposal at any time, or may revise a Pending
proposal they own by resubmitting it, unless a rule says otherwise.
}}
with
{{
Any player may submit a proposal at any time as a Game Action, causing
it to become a Game Object, unless a rule says otherwise. Any player may
revise a Pending proposal they own by resubmitting it as a Game Action.
}}

In rule 5e33, before
{{
When a proposal Passes, the game is changed according to the
instructions in its Body.
}}
add
{{
Whenever a proposal becomes Lost, it ceases to be Won.
}}
/* Otherwise proposals can depend or conflict and become both Won and
Lost, and thus pass. */

In rule 5e36, replace
{{
may remove their Ordained Property
}}
with
{{
may remove their own Ordained Property
}}

Change all player's Ordained Switches to Off. /* If a player wants to be
Ordained, they can change them back on again easily enough; and this
avoids uncertainty. */

Remove all instances of "(and Oracularity)" or "and Oracularity" from
rule 5e36. /* I like Oracularities, but prefer to bring them back via
regular proposal; for the time being, just make the rules
self-consistent. */

In rule 5e48, replace "Initially, all Players are Resident in the Square
(0,0)." with "Initially, all Players are Unsquared.".

In rule 5e48, replace "A Square can never have more than 3 Residents. A
Game Action causing a Square to have more is ineffective." with "It is a
violation of the rules to cause a Square to have more than 3
Residents.".

Make all Players Unsquared.

In rule 5e49, replace "There is a Ministry called the Ministry of
Warfare, responsible for keeping track of Weapons and their attributes."
with "There is a Ministry called the Ministry of Warfare, responsible
for keeping track of Weapons and their attributes, and the Health of
Players.". /* Someone needs to track this! */

Set all Player's Health to 100. Destroy all Weapons.

Fix the markup in rule 5e50 to cause each of the first two bullet points
to contain the lines after them. /* Again, I don't want typos causing
unknown gamestate. */

In rule 5e50, replace "which are specified in Tricks." with "which are
specified in Tricks (which are Game Objects)." /* Another bug that my
fix to rule 5e2 accidentally corrected. */

/* Rule 5e52, of course, is totally broken, but that's kind-of the
Point. It didn't make any sense in Agora either... */

Set the ministry holders and salaries to match what was shown at
  http://b.nomic.net/index.php/Ministries
at the start of the current emergency.
/* Again shamelessly copied from Murphy. */
}}}

One thing I'm very worried about is that the rule 5e2 breakage I'm
correcting may have broken rule 5e0; but if so, we're really seriously
in trouble. (Mental State doesn't exist in the game, according to the
current rule 5e2, so can rule 5e0 look at it? Maybe there was a good
reason for Panic Buttons to be game objects after all.) Teucer, I look
forward to you either scamming our way out of this one, or else coming
up with an alternative fix that does work.

Actually, becoming a Protectorate of Agora is by far the safest way for
a nomic to ensure it doesn't end up with an irretrievably broken
gamestate (it would have saved Rishonomic, for instance); however, I'd
prefer to stay independent if at all possible.
-- 
ais523

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