RE: spoon-discuss: incompatibility in judgements

[Dan Waldron <wald7330@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> 
> Consider the following (unlikely) scenario:
> 
> At a point in the future the Office of Administrator falls upon a Player
> good at scamming.
> This Administrator proposes a fairly minor rule change which we all vote in
> favour of. E delays publication of the Ballot. 10 minutes (or less) before
> the close of voting e makes wholesale changes to eir Proposal, recognises
> eir Proposal, and publishes the Ballot. E could take over the whole game.
>

For this to happen it would have to be possible for revisions to be
submitted after voting.  Under my proposal this is not possible.  The only
regard in which this proposal system is any more flexible is that it
forces the recognition of all revisions made up to the start of voting.

Now consider the following situation under the present rules:

The administratorship falls into the hands of a player good at scamming.
He submits a proposal claiming to be some minor fix for something but
which actually contains a mistake that would allow him to take over the
game.  He then revises the proposal (and fixes the "mistake) but only
recognizes this after the voting starts.  The players assume they are
voting on the new version but actually their votes are cast on the old one
(it wouldn't be too hard for a clever administrator to arrange this).  You
can figure the results out for yourself.

> 
> Another way that a flexible Proposal system could be abused is by
> withdrawing your Proposal if voting is going against it and the Ballot
> hasn't been published.

My proposal would not allow the withdrawing or revising of proposals after
voting starts unless they were submitted before the start of voting, in
which case we would all be aware of them.  Without this amendment we
cannot be sure of what we are voting on until the ballot is published, and
maybe not even then.


I think you might have misread some of my proposal, or perhaps I made a
serious error in its design.  I will check it over for mistakes and see if
I can revise it before voting starts.  It does actually make the proposal
system less open to tampering by the administrator, not more, and many of
the things you imply that it would allow are actually things I took great
pains to prohibit.

Poulenc.