spoon-discuss: Re: spoon-business: Clarifying the clarification

["Donald Whytock" <dwhytock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 12/27/01 at 10:41 PM Rob Speer wrote:

>For the sake of clarity, I modify proposal 180/0 (the game state
>proposal) by appending the following sentence to the amendment it
>proposes:
>
>Messages on a Forum are not themselves part of the game state.
>
>--
>Rob Speer

See...this wasn't really my point.  My point is that the Administrator has to keep track of everything related to the game, and therefore, by proposal 180, everything related to the game would become part of the game state.  He has to keep track of proposals, therefore the body of proposals is part of the game state.  He has to keep track of votes on proposals, therefore votes are part of the game state.  He has to keep track of Calls for Judgment, the Roster, scores, charms...if proposal 167 passes, he has to keep track of Misbehaving Judges...and yes, all of these things are mentioned in the rules.

So, essentially, everything involved in the game is part of the game state.  Which means, given the passage of proposal 180, anything that affects the game at all must be a proposal or a rule-defined action.  Which, coupled with rule 18, means any action defined in the rules is okay, and any action *not* defined in the rules is okay.

So either your proposal creates a rule that states the obvious, or your proposal creates a paradox at some level I don't yet see.

I understand what you're trying to do: You're trying to create a general category of Things That Are Part of the Game State, so that as new things are created they can be incorporated as part of the game state without explicitly saying so.  Problem with that is, just as your recent update of your proposal demonstrates, you'll need to start making exceptions to the rule -- explicit exclusion -- which will eventually become as much work as explicit inclusion.

Besides, if you're going to do it at all, I'd just as soon have the forum messages be part of the game state.  That way if a non-player posts a message we have grounds for totally ignoring it.