RE: spoon-discuss: Predictions of Doom and Gloom

["Gavin Doig" <gmd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> > Again, how? I've yet to see a single coherent example of how rule 129
> > (as opposed to some bizarre misinterpretation thereof) will cause
> > problems. Even Chicken Little had *some* evidence.
>
> How's this for starters:  if the Administrator makes an arithmetical error
> and gives a player 5 extra points and nobody catches it then the simplest
> way to make it consistant would be to add a rule which allows the
> administrator to give players points at will.
>
Uh... what on earth are you talking about? Where does the rule say *anything* about making stuff consistent? All it says is that the game is changed to what if would be had what the admin said been true - that is, it's changed so that the player has 5 extra points. Which is, anyway, a simpler way of making things consistent.

>  And that's not a gross
> misinterpretation of the rule.
>
Yes, it is!

>  We wouldn't know until 20 days later when
> someone pointed it out as part of a scam that the point system was
> entirely broken.  And that's a relatively minor thing.  What happens if
> the Admin misnumbers one of the rules?  *shudder*
>
If the admin misnumbers a rule (in a message to all players, anyway - the webpage doesn't count), then the rule just gets renumbered to what he said after 20 days (effectively, though not actually, retroactively to the time he said it).

> My problem with it is not that it gives to the Admin the power to
> summarily overrule player actions.
>
Good, because it doesn't. ;-)

>  The problem is that it makes it too
> easy for the game state to get accidentally shagged in game-breaking ways,
> and that we won't find out for 20 days.
>
One of the things it does is allow the admin to *fix* the game if it's broken.

>
> There that's a specific case in which the new rule 129 could be abused.
> And it could be happening already for all I know.  we are heading for a
> crash as soon as we get back from the pause.
>
Again, I await a coherent example. ;-)

> Also (although this is fixable) it should use ndays not days.  Because if
> the clock is stopped for 20 days there is no way we can keep the admin
> from saying whatever e likes about the game state.
>
It deliberately avoids ndays. It should probably allow objections when the clock is off, though. So that's one problem...

uin.


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