Re: [spoon-discuss] Re: [Spoon-business] NWEEK 19 BALLOT

[Wonko <dplepage@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Quoth Glotmorf,

> On 7/7/02 at 8:59 PM Wonko wrote:
> 
>> Quoth Glotmorf,
>> 
>>> On 7/7/02 at 9:05 AM Wonko wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Quoth Glotmorf,
>>>> 
>>>>>> Proposal 810/0: Gnomes for sale! (Wonko)
>>>>> 
>>>>> No.  There should still be a way to purchase a random gnome.
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Um... There is. It's in the rule where it was originally. I'm creating a
>>>> new
>>>> rule, not replacing the old one.
>>> 
>>> Ah.  My mistake in that aspect.  But then, why is the gnome type that's
>> "on
>>> sale" more expensive than when not on sale?  Is this a bug, a feature,
>> or a
>>> sardonic comment on the American retail industry?
>>> 
>> 
>> Um... 5 points for a specific Gnome (10 if yer non-vSOI), or 3 if it's on
>> Sale (7 for non-vSOIers)... Three *is* still less than five, isn't it? ;)
> 
> *sigh* I do read these.  I really really do.  I keep my eyes open while I do
> and everything...
> 
>>>>>> Proposal 841/0: Fixing the Past (Wonko)
>>>>> 
>>>>> No.  I still don't like that sentence about "The Administrator may
>>>> prevent..."
>>>>> and I never did like the part about "the gamestate shall be altered to
>>>> what
>>>>> they now would be".
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Actually, that really ought to be 'to what IT would now be'. Can that be
>>>> rectified?
>>> 
>>> No, it was right the first time in context.  I just didn't quote the full
>>> context.  It's "the rules and the gamestate shall be altered to what
>> they now
>>> would be."
>>> 
>>> I still don't like it, though. :)
>> 
>> What's wrong with it? We know what the gamestate would be - we've been
>> playing with it that way. I suppose, even if this fails, we'll still act as
>> if it were there, whether we want to or not. It just won't be legal ;)
> 
> It's always struck me that that whole concept can be exploited somehow.  It's
> like the whole "information particle" idea in quantum physics...My scifi
> saturated brain keeps telling me that if said particle could be intercepted it
> would Really Fuck Things Up.
> 

Disregarding all the "so?" "Yes!" "But so what?" "So what what?" "Yes!"
"What?" etc., 

You've lost me here...

The point of this rule is that it happens all the time anyway. For example,
back in the days when the sushi was powerful, there were a number of cases
where somebody broke the sushi ban, but nobody noticed. As a result, actions
that technnically never happened were legally recognized, and we all acted
as if they had been legal, because none of us noticed.

What would the gamestate be like now, had those actions actually been legal?
Answer: It would look the way it does now, because we've played assuming
they were legal.

What would screw up the gamestate is if this rule wasn't there - illegal
things would be happening, and we'd keep playing as if they were legal. The
actual gamestate and the percieved gamestate would drift slowly apart, until
eventually they'd bear no resemblance whatsoever to each other.

But with this rule, the actual gamestate is snapped back into alignment with
the percieved gamestate.

This rule also functions as a Statute of Limitations - Although we could CFI
actions taken this nweek a nyear from now if we wanted, as long as this was
in place, all we could say is "oops, we were wrong then, the action was
illegal, but it's too late now, because that one weird rule applied the
action's effects."

The same effect could be accomplished by aligning the gamestate to player's
actions, but then we have problems like uin's "I repeal rule 10" scam.

The objection part allows for us to realize that something was illegal, say
"wait, that's not legal!", and thus stop this rule from legalizing it.

The Administrator's power to prevent the rule's effects is intended to give
the admin the power to stop the rule in full, not just the objection part.
That way, if e makes a typo, and says "The following measures are on the
Mallot for nweek 20", then e can claim that e was suspending the rule, and
in fact e did not just create a random object called the Mallot with a bunch
of proposals on it. That way, we don't all need to be super-picky about what
e says - we can let the occasional misspelling slip without destroying the
game.

Thank you, and goodnight.

-- 
Wonko
Vote Wonko for Ministry of the Farce!

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