Re: [spoon-discuss] societies and corporations discussion

["Glotmorf" <glotmorf@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

*sigh* Okay, first of all, I'd like to apologize for the generally pissy tone last night.  My response to your proposal wasn't as much logical as it was territorial.  M-Tek is sort of my baby, and I sometimes think of r578 as my adopted child.  Let me try a more rational statement today...

There are problems with the ruleset, yes.  This is inherent in any ruleset that's gone through as many modifications as this one has.  It's like a quilted hot-air balloon: it's gonna leak somewhere, and most attempts to change it, while perhaps fixing some leaks, have the potential to cause others.

This isn't to say that a given rule is totally, inherently bad because either a given single segment of it is bad or because someone manages to use it for a purpose other than that for which it was intended.  That a smashed beer bottle is a deadly weapon doesn't necessarily mean beer bottles as a whole need re-engineering.

There is therefore some separation between a rule and its use.  A mess can be caused by a flaw in a rule, or the interaction of multiple rules, but that doesn't mean the rule itself is necessarily a mess.  The rule may be generally functional, generally well-formed, with relatively tiny flaws that can be magnified a hundredfold in actual use.

To declare a mess to be a mess, and to hold the person who made the mess responsible for it, is one thing.  To declare a rule to be as big a mess as the mess made through the exploitation of a flaw in the rule is another.  The person or persons responsible for the creation of said rule may take some measure of offense at the suggestion that the product of their effort was a total mess simply because someone managed to beat the game over the head with it.

A rule doesn't necessarily need a complete overhaul in order to fix a small problem, especially if said overhaul includes a rehash of much of the original.  If a complete overhaul is attempted, it is important to understand what the purpose was of the parts of the original, so that leaving something out doesn't create a bigger hole than what existed before.

Finally, about the "uber prop": In general, saying "there's no need for you to do this now because I'm going to do it later" is neither a logical nor a reasonable argument.  It's not logical because the fact that someone is trying to do something now suggests e does in fact think there's a need for it to be done now; that it may be fixed later doesn't change the perception that it needs to be fixed now.  It's not reasonable because achievement in this game is measured in action, so a player looking out for eir own interests translates the statement above into "you should not try to achieve something now because I want to achieve something later"; it is unrealistic to expect a player to comply with this, and annoying and insulting to repeatedly insist on it.

Perhaps all of the above is simply my personal perspective.  But I can tell you that I don't react well to statements in the form, "This is a total mess and I am going to fix it." (Unless, of course, I'm the one making them...:)

Now, back to this proposal...

On 10/21/02 at 5:37 AM Orc In A Spacesuit wrote:

>>From: "Glotmorf" <glotmorf@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>On 10/20/02 at 10:44 PM Orc In A Spacesuit wrote:
>>
>> >I think the Standard Methods are pretty much useless, as only M-Tek uses
>> >any, and it just uses one.  However, they remain in this draft.  What do
>> >you
>> >guys think?
>>
>>The whole point of standard methods is that society charter rules can't
>be
>>applied to non-members, or to the gamestate in general, but standard
>>methods are part of the rules and therefore can so apply.  So a society
>>charter can make use of these predetermined rules hooks without
>attempting
>>to over-reach its scope.  I'd hardly call that useless.  Just because it
>>hasn't been used much doesn't make it so.
>
>I believe that Societies can take Actions, as they are Entities, and the
>Charter determines when/if these Actions are taken (so you can make the
>leader say what's what, if you want).  And Societies are given the ability
>to allow members to join or get rid of members.  If that's not the way it
>is, that's the way I meant to make it.  I'll review it all once I get more
>sleep (I just pulled another all-nighter for B Nomic), and makes sure
>everything's on the up-and-up.

That wasn't quite the point.  The point is, I'd made standard methods so that one could easily create a sort of a la carte society, using pieces already established in the rules that had the effects of game-level rules because they were in the ruleset.  If a rule was only in a charter, and had no anchor at the game level, one could make jurisdictional arguments along the lines of what was made last nweek.  Society rules defer to game rules, and game rules say the gamestate can't be changed.  But it would be nice if societies had ways of optionally being able to change the gamestate without a proposal being required.  After all, why should players in general cooperate to make a society in particular run better?

>> >A. Definition
>> >In this rule, an Independent Entity is the Administrator or a Player
>> >In this rule, a Dependent Entity is a Gremlin, Society or Corporation.
>> >In this rule, an Entity is either of the two above.
>> >A Society is a group of one or more entities known as Members of the
>> >Society.

I would recommend not including the Administrator as any sort of Entity in the context of this rule.  The Administrator should not at any time be confused with a member of a society.

The last sentence needs something more.  Perhaps something that says entities become members of a society via the methods described in this rule.

>> >Public rules may include conditions in which a Society performs actions.
>> >(A
>> >Society is an Entity, so may perform actions, such as tranfer points,
>>join
>> >another society, propose... etc, of course subject to all applicable
>>rules
>> >and restrictions in the rules.)

This is a bit shaky, since you've redefined "entity" to have a meaning local to this rule.  One could argue that what's considered an Entity here isn't what's considered an Entity by the rest of the ruleset.

>> >C. Society Charter
>> >
>> >A Society must have a Charter, which contains its public rules. This
>> >collection of charters may contain other pertinent information, and the
>> >Administrator is encouraged to include such information as whether or
>not
>> >the Society still exists in this collection. The Charter is considered a
>> >game document, and is maintained by the Administrator in a collection of
>> >Charters.  This charter may not also be a rule [[for clarity; if you
>want
>> >to
>> >create a society through proposal, just create one, rather than through
>a
>> >rule]].
>>
>>I still think "the Administrator is encouraged to (X)" is a do-nothing.
>If
>>he decides not to, or neglects to, we have no recourse.  And an
>encouraged
>>activity isn't a responsibility, so I don't think it can be assigned to a
>>minister.
>
>Well, I'm leaving that part of the rule as it is.  It's a do-nothing, yes,
>but the reason it's "encourage" is so Dave doesn't have to if he's
>crunched.
>  If we have a Minister in charge of it, we can change it.

But it needs to be done.  We need to be able to know, at a given time, whether a society exists or not.  If that information isn't supplied, we need to know whether it's because, in the opinion of the Administrator, the information isn't known, or is something other than what people think it is, or if a given status change was in fact deliberately not recognized by him.  If he is merely "encouraged" but not required to provide this information, the game might be in a state of confusion because he didn't feel like supplying necessary information that day.

This is not intended as an implication that Dave would shirk on his duty willy-nilly.  Dave has gone beyond the call of duty in the course of this game.  And I have no problem with Dave taking into account his personal life.  But the gamestate exists as a combination of the ruleset and the actions taken under the ruleset, so the game has to be clear, logical and precise, regardless of what is actually done in real life, so that we have some chance of legitimately knowing what the gamestate is.

Require it in the rules first.  Then give Dave a break in general.

>> >A Society's Charter can only be modified by the Society or its Members
>if
>> >the Society has a public rule stating the method for doing so, and if
>the
>> >Society has no members that are Dependent Entities.  Any such changes do
>> >not
>> >take effect until the end of the nweek, or after 3 ndays, whichever is
>> >longer.  Such changes are not binding on and do not affect On Leave
>> >players,
>> >and any player coming Off Leave after a change has 3 ndays in which to
>> >either leave the society or accept the changes.  The changes are binding
>> >and
>> >do affect that member upon the time limit being reached or the member
>> >accepting the changes.
>>
>>The On Leave bit is okay, but the 3 nday bit is cumbersome, especially
>>since it can span the end of an nweek.
>
>Well, what if the leader of the society pulls a 'Wonko May Not Vote' on
>the
>members 5 minutes before the nweek ends?  They'd be screwed.  (Although
>some
>of the thinge WMNV did wouldn't be legal, or as powerful, with the new
>rule.)

Then prevent charter changes from happening during the voting period.  There's all sorts of weird bookkeeping issues that can come up if charter changes overlap rule and gamestate changes.

>> >If a Charter referrs to an entity by name, and the name of what it
>>referrs
>> >to changes, the Charter is modified to refer to the same entity, unless
>a
>> >rule or the Charter states othewise.
>>
>>"Refers," not "referrs."  And why should this only be true for society
>>charters, and not the entire game?
>
>It should, and that's part of the uber.  But putting it here certainly
>won't
>hurt.

I disagree.  If it's done one way here, and another way for the rest of the game, the two might get out of sync.  I understand what you're trying to do, and I appreciate it, but either leave it out of here for now or propose it for the game overall under separate cover.

>> >E. Resources
>> >
>> >A Society may have the properties Bandwidth, Points, and/or BNS, if such
>> >is
>> >stated in the charter of that Society.  Any Entity that has any of these
>> >may
>> >transfer any positive amount to any Society that has that property.  The
>> >default values for these properties is 0.
>>
>>Why limit pooled resources to these?  This knocks out WBE, which requires
>>pooled units, and anything else a given society might want to share, such
>>as proxy votes, grid objects, airspeeders, style points, etc.
>
>WBE Specific:  Yes, WBE is temporarily messed up, but then it already is
>(in
>the point of view of most of the players).  The uber, which I spent all
>night working on, addresses this quite nicely, and a minor change to the
>rule __Wealthy Bastard Enterprises__ could give WBE the additional
>property
>Raw Materials. (Although a edit using the current ruleset would require
>more
>than the simple sentence "WBE has the property Raw Materials" in order to
>get everything working right).

I'll see your nonexistent prop, and I'll raise you a nonexistent prop: If Technologies can get implemented (and I'm still not clear on what was disliked about it the last time), various entities, probably at the society level, will need to be able to possess raw materials.  This is not just a WBE need.  Even if Technologies doesn't pass, raw materials are now generally defined, and someone will want to make use of them.

>The Rest:  The way I see it, things like balls of wax are physical, and
>need
>to _be somewhere_.  I have a half-written Warehouse and Factories prop
>that
>would cover this.

Then impose the restriction when you have an alternative already in place.  Don't take away existing features now on the premise of replacing them with something later, when it cannot be known for certain that later will in fact come.

> Societies having proxy votes, and just votes, is a big
>mess that we really don't need.  Sure, we could find a use for it, but
>it's
>not worth it in my opinion.  Just get all the members to vote using the
>public rules, if they don't already want to support the socity's stuff.

Of course it can be done using public rules.  All of it can be done using public rules.  But why reinvent the wheel with every single charter?

>>Plus, this loses the restriction that the charter must state how said
>>resources are transferred to and from the pool.  Nor does it say what
>>hapens to those resources if the society disappears.
>
>The way I wrote it, there are no 'pools'; there are just properties which
>are a part of the Society.  If a Society ceases to exist, it's parts cease
>to exist too.  And the bit about 'unless something says otherwise' is
>redundant; just have that something specify the otherwise happens first.
>As
>for transfer - I did write that Entities can transfer Points and BNS to
>other entities, and societies are entities, and specified a special case
>for
>bandwidth.  Right below this.

The problem with "properties" is that it doesn't say societies are actually able to possess things.  And there's still confusion with the local-scope definition of Entity.

>> >F. Society Proposals (Chutzpah 2)
>> >
>> >Beginning in the nweek after the one in which they are created,
>Societies
>> >may submit proposals to the game ballot just as Players can; these are
>> >referred to as Society Proposals, or Club Props. If the properties of a
>a
>> >Society would be changed by the rules as a result of voting, and the
>> >Society
>> >does not have that property, all members of that society get that change
>> >divided by the number of members in that society with that property,
>> >rounded
>> >up.  Submitting a proposal does require the society to have and pay
>> >bandwidth, just as it does with players.
>>
>>This is cumbersome.  This means if a society is to make a proposal, it
>must
>>have bandwidth, which presumably must be explicitly given it by its
>>members.  This takes out the automatic bandwidth-sharing mechanisms that
>>currently make club propping convenient.
>
>'This is cumbersome'?  For who?  The person trying to get extra bandwidth
>from other members, or the Admin who suddenly doesn't have to go through
>and
>check each player's bandwidth at multiple instance of time?

Both, actually.  If stuff has to be given by players to the society before the society can perform actions, that's more actions the Administrator has to manually process.  I'm not entirely sure Dave's manually checking players' bandwidth now; I believe he has that automated.

>> >When a Society submits a proposal, it must state a member who can
>propose
>> >(if e were freed of bandwidth restrictions) of the society to be the
>> >Presenter.  If a property is referenced in a rule that the Society does
>> >not
>> >have but the Presenter does, the rule looks to the Presenter's property.
>> >Such properties may result in restrictions on the proposal, as defined
>by
>> >the rules (This is for BAC and such.  I'm pretty much making it such
>that
>> >one person actually delivers the prop).
>>
>>That eliminates much of the point of having the society deliver the prop.
>
>Well, you pick the one best person.  It's more 'realistic' [[yeah right]]
>that one person actually make it, and e does it.  And why should having a
>society (which creates a lot more work for Dave) confer special advantages
>other players don't?

First off, anyone can make a society, so there's nothing inherently unfair about having one.  You can combine a drunk and a guy with four broken limbs, and have two players that can make at least two unslurred proposals and share the points from them.  I have continually failed to understand why people bemoan M-Tek's existence rather than make their own version of it.

As for "more realistic", this actually isn't true.  When a lobby or an ecology group or some other real-life voter pool presents a bill to the government, it doesn't matter that the person who actually wrote it was smashed on Johnny Walker at the time, if the bill is coherent.  A group bands together to combine its strengths.  A parade may march at the speed of its slowest member, but a society isn't a parade.

>> >A Society may not make proposals if the number of Members not On Leave
>in
>> >the Society is less than 2 or greater than one half the number of Off
>> >Leave
>> >Players in the game.
>> >
>> >If a Player leaves a Society, and the Society made Society Proposals
>> >earlier
>> >that same nweek while the Player was a Member, those Society Proposals
>> >still
>> >count against the Player's Bandwidth, and the ballot results of those
>> >Society Proposals will still affect the Player's Score, Charm and
>>Entropy.
>> >The Player will not, however, auto-vote Yes for the Society Proposals.
>>
>>You dropped the part where it says members do auto-vote yes.
>
>Yup.  If you want, have your society's charter require votes or face
>whatever penalties (ouster, other members throw bomb gnomes at em,
>whatever).  But the members should make up eir own minds.

What I meant was, you say in your proposal that a departing player "will not, however, auto-vote Yes for the Society Proposals", when in fact the way your proposal is written they don't auto-vote at all, regardless of departing.

But the original purpose of block voting was meant to be a restriction of sorts on society proposing.  Society proposing is a powerful tool, so anyone who's going to do it should be very aware of what he's doing if he's going to be involved with it.

>> >G. Creating a Society
>> >
>> >A Society may be created by a proposal, or by a Player action.  When a
>> >Society is created, the creator or proposer automatically becomes a
>>member
>> >of that Society.  The proposal or action may also include an Invitation
>> >List, which is a list of entities.  Any entity on an Invitation List
>for
>>a
>> >society may join it by Accepting the Invitation.  If the Society would
>be
>> >created by Proposal, an Entity on the List may Accept the Invitation
>>prior
>> >to the passing of the proposal, and may cancel the Acceptance at any
>time
>> >prior to the passing of the proposal.  [[I highly suggest that there be
>a
>> >way to modify the Invitation List in the Charter.]]  A proposal may
>>create
>> >a
>> >Society by stating the Society's Charter.  A player may only create a
>> >Society through Player Action once per nweek, and only during the first
>5
>> >days of an nweek.
>>
>>There may be a very good reason for creating a society with general
>>criteria for membership, without naming particular members, and without
>the
>>proposer necessarily being a member.  The Upper House is one such.
>
>Yes, but a prop (including the one creating the society) can immidiately
>change that.  And it's the simplest (read: least Dave-headache-inducing)
>way
>to do it, as far as I can tell.

That makes for additional steps that have to be followed.  Why take away the capacity to create a functional society in one step on the assumption that it can be done in two or three?

And I would prefer to let Dave be the one who says what is Dave-headache-inducing.  The rules exist for the sake of the game, and should be logical and clear regardless of the mechanics involved in implementing them.  Allowances for the mechanics can be made in overall rules, or even outside the rules; the rules determine the gamestate.

>> >Modify the rule __Corporations__ (1149/0) to read the following:
>> >{{
>> >A. Definition
>> >In this rule, an Independent Entity is the Administrator or a Player
>> >In this rule, a Dependent Entity is a Gremlin, Society, or a
>Corporation.
>> >In this rule, an Entity is either of the two above.
>> >A Corporation is a group of one or more entities known as Employees of
>>the
>> >Corporation.

The definition of "Corporation" above doesn't include the Owner.

>> >Once per nweek, if e has not done so already, an Entity may create a
>> >Corporation, giving it a uniquely identifying name and .  A Corporation
>> >may
>> >have Employees, which are entities, and an Owner, which is an Entity.
>>The
>> >Owner may cause a Corporation to take legal actions.
>> >Entities may Apply to a Corporation, and may Withdraw an application.
>> >Corporations may Hire an Entitity who has Applied to that Corporation
>and
>> >not subsequently Withdrawn eir application.  When an Entity is Hired by
>a
>> >Corporation, e becomes an Employee of that Corporation.
>> >A Corporation may Fire an Employee.  Any Employee who is Fired by a
>> >Corporation is no longer an Employee of that Corporation.
>> >An Employee of a Corporation may Quit that Corporation.  Any Employee
>who
>> >Quits a Corporation is no longer an Employee of that Corporation.
>> >
>> >A Corporation may confer and withdraw Positions to its Employees and
>> >Owner.
>> >Positions are not Titles, and do not affect the game in any way, except
>> >when
>> >a Rule, Proposal, Charter, or Mission Statement refers specifically to
>an
>> >Employee of that Company with that Position.  (So having the Position
>> >"Glotmorf" in Corporation "Wonko's Slaves" wouldn't cause a Charter
>> >referring to "Glotmorf" to refer to the person with that position; the
>> >Charter would have to refer to the "The Glotmorf of Wonko's Slaves".)

If a Corporation isn't a Society, it doesn't have a Charter.

>> >A Corporation may change it's Mission Statement.  Such changes take
>>effect
>> >at the end of the nweek in which the change is made.
>> >
>> >A Corporation may have a Mission Statement, which defines conditions in
>> >which the Corporation takes Actions (such as hiring, fireing, payroll,
>> >etc),
>> >includes restrictions on when and if certain Actions may be taken by the
>> >Corporation, and may include conditions in which the Corporation's
>>Mission
>> >Statement is changed.  The Mission Statement defers to all other game
>> >rules,
>> >but does control what action the Owner may cause the Corporation to
>take.
>> >The Mission Statement cannot cause any Employee to do anything (but may
>> >cause Employees to be Fired and/or get no Pay if e doesn't).
>> >
>> >If a Mission Statement referrs to an entity by name, and the name of
>what
>> >it
>> >referrs to changes, the Mission Statement is modified to refer to the
>>same
>> >entity, unless a rule or the Mission Statement states othewise.

Same general case argument as above.

>> >A Corporation has Points and BNS, and the default values for those is 0.
>> >The Owner, Employees, Point, BNS, and Mission Statement of all
>> >Corporations
>> >must be publicly available.
>> >
>> >If the Mission Statement of a Corporation confers a Position to the
>Owner
>> >of
>> >a Corporation, and that entity ceases to have that Position, e also
>>ceases
>> >to be the Owner of that Corporation.  If an entity gains that Position,
>> >all
>> >other Employees

This sentence needs an ending.

>> >}}
>> >
>> >Change the following Societies to Corporations with the following
>> >properties
>> >(and if the named society does not exist, create one with the name
>>given):

I think this would work better, if it has to happen at all, if Corporations were created first, then existing societies given the option and a method for converting to Corporations.

But I don't think it has to happen at all.  Corporations would work just fine as subsets of Societies with standard methods built in.  There would be less addition to the ruleset, less to keep track of and plenty of existing mechanisms to use, and if you prevent societies from belonging to each other it'd apply to Corporations too.

>> >Change the Charter of M-Tek to read the following:
>> >{{
>> >Glotmorf is the Prez of M-Tek.  M-Tek takes a legal action upon the Prez
>> >saying it does, or after 2 ndays of 1/2 of the members of M-Tek say it
>> >does
>> >if the Prez does not veto the action.  These actions include adding or
>> >removing an Entity from the Invitation List of M-Tek, ousting a member
>of
>> >M-Tek, and making a proposal.  If there is no Prez of M-Tek, the member
>>of
>> >M-Tek with the highest Entropy becomes the new Prez.
>> >M-Tek uses the Unanimous Consent Standart Method for modifying its
>>Charter.
>> >At the beginning of each nweek's voting period, if M-Tek could have
>> >legally
>> >submited a proposal but did not, the Prez must give 5 points to each
>>other
>> >member of M-Tek, if possible.
>> >}}
>>
>>This eliminates the ability of the Prez to change the M-Tek charter.
>>Considering I never attempted to perform the atrocities Wonko's Slaves
>>attempted, I don't see why M-Tek should suffer.
>
>I thought I made it possible for Societies to change eir charters through
>methods stated in eir charter, and the Prez can have the society do
>anything
>possible.  Again, if I didn't transfer that from head to computer, I'll
>fix
>it, and I'm sorry.

>From your version of the M-Tek charter: "M-Tek takes a legal action upon the Prez
saying it does, or after 2 ndays of 1/2 of the members of M-Tek say it does
if the Prez does not veto the action.  These actions include adding or
removing an Entity from the Invitation List of M-Tek, ousting a member of
M-Tek, and making a proposal."

The second sentence does use the word "include" when listing the actions, but per the Permissibility of the Unprohibited rule, that sentence serves to regulate the actions M-Tek can perform on the Prez's say-so.  The existing M-Tek charter is not so restrictive.

I'd like to take this time to reiterate my fondness for the status quo.

						Glotmorf


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