Re: [spoon-discuss] Re: [Bnomic-private] Scam: Bandwidth

[Wonko <dplepage@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Quoth Orc in a Spacesuit,

> By the way, what is the point of this proposal?  If it's just to get
> societies working, they already do.  Attempted takeovers through
> misinterpertation don't change that.  I'm just trying to figure out what
> this prop does for the game; the fact that it replaces the entire rule
> rather than adjusting parts makes that difficult.  And the more obvious
> changes (like Point Balance) do not appear to be better than the current
> situation to me.  If I'm not seeing something, please enlighten me.

What I don't think you're seeing is the fact that in their current form,
societies don't work worth beans.
To list some of the problems:

1.
Right off the bat, "A Society is a group of one or more entities who are
Members of the Society."

That's a circular definition, and the rule's barely even started yet! You're
defining a society in terms of itself - X is a society iff all members of X
are members of the society X. Or, to shorten that, X is a society iff X is a
society. That's bad.

2.
This is probably the worst part, but I'm not sure: "Actions in this rule are
not the only actions that societies may take."

That's ludicrous. What it means is that there MUST be other actions
societies can take. Which is why Glotmorf can take over the game - because
the Default case applies only to player actions, not to society actions, and
society actions are *explicitly* unregulated by the ruleset, Permissibility
of the Unprohibited gives societies effectively limitless power.

3.
"Players may transfer a positive amount of eir Bandwidth to any Society that
is not a Corporation."

Well gee, seems you've got exactly the same problem my earlier fix draft had
- Bandwidth can be given regardless of whether its positive or negative. So
at the moment, I could give M-Tek 2000 bandwidth. Yes, my bandwidth would
fall to -2000, but that's okay, 'cos it would go back up to 5 when the next
nweek started.

4.
"A Society may State things."

That doesn't seem to have any meaning at all.

5.
"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, with the remainder assigned to randomly among those
members."

So, for example, if a Society were about to recieve the property, "Zen
Master of Nomic", and neither it nor any of its members have that property
already, each member of it gains that change ("Zen Master of Nomic") divided
by the number of members in the society with that property (0)? What's a
title divided by zero? That paragraph doesn't work at all.

6.
"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."

Along with item 5, I'm strongly opposed to this style of 'fixing' things in
general; that is, saying "anything that would happen if a player did it
happens this time too". If you want everything that would happen if a player
did it to happen, then change where it says what happens when a player does
it to replace 'player' with 'player or society'.
This is about tied with item 2 as the thing I want changed the most in this
rule.

7.
"C.3 Incorporation"

Although corporations are a good idea, your 'fix' altered things to point
where there's no longer any point to them - they're now just negatives. When
people start making things for corporations, then it will be worthwhile to
have corporations, but at the moment, they just take up space.

8.
"C.4 Positions"

This section is entirely unneccessary - societal attributes can be assigned
by the Charter.

9.
"All Societies have the Properties Entropy, Points, and BNS."

You said, "If any Properties are referenced in this rule, they are identical
to the appropriate Dimensions and/or Attributes in the rest of the ruleset."
Well, BNS isn't a Dimension or an Attribute in the rest of the ruleset. It's
a noun, and a BNS is a game object.
BTW, I also heartily dislike the little mini-definition section at the
beginning of the rule - it makes the thing harder to read and modify.

10.
"Once per nweek, a Player may create a Society, giving it a uniquely
identifying name."

You said earlier, "A Society is a group of one or more entities who are
Members of the Society." Put those two together and you get, "Once per
nweek, a Player may create a Society, that is, a group of one or more
entities who are Members of that Society, giving it a uniquely identifying
name." Apart from the fact that this forbids more than one player making a
society per nweek, it also means that the player who uses this is empowered
to create a group of entities, which are Gremlins, Societies, or Players.
Rampant entity-creating is a Bad Thing.
    In fact, because of the circular definition of 'Society', the ONLY thing
a player can use creation for is to create a bunch of members, 'cos without
members, the thing they're making doesn't count as a society.

****************************************************************************
Conclusion:

The current society rule has a lot of large holes in it. Most of these, I
believe, stem from the fact that its author, Orc, wrote the rule as if the
much spoken of 'Uber Prop' had already been proposed and passed (the
definitions at the beginning of the rule seem to suggest this as well).
However, in the absence of the Uber Prop, quite a lot doesn't work properly,
especially in places involving so-called Properties, which don't always seem
to be referring to the same things. Additionally, some last minute 'fixes'
to the prop, such as adding that unmentioned society actions were also
permittable, actually have much more sinister consequences than one might
have expected. Although some of the rule's contents are worthwhile, the
extent of the ambiguous, misphrased, or otherwise harmful aspects of the
rule is such that it is my personal opinion that the only way to fix rule
578 is to erase its current text entirely and instate an entirely rephrased
rule in its place.

-- 
Wonko

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