Baron von Skippy on 28 Apr 2003 23:44:01 -0000


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[spoon-discuss] Fwd: State of the Nomic (Nomicron)

This is the recent Nomicron State of the Nomic address, made by Stevil (pronounced st-EVIL-EVIL-EVIL), acting in his function as Executive. It's rather an interesting work. 

[[BvS]]

<snip>

Last week, deltanine presented evidence to the Gerontocrats and another
long-time player that an agent might be working against the very game we
have come to enjoy.  I have attached the original message for you to
review.  This message points directly to conversations on the B Nomic
message board that describe plans to subjugate and destroy other Nomics.
This type of behavior is astonishing.  We were unable to understand why
one or more individuals would conspire to break another game simply
because that game did not behave as they wished.
-What I want to know is who is sending all of this stuff on. It's getting downright obnoxious, having innocent discussion come back to hurt us this way. I'd rather the new InterNomic wasn't plagued with spies. They make things harder for all of us.- 

Secrecy was important, as we were unable to evaluate which, if any of
the new, less active players might simply be duplicates promoting an
agenda not in the best interest of Nomicron.  We all found the idea of
operating in secret distasteful and resolved to reveal all once we were
certain we could combat the threat.  Our first step was to ensure that
we could trust a majority of the players.  After careful consideration,
we invited Misuba, Tovan, Senso and Ouorobos to review the evidence and
help us decide what to do.  I have also attached the invitation letter
for review.  We planned to resolve this situation the Nomic way, through
the adoption of rules that would safeguard our security.

I hope that Pakaran, Piglet, Tommy, Llama and Emil understand why we did
not include them.  We did not want to start a witch-hunt and drive good
players away.  We mean no disparagement against their character and hope
they will continue to enjoy the game of Nomicron.

BvS has not changed in thought, deed or action since his self-proclaimed
'soul-searching' on April 19.  I have no reason to believe we will see
any changes in his behavior that will make BvS a welcome member of this
Nomic.  Fool us once, shame on you.  Fool us twice, shame on us.
-I think I've stated my views on certain members of Nomicron. They're an almost reactionarily conservative game with a solid power block who seek to squelch real change and who promote slapping each other on the back and the passing of rules which really don't do anything... the uproar caused by, of all things, a Less is More proposal, was nothing short of extraordinary.- 

I will submit an impeachment referendum for next turn against BvS (the
player formerly known as Baron Von Skippy) for his negative actions,
personal attacks against fellow players and threats against Nomicron.
At that point, the players shall decide the fate of BvS as a player of
Nomicron.
-I implore all B Nomic players to consider my actions since joining B Nomic. Am I quick to temper? Perhaps occasionally. Have I said things I should not have? I can't remember any, but being who I am, I'll be I have. Have these actions ever prompted anyone to suggest that I do not belong in B Nomic? No. Why? I feel it is a reaction to the environment. For all their lauding themselves as "welcoming to new players," a statement which led me to them in the first place, hoping that they would be a good test run for the new Ambassador system, they are a cliquish bunch. Perhaps some players - Glotmorf, Wonko, Voice, Rob - will remember the days when uin was a member of B Nomic. He and I were often at odds, but he is my closest friend in the world next to some of the Nomicronians. Stevil, who wrote this State of the Nomic Address, Ourobouros Wurm, and deltanine are some of the most reprehensible people it has ever been my misfortune to meet. I don't fear that you will let this cast a shadow on my character in B Nomic. I trust you all know me well enough not to let that happen. I just hope that you will see this report for the misinformation it is.
I sound like a propaganda artist. I'd better stop - those people give me the creeps.- 

My fellow players, I urge you all to abstain from responding to BvS'
shameless attacks.  They do nothing to promote the intellectual
integrity of Nomicron.  With any luck, we will soon no longer be subject
to his behavior.

-Ha. We shall see. Yes, indeed. We shall see.-


I hope that we can put this all behind us as quickly as possible and
return to the enjoyable pursuit of points, thought-provoking debate,
paradox and structure while at the same time keeping everything Simple.
I also hope to fill my next State of the Nomic with much more pleasant
news.

- Stevil



_________________________________________________________________
The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail 
From: deltanine@xxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2003 7:57 PM
To: jef@xxxxxxxxxxxx; tes@xxxxxxxxxxxx; jedisquid@xxxxxxxxxxxxx;
evol@xxxxxxxxxxxx; steve@xxxxxxxxxx; pitboss@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: URGENT Nomicron message!!!!

Please note that this email has been sent only to jef, tes, jedisquid, evol, 
pitboss and stevil.

I?ve only sent this to a select number of Nomicronians because the matter 
I?m about to present to you is one that addresses the future security of the 
game and it may be necessary to only be revealed sparingly.  Since you 
all have been here for quite some time, you know better than I who else to 
share this with.

On to business?

Before we all begin getting comfortable with BvS?s change of heart and 
newfound love for diplomacy, I must inform you that his intentions aren?t of 
the noble variety.  In fact, with this whole Saddam double escapade and 
the ensuing flame war, we are seeing none other than the beginnings of 
an invasion from a foreign Nomic.

I know?  this sounds way too dramatic.  I wish that were the case.  Allow 
me to present the evidence.

Since BvS explained that he is from B Nomic (http://www.nomic.net/~g6/) 
and was interested in internomic relations between our two games, I 
decided to go take a look at their ruleset.  Like you all know, I?m new to 
Nomic and wanted to take a look at how another game operates.  And 
they do have a wild ruleset to be sure.  Digging further into the site I was 
excited to see that their discussion list is posted publicly in a bulletin 
board fashion.  The April archives can be found at http://lists.ellipsis.cx/ archives/spoon-discuss/spoon-discuss-200304/threads.html.

I chose a few posts from BvS and was encouraged at how constructive 
his work at B Nomic is.  That is, until I saw a thread entitled ?Step One on 
the road to Internomic II?.  It is at the April archives link above and you can 
all read it.  But I have the highlights below with a bit of my own 
commentary.  The links before the highlight are direct links to the 
message that follows so that you can see I?m not making this stuff up.

BvS lays out his plan: http://lists.ellipsis.cx/archives/spoon-discuss/
spoon-discuss-200304/msg00134.html

[[
I'm looking at a less structured, more real-lifeish version of InterNomic, 
where 
instead of a central Nomic controlling all, individuals link up and 
interact. It's broad so that they can do all kind of things, you see. 
Initially, there will be very few links, and most of them will come from B 
Nomic. This is a good thing. What I'm really going for is two 
unprecedented 
things. One, this game uniting behind a cause. Two, the cause: B Nomic 
becoming a power in the land, and, if they don't have a land for us to be a 
power in, us making one. What I envision is most players joining a 
second 
game and promoting the cause of B Nomic there. You don't have to be a 
full-time player. Just join, vote some, and occasionally propose 
something 
that will make their ruleset better compatible with ours.
]]

Delusions of grandeur maybe?  Also, could Emil, Tommy and Llama be 
part of this plan?  Emil tried to create another persona?  the last 
sentence seems to explain exactly what Tommy and llama are up to.  I 
could be wrong though.  Rad on and judge for yourself:


[[
Everyone stands to win here, especially the people who can make the 
most stuff to sell. Might I point out that we have a lot to sell?
      Ambassadors will have advantages too. Especially once it's realized 
that it's easiest to have B Nomic Ambassadors to other Nomics become 
other 
Nomics' Ambassadors to B Nomic. Ambassadors will get power and 
paychecks 
both ways.
]]

I don?t know why he thinks anyone would want to buy anything from B 
Nomic?  but honestly, I think we?re dealing with a sick mind here.  Not 
psychotic, but perhaps the Herpes simplex B equivalent of a sick mind.

If you continue reading through the thread you?ll see that some players of 
B Nomic actually discuss the Nomics they can do harm to.  Like here. 
http://lists.ellipsis.cx/archives/spoon-discuss/spoon-discuss-200304/
msg00147.html.  And yes, they list Nomicron.

A player identified as bd responds to a more level-headed player of B 
Nomic: http://lists.ellipsis.cx/archives/spoon-discuss/spoon-discuss-
200304/msg00163.html

[[
> You seem to think that we can force other Nomics to do what we want; 
> you seem even to think that we can invade them at any time if we 
> choose. But we can't. They don't need us nor our rules; if we bother 
> them, they can choose to ignore us. And there's nothing we can do
about
> it. For us to declare war on a nomic would be like a Magic player 
> casting a Lightning Bolt at a player in a nearby game of chess - the 
> chess player doesn't care about the bolt, she just ignores it, and the 
> Bolter can't do a thing about it. Likewise, if we declare that our 
> invading armies trample another Nomic's rules and beat them into the 
> ground, they can simply ignore us, as we are not a part of their 
> gamestate unless they allow us to be.

We can all join $smallerthanus-nomic and implement whatever proposal 
we like 
]]

Then Glotmorf chimes in: http://lists.ellipsis.cx/archives/spoon-discuss/
spoon-discuss-200304/msg00156.html

[[
We could do that now.  I know at least one Nomic out there whose 
member count is lower than ours.  We could pull a LaRouche, all join at 
once, and vote in whatever we please...
]]

BvS also responds to the level-headed player(his name is Wonko, by the 
way): http://lists.ellipsis.cx/archives/spoon-discuss/spoon-discuss-
200304/msg00153.html

[[
>
>And if they don't subscribe to our Ambassador rule, how do we 'go to
war' 
>with them?

-Um... we replace their entire ruleset with "proosal proosal proosal?" Or 
we 
masquerade as them on discussion boards that attract hackers and 
declare 
their web page to be totally hack-proof? You know, the usual way.- ]]

This is quite disturbing.

Here?s a response to that from Wonko: http://lists.ellipsis.cx/archives/
spoon-discuss/spoon-discuss-200304/msg00166.html

[[
We can only nuke eir rules if we outnumber them. And that strikes me as 
a bit of a cop out - there's absolutely nothing they can do short of 
closing themselves to stop us. So all that happens is that we take out 
one Nomic, it restarts using its last seen ruleset but without allowing 
new players, and every other Nomic gets irritated and cuts off all 
relationships with us. We essentially become a group of traveling 
brigands whom everyone else hates. I, for one, will not join in such 
action.
]]

Wonko is the only B Nomic player taking BvS to task for this.  Very sad.

Now we see BvS discuss the precedence of internomic war: http:// lists.ellipsis.cx/archives/spoon-discuss/spoon-discuss-200304/
msg00155.html

[[
-The Nomic Wiki has the records of two inter-nomic wars already. Neither 
needed Ambassadors. Agora simply trampled two Nomics which pissed 
it off. I 
mean, really. A war like you describe is like two children shooting 
imaginary guns at each other. "Bang!" "You missed!" I'm talking about an 
all-out grapple to the death.-
]]

If you continue reading the other messages in this thread you will see 
reports of active attempts to join other Nomics.

Here?s BvS responding to bd: http://lists.ellipsis.cx/archives/spoon-
discuss/spoon-discuss-200304/msg00175.html

[[
>How about adding Emissaries to the Ambassador rule? They'd be
required to 
>be
>in at least one other nomic, and would be paid to 'introduce' new rules
>there
>for preparation for our *checks thesaurus*
>dominat^H^H^H^Htakeove^H^H^H^H^Hcoup^H^H^H^Hinteractions with 
them...

-Well, that's what Ambassadors /are./ They start as Ambassadors on one 
end 
and strange newbies who keep blathering on about another Nomic on the 
other, 
until both ends take them as Ambassadors.-
]]

Doesn?t this sound exactly like what BvS was up to when he sent his last 
email to the public forum here at Nomicron?  Think about what has 
happened since he has joined.  He immediately began trying to redo our 
ruleset.  Sweeping changes in fact.

After the flame war backfired on him and there was talk of censure and 
even stronger actions against inappropriate behavior, it looks as though 
he reeled himself in and began implementing the strategy he explains 
above.

The plan is clear.  He wants other Nomics to conform to the B Nomic 
ruleset or else he will destroy them.  And what Nomic will be first?

Let BvS tell you: http://lists.ellipsis.cx/archives/spoon-discuss/spoon-
discuss-200304/msg00176.html

[[
-So we keep joining and joining. They can't block (a) player names, (b) 
e-mail addresses, or (c) B Nomic players (if they block B Nomic players, 
we 
either add the ' to our name anyway or we just lie about it), and eventually 
their people will quit out of frustration. Or maybe they'll lock out all new 
players, in which case they stagnate. People get bored fast, you know. If 
we 
can keep something up longer than them, they might give in. What we 
need 
first is a solid ally. Another Nomic we can work with and rely upon to join 
with us in a mutually beneficial relationship, and who can donate people 
to 
the cause of breaking other Nomics. Let me announce that Nomicron is 
not the 
Nomic for this, which is saddening for me. Those people are too 
conservative 
to be allowed... you know, they might be a good test run for our supreme 
domin... er, crushing vic... er, beneficial for us plans.-
]]

Thank the Nomigods that we have such an eagle-eye admin to notice 
Emil?s IP address or we may have not noticed until this jerk totally 
screwed up our ruleset.

Now we gotta figure out what to do about it.  At this point BvS and B Nomic 
can?t really do much to us.  We could temporarily suspend the rules and 
just kick his ass out.  But I think we need to do it the Nomic way.  Besides, 
we need to find out for sure who all is involved in this.

I have a few ideas, but I would like for you all to digest this info first and 
then we can all discuss our ideas together.

If you read the entire thread that I?ve been talking about, somewhere in 
there BvS basically says he wants to make Nomic history.  He B Nomic ?to 
be in the books?.  What do you say we try to put him in the books as the 
most foolish person ever to play Nomic.

Meanwhile, two things must be done.  With this email being sent to you, 
there is now 7 players privy to this.  We?ll need to at least bring 3 more on 
with this info, so that we can protect our ruleset in secret.  Also there must 
be a moratorium on new players unless we are absolutely sure they can 
be trusted.

I?m looking forward to hearing from you all.

Thank you for your time.

deltanine


From: savenomicron-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of Nomicron
Administrator [admin@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2003 12:02 AM
To: savenomicron@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: A matter of utmost importance

Tovan, Senso, Ouorobos, and Misuba,

We are specifically sending you this email off the Nomicron public list.

Nomicron began a few years ago between a small group of good friends. Many things have happened since then, including opening our doors up to the any stranger that may happen by.  This has given us a wealth of new players, great ideas and increased the fun immeasurably.  However, this openness has made it possible for at least one person to come along and sabotage our fun.

You'll find forwarded to you a message that deltanine sent to us.  His curiosity was piqued by BvS' several mentions of the nomic B Nomic and his statement of "I've tried to fix your game", and several other suspect comments.  You might want to read that now... it details the discussions on the B nomic boards about this attempt at sabotaging other nomics.

In light of his discovery, one of the first quotes on the NOHOQ is from a player who left a few months ago is now somewhat prophetic - "We have always been a peaceful Nomic, and we should remain that way unless it becomes absolutely necessary to do otherwise. I don't know what form a war between Nomics would take, but I'd rather not wait until the last minute to find out."

The recent negative email traffic is the result of the player Baron Von Skippy's very skilled trolls.  This person is not here to have an enjoyable game in the same sense that we are.  BvS is insulting, negative, boorish, churlish and rude.  Nomicron is not a democracy that entitles everyone to free speech and certain inalienable rights - it is more akin to party that leaves the lights on the door open and the music going all night. We like it when people stop by and add to the fun. However, when a bum off the street barges in, insults the guests, demands everything be done their way and interrupts every conversation with their argumentative point of view, we're not so impressed and we wave a couple of our biggest friends over to send them packing.

We have discussed a few alternatives, including simply ending the game. We're sure Nomicron or some derivative would pop back up again, but, we would rather use the mechanisms in place to establish rules that help define some boundaries to ensure that we don't lose what we have done so far.

This is why you see some of the proposals up for vote this turn.  Most importantly is the Impeachment proposal.  This is the bouncer that allows us to remove BvS or any other current or future saboteur within the context of the rules.  It is quite possible that he will return, but we also plan to introduce a form of the INS and some other rule changes to help keep our borders safe and this game fun indefinitely.

We would like to invite you to continue to play Nomicron.  At this point we are not entirely sure of which players we can trust.  As much as we aren't starting a witch hunt we carefully discussed who we should bring into the circle.  We hope you understand our desire for secrecy. After this crisis is over, this secrecy will end and we will continue with an enjoyable game.

To discuss dealing with this issue, we have a separate mailing list, savenomicron@xxxxxxxxxxxx that you have been added to, and where this is being sent through. If you want to be taken off this list, let Jef know. This mailing list will also be deleted after the situation is taken care of.

Your fellow players,

Jef, evol, pitboss, tes, mmessano, Stevil, deltanine, Seighin and JediSquid.