Re: [spoon-discuss] Re: [Spoon-business] Underwriting

[Glotmorf <nomicmorf@xxxxxxxxx>]

Sorry I took so long with this response.  This
semester's homework is a bitch.

--- Daniel Lepage <dpl33@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> On Sunday, September 14, 2003, at 02:20 PM, Glotmorf
> wrote:
> 
> > The Prez of M-Tek makes this club prop:
> >
> > {{ _Funding for This Program Comes from Players
> Like
> > You_
> >
> > Create a new rule:
> >
> > {{ _Underwriting_
> >
> > }}
> 
> Hmm. I was just going to apply for a government
> grant from the Admin, 
> but I guess this works too, except for some wording
> problems. I'd 
> definitely want to see rewording of "a clear
> statement of the activity 
> members of the Society participate in in order to
> gain points" - some 
> societies may want to pursue multiple paying
> activities (INH comes to 
> mind, if anyone would put their societies there).
> The current wording 
> also says nothing about such activities being
> society specific; there 
> are already activities that the members of, say,
> M-Tek participate in 
> in order to gain points; for example, we make
> proposals.

True, but M-Tek's points are from proposal passage;
those points are created out of thin air.  The odds
are somewhat against people voting to deplete the
Gremlin Fund to pay us instead.

This is why I make it a proposal: the game populus has
to think whatever activity the society is doing
worthwhile before they'd vote approval for draining
the Fund.

> 	I also dislike the restriction that the Moderator
> must a) exist and b) 
> not gain points from the activity. If, for example,
> Go were to become a 
> society-based subgame (which would be possible if
> societies could get 
> this sort of grant), it wouldn't be eligible for
> this sort of grant 
> because it doesn't require a moderator.

A society really needs a central figure for keeping
things in tune and making society actions.  Yes, such
things can be done by a committee, but that would only
slow things down in the case of a lot of games. 
Besides, it keeps things somewhat focused and cuts
down somewhat on greed scams...Someone has to want to
do the game either out of love or out of the stipend
the players are willing to pay.

Of course, the biggest reason for my phrasing the rule
that way was to ensure there would be someone in
charge of the society should whoever created it
vanish.  Otherwise, aside from posthumous seizures,
the minute a founder leaves you have a dead game.

> 	The second to last paragraph refers to an
> Underwritten Society 
> 'posting an announcement on the public forum';
> however, there isn't any 
> method in place at the moment for a society to post
> anything itself; it 
> can only respond to posts by others.

That would refute much of the actions a society
supposedly performs, such as changing its own charter,
since any action in the game requires a public forum
post.  The precedent so far has been that if a
society's charter says it takes an action when a
particular person directs it to, said person can take
actions in the name of the society.

> 	Finally, most societies would probably not want to
> be Underwritten, as 
> it would force them to use proposals to change the
> definition of their 
> subgames; so if the Underground were underwritten,
> you wouldn't be able 
> to change the rules of the Tunnelers game except by
> getting the society 
> to produce proposals about it. Likewise, INH would
> not be able to start 
> new subgames except by outergame proposal. This
> would result in a lot 
> of proposals that wouldn't be pertinent to many
> players - right now 
> only 5 people actually have any reason to care about
> the Tunnelers 
> rules; the other seven players would just have a lot
> of props they 
> didn't care about cluttering their ballots.

It is necessary for there to be some part of the
Underwritten Society's charter to be frozen;
otherwise, once underwriting is approved, the members
of the society could simply change their charter to
say, "Everyone gets points each nweek!"

Tunnelers is self-supporting at the moment, so I
probably wouldn't worry about underwriting, unless I
wanted to keep a bigger piece of the entry fee.  If I
did go for underwriting, I'd probably isolate some
particular portion of the charter, such as:

"The Underground Society's primary point-earning
activity is the playing of the game of Tunnelers, the
rules for which are described elsewhere in this
charter.  Each player has a mole in the game, and two
points are earned by a player for killing another
player's mole."

That would let me change the Tunnelers rules as
needed, while leaving this piece alone.

> 
> 	I think it would easier to come up with a way of
> simply providing 
> points for societies, and letting the societies work
> it out. The 
> simplest way to do this would be to allow petitions,
> either to the 
> Admin, to some special Funding Council, or perhaps
> simply as an 
> Unauthored prop, to get grants from the Gremlin Fund
> or from the 
> mystical forces that create points when the rules
> don't specify where 
> they come from.

Er...the unauthored prop bit...Isn't that essentially
what I'm proposing?

-- Glotmorf


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