Re: [spoon-discuss] Re: [Spoon-business] Nweek 60 Ballot

["Glotmorf" <dwhytock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 28 Mar 2004 at 22:35, Zarpint wrote:

> 
> On Sun, 28 Mar 2004, Glotmorf wrote:
> 
> > On 28 Mar 2004 at 3:32, Zarpint wrote:
> >
> > > Since you've misread several of my props, I wanted to explain.
> > >
> > > 1825: An 'available public display' is exactly what those words
> > > mean in English. It has to display the required information and be
> > > publicly available to all of us. If that stripper could provide
> > > the appropriate information, and she were publicly available to
> > > all of us, she would work. It's no different that any other
> > > English term used in the rules.
> >
> > Except it's not defined, and therefore can be declared an
> > eclair.  Nowhere is "reasonable" used in the rules, and
> > therefore a poster of the roster theoretically doesn't have to
> > be reasonable.  If I was responsible for the roster, I could
> > theoretically post it on my blog.  Or, even better, my wiki.
> 
> Glotmorf, every English word used in the ruleset cannot be defined in
> terms of other English words in the ruleset. We know what those words
> mean. If we can all get to your blog, or your wiki, it would meet the
> criterion, and that would be fine.

Yes, but I wouldn't have to tell you it was there.  Dave's 
designation of public fora means there's limited places where 
he and we have to hunt for information.  I could also post it 
in the Washington Post, under the reasonable belief that the 
Post is available in the public libraries of most major 
cities.

And no, not every word in the ruleset has to be defined in 
terms of every other, but "available public display" is a key 
term, describing an object, and the default case for objects 
that aren't defined is to consider them eclairs.  That's in 
the rules.  And the definition of "available public display" 
is significant because the rest of the rules use the term 
"forum" and the two terms are distinctly different.  Law 
doesn't explicitly define every term either, but if two terms 
are used to describe things they are not considered 
interchangable unless something somewhere says they are.

> > This is why we require the explicit designation of fora, so
> > that we have a, heh, reasonable chance of finding something
> > publicly posted.
> >
> > Make it a forum.  It's not that hard.
> 
> Why do you not object to the following (r16.B)
> 
> "The Administrator may designate a Forum public if it is reasonably
> accessible to all Players." Same thing - you're right, these words
> aren't defined in the ruleset. They're normal English words. How could
> a ruleset possibly be structured if a word has to be defined in terms
> of other words before it is used?

Actually, I think I did object to this at the time.  The 
reason I don't object to it now is that I'm not voting on it 
now. :)

 > > > 1828: Rule 24
> certainly did something to me. By putting the entire > > burden of
> updating the Roster on the Admin, it caused the Roster to be > >
> out-of-date. > > Tch.  That statement effectively says Dave can't
> handle the > job.  That's not entirely true, and I would never say
> that > about him.  It's certainly true that the job is a lot of work,
> > and that, since it's a manual task, it's subject to human > error,
> and it would be nice if someone could help him with it, > but that's
> not the same as saying he can't do the job.
> 
> "Tch" back. How can you claim to be defending Dave's honor while
> failing to vote for a prop that would help him? It says Dave isn't
> handling the job. He could of course do it, but he has other things to
> do than being our scribe. If he wanted to, Dave could update the game
> completely every hour, but that would come at the cost of anything
> else he might want to do in his life.

While I respect Dave as a person, don't particularly want to 
see him burn himself out, and am all for doing things that 
help him, I nevertheless vote for proposals because they would 
help me.  I see this proposal as not helping me in a 
particular way.

> > > And I don't understand your objection here.
> > > 1. If at any point there is no Roster Minister, an election is
> > > immediately held. Kurt Godel will enforce this. 2. Since the Admin
> > > may perform the duties of a Minister (625.A.2) we lose nothing by
> > > allowing an additional person to help with this important job. If
> > > we have a Roster Minister, and neither e nor Dave is updating the
> > > Roster, we are still better off than if we don't have one, and
> > > Dave is not updating the Roster.
> >
> > Besides, you miss my point.  I want it said explicitly in the
> > rules that the roster must be maintained, independent of who
> > does the maintaining.  That way, if absolutely necessary, an
> > out-of-date roster can be used as grounds for disputing or
> > refuting otherwise-undesirable events.
> 
> It doesn't say that now. It says, "The Administrator is responsible
> for maintaining a publicly visible list of all players in the game;
> this list is called the Roster." (r24)
> 
> It would be replaced with:
> "The Roster Minister is responsible for keeping a publicly accessible
> page, known as the Roster, containing an extremely current list of all
> players in the game." It's the same as before.

Well, no.  The Administrator is a fixture in the game; the 
entire ruleset is structured around the existence of the 
Administrator.  The Roster Minister isn't the same sort of 
fixture; e can, at times, cease to exist without it being an 
emergency.  In my opinion, though, the nonexistence of the 
roster constitutes a near-emergency; therefore I want it to be 
a more stringent requirement that the roster exist than that 
the Roster Minister handle it.

> > > 1829: You do not have this straight at all. A player recognizes a
> > > Streamlined Emergency by making ___or endorsing___ a Quick Fix.
> > > The idea is that in a Streamlined Emergency, there will only be
> > > one or two of them - otherwise it isn't effective to use the
> > > Procedure, and the regular one can be used.
> >
> > Okay, I missed the "or endorsing" part.  It still seems
> > unnecessarily complex to be associated with the term "quick
> > fix".  Besides, what if someone sees something that really,
> > really needs a quick fix but can't think of exactly what that
> > quick fix should be?  Since e can't provide a fix, and since
> > at that point there's no fix to endorse, e can't officially
> > say that such-and-such is something that needs fixing right
> > away.
> The reason it's quick is that once we have a majority of players, we
> don't have a week long delay while we figure out the forum and such.
> 
> And why would we want an official statement like that anyway? The
> whole point is we'd use the other procedure if we didn't have a quick
> fix.

So...a streamlined emergency is one that someone has a ready 
solution for, as opposed to a non-streamlined emergency for 
which one might not have a solution?  And a streamlined 
emergency doesn't require a clock stoppage?

I dunno...this isn't really working with my idea of an 
"emergency".  I should think that if something was an 
emergency it had to be dealt with right away, but there's 
nothing in the proposal that says it has to be dealt with in 
any particular timeframe at all.  An emergency that crops up 
in, say, voting procedures may remain an emergency if we can't 
all agree on a quick fix before the voting period ends.  
Unless, of course, no one has a quick fix for it.

"The reason it's quick is that once we have a majority of players, we
don't have a week long delay while we figure out the forum and such."  No, but we 
might have a week-long delay while we get a majority of players.  Apathy does come 
in waves.

						Glotmorf
-----
The Ivory Mini-Tower: a blog study in Social Technology.
http://www.nomic.net/~dwhytock/imt

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