athena on Mon, 12 Jul 2004 21:49:01 -0500 (CDT)


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Re: [spoon-discuss] refresh proto


On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 08:22:50PM -0400, Daniel Lepage wrote:
> 
> On Jul 12, 2004, at 12.31 AM, athena@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> 
> >I modified Teucer's ruleset slightly. Mine is on the Wiki under the
> >title "AnotherCNomicRuleset". I'm going to propose it for refresh.
> >Comments before I do?
> 
> I don't like the second paragraph of r1. That was kind of funny in a 
> silly and stupid sort of way when it was first added; now it's just 
> kind of stupid in a silly and stupid sort of way. Ditto the new rule 
> 10.

I respectfully disagree here. The point of sovereignty here is to make
it clear that no other rules apply. It has humor to it, but it's not
at all stupid IMHO.

But you realize that Nomic tends to become silly at times,
and it's part of game custom and flavor to do so. If we were being
totally serious, we would play this game much differently.

> 
> R4 seems sort of unneeded: the convention used so far has been, if the 
> rules redefine a word, then it has a different meaning; otherwise, it 
> doesn't. We use capitalized words that would be capped in normal 
> english, and we redefine lowercase words. Why bind us to a specific 
> convention?

The normal English meaning of a 'convention' is not binding. And this
issue has come up often. People seem to want normal lowercase words to
be defined explicitly at times, and this makes it clear that they have
the English meaning, without the need for a game dictionary.

> 
> R5 is irritating - put different object on different number lists, so 
> that whatever tracks proposals doesn't have to know what numbers the 
> rules are using. Also, there's still no definition of a 'revisable 
> object'. Since it's lowercase, we'd have to use the standard english 
> definition; revise means "to look over again in order to correct or 
> improve" so a revisable object must be one that can be looked over 
> again in order to correct or improve. However, it is not hard to look 
> over a person and suggest some things they could correct (virtually 
> everybody has bad sitting posture, for example); I am therefore a 
> revisable object and should be assigned a serial number.
> 
> I'll grant that that was a bit ludicrous, but I'd still like to see 
> revisable defined concretely. Or at least do away with the 
> Capitalization Convention.

Thanks. 'revisable' does need to be specifically defined, and the serial
number text clarified on that point.


> 
> R6: what's an 'entity'? I again think that the SE definition doesn't 
> match what you mean.

That should be changed to 'Game Object'.

> 
> R11: I'd like "as outlined by the Rules", not "in the Ruleset", because 
> I think we need Rulebooks soon.

You're right.

> 
> R16: "Actions may only be taken in public fora, unless there are no 
> extant public Fora."
> R17: "Actions occur upon posting to a Public Forum. Non-action events 
> -- i.e., events not caused by Players -- occur at exactly the times 
> specified in the Rules."
> 
> For both of these, I'd like a better definition of what exactly an 
> "action" is. We've been loose about this in the past, but it would be 
> nice to put some limits on it. For example, do I take a legal Action 
> when I say "If my score is greater than 20, I give 20 points to Iain", 
> even if my score is less than 20? What if I say, "If there is a bonus 
> box at (3,3) I Die"? I'd say ban conditional actions in general 
> (remember the pseudocode debates?) but it'd be nice to have this 
> written down.

That Ruleset doesn't define actions at all, which is not good. I'll add
that.

> 
> In Rule 18, I'd prefer the Suberian "with the exception of changing the 
> Rules, which may only be done as explicitly permitted by the rules" or 
> some such thing.

This is taken care of by the Default Case, r393.

> 
> Rule 26: This is actually not what 'supersede' means. It means "to take 
> the place of". If r26 supersedes all other rules, that implies that 
> there are no rules but 26.

We've been misusing that for a while now... I'll change to 'take
precedence over'.

> 
> R23: What's a teller? Why make them Very Badly Wired, given that the 
> effects won't happen until the Poll's Duration concludes anyway?

According to dictionary.com, one standard meaning of teller is
"One who tells, relates, or communicates; an informer, narrator, or
describer."

Look at the definition of a Semi-Concealable Poll:

6. Semi-Concealable: This is a Concealable Poll, except that at the
conclusion of voting the private votes must be published along with the
identities of their casters.

Clearly, the teller is the one who publishes the results.


It's irrelevant whether it's VBW or not here. 
In the name of Minimalism, I'll remove that.


Wonko and Phil, thanks for looking over this so carefully.

Changes made in rules 5, 6, 11, 16, 19, 23, and 26.

Phil, I also changed 24.C.

Zarpint
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