Re: [s-d] Why no mutable/immutable?

[Daniel Lepage <dpl33@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Nov 21, 2006, at 5:23 PM, Andy Jones wrote:

> I thought that it might be something like that.
>
> Your test case still requires a majority to vote for a proposal which
> then casts votes for them.  I for one would be very suspicious of such
> a proposal.  And in any case the current ruleset states only that
> players may submit proposals.

Well, that could also be changed. The main point is that if a  
majority of the players want to do something, they can always make it  
happen via a normal proposal. Thus, there's no real benefit to a rule  
that's "harder" to mutate.

You do make a good point that some players may vote against a  
proposal that circumvents immutability solely on the grounds that  
they don't like to see immutability circumvented. In other words,  
although there is no logical difference between mutable and immutable  
rules, there may be a psychological difference.

Historically, however, players haven't been discouraged by this. In  
fact, past rules that tried to keep people from changing them were  
usually circumvented almost immediately, often just to prove it could  
be done. At one point there was a large prize in BNS for anyone who  
could produce a nontrivial immutable rule, but after a few people  
tried and failed we abandoned the quest.

Note that trivially immutable rules are pretty easy - "No other rule  
has any effect, and rules may not be changed" or "Nothing in the  
gamestate can change unless Wonko permits it".

Personally, I don't like immutable rules because they're a real pain.  
At one point earlier in the game we did have a rule that tried to  
limit what could be done to change it. Then we had a game-wide  
catastrophe and went into r0, the Emergency Management Procedure,  
where each player may submit a single proposal to fix the game and we  
vote on which Refresh Prop is used. The process was almost badly  
fouled up because a proposal to reset the rules forgot that one of  
them needed special attention.

In short, if a majority of all players want to change something in  
the game, I feel that they should be allowed to change it.

> I guess the only way to find out for sure is to try it.  I'll think  
> about that.

True - you're welcome to try.

-- 
Wonko

Daniel Lepage
dpl33@xxxxxxxxxxx



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