Re: [s-d] Proposal: No More Membership Tests!

["Jamie Dallaire" <bad.leprechaun@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 8/11/07, Peter Cooper Jr. <pete+bnomic@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> "Charles Schaefer" <chuckles11489@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
> > For one nweek after the posting of the request, the External Force shall
> be
> > considered a provisional player, and all non-provisional players shall
> have
> > the option of either objecting to or supporting its request for
> playership.
> > If at the end of that period, a request has support equal to or greater
> > than its objection, the External Force shall become a regular
> > (non-provisional) player. However, if the request has more objection
> than
> > support the External Force ceases to be a player and any actions taken
> by it
> > are repealed."
>
> We don't have a concept of repealing prior actions. Doing so could
> mess with time in an unpleasant way.
>
> --
> Peter C.
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>

Might this rule then have to be dependent on pending proposal 142 (repealing
the Temporal Prime Directive)? Or would this be an example of a rule that
allows us to "simulate retroactive changes to the game state" rather than
make actual retroactive changes (not sure what the difference is)?

On a related note, I'm not sure HOW we would even go about repealing some of
these changes. It's simple enough in cases such as the elimination of some
player's vote in the final tally or wiping out of their proposals, but what
about the ways in which that provisional player's actions affected OTHER
players' actions? This repealing business could give rise to some unpleasant
arguments... a few examples off the top of my head:

Player A tries to usurp a ministry held by Player B. The only objections
come from Player B and a provisional player. Player B thus gets to hold onto
the ministry and, later in the nweek, gets to take some important action
(name a priest, create a miniministry, what have you). Provisional player,
at the end of the nweek, is expelled from the game for whatever reason, by
objection from other players. What happens now? The gamestate has changed
since then... Maybe player A would have done something spectacular as
minister, but it is now too late... And we can't really just go back to when
he tried to usurp and start again...

Player C would like to see a certain proposal pass, but would personally
like to abstain from that vote, for whatever reason. Maybe he's sneaky and
doesn't want to give some intention away, whatever. Votes are 4-3 in favour
of the proposal, so player C abstains. Then the provisional player, who had
voted for, gets thrown out, and the proposal fails on a tied vote. Is player
C's assertion that he would have voted for if he had to to be listened to?

The last one isn't the logistical hassle that the first one is, of course,
as it should easily be settled by telling player C that he should have
realized the provisional player still had the possibility of being ejected
and just voted for, but it's still disturbing that this process could cause
such headaches.

And there's also potential for a new player to sign up during the voting
period, change which sets of proposals pass or fail, then be kicked out one
nweek later (during the following voting period). At this point the
proposals passed during the last nweek are different, potentially
invalidating or rendering irrelevant some of the proposals set forth during
this nweek (which it is now too late to revise). And we've just lost an
nweek.

One nweek is a long time. And repealing would be a headache.

bad_leprechaun
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