Re: [s-d] [s-b] panic

["Craig Daniel" <teucer@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 10:50 PM, Ed Murphy <emurphy42@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> teucer wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 10:16 PM, Taral <taralx@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 7:00 PM, Craig Daniel <teucer@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>> No Contract may be submitted whose text is not provided, in
>>>> unencrypted form, in the e-mail message in which the text is
>>>> submitted.
>>> I'm not a fan of the use of "unencrypted". Can we use something less
>>> specific, like "unobscured" or "plain" or ...?
>>
>> I don't like "plain" because I kind of hope for people to get
>> creative. I thought the mirror corporation was a neat idea, even if it
>> was done wrong and was apparently never valid. But I'm happy to amend
>> the text to better express what is desired. Suggest a proposed rewrite
>> of that sentence, and unless I see a blatant problem with it I will
>> amend my EP accordingly.
>>
>> I'd also love to find a way to avoid establishing English as the
>> official language of B Nomic (for philosophical reasons) without
>> leaving room for somebody to go teach themself Klingon and use it to
>> post "I intend to cause the OCB to give me all of its mackerel"
>> without us noticing. But I think the only way is to insist on English,
>> so that's what I proposed.
>
> How about something like "can generally be understood by the other
> players without unreasonable effort"?

Hm.

I like it, for the most part. What I'm trying to do is find a way to
get all of the following test cases to resolve correctly:

1. I send out a contract defining itself as the
plaintext/translation/etc of a block of ciphertext. (The contract
should be invalid.)
1'. I send out an encrypted file and define a contract as being the
contents thereof, a la Epimenides. (The contract should be invalid.)
2. I send out a contract defining itself as being a block of text that
is ciphertext or apparently so, a la lhret rhlhr. (The contract should
be either gibberish or invalid, but certainly not valid as meaning the
plaintext.)
3. I send out a contract in the form of an image of some
pretty-looking text. (If I specify that the text, rather than the
image itself, is the contract, I think it should be valid, but am
willing to sacrifice this if I must do so for an otherwise optimal
solution. Otherwise it isn't, since game documents by definition
consist of text.)
4. I send out a contract in Portuguese. (I'm not sure how this one
ought to be handled. I kind of like allowing it for reasons of
contract schtick but don't like the potential for abuse via
obfuscation.)
5. I send out a contract in Lojban. (Yes, I am able to do that. And it
should be invalid, since unlike Portuguese you can't just go copy and
paste it into Google Translate.)
6. I send a post performing a game action defined as the
plaintext/translation/etc of a block of ciphertext. (The action should
not occur.)
6'. I send out an encrypted file and claim to perform the actions
described therein. (The action should not occur.)
7. I send out a post defining a game action as being a block of
ciphertext and perform that action. (The action should occur only if
the gibberish of the ciphertext is meaningful in some way.)
8. I send out a game action in the form of some pretty-looking text
describing what I do. (I actually prefer to disallow this, since it
can get ambiguous when in a string of actions the one in the image
took place. It may be easiest however to keep the resolution of 3 and
8 parallel.)
9. I send out a game action in Portuguese. (This should be handled in
the same way as number 4.)
9'. I send out a game action defined as being the plaintext of some
enciphered message, and that plaintext is in Portuguese. (Fuck no.)
10. I send out a game action in Lojban. (This should be handled the
same way as number 5, I think.)
11. I send out a contract hidden in spam. (This should possibly not
invalidate the contract provided the above are all obeyed. As long as
we've got the rules written in such a way that it can't affect what
the rest of you are allowed/required to do, I don't think there's a
big enough loophole to be worth using emergency procedures to patch.)
12. I send out a game action hidden in spam. (The action should not occur.)
13. I submit a contract which defines a corporation whose officers are
not bound by the contract. (The contract should be invalid.)
14. I submit a contract which contains an attempt to compel action or
inaction on the part of people who have not explicitly accepted the
contract's terms. (The contract should be invalid.)
15. I submit a contract which attempts to cause the rules to compel
action or inaction on the part of people who have not explicitly
accepted the contract's terms. (The contract should be invalid; we
only know of one possible loophole in need of closing for this one but
if anybody finds others during the emergency they should be patched
too.)

I will support anything that resolves those appropriately; I believe
my proposal comes damn close.

 - teucer
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