Re: [s-d] [s-b] This game is boring, let's have an Emergency.

[James Baxter <jebaxter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

It was pointed out around February 2009 that under the comment rule used in the 3rd, 4th and 5th eras a statement such as "[[a]] b [[c]]" would be interpreted by counting "a" and "c" as comments (because they are each between "[[" and "]]") but would also count "b" as a comment (because b is between the middle delimiters "]]" and "[[", the comment rule ignored order, it was also suggested that "a]] b [[c" could also be a comment). The point here is that "b" would get commented out even though it wasn't intended to be commented out.

This caused a  major panic in 5th era as the rule defining ntime had 2 comments which accidentally commented out the line which incremented the nweek (and reset the nday to 1), the part which allowed for changing the clock from off to on and vice versa and the part defining a duration of X ndays. This made the game nearly unplayable but then I pointed out that rule 0 existed in its 4th era form (pre proposal 266) and we managed to have an emergency that set the rules back to the 4th era rules (this is an era that appears to have been missed out in the history rule but then the period when we copied agora before the cenobiarch was created has been missed out too). It is surprising how close B came to being unplayable as there was only one nweek in which the emergency rule could have been created (nweek 112).

Basically what the comment problem meant was:

-the ruleset had had this problem since the great reset of nweek 112 (http://b.nomic.net/index.php?title=Rules&oldid=1501 has the problem)
-nweek 112 went normally as part of the great reset of nweek 112 tweak set the clock to nday 1
-at the end of nday 12, nweek 112 the clock went to nday 13, nweek 112 (the part of the rule incrementing nweeks had been commented out)
-the nday continued to increase without limit after that and, as nday 9 never occurred again, voting could not take place (the players voted anyway, not knowing the ruleset was broken)
-emergencies still worked as  the emergencies rule was created in nweek 112 by proposal 16
-4th era was created but no gameplay really occured as the clock was still broken (it has been said that the clock might have been off for a most or all of 4th era, I believe this to be incorrect as the emergency rule temporarily stopped all game time rather than specifically changing the clock's state and the means for the MoM to change the clock were commented out)
-proposal 266 never passed so subsequent emergencies never happened as mental state had no meaning (emergencies could be started by panic button but since everyone assumed P266 passed no-one thought panic buttons existed anymore)
-5th era never existed as the emergency that created it was started by mental state

This all led to the end of 5th era and a complete reset of the gamestate including reverting to a 4th era ruleset. This is also the reason 4th and 5th era are imaginary.

> Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2010 10:54:28 -0800
> From: gvistica@xxxxxxxxx
> To: spoon-discuss@xxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [s-d] [s-b]   This game is boring, let's have an Emergency.
> 
> What comment problem would that be? And we could always declare an emergency in 
> order to fix it, since time would stop (not just the clock).
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----
> > From: James Baxter <jebaxter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > To: spoon-business@xxxxxxxxx
> > Sent: Tue, December 21, 2010 4:51:57 AM
> > Subject: Re: [s-b] [s-d]  This game is boring, let's have an Emergency.
> > 
> > 
> > I vote for the refresh proposal submitted by the player known as  teucer.
> > [[It is a bit weird having the upstairs connect to the village green  but it 
> >certainly provides new gameplay options and anyway B isn't real life so  houses 
> >don't have to comply with real world geometry. Also the other RPs might  break 
> >the game as the two that would replace the rules with the era 5 rules  still 
> >contain the comment problem in rule 7 and it makes little sense to have to  have 
> >to fix it immediately after restarting. However, if everyone wants to go  back 
> >to a 5th era ruleset and we agree to fix the problem then I might change my  
> >vote as I liked the style of 5th era.]]                            
> >
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> > spoon-business@xxxxxxxxx
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> > 
> 
> 
>       
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