[Nomic02] Some rule suggestions (fwd)

[Adam Biltcliffe]

--On 15 January 2003 5:43 am -0500 Admiral Jota <jota@shelltown.net> wrote:

> What if a rule goes into effect one hour after ratification? I'm only
> saying that out of concern of message propagation and such -- so you won't
> inadvertantly send out a message that breaks a rule because the last vote
> didn't have time to get to your inbox before you sent your "move" or
> whatever.

I'm hoping we don't reach the point where what we're allowed to talk about 
on this list is restricted (this is why I've been against the content of 
the list becoming part of the state of the game - but at present Rule 8 
allows things which are not part of the game to influence it anyway if the 
rules say so). Having rules come into effect an hour after ratification 
would be fine by me, but it'd still be nice (especially if we're using 
active dissent) to see a message from the proponent to the effect of "the 
period of dissent for this rule has ended; the rule will come into effect 
at 14:30 GMT".

>> It might be wise to introduce some means of coping with inactive players
>> at some point.
>
> My penalty for not posting, combined with baf's three demerit disqualifier
> would do it, provided they were modified to use the same language for the
> penalties/demerits.

Right. As it stands that could prevent us from making any 'unanimous' 
decisions for three weeks, but if we use the active dissent rule the issue 
of inactive players becomes less important anyway.

>> > IV. Rule-breaking
>> >   A. Whenever a player performs an action that is forbidden by
>> >      a rule other than Rule 4, or fails to perform an action that
>> >      is required by a rule other than Rule 4, a "demerit" may be
>> >      assigned to that player by majority rule.  Demerits are part
>> >      of the state of the game.
>> >   B. Any player with three demerits will automatically be removed
>> >      entirely from the state of the game.
>> >   C. Demerits may not be assigned for violations of rules that
>> >      were not part of the state of the game when the violation
>> >      occurred.
>>
>> This all seems fine, except that I would suggest that IV.A be amended to
>> prohibit the rulebreaking player from voting on their own demeriting.
>
> Why? If it's actually a *majority* ruling (the rule ought to avoid the
> word "rule" here, since a "rule" is a rule of the game), then they'll
> presumably be in the minority. Unless they're in the majority :)

As it stands, this means that only one player other than the player being 
courtmartialled need object for the demerit not to pass. If that's what we 
want, fine. (For the sake of simplicity, though, I'm still in favour of 
eliminating "majority ruling" altogether and using active dissent for 
everything, in which case we'd need to prevent the violating player from 
vetoing their own demeriting but would end up with basically the same 
suggestion as you have here.)

Also, the first half of V.A could perhaps be more elegantly rephrased as 
"whenever a player violates Rule 4 ..."

>> > V. Endings
>> >   A. Any player may leave the game at any time by posting
>> >      intention to do so.  When this happens, the player is
>> >      removed entirely from the state of the game.
>>
>> We'll need to bear in mind that additions to the state of the game which
>> are associated with a player may need to specify what happens when that
>> player is removed from the game, but yes.
>
> How about adding to VA, "portions of the game state specifically
> associated to that player and no other player cease to exist, unless
> otherwise specified in another rule" and "portions of the game state
> associated with both that player and other player(s) will revert to only
> the other player(s) with which they are associated", or somesuch?

Sure.



jw