[Nomic02] Some rule suggestions (fwd)

[nomic02@wurb.com]

Splicing together my responses to both the conversation threads here, in a 
vague effort to reduce confusion:

--On 15 January 2003 06:19 -0500 Admiral Jota <jota@shelltown.net> wrote:

> On Wed, 15 Jan 2003, Adam Biltcliffe wrote:
>
>> I'm hoping we don't reach the point where what we're allowed to talk
>> about on this list is restricted [...]
>
> Yeah, I didn't mean breaking rules about message content. I meant about
> game actions. Like if you said, "OK, I move from the Lounge to Washington
> DC, and drop a banana there", at the same time a rule prohibiting bringing
> produce into national capitals was ratified, it'd get messy.

Oops, you're entirely right. The suggestion I made about having rules come 
into effect an hour after final ratification and having the proponent post 
a message stating that the rule has been passed and exactly when it comes 
into effect covers all our concerns about this nicely, I think.

> OK. So, a unanimous ruling is needed to apply extra demerits, but the
> demeritee can't veto that ruling. Works for me.

Right.

> > I'm still not convinced that it's desirable that the content of the 
mailing
> > list be considered part of the state of the game.
>
> Not the *content* of the list, necessarily. Just the list itself, as a
> notional entity that one can act on (or fail to act on).

Again, at present, I can't see any reason for this: just acknowledging the 
existence of the list doesn't really fit with my ideas about what "the 
state of the game" should cover. If you can give a concrete example of a 
rule or situation where it would be important for the list to be part of 
the state of the game I might change my mind.

> Active Dissent: Any player may veto any proposed ruling by voting "nay".
>     Any player may change his or her vote on a proposal until such time
>     as the voting is complete. The proposer is assume to cast an initial
>     "aye" (but may change it, like any other vote). Any player who hasn't
>     voted on a proposal within the first 72 hours is assumed to have
>     voted "aye", but may change that vote up until the proposal is
>     officially ratified. If at any point, all players have voted in favor
>     of on a particular proposal (either by actively voting "aye", or by
>     failing to vote "nay" within the alotted 72 hours), the proposer of
>     the rule may officially declare it to have been ratified by unanimous
>     consent.

Perfectly happy with this in spirit, but I think the wording should reflect 
the fact that this is a general decision-making process, not only one which 
applies to the introduction of new rules. A "proposal" should cover any 
change which the rules require to be agreed unanimously: although at the 
moment this is just changes to the rules, phrasing this properly means that 
passing rules such as "players may be added to the state of the game by 
unanimous agreement" becomes very simple since unanimous agreement is 
already defined.

We seem to be a little closer to reaching consensus on some of these, 
although Roger hasn't had a chance to raise any objections yet ... I'm 
having trouble keeping track of what's been agreed to by whom, but I think 
the only rules that are immediately likely to pass are those from baf's 
initial proposal which both Jota and I agreed to unchanged: I.A, V.A, V.B 
and VI.A.



jw