On 5/19/08, Kerim Aydin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Naw, you're right. After thinking about things over the weekend, I realized > my annoyance at double-jeopardy is a symptom, the disease (what's leading me > to step back from the game right now) is: > > 1. Compulsion of judges via threat of prosecution. It's only very recently > that judges could be punished above and beyond a OVERRULE and loss of judge's > salary, e.g. criminally. I think that's a perversion of the justice system > which has been used politically and has severely degraded the practice and > important Agoran Custom (one of the key aspects that makes the game > interesting > and respectful) of "letting each judge have eir turn, even if it isn't 100% > what you would agree with."
Personally I think the most pressing concern is the lack of any meaningful Agoran currency. Previously, even a judge who didn't egregiously abuse the system was compelled to judge accurately and on time so that e might gain the Blue VC. Now, the only option to punish the judge *at all* for a stupid judgement is a criminal case, where the sentences range from FINE (now a slap on the wrist, too lenient) to CHOKEY and EXILE (too extreme), nothing in between. The only things Agorans really care about (that can be lost right now) are playerhood and voting rights, which are too extreme punishments for a bad judgement, but right now there is nothing less. Some new kind of creative punishment might be made, but if we just had a currency where FINE made sense-- heck, we already do, just let the judge compel the defendant to destroy an AAA Land-- we could once again compel judges to judge reasonably, without resorting to capital punishment. Which reminds me of an idea I had... what if we made Contracts a subtype of Rules which might not apply to all persons? If done right, contests like the AAA could create (say) Agoran decisions without either any specific wording to that effect or any chance of scamming the Agoran decision rule, because the contest would be defining decisions at its own power. It's relevant to this discussion because we could also "promote" the AAA to rule status easily, if we liked it enough, then reference it in other rules. By the way, I can attest that I might have judged cases assigned to me less tardily (i.e. at all) had I stood to gain financially from doing so.
