On Thu, 9 Dec 2010, [email protected] wrote: > On Dec 9, 2010, at 10:42 AM, Kerim Aydin <[email protected]> wrote: > > But I should state that I think that 3/4 of > > scams tried here are a trivial attempt at misunderstanding legal > > procedures as mathematical logic, which would be laughed out of court > > but maintain a credence here. > > It's not "just" a legal system simulation though. The high specificity with > which we write the rules makes doing so somewhat akin to programming, which I > suspect helps to explain why the niche Agora lives in seems to be made almost > entirely of programmers.
I've really, really, really got to finish my half-done thesis on this subject! > (Somewhat related: I don't like the kind of scam that just consists of > pedantically misinterpreting rules, but such scams are often laughed out of > the *Agoran* courts. But I distinguish between that kind and the kind that > merely takes advantage of weird or unintuitive definitions in the rules, or > unexpected interactions between rules (still at a low enough level that it > might be laughed out of a real court), such as the > act-on-behalf-of-Monster-rule one (which I'm partial to even though it > failed), or, heck, the "pocket veto" in the U.S. Constitution. That is my > favorite kind of scam.) I agree with you (yes, love the pocket veto) although I think the your "high enough level not to be laughed out" might differ slightly from mine. :P I think part of it for me is balance. From my hazy memory, in 2001-2002 there happened to be (because of personalities, really) 2-3 fairly long-term blocs of opposed players, so a lot of what happened could be described as vying for power between those blocs. Lots of politics, negotiations with unaligned parties, long-term accumulation, etc. Fewer outright scam attempts. Now it's the opposite. Not much long-term power structure, more someone saying "hey I gotta good scam" and people jumping on board or arguing against its cleverness, and it passes from memory/game effect fairly instantly afterwards. I think striking some balance between the two play styles would be nice. But it's more driven by personalities than actual rules or goals. (Although the old system was strongly abetted by a long-term accumulative economy so that earnings could persist for a year or more - getting back to that and seeing what happens would be one possible way to reach for the balance). -G.
