On Sat, 27 Apr 2013, Charles Walker wrote:
> [tl;dr: simple liquid currency with office salaries, case fees and
> proposal fees. A small reward just for voting. Bidding to distribute
> the top N proposals (other than those with low fees). Offices propose
> their Salary during elections. The return of Caste, but no GP. ]
I protoed a liquid currency a month ago but got no responses. My main
reason was to get Auctions going (I was waiting for Auctions before
moving forward). So lots of comments.
> The rationale behind some of this:
> - The reward for voting is not just to encourage players to do so,
> but also to encourage spending rather than hoarding. Tax does the same
> thing and for the same reason there's no 'spend N Dollars to win'.
> - As far as possible I've tried to allow prices to fluctuate
> according to how active the game is, in particular with
> Distributability.
> - Awarding the currency is divided between four offices and then
> tracked by a fifth, to minimise workload and chances of the economy
> crashing if one officer goes missing.
More or less same goals for me, with addition of putting Auctions in from
the beginning. When you propose a final version of this, I'll put out
a matching auction system.
> I welcome suggestions for a better name for the currency.
I called mine Yaks, for Yet Another Kurrency System. Officer was the
Yak Herder. I kinda like it, but not super-fussed about name, that's
just my suggestion.
> Enact a Power 2 Rule entitled "Agoran Dollars" with the following text:
>
> Agoran Dollars (or Dollars, and with currency symbol '#') are a
> class of assets and a currency. The Treasuror is an office and
> recordkeepor of Dollars.
I like introducing a symbol. We haven't done that before.
> The IADoP, the Assessor, the CotC and the Registrar CAN award
> and destroy Dollars by announcement, but SHALL NOT do so except
> as explicitly required by the Rules, or to correct an error made
> in attempting to fulfil eir duties; violating this is the Class
> 7 Crime of Administrative Error.
I don't think need a separate clause here. By default, it's not possible
to create assets, so just put the places in the rules later where IADoP
et al. can do the creation. (But naming the crime somewhere is probably
worthwhile). This is also broken as written- by default, all players can
destroy their own dollars, but this would forbid those officers from
doing so (destroying their own).
> The Treasuror CAN destroy Dollars by announcement, but SHALL NOT
> do so except as explicitly required by the Rules; violating this
> is the Class 7 Crime of Administrative Error.
Do you mean to forbid players from destroying their own dollars as a rule?
If so, you need to forbid that.
> The maximum FINE amount for Dollars is 500.
>
> As soon as possible after the beginning of each of the months in
> {Janurary, April, July, October}, the Treasuror SHALL destroy N
> of each player's Dollars, where N is half the number of Dollars
> the player owned at the beginning of the month, rounded up.
Quarter is defined in R1023.b.4, so you can just say "asap after the
beginning of each quarter".
> Append to Rule 2162 (Switches) the following:
>
> A natural switch is a switch with possible values of the
> non-negative integers and a default value of 0.
V. nice new definition, can be used for lots of things.
> Enact a Power 2 Rule entitled "Activity Rewards" with the following text:
>
> The activity wage is a natural Agora Nomic switch tracked by the
> Treasuror. Once each week, the Registrar SHALL award a number of
> Dollars to each active first-class player who voted on the most
> recently resolved Agoran decision equal to the activity wage.
I honestly think weekly awards for anything are too much. One quickly
loses track of cash flow, and I think that hurt recent systems. I very
strongly think awards and salaries should be monthly, to allow more
planning, stability, and trading versus just waiting each week for an
influx.
This is especially true if wage fluctuates each week with proposals;
breeds so much week-to-week uncertainty it runs the risk of paralysis.
This time scale (getting it right) is I think the most important thing
to consider to make this a good, useful and used currency.
> If a first-class person (the recruit), within one week of
> registering, announces that another player (the recruitor)
> recruited em to Agora, then if two months after this
> announcement the recruit was active, the recruitor CAN announce
> a Recruitment, specifying the identify of the recruit.
>
> As soon as possible after a valid announcement of a Recruitment,
> the Registrar SHALL award 40 Dollars each to the recruit and the
> recruitor.
A new recruit should get a bit of funds right when they join. I like the
idea of a bonus only if you recruit someone who's been active, though 2
months seems like a long time to remember.
> Enact a Power 2 Rule entitled "Office Salary" with the following text:
>
> Salary is a natural office switch, tracked by the IADoP.
>
> During the nomination period of an election, the candidates CAN
> and SHALL set their proposed salary, a possible value of the
> office's salary switch, by announcement. The proposed salaries,
> if any, for each candidate are essential parameters for the
> Agoran decision to decide the officeholder. The proposed salary
> of the winning candidate, if any, becomes the salary of the
> office upon the resolution of the relevant decision.
I like the idea of a proposed salary. Think the mechanics are a little
off. With the "if any", what happens if there isn't any? What's the
default - 0? I'd suggest setting a base default here (10?)
> A player CAN flip with Salary of an office without two
> objections. The holder of a Postulated office CAN decrease its
> Salary by announcement.
>
> Once each month, the IADoP SHALL award each officeholder a
> number of Dollars equal to the sum of the salaries of all eir
> Postulated offices.
This awards someone who just grabbed an office. Also penalizes someone
who held an office assumed for a while and did all the work while waiting
for an election to happen. How about "will award to each person who
held the office for 16 or more contiguous days in the previous month".
That way you award it to someone who was in long enough to do work (or
be penalized for not doing work).
> Enact a Power 2 Rule entitled "Judicial Fees" with the following text:
>
> Judicial fee is a natural open judicial case switch tracked by
> the CotC. The initiator of a judicial case CAN and SHALL set its
> judicial fee by announcement upon the initiation of the case; if
> e fails to do so the CotC CAN set it by announcement. Judicial
> fee CAN also be flipped by any player without two objections.
Ooh, player 1 calls a case and sets fee to 1,000,000. Player 2 favors
the case. Both persons object to any changes. Score!
How about a set base, that increases each time the case is reassigned,
or appealed?
> As soon as possible after a player or an appeals panel judge a
> judicial case within any time limits for doing so, the CotC
> SHALL award a number of Dollars equal to the value of the
> judicial fee of the case immediately before it was judged to the
> player or to each member of the judicial panel.
Limit this to on-time judgements?
> Enact a Power 2 Rule entitled "Proposal Fees" with the following text:
>
> Proposal fee is a natural undistributed proposal switch, tracked
> by the Promotor.
>
> The author of a proposal CAN set its proposal fee by
> announcement upon its submission. Subsequently, it CAN be set by
> any player without two objections.
>
> The proposal fee is an essential parameter for an Agoran
> decision on whether to adopt the proposal. As soon as possible
> after a proposal is adopted, the Assessor SHALL award a number
> of Dollars equal to the value of its fee immediately before it
> was distributed to its author, and one Dollar to each of the
> proposal's co-authors.
Very interesting idea.
> In Rule 1607 (Distribution), replace
>
> The Promotor CAN distribute a proposal which is in the Proposal
> Pool at any time. In a given Agoran week, the Promotor SHALL,
> as part of eir weekly duties, distribute all proposals in the
> Proposal Pool that were in the Pool at the beginning of that
> week.
>
> with:
>
> The Mutability Index (MI) is a natural Agora Nomic switch
> tracked by the Promotor. The Promotor CAN flip the MI without
> three objections; other players CAN do so without objection.
>
> The Promotor CAN distribute a proposal which is in the Proposal
> Pool at any time. In a given Agoran week, the Promotor SHALL,
> as part of eir weekly duties, distribute the N proposals in the
> Proposal Pool (that were in the Pool at the beginning of that
> week) with the highest non-zero Distributability, breaking ties
> in favour of proposals which were submitted first, where N is
> equal to the MI. The Promotor SHALL also, as part of eir weekly
> duties, distribute all proposals with a proposal fee of zero or
> one.
Looks good, except why 0 or 1 (and not just 0)?
> Enact the following as a Power 2 Rule, entitled "Distributability":
>
> Distributability is a natural undistributed proposal switch
> tracked by the Promotor. A player CAN increase the
> Distributability of a proposal by one for a cost of one Dollar.
> A player CAN decrease the Distributability of a proposal by two
> for a cost of three Dollars.
Overall, I'd really like to see all actions take a multiple of 10 dollars.
that way, the minimum resolution of the currency starts out as fractions
of base actions, so there's tons of liquidity. Maybe multiply the
salaries by 10 to reflect this all.
> In Rule 2154 (Election Procedure) replace
Looks simple and reasonable here.
> Amend Rule 2390 (Ordinary Chamber) to read:
I honestly think you should propose the caste system entirely separately
(though at the same time). It's separate enough, and people may want
a base currency system without jumping right into a new voting system -
I personally want to play around with the current VC system for a bit
before jumping to something new. If you propose it again (together or
separately) I'll make specific comments on it as well.
> Set the Mutability Index to 12 and the activity wage to 5. Set the
> Salary of each office as follows:
Other than my *10 comment above, looks like a good balance.
Hope this helps! On your next draft (that firms up a name and possibly
adjusts some action costs) I'll put together a Trading Card Auction
proposal.
-G.
