On Thu, 26 Oct 2017, Alex Smith wrote:
> On Thu, 2017-10-26 at 13:13 +1100, VJ Rada wrote:
> > Actually, I wonder whether or not we should just repeal the Public Forum
> > rule? Because there are so many references to Public Fora in the rules, as
> > well as Agora is a Nomic being a rule, it feels like the existence of the
> > current Public Fora as Fora would still be implied. And having the whole
> > game seemingly destructable without objection or at power 3 seems bad (with
> > the "with objection" fiasco, for example, the registrar could have flipped
> > every forum switch to non-public)
>
> I've screwed around with the forum list via a scam as the Registrar
> before. It was fun.
>
> More generally, it's worth noting that we have a built in safety valve
> to a lack of fora (it's possible to send a public message via copying
> the entire playerlist in on the email individually and also stating
> that it's public). I assume that repealing the concept of a public
> forum would force us to use that. ("Public forum", as opposed to
> "public message", is hardly used; it only affects what messages are
> public by default and deregistration by inactivity. The latter should
> probably be based on public messages, rather than messages to a public
> forum.)
In thinking about this - a formal forum rule is what prevents us from
forking Agora. If it was left to "common practice", a group of players
(let's say for the sake of argument half the players) could suddenly
decide "we're going to say that these are no longer our fora, and this
new forum is" and there would be no logical/legal arguments to distinguish
the "real" Agora if the other half of players stayed in place (you could
quickly get parallel CFJs in each forum proclaiming itself the right one).
Now of course, anyone can take the ruleset and start their own game
anyway, but requiring a formal forum switch makes it clear what the
"original" game was, and importantly makes it clear which players have
agreed to participate in which Agora.
