Responses inline:
On 9/9/19 6:10 AM, Reuben Staley wrote:
Title: Cheques and Balances
AI: 2
Author: Trigon
Create a new rule with title "Interest Groups", power 1, and text:
An interest group is an entity defined as such by this rule. Each
interest group has a goal. The following are the interest groups
of Agora and their goals:
A. Justice: interested in seeing justice served
B. Efficiency: interested in seeing official duties performed
C. Legislation: interested in seeing proposals passed
D. Participation: interested in seeing votes cast
Value is a natural interest group switch with a maximum value of
10 and a default value of 5.
If you really wanted to shorten this, then the list here has no actual
effect.
Create a new rule with title "Cheques", power 2, and text:
Cheques are entities. Each cheque is associated with an interest
group. Cheques associated with the same interest group are
fungible, rules to the contrary notwithstanding. Their
recordkeepor is the Treasuror.
Why not make it an asset? That would give cheques an owner, which I
think is what you want.
Players may cash in a cheque by announcement. By doing this, e
loses the cheque and earns a number of coins equal to the value of
the interest group associated with the cheque.
Should be "CAN cash in", not "may cash in". Also, this (by my reading)
makes it so you can cash in any check that exists, not just ones that
you own.
Create a new rule with title "Balancing", power 2, and text:
During the first Eastman week of each month, the Treasuror CAN and
SHALL perform the following actions, collectively known as
Balancing, in sequence:
This falls in to the trap that we've already seen - this means the
Treasuror CAN only do it in the first Eastman week - if e fails to do it
in that time, e must wait until next month.
1. Establish the performance value of each interest group as
follows:
A. Justice: (the number of cases submitted in the previous
Agoran month that were not issued a valid judgement within
one week of being assigned) / (the number of cases submitted
in the previous Agoran month)
B. Efficiency: The mean of the following value for each office:
- If the office has no monthly or weekly duties, 0.
Potential scam of creating a bunch of offices with no responsibilities,
but at that point you're already changing the rules and might as well
just amend this one or create a bunch of coins.
- If the office has monthly duties but no weekly duties, 0
if its monthly duties were performed in the previous
Agoran month; 1 otherwise.
- If the office has weekly duties but no monthly duties,
(the number of weeks its weekly duties were not
performed in the previous Agoran month) / 4.
- If the office has both monthly and weekly duties, ((the
number of weeks its weekly duties were not performed in
the previous Agoran month) + (1 if its monthly duties were
not performed in the previous month)) / 5.
Possibly special-case vacant offices?
C. Legislation: (the number of proposals submitted in the
previous Agoran month whose outcomes were not ADOPTED) /
(the number of proposals submitted in the previous Agoran
month)
D. Participation: (the number of Agoran decisions initiated in
the previous Agoran month whose outcome was FAILED QUORUM) /
(the number of Agoran decisions initiated in the previous
Agoran month)
2. For each interest group:
A. generate a random number between 0 and 1 to at least three
significant digits.
Hmm... I think "generate a random number between 0 and 1" requires a
uniform distribution over all real numbers in that range, which is not
really possible; I'm not sure that the significant digits requirement
helps it.
B. Increment the value of the interest group by one if the
generated number is equal to or greater than the performance
value of the interest group; otherwise decrement its value by
one.
3. Create a public message that includes all relevant values
from this process.
Amend Rule 2496 "Rewards" so that it reads, in full:
A player CAN, by announcement, earn the set of assets associated
with a reward condition exactly once in a timely fashion each time
e fulfills it, provided the announcement specifies the action that
e performed and the amount of assets e earns as a result.
Below is a list of reward conditions and their associated assets.
* Casting a vote on all proposals distributed in the previous
week on eir own behalf: 1 participation cheque.
Possible ambiguity: "(Casting a vote [...]) on eir own behalf" vs.
("Casting a vote on (all proposals distributed [...] on eir own behalf)".
* Being the author of an adopted proposal: 1 legislation cheque.
I like the AI*(F-A) because a) it creates more money, b) it values
proposals that touch more important parts of the ruleset more highly,
and c) it values uncontroversial proposals more highly. You could
probably do something similar here, but I think all proposals getting
equal rewards is not a good thing.
* Judging a CFJ that e was assigned to without violating a time
limit to do so: 1 justice cheque.
* Publishing an office's weekly or monthly report, provided that
publication was the first report published for that office in
the relevant time period (week or month respectively) to fulfill
an official weekly or monthly duty: 1 efficiency cheque.
* Resolving an Agoran Decision on whether to adopt a proposal,
provided that no other Agoran Decision on whether to adopt that
or any other proposal had been resolved earlier in that Agoran
week: 1 efficiency cheque.
* Having a Thesis pass peer-review and be granted a Degree based
on its merit: 20 coins
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This idea has been stewing for a long time, and this is the rough draft
of a proposal that captures my initial thoughts somewhat.
I am putting this out there because the game is barren. The closest
thing we have to gameplay at this point is the stuff Agora always has.
CFJs and whatnot. I hope the minigame contest goes somewhere, but this
is different and important in a completely different way.
It's been a while since we've had an actual economics anyway. Coins are
not the most interesting system out there and don't even have a cool
name.
TL;DR: Agora is boring and gross.
That may be a bit harsh...
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Now let's talk about this proposal specifically. It's really a simple
system, built on the back of the parties in the politics minigame and
basic stock market economics. It also takes inspiration from the idea of
collaborative punishment that we experimented with with the Ritual.
It's a minigame, but not one that everyone needs to be especially
involved in, but involving yourself does get you minimal extra rewards.
It's Aris-friendly!
TL;DR: This proto will be helpful.
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However, this is a proto for a reason: because this draft is trash. I
could list all the things I dislike about it if I wanted to. And so I
have.
1. For such a simple (in-concept) system, it sure requires quite a bit
of text to describe it. I feel like it could be a bit more concise.
Defining cheques as assets would help. However, I don't think that text
is inherently a bad thing - I would honestly rather see something that's
relatively clear but longer than something that's overly clever and brittle.
2. Penalizing proposals that fail is a terrible idea because it
discourages being the slightest bit controversial or else the entire
collective is punished.
If you want a party that tries to get legislation _passed_, then that is
the natural definition. You could punish proposals that do horrendously,
but that discourages pointing out flaws in proposals.
3. I'm not sure that evaluating offices' weekly duties over 4 is always
a good idea because some Agoran months take place over more than 4
Agoran weeks.
4. Not all proposals and not all CFJs are counted when evaluating
performance values. The wording is terrible.
5. The new rewards might be scammable.
6. Theses should probably be converted to cheques first.
I would be against 6 - theses don't really fit into any of the
categories, and I feel like theses should always be equally valuable.
7. Many other issues that are probably over my head.
TL;DR: This proto sucks.
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Now, Agora, work your magic on this proto. I know y'all are far smarter
than I am. I can think of a few good potential improvements, but it is
far too late and I do not wish to enumerate them.
--
Jason Cobb
