Archived at https://github.com/AgoraNomic/Reporter/tree/master/weekly_summaries
For the week 2020-01-06..12:
# Announcements
* Aris announces the official opening of the Agoran MUD e first
announced the week before last. Thread: "[MUD] MUD Opening!".
* The Arbitor requests that persons calling CFJs put [CFJ] into the
subject line. This leads to some discussion. Thread: "[Arbitor]
Request".
# Proposal discussions
* Alexis starts a conversation about a possible big change: "...what if
officers presumptively had the ability to rule on their areas of
gamestate, in a more active manner than our ratification system?".
Thread: "ratifying honour etc.".
* G. lists some past conversations along similar lines.
* Aris drafts a brief new rule that would allow officers to issue
binding memoranda. This leads to a lot of discussion:
* There is discussion of whether it is too vague for an important
area of the game, and whether memoranda would have power over
CFJs, and whether that could cause a "constitutional crisis". G.
cites an ancient scam called Lindrum World.
* twg suggests a rewording involving re-using regulations.
* G. gives some ideas, including one that would make only current
officers' memoranda binding, making memoranda an election issue.
* Aris posts an updated and expanded draft with a new subject line,
"[Draft] Administrative Adjudication v2".
* G. raises a concern that in the current context of trying to
resolve ambiguity caused by the the mailing list outage, officers
may want to ratify false facts as true, and mixing assertion of
false facts with the judicial system would be a big change [2].
* ais523 suggests simply and only making a small amendment to Rule
217, making memoranda second only to the rule text when
interpreting the rules.
* Alexis expands on their ideas, and comments on others' messages and
possible ways forward, in a January 8 message [0].
* Branching off of the discussion Alexis started, Jason Cobb sketches a
possible system of modules and dependencies between rules and
modules. Threads: "ratifying honour, etc." and "Modules and
dependencies".
* Gaelan proposes an annual two-week period for destructive scams,
after which the state of the game is reset to what they were before
the period. There's discussion of whether the reset would work, and
of different implentations, like running a parallel nomic. Thread:
"Proto: Fool Season".
* Gaelan assembles a document [1] tracking old proto-proposals that never
got passed but look interesting. Thread: "Forgotten proto
collection"; link:
* Aris returns to eir work on a "Contract Patency" proposal. Aris
proposes updates and others comment. Threads: "Draft: Contract
Patency", "[Draft] Contract Patency v2", "Contract Patency v3".
* G. proposes a rule that would allow officers to ratify their
self-ratifying reports without 3 objections, as the recommended way
to clean up after scams and other confusion. Thread: "[draft]
procedural ratification".
# Minor proposals
* Alexis submits three proposals. The first broadens (or clarifies) the
conditions for earning a Red Ribbon, and the aother two appear
intended to give the Comptrollor more power by increasing the power
of the "Line-item Veto" rule and preventing votes from being
conditional on provisions of proposals being vetoed.
* In contrast to Alexis's proposals, Aris proposes to repeal the
"Line-item Veto" rule.
* twg proposes to remove exponential decay of fugitives' blots, arguing
it is no longer needed. Thread: "[Proposal] Blot Stabilisation".
* Alexis proposes to repeal Rule 2602 (Glitter). Thread: "[Promotor]
Distribution of Proposals 8280-8286".
* G. proposes to improve the process in R2201 for dealing with doubts
on self-ratifying documents, and gets a suggestion from twg. Thread:
"[Proposal] citation expansion".
* twg proposes a fix to R2602 (Glitter) to address unclear wording
Alexis found in eir judgement of CFJ 3783. Thread: "[Arbitor] CFJ
3783 Assigned to Alexis".
# Jason Cobb's 18000-coin scam
* At the Treasuror's suggestion, Jason Cobb spends the 18000 Coins e
may have earned in a scam, if e actually has those coins.
Thread: "[Treasuror] Forbes 500".
* Alexis judges CFJ 3783 false: the scam didn't work. (Before that
happens, G. recuses omd for tardiness, and then Alexis calls for and
receives (and participates in) arguments on a detail of the case.
Thread: "[Arbitor] CFJ 3783 Assigned to Alexis".
* Some discussion of the judgement follows in the same thread.
# Voting
* Proposals 8277-8279 are resolved. Only 8277 ("Minor Giveaway") is
adopted.
* Voting begins on Proposals 8280-8286. Jason Cobb identifies a bug (or
hidden scam) in Alexis's Proposal 8285, and also a complaint about
Alexis's Proposal 8283.
# Rules questions
* Proposal 8277 is adopted. Its effect is unclear: see the thread
"[Proposal] I'm curious if this version works" from earlier in
December. The Treasuror gives eir opinion that the proposal did
nothing, based on Aris's arguments from that thread.
* twg attempts to join a contract Gaelan proposad last week, leading to
a CFJ and discussion about single-member contracts. Thread:
"[Promotor] Distribution of Proposals 8277-8279"
* When the Promotor publishes a report specifying a past date within
the current week, rather than a current report, Alexis calls CFJ
3792, arguing that it is not a valid report. Thread: "[Promotor]
Distribution of Proposals 8280-8286".
# Miscellaneous
* Alexis unambiguously registers and again expresses interest in
judging, especially a CFJ called by Aris about ratifying fora being
public. (There was some uncertainty about whether e registered last
week.)
* This month's zombie auction begins after the Registrar finishes
resolving ambiguity about three instances of the master switch.
* Current Treasuror Falsifian initiates an election for Treasuror,
saying e is too busy, and twg nominates emself. Thread: "Seeking a
new Treasuror".
* This leads to some discussion of whether it's time to make some
changes to the economy. twg suggests a few possible replacements
for Coins.
* Current Registrar Falsifian initiates an election for Registrar with
the election speech "I like ribbons" (referencing the Emerald ribbon
that the winner of an election earns). Gaelan enters the race, with
the speech "I’m not trying to abuse my existing role for ribbons.".
Thread: "Seeking a new mandate".
* A discussion about repeated wins branches off of discussion of Jason
Cobb's 18000-coin scam, which might have led to 18 wins. Alexis notes
e had to work hard to earn all eir instances of Champion, and points
out that it is very common for a method of winning to just as easily
enable multiple wins. Alexis also questions whether an earlier
win-by-proposal mentioned by G. actually worked. Thread: "[Treasuror]
Forbes 500".
# Mailing list troubles
Context: certain messages sent in December may have failed to be
delivered to a significant number of players, causing them to not count
as messages sent via a public forum. The uncertainty over whether this
is true and which messages it affects results in some uncertainty about
the current gamestate.
* Falsifian notes a couple of messages e didn't receive. Thread: "[RWO]
List Patch (attn. Arbitor)". Quazie notes as a GMail user e did get
the messages.
* G. suggests officers individually decide how to resolve the ambiguity
by ratifying their possibly-"false" reports with whatever is
"fairest". Thread: "ratifying honour etc.".
* Work continues resolving gamestate ambiguity: the Arbitor calls some
CFJs if they weren't already called during the period of trouble.
- Falsifian
[0]
https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-discussion/2020-January/056114.html
[1]
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fwkCVGpETexQtCkD3fxiP0jk5gtSQj0pDwxUXBmxhTA/edit#
[2]
https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-discussion/2020-January/056134.html
