Archived at https://github.com/AgoraNomic/Reporter/tree/master/weekly_summaries
Report for the week of 2020-01-27..02-02:
# Summary
Welcome Tcbapo!
A lot happened last week. twg won the game the hard way. Many parts of
the rules are changed after the adoption of twelve proposals, and
voting began on several more, including ways to make the decision
process smoother. The Herald invents the Patent Title of Little Ricky
Tables (read why below), and a degree is being awarded.
The usual combination of proposals, CFJs and other rules questions are
discussed, along with a Prophecy of Doom and our first official
Editorial Guidelines.
A game of blackjack continues, showing that many are eager to have fun
even while all this Serious Business is afoot.
# Meta
* Your humble Reporter asks you some questions: see thread "[Reporter]
Some questions, some thoughts, and a proposed newsletter" on
agora-discussion.
# Victory
* twg wins by raising a banner. Thread: "And in lighter news... [DoV]"
* "without a doubt, the hardest and most noble way to win the game."
-Aris
* The final ribbon was a Lime ribbon e earned from this week's
adopted proposals, by submitting proposals through eir zombie. twg
is kind enough to award eir zombie Red and Orange ribbons for eir
help.
* Some uncertainty about the H. Assessor's first attempt to resolve
proposals means it's unclear whether twg's first attempt to raise a
banner worked, because it depended on em getting a lime ribbon.
After the H. Assessor sends a corrected message resolving
proposals, twg repeats eir actions in case they failed the first
time. Thread: "[Assessor] Resolution of Proposals 8287-8307"
* Our new H. Herald Alexis awards G. the Patent Title of Champion for
winning the game last week by paying a fee of 1000 Coins. There is
some discussion of which category of victory to count it as. Thread:
"[Herald] Hear, ye! Hear, ye! A new Champion!"
# Games
* Warrigal deals some blackjack hands, and players respond. E set up a
game last week by means of a pledge. Threads: "Blackjack, anyone?",
"[dicelog] Blackjack hands 2020-01-29"
# Resolution of proposals
* Voting ends on proposals 8287-8307 and they are resolved. This is a
large batch, with 21 proposals, 12 of which were adopted.
* A summary of the adopted proposals:
* Large efforts fairly long in the making:
* A reform to how contracts and pledges work, including the
creation of the office of the Notary. "Contract Patency v3"
* twg points out the Notary doesn't have a ministry, and
suggests it should be set to Economy.
* The establishment of the Ministries of Justice, Efficiency,
Legislation, Participation and Economy. Officers who are part
of those ministries have increased voting power on proposals
related to them. Originally written by currently-absent player
Trigon, and then picked up again by twg. "Interesting Chambers
v3.1"
* A clarification (or fix) to the wording of Rule 2602 (Glitter).
* An increase of the maximum voting strength from 5 to 14.
* Remove the possibility for a CFJ to count as a doubt that blocks
self-ratification.
* Make officers responsible for granting rewards and glitter rather
than having each player claim eir own rewards.
* A follow-up to this that defines a notion called "in an
officially timely fashion".
* Removing things:
* Remove the notion of a "convergence".
* Remove an obsolete provision about the no-longer-defined
"Imminence" proposal switch.
* Making regulations tracked by the Rulekeepor.
* A generic method for petitions, replacing a specific one that was
set up only for patent titles.
* Replace gendered degree names with gender-neutral versions.
* twg points out an error in the resolution: the increased maximum
voting strength wasn't taken into account in the proposals resolved
after that proposal. Jason Cobb sends an updated message resolving
the proposals taking twg's point into account.
* There's then some uncertainty about whether some proposals took
effect twice.
* There are various proposals that stem out of this, listed in the
"Proposals and proposed proposals" and "Discussions about
possible broad rule changes" sections of this document.
* Alexis proposes some changes to the rules around resolving Agoran
decisions, partly to clarify some ambiguity around what constitutes a
valid announcement resolving a decision. Thread: "[Assessor]
Resolution of Proposals 8287-8307"
# Voting
* Voting begins on Proposals 8308-8321. Some potential problems with
the proposals are discussed in the same thread.
# Culture and Academics
* The H. Herald announces intents to award twg either the degree of
Associate of Nomic or of Baccalaureate of Nomic, depending which gets
the most votes. Others respond. Thread: "[Herald] Thesis Committee
for twg"
* The H. Herald announces intent to award Gaelan the Patent Title of
Little Ricky Tables for eir XSS exploit in a CFJ.
# Proposals and proposed proposals
* Alexis submits a proposal that would provide default mechanisms for
actions to be taken when the rules don't provide one. Likely inspired
by a bug in twg's recently passed "Rewards Reform Act" proposal.
Thread: "[Proposal] Help with Forgotten Announcements, Support
Improvements"
* Alexis also proposes to make the initiator of a dependent action
count as a supporter, presumably so e can withdraw eir support.
Falsifian identifies a possible bug. Thread: "[Proposal] Help with
Forgotten Announcements, Support Improvements"
* Aris submits a proposal fixing an apparent bug in the Birthday Gifts
rule allowing unlimited gifting. Thread: "[Proposal] Finite Gifting"
* G. has a birthday coming up before the proposal could be adopted,
but indicates e will not exploit the bug, suggesting "Agoran
ethics" proscribe it.
* Alexis submits zombie-related proposals in the thread "[Proposal]
Zombie proposals":
* A version of the "zombie voting package" proposal e circulated the
week before last, which would make zombies endorse their masters by
default, and remove zombies from quorum calculations. Thread
* A proposal that would allow players to voluntarily become zombies
and profit from being zombies, by causing a player's assets to be
put into a trust when e becomes a zombie, and transferring auction
proceeds to such trusts.
* Aris submits some proposals related to the new Ministries system.
Thread: "[Proposals] Chamber and Other Fixes"
* There is some discussion of improving the rules about resolving
Agoran decisions, for example to reduce uncertainty about when
exactly decisions were resolved. Thread: "[Assessor] Resolution of
Proposals 8287-8307"
* Jason proposes to secure the Ribbon Ownership switch. Thread:
"[proposal] Secure Ribbons"
* Falsifian submits a proposal to undo repeated effects of adopting
Proposals 8287-8307, in case any took effect more than once. Thread:
"[Assessor] Resolution of Proposals 8287-8307"
* Falsifian proposes a small change to the words added by Aris's
Proposal 8320 (Promotorial Assignment), based on a worry about how
the words might be interpreted. Thread: "[Another proposal]
[Proposals] Chamber and Other Fixes"
# Discussions about possible broad rule changes
* Warrigal proposes that Agora's platonic asset system makes it
difficult to play, and suggests we switch to having officers maintain
accounts. This leads to discussion of what happened when it was done
in the past (G. says "we had a ruthlessly pragmatic system in 2001",
and mentions a different system from around 2004), and whether it's a
good idea to try it again. Thread: "Some thoughts on pragmatism and
accounting"
* Discussion begins on a set of proposal drafts Alexis circulated last
week that would codify the existence of different "bodies of law"
that could depend on each other. Thread: "[Proto-Proposals] The
beginnings of reform".
* Refactoring ratification:
* Alexis raises a concern that ratification of the resolution of
Agoran decisions under Rule 2034 may not actually work, and
circulates a draft of a proposal about explicit legal fictions to
fix the situation. It stems out of an idea they circulated a couple
of weeks ago in the thread "Proto-proto: Findings of Law & Fact".
Thread: "[Proto] [Possibly Urgent] Ratification Changes"
* Falsifian submits a counter-proposal that would change ratification
so that past events are ratified to have happened, rather than
documents being ratified to be correct. Thread: "[proto]
Retroactive Events: a refactor of ratification"
* omd proposes to legislate that the past is not part of the
gamestate. Eir proposal also includes some text about "legal
fictions" not being part of the gamestate. Thread: "[proto]
Retroactive Events: a refactor of ratification"
# Discussions of narrower rule changes
* Alexis suggests preventing a current officer from getting a Cyan
ribbon by resigning and then deputising. Thread: "[Proposal]
Deputisation timeliness"
# Bugs in the current ruleset
* The rule text for issuing rewards is broken after Proposal 8295
(Rewards Reform Act). Thread: "[Assessor] Resolution of Proposals
8287-8307". H. Treasuror twg submits a fix proposal in thread
"[Economy Proposal] Rewards Patch & Equitable Remedy", and starts
tracking the missing rewards in eir weekly reports, to be applied by
eir proposal when it passes.
# Rules questions
* Jason attempts to award emself Indigo glitter after eir degree is
renamed by Proposal 8305. Thread: "[Assessor] Resolution of Proposals
8287-8307" (and also with "[CFJ] Re: BUS: Re: OFF:" prepended)
* As a counter-argument, Alexis submits: "the only real argument in
favour of treating renaming a patent title as the same as awarding
and revoking one is wishful thinking."
* Jason raises a question about whether old CFJs that were assigned
judgements that are not "valid judgements" under the current ruleset
are now open, due to a possible literal reading of Rule 991. Thread:
"On old CFJs".
* H. Judge twg rules that when cleaning a rule by replacing a word with
a synonym, only exact synonyms can be used. Thread: 'CFJs 3800-3803
judged FALSE ("synonym" in R2221 means "exact synonym")'
* Discussion continues on whether zombie auction works, after last
week's motion to reconsider CFJ 3793. Thread: "CFJ 3793 judged FALSE
(zombies work but not for Gaelan)"
* Jason Cobb judges CFJ 3788 FALSE, and says selfratification is
probably broken. The discussion that follows leads Jason to self-file
a motion to reconsider. Thread: "[Arbitor] CFJ 3788 Assigned to Jason
Cobb"
* omd jduges CFJ 3796 false: Gaelan could not award emself the patent
title "The Powerless". A discussion follows about the ability of
rebellious rules to claim precedence over all other rules. Thread:
"[Arbitor] CFJ 3796 Assigned to omd"
# Miscellaneous
* The H. Rulekeepor proposes what would be the first official Editorial
Guidelines pursuant to Rule 2599. Thread: "Editorial Guidelines"
* In that thread, there is discussion on whether to switch from
Spivak pronouns to "they/them/their". Some are in favour, but
others (strongly) disagree.
* On the subject of language in the ruleset, twg highlights some text
in the current rules that can be traced back to the prototyical
Nomic.
* There is discussion of the history of the phrase "in a timely
fashion", which used to be phrased "as soon as possible". G. puts
together a history [0].
* New player Tcbapo registers.
* Aris publishes a Prophecy of Doom, outlining a potential situation
where Agora's valued mailing list archives could be lost, and submits
it with the hope of earning a degree. Thread: "The Very Worst Thing
That Could Possibly Happen (Attn. Distributor)"
* Others respond with some comments about current ways to get the
archives, and additional measures that could be taken to ensure
they are not lost.
* Discussion also turns to the subject of how the rules interact with
death of players, with
* Another topic raised is whether it is worth avoiding publishing
mailing list archives publicly, to prevent scraping of email
addresses.
* Discussion of what happens when players die branches from the thread
"The Very Worst Thing That Could Possibly Happen (Attn.
Distributor)".
* twg mentions CFJs 3411-3412.
* Falsifian questions whether dead former players are persons under
R869. twg links to a past discussion. Falsifian submits a proposal
(thread: "proto: the eternal spirit"). G. announces that e has
decided to set up automated zombie-prevention messages in case e
dies, to allow us to argue over them.
* G. posts an old ruleset from 2001 e found in a personal mail archive.
omd points out the ruleset is already available from another source,
but says that that section of the mailing list archives is missing,
so G.'s copy could fill a gap. Thread: "Fwd: OFF: Short Logical
Ruleset [July 6 2001]"
* Aris suggests appending subjects to degree names, like "A.N. in
Devious Oratory" instead of just A.N. Thread: "Degree Naming Ideas
(Attn. Herald)"
* CFJ quirks in the thread "A quirk in the CFJ archives":
* Jason discovers quirky errors in an archive of CFJs. G. explains
where the errors in question come from.
* In the same message, Jason suggests an XSS exploit could be
embedded into a CFJ. Gaelan does this (after a few attempts), with
the result that (as of 2020-02-02 around 22:35 UTC),
https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/?3805 redirects to
a RickRoll video. The H. Herald announces intent to award Gaelan
the Patent Title of Little Ricky Tables.
[0]
https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-discussion/2020-January/056522.html
- Falsifian
