Archived at https://github.com/AgoraNomic/Reporter/tree/master/weekly_summaries
Report for the week of 2020-02-24..03-01:
# Summary
Welcome back, R. Lee and Publius Scribonius Scholasticus!
This week, Cuddle Beam offered to give up eir freedom in exchange for
victory, and twg quickly obliged: Cuddle Beam and twg are this week's
victors. We seem to be continuing on a schedule of one victory
announcement per week, if you count twg's and Cuddle Beam's as one.
Dragon Corporation shares are now available for purchase. The sky's the
limit for this exciting new business venture!
This week had plenty of standard Agoran behaviour: voting, discussion
of obscure rules questions, proposals, etc. Much of the discussion was
around zombies, including the aftermath of the failed February zombie
auction.
# Victory
* twg causes emself and Cuddle Beam win the game by exploiting a
loophole related to Glitter. Thread: "[DoV] [Do CuddleBeam's V]
humble agoran farmer plays musical chairs"
* E included Cuddle Beam as part of a contract provision; see thread
"humble agoran farmer becomes chattel".
* Alexis says e also saw this scam, and notes that e proposed
protection against this earlier. (Looks like it was this message:
https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-discussion/2020-January/056477.html
) E says e will exploit any loopholes left when this is fixed.
# Voting
* Voting continues on the Prime Minister and Rulekeepor elections.
Thread: "[ADoP] More elections"
* twg causes Cuddle Beam, over which e has control by contract, to
become a candidate, and bribes other players to vote for em. Jason
takes em up on the bribe, except e accidentally writes ADoP instead
of PM in eir message. Subject: "[attn ADoP] humble agoran farmer
buys into high office"
* twg wins the Referee election. Falsifian wins the Registrar election
(and awards emself an Emerald ribbon, which was eir reason for
calling the election). Thread: "[ADoP] Resolving elections"
* Proposals 8322-8341 are resolved.
* Adopted proposals:
* 8322: Undoes possible repeated adoption of proposals.
* 8323: Secure the Ribbon Ownership switch.
* 8324: Slight wording change to the Proposal Chambers rule.
* Testing temporary rules:
* 8326: Repeals a rule which claims to re-enact itself one week
after being repealed. (Also repeals a rule we're finished
with.)
* 8327: Tests the ability of the old text of Rule 2601 to have an
effect, even though the rule was amended to remove that text.
* 8329: Reschedules Read the Ruleset Week to this week.
* 8330: Protects zombies from having eir white ribbon powers
looted.
* 8331: Allows the Notary to destroy obsolete pledges without
objection.
* 8336: Defines "publicly".
* 8338: Clarifies how quorum is computed.
* 8340: Allows a Laureled Prime Minister to choose whether to
become Speaker or remain Prime Minister.
* Voting begins on Proposals 8342-8348, including:
* 8342: Allows officers to publish Administrative Opinions about
CFJs, and assign them as judgements without objection.
* G. argues against it.
* 8343: Submitted at least partly to test when proposal titles are
the same. (The original title used script-style letters.) The
actual effect of the proposal is to rename the "DISMISS" judgement
to "¯\_(ツ)_/¯"
* 8344: Excludes interpretation from "substantive" aspects of
instruments as described by Rule 2140.
* Gaelan votes AGAINST "due to ambiguity"; Alexis asks if they
would elabourate.
* G. votes PRESENT for now, saying "I'd like to get more
understanding of what constitutes an interpretive principle?";
Alexis asks for suggestions.
* 8345: Allows players to grant themselves blots.
* 8346: Allow players to earn Black Ribbons with low-powered
instruments. (Follow-up to Proposal 8323, which secures Ribbon
Ownership.)
* 8347: Increases the power of Rule 2141 (Role and Attributes of
Rules).
* 8348: remove the provision in Rule 1551 that allows the main part
of a document to self-ratify if the document has a summary that
contradicts it.
* G. argues against it.
# Culture
* The Herald attempts to award the Patent Title of Champion to Jason
and to twg for (separately) winning the game, but accidentally writes
"Falsifian" instead of "twg". Threads: "[Herald] Hear ye, hear ye! A
new Champion!", "[Herald] The Scroll of Agora"
# Rules questions
Lots of rules questions related to zombies recently.
* The Treasuror intends to interpret Rule 2579 such that attempting to
pay a fee to claim a zombie in an auction, while zombie auctions are
broken, does not result in the fee being deducted. Thread:
"[Registrar] End of February zombie auction"
* twg comments on actions being POSSIBLE but also impossible. Thread:
"[proto] Fix zombie auctions"
* Jason judges CFJ 3810 FALSE, finding that zombies cannot be used to
transfer karma. This leads to questions on whether a master can act
on behalf of a zombie to vote or publish an official report. Thread:
"[Arbitor] CFJ 3810 Assigned to Jason"
* G. judges CFJ 3817 FALSE: no zombie auction was initiated in the
month of February; and therefore CFJ 3809 is FALSE: Cuddle Beam did
not bid in the non-existent auction.
* Some rules questions are raised related to Cuddle Beam's Chattlebeam
contract. See the Chattlebeam section below.
* Warrigal proposes a rule that would award a Coin to "a player other
than the author" of the proposal, without specifying whom. Thread:
"Let's toss us a coin, shall we?"
# On inconsistent documents
* Aris judges CFJs 3811 and 3812 False, finding that a message
distributing proposals but listing inconsistent AI values for one of
them fails and does not self-ratify.
* Gaelan submits a proposal to remove the provision in Rule 1551 that
allows the main part of a document to self-ratify if the document has
a summary that contradicts it.
# Chattlebeam
* Cuddle Beam creates a contract allowing another player to control em
like a zombie (but with fewer restrictions), provided that player
pledge that Cuddle Beam will win with a penalty of a googleplex blots
for failing. After a detail is ironed out, twg takes em up on it.
Thread: "humble agoran farmer becomes chattel"
* Gaelan calls a CFJ asking whether the pledge would work as apparently
intended, and twg responds by amending the contract with Cuddle
Beam's consent. Gaelan points eir finger at Cuddle Beam for taking an
action when eir contract says e will take no actions, raising the
question of whether giving consent is an action.
* twg thanks Cuddle Beam for consistently introducing chaos into the
game. Thread: "[CFJ] Re: BUS: humble agoran farmer becomes chattel"
* twg fulfills eir contract obligation to Cuddle Beam by exploiting a
loophole involving Glitter, causing them both to win. Thread: "[DoV]
[Do CuddleBeam's V] humble agoran farmer plays musical chairs"
* twg's message leads to a question of whether twg successfully ended
up holding both Speaker and Prime Minister. Thread: "Delivery
Status Notification (Failure)"
* Publius Scribonius Scholasticus apparently becomes Prime Minister
by deputisation.
# Miscellaneous
* Players make use of Gaelan's "Gaelan's Really Bad At Sending Things
To The Public Forum" contract.
* Cuddle Beam suggests changing the word "master" in the ruleset to
something else, since "master" is a masculine noun. Following
discussion suggests it is also sometimes gender-neutral. Thread:
"Master/Mistress, gender inclusivity"
* R. Lee re-registers just over a month after deregistering, and
indicates interest in judging CFJs.
* Gaelan becomes Notary again (by deputisation) after e accidentally
lost the office last week. Subject: "[Notary] Weekly Report"
* Alexis proposes to make apologizing under R2557 not interfere with a
player's ability to expunge blots from others. Thread: "Expungement
Proposal"
* Alexis submits an updated version of eir earlier "Bodies of Law"
draft as a proposal. Thread: "[Proposals] Onward with bodies of law"
* Warrigal destroys eir "Zombie Market" contract, possibly because
nobody joined it.
* Publius Scribonius Scholasticus rejoins the game and starts a
discussion on whether twg managed to end up holding Speaker and Prime
Minister simultaneously. Thread: "Delivery Status Notification
(Failure)"
* Warrigal creates the Dragon Corporation contract. Thread: "The Dragon
Corporation"
* E circulated an draft the week before last, and an earlier draft
before that. The contract says "The purpose of the Dragon
Corporation is to earn as much money as possible for its
shareholders.", and includes provisions for buying shares and for
two kinds of contract-specified proposals.
- Falsifian
