Archived at https://github.com/AgoraNomic/Reporter/tree/master/weekly_summaries
For the week 2020-01-20..26:
# Victory
* G. wins the game by paying a fee of 1000 coins, and tells the story
of eir coins. Thread: "bored of liquidity, need to invest"
# Voting
* The H. Assessor resolves Proposals 8280-8286. Proposals 8281 and 8283
are adopted. The first is an attempt by Gaelan to outsmart Rule 1030
and grant emself a patent title with a power-0.1 rule. The second, by
Alexis, is a change to the rule text about earning a Red ribbon.
* Alexis CoEs the resolution message, on the basis that it does not
record several of eir votes as endorsements. Jason denies the CoE
on the grounds that this is what e normally does and others haven't
complained.
* Voting begins on Proposals 8287-8307. This is a long list of
proposals, some of which would make significant changes:
* Delete some possibly-obsolete text: remove the quarterly decay of
blots, and remove a provision about a no-longer defined proposal
switch called "Imminence".
* Either amend or repeal Glitter (Rule 2602).
* Increase the maximum voting strength.
* A long-in-the-making organization of the rules into "ministries".
* Falsifian identifies a possible bug and submits a proposal in
an attempt to fix it.
* Remove the possibility for a CFJ to count as a doubt that blocks
self-ratification (everyone seems to use the other method, claims
of error, anyway).
* A proposal called "CFJ Bait" which raises many questions about
what it would do.
* Amend Rule 217 so that "authorial intent" is to be considered
when interpreting the rules.
* Many people object to this.
* Make officers responsible for granting rewards and glitter rather
than having each player claim eir rewards. For example, the
Arbitor would reward judges rather than the judges announcing
their own rewards.
* Also, a follow-up to this that would define a notion called "in
an officially timely fashion".
* Remove the notion of a "convergence", and instead relax the
standard to which the Rulekeepor is held for eir historical
annotations.
* Some proposals that give officers expanded powers, intended to be
used when there's confusion about the rules or gamestate. The
proposals would give officers the power to:
* Issue documents called memoranda, presumably to be used
when there is confusion about the rules or gamestate.
* G. raises concerns about the details of how the proposal
would work. One concern is how and whether they would
interact with the existing CFJ numbering and archive.
* Issue "adjustments" without three objections, which take effect
in a manner similar to proposals.
* There is some concern about this power being too dangerous.
Based on twg's concerns, the author, Aris, votes against the
proposal.
* Issue "patches", which are regulations which have some power to
override the rules.
* There are some concerns about the details of how the proposal
would work. One concern is about a provision that obsolete
patches CAN be repealed: whether a patch is "obsolete" may be
a vague consideration.
* Make the Rulekeepor responsible for tracking regulations as part
of eir regular reports.
* G. raises concerns about the clarity of the new rule text, and
about whether it makes sense for regulations to be tracked in
the Rulekeepor's weekly report (Short Logical Ruleset).
* Replace the petition process for patent titles with a more
general one.
* A long-in-the-making re-working of the rules for contracts (and
pledges). It includes the introduction of a new officer called
the Notary who tracks contracts and pledges, and as Notary
installs Gaelan, who has volunteered.
* Replace gendered degree names with gender-neutral versions.
* An attempt by Gaelan to deregister two less-active players, and
in response to that, a proposal by one of those players (D.
Margaux) to deregister Gaelan.
# Culture
* twg submits a thesis titled "Letter to an Anti-Scamster: On the
Importance of Loopholes in Agoran Culture" in the form of a detailed
message declining Aris's request that e promise eir proposals contain
no scams, and detailed reasoning about why e feels that "warranties
against scams and loopholes should not be given on a blanket basis".
Thread: "Warranty"
* There is a side discussion about what should qualify for a J.N.
degree.
* G. awards twg a new patent title, "Orator", based on twg's thesis,
after announcing eir intent and receiving support. Thread:
"[Herald] Hear, hear!"
* After taking over as Herald, Alexis solicits discussion on which
degrees are appropriate for twg's thesis.
* Discussion continues on a separate thread Aris started about degrees.
Thread: "DIS: Theses in the Agoran Context: A Query"
* Gaelan's Proposal 8280 having passed, e attempts to award emself the
patent title "The Powerless", and calls a CFJ about whether it
worked. Thread: "[Assessor] Resolution of Proposals 8280-8286".
* Alexis submits a follow-up CFJ, "Gaelan CAN, by announcement, award
emself the patent title of 'The Powerless'.", which seems to be
about whether the title can be awarded repeatedly.
# Proposals
* Alexis proposes renaming of degrees to make them gender-neutral.
Thread: "[Proposal] Gender neutrality in degrees".
* Alexis proposes to amend Rule 2595 to allow the initiator of a
dependent action to withdraw their announcement of intent, leading to
discussion of whether the change works as intended, whether it is a
good idea, other thoughts about dependent actions, and at least one
sketch of an alternative proposal. Thread: "[Proposal] A degree of
inefficiency"
* In the same thread,Gaelan recalls a scam of eirs that turned on the
way Rule 2595 was written at the time.
* A side note in the discussion is that a range of CFJs is missing
from G.'s CFJ archive.
* Aris proposes an update to eir "Reset Button" proposal. G. raises a
couple of objections, including to language in the proposal
encouraging "fair and equitable" adjustments to the gamestate, in
light of twg's thesis in defence of scams.
* Jason proposes several changes to Rule 2160, "Deputisation". Thread:
"[Proposal] Deputisation timeliness".
* Alexis circulates a draft of proposals that would codify the
existence of different "bodies of law" that could depend on each
other, starting with the statutes of Agora itself. Thread:
"[Proto-Proposals] The beginnings of reform"
# Rules questions
* On the subject of publishing valid officer's reports:
* G. publishes some follow-up research on eir CFJ 3792, about whether
Aris published a valid Promotor's report. E missed the time window
to file a motion to reconsider to include it in eir judgement.
* twg publishes a back-dated Referee report, and calls a new CFJ
about it, intending the CFJ to be similar to CFJ 3792 but avoiding
a technicality that affected CFJ 3792's judgement. G. points out a
misunderstanding twg had about the case, and twg responds with a
new CFJ based on G.'s message. (twg begins all this by granting
emself a blot to ensure the back-dated report would not be the same
as a not-back-dated report.) Thread: "CFJ 3792 followup".
* Jason calls a CFJ: "Coming into existence is a regulated action". E
earlier (in September) called CFJ 3772, "Existing is a regulated
action".
* Discussion continues on messages that are only forwarded to the forum
some time after they were originally sent. G. and Aris describe some
historical precedent. Thread: "Apathy"
* H. Judge omd finds CFJ 3786, which is about whether a proposal was
distributed, TRUE based on a ratification event that happened after
the CFJ was called. There follows a discussion on whether the CFJ
should be reconsidered based on some text in Rule 591. Thread:
"[Arbitor] CFJ 3786 Assigned to omd"
* There is some discussion about whether the ADoP's duty to resolve
elections can continue when someone else ends an uncontested
election, and also about when it is appropriate to deputise for an
officer. Thread: "[attn: ADoP] Whither the Agoran economy?"
* Alexis submits four linked CFJs about what changes can be made by
cleaning. Thread: "[CFJs] Why not establish some housekeeping
precedent?"
* On the subject of whether zombie auctions work, twg judges CFJ 3793
FALSE, since Gaelan did not correctly participate in the auction in
question, but in eir judgement, states that the auctions do work.
Alexis questions the judgement, and, with support from Aris and twg,
group-files a motion to reconsider. Thread: "CFJ 3793 judged FALSE
(zombies work but not for Gaelan)"
* G. calls a CFJ on whether the pledge Warrigal gave to set up
blackjack games causes em to enter into a contract with players who
take em up on it. Thread: "Blackjack, anyone?"
# Miscellaneous
* Gaelan submits a proposal to deregister D. Margaux and Baron von
Vaderham for being inactive. G. objects, and D. Margaux responds by
submitting a proposal to deregister Gaelan. Thread: "[Proposal]
Player cleanup".
* Jason notes that no tournament has been initiated for three months
(with the Birthday Tournament in mind), and repeals tournament
regulations. Thread: "Tournament Cleanup".
* Falsifian resigns as Treasuror, as e had earlier announced e might
do. Thread: "[attn: ADoP] Whither the Agoran economy?"
* Warrigal, a past player, re-registers, and does some stuff.
* According to the Registrar's monthly report, e last played from
2015 to 2017.
* E circulates a draft of a contract called "The TCC Corporation"
which would issue stock and allow members to submit and vote on
"Corporate Proposals". Thread: "Proto-corporation: the TCC
Corporation"
* E starts a game of blackjack backed by a pledge. Thread:
"Blackjack, anyone?"
* Alexis becomes our new Herald after an uncontested election.
* G. writes a bit about eir work back-filling eir CFJ archives. Thread:
"[cotc] state of the cfj archives"
* R. Lee deregisters, after first announcing that e registers, and
having it pointed out that e is already registered.
* Alexis earns a Transparent Ribbon (and judges CFJ 3794, which,
fittingly, is related to ribbons). Thread: "Judgement on CFJ 3794,
and Ribbons"
* The player formerly known as "Jason Cobb" shortens eir nickname to
"Jason".
* H. Promotor Aris thanks em, since it will make proposal
distribution easier.
# Mailing list troubles
For context, see the 2020-12-16..23 through 2020-01-06..12 weekly
summaries.
* H. Judge and Distributor omd judges CFJ 3787, finding that a message
sent during a recent period of mailing list trouble was in fact not a
public message.
- Falsifian
