Archived at https://github.com/AgoraNomic/Reporter/tree/master/weekly_summaries
Report for the week of 2020-02-03..09:
# Summary
Another week, another victory: Falsifian pays 1,000 Coins to win the
game. No big deal: G. already did it recently, and two other players
own at least 1,000 Coins. Falsifian proposes to raise the fee according
to a nonstandard voting process, and Murphy drafts a proposed new
economy. G. reveals e had planned to force an economic reset through a
hyperinflation scam.
The February zombie auction begins, or maybe it doesn't, because zombie
auctions may be broken. One of the auction lots wakes up.
Other questions about the rules: H. Judge G. finds that back-dated
reports can be officers' reports; the matter of Agora being a contract
is raised anew; and more in the Rules Questions section below.
Patent Titles are awarded: a degree for twg, "Little Ricky Tables" for
Gaelan, and Champion to twg and Falsifian. Warrigal politely requests
the title of Ex-Champion.
Proposals: read the Ruleset Week may be delayed, there's discussion of
giving officers some discretion over legal questions, and more under
the Proposals section below.
Murphy returns after a period of absence.
Having lost all eir ribbons Raising a Banner, twg is off to a smashing
new start by earning seven at once.
# Victory
* Falsifian pays 1,000 Coins to win the game, and proposes to raise the
fee to an amount determined by a vote. This leads to some discussion
about how to handle repeated wins. E is also appointed Speaker.
Thread: "[DoV] [Proposal] Closing the door behind me"
* G. reveals e had been planning to use a birthday gift related scam
to create hyperinflation and force the need to reset the economy,
but forgot.
# Voting
* Voting finishes on Proposals 8308-8321.
* Alexis gives an explanation for what others perceived as an error
in eir Proposal 8313, related to dependent actions, and asks those
voting against it for that reason to vote for it instead. Thread:
"[Proposal] Help with Forgotten Announcements, Support
Improvements"
* The H. Assessor drafts a message resolving the decisions. An issue
is found with the distribution of Proposal 8317 (Zombie trade).
(This technically continues a few minutes into the following Agoran
week, but is included in this report for simplicity.)
# Culture and Academics
* The H. Herald awards patent titles:
* To twg, the degree of Associate of Nomic for eir thesis "Letter to
an Anti-Scamster: On the Importance of Loopholes in Agoran
Culture". Thread: "[Herald] Graduation Announcement"
* To twg and Falsifian, the Patent Title of Champion, for their
recent victories. Thread: "[Herald] Hear ye, hear ye! A new
Champion!"
* To Gaelan, the Patent Title of Little Ricky Tables, for eir XSS
exploit of the CFJ archives last week.
* Warrigal politely requests the Patent Title of Ex-Champion, noting
that e won the game in 2012 but does not currently possess the Patent
Title of Champion. Thread: "A humble request"
# Games
* Warrigal's blackjack game continues.
# Proposals
* Discussion continues on omd's proto-proposal to take the past out of
the gamestate. Alexis expresses full support and says it would clear
up an issue with eir own proto. Tangentially, Warrigal suggests
alternative language for the rules on precedence between rules.
Thread: "[proto] Retroactive Events: a refactor of ratification"
* Falsifian submits a corrected proposal to undo the effects of
adoping any of Proposals 8287-8307 more than once, just in case.
Thread: "[Proposal] Re: [Assessor] Resolution of Proposals
8287-8307"
* Falsifian proposes to raise the fee to win the game. See "Victory"
section above.
* Falsifian proposes to clean up or trigger the rules listed in the
"Important Temporary Rules" section of the ruleset. Thread:
"[Proposal] Let's deal with the temporary rules."
* Based on a discussion last week about what happens when a person
dies (one of a few topics discussed on the thread "The Very Worst
Thing That Could Possibly Happen (Attn. Distributor)"), Falsifian
proposes to amend Rule 869 to make a person remain a person
forever. Thread: "[Proposal] the eternal spirit"
* Alexis proposes to move Read the Ruleset Week later, since there's
some uncertainty about the Ruleset right now. Thread: "A Modest
Proposal"
* G. proposes to add acting "act(ed) on eir own behalf" to the rules
for White ribbons. See the other note about the same thread in the
Miscellaneous section. Thread: "Redecoration"
* Warrigal proposes to allow the Notary to destroy obsolete pledges
without objection. Aris suggests this could apply to contracts too.
Thread: "How to Break Your Promise"
* Murphy submits four proposals in the thread "[Attn Promotor] Four
proposals":
* Allow the ADoP to appoint players to be responsible for switches
that fall under Rule 2603 due to otherwise lacking an officer to
track them.
* In cases where the Prime Minister's or Speaker's voting strengths
are increased by 1, double them instead.
* Destroy a player's left-over Coins after e wins by paying 1,000
Coins.
* Require the ADoP to announce the end of uncontested elections,
unless someone else does so. This may be in order to allow players
to deputise as ADoP to take these actions.
* The thread "PSA: Online ruleset viewer" includes a proposal by Gaelan
to have CFJs assigned to relevant officers, all else being equal, and
a sketch by G. of an a plan for officers to be able to issue
memoranda. See the note in the "Rules questions" section of this
document.
* Murphy circulates a draft proposal for a new economy involving four
flavours of coin: Up, Down, Strange and Charm. Thread: "[proto]
Standard Model of Agoran Economics"
* Alexis responds to some comments on eir thread "[Proto-Proposals] The
beginnings of reform"
* Jason proposes to define the word "publicly". Thread: '[proposal]
Define "publicly"'
# Rules questions
* H. Judge Jason issues a revised judgement of CFJ 3788, on
ratification, after receiving comments on a new draft. E finds that
ratification would have worked as intended in the example presented.
Thread: "[Arbitor] CFJ 3788 Assigned to Jason Cobb"
* CFJ 3793, on whether zombie auctions work:
* Context: a motion to reconsider was group-filed on January 26.
* twg recuses emself, saying e can't figure out what the right answer
should be. Thread: "CFJ 3793 judged FALSE (zombies work but not for
Gaelan)"
* It is assigned to Alexis, who announces that e intends to find that
zombie auctions don't work. Thread: "[Arbitor] CFJ 3793 Assigned to
Alexis"
* Cuddle Beam attempts to create a contract that e alone is two
"Parties" to. Thread: "humble agoran farmer becomes a uroborus"
* In the same thread, Warrigal recounts how acting-on-behalf used to
work.
* H. Judge G. judges that coming into existence is a regulated action
for some things but not others. Thread: "[Arbitor] CFJ 3797 Assigned
to G."
* H. Judge G. finds that back-dated reports can be valid Officers'
reports, so long as that date is within a certain time window, and
that that specified date counts as the past time for ratification
under R1551. Threads: "[Arbitor] CFJ 3798 Assigned to G.", "[Arbitor]
CFJ 3799 Assigned to G."
* Jason points out a potential mistake or inconsistency around a
reference to earlier CFJ 3773, which was about a future-dated
report.
* H. Judge Gaelan finds that to "petition" an office under the new text
of Rule 2143 means to write a "formal" petition. Thread: "CFJ 3806
judged FALSE (a petition is a "formal" request)"; gratuitous argument
in thread: "[Arbitor] CFJ 3806 Assigned to Gaelan"
* On the thread "Editorial Guidelines", Alexis calls a CFJ related to
whether Jason announced separate intents for eir three proposed
guidelines, or one intent for all three, which is relevant since some
players support some but not all of them. H. Judge G. finds that
Jason did not successfully announce any intents to enact Editorial
Guidelines (subject: "[Arbitor] CFJ 3808 Assigned to G.")
* The thread "PSA: Online ruleset viewer" includes a discussion and CFJ
about whether a player can act on behalf of eir zombie to transfer
karma. The H. Herald says e believes not. This leads to discussion
about giving officers (the H. Herald in this case) discretion over
questions like that. Gaelan proposes to have CFJs assigned to the
relevant officers. G. sketches an alternative plan for officers to be
able to issue memoranda.
* Cuddle Beam points out that the notion of "invisible" versus
"visible" contracts introduced by the "Contract Patency v3" proposal
may mean Agora counts as an invisible contract, which would interact
badly with a provision that all invisible contracts are destroyed at
the end of a transitional period. Thread: "humble agoran farmer makes
Agora visible"
# Office of the Notary
* The H. Notary announces that Notary reports are available online.
Thread: "[Notary] Report available online"
* The H. ADoP attempts to set the Notary's Ministry to {Economy} by
announcement, but Jason says e can only do this without objection.
Thread: "[Notary] Weekly report"
# Miscellaneous
* Gaelan sends a link to eir online ruleset viewer at
https://agora-ruleset.gaelan.me/ , and points out that being based on
the Rulekeepor's git repository, it is potentially more up-to-date
than the latest Rulekeepor report. Thread: "PSA: Online ruleset
viewer"
* See other notes about this thread in the "Rules questions" section
of this document.
* The February zombie auction begins, unless zombie auctions are
broken. (See the bullet on CFJ 3793 in the "Rules questions" section
of this document.)
* Cuddle Beam, one of the lots in the auction, ceases to be a zombie
during the auction.
* Discussion continues on the first proposed Editorial Guidelines.
Thread: "Editorial Guidelines". See also the "Rules Questions"
section of this document.
* Discussion continues on the topic of reporting and a possible Agoran
newsletter. Threads: "[Reporter] Some questions, some thoughts, and a
proposed newsletter", "[Reporter] Last week in agora"
* On Gaelan's XSS exploit in a CFJ. Thread: "CFJ 3805 judged TRUE"
* H. Judge Aris finds that G. should indeed make sure the exploit
doesn't adversely affect eir CFJ archive.
* G. fixes the CFJ archive's index page, but leaves the vulnerability
in CFJ 3805's page for posterity [0].
* An attempt to clean a rule veers off into a discussion of sentence
fragments as list items in Agora's rules and law more generally.
Thread: "Cleaning"
* Our H. Assessor asks for confirmation of eir information on who holds
which offices, since the H. ADoP has not published a report for a
while, and offices now get added voting power (according to their
Ministries). Thread: "[Assessor] Request for office confirmation"
* Our H. ADoP, Murphy, reappears after a period of absence, and
announces e's working on catching up. Thread: "[Arbitor] CFJ 3787
Assigned to omd". E responds to various other old threads.
* Having Raised a Banner and thereby lost all eir ribbons, twg earns
anew seven ribbons. As part of this, e acts on behalf of eir zombie
to award emself a White ribbon, which G. points out has a permanent
effect on eir zombie (the player loses eir ability to award White
ribbons to others). G. submits a proposal to restrict the White
ribbon rules to actions on one's own behalf. Thread: "Redecoration"
* Murphy probably transfers enough coins to Trigon to bring eir balance
above 1000. Thread: "Kingmaking"
[0] https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/?3805
- Falsifian
