Archived at https://github.com/AgoraNomic/Reportor/tree/master/weekly_summaries
Report for the week of 2020-06-15..21: # Summary Welcome Zyborg! https://discord.gg/UGxm3v --- Agora suddenly has an unofficial Discord server. This happened when a downside of Agora's recent increased activity becomes impossible to ignore: the activity is hard to keep up with, and it might even be scaring new players away. There was some discussion of different strategies, but for now R. Lee went ahead and just created the server. We have a new PM, a new Notary, shiny new reports, some new things on the Web, and some possible regulations for the Github org. We might even be getting a new logo soon! See the "Offices, reports, website" section. There was debate this week about the Certification rule, starting with a question about what the Rulekeepor is allowed to certify. Eventually R. Lee just decided to start illegally certifying everything. The economics of proposal costs, and alternative proposals, were discussed. A healthy batch of proposals was adopted this week, but some had bugs preventing them from being applied. New proposals up for voting include a new Card-based subgame, officer regulations, and a term limit for the Prime Minister. Agora's current Contract craze continues: lots of trading and other Contract-based activity going on. Even space in Trigon's signature is for sale. See "Contracts and trading" below. Plenty of fixes and patches large and small are in the works, including handling zombies with assets instead of switches. See "Proposals to fix, simplify, etc" and "Other Proposals" below. Plenty more rule-related questions in the "Rules questions" section. # Email volume and chat clients Bögtil triggers a discussion on moving some discussion to chat rooms when e announces that e is leaving for now in the thread "Leaving" (retitled to "Leaving or something like that"). There's discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of IRC, Discord, Matrix and other options, which is continued in the threads "[Poll] A chat client for Agora" and "Fora and Accessibility", and a small side-discussion on archiving (thread: "Archival Continuity and Discussion Accessibility"). R. Lee goes ahead and creates a Discord server at https://discord.gg/UGxm3v , and nch reports some activity. Thread: "Action Is better than words" # Certification debate There's debate about how and whether it should be possible to pend bugfix proposals for free. * Partly the debate this week is triggered by Jason's argument that being Rulekeepor means all rules bugs relate to em so e's allowed to certify patches. Threads: "Black ribbon patch", "CFJ 3853 Assigned to nch"; this is also mentioned in the Rules questions section. * There's some discussion of the economic implications of being able to pend any proposal for a blot penalty in the thread "Black ribbon patch". * When CFJ 3853 is assigned to nch, e says: "As someone who strongly opposed the relevant rule, specifically because of its ambiguity, I feel like I've been Cassandra'd." - nch * Aris starts the thread "How and Whether to Change Patch Certification" for discussion. * R. Lee proposes to make patching unconditionally a crime. Thread: "We Might As Well Be Honest". The retitling of Rule 2626 to "Costly Certification" in eir proposal probably relates to this econonic perspective. * R. Lee then just goes ahead and certififies everything, then points eir finger at emself, in the thread "actually fuck it". * nch proposes a change which allows (effectively) pending without objection, and also tracks such proposals as "Special" instead of "Pending". Thread: "Ready Proposals" # Voting, and adoption of proposals * The decisions on whether to adopt Proposals 8431-8441 are resolved. Adopted: * Reduce rewards for high-AI proposals (8431) * Lower the bar for motions of no confidence, and stress they're not personal (8434, 8435) * Remove much of the Defense Against the Dark Arts rule (8437) * Give the Tailor an official weekly reporting duty (8438) * Allow election candidates to withdraw (8439) * The Rulekeepor identifies bugs in Proposals 8412, 8426 and 8429 that prevent them from being applied. Thread: "Notes on Application of Proposals 8409-8430" * R. Lee proposes fixes. Thread: "Rulekeeping Bug Fixes" * Voting begins on Proposals 8442-8457: * A subgame involving Cards. (8442) * A term limit for Prime Minister. (8443) * Change "in an officially timely fashion" to "in a sedate fashion". (8444) * Make it easier to change rule titles. (8445) * Auction off Victory Cards. (8446) * Ban scams involving new rules. (8447) * Another pass at officer-approved administrative regulations with an application for the Herald (8448, 8449) * The difference from the previous attempt is that now all players, not just officers, are eligible to support or object to regulations. * G. raises a concern about regulations staying around when a new person is elected to the office. * Grant extensions on CFJ deadlines. (8450) * Cuddlebeam's attempt to win with the Defense Against the Dark Arts rule. (8451) * Limit large numbers of proposals from the same person. (8457) * Fixes and other small changes. (8452, 8453, 8454, 8455) * Naming silliness left over from last week (8456) # Offices, reports, website * nch is installed as our new Prime Minister. * There's discussion on refreshing Agora's logo, possibly in a tournament, in the thread "A logo for Agora". An old rule thad described the current logo in text is described and the history of its repeal related. * ATMunn is elected Notary unanimously and gives the report a new look. * R. Lee initiates an election for ADoP because the previous ADoP, Murphy, wants the office back from em. They publish their campaign pitches and voting begins. Threads: "ADoP Initiating Election", "ADoP election enters next phase * Aris writes a satirically bad campaign pitch. * The Treasuror redoes eir report format to accommodate Cards and Products, and includes a web version. Threads: "[Treasuror] New Report Format", "Draft report feedback", "Final unofficial draft", "[Treasuror] [Weekly Report] The long anticipated Forbes 493" * E gets some feedback, and corrections, and there's discussion about why the Treasuror is required to publish a list of all public classes of assets. * The ADoP flips the interest of the new office Webmastor to Participation. * nch circulates some draft regulations for Agora's Github org. * The Assessor announces historical archives are on the web. Url: https://agoranomic.org/assessor/ Thread: "Historical links now on web archive" * The Webmastor announces reports are now online at https://agoranomic.org/Webmastor/ . Thread: "AgoraOnline is now Online" # Victory and Culture * The Prime Minister appoints G. to the office of Speaker. # Proposals to fix, simplify, etc * Murphy proposes to simplify ribbon ownership switches. Thread: "Proto: Simpler ribbon switches" * After G. gets an Ultraviolet Ribbon for Raising a Banner, there's discussion of ruling out that way of getting Ultraviolet (since it means almost every ribbon can immediately be followed by re-earning Ultraviolet). Thread: "re-tailor" * Jason proposes to change the definition of "fee-based actions" to "fee-based mechanisms" to avoid a possible bug where an actiong being fee-based means the fee is associated with all methods for the action. Thread: "Non-fee based mechanisms for fee-based actions" * Jason proposes to future-proof the Black ribbon rule against the possibility of contracts and regulations becoming Instruments. Thread: "Black ribbon patch" * nch proposes a change to the certification system in the thread "Ready Proposals" (also listed in the Certification debate section). * Here, there is some more general discussion about charging for proposals. * Past rule 1623/11, "Disinterested Proposals", is mentioned as one way to handle allowing some proposals to be free. # Other Proposals * Jason pends a proposal, drafted earlier, to track zombies with assets instead of switches. Thread: "Talismans" * ATMunn drafts a proposal for a Deck with a fee for drawing cards. Thread: "What's a card game without a deck?". Discussion topics include lessons from a past card game with a deck, discussion of having different officers in charge of tracking different currencies, and using the Deck idea to regulate the economy. * G. proposes to legislate that the Promotor's report gives a snapshot of the proposal pool at the start of the week, since e's been doing that anyway. This turns into a discussion about doing this for other officers as well. Threads: "let's just match the promotor's reality shall we", "Reports as snapshots of fixed time" # Contracts and trading * R. Lee and nch amend their "Co Dependants" contract to use the Agoran Arbitration Association, leading to a bit of discussion on what the AAA can be used for. Thread: "Attempt To Amend Codependancy Contract" * R. Lee buys five Tarot cards from Cuddlebeam, who reveals their texts. Thread: "Tarot" * The Plunder Partnership: * Cuddlebeam finds a possible bug: a lack of method, which may have prevented everyone else from joining. Thread: "Honor among Pirates" * E attempts to amend the contract so others can join. * R. Lee calls CFJs 3849 and 3850. Thread: "Plunder Partnership". Judge G. drafts a preliminary judgement finding that people were in fact able to join. * There's some discussion in the thread 'Fine, I destroy "Combinotron"'. * P.S.S. takes up Jason on eir Legislative for Justice promise-based trade. It takes some tries to get the mechanics right. Thread: "[Promise] Legislative for Justice" * Later there's some work ironing out what happened, in the thread "The long anticipated Forbes 493". * The DracoLotto pools close after more players pay in Cards. Thread: "DracoLotto" * Jason makes what may be the first card to product conversion, converting three Legislative Cards into six Pendants. Thread: "Legislative Card cashing" * Murphy creates the "Card Collective Contract, Agoran" or "CCCA", which is another way to pool Cards to be converted into Products. * ATMunn creates a contract involving buying and growing banana trees and selling the resulting bananas to take money back from the contract. E later destroys it. Thread: "We all need some bananas in our lives" * Trigon creates six contracts that involve agreeing to perform actions matching hashes published in the contracts. E makes no promises the actions don't just steal all your stuff.is Thread: "Six secret contracts" * Publicly-funded contracts: * Falsifian posts an old draft by G. for publicly-funded contracts when it comes up in another thread. Thread: "Contract charities (was Re: DIS: How and Whether to Change Patch Certification)" * Falsifian drafts a contract, intended to be funded, for paying for Reportor duties. Thread: "Draft Reportor contract" * Trigon sells space in eir signature. Thread: "[Contract] Agoran officer monetizes signature" # Rules questions * R. Lee and Murphy talk about rules for awarding officer rewards in the thread "[ADoP ] Salaries". * G. opines that Cuddlebeam's announced intent to transfer all of the Lost and Found Department's Coins to the Plundership was too ambiguous to work, since it's not clear whether R. Lee's coins are included. So, Cuddlebeam announces a new intent. Thread: 'Fine, I destroy "Combinotron"' * Does announcing intent to completely mess up the rules count as an "attempt" under the Defense Against the Dark Arts rule? Thread: "Minor cleaning"; CFJ: 3851 * Can one bar a player from a CFJ in a message separate from the one calling the CFJ? Thread: "Black ribbon patch" * Would Jason's Talismans proposal make every Talisman a separate class of asset? Jason judges CFJ 3852 FALSE. Thread: "classy assets" (This is relevant because the Treasuror needs to list the classes of assets in eir report, as discussed in a thread this week on Treasuror reports.) * What wordings work for "acting as emself" type conditions? Thread: "humble agoran farmer’s locker" * What happens if a contract says you can join but doesn't give a method? See "The Plunder Partnership" under Contracts and trading above. * What happens if you create a new contract saying you can't be a member of it? Thread: "sanity clause"; CFJ: 3848 * Should a revision published in response to a CoE be back-dated to the same date as the original report, or should it include new events? (Maybe a practical question as well as a rules question.) Thread: "CoE question" * Judge Aris is considering overturning a recent judicial decision related to use of language and trying to develop unifying logic for past standards. Thread: "CFJs 3831 and 3838 judged TRUE" * In eir judgement of CFJ 3846, e says "the big exciting part got cut due to time constraints", presumably meaning eir work will wait until later. * Does being Rulekeepor satisfy the "relates to a) an office e holds" condition for certifying patches for every rule, just because the Rulekeepor is responsible for rules? Threads: "Black ribbon patch", "CFJ 3853 Assigned to nch". nch judges no. See more under the "Certification debate" section. * Falsifian tries to group-file a motion to reconsider CFJ 3844, about the Bazinga asset (which turned out not to be an asset), arguing the judgement should be IRRELEVANT, not DISMISS. * Is CFJ 3835 G. (or did it become G.)? Aris judges no. * "To be honest, I'm pretty sure that most of Agora's interpretative woes could be solved by rigorous application of the principle that language means what people think it means coupled with rigorous adherence to the text of the rules, but that's a matter for another day (I may write a thesis)." * Is there a Shogun if players tie for most Karma? Thread: "[Herald] Weekly Report" # Miscellaneous * Murphy objects to all intents to transfer assets from the Lost and Found Department, and new intents are announced, in the thread 'Fine, I destroy "Combinotron"' * G. starts a discussion on whether methods for winning in the Rules should say the player directly wins (as an action) or performs some other action that causes em to win. Thread: "winning - more direct or less direct?" * The Arbitor reminds us we can favour cases, and mentions disfavouring too, and writes more generally about eir policies. Thread: "Don't forget favoring! (policy statement)" * New player Zyborg joins and is welcomed and given advice in the thread "Registration". - Falsifian
