ais523 wrote: > A side note: I can't think if a time at which Agora ever had a culture > of punishing minor/inconsequential offences. There have been times at > which players felt that it might be a good thing to increase the rate > at which crimes were punished, but even after voting in Rules > encouragement, lots of minor offences typically slipped by anyway.
The Blot Wars and Rebellions of the late 1990s to about 2002. Context: In that system, there was nobody who had subjective sentencing authority. A 2-blot infraction was a 2-blot infraction, applied instantly upon the finger-point with no adjustments (other than CFJs on whether the facts were correct). So most players accumulated a few blots and shrugged. The counterbalance was the Rebellion mechanism - if enough people rebelled (which was a crime in and of itself) a rebellion could succeed which expunged the blots of all rebels. It was a lot of fun, and most importantly there wasn't a lot of hand-wringing for each blot, especially the most inconsequential ones. nix wrote: > If the issue is what is and isn't a punishable offense then secretsnail > followed the letter of the law. I don't think e intentionally violated > Agoran custom. If someone breaks social custom e's not familiar with, e > should be told about it, not chastised. And if the letter of the law > allows apparently egregious breakages of customs, then change the law. Exactly. I've been thinking about this a lot, and I'm not sure the current "system" (or "social understanding") is equitable at all. I find myself not taking each individual finger-point independently, and thinking "oh Aspen is a good officer but this other player has been slacking off lately" for the same crime. I try not to, but it's a small community and hard not to, and to me this is fairly close to arbitrary and/or favoritism and it makes me, as referee, uncomfortable. I'd rather it was much more mechanical with *any* leniency (forgiveness, 0-blot indictments) saved for the more extreme miscarriages. And if those mechanical decisions are wrong, there's the legislative solution. I'll likely not resolve these right away to give a little more room for thought. -G.
