DIS: Re: BUS: Gray Land and the Fountain Proposal

[Aris Merchant]

On Wed, Apr 4, 2018 at 5:52 PM Kenyon Prater  wrote:

> I create the following proposal and pend it with paper.
> Create a new rule "Facility Categories", (Power=2.0):
> A facility's Category is a switch whose possible values are
> “Production”, “Processing”, “Monument”, and “Miscellaneous”.  An “x
> facility”, where x is a Category, refers to a facility that has
> Category switch set to x.


Not that this matters now, as it can always be done when we need it, but I
figured out a succinct way of expressing what we were going for: a non-null
subset.

-Aris

>
>

Re: DIS: Proto: Formalized Precedent

[Aris Merchant]

Gaelan, first, thanks for the interesting proposal. I disagree with it
for several reasons:

First, there are some minor (fixable) technical problems in the
proposal itself. An instrument doesn't nessicarily do anything, except
perhaps alter or create a rule, and even that is kind of uncertain
because of ambiguities in the phrasing of the relevant rules. You
really want it to be a textual entity with certain powers.

Second, there are systemic problems with the idea behind the proposal.
The first one is the textual expression of the Clarifications. Because
they need to be self-contained, unlike an annotation, the judge might
be forced to write a rather long explanatory segment in the
clarification. This could greatly increase the length of FLR. The
Rulekeepor would also be unable to make edits to the Clarifications,
since they would have the force of law.

Most importantly, I'm concerned that this would limit the development
of our precedents. Currently, old precedent can be forgotten or
changed. Judges can easily innovate and rule that longstanding
precedents are no longer relevant, or need to be revised in light of
changed practice or context. This law reminds me of the House of
Lords' ruling in London Tramways Co. v London County Council, where
they declared previous precedent absolutely binding, even if it
created "injustice" and "unduly restrict[ed] the proper development of
the law". They overruled that precedent by fiat in the Practice
Statement, because they realized that it meant that a bunch of bad and
outdated rulings stayed around, and that they were generally trying to
pretend that they were infallible, which they were not. [1] I know
that we can always pass a proposal to overturn a ruling, but we are
unlikely to do so most of the time. This stops judges from revising
past ideas to create new precedent, and in that way takes a lot of the
fun out of the judicial system. We simply don't have a problem where
people routinely ignore rulings they disagree with, without seeking a
new ruling or attempting to change the rules.

The CFJ is system is an accepted part of the meta-game, where it does
its job flexibly and well. This proposal formalizes rulings at the
level of the game, which is something I might be okay with if done
properly (it has been done in the past). But this formalizes the part
of the opinions least in need of formalization, their meta-game
precedential value. The reason we trust our judicial system is,
paradoxically, that its rulings don't do anything. No one has a reason
to falsify a ruling, because they know that the ruling relies on the
acceptance of the players for its implementation. I might favor some
carefully implemented system of injunctions or judicial orders that
allowed judges to remedy the short term harm caused by a
misunderstanding or rule violation, but I cannot approve of an
iron-clad formalization of the value of precedent that doesn't solve
an existing problem and creates new ones by limiting the ability of
judges to change past precedent. I understand (and appreciate) that
what you're trying to do with this proposal is to formalize something
that is currently fluffy and non-binding, but there are some aspects
of the meta-game which work precisely because they are in the
meta-game, rather than the game itself, and which thus must not be
formalized. This is one of them.

However, I agree that their should be some requirement for the
Rulekeepor to track annotations. What I would suggest instead that
Rulekeepor, as part of eir weekly duties (monthly if that's more
convenient), be required to publicly make a statement on any
annotations submitted to em. E could either reject the proposed
annotation as unnecessary and explain why, accept it, or (and this may
not need to be an option other than accept) make changes to it and
then accept it. Then we could put in place a requirement that the
Rulekeepor "SHALL make a reasonable attempt to maintain relevant
judicial annotations in the FLR", or something to that effect. The
idea would be that the Rulekeepor could drop or edit an annotation
whenever it seemed appropriate, but could not, say, refuse to put any
annotations in the FLR.

Again, thank you for the proposal. It was quite thought provoking.

-Aris

[1] My source for all of this is
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practice_Statement

On Tue, Apr 3, 2018 at 12:00 AM, Gaelan Steele  wrote:
> Proto:
>
> A Clarification is a type of instrument that always has 0.1 power. A 
> clarification may only clarify existing rules, and may not have any 
> functionality not already provided by a reasonably plausible interpretation 
> of a rules; any other functionality is INEFFECTIVE. [Maybe: remove this 
> sentence to avoid crazy meta-CFJs, letting the Moot system handle bad 
> Clarifications?] The Rulekeepor SHALL include the text of all Clarifications 
> in the Full Logical Ruleset, and SHOULD list them near relevant rules.
>
> When submitting a nontrivial 

Re: DIS: Re: OFF: becoming a player

[Aris Merchant]

First off, Ouri, welcome to Agora!

On Tue, Apr 3, 2018 at 10:33 AM, Kenyon Prater  wrote:
> People are generally pretty helpful and forgiving of mistakes (thankfully,
> because I make a lot of them). If you have specific questions, just ask.
>
> A general (bad) summary of the version of the game right now is that it's a
> mix of Go, Catan, and Harvest Moon. There's a 13x13 game board that are
> either white, black, or empty tiles. We can walk around on these tiles and
> create new ones by consuming apples and corn. If a group of tiles is
> encircled by the other color such that there are no blank spaces, the
> encircled tiles get turned blank. Then, you can buy tiles (there's a land
> auction going on right now) and build facilities on them like mines and
> farms that produce or refine resources. You can move around the map and
> pick up resources produced at your facilities, refine them, upgrade your
> facilities, and trade resources to other players and generally try to
> expand your production chain. Of course, if you have ideas to improve this
> game, anything could be changed with a vote.

Well, that's the economy (essentially a mini game that allows you to
pay for things). The game itself is mostly meta stuff, like proposals
to change the rules and CFJs on their interpretation.  We are swinging
to a gameplay focus at the moment, but there's always a ton of
meta-game development. For a more detailed summary of the economy, see
here [1]. For more details about gameplay in general, see the wiki
here [2].


> (Note, these rules aren't in the ruleset online because it hasn't been
> updated recently. Here's my messy version of what the map rules look like
> currently to the best of my understanding:
> https://gist.github.com/KenyonPrater/bb32158fc9cdfacaadc823608b7566ef)
> Obviously there are a ton more rules governing contracts, running for
> office, voting, etc.

We really need to fix the rulesets. It's always a pain to have to
figure out the current state of things in one's head, and it quickly
reaches a point where the game is nearly unplayable. Is anyone up for
taking Rulekeepor (not something that I'd recommend for a new player,
in some ways it's the heaviest workload of all of the offices)?

-Aris

[1]  
https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-discussion/2018-February/050084.html
[2]  https://agoranomic.org/wiki/wiki/How-to-play-Agora.html

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Re: OFF: Land Auctions for April week 1

[אורי פופקו]

How does one gain coins? Do I have any to begin with?

On Wed, 4 Apr 2018, 03:02 Reuben Staley,  wrote:

> This is gonna be lots of fun to resolve. heh heh...
>
> I bid 11  coins on auction 2.
>
> On 4/3/2018 5:42 PM, ATMunn wrote:
> > I bid 11 coins on auction 1.
> >
> > can i pls has just 1 land piec
> >
> > On 4/3/2018 5:47 PM, Corona wrote:
> >> 11 on 3.
> >>
> >> ~Corona
> >>
> >> On 23:40, Apr 3, 2018, at 23:40, Gaelan Steele  wrote:
> >>> 10 on 1-3
> >>>
> >>> Gaelan
> >>>
>  On Apr 3, 2018, at 12:59 PM, Reuben Staley 
> >>> wrote:
> 
>  I bid 9 coins on Auctions 1-3.
> 
>  El mar., 3 de abr. de 2018 13:48, Corona
> >>> 
>  escribió:
> 
> > 11 on 4 & 5.
> >
> > On Tue, Apr 3, 2018 at 8:42 PM, Kenyon Prater
> >>> 
> > wrote:
> >
> >> to the proper forum,
> >>
> >> 10 on 4 and 5.
> >>
> >> On Tue, Apr 3, 2018 at 11:41 AM, Kenyon Prater
> >>> 
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>> 10 on 4 and 5.
> >>>
> >>> On Tue, Apr 3, 2018 at 11:29 AM, Corona
> >>> 
> >>> wrote:
> >>>
>  Actually, I bid 8 coins on auctions 1-3 each. Let's make it
> >>> short.
> 
>  On Tue, Apr 3, 2018 at 8:26 PM, Corona
> >>> 
>  wrote:
> 
> > I bid 6 coins on auctions 1-3 each, and 8 coins on auctions 4 &
> >>> 5
> >> each.
>  We
> > will bury you!
> >
> > ~Corona
> >
> > On Tue, Apr 3, 2018 at 8:05 PM, Reuben Staley <
> >> reuben.sta...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> I bid 5 coins on auctions 1-3
> >>
> >>
> >> On 4/3/2018 9:41 AM, Kenyon Prater wrote:
> >>
> >>> I bid 7 coin on 4 and 5.
> >>>
> >>> On Tue, Apr 3, 2018 at 8:30 AM, Corona <
> > liliumalbum.ag...@gmail.com
> >>>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> I bid 4 on each of auctions 1-3, and I bid 5 on each of
> >>> auctions
> >> 4-5.
> 
>  On Tue, Apr 3, 2018 at 4:29 PM, Gaelan Steele
> >>> 
>  wrote:
> 
>  I bid 3 on auction 3.
> >
> > Gaelan
> >
> > On Apr 2, 2018, at 3:32 PM, Reuben Staley <
> >> reuben.sta...@gmail.com>
> >>
> > wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> Land auctions now work. Hooray.
> >>
> >> There are currently 6 public, unpreserved, non-aether land
> > units
> >> in
> >>
> > existence. As the Cartographor, I am to choose 5 of them to
> >>> be
> > auctioned
> > off.
> >
> >>
> >> For the following 5 auctions, I am the announcer, Agora is
> >>> the
> >>
> > auctioneer, and the minimum bid is 1 coin:
> >
> >>
> >> AUCTION 1: The lot is the white land unit at (-1, -2)
> >> AUCTION 2: The lot is the white land unit at ( 0, -2)
> >> AUCTION 3: The lot is the white land unit at (+1, -2)
> >> AUCTION 4: The lot is the black land unit at (-1, +2)
> >> AUCTION 5: The lot is the black land unit at ( 0, +2)
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> 
>  --
> 
>  ~Corona
> 
> 
> >>> ---
> >>> This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
> >>> http://www.avg.com
> >>>
> >>>
> >> --
> >> Trigon
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> > ~Corona
> >
> 
> 
> 
>  --
> 
>  ~Corona
> 
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> > ~Corona
> >
>
> --
> Trigon
>

Re: DIS: Re: OFF: becoming a player

[Benjamin Schultz]

On Tue, Apr 3, 2018 at 2:17 PM, Reuben Staley 
wrote:

> Welcome, Ouri!
>
> Benjamin's player name is OscarMeyr. Generally, players will sign their
> messages with their player name, so you can usually tell what they want to
> be called by how they sign their messages.
>
>
Please keep in mind, Ouri, that despite my activity I am not a current
player.

Maybe it's time for me to re-register, hmm?

OscarMeyr