Re: DIS: Ideas from a bastion of democracy

[Aris Merchant]

On Thursday, October 20, 2016, Aris Merchant <
thoughtsoflifeandligh...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Thursday, October 20, 2016, Kerim Aydin  > wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> I'll see how it looks for the next report, though if anyone wants to do
>> it for themselves (to choose the order and grammar) I'll take their
>> version, as in the version for H. Dr. ais523, 6LSA, SQ, Sc
>>
>
>  That was quick. I'll see if I can figure it out, I have some free time
> and I'm kind of bored.
>
> -Aris
>
> I'm backing out of this one. I was overconfident. The problem is that I'm
pretty new, so I can't figure out what should go in front of what. I don't
know which is more important, even on the current stuff. I can figure out
obvious things, but not really anything past that. Going to leave this for
people who've been here longer.

-Aris

DIS: Ideas from a bastion of democracy

[Aris Merchant]

On Thursday, October 20, 2016, Alexis Hunt > wrote:

> On Fri, Oct 21, 2016 at 12:51 AM Aris Merchant <
> thoughtsoflifeandligh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Would people be interested in a thesis explaining what can be found about
> the various patent titles?
>
> -Alexis
>

 I certainly would. I assume the others would as well. People will be
intrested if you're willing to spend the time to go back and look at pretty
much anything even vaguely interesting. Whether you'll get a degree for it
is another question.

-Aris

Re: DIS: Ideas from a bastion of democracy

[Aris Merchant]

On Thursday, October 20, 2016, Kerim Aydin  wrote:

>
> No hurry!  Don't think there's a Herald's duty until November,
> unless someone earns a title meanwhile.


I'll keep that in mind, it'll probably take longer than I think it will. In
the meantime, I have some editorial questions. I think the best way to do
this is to split the report in two parts, one by title and one by player.
The one ordered by title will remain primary, with the other as more of an
extension. With the current title system that seems to make more sense.
What do you think?

-Aris

Re: DIS: Ideas from a bastion of democracy

[Kerim Aydin]

On Thu, 20 Oct 2016, Aris Merchant wrote:
>   ais523's email prompted me to get the Herald's report up (read: made me 
> feel
>   guilty), but I'm happy to hand over the Office if you come up with a 
> Creative
>   New Look for it.
> 
> 
> Thanks! Didn't realize the whole thing was your idea, or rather that you were 
> herald. It may take a while to go through all of them. I'll try
> to have it done by the end of the weekend, if that'll do.

No hurry!  Don't think there's a Herald's duty until November,
unless someone earns a title meanwhile.

DIS: Ideas from a bastion of democracy

[Aris Merchant]

> ais523's email prompted me to get the Herald's report up (read: made me
> feel
> guilty), but I'm happy to hand over the Office if you come up with a
> Creative
> New Look for it.
>

Thanks! Didn't realize the whole thing was your idea, or rather that you
were herald. It may take a while to go through all of them. I'll try to
have it done by the end of the weekend, if that'll do.

-Aris

Re: DIS: Ideas from a bastion of democracy

[Kerim Aydin]

On Thu, 20 Oct 2016, Aris Merchant wrote: 
> On Thursday, October 20, 2016, Kerim Aydin  wrote:
> 
> 
>   I'll see how it looks for the next report, though if anyone wants to do
>   it for themselves (to choose the order and grammar) I'll take their
>   version, as in the version for H. Dr. ais523, 6LSA, SQ, Sc
> 
> 
>  That was quick. I'll see if I can figure it out, I have some free time and 
> I'm kind of bored.

ais523's email prompted me to get the Herald's report up (read: made me feel
guilty), but I'm happy to hand over the Office if you come up with a Creative 
New Look for it.

Re: DIS: Ideas from a bastion of democracy

[Aris Merchant]

On Thursday, October 20, 2016, Kerim Aydin  wrote:

>
>
> I'll see how it looks for the next report, though if anyone wants to do
> it for themselves (to choose the order and grammar) I'll take their
> version, as in the version for H. Dr. ais523, 6LSA, SQ, Sc
>

 That was quick. I'll see if I can figure it out, I have some free time and
I'm kind of bored.

-Aris

Re: DIS: Ideas from a bastion of democracy

[Kerim Aydin]

On Thu, 20 Oct 2016, ais523 wrote:
> On Thu, 2016-10-20 at 13:04 -0700, Aris Merchant wrote:
> > On Thursday, October 20, 2016, Kerim Aydin 
> > wrote:
> > > "Serene Lord of the Town Fountain, Knight of the Fifth Oligarchy,
> > > Supreme Protector of the Elder Scrolls..."
> > I like these. Seriously. Let's implement them. Want to pass some
> > guidelines? Oh, right, haven't made those yet. Non-binding rules.
> 
> Nothing's stopping us just deciding to change the style of our
> signatures and Herald Reports right away. (The Herald is deputisable
> right now, in case anyone wants to take on that task.)
> 
> -- 
> H. ais523 M.N. D.N.Phil, 14-time Champion, Recipient of the Six Months
> Long Service Award, Holder of the Silver Quill, and Scamster

I'll see how it looks for the next report, though if anyone wants to do
it for themselves (to choose the order and grammar) I'll take their
version, as in the version for H. Dr. ais523, 6LSA, SQ, Scm

Re: DIS: Ideas from a bastion of democracy

[Aris Merchant]

On Thursday, October 20, 2016, ais523  wrote:

> On Thu, 2016-10-20 at 13:04 -0700, Aris Merchant wrote:
> > On Thursday, October 20, 2016, Kerim Aydin  >
> > wrote:
> > > "Serene Lord of the Town Fountain, Knight of the Fifth Oligarchy,
> > > Supreme Protector of the Elder Scrolls..."
> > I like these. Seriously. Let's implement them. Want to pass some
> > guidelines? Oh, right, haven't made those yet. Non-binding rules.
>
> Nothing's stopping us just deciding to change the style of our
> signatures and Herald Reports right away. (The Herald is deputisable
> right now, in case anyone wants to take on that task.)
>
> --
> H. ais523 M.N. D.N.Phil, 14-time Champion, Recipient of the Six Months
> Long Service Award, Holder of the Silver Quill, and Scamster
>

 Yep, but if we put them in the rules it'll be more permanent, even if
non-binding. Good way to start though. I'll look at the office and
responsibilities. Think I should figure out what I want to do first, or
wait till I'm in position?


-Aris

Re: DIS: Ideas from a bastion of democracy

[Aris Merchant]

On Thursday, October 20, 2016, Kerim Aydin  wrote:

>
>
> On Thu, 20 Oct 2016, Alexis Hunt wrote:
> > On Thu, Oct 20, 2016 at 1:04 PM Kerim Aydin  > wrote:
> >   On Wed, 19 Oct 2016, Aris Merchant wrote:
> >   > -  People are not to be permitted to talk about themselves, only
> >   > to say bad things about their opponent.
> >
> >   We should go British on this one.  We must address each other as
> "Right
> >   Honourable Colleagues", doubly-so when being insulting.
> >
> >
> >
> > Or from the Lords, "my noble friend".
> >
> > Also, I'll just leave this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
> Doge_of_Venice
>
> Hmm, I wonder if the Herald should re-write Patent Title report by person
> and
> title list, which may affect the style of future Patent Titles:
>
> E.g.  "G., Scammer, Champion of Paradox..."
>
> [and in future, with change of tone]
>
> "Serene Lord of the Town Fountain, Knight of the Fifth Oligarchy, Supreme
> Protector of the Elder Scrolls..."
>
>
I like these. Seriously. Let's implement them. Want to pass some
guidelines? Oh, right, haven't made those yet. Non-binding rules.

-Aris

Re: DIS: Ideas from a bastion of democracy

[Jonatan Kilhamn]

On 20 October 2016 at 19:01, Kerim Aydin  wrote:

>
>
> On Thu, 20 Oct 2016, Alexis Hunt wrote:
> > - One set of election rules is too much centralized power.
> > We should divide Agora into multiple segments, each with their own
> > distinct rules for election, which are all combined together at the
> > end to pick the officers.
>
> We actually tried this one once or twice.  (Players organized into
> Parties, parties do internal voting and results are applied to Agoran
> vote).  Need a bigger player-base though.
>
> I prefer to go for ancient non-democratic systems for our topical
> commentary.  Around the time Francis was picked, we had some rules
> for becoming a Pope...
>
>
Ha, what a coincidence! On a whim, I went digging through my old emails
just the other day, after some sort of realisation along the lines of "huh,
I've really changed how and on what channels I communicate over the last
ten years – what did my inbox look like around 2009?" Turns out it was
mostly agora, and I plucked out this gem of a paragraph to show to a friend
who's expressed interest in nomic but never played emself:

"I support. In any event, the judge did not consider every possible reason
Tiger could be a pope (including the gratuitous arguments regarding
Discordian Popeiness), so a judgment of UNDETERMINED should be considered."

But that was, of course, during a resurgence of one of the pope rules (but,
do note, not during a period of papal rule), due to a rule of anarchy at
the time. The end result of the court case was that there was no pope :(
(Discordian Popeiness did not count for anything.)

-Tiger

Re: DIS: Ideas from a bastion of democracy

[Kerim Aydin]

On Thu, 20 Oct 2016, Alexis Hunt wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 20, 2016 at 1:04 PM Kerim Aydin  wrote:
>   On Wed, 19 Oct 2016, Aris Merchant wrote:
>   > -  People are not to be permitted to talk about themselves, only
>   > to say bad things about their opponent.
> 
>   We should go British on this one.  We must address each other as "Right
>   Honourable Colleagues", doubly-so when being insulting.
> 
> 
> 
> Or from the Lords, "my noble friend".
> 
> Also, I'll just leave this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_of_Venice

Hmm, I wonder if the Herald should re-write Patent Title report by person and
title list, which may affect the style of future Patent Titles:

E.g.  "G., Scammer, Champion of Paradox..."

[and in future, with change of tone]

"Serene Lord of the Town Fountain, Knight of the Fifth Oligarchy, Supreme 
Protector of the Elder Scrolls..."

Re: DIS: Ideas from a bastion of democracy

[ais523]

On Thu, 2016-10-20 at 10:02 -0700, Kerim Aydin wrote:
> 
> 
> On Wed, 19 Oct 2016, Aris Merchant wrote:
> > -  People are not to be permitted to talk about themselves, only 
> > to say bad things about their opponent.
> 
> We should go British on this one.  We must address each other as "Right
> Honourable Colleagues", doubly-so when being insulting.

Can we abbreviate that to a →H. prefix on the name?

-- 
ais523

Re: DIS: Ideas from a bastion of democracy

[Kerim Aydin]

On Thu, 20 Oct 2016, Alexis Hunt wrote:
> - One set of election rules is too much centralized power. 
> We should divide Agora into multiple segments, each with their own
> distinct rules for election, which are all combined together at the 
> end to pick the officers.

We actually tried this one once or twice.  (Players organized into 
Parties, parties do internal voting and results are applied to Agoran 
vote).  Need a bigger player-base though.

I prefer to go for ancient non-democratic systems for our topical 
commentary.  Around the time Francis was picked, we had some rules 
for becoming a Pope...

Re: DIS: Ideas from a bastion of democracy

[Kerim Aydin]

On Wed, 19 Oct 2016, Aris Merchant wrote:
> -  People are not to be permitted to talk about themselves, only 
> to say bad things about their opponent.

We should go British on this one.  We must address each other as "Right
Honourable Colleagues", doubly-so when being insulting.

DIS: Ideas from a bastion of democracy

[Aris Merchant]

On Wed, Oct 19, 2016 at 7:42 PM, Alexis Hunt > wrote:

> It has occurred to me that Agora is perhaps not the paragon of democracy
> that it should strive to be. There are many examples of excellent
> democracies out there, including the World's Greatest Democracy, with which
> we are now all intimately familiar regardless of whether we'd like to be or
> not. With that in mind, I'd like us to brainstorm some ideas that we could
> have to improve our systems:
>
> - Elections should last 18 months, in case anything changes after the
> first 17.
> - Candidates should be able to run on tickets for different offices. In
> the event of a tie, the tie should be resolved in such a way as to select
> candidates from different tickets.
> - One set of election rules is too much centralized power. We should
> divide Agora into multiple segments, each with their own distinct rules for
> election, which are all combined together at the end to pick the officers.
>
> Any others?
>
> Alexis
>

Yes.

-  People are not to be permitted to talk about themselves, only to say bad
things about their opponent. Apologies are permissible so long as they are
vague. I'll leave it to popular discretion whether this is to be a MUST or
a SHOULD.

-  Bribery is of course to be banned. On the other hand, in the interests
of free spech, campaign contributions are to be allowed, without
limitation. This must of course include second-class persons, if we decide
to bring them back. I don't see any way to make it anonymous, but if
someone thinks of something...

-  In order to prevent fraud, we need stronger verification measures.
Questionnaires, identity tests, everything. If some of our voters can't
figure it out or pay the fees, that's too bad for them. On the other hand,
if they can, the protections are too weak. Does anyone have a workable ID
system we can borrow? I'm thinking public-key/private-key signatures on
votes, but if someone can come up with something stronger...

I'm sure there are more. Thoughts?

DIS: Ideas from a bastion of democracy

[Alexis Hunt]

It has occurred to me that Agora is perhaps not the paragon of democracy
that it should strive to be. There are many examples of excellent
democracies out there, including the World's Greatest Democracy, with which
we are now all intimately familiar regardless of whether we'd like to be or
not. With that in mind, I'd like us to brainstorm some ideas that we could
have to improve our systems:

- Elections should last 18 months, in case anything changes after the first
17.
- Candidates should be able to run on tickets for different offices. In the
event of a tie, the tie should be resolved in such a way as to select
candidates from different tickets.
- One set of election rules is too much centralized power. We should divide
Agora into multiple segments, each with their own distinct rules for
election, which are all combined together at the end to pick the officers.

Any others?

Alexis