DIS: jumbled thoughts
Agora badly needs more players, but the current barrier to entry is much higher than it should be. Not only do you have to sign up for three mailing lists (if you don't, you can't even look at the archives to get a sense of how the game is played), you have to understand a long ruleset without any real guide. To address the first issue: - I was thinking of installing a webmail client for an account signed up to the lists with no login; you could play at the beginning just by sending mail through it. - make the archives public? To address the second issue: - ais523's thesis isn't very good for really new players; rather, we need a short guide on how to actually sign up and start playing the game. Something like this: http://a.qoid.us/join.html (an old document from one of Zefram's archives), or a similar document I can't find but I remember reading, which contains, for example, instructions on what to do if you're assigned as judge.
Re: DIS: jumbled thoughts
On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 15:52, comex com...@gmail.com wrote: Agora badly needs more players, but the current barrier to entry is much higher than it should be. Not only do you have to sign up for three mailing lists (if you don't, you can't even look at the archives to get a sense of how the game is played), you have to understand a long ruleset without any real guide. To address the first issue: - I was thinking of installing a webmail client for an account signed up to the lists with no login; you could play at the beginning just by sending mail through it. - make the archives public? To address the second issue: - ais523's thesis isn't very good for really new players; rather, we need a short guide on how to actually sign up and start playing the game. Something like this: http://a.qoid.us/join.html (an old document from one of Zefram's archives), or a similar document I can't find but I remember reading, which contains, for example, instructions on what to do if you're assigned as judge. Perhaps we should have a contest. Each player can submit a new player's guide. Thereafter, Agora votes on which guide is the best and that player is awarded a win. Then we can combine the best parts of each guide to create one truly excellent guide.
Re: DIS: jumbled thoughts
On Thu, 15 Jul 2010, comex wrote: Agora badly needs more players, but the current barrier to entry is much higher than it should be. Not only do you have to sign up for three mailing lists (if you don't, you can't even look at the archives to get a sense of how the game is played), you have to understand a long ruleset without any real guide. To address the first issue: - I was thinking of installing a webmail client for an account signed up to the lists with no login; you could play at the beginning just by sending mail through it. - make the archives public? I don't think this would work out-of-the-box due to our habit and concerns for confirming identity (see: Peekee's case on the client e set up, though that was when behalf of worked). I think this would almost need a court case (or rule) that anything coming from such an account was always legally ambiguous as to the sender. Which would mean that something set up to make things easier would lead to the types of new player court cases that make Agora seem so arcane. Thoughts on how to get around this? I strongly agree that browsing the archives should be easier and not generally require a subscription, so a separate source of archives would be good, some kind of captcha against email harvesting maybe. To address the second issue: - ais523's thesis isn't very good for really new players; rather, we need a short guide on how to actually sign up and start playing the game. Something like this: http://a.qoid.us/join.html (an old document from one of Zefram's archives), or a similar document I can't find but I remember reading, which contains, for example, instructions on what to do if you're assigned as judge. It was Murphy that wrote a good FAQ I think a while back? Be nice to see that up-front. In particular, perhaps a re-organization/update of the agoranomic.org front page with such a FAQ front and center? -G.
Re: DIS: jumbled thoughts
Yally wrote: Perhaps we should have a contest. Each player can submit a new player's guide. Thereafter, Agora votes on which guide is the best and that player is awarded a win. Then we can combine the best parts of each guide to create one truly excellent guide. Fragment: Q. What do I do if I'm assigned as a judge? A. Only volunteers are assigned as judges. If you want to volunteer, then announce I become sitting and wait; the Clerk of the Courts will eventually assign you some cases. If you don't want to volunteer any more, then announce I become supine. (Rule 1871) If you're particularly interested in judging / not-judging certain specific cases or types of cases, then announce that you favor / disfavor them (respectively); the CotC will attempt to honor your wishes. (Rule 1868) When you're assigned a case, you should either announce your judgement (Rule 2158), or announce that you recuse (de-assign) yourself from it (Rules 1868 and 2164). The time limits are one week for judgement and four days for recusal; you can do either one late, until the CotC recuses you (Rule 2158). You can also offer to transfer the case to someone else, but it only takes effect if they accept the case and judge it (Rule 2164). For an inquiry case, the valid judgements are TRUE and FALSE (and some others), based on whether the case's statement was true or false when the case was initiated (Rule 591). For a criminal case, the valid judgements are GUILTY and NOT GUILTY, where GUILTY has some extra requirements beyond just he did it (Rule 1504). You should explain why you judged the way you did (Rule 2205). If something has multiple equally-valid interpretations, then it's your prerogative as judge to choose one (Rule 2158). If you're assigned as part of an appeal panel, then you should announce an opinion (Rule 911). If you want to volunteer for appeal panels only, then announce I become leaning (Rule 1871). If you want to volunteer for only inquiry cases / only criminal cases, then announce I become hugging / I become hanging (respectively); I become hovering is a weaker form of I become hanging (Rule 2203). If you want to volunteer for more / less complicated cases, then announce that you change your judicial rank (Rule 2226).
Re: DIS: jumbled thoughts
G. wrote: It was Murphy that wrote a good FAQ I think a while back? Be nice to see that up-front. In particular, perhaps a re-organization/update of the agoranomic.org front page with such a FAQ front and center? Here's the last version. Obviously it needs some updating, as well as splitting into basics vs. trivia. Agora Nomic FAQ last updated 8/6/09 Q. What's with the funny pronouns? A. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spivak_pronoun (Agora traditionally uses e as subject and emself as reflexive). Q. What is Power? A. Power is a number that restricts how rules, proposals, and other entities can affect the gamestate. Rules with higher Power have higher precedence (Rule 1482) and are harder to amend (Rule 2140). Q. What is Adoption Index? Which one should I use? A. When submitting a proposal, you should specify an Adoption Index at least as high as the highest-Power rule you plan to amend, otherwise some amendments will fail even if the proposal is adopted (Rules 106, 2140). A higher Adoption Index requires a higher ratio of votes in favor (Rule 955); basically, AI=1 requires 50% + 1, AI=2 requires a 2/3 majority, AI=3 requires a 3/4 majority. Q. Do the rules get reset when someone wins? A. No, but each method of winning is generally accompanied by a cleanup procedure (Rule 2186) that resets the relevant part of the gamestate, e.g. winning by High Score resets scores. Q. Why does Rule 104 (First Speaker) still exist? A. It's the only initial rule that's never been amended. Some of us want to keep it that way. Q. What's the best way to get up to speed on the rules? A. The Full Logical Ruleset (Rule 1681) includes cross-references and notes on interpretation. Q. What's with lots of titles ending in -or instead of -er? A. Historical precedent, dating back to at least Rulekeepor in Rule 399/1 (now 1051/18; amended rules used to be renumbered). Q. What does Cantus Cygneus mean? A. Latin for swan song. Probably grammatically incorrect. Q. What's the Senate for? A. A line of defense in case some large group of trolls ever decides hur hur, we can ruin this game because we outnumber the existing players. If the trolls appear patient enough to wait two months, then we have time to erect stronger defenses. Q. Why is the recordkeepor of Rests called the Insulator? A. Leftover mixed metaphor. Before Cards, we had Notes, whose recordkeepor was the Conductor. Q. What's with the words in all caps? A. See Rule 2152, which was explicitly based on RFC 2119. Q. How long is as soon as possible / in a timely fashion? A. One week (Rule 1023). Q. How are weeks defined? A. Absolute weeks (e.g. at least once a week, during the same week) begin at midnight UTC on Monday (Rule 1023). Relative durations (e.g. within one week after) are measured relatively. Q. What's an index? A. A real number or +inf (unanimity) or -inf (Rule 2146). Q. What's a switch? A. A single-value attribute relevant to a specified type of entity, with a default setting (Rule 2162). Q. Why do replies go to the discussion list? A. Because most replies are discussionary in nature. If you send an attempted action to the discussion list by mistake, just forward it to the business list and add TTttPF (this time to the Public Forum). Q. Why are lots of things performed by announcement? A. Agora has long rejected the interpretation that any action can implicitly be performed by saying so (I say I do, therefore I do). Defining and using by announcement (Rule 478) makes it explicit. Q. What are the time limits for actions with support or without objections? A. The action must be performed within fourteen days of announcing intent. If the action depends on objections, then there's a minimum four-day wait. (Rule 1728) Q. What is Agoran Consent? A. Basically with more support than objections. Specifying a number may increase the difficulty. (Rule 1728) Q. What are fungible assets? A. Interchangeable, indistinguishable. One typically says you owe me a dollar, not you owe me the dollar with a particular serial number. (Rule 2166) Q. What happens if a player leaves the game while holding an office? A. Only players can hold office (Rule 1006), so the office becomes vacant. Q. What is deputisation? A. A method for any player to perform a duty of an office because the officer is slacking off but hasn't been replaced yet, or the office is vacant (Rule 2160). Q. What's the schedule for elections to office? A. Elections occur whenever someone initiates one (Rule 2154); this is only required of the IADoP when the office is vacant or its holder is inactive (Rule 2217). Nominations last for four days, then the IADoP initiates voting if needed (Rule 2154) which lasts for seven days (Rule 107). Q. Do I have to accept or decline if I'm
Re: DIS: jumbled thoughts
On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 5:57 PM, Ed Murphy emurph...@socal.rr.com wrote: Yally wrote: Perhaps we should have a contest. Each player can submit a new player's guide. Thereafter, Agora votes on which guide is the best and that player is awarded a win. Then we can combine the best parts of each guide to create one truly excellent guide. Fragment: *Nice*. Also, ais523 and I briefly discussed some things in IRC: - A ruleset ordered so that the rules important to new players come first. draft: http://a.qoid.us/alr.txt (but it needs to lose some of the annotations and such, and the categorization is preliminary) - A mouseover glossary for the ruleset (for terms like by announcement, which are a big chunk of the FAQ and probably a big source of confusion).
Re: DIS: jumbled thoughts
On Thu, 15 Jul 2010, comex wrote: On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 5:57 PM, Ed Murphy emurph...@socal.rr.com wrote: Yally wrote: Perhaps we should have a contest. Each player can submit a new player's guide. Thereafter, Agora votes on which guide is the best and that player is awarded a win. Then we can combine the best parts of each guide to create one truly excellent guide. Fragment: *Nice*. Also, ais523 and I briefly discussed some things in IRC: - A ruleset ordered so that the rules important to new players come first. draft: http://a.qoid.us/alr.txt (but it needs to lose some of the annotations and such, and the categorization is preliminary) - A mouseover glossary for the ruleset (for terms like by announcement, which are a big chunk of the FAQ and probably a big source of confusion). I've always meant to get around to re-doing Chuck's scheme on a single page but with sorting options: Sort by logical Sort by new player importance Sort by precedence (power then number) Sort by last modification (Others of use)? Should be pretty trivial to implement (I did it once but didn't finish/maintain it) I just haven't gotten around to re-do. Adding mouseovers to that would be cool. -G.
Re: DIS: jumbled thoughts
On Thu, 15 Jul 2010, Ed Murphy wrote: Yally wrote: Perhaps we should have a contest. Each player can submit a new player's guide. Thereafter, Agora votes on which guide is the best and that player is awarded a win. Then we can combine the best parts of each guide to create one truly excellent guide. Fragment: Q. How do I win? What happens when I win? What's the point of winning? A. Agora, as an ongoing game, doesn't end or generally reset itself much when players win. Currently, it doesn't have sequential rounds, though the first game of Agora (essentially the first round), was won and ended long ago (we keep Rule 104 around in memory; it's been judged many times to have no effect on current gameplay, rounds, or speakers). Rather, at any given time the Rules define multiple parallel Winning Conditions (Rule 2186), involving, for example, collecting prizes for performing multiple tasks (Rule 2199), accumulating political power (Rule 2188) or finding a loophole in the rules to make a player all- powerful (Rule 2223) or tie the logic of the Rules in knots (Rule 2110). Achieve a winning condition, and have no losing conditions apply to you (e.g. no Rests, which are Rule 2228 judicial penalties for breaking the Rules), and you win! What do you win? In general, winning only resets the minor part of the game that let you win (so you don't win twice for the same act). You get a small measure of political position (Rule 402) but more importantly, you gain a Patent Title of Champion (Rule 1922). What's a Patent Title? It's a record of distinction or honor (Rule 649) that's reported regularly by the Office of the Herald. The importance here is that this record is, in essence, a scroll of honor covering the whole history of the game back to 1993 (though some windows of time are regrettably lost). Record a win, and (barring major changes in fundamental Agoran culture) your record of Championship will join the rolls of a 17-year history to be reported in perpetuity. Over time, it's been possible to earn Patent Titles by manners other than directly winning (for example, in Rule 1922(b), by becoming acclaimed by your peers as a source of poetry and wit). As can be seen by rule 1922(a) and (d), these may be distinctions of notoriety as well as honor. Precedent holds that even if those definitions are removed from the rules, you retain the title (and it remains reported) unless explicitly stripped; hence the Herald's report tells of a colorful Agoran history filled with admirals, shoguns, samurai, boors, thieves, spies, heroes, and honorless worms, all of which are titles that are still legally held by persons somewhere out in the world.
