Re: DIS: Protos: bring back contracts!
On Mon, 27 Oct 2014, Kerim Aydin wrote: As I said, that's the dominant opinion right now. It *wasn't* the opinion of the game circa 2001, and it worked fine. In fact, it was the most traded section of the economy. Idea: Make the reward for having a proposal distributed something you need for the rest of the game. Possibly have two different rewards dependent on whether the proposal passes or fails. Greetings, Ørjan.
Re: DIS: Protos: bring back contracts!
On Mon, Oct 27, 2014 at 12:14 PM, Kerim Aydin wrote: > The idea of paying to distribute a proposal is simple. Proposals make > work for everyone (voters and officers). Writing a proposal is an aspect > of gameplay that's the "creative" part, paying for all of Agora to > review and vote on it is the cost of being creative. > > There was almost always a free path for the "work" proposals (ones > submitted out of duty to fix bugs). The funny thing is that I think this also perhaps ought to be backwards. Some bugs are serious, most are not. Considering how easy they are to write, minor "work" proposals create a relatively large amount of work for voters and officers while having little benefit. Meanwhile, good gameplay proposals make the game more interesting, are at most a few per year and really do deserve reward IMO. Admittedly, it's hard to predict in advance what proposals will be good in practice... maybe create a "Best Quarterly Proposal" competition with a high reward?
Re: DIS: Protos: bring back contracts!
On Mon, 27 Oct 2014, Jonatan Kilhamn wrote: > On 27 October 2014 19:33, Sprocklem wrote: > > On 2014-10-27 12:24, Jonatan Kilhamn wrote: > >> Now I imagine a game where this is the only source of proposal > >> distributions, so that every officer can set their own price (bribe) > >> for distributing someone else's proposal... > > An obvious problem I see with this is that it could result in certain > > proposals never being distributed. > > > > -- > > Sprocklem > > Hmm. > > Solutions: > - Make "very old" proposals, i.e. more than a month, distributable > - Have the Promotor distribute the oldest proposal (possible "the N > oldest", though set N too high and it's not worth paying for) > - Suck it up and say that if no-one ever distributes your proposal, > you probably wouldn't have gotten that many votes for it anyway... > Though the system should be set up so that just voting diligently > should give you enough points to distribute a single proposal if it's > something really important to you. In the old system, you could count on earning enough just on "basic player salary" to get one out without anyone's help every couple weeks. Other than that, proposals could just sit forever. I think at one stage it was cheaper (or one per week free?) if you took on the Scribe role. So there wasn't a single officer that was the gatekeeper, it was the Scribes. So, if there's not enough scribes, you might decide to become a Scribe to make money distributing peoples' proposals for them. We haven't had mutually exclusive Roles for a looong while. That could be a good thing to try again. -G.
Re: DIS: Protos: bring back contracts!
On 27 October 2014 19:33, Sprocklem wrote: > On 2014-10-27 12:24, Jonatan Kilhamn wrote: >> Now I imagine a game where this is the only source of proposal >> distributions, so that every officer can set their own price (bribe) >> for distributing someone else's proposal... > An obvious problem I see with this is that it could result in certain > proposals never being distributed. > > -- > Sprocklem Hmm. Solutions: - Make "very old" proposals, i.e. more than a month, distributable - Have the Promotor distribute the oldest proposal (possible "the N oldest", though set N too high and it's not worth paying for) - Suck it up and say that if no-one ever distributes your proposal, you probably wouldn't have gotten that many votes for it anyway... Though the system should be set up so that just voting diligently should give you enough points to distribute a single proposal if it's something really important to you.
Re: DIS: Protos: bring back contracts!
On 2014-10-27 12:24, Jonatan Kilhamn wrote: > Now I imagine a game where this is the only source of proposal > distributions, so that every officer can set their own price (bribe) > for distributing someone else's proposal... An obvious problem I see with this is that it could result in certain proposals never being distributed. -- Sprocklem
Re: DIS: Protos: bring back contracts!
On 27 October 2014 17:57, Kerim Aydin wrote:
>
> I blurred things a bit. You could put stuff in the Proposal Pool for
> free, so the "writing" was free. Distribution to voting has a cost. But
> part of the game was putting a proposal in the Pool, then figuring
> out if you had enough votes to make it worth paying the cost of Promotion.
> Or getting someone else to pay for you in exchange for something.
>
> There were more proposals that were plain-old power plays ("This
> proposal will put our bloc ahead. I'll make two proposals to make
> stopping it expensive, then save some currency in reserve to stop
> attempts from the other bloc of stopping this").
>
> So the goals not just creativity but included "winning" (in the sense
> that "winning" might be defined as getting an advantage over other
> blocs).
>
> So in other words, getting a proposal out there for voting was a part of
> the gameplay that called for a little strategy. I really miss that.
>
Idea: combine this structure with the idea of giving more power to
officers, by a) letting the Promotor decide e.g. "the three free
proposals of the week" and/or using "free proposal distributions /
week" as a general reward for officers.
Now I imagine a game where this is the only source of proposal
distributions, so that every officer can set their own price (bribe)
for distributing someone else's proposal...
--
Tiger
Re: DIS: Protos: bring back contracts!
On Mon, 2014-10-27 at 09:57 -0700, Kerim Aydin wrote: > That's a great idea (I'm assuming you mean basically "pay to keep your > contracts in play for whatever we define is in play?"). This can > have a double trading as you could trade Contracts entire as well > as whatever currencies are used to pay for them. Is this what you're > thinking? Pretty close to that. You'd definitely want a creation fee, and possibly a maintenance fee as well. Perhaps the better way to do effective maintenance fees would be to have contract creation fees scale with the number of contract-analogues you're maintaining; this reduces recordkeepor burden, and gives players incentives to get rid of old contract-analogues to create new ones, rather than having to scramble at the end of each month or whatever. I'm currently unclear on whether the charge should be for the contract-analogue itself, or for membership in it. -- ais523
Re: DIS: Protos: bring back contracts!
On Mon, 27 Oct 2014, Alex Smith wrote:
> On Mon, 2014-10-27 at 09:14 -0700, Kerim Aydin wrote:
> > On Mon, 27 Oct 2014, Alex Smith wrote:
> > > Things that have traditionally consistently been of high economic value:
> >
> > For "traditionally" defined since 2007.
> >
> > Before 2007, the three pillars were (1) the ability to distribute
> > proposals,
> > (2) voting on proposals, and (3) making up for your rules breakages. This
> > was repeated for several economies until the Contracts era.
> >
> > The idea of paying to distribute a proposal is simple. Proposals make
> > work for everyone (voters and officers). Writing a proposal is an aspect
> > of gameplay that's the "creative" part, paying for all of Agora to
> > review and vote on it is the cost of being creative.
> >
> > There was almost always a free path for the "work" proposals (ones
> > submitted out of duty to fix bugs).
> >
> > Since 2007, the "Pay to write a proposal? Agora should be paying *me*
> > to write this!" attitude has really not been a boon for gameplay.
>
> I'd argue that there's been something of a shift of attitudes in the
> goal of the game, in that case. A quick look at the Herald's report
> shows that players like me and scshunt are very high on the leaderboards
> for Most Wins Ever, despite having been here for only a fraction of
> Agora's existence. And I'd argue that the main reason for that is that
> wins are something that we've both decided that it's actively worth
> aiming for. In my case, I find them an interesting goal because Agorans
> tend to have a culture of making them difficult and thought-provoking
> things to aim for, while not obstructively blocking them once they're
> valid.
Yes, between 2001 and 2006 wins were much much less frequent. There
was more interest in the economies. The was also a period of Team Wins
(since Teams don't hold patent titles, records of those wins aren't
preserved).
Note that: I only started tracking the "method" of win in the Herald's
Report in 2008. So the current "ribbons" style of winning is a wholly
informal post-2008 creation. I wonder if that small change in the
Report style is what has led to making wins seem worth "collecting" so
much more?
> From what you're saying, I assume that in the past, "opportunities to be
> creative" were the end goal of most(?) players, to the extent that they
> were willing to spend in-game assets to gain those opportunities? This
> would indeed lead to a game in which things were rated very differently.
I blurred things a bit. You could put stuff in the Proposal Pool for
free, so the "writing" was free. Distribution to voting has a cost. But
part of the game was putting a proposal in the Pool, then figuring
out if you had enough votes to make it worth paying the cost of Promotion.
Or getting someone else to pay for you in exchange for something.
There were more proposals that were plain-old power plays ("This
proposal will put our bloc ahead. I'll make two proposals to make
stopping it expensive, then save some currency in reserve to stop
attempts from the other bloc of stopping this").
So the goals not just creativity but included "winning" (in the sense
that "winning" might be defined as getting an advantage over other
blocs).
So in other words, getting a proposal out there for voting was a part of
the gameplay that called for a little strategy. I really miss that.
> It probably also explains both why Contracts were successful, and why
> they lead to the "old" economic systems no longer working. Contracts
> offered such huge scope for creativity that there was no longer the
> ability to reasonably charge for it; why pay to distribute a proposal,
> when you could create a contract and gain your opportunity to be
> creative for free?
Because without shortages, there's no economy. Sandbox mode is fun
for a bit but then just dies because there's too many things to do.
Look how many Offices we've proposed to run "new games" and how few
people are willing to track the current ones (scorekeepor?)
> (This could also explain why Agora started attracting players like me
> around that era. I don't gain much enjoyment from proposing /or/ from
> voting on proposals, unless it ties into some sort of scam; the main
> reason I make proposals is to shape the game into something that's
> capable of keeping my interest. In a "pay for creativity opportunities"
> economy, I'd almost certainly quickly get bored and leave.)
There were plenty of scammers then.
> That said, this offers a potential path forwards. If the ability to be
> creative is something that enough players actually value, it'd make
> sense to simply charge for the creation of Contract Analogue 2014.
That's a great idea (I'm assuming you mean basically "pay to keep your
contracts in play for whatever we define is in play?"). This can
have a double trading as you could trade Contracts entire as well
as whatever currencies are used to pay for them. Is this
Re: DIS: Protos: bring back contracts!
On Mon, 2014-10-27 at 09:14 -0700, Kerim Aydin wrote: > On Mon, 27 Oct 2014, Alex Smith wrote: > > Things that have traditionally consistently been of high economic value: > > For "traditionally" defined since 2007. > > Before 2007, the three pillars were (1) the ability to distribute proposals, > (2) voting on proposals, and (3) making up for your rules breakages. This > was repeated for several economies until the Contracts era. > > The idea of paying to distribute a proposal is simple. Proposals make > work for everyone (voters and officers). Writing a proposal is an aspect > of gameplay that's the "creative" part, paying for all of Agora to > review and vote on it is the cost of being creative. > > There was almost always a free path for the "work" proposals (ones > submitted out of duty to fix bugs). > > Since 2007, the "Pay to write a proposal? Agora should be paying *me* > to write this!" attitude has really not been a boon for gameplay. I'd argue that there's been something of a shift of attitudes in the goal of the game, in that case. A quick look at the Herald's report shows that players like me and scshunt are very high on the leaderboards for Most Wins Ever, despite having been here for only a fraction of Agora's existence. And I'd argue that the main reason for that is that wins are something that we've both decided that it's actively worth aiming for. In my case, I find them an interesting goal because Agorans tend to have a culture of making them difficult and thought-provoking things to aim for, while not obstructively blocking them once they're valid. >From what you're saying, I assume that in the past, "opportunities to be creative" were the end goal of most(?) players, to the extent that they were willing to spend in-game assets to gain those opportunities? This would indeed lead to a game in which things were rated very differently. It probably also explains both why Contracts were successful, and why they lead to the "old" economic systems no longer working. Contracts offered such huge scope for creativity that there was no longer the ability to reasonably charge for it; why pay to distribute a proposal, when you could create a contract and gain your opportunity to be creative for free? (This could also explain why Agora started attracting players like me around that era. I don't gain much enjoyment from proposing /or/ from voting on proposals, unless it ties into some sort of scam; the main reason I make proposals is to shape the game into something that's capable of keeping my interest. In a "pay for creativity opportunities" economy, I'd almost certainly quickly get bored and leave.) That said, this offers a potential path forwards. If the ability to be creative is something that enough players actually value, it'd make sense to simply charge for the creation of Contract Analogue 2014. That should keep the creativity seekers interested (if there are any left by this point), the weird gamestate fans interested (you normally need to be able to create contract-analogues to set it up), and the scamsters / victory junkies interested (again, if you're going to win via contract-analogue, even in the simplest case of "bribe half the players to vote FOR my victory proposal", you're going to have to pay for those contract-analogues). -- ais523
Re: DIS: Protos: bring back contracts!
On Mon, 27 Oct 2014, Alex Smith wrote: > Things that have traditionally consistently been of high economic value: For "traditionally" defined since 2007. Before 2007, the three pillars were (1) the ability to distribute proposals, (2) voting on proposals, and (3) making up for your rules breakages. This was repeated for several economies until the Contracts era. The idea of paying to distribute a proposal is simple. Proposals make work for everyone (voters and officers). Writing a proposal is an aspect of gameplay that's the "creative" part, paying for all of Agora to review and vote on it is the cost of being creative. There was almost always a free path for the "work" proposals (ones submitted out of duty to fix bugs). Since 2007, the "Pay to write a proposal? Agora should be paying *me* to write this!" attitude has really not been a boon for gameplay. -G.
Re: DIS: Protos: bring back contracts!
On Mon, 27 Oct 2014, Alex Smith wrote: > On Mon, 2014-10-27 at 08:16 -0700, Kerim Aydin wrote: > > One of the biggest issues with Economies since the Big One fell apart > > in 2003 is that no one seems to want to pay to distribute Proposals > > anymore - there's been a strong ethos against that for years now > > that didn't used to exist. Without something that you *have* to > > pay to play (make proposals), it's hard to diversify beyond buying > > votes. All the other economies have kind of been one-trick ponies. > > IMO. > > Part of the problem here is an attitude that writing proposals is > something desirable that people would be willing to pay to do. Really, > it's more of a duty, something needed to keep Agora going, but which few > people actually want to engage in for its own sake; it's like holding an > office. As I said, that's the dominant opinion right now. It *wasn't* the opinion of the game circa 2001, and it worked fine. In fact, it was the most traded section of the economy. -G.
Re: DIS: Protos: bring back contracts!
On Mon, 2014-10-27 at 09:59 -0600, Sprocklem wrote: > On 2014-10-27 09:47, Alex Smith wrote: > > * Wins / assets that let you win; > > * Votes on proposals (both over a time period, and on a single > > proposal); > > * The ability to disable/penalise other players. [I was > > traditionally willing to trade away quite a lot in return for an > > agreement for the player I was trading with to become inactive > > at a time of my choice in the past. I made several such deals, > > all of which turned out to the mutual benefit of both parties.] > > Yes, but none of these are things that need to be payed for and, as G. > stated, without something of high value that people need to pay for, > many people will likely ignore the economy, or at least only use it > minimally, making it hard to get started. You can charge for pretty much anything. Buying wins has happened on occasion (High Score is the most visible example); buying votes is a frequent game mechanic whenever we have an economy; and although disablings are normally done via agreement, that didn't prevent me slinging around Stool Pigeons and Dunce Caps back when they existed. If you make the economic part of the voting system sufficiently unbalanced over the democratic part, votes /will/ be worth paying for. Of course, that way lies several economic scams that have been done to death, but that may just mean we can avoid them this time round. -- ais523
Re: DIS: Protos: bring back contracts!
On 2014-10-27 09:47, Alex Smith wrote: > * Wins / assets that let you win; > * Votes on proposals (both over a time period, and on a single > proposal); > * The ability to disable/penalise other players. [I was > traditionally willing to trade away quite a lot in return for an > agreement for the player I was trading with to become inactive > at a time of my choice in the past. I made several such deals, > all of which turned out to the mutual benefit of both parties.] Yes, but none of these are things that need to be payed for and, as G. stated, without something of high value that people need to pay for, many people will likely ignore the economy, or at least only use it minimally, making it hard to get started. -- Sprocklem
Re: DIS: Protos: bring back contracts!
On Mon, 2014-10-27 at 09:37 -0600, Sprocklem wrote: > I can't think of any in Agora that is really high value to back it. It > might be interesting to tie the economic system into The Province's > economy, where you would need to pay in order to accomplish certain > things in the sub-game. Things that have traditionally consistently been of high economic value: * Wins / assets that let you win; * Votes on proposals (both over a time period, and on a single proposal); * The ability to disable/penalise other players. [I was traditionally willing to trade away quite a lot in return for an agreement for the player I was trading with to become inactive at a time of my choice in the past. I made several such deals, all of which turned out to the mutual benefit of both parties.] Also, the ability to hold offices is conditionally economically valuable, depending on the ruleset. It should be noticed that the reason that it was omd and me in particular who got to attempt the dictatorship scams was based around holding relevant offices at the time; as-is, I think there's a pretty decent reward for several of the offices right now even though points are broken, simply due to office control. -- ais523
Re: DIS: Protos: bring back contracts!
On 2014-10-27 09:25, Alex Smith wrote: > On Mon, 2014-10-27 at 08:16 -0700, Kerim Aydin wrote: > I agree that an economy needs something to back it (just see what > happened to VP), but backing it with something of negative value is > unlikely to work very well. > I can't think of any in Agora that is really high value to back it. It might be interesting to tie the economic system into The Province's economy, where you would need to pay in order to accomplish certain things in the sub-game. -- Sprocklem
Re: DIS: Protos: bring back contracts!
On Mon, Oct 27, 2014 at 11:24 AM, Kerim Aydin wrote: > > On thing that was particularly getting old was the "contracts = persons" > angle of that version. I wouldn't vote for bringing that part back. > Define the term properly: "A contract is an agreement between two or more persons." I had a thought some years back when there was a rash of transferring assets to all sorts of entities -- France, Hillary Clinton, a specific rule, or the asset itself. My idea was that "property" can be owned, a "person" (or some other entity/ies within Agora) can own, and anything outside the scope of the game doesn't count. Then my idea was taken over by a Group and never seen again. -- OscarMeyr
Re: DIS: Protos: bring back contracts!
On Mon, 27 Oct 2014, Kerim Aydin wrote: > On Mon, 27 Oct 2014, Alex Smith wrote: > > On Mon, 2014-10-27 at 06:24 +, Eritivus wrote: > > > "Contracts" was the obvious answer to a question I had about an > > > idea, so I was pleasantly surprised to see your proposal. > > > > > > I'm FOR unless I see good reasons not to bring this back. > > > > I think people just wanted a change. Also, we'd reached the point where > > contract scams had started repeating. > > As ais523 said, repeal was just because > that particular version was seeming creaky at the time. On thing that was particularly getting old was the "contracts = persons" angle of that version. I wouldn't vote for bringing that part back.
Re: DIS: Protos: bring back contracts!
On Mon, 2014-10-27 at 08:16 -0700, Kerim Aydin wrote: > One of the biggest issues with Economies since the Big One fell apart > in 2003 is that no one seems to want to pay to distribute Proposals > anymore - there's been a strong ethos against that for years now > that didn't used to exist. Without something that you *have* to > pay to play (make proposals), it's hard to diversify beyond buying > votes. All the other economies have kind of been one-trick ponies. > IMO. Part of the problem here is an attitude that writing proposals is something desirable that people would be willing to pay to do. Really, it's more of a duty, something needed to keep Agora going, but which few people actually want to engage in for its own sake; it's like holding an office. Or in other words, charging for proposal submission is a bit like charging someone for the right to have to keep a record of the Rulesets. I agree that an economy needs something to back it (just see what happened to VP), but backing it with something of negative value is unlikely to work very well. -- ais523
Re: DIS: Protos: bring back contracts!
On Mon, 27 Oct 2014, Alex Smith wrote: > On Mon, 2014-10-27 at 06:24 +, Eritivus wrote: > > Why were contracts repealed? So far all I've discovered is that the > > repeal occurred during a lull in Feb 2010. > > > > "Contracts" was the obvious answer to a question I had about an > > idea, so I was pleasantly surprised to see your proposal. > > > > I'm FOR unless I see good reasons not to bring this back. > > I think people just wanted a change. Also, we'd reached the point where > contract scams had started repeating. Whether you call them contracts, subordinate legal codes, subnomics, contests, or promises, we've had at least 5 versions of sub-agreements since I joined in 2001. Just like basic win conditions, differs by flavors and particulars but it always comes back. Surprised it's taking a while to come back this time. As ais523 said, repeal was just because that particular version was seeming creaky at the time. Looking back, Contracts are particularly noticeable as it was the version that had the largest % of activity while going on, is was the most articulated version in terms of Rules, and also (maybe) because several current "old timers" joined then, so there's some nostalgia going on too. > (Agora definitely benefits from having some sort of player-mintable > gamestate around, because that's the usual way to bootstrap a working > economy. Although economies based entirely within the rules have > apparently worked out in the past, I've never seen it happen; all the > economies since I started playing have had a large player-driven > component.) One of the biggest issues with Economies since the Big One fell apart in 2003 is that no one seems to want to pay to distribute Proposals anymore - there's been a strong ethos against that for years now that didn't used to exist. Without something that you *have* to pay to play (make proposals), it's hard to diversify beyond buying votes. All the other economies have kind of been one-trick ponies. IMO. -G.
Re: DIS: Protos: bring back contracts!
On Mon, 2014-10-27 at 06:24 +, Eritivus wrote: > Why were contracts repealed? So far all I've discovered is that the > repeal occurred during a lull in Feb 2010. > > "Contracts" was the obvious answer to a question I had about an > idea, so I was pleasantly surprised to see your proposal. > > I'm FOR unless I see good reasons not to bring this back. I think people just wanted a change. Also, we'd reached the point where contract scams had started repeating. A while later, we brought in Promises as a replacement. They were never used for the purpose I'd originally intended for them (currencies that players could mint using their own actions as backing), because people put a bunch of conditions on them to make them work basically like contracts. They nonetheless lead to interesting gameplay, though. Perhaps we should try to find yet another different way to make binding agreements. We've already tried pragmatic (contracts) and platonic (promises). There may be others, though. (Agora definitely benefits from having some sort of player-mintable gamestate around, because that's the usual way to bootstrap a working economy. Although economies based entirely within the rules have apparently worked out in the past, I've never seen it happen; all the economies since I started playing have had a large player-driven component.) -- ais523
Re: DIS: Protos: bring back contracts!
Why were contracts repealed? So far all I've discovered is that the repeal occurred during a lull in Feb 2010. "Contracts" was the obvious answer to a question I had about an idea, so I was pleasantly surprised to see your proposal. I'm FOR unless I see good reasons not to bring this back.
DIS: Protos: bring back contracts!
Arguments: When I first joined Agora, back in 'oh-such-and-such, contracts, including partnerships and assets, were among my favorite aspects of the game. They were one of the defining features of Agora, setting it apart from B Nomic as "the awesome nomic". (Another feature I really liked was the distinction between Ordinary and Democratic proposals.) Assets generated quite a bit of gameplay, too. (Miniproto: set the rules to what they were at the end of 2008, with some modifications.) Presumably this won't happen unless someone volunteers to be Notary. (Why's everyone looking at me?) —the Warrigal Proposal, "Bring back contracts!", adoption index 1: Reenact Rule 1742, with the following text, and set its power to 1: Contracts are binding agreements governed by the rules. Any agreement made by one or more persons with the intention that it be binding on them and governed by the rules is a contract (unless it would automatically terminate as a contract). Persons SHALL NOT create excessive numbers of superfluous contracts. A contract automatically terminates if the number of parties to it falls below the number of parties the rules require for the contract. If other rules do not specify such a number for a contract, then a contract requires at least two parties. Parties to a contract SHALL act in accordance with that contract, as long as this is reasonably possible. If a contract contains a clause identifying it as public, and the contract's text has been published, then the contract is a public contract. Changes in the text or membership of a public contract do not take effect until the new text or membership (as applicable) is published. Reenact Rule 2173, with the following text, and set its power to 1: The Notary is an office; its holder is responsible for keeping track of contracts. The parties to a public contract SHALL keep the Notary informed of its text and set of parties. The Notary's monthly report includes this information for each public contract. The Notary CAN terminate any contract without objection. If a proposal submitted in the same message as this one, titled "Bring back partnerships!" or "Bring back assets!", has already taken effect, then it takes effect again. Proposal, "Bring back partnerships!", adoption index 3: If no proposal submitted in the same message as this one, titled "Bring back contracts!", has yet begun to take effect, then the remainder of this proposal does not take effect. In Rule 869 "How to Join and Leave Agora", delete following paragraph: Any organism that is generally capable of freely originating and communicating independent thoughts and ideas is a person. Rules to the contrary notwithstanding, no other entities are persons. Reenact Rule 2150, with the following text, and set its power to 2: A person is an entity defined as such by rules with power of at least 2. A person CAN generally be the subject of rights and obligations under the rules. Any biological organism that is generally capable of communicating by email in English (including via a translation service) is a person. A first-class person is a person of a biological nature. All other persons are second-class. The basis of a first-class person is the singleton set consisting of that person. Reenact Rule 2145, with the following text, and set its power to 2: If a contract devolves its legal obligations onto a subset of its parties, all of them being first-class persons, then those parties onto whom the obligations are devolved are the members of the contract. A public contract with at least two members is a partnership. A partnership is a second-class person. Parties of a partnership CAN publish messages on its behalf by announcement as allowed (in the sense of ability, not permission) by the text of the partnership. Persons SHALL NOT attempt to do so unless it is unambiguous whether or not the publication is thus allowed. Reenact Rule 2144, with the following text, and set its power to 2: A partnership's basis is the set containing its members who are first-class persons, along with each member of the basis of each of its members who are partnerships. If a partnership's basis is the same as, or a subset of, the basis of any registered partnership, then the former partnership CANNOT register, and can be deregistered by any person With Notice. Reenact Rule 2170, with the following text, and set its power to 3: A public message's claim as to who published it is self-rati
