Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
On 9/16/19 8:19 PM, Kerim Aydin wrote: Oops, forgot this part: In addition to proposals and voting, we did do blot-expunging tokens. I was actually thinking about the exact opposite of this - gaining Coins in exchange for also gaining Blots, sort of a lender of last resort thing. I'm not going to actually propose it because there's not that many uses for coins right now. -- Jason Cobb
Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
On Mon, Sep 16, 2019 at 4:44 PM James Cook wrote: > What other shortages has Agora had in the past? CFJs? Voting? Tradable > blot-expunging tokens would probably be an even worse idea than > putting a price on voting, but oops, too late, I guess I just > suggested that. Oops, forgot this part: In addition to proposals and voting, we did do blot-expunging tokens. It wasn't horrible, but it did tend to gamify rules breakages a bit; e.g. there was more "I'm willing to pay the cost of breaking this rule because I've got plenty of tokens" and we weren't so stuffy about insisting on full criminal procedures for blots, and in fact had a few ways to blot people as a game tactic since the tokens were also a game tactic. People may or may not like that nowadays. More recently (2017?) we tried pay-for-CFJ and didn't like that at all - if someone raised an interesting question, people felt it should be asked and answered without impediment. -G.
Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
On Mon, Sep 16, 2019 at 4:44 PM James Cook wrote: > Did shortages make the gameplay worse? I worry they might discourage > new players, or encourage people to submit big proposals combining > unrelated things. Shortages do sound fun, though. > > In the spirit of markets, it might be fun to limit proposals by having > a limited number of proposal tokens sold off every quarter, like a > reverse of the quarterly cheque buy-backs. That was what the system was; the number of total proposal tokens in circulation was the same as the number of players, and the only way to get them was via monthly auctions. The officer-in-charge could control currency flow by choosing the # to auction, but that global limit kept the flow low. Later we had a deck-building game with a finite deck, one of the "base" cards was a proposal token card, and similarly low numbers were available for the draw. For new players in particular (new = first 90 days or something), we had a bonus which was "if your proposal is adopted, you get your token back". This actually gave new players a getting-started advantage, because they could offer to use their token on a proposal in exchange for some other thing, then get the token back. You also had genuinely worthwhile officer advantages - if you're holding an office because you "like to play and be useful", you're probably also the type who likes proposing things, so an extra proposal per month or whatever actually felt like a valuable and concrete thank-you. It didn't feel limiting in a bad way at the time (to me anyway) - people tended to collect omnibus "bugfix" proposals that fixed lots of little errors at once, but didn't tend to jam big concepts together (because it wasn't worth the risk of voting down once concept because the other one was unpopular). I think it also made people more patient to play with whatever the current subgame was rather than spend a lot of time proposing changes. I think the big problem that built up was voting tokens, not proposal tokens. Those weren't spent, they gave permanent voting strength boosts to whomever held them - and people held onto them, they were really expensive when they were auctioned, and new players were stuck at lower voting levels indefinitely. -G. > What other shortages has Agora had in the past? CFJs? Voting? Tradable > blot-expunging tokens would probably be an even worse idea than > putting a price on voting, but oops, too late, I guess I just > suggested that. > > -- > - Falsifian
Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
On Mon, 16 Sep 2019 at 16:32, Kerim Aydin wrote: > On 9/14/2019 9:57 AM, James Cook wrote: > > I'm being an officer to have fun, help out the game, and earn brownie > > points with you all. I wouldn't do it just for the Coins. > > Agreed, for the most part. > > > That being said, if we do assume Coins motivate people, I think there > > is an argument for balancing. If officers aren't completing reports, > > or people aren't judging CFJs on time, etc, it might be a sign that > > the rewards aren't high enough relative to the other ways of making > > money. So a system that automatically decreases the reward for things > > people are already eager to do, and increases the rewards for things > > people are not eager to do, may be desirable if we imagine Coins are > > how people are motivated. > > No amount of coins will motivate anyone if there isn't an actual shortage of > goods (to buy with coins) that people want to use coins to compete for. > > We've played with "true" shortages before (e.g. when pending proposals was > so expensive that players could afford 1 per month as a baseline). But none > of the "recent" (back through 2016) economic systems have had true shortages > like that because we weren't willing to have them. > > -G. Did shortages make the gameplay worse? I worry they might discourage new players, or encourage people to submit big proposals combining unrelated things. Shortages do sound fun, though. In the spirit of markets, it might be fun to limit proposals by having a limited number of proposal tokens sold off every quarter, like a reverse of the quarterly cheque buy-backs. What other shortages has Agora had in the past? CFJs? Voting? Tradable blot-expunging tokens would probably be an even worse idea than putting a price on voting, but oops, too late, I guess I just suggested that. -- - Falsifian
Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
On 9/14/2019 9:57 AM, James Cook wrote: I'm being an officer to have fun, help out the game, and earn brownie points with you all. I wouldn't do it just for the Coins. Agreed, for the most part. That being said, if we do assume Coins motivate people, I think there is an argument for balancing. If officers aren't completing reports, or people aren't judging CFJs on time, etc, it might be a sign that the rewards aren't high enough relative to the other ways of making money. So a system that automatically decreases the reward for things people are already eager to do, and increases the rewards for things people are not eager to do, may be desirable if we imagine Coins are how people are motivated. No amount of coins will motivate anyone if there isn't an actual shortage of goods (to buy with coins) that people want to use coins to compete for. We've played with "true" shortages before (e.g. when pending proposals was so expensive that players could afford 1 per month as a baseline). But none of the "recent" (back through 2016) economic systems have had true shortages like that because we weren't willing to have them. -G.
Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
On Thu, 12 Sep 2019 at 21:49, Timon Walshe-Grey wrote: > On Thursday, September 12, 2019 6:15 PM, James Cook > wrote: > > Benefits: > > * Self-balancing: We still have the property that if officers slack > > off, then efficiency cheques are worth more, simply because fewer will > > be issued. > > Thinking about this more, I'm not sure this is a benefit at all. If cheques' > worth is _inversely_ proportional to their prevalence (or, in the initial > draft, if a high performance value makes cheques' value likely to decrease), > then surely that incentivises _balancing_ activity between the four interest > groups? I would rather _unconditionally_ encourage activity in each one, as > the current coins system does. > > -twg I more or less agree that this wouldn't really help with officer participation, not for that reason, but because I doubt officers are really motivated that much by wages. Speaking for myself, at least, I'm being an officer to have fun, help out the game, and earn brownie points with you all. I wouldn't do it just for the Coins. I guess if the rewards were much higher, we'd more often see people temporarily deputising to publish reports of vacant offices. That being said, if we do assume Coins motivate people, I think there is an argument for balancing. If officers aren't completing reports, or people aren't judging CFJs on time, etc, it might be a sign that the rewards aren't high enough relative to the other ways of making money. So a system that automatically decreases the reward for things people are already eager to do, and increases the rewards for things people are not eager to do, may be desirable if we imagine Coins are how people are motivated. >From this point of view, Trigon's original proposal seems a bit closer to mark than mine. Neither solution is the most direct way to address the problem, but they both seem fun. I'm certainly not opposed to alternative mechanisms that are also fun. (If we make a new officer for handling this stuff, I propose Economist.) -- - Falsifian
Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
On Thu, Sep 12, 2019 at 9:17 PM Reuben Staley wrote: > On 9/12/19 12:15 PM, James Cook wrote:> What if, instead of these > balancing rules, each interest group does a > > stock (cheque) buy-back every quarter, and the only way to cash in a > > cheque between quarters is to sell it to another player? > > > > Specifically: > > > > * Make cheques of each interest group a currency so players can exchange > them. > > > > * At the start of each quarter, every interest group does a cheque > > buy-back. It works like this. I'll use Efficiency as the example. > > * Efficiency earns 50 Coins. > > * Each player can declare sell offers. E.g. I offer to cell 3 > > efficiency cheques for 5 Coins each, and an additional 2 efficiency > > cheques for 10 Coins each. > > * After the offer period is over, Efficiency spends its 50 Coins to > > buy as many cheques as possible, starting with the lowest sell offers > > and working its way up. > > This is a really interesting system. In theory, it could provide a nice > diversion for the players, and it would allow the people to have more > say in what they think cheques are actually worth. I am having trouble > comprehending optimal strategies already. > > > Benefits: > > * Self-balancing: We still have the property that if officers slack > > off, then efficiency cheques are worth more, simply because fewer will > > be issued. > > * Nobody needs to explicitly keep track of how many reports were missed. > > * We can have fun speculating about prices and selling cheques to each > other. > > > > Other interest groups: > > > > If Justice also gets 50 Coins per quarter, that would mean judging a > > CFJ is more lucrative if fewer are being called. If we don't like that > > we could grant Justice a number of Coins depending on the total number > > of CFJs called, which shouldn't be too hard to figure out. > > I do like the idea of having the amount of coins each interest group > gets to give based on some factor, but that might be a bad idea because > then cheques might be valued at about the same every quarter. > > All in all, I do really like this. It's definitely more in the > 'minigame' territory than C version 1, which makes the whole thing > less Aris-friendly. Participation in the economy would be absolutely > essential. What if we have a flat cash-in rate for cheques that anyone > can utilize any time? It would be more beginner-friendly. Bearing in > mind that we can issue a larger number of cheques, this might just be 1 > coin, and we could give out 5 efficiency cheques per report, etc. > I’m opposed to the entire notion anyway, so please don’t try to make things less minigamish to make me happy. It won’t work at that, and you’ll likely end up with a suboptimal system, and then we’ll all be unhappy. -Aris > >
Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
On 9/12/19 12:15 PM, James Cook wrote:> What if, instead of these balancing rules, each interest group does a stock (cheque) buy-back every quarter, and the only way to cash in a cheque between quarters is to sell it to another player? Specifically: * Make cheques of each interest group a currency so players can exchange them. * At the start of each quarter, every interest group does a cheque buy-back. It works like this. I'll use Efficiency as the example. * Efficiency earns 50 Coins. * Each player can declare sell offers. E.g. I offer to cell 3 efficiency cheques for 5 Coins each, and an additional 2 efficiency cheques for 10 Coins each. * After the offer period is over, Efficiency spends its 50 Coins to buy as many cheques as possible, starting with the lowest sell offers and working its way up. This is a really interesting system. In theory, it could provide a nice diversion for the players, and it would allow the people to have more say in what they think cheques are actually worth. I am having trouble comprehending optimal strategies already. Benefits: * Self-balancing: We still have the property that if officers slack off, then efficiency cheques are worth more, simply because fewer will be issued. * Nobody needs to explicitly keep track of how many reports were missed. * We can have fun speculating about prices and selling cheques to each other. Other interest groups: If Justice also gets 50 Coins per quarter, that would mean judging a CFJ is more lucrative if fewer are being called. If we don't like that we could grant Justice a number of Coins depending on the total number of CFJs called, which shouldn't be too hard to figure out. I do like the idea of having the amount of coins each interest group gets to give based on some factor, but that might be a bad idea because then cheques might be valued at about the same every quarter. All in all, I do really like this. It's definitely more in the 'minigame' territory than C version 1, which makes the whole thing less Aris-friendly. Participation in the economy would be absolutely essential. What if we have a flat cash-in rate for cheques that anyone can utilize any time? It would be more beginner-friendly. Bearing in mind that we can issue a larger number of cheques, this might just be 1 coin, and we could give out 5 efficiency cheques per report, etc. -- Trigon
Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
On Thursday, September 12, 2019 6:15 PM, James Cook wrote: > Benefits: > * Self-balancing: We still have the property that if officers slack > off, then efficiency cheques are worth more, simply because fewer will > be issued. Thinking about this more, I'm not sure this is a benefit at all. If cheques' worth is _inversely_ proportional to their prevalence (or, in the initial draft, if a high performance value makes cheques' value likely to decrease), then surely that incentivises _balancing_ activity between the four interest groups? I would rather _unconditionally_ encourage activity in each one, as the current coins system does. -twg
Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
On Thu., Sep. 12, 2019, 14:15 James Cook, wrote: > On Mon, 9 Sep 2019 at 10:07, Reuben Staley > wrote: > > Create a new rule with title "Balancing", power 2, and text: > >During the first Eastman week of each month, the Treasuror CAN and > >SHALL perform the following actions, collectively known as > >Balancing, in sequence: > > > >1. Establish the performance value of each interest group as > > follows: > > A. Justice: (the number of cases submitted in the previous > > Agoran month that were not issued a valid judgement within > > one week of being assigned) / (the number of cases submitted > > in the previous Agoran month) > > B. Efficiency: The mean of the following value for each office: > > - If the office has no monthly or weekly duties, 0. > > - If the office has monthly duties but no weekly duties, 0 > >if its monthly duties were performed in the previous > >Agoran month; 1 otherwise. > > - If the office has weekly duties but no monthly duties, > >(the number of weeks its weekly duties were not > >performed in the previous Agoran month) / 4. > > - If the office has both monthly and weekly duties, ((the > >number of weeks its weekly duties were not performed in > >the previous Agoran month) + (1 if its monthly duties were > >not performed in the previous month)) / 5. > > C. Legislation: (the number of proposals submitted in the > > previous Agoran month whose outcomes were not ADOPTED) / > > (the number of proposals submitted in the previous Agoran > > month) > > D. Participation: (the number of Agoran decisions initiated in > > the previous Agoran month whose outcome was FAILED QUORUM) / > > (the number of Agoran decisions initiated in the previous > > Agoran month) > >2. For each interest group: > > A. generate a random number between 0 and 1 to at least three > > significant digits. > > B. Increment the value of the interest group by one if the > > generated number is equal to or greater than the performance > > value of the interest group; otherwise decrement its value > by > > one. > >3. Create a public message that includes all relevant values > > from this process. > > What if, instead of these balancing rules, each interest group does a > stock (cheque) buy-back every quarter, and the only way to cash in a > cheque between quarters is to sell it to another player? > > Specifically: > > * Make cheques of each interest group a currency so players can exchange > them. > > * At the start of each quarter, every interest group does a cheque > buy-back. It works like this. I'll use Efficiency as the example. > * Efficiency earns 50 Coins. > * Each player can declare sell offers. E.g. I offer to cell 3 > efficiency cheques for 5 Coins each, and an additional 2 efficiency > cheques for 10 Coins each. > * After the offer period is over, Efficiency spends its 50 Coins to > buy as many cheques as possible, starting with the lowest sell offers > and working its way up. > > Benefits: > * Self-balancing: We still have the property that if officers slack > off, then efficiency cheques are worth more, simply because fewer will > be issued. > * Nobody needs to explicitly keep track of how many reports were missed. > * We can have fun speculating about prices and selling cheques to each > other. > > Other interest groups: > > If Justice also gets 50 Coins per quarter, that would mean judging a > CFJ is more lucrative if fewer are being called. If we don't like that > we could grant Justice a number of Coins depending on the total number > of CFJs called, which shouldn't be too hard to figure out. > > Same for participation, though it seems desirable to me that > participation is rewarded more when people aren't voting. > Follow up note: with this change, in theory it's fine to issue a huge number of legislation cheques like AI*(F-A) since the value of a cheque at buy-back time will just correspondingly go down. I don't have an opinion right now on how much passing proposals should be worth. >
Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
On Mon, 9 Sep 2019 at 10:07, Reuben Staley wrote: > Create a new rule with title "Balancing", power 2, and text: >During the first Eastman week of each month, the Treasuror CAN and >SHALL perform the following actions, collectively known as >Balancing, in sequence: > >1. Establish the performance value of each interest group as > follows: > A. Justice: (the number of cases submitted in the previous > Agoran month that were not issued a valid judgement within > one week of being assigned) / (the number of cases submitted > in the previous Agoran month) > B. Efficiency: The mean of the following value for each office: > - If the office has no monthly or weekly duties, 0. > - If the office has monthly duties but no weekly duties, 0 >if its monthly duties were performed in the previous >Agoran month; 1 otherwise. > - If the office has weekly duties but no monthly duties, >(the number of weeks its weekly duties were not >performed in the previous Agoran month) / 4. > - If the office has both monthly and weekly duties, ((the >number of weeks its weekly duties were not performed in >the previous Agoran month) + (1 if its monthly duties were >not performed in the previous month)) / 5. > C. Legislation: (the number of proposals submitted in the > previous Agoran month whose outcomes were not ADOPTED) / > (the number of proposals submitted in the previous Agoran > month) > D. Participation: (the number of Agoran decisions initiated in > the previous Agoran month whose outcome was FAILED QUORUM) / > (the number of Agoran decisions initiated in the previous > Agoran month) >2. For each interest group: > A. generate a random number between 0 and 1 to at least three > significant digits. > B. Increment the value of the interest group by one if the > generated number is equal to or greater than the performance > value of the interest group; otherwise decrement its value by > one. >3. Create a public message that includes all relevant values > from this process. What if, instead of these balancing rules, each interest group does a stock (cheque) buy-back every quarter, and the only way to cash in a cheque between quarters is to sell it to another player? Specifically: * Make cheques of each interest group a currency so players can exchange them. * At the start of each quarter, every interest group does a cheque buy-back. It works like this. I'll use Efficiency as the example. * Efficiency earns 50 Coins. * Each player can declare sell offers. E.g. I offer to cell 3 efficiency cheques for 5 Coins each, and an additional 2 efficiency cheques for 10 Coins each. * After the offer period is over, Efficiency spends its 50 Coins to buy as many cheques as possible, starting with the lowest sell offers and working its way up. Benefits: * Self-balancing: We still have the property that if officers slack off, then efficiency cheques are worth more, simply because fewer will be issued. * Nobody needs to explicitly keep track of how many reports were missed. * We can have fun speculating about prices and selling cheques to each other. Other interest groups: If Justice also gets 50 Coins per quarter, that would mean judging a CFJ is more lucrative if fewer are being called. If we don't like that we could grant Justice a number of Coins depending on the total number of CFJs called, which shouldn't be too hard to figure out. Same for participation, though it seems desirable to me that participation is rewarded more when people aren't voting.
Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
On Tue, Sep 10, 2019 at 6:12 PM Kerim Aydin wrote: > > On 9/10/2019 4:43 PM, Aris Merchant wrote: > > If not, we’re gating proposals out of an > > abstract opinion that they ought to be gated rather than because it’s in > > anyone’s interest. > > I could say it's a load on everyone (i.e. the "voters") when lots of > proposals get submitted without much thought, but that's not really it. > The real reason is, it's a game. Part of games are the challenges that > come > from limiting actions. Since we change the rules, sometimes we want to > gamify proposals in that matter. > > I know you've historically been very against proposal fees, and I've > generally been for them, but it's not for a deep philosophical reason other > than "some of us want to play that way for a while." > > All that said, just putting a coin fee on proposals doesn't make proposal > fees "interesting", there has to be some deeper play than that to make it > worthwhile... I know interesting systems have existed at various points in the past. That said, I’ve never seen one in practice, so I’m a intensely skeptical of any claim that a new system is going to fit into that category. -Aris
Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
On 9/10/2019 4:43 PM, Aris Merchant wrote: > If not, we’re gating proposals out of an > abstract opinion that they ought to be gated rather than because it’s in > anyone’s interest. I could say it's a load on everyone (i.e. the "voters") when lots of proposals get submitted without much thought, but that's not really it. The real reason is, it's a game. Part of games are the challenges that come from limiting actions. Since we change the rules, sometimes we want to gamify proposals in that matter. I know you've historically been very against proposal fees, and I've generally been for them, but it's not for a deep philosophical reason other than "some of us want to play that way for a while." All that said, just putting a coin fee on proposals doesn't make proposal fees "interesting", there has to be some deeper play than that to make it worthwhile... -G.
Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
On 9/10/19 8:21 PM, Jason Cobb wrote: I've written a script to parse the distributions, so the fact that there are proposals doesn't affect me there. Whoops - yes the fact that proposals exist does affect me, but the number doesn't. -- Jason Cobb
Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
On 9/9/19 6:10 AM, Reuben Staley wrote: Create a new rule with title "Interest Groups", power 1, and text: An interest group is an entity defined as such by this rule. Each interest group has a goal. The following are the interest groups of Agora and their goals: A. Justice: interested in seeing justice served B. Efficiency: interested in seeing official duties performed C. Legislation: interested in seeing proposals passed D. Participation: interested in seeing votes cast Value is a natural interest group switch with a maximum value of 10 and a default value of 5. A few more thoughts on this (sorry, thought of these after first message): Explicitly limiting the definitions to a single rule increases coupling and decreases modularity. Would something break if other rules could define interest groups? Also, you need to state who tracks Value - under R2139, this proto would force the Registrar to track it. -- Jason Cobb
Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
On 9/10/19 7:43 PM, Aris Merchant wrote: Who do infinite free proposals hurt? The only people I can think of who might be adversely affected are the Promotor and the Assessor (if the proposals are really bad, they’ll never hit the Rulekeepor, and extra the amount of work for voters isn’t big). As Promotor, I can say that I’d much rather track extra proposals than track whether proposals have been pended. Does it bother the H. Assessor? If not, we’re gating proposals out of an abstract opinion that they ought to be gated rather than because it’s in anyone’s interest. -Aris My thoughts: I've written a script to parse the distributions, so the fact that there are proposals doesn't affect me there. Recording the votes doesn't take long - even with the distributions with dozens of proposals are pretty quick. What does bug me is redistributions - I try to keep each set of proposals separate in the Github repo, so I end up having to record votes twice. So, no, I do not, as the Assessor, particularly care how many proposals there are. -- Jason Cobb
Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
On 9/10/19 9:43 AM, Kerim Aydin wrote: I really *do* like the idea of different sectors with different "performance values" with currency speculation between them, and the event-constrained random walk governing the various values (i.e. something semi-predictable so an attentive player can trade on the probabilities), if there's a way to get at a similar idea without the recordkeeping overhead. That's a completely understandable sentiment. How about a simpler system something like: The value of participation decreases if one or more Agoran decisions initiated in the last month was resolved as FAILED QUORUM. It increases otherwise. Justice works the same, but with overdue cases. Efficiency changes based on some stats about filled offices. This requires far less overhead with regard to math and tracking, though it is less intriguing. -- Trigon
Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
On Tue, Sep 10, 2019 at 4:20 PM Reuben Staley wrote: > On 9/10/19 4:10 AM, Timon Walshe-Grey wrote:> I do wonder if maybe "all > the interlocking cogs... turning fine" is part of the problem. In > real-life political systems, things keep changing because people still > feel that they are inadequate or unjust, or because there are current > events that need to be responded to. But in Agora, there seems to be a > general consensus that the current system is fit for purpose and needs > no major improvements or alterations. So, naturally, nothing much tends > to change with the "core" rules, and instead we've been distracting > ourselves with a series of sub-games. > > > > Perhaps it's time to deliberately tinkering some of the core rules and > see what happens? > > Right, this is exactly how I envisioned C A deliberate change to the > core ruleset. Economic systems, despite shifting due to the needs of the > rest of the rules, are still a core part of the game. C would change > up the process a little bit, perhaps spurring a change to the rest of > the ruleset. Do you want me to expand this to more parts of the core > ruleset? I have plenty of ideas for that. > Economic systems really aren’t a core part of the game. We’ve functioned without them before. Yes, you still need some way of tracking who can do what, but it doesn’t always take the form of a currency. You could yank the economic system and to the best of my knowledge everything would still basically function, apart from like zombies, which are also non-core. > > >For example, I know from archives that proposals tend to oscillate > between "free and accessible to everyone" and "gated behind game > mechanics". When I registered a year and a half ago, proposals cost a > nominal fee, and now they're totally unrestricted - so we've gone through a > phase of direct democracy. What would people think about changing that? > > For the record, I've never really been completely on-board with infinite > completely free proposals for all. I would love if someone brought > proposal fees back. Who do infinite free proposals hurt? The only people I can think of who might be adversely affected are the Promotor and the Assessor (if the proposals are really bad, they’ll never hit the Rulekeepor, and extra the amount of work for voters isn’t big). As Promotor, I can say that I’d much rather track extra proposals than track whether proposals have been pended. Does it bother the H. Assessor? If not, we’re gating proposals out of an abstract opinion that they ought to be gated rather than because it’s in anyone’s interest. -Aris
Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
On 9/10/19 4:10 AM, Timon Walshe-Grey wrote:> I do wonder if maybe "all the interlocking cogs... turning fine" is part of the problem. In real-life political systems, things keep changing because people still feel that they are inadequate or unjust, or because there are current events that need to be responded to. But in Agora, there seems to be a general consensus that the current system is fit for purpose and needs no major improvements or alterations. So, naturally, nothing much tends to change with the "core" rules, and instead we've been distracting ourselves with a series of sub-games. Perhaps it's time to deliberately tinkering some of the core rules and see what happens? Right, this is exactly how I envisioned C A deliberate change to the core ruleset. Economic systems, despite shifting due to the needs of the rest of the rules, are still a core part of the game. C would change up the process a little bit, perhaps spurring a change to the rest of the ruleset. Do you want me to expand this to more parts of the core ruleset? I have plenty of ideas for that. For example, I know from archives that proposals tend to oscillate between "free and accessible to everyone" and "gated behind game mechanics". When I registered a year and a half ago, proposals cost a nominal fee, and now they're totally unrestricted - so we've gone through a phase of direct democracy. What would people think about changing that? For the record, I've never really been completely on-board with infinite completely free proposals for all. I would love if someone brought proposal fees back. -- Trigon
Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
On 9/9/2019 3:10 AM, Reuben Staley wrote: >During the first Eastman week of each month, the Treasuror CAN and >SHALL perform the following actions, collectively known as >Balancing, in sequence: Now that I look more closely, my specific concerns are doubled - this requires the Treasuror to accurately track literally every aspect of the game - CFJs, Offices, and Proposals - by individual results, including proposals and CFJs are withdrawn, with the success of a major action (the final calculations) failing if there's a single mistake. I like the idea of collective activity but I'm it's just too much bookkeeping in the Agoran format. Of course there's various small ways to make parts of the calculation more pragmatic but I'm worried it still leaves a huge burden prone to constant re-doing of mistakes. I really *do* like the idea of different sectors with different "performance values" with currency speculation between them, and the event-constrained random walk governing the various values (i.e. something semi-predictable so an attentive player can trade on the probabilities), if there's a way to get at a similar idea without the recordkeeping overhead. -G.
Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
On 9/10/2019 3:10 AM, Timon Walshe-Grey wrote: > Perhaps it's time to deliberately tinkering some of the core rules and see > what happens? For example, I know from archives that proposals tend to > oscillate between "free and accessible to everyone" and "gated behind game > mechanics". When I registered a year and a half ago, proposals cost a > nominal fee, and now they're totally unrestricted - so we've gone through > a phase of direct democracy. What would people think about changing that? Always a fan of that. Tho in a "cycling through previous ideas" sense, I think the next think up for tinkering might be votes. We've gone through periods of hierarchical voting systems and haven't done that in a while. Example from the past: the Order of Succession, an ordered list of players. Person on top is Speaker or PM. Next person down has 3N votes, next two people below that 2N, everyone else N. Every T time, top person goes to the bottom of the list and everyone moves up. Gameplay stuff can re-order the list in various ways. (Of course there's plenty of other ways to distribute votes via gameplay, just an example). -G.
Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
On 9/9/2019 3:10 AM, Reuben Staley wrote: > Their recordkeepor is the Treasuror. After the last couple debacles, I'm making a firm policy of voting against any minigame, no matter how good on paper, that where the proposor emself isn't installed into office as the game runner (whether via a new office or an old one). -G.
Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
On Tuesday, September 10, 2019 7:58 AM, Reuben Staley wrote: > I don't know what you want to improve about the core system. The most > change that has been enacted in the past few months to the core system > are minor fixes that clarify things. Sure, we find a broken bit > sometimes, but those are fixed relatively quickly and with little > fanfare. At this point, all the interlocking cogs that turn Agora into a > well-oiled machine are turning fine. And unless you or anyone else can > find an area where the rules could use significant improvement, I don't > see the core system improving at all. Not outside of minimal wording > changes. I do wonder if maybe "all the interlocking cogs... turning fine" is part of the problem. In real-life political systems, things keep changing because people still feel that they are inadequate or unjust, or because there are current events that need to be responded to. But in Agora, there seems to be a general consensus that the current system is fit for purpose and needs no major improvements or alterations. So, naturally, nothing much tends to change with the "core" rules, and instead we've been distracting ourselves with a series of sub-games. Perhaps it's time to deliberately tinkering some of the core rules and see what happens? For example, I know from archives that proposals tend to oscillate between "free and accessible to everyone" and "gated behind game mechanics". When I registered a year and a half ago, proposals cost a nominal fee, and now they're totally unrestricted - so we've gone through a phase of direct democracy. What would people think about changing that? -twg
Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
On 9/10/19 1:10 AM, Aris Merchant wrote:
No comment on the specific proposal yet, but a general comment. I
think we should wait a while before having another mini-game. The last
few we've had have died, not because they were bad ideas, but partly
because of bugs and most of all because there wasn't enough interest.
These problems are related. The reason I didn't play Politics when it
was reenacted was because nichdel (I think) found a loophole and
prevented literally anybody else from having any interaction with the
minigame.
We've literally just given up on space. Before that, we had politics,
which was interesting and relatively light on bugs, but no one played
that either.
I respectfully opine that Cheques and Balances is not comparable to
full-fledged minigames like Spaaace and Politics. Calling it a minigame
even is a stretch. It's only slightly more of a game than the current
coin economics.
I think it's time we took a break.
We are taking a break. We have been for the last month. And it's boring.
I think the Agoran
public has expressed its collective disinterest of adding layers on
top of the base game (or, rather, its collective disinterest in
engaging with those layers).
Involvement in Spaaace and Politics, was never required. This system
forces a minimal level of involvement if you intend to make money. It
requries one extra sentence ("I claim a reward of 1 cheque. I cash in
the cheque for 5 coins" vs "I claim a reward of 5 coins"). This is
another reason Cheques and Balances can't really be compared to a
minigame, and another reason I have confidence in its success.
That'll change again someday, but I don't
think it has yet. I'd like to ask that the option of letting things stay
still and doing basic game development be seriously considered.
The game has been in a standstill for weeks. Months if you count the
time minigame rules were still in effect but went unutilized. No
development is occuring. C will make things slightly more interesting.
I think C has the potential to spark development.
Just to make this very clear, I'm not saying that focusing on the base
game and focusing on mini-games are mutually exclusive. There might
even be times when they can even compliment each other. However, given
current conditions, it seems to me like focusing on a new mini-game
*right now* would be a continuation of a pattern of moving from one
thing to the next, rather stopping to slow down and consider areas for
improvements to the core system.
I don't know what you want to improve about the core system. The most
change that has been enacted in the past few months to the core system
are minor fixes that clarify things. Sure, we find a broken bit
sometimes, but those are fixed relatively quickly and with little
fanfare. At this point, all the interlocking cogs that turn Agora into a
well-oiled machine are turning fine. And unless you or anyone else can
find an area where the rules could use significant improvement, I don't
see the core system improving at all. Not outside of minimal wording
changes.
My opinion is that the best way to get Agora out of its current rut is
through something like C Maybe it will turn into a full minigame at
some later point, and we may have to start talking about Agora's
treatment of minigames as of late. In its current, minimal state,
however, I think C would be the perfect thing to revitalize the game,
given some revision.
--
Trigon
Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
On Tue, Sep 10, 2019 at 12:10 AM Aris Merchant wrote: > > On Mon, Sep 9, 2019 at 3:07 AM Reuben Staley wrote: > > > > > > > This idea has been stewing for a long time, and this is the rough draft > > of a proposal that captures my initial thoughts somewhat. > > > > I am putting this out there because the game is barren. The closest > > thing we have to gameplay at this point is the stuff Agora always has. > > CFJs and whatnot. I hope the minigame contest goes somewhere, but this > > is different and important in a completely different way. > > > > It's been a while since we've had an actual economics anyway. Coins are > > not the most interesting system out there and don't even have a cool > > name. > > > > TL;DR: Agora is boring and gross. > > > > > > No comment on the specific proposal yet, but a general comment. I > think we should wait a while before having another mini-game. The last > few we've had have died, not because they were bad ideas, but partly > because of bugs and most of all because there wasn't enough interest. > We've literally just given up on space. Before that, we had politics, > which was interesting and relatively light on bugs, but no one played > that either. I think it's time we took a break. I think the Agoran > public has expressed its collective disinterest of adding layers on > top of the base game (or, rather, its collective disinterest in > engaging with those layers). That'll change again someday, but I don't > think it has yet. I'd like to ask that the option of letting things stay > still and doing basic game development be seriously considered. Just to make this very clear, I'm not saying that focusing on the base game and focusing on mini-games are mutually exclusive. There might even be times when they can even compliment each other. However, given current conditions, it seems to me like focusing on a new mini-game *right now* would be a continuation of a pattern of moving from one thing to the next, rather stopping to slow down and consider areas for improvements to the core system. -Aris
Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
On Mon, Sep 9, 2019 at 3:07 AM Reuben Staley wrote: > > > This idea has been stewing for a long time, and this is the rough draft > of a proposal that captures my initial thoughts somewhat. > > I am putting this out there because the game is barren. The closest > thing we have to gameplay at this point is the stuff Agora always has. > CFJs and whatnot. I hope the minigame contest goes somewhere, but this > is different and important in a completely different way. > > It's been a while since we've had an actual economics anyway. Coins are > not the most interesting system out there and don't even have a cool > name. > > TL;DR: Agora is boring and gross. > > No comment on the specific proposal yet, but a general comment. I think we should wait a while before having another mini-game. The last few we've had have died, not because they were bad ideas, but partly because of bugs and most of all because there wasn't enough interest. We've literally just given up on space. Before that, we had politics, which was interesting and relatively light on bugs, but no one played that either. I think it's time we took a break. I think the Agoran public has expressed its collective disinterest of adding layers on top of the base game (or, rather, its collective disinterest in engaging with those layers). That'll change again someday, but I don't think it has yet. I'd like to ask that the option of letting things stay still and doing basic game development be seriously considered. -Aris
Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
On 9/9/19 8:34 PM, Jason Cobb wrote: On 9/9/19 10:27 PM, Reuben Staley wrote: I kind of already see proposals as the fastest way to earn money - I think I've earned more money from proposals than all the other methods (not a rigorous claim). With that in mind, does there need to be any more incentive? Alright, maybe the current amount is a bit high (esp. with more active people), but I'm not sure that I quite see the need to equalize it all, but if it's unimplementable otherwise, so be it. I do not believe it is unimplementable, I just don't have any elegant solutions. I can list some of them. A) Everything stays the same, but proposals net players a number of legislation cheques equal to ciel(AI*(F-A)/10). I don't really like this one because it stratifies everything too much. Also the dividing by ten is ugly. B) Everything stays the same, but proposals net players a number of legislation cheques equal to ciel(AI). This is much more consise and doesn't involve dividing by ten, but it also doesn't factor in how popular the proposal actually was, which I think is a negative. C) The legislation interest group gets the boot. I can't find criteria for adjusting its value anyway. You claim coins directly for passed proposals according to the current formula. The problem is that this disallows any participation in the new economic system from the most common way players earn money. These are three suggestions off the top of my head that I can easily poke holes through, but it might help with ideation. -- Trigon
Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
On 9/9/19 10:27 PM, Reuben Staley wrote: I kind of already see proposals as the fastest way to earn money - I think I've earned more money from proposals than all the other methods (not a rigorous claim). With that in mind, does there need to be any more incentive? Alright, maybe the current amount is a bit high (esp. with more active people), but I'm not sure that I quite see the need to equalize it all, but if it's unimplementable otherwise, so be it. -- Jason Cobb
Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
On 9/9/19 7:24 PM, Jason Cobb wrote:
On 9/9/19 8:24 PM, Reuben Staley wrote:
Possible ambiguity: "(Casting a vote [...]) on eir own behalf" vs.
("Casting a vote on (all proposals distributed [...] on eir own
behalf)".
What does a proposal distributed on one's own behalf even look like?
Unless I'm missing something, the second suggestion wouldn't even make
sense.
Alright, it's a stretch, but it could be read as only counting if you
were the one to distribute the proposals, and you acted on your own
behalf. So, effectively, only Aris could get it.
That does look like a valid reading, actually. I don't think any judge
would actually accpet it, but if/when I publish more revisions, I'll
clarify.
* Being the author of an adopted proposal: 1 legislation cheque.
I like the AI*(F-A) because a) it creates more money, b) it values
proposals that touch more important parts of the ruleset more highly,
and c) it values uncontroversial proposals more highly. You could
probably do something similar here, but I think all proposals getting
equal rewards is not a good thing.
While I was writing this draft up, I thought about how to do that.
Every solution I could think of was extremely inelegant. Giving out a
number of legislation cheques greater than 1 unbalances the whole
thing -- I would have to increase the others so that this is not seen
as the only way to earn money. This would, in turn, cause major
inflation because all the rewards would be multiple times greater at
points. I suppose I could change how valuable cheques are, but I feel
the system is granular enough as it is.
I kind of already see proposals as the fastest way to earn money - I
think I've earned more money from proposals than all the other methods
(not a rigorous claim).
With that in mind, does there need to be any more incentive?
--
Trigon
Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
Sorry, looks like I forgot to say that I like the idea generally - I
guess I focused on the minutiae in my previous message.
On 9/9/19 8:24 PM, Reuben Staley wrote:
Possible ambiguity: "(Casting a vote [...]) on eir own behalf" vs.
("Casting a vote on (all proposals distributed [...] on eir own
behalf)".
What does a proposal distributed on one's own behalf even look like?
Unless I'm missing something, the second suggestion wouldn't even make
sense.
Alright, it's a stretch, but it could be read as only counting if you
were the one to distribute the proposals, and you acted on your own
behalf. So, effectively, only Aris could get it.
* Being the author of an adopted proposal: 1 legislation cheque.
I like the AI*(F-A) because a) it creates more money, b) it values
proposals that touch more important parts of the ruleset more highly,
and c) it values uncontroversial proposals more highly. You could
probably do something similar here, but I think all proposals getting
equal rewards is not a good thing.
While I was writing this draft up, I thought about how to do that.
Every solution I could think of was extremely inelegant. Giving out a
number of legislation cheques greater than 1 unbalances the whole
thing -- I would have to increase the others so that this is not seen
as the only way to earn money. This would, in turn, cause major
inflation because all the rewards would be multiple times greater at
points. I suppose I could change how valuable cheques are, but I feel
the system is granular enough as it is.
I kind of already see proposals as the fastest way to earn money - I
think I've earned more money from proposals than all the other methods
(not a rigorous claim).
--
Jason Cobb
Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
Thanks for the comments.
On 9/9/19 6:45 AM, Jason Cobb wrote:
On 9/9/19 6:10 AM, Reuben Staley wrote:
Create a new rule with title "Cheques", power 2, and text:
Cheques are entities. Each cheque is associated with an interest
group. Cheques associated with the same interest group are
fungible, rules to the contrary notwithstanding. Their
recordkeepor is the Treasuror.
Why not make it an asset? That would give cheques an owner, which I
think is what you want.
I'm sure there was a draft where they were assets but I changed it for
some silly reason.
Create a new rule with title "Balancing", power 2, and text:
During the first Eastman week of each month, the Treasuror CAN and
SHALL perform the following actions, collectively known as
Balancing, in sequence:
This falls in to the trap that we've already seen - this means the
Treasuror CAN only do it in the first Eastman week - if e fails to do it
in that time, e must wait until next month.
Good point. I wrote this before that was an issue.
1. Establish the performance value of each interest group as
follows:
A. Justice: (the number of cases submitted in the previous
Agoran month that were not issued a valid judgement within
one week of being assigned) / (the number of cases submitted
in the previous Agoran month)
B. Efficiency: The mean of the following value for each office:
- If the office has no monthly or weekly duties, 0.
Potential scam of creating a bunch of offices with no responsibilities,
but at that point you're already changing the rules and might as well
just amend this one or create a bunch of coins.
I don't think that's something to be extremely concerned about. A scam
like that would take a rule amendment that I don't think very many
people would vote for.
C. Legislation: (the number of proposals submitted in the
previous Agoran month whose outcomes were not ADOPTED) /
(the number of proposals submitted in the previous Agoran
month)
D. Participation: (the number of Agoran decisions initiated in
the previous Agoran month whose outcome was FAILED QUORUM) /
(the number of Agoran decisions initiated in the previous
Agoran month)
2. For each interest group:
A. generate a random number between 0 and 1 to at least three
significant digits.
Hmm... I think "generate a random number between 0 and 1" requires a
uniform distribution over all real numbers in that range, which is not
really possible; I'm not sure that the significant digits requirement
helps it.
There's always multiplying everything by some factor of ten and
generating a random number in that range, but if I can make this work,
that would be cleaner.
B. Increment the value of the interest group by one if the
generated number is equal to or greater than the performance
value of the interest group; otherwise decrement its value by
one.
3. Create a public message that includes all relevant values
from this process.
Amend Rule 2496 "Rewards" so that it reads, in full:
A player CAN, by announcement, earn the set of assets associated
with a reward condition exactly once in a timely fashion each time
e fulfills it, provided the announcement specifies the action that
e performed and the amount of assets e earns as a result.
Below is a list of reward conditions and their associated assets.
* Casting a vote on all proposals distributed in the previous
week on eir own behalf: 1 participation cheque.
Possible ambiguity: "(Casting a vote [...]) on eir own behalf" vs.
("Casting a vote on (all proposals distributed [...] on eir own behalf)".
What does a proposal distributed on one's own behalf even look like?
Unless I'm missing something, the second suggestion wouldn't even make
sense.
* Being the author of an adopted proposal: 1 legislation cheque.
I like the AI*(F-A) because a) it creates more money, b) it values
proposals that touch more important parts of the ruleset more highly,
and c) it values uncontroversial proposals more highly. You could
probably do something similar here, but I think all proposals getting
equal rewards is not a good thing.
While I was writing this draft up, I thought about how to do that. Every
solution I could think of was extremely inelegant. Giving out a number
of legislation cheques greater than 1 unbalances the whole thing -- I
would have to increase the others so that this is not seen as the only
way to earn money. This would, in turn, cause major inflation because
all the rewards would be multiple times greater at points. I suppose I
could change how valuable cheques are, but I feel the system is granular
enough as it is.
Re: DIS: Proto for a new economics system
Responses inline: On 9/9/19 6:10 AM, Reuben Staley wrote: Title: Cheques and Balances AI: 2 Author: Trigon Create a new rule with title "Interest Groups", power 1, and text: An interest group is an entity defined as such by this rule. Each interest group has a goal. The following are the interest groups of Agora and their goals: A. Justice: interested in seeing justice served B. Efficiency: interested in seeing official duties performed C. Legislation: interested in seeing proposals passed D. Participation: interested in seeing votes cast Value is a natural interest group switch with a maximum value of 10 and a default value of 5. If you really wanted to shorten this, then the list here has no actual effect. Create a new rule with title "Cheques", power 2, and text: Cheques are entities. Each cheque is associated with an interest group. Cheques associated with the same interest group are fungible, rules to the contrary notwithstanding. Their recordkeepor is the Treasuror. Why not make it an asset? That would give cheques an owner, which I think is what you want. Players may cash in a cheque by announcement. By doing this, e loses the cheque and earns a number of coins equal to the value of the interest group associated with the cheque. Should be "CAN cash in", not "may cash in". Also, this (by my reading) makes it so you can cash in any check that exists, not just ones that you own. Create a new rule with title "Balancing", power 2, and text: During the first Eastman week of each month, the Treasuror CAN and SHALL perform the following actions, collectively known as Balancing, in sequence: This falls in to the trap that we've already seen - this means the Treasuror CAN only do it in the first Eastman week - if e fails to do it in that time, e must wait until next month. 1. Establish the performance value of each interest group as follows: A. Justice: (the number of cases submitted in the previous Agoran month that were not issued a valid judgement within one week of being assigned) / (the number of cases submitted in the previous Agoran month) B. Efficiency: The mean of the following value for each office: - If the office has no monthly or weekly duties, 0. Potential scam of creating a bunch of offices with no responsibilities, but at that point you're already changing the rules and might as well just amend this one or create a bunch of coins. - If the office has monthly duties but no weekly duties, 0 if its monthly duties were performed in the previous Agoran month; 1 otherwise. - If the office has weekly duties but no monthly duties, (the number of weeks its weekly duties were not performed in the previous Agoran month) / 4. - If the office has both monthly and weekly duties, ((the number of weeks its weekly duties were not performed in the previous Agoran month) + (1 if its monthly duties were not performed in the previous month)) / 5. Possibly special-case vacant offices? C. Legislation: (the number of proposals submitted in the previous Agoran month whose outcomes were not ADOPTED) / (the number of proposals submitted in the previous Agoran month) D. Participation: (the number of Agoran decisions initiated in the previous Agoran month whose outcome was FAILED QUORUM) / (the number of Agoran decisions initiated in the previous Agoran month) 2. For each interest group: A. generate a random number between 0 and 1 to at least three significant digits. Hmm... I think "generate a random number between 0 and 1" requires a uniform distribution over all real numbers in that range, which is not really possible; I'm not sure that the significant digits requirement helps it. B. Increment the value of the interest group by one if the generated number is equal to or greater than the performance value of the interest group; otherwise decrement its value by one. 3. Create a public message that includes all relevant values from this process. Amend Rule 2496 "Rewards" so that it reads, in full: A player CAN, by announcement, earn the set of assets associated with a reward condition exactly once in a timely fashion each time e fulfills it, provided the announcement specifies the action that e performed and the amount of assets e earns as a result. Below is a list of reward conditions and their associated assets. * Casting a vote on all proposals distributed in the previous week on eir own behalf: 1 participation cheque. Possible ambiguity:
