Sunday, June 17, 2012

A related issue: Admins and timing scams

So, I don’t mind the way things turned out, but I had a third dynastic scam I was going to try to perform if I could get a chance between my DoV being failed and the proposal to repeal all dynastic rules being enacted: had I been an Admin, I would have been able to recruit someone to vote against and fail it, but since I wasn’t, Rodney passed the proposal immediately (three minutes) after failing the DoV, and I didn’t get the chance.  Meanwhile, scshunt’s core rules scam was only possible because he was an Admin, since the critical action was enacting a DoV, and even in my relatively short tenure at BlogNomic I’ve been in other situations where Adminship materially affected scams, including earlier in this Dynasty (although I was cooperating with scshunt at that point).  This is a little unfair.

I’m curious if anyone would support an “emergency” mechanism for non-Admins to perform actions usually reserved for Admins, such as editing posts and updating the GNDT layout: you would make a post to represent the action, and the platonic gamestate would be updated as usual, even though you wouldn’t be able to update the corresponding gamestate tracking documents.  This obviously has the potential to cause confusion, but making a post is loud enough and you’d be strongly encouraged to use the mechanism only when absolutely necessary.

Worth it?  There are certainly enough Admins in the players list to cooperate with, but the number available and on IRC at any particular time is low enough, and the gameplay fast enough, there there might not really be a reasonable chance.  Is being an Admin just a reasonable advantage of having stayed in the game a long time?

Comments

scshunt:

17-06-2012 23:38:27 UTC

I am cautiously in favor of this; it seems like a nice way to avoid relying too much on admins for timing. I’ll note, though, that I would have been willing to enact someone else’s DoV for the same scam had they found it first, and am generally willing to participate in Admin scams unless they go beyond what I feel is appropriate.

omd:

17-06-2012 23:40:29 UTC

Incidentally, there should be an explicit ban on posting comments under the circumstances that the blog currently locks posts, just in case necroposting becomes a scam again in the future.

Cpt_Koen:

17-06-2012 23:46:18 UTC

I’m really not in favour of delayed gamestate tracking. Besides, I’ve been assuming admins do not abuse their privileges, just like regular players do not abuse their power of voting against DoVs.

scshunt:

17-06-2012 23:55:00 UTC

@omd: Yes, there should.

Rodney:

18-06-2012 00:40:55 UTC

Actually, it was Clucky who enacted the proposal, though I was in the process when it happened. Since we were around at the same time, and I think the subscription thing would summon someone, it was bound to happen the moment I voted.

There’s been discussion of making everyone an admin, before, and the reason we don’t is certain Very Dangerous Things that can be done with the keys (see: our past home). There’s certain things such as a shell login to the server and FTP access that even most admins don’t have, and for good reason.

Still, there’s certainly no reason ordinary players can’t update the Ruleset at least. There may be a way to modify the GNDT so that it’s safer and easier to add arbitrary new fields, and I can think of Dynasties that might take advantage of that. I think Admins can keep sole control of idling/unidling however, it’s rarely tactically useful considering the time limits.

Also, I’d prefer a different term, such as Steward, because Admin implies power and prestige we don’t actually have.

omd:

18-06-2012 01:02:03 UTC

I actually can edit the Ruleset.  I consider not having full history and revertability for the GNDT and blog a technical issue, but not necessarily an easy one to fix, at least in the blog’s case.

Clucky: he/him

18-06-2012 01:16:25 UTC

Not admining a proposal so that you can pull off a scam to win should get any admin stripped of their admin privileges.

scshunt’s scam didn’t really depend on being an admin. He could’ve gotten an admin to help him out.

If admins are actively doing stuff to give themselves advantages, that should be stopped. We certainly shouldn’t create a system where non admins can do admin stuff, because that makes it look like its okay to use admin privileges to give yourself an advantage.

omd:

18-06-2012 01:58:41 UTC

It would at least have been weird if scshunt weren’t an admin. An admin would be reasonable in wearing an admin hat and not a player hat and essentially acting for him, but would by no means be required to do so, and I suspect most admins would have refused to take an action that the rules clearly didn’t envision.

omd:

18-06-2012 02:04:54 UTC

(In particular, not adminning a proposal seems to me considerably less abusive than adminning an ancient DoV.)

ais523:

18-06-2012 02:50:30 UTC

I have something of a habit of roping in admins to perform admin actions required as part of a scam. (At least Darth Cliche, scshunt, and lilomar; I’m probably forgetting several).

I think not adminning a proposal is perfectly legitimate, unless there’s only one active admin, as it’s the other admins’ fault that it’s not being adminned too. (So is adminning a proposal in a legal but unexpected way; part of my win in the Mornington Crescent dynasty was based on persuading an admin to add a newly created rule in an unusual position in the ruleset.)

Clucky: he/him

18-06-2012 17:42:36 UTC

Simply not admining a proposal I wouldn’t mind quite as much. There are times I don’t admin proposals simply because the vote is close and they are timed out but I don’t want them to pass. But doing that doesn’t give me any unsort of unfair advantage.

What OMD was wishing he could do here was admin a DoV and then refrain from admining a proposal to give himself time to pull off a scam. That *is* using your admin powers to give yourself a completely unfair advantage.