Monday, October 12, 2009

Concept for discussion: Down in Flames

(intentionally not a proposal.  Really, this time.)
The idea being that if a Proposal collects “X” number of consecutive “AGAINST” votes and no “FOR” votes at all, then the Proposal may be Failed even if it has not yet timed out nor collected a quorum of votes. 
I am aware that there are good reasons not to clear a proposal out of the queue before its turn simply because the proposal’s author has S/K’ed it.  In this case, though, if a proposal is so bad that no one other than its author supports it and it quickly runs up a lot of negative votes, then why trouble to keep it in the queue.
Perhaps if a Proposal is Failed by this method, then the Proposer’s author is locked out of making any more Proposals (even if he would otherwise have an open proposal slot) for some period- say, 24 hours from the Failing of the Proposal.

Unrelated concept:  In our ruleset, the final action that is taken upon a Proposal is to Enact it, to Fail it, or to Veto it.  But we don’t have a generic term that collectively describes all of these alternatives.  Such a term may be useful. I suggest “Resolved” (i.e., the Proposal is Resolved”, the Admin Resolves it, etc.)

Comments

Kevan: he/him

12-10-2009 15:48:10 UTC

Are you suggesting this as a core rule, or as a mechanic for the metadynasty? It’s easier to talk about proposals if you actually propose them (and a little more sportsmanlike to take the risk of proposing it undiscussed).

“Vetoing” isn’t an action, so far as I can see - Rule 1.5 just lists “enacting” and “failing”. We get by with “enact or fail”, but if you think we’d benefit from defining “resolve” in the glossary, go for it.

spikebrennan:

12-10-2009 15:57:13 UTC

I think I learned from the Proxies discussion that significant changes to the mechanics are probably better as dynastic rules so that they can be tried out on an interim basis before they make it to the big show.  Disagree about the “sportsmanlike”; people discuss concepts in the blog and the IRC all the time.

Kevan: he/him

12-10-2009 16:05:07 UTC

IRC is fine, I’ve just always been a bit baffled by the “here’s an idea, but not a proposal” blog posts. If you proposed it, we could start playing with it more quickly.

(And this is, I think, the first dynasty in a while where you actually risk losing some points if a proposal is poorly received.)

redtara: they/them

12-10-2009 17:05:06 UTC

I like the “Resolved” part, and I’m imperial about the other.

Bucky:

12-10-2009 17:06:48 UTC

I think the term you want is ‘ceases to be Pending’.

spikebrennan:

12-10-2009 17:15:31 UTC

Bucky: but then the verb form of what the Admin does is “causes the Proposal to cease to be Pending”, which is awkward.

arthexis: he/him

13-10-2009 00:19:25 UTC

I agree to the Resolved part.

Bucky:

14-10-2009 04:30:01 UTC

@spikebrennan: Oh, that.  That’s “adminning”.

Kevan: he/him

14-10-2009 10:41:12 UTC

@Bucky: Although “adminning” gets a mention in the glossary, I can’t see that we actually define it anywhere. The glossary is long overdue a rewrite to simply define this kind of thing.