Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Proposal: The Money Tree

Times out and fails 3-5. -Bucky

Adminned at 02 Nov 2012 11:20:16 UTC

Enact a new rule, “Sales”:-

A Newspaper’s Sales are equal to the sum of the absolute values of its Reputation Scores.

If a Newspaper’s Sales are equal to or greater than 12, then the Editor in charge of that Newspaper has achieved victory.

A simpler reproposal of Murphy’s suggestion, which allows a mix of positive and negative scores (there’s no reason to consider a negative Reputation score to be bad, particularly for “Humor” or “Balance”) and which doesn’t care about Skeletons.

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Obituary

Hurricane Batters Philadelphia
Millions without electricity, including this correspondent. (Seriously.)
Idle me.

Proposal: Every story has an end

Quorums 1-7. — Quirck

Adminned at 31 Oct 2012 10:21:07 UTC

Create a rule titled “Controversy Creates Cash” with this text:

Each Newspaper has a Gold Star Rating equal to the number of its Reputation Scores at 4 or higher, plus the number of its Stances whose Subject has a Public Opinion at 80 or higher, minus their number of Skeletons In The Closet.

Each Newspaper has a Red Flag Rating equal to the number of its Reputation Scores at -4 or lower, plus the number of its Stances whose Subject has a Public Opinion at -80 or lower, plus their number of Skeletons In The Closet.

An Editor whose Newspaper has a Gold Star Rating or Red Flag Rating at 3 or higher achieves victory.

From the Wire

  • Negative Sport event in Germany: Police arrest 180 rioting football fans in Dortmund.
  • Negative Business event in China: BYD Co profits expected to fall 98 percent this year.
  • Negative War event in Egypt: Panic after Egyptian Air Force planes break sound barrier over Cairo.
  • Negative Sport event in Egypt: Egyptian premier football league suspended indefinitely.

Monday, October 29, 2012

Proposal: Downsizing

Passes 7-0. — Quirck

Adminned at 31 Oct 2012 10:20:07 UTC

Add a new subrule to “Sharp Practices” called “Departmental Firing”:-

Departmental Firing is a Sharp Practice that can be undertaken at any time. When undertaken by an Editor, that Editor may remove one or more Stances from their Newspaper.

Proposal: Enquire Within Upon Everything

Fails 2-2. — Quirck

Adminned at 31 Oct 2012 10:18:21 UTC

Enact a new rule, “Inquiries”:-

If no Inquiries have been called within the past 72 hours, any Editor may - as a weekly action - Call an Inquiry by reducing their Journalistic Integrity by 1, taking any surname from this list and making a post with a title “The [Surname] Inquiry”, where [Surname] is the chosen Surname. This is known as an Inquiry Post, and it should mention some aspect of journalism which is being investigated.

An Inquiry Post is treated as if it were a Wire Post containing a single Positive Government Event, with a Location of United Kingdom. If an Editor has more Skeletons than each other Editor, then they may not run a Story on an Inquiry Post.

A simple framework for Inquiries, I’m sure we could make them more combatative as we go.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Story Post: From the Wire

  • Negative Science event in Egypt - Egyptian Nobel prize revoked as data is proved fraudulent

Proposal: Breaking News

Quorums 2-7. — Quirck

Adminned at 30 Oct 2012 00:22:43 UTC

Add a subrule to the rule “Running a Story”, entitled Scoop:

If the Importance of a Event’s Location and the Public Opinion of that Event’s Subject combined total 120 or more, then that event is Breaking News. An Editor who does not have a Stance on that Breaking News’ Subject may run a Scoop on it, provided that no other Editor has run a Scoop on that Event, by running a Story on it as if they did have a Stance on that Subject, preceded by the word “Scoop!” They may then immediately EITHER raise their Journalistic Integrity by 1, OR reduce their Skeletons by 1.

Proposal: Top Stories

Self-killed. Failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 29 Oct 2012 11:16:23 UTC

To the rule “Running a Story”, add:-

If the Importance of a Event’s Location and the Public Opinion of that Event’s Subject total 100 or more, then that Event is Popular. If an Editor runs a Story on a Popular Event, and if that Editor’s Newspaper has a Stance either Pro or Anti on its Subject, then they may immediately raise or lower any of their Newspaper’s Reputation scores by 1.

From the Wire

  • Negative Celebrity event in Italy - Controversy after Ferrari display emblem of Italian Navy on car.
  • Positive Government event in Italy - Stability Law cuts lower income tax rates.
  • Negative Celebrity event in Syria - (Is this right? Ed.)
  • Neutral Business event in China - Construction begins on high-speed Xi’an-to-Sichuan rail line.

Proposal: Culture of Leaking

Reached quorum 7 votes to 1. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 29 Oct 2012 08:27:27 UTC

Add a new subrule to “Sharp Practices” called “Using Inside Sources”:-

Using Inside Sources is a Sharp Practice that can be undertaken by an Editor whenever they run a Story, no more than once per Story. If that Story would increase a Newspaper’s Journalistic Integrity or Balance by 1, it instead increases that value by 2.

Joining

Could I join the game?

Friday, October 26, 2012

Proposal: Stance Shift

Quorums 9-0. — Quirck

Adminned at 28 Oct 2012 02:26:06 UTC

Change ‘Royalty’ to ‘Business’ wherever it appears in the Ruleset.  Remove all Royalty-related Stances from the GNDT.

Proposal: The Big Society

Passes 7-0. — Quirck

Adminned at 28 Oct 2012 02:23:33 UTC

In the fourth item on the second bulleted list in the rule entitled The Spectrum, change the word ‘greater’ in the following:  “or any Anti Stance on a Subject with a Public Opinion that is equal to or greater than -75, is Centrist” to ‘less’.

If any Stance gained a Wingedness on the basis of this bullet point, remove that Wingedness.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Why

Henri becomes idle. Quorum is 6.

From the Wire

  • Positive Royalty event in Egypt - Six tombs of the Old Kingdom at Giza re-opened to the public after 25 years.
  • Negative War event in United States - Wikileaks releases details of US “detainee policies”.
  • Negative Sport event in Israel - Judo champion Arik Ze’evi retires.
  • Negative Celebrity event in Japan - Japan’s indifference to “Gangnam Style” riles South Korea.

Proposal: BlogNomic, the game that accurately models the annoyance of Hugh Grant

Quorums 7-0. — Quirck

Adminned at 27 Oct 2012 05:48:24 UTC

Add a new rule to the ruleset, titled Sharp Practices:

There exist a number of Sharp Practices that an Editor can perform. They are described in the subrules to this rule. Any time an Editor performs a Sharp Practice, they must increase their Skeletons In The Closet (tracked in the GNDT as ‘Skeletons’, defaulting to zero) by 1.

Add a new subrule to this rule, entitled Phone hacking:

Phone Hacking is a Sharp Practice that can be undertaken as a weekly action. When an Editor Hacks a Phone, they may Make a Wire Post as described in the rule entitled The Wire, containing a single Event, with a Subject of the Editor’s choosing and with a tone that must be Negative.

I think this proposal carried the implicit threat that sooner or later someone will try to get a Lord Leveson proposal passed.

Proposal: Enough, I said

Fails 1-3. — Quirck

Adminned at 27 Oct 2012 05:46:53 UTC

Add a new rule titled “Numeric Limits”, with the following text:

This Rule takes precedence over other Dynastic Rules, unless otherwise specified by another Rule.
Whenever a change to a numeric Gamestate data would cause it to be over the maximum value, set this value to the maximum value instead. Also, whenever a change to a numeric Gamestate data would cause it to be below the minimum value, set this value to the minimum value instead.

Now it should work fine.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Proposal: That’s Enough

Self-killed. Failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 26 Oct 2012 02:11:58 UTC

Add a new rule titled “Numeric Limits”, with the following text:

This Rule takes precedence over other Dynastic Rules, unless otherwise specified by another Rule.
Whenever a change to a numeric Gamestate data would cause it to be over the maximum value, make it the maximum value instead. Also, whenever a change to a numeric Gamestate data would cause it to be below the minimum value, it is the minimum value instead.

So we don’t have to state it in every numeric implementing rule.

On a side note, if I wrote just “Whenever a change to a numeric Gamestate data would cause it to be over the maximum (or below the minimum) value, it is the maximum (or minimum) value instead.” would it work, or would it be ambiguous enough for exploitation?

Proposal: Down with the queen!

Can’t enact with 6 votes against. Failed 2-6 by Kevan.

Adminned at 26 Oct 2012 02:11:42 UTC

In the rule “Stances” remove “Royalty, “. Also remove “Royalty: 0 ” from the rule “Public Opinion”. Remove “Pro-Royalty” and “Anti-Royalty” from the stances of all Editor, including idle ones. If the proposal “The Fourth Estate” passes, replace all instances of “Royalty” with “Sports” in the rule Editorials.

Its been pointed out that Royalty doesn’t really work in a lot of the locations. News events about Royalty can fit under both Celebrity and/or Government, so the whole category is rather redundant.

Proposal: The Fourth Estate

Can’t enact with 6 votes against. Failed 4-6 by Kevan.

Adminned at 26 Oct 2012 02:11:26 UTC

Add a dynastic rule entitled “Editorials” with text as follows:

As an XXX action, any Editor may publish an Editorial with respect to any Subject with respect to which that Editor’s Newspaper has a Stance.  To publish an Editorial, the Editor posts “DICE20 YYY” in the GNDT, replacing “YYY” with a statement of the Subject of the Editorial and of the Newspaper’s Stance on that Subject (for example, DICE20 Anti-Royalty).  If the Newspaper’s Stance is “Pro”, an amount shall be added to the Public Opinion for that Subject equal to (i) the outcome of the dice roll, plus (ii) the sum of all of the Newspaper’s Reputation scores; plus (iii) negative five (but not to a value more than 100), and if the Newspaper’s Stance is “Anti”, an amount shall be subtracted from the Public Opinion for that Subject equal to (i) the outcome of the dice roll, plus (ii) the sum of all of the Newspaper’s Reputation scores; plus (iii) negative five (but not to a value less than -100).  For example, if an Editor with an Anti-Royalty stance and Reputation scores summing to 2 publishes an Editorial by posting “DICE20 Anti-Royalty” and the outcome of the dice roll is 15, the Public Opinion with respect to Royalty shall be decreased by (15+2-5), or a decrease of 12 (but not to a value less than -100). An Editor may post a blog post detailing the Editorial’s gamestate effect together with any desired flavor text.

Replace XXX with “weekly” unless more than half of the EVCs to this Proposal contain the world “daily”, in which case replace XXX with “daily”.

Proposal: Making our own policies

Timed out and passed, 5-2. Josh

Adminned at 26 Oct 2012 01:43:59 UTC

If Proposal: Echo Chamber fails, this proposal does nothing.

To the second bulleted list in the rule entitled “The Spectrum”, add:

* Any Pro Stance on a Subject with a Public Opinion that is equal to or greater than 75, or any Anti Stance on a Subject with a Public Opinion that is equal to or greater than -75,  is Centrist.

Proposal: Balance of Payments

self-killed. -scshunt

Adminned at 24 Oct 2012 11:49:34 UTC

Add a new rule to the ruleset, entitled Print Media Is Dead:

Each Newspaper has a Balance, which is tracked in the GNDT. It is measured in Pounds (or Pounds Sterling, or £), may be a positive or negative whole number, and defaults to £50,000.

A Newspaper with a positive Balance is Profit-Making. A Newspaper with a negative balance is Loss-Making.

Audiences and advertising are two things that could come from this.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Proposal: Echo Chamber

9-0 is quorum and it passes. -scshunt

Adminned at 24 Oct 2012 11:48:05 UTC

To the rule “Stances”, add:-

If more newspapers have a Pro Stance on a Subject than have an Anti Stance on that Subject, then that Subject is considered to be Supported. If more newspapers have an Anti Stance on a Subject than have a Pro Stance on that Subject, then that Subject is considered to be Condemned.

Reword the rule “Public Opinion” to:-

Each Subject has a “Public Opinion” value, being an integer greater than -101 and less than 101. The Public Opinion of each Subject is tracked in this rule as follows:

  • War: 0
  • Science: 0
  • Government: 0
  • Royalty: 0
  • Sport: 0
  • Celebrity: 0

As a weekly action, the Mogul may Reflect Opinion by adding 10 to the Public Opinion of each Subject which is Supported (to a maximum of 100), and deducting 10 from the Public Opinion of each Subject which is Condemned (to a minimum of -100).

Bringing Public Opinion back into the ruleset, and adding a mechanism for adjusting those values.

Proposal: Royal Rumble

3-6. Half of the players have voted against, so it fails. -scshunt

Adminned at 24 Oct 2012 11:46:36 UTC

To the end of the rule “The Wire”, add:-

If a Royalty event is generated and its Location is neither the United Kingdom nor Japan, then the Mogul shall randomly assign it a Location of either the United Kingdom or Japan.

From the Wire

  • Negative Sport event in United States: Lance Armstrong stripped of seven Tour de France titles.
  • Positive Celebrity event in Germany: Heidi Klum to host MTV Europe Awards.
  • Negative Government event in Japan: Justice minister quits over connections to organised crime.
  • Neutral Royalty event in Russia: Celebration plans continue for the Romanov Dynasty anniversary.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Proposal: Minor GNDT cleanup

self-killed. -scshut

Adminned at 24 Oct 2012 11:45:47 UTC

Amend the rule “Reputation” by replacing

column in the GNDT called “Reputation”

with

column in the GNDT called “Reputation (JI,B,U,H)”

I deidle

Quorum becomes 7.

Proposal: There’s a Sucker Born Every Minute

Reaches quorum, 9-0. Josh

Adminned at 23 Oct 2012 00:09:32 UTC

Add a dynastic rule entitled “Public Opinion” with text as follows:

With respect to each Subject, there shall be a Gamestate statistic called “Public Opinion”.  The Public Opinion with respect to each Subject is a single integer greater than -101 and less than 101, with an initial value of zero.  The Public Opinion with respect to each Subject shall be tracked on the wiki page “Public Opinion”.

Create the wiki page “Public Opinion”.  Blank its content, then replace its content with:

War: 0
Science: 0
Government: 0
Royalty: 0
Sport: 0
Celebrity: 0

 

Proposal: York Notes on Orienteering

Reaches Quorum, 6-1. Josh

Adminned at 23 Oct 2012 00:07:37 UTC

If the Proposal titled “Orienteering” failed, this Proposal does nothing.

In the rule “The Spectrum”, replace all text up to and including the first list with the following text:

Each Stance and each Newspaper has a relative political position, which is referred to as its Wingedness. A Stance or Newspaper’s Wingedness can be Right Wing, Left Wing or Centrist; a Newspaper can also potentially be Hard Right, Hard Left, Centre-Right, or Centre-Left. Each Wingedness containing “Right” is opposite each Wingedness containing “Left”, and vice versa.

The Wingedness of a Newspaper is determined by the Wingedness of its Stances (R = Right Wing, L = Left Wing, C = Centrist, U = undefined):

  • RR -> Hard Right
  • R or RU -> Right Wing
  • RC -> Centre-Right
  • RL or CC or C or CU -> Centrist
  • LC -> Centre-Left
  • L or LU -> Left Wing
  • LL -> Hard Left
  • otherwise undefined

 

Substantive changes to determining a newspaper’s wingedness:

  • Adding CU.
  • Addressing “otherwise” (U and UU if this passes, plus CU if Orienteering passes but this doesn’t).

 

Proposal: Orienteering

Reaches quorum and passes, 6-3. Josh

Adminned at 23 Oct 2012 00:05:29 UTC

Add a new subrule to the rule called “Stances”, entitled The Spectrum:

Each Stance and each Newspaper has a relative political position, which is referred to as its Wingedness. A Stance or Newspaper’s Wingedness can be Right Wing, Left Wing or Centrist; a Newspaper can also potentially be Hard Right or Hard Left. Right Wing (or Hard Right) and Left Wing (or Hard Left) are considered to be opposite to each other.

The Wingedness of a Newspaper is established as follows:

  • If the Newspaper has two Stances that are Right Wing then the Newspaper is Hard Right.
  • If the Newspaper has only one Stance, or two Stances of which one has an undefined Wingedness, and that Stance is Right Wing, then that Newspaper is Right Wing.
  • If the Newspaper has one Stance that is Right Wing and one stance that is Centrist then that Newspaper is Centre-Right.
  • If the Newspaper has one Stance that is Right Wing and one stance that is Left Wing, OR two stances that are Centrist, OR has only one Stance and that Stance is Centrist, then the Newspaper is Centrist.
  • If the Newspaper has one Stance that is Left Wing and one stance that is Centrist then that Newspaper is Centre-Left.
  • If the Newspaper has only one Stance, or two Stances of which one has an undefined Wingedness, and that Stance is Left Wing, then that Newspaper is Left Wing.
  • If the Newspaper has two Stances that are Left Wing then the Newspaper is Hard Left.

The Wingedness of each Stance is initially undefined; however, whenever an Editor can prove the Wingedness of a Stance held by their own Newspaper under the terms of this rule then they may update this Rule to note that fact. Once the Wingedness of a Stance has been noted in this rule it cannot be changed. A Stance’s Wingedness can be defined only if such a definition can both be proved as a result of one of the following criteria and cannot be disproved by any of them:

  • If the Pro- or Anti- position of a Stance has a defined Wingedness that is either Right Wing or Left Wing then the opposing position of that Stance must be either Centrist or the opposite Wingedness.
  • If three Newspapers have an undefined Stance, and each of those Newspapers has another Stance that shares the same Wingedness, AND no Newspaper has the same undefined Stance in conjunction with a Stance of the opposite Wingedness, then the undefined Stance may be defined as possessing that Wingedness.
  • A Stance may not have any Wingedness if it can be proved to have two or more Wingednesses under the terms of the other items in this list.

The current Wingedness of each stance is detailed below:

Proposal: The Moon on Monday

Reaches quorum, 8-2. Josh

Adminned at 23 Oct 2012 00:04:27 UTC

To the rule “Stances”, add:-

An Editor may, at any time, blank his or her Newspaper’s Stances and Name, and set all of its Reputation Scores to zero.

Allowing a tactical reset, which also lifts the early adopters’ disadvantage in having picked their Stances before the first Wire came through.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Proposal: Functional diversity

Can’t pass with 6 votes against. Failed 1-6 by Kevan.

Adminned at 22 Oct 2012 08:57:56 UTC

In rule “Reputation”, replace “and Humor” with “Humor, and Diversity”.
If there exists a rule named “Running a Story”, delete in that rule the text:

(if they have not yet run a Story on any of the Events in that Wire Post)

then append a new paragraph to that rule, reading:

An Editor may not run a Story on a given Event from a given Wire Post if either of the following is true:
- They have already run a Story on an Event in that Wire Post.
- They have a negative Diversity and that Event shares a Location or Subject with one of the Events they had previously run a Story on.

Diversity should be decreased by focusing on one subject or one location too much, and increased by covering many different locations/subjects.
This can be a system of reward/punishment to encourage people not to always focus on the most newsworthy locations, or on the subject they had their first stance on.

Proposal: Worthy to print

Self-killed. Failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 22 Oct 2012 06:38:05 UTC

If there exists a rule named “Running a story”:
* replace in that rule every occurrence of the digit “1” with the phrase “that Event’s Location’s, divided by 100”.
* replace in rule “Reputation” the word “integers” with “decimal numbers”, and in that same rule every occurrence of the digit “5” with the digit “4”.

Follows my comment on “Fit to print”. Replaced 5 with 4 because there are 15 locations and the sum of their Importances is 975, and 975 * 5 / 15 is 325, and 3.25 rounded up is 4.
EDIT: added “in that same rule” to avoid random digits being changed by 20% throughout the ruleset.

Proposal: Fit to Print

Quorums 7-0. — Quirck

Adminned at 22 Oct 2012 01:07:08 UTC

Add a subrule to “The Wire” called “Running a Story”:-

If a Wire Post exists which is less than 72 hours old, any Editor may run a Story on one of that Wire Post’s Events (if they have not yet run a Story on any of the Events in that Wire Post) by responding to it with a comment that indicates the Event’s Location and Subject, and includes a Headline of the Editor’s choice. Upon doing so:-

  • If the Editor’s Newspaper’s Stance on that Event’s Subject is “Pro” and the Event is Positive (or the Stance is “Anti” and the Event is Negative), the Editor may immediately increase their Newspaper’s Journalistic Integrity by 1.
  • If the Editor’s Newspaper’s Stance on that Event’s Subject is “Pro” and the Event is Negative (or the Stance is “Anti” and the Event is Positive), the Editor may immediately increase their Newspaper’s Balance by 1.
  • If the Editor’s Newspaper has a Stance on that Event’s Subject and the Event is Neutral, the Editor may choose either Understandibility or Humor, and immediately raise or lower their Newspaper’s score in that area by 1.

From the Wire

  • Neutral Royalty event in Russia: Celebrations are being planned for the 400th anniversary of the Romanov Dynasty next year.
  • Neutral War event in Japan: The Japanese navy marked its 60th anniversary with a military parade this week.
  • Positive Sport event in UK: Racehorse Frankel retires unbeaten after 14 straight victories.
  • Positive Celebrity event in Germany: The MTV Europe Music Awards take place in Germany next month.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Proposal: Building a Name for Ones Self

Quorums 8-0. — Quirck

Adminned at 21 Oct 2012 01:43:10 UTC

Add a new dynastic rule called “Reputation” and give it the following text

Each Newspaper has a Reputation Score in the following areas: Journalistic Integrity, Balance, Understandability, and Humor. These scores are integers between -5 and 5 inclusive, and are zero by default. They are tracked in a single column in the GNDT called “Reputation” as a comma separated list in the order listed in this rule.

The idea isn’t “positive good negative bad”. Some papers like having a 12th grade reading level, others like having a 1st grade reading level. Some want to be humorous, some want no humor at all. Some want to be fair and balanced, others “fair and balanced”. And some care deeply about integrity and others could care less. Could maybe add a few more, but these were the ones I came up with at the time.

Proposal: New World Order

Quorums 8-0. — Quirck

Adminned at 21 Oct 2012 01:42:03 UTC

In the Rule “The World”, replace the contents of the list with:-

United Kingdom (100), United States (95), Libya (90), Egypt (85), China (80), France (75), Israel (70), Afghanistan (65), Syria (60), Germany (55), Japan (50), Italy (45), Greece (40), Ireland (35), Russia (30)

In case we feel like bringing this up to date, this uses data taken from the Guardian newspaper’s most reported countries of 2011.

Proposal: Down to the Wire

Quorums 7-0. — Quirck

Adminned at 21 Oct 2012 01:40:54 UTC

Enact a new rule, “The Wire”:-

No more than once every 48 hours, the Mogul may Check the Wire by performing the following actions in sequence:-

  • Generating four Events. Each Event has a randomly-selected Subject (from those Subjects listed in the rule “Stances”), a randomly-selected Location (from those Locations listed in the rule “The World”), a tone (selected at random) of either Positive, Negative or Neutral, and a Description (written by the Mogul).
  • Posting all of those Events in a blog post titled “From the Wire”. This is known as a Wire Post.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Proposal: No More Internal Debates

Quorums 6-0. — Quirck

Adminned at 21 Oct 2012 01:39:19 UTC

In the rule “Stances”, change the text:

If a Newspaper has fewer than two Stances, its Editor may assign it a new Stance, unless this would result in the Newspaper having two Stances which are the same as two of the Stances of an existing Newspaper.

to

If a Newspaper has fewer than two Stances, its Editor may assign it a new Stance on a Subject different from that of any of its existing Stances, unless this would result in the Newspaper having two Stances which are the same as two of the Stances of an existing Newspaper.

Proposal: Scoop

Self-killed. Failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 20 Oct 2012 00:12:53 UTC

Add a dynastic rule called “The Wire” with text as follows:

An Editor may cause his Newspaper to Publish a Story from the Wire.  The Wire is the website “PLACEHOLDER” and may be referred to as the Wire .  A Story is a news article at the Wire with a unique web address and headline.  An Editor may only Publish a particular Story from the Wire within 24 hours after the Wire posts that news article, according to the timestamp on that news article’s page on the Wire .  An Editor Publishes a Story from the Wire by posting a blog comment that consists of the Story’s headline, and a web link to that Story’s web page at the Wire.  Once an Editor causes his Newspaper to Publish a particular Story, no other Newspaper may Publish that Story.

If more than half of the EVCs to this Proposal include the same particular website address, then substitute that website address for “PLACEHOLDER” in the rule “The Wire”.  Otherwise, substitute http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/fronts/HOME?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME for “PLACEHOLDER” in the rule “The Wire”.

And I’m back!

Please unidle me.

Proposal: News from Around the World

Reaches quorum 10 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 20 Oct 2012 00:12:12 UTC

Enact a new rule, “The World”, with text as follows:

There are Locations, which are listed in this rule below.  Each Location is assigned an Importance (reflecting the newsworthiness of events relating to that Location), which is an integer greater than 0 and less than or equal to 100.  The base value of each Location’s Importance is set forth in parentheses next to the Location’s name in this rule, and the actual value may be subject to adjustments as provided in the Ruleset or Gamestate.  The text strings “List begins” and “List ends” denote the beginning and end of the list of Locations, but are not part of the list of Locations.  The list of Locations follows:
List begins
London (100); Paris (80); Berlin (60); New York (60); Delhi (50); Cairo (30); Constantinople (30); Peking (20); San Francisco (20)
List ends

Hell, yes

A new Kevan dynasty?  Hell, yes.  Unidle me.

Proposal: Hold The Front Page

Reaches quorum 10 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 20 Oct 2012 00:11:47 UTC

Enact a new rule, “Editors”:-

Each Editor is in charge of a single Newspaper. A Newspaper may have a Name (of no more than 20 letters), which is tracked in the GNDT. If a Newspaper has no Name, its Editor may give it any Name not already in use by another Newspaper.

Enact a new rule, “Stances”:-

A Newspaper may have one or more Stances on the Subjects of War, Science, Government, Royalty, Sport and Celebrity. Each Stance must be either Pro or Anti, and a Newspaper’s Stances are tracked in a GNDT field (eg. “Pro-War, Anti-Science”).

If a Newspaper has fewer than two Stances, its Editor may assign it a new Stance, unless this would result in the Newspaper having two Stances which are the same as two of the Stances of an existing Newspaper.

 

Ascension Address: NewsCartel Statement

Some might say it has been a difficult month for NewsCartel, with the public backlash over our use of royal paparazzi shots, the troubling revelations from the ongoing Cartlesham press inquiry, and a steepening decline of print sales. However, NewsCartel sees this as a unique opportunity to distance itself from the poor editorial decisions and unpopular brand associations of the past, and is henceforth liquidating all of its titles, firing its editors and redistributing its existing ground staff across a new raft of print newspapers, which are due to launch Monday.

The opportunity to improve our public image has never been stronger, and I will be looking to all of you to help shape a new and successful era of NewsCartel in these challenging times.

Replace “Student” with “Editor” throughout the ruleset, and “Professor” with “Mogul”.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Unidle Request

I am asking any admin to unidle me please. Thank you.

Declaration of Victory: Final Exam

Open for 12 hours, everybody voted for: 7-0. — Quirck

Adminned at 18 Oct 2012 13:45:38 UTC

I have gained five Projects through Scoring. Under Rule 2.16 (“If a Student has Scored five Projects, they have achieved victory.”) I believe I have achieved victory.

Story Post: Working from Home

I hereby claim to Score under the “Proposal Homework” rule. Here are four proposals I authored which were enacted after September 29th 2012: citation, citation, citation, citation.

Story Post: Light Work

I hereby claim to Score under the “Helping Hands” rule. Here is a citation to a Correction I voted for, here is a citation to a proposal with arrows on more than half of its EVCs including mine, here is a citation to a proposal I supported when its proposer had not yet scored under “Proposal Homework”.

Story Post: Practising for Victory

This sentence is a compulsory brag about scoring under the “Victory Practice Project” rule. Here is a citation to the creation of a dynastic rule through one of my proposals, and here is a citation to a blog post where a Student makes a truthful claim to have scored using that rule.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Proposal: Decorating the Whiteboard

Vetoed upon Ascension. Failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 19 Oct 2012 03:34:43 UTC

At the end of the rule “The Whiteboard”, add the following text:

As an exception, a Decorator may add a single Silver rectangle to the region as long as it does not obscure any part of the “Do Not Erase” text.

Proposal: Space Curvature

Vetoed upon Ascension. Failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 19 Oct 2012 03:34:28 UTC

In the rule “The Classroom” change “The Classroom is composed of 16 Desks, numbered from 1 to 16 and arranged in a 4x4 square as follows:-” to

The Classroom is composed of Desks, each having a unique number, arranged in a 4x4 square as follows:-

To the rule “The Classroom”, add a subrule “Space Transform”:-

As a weekly action, an Eraser may, while performing the step action, remove the Desk they step from by replacing that Desk number with dots in the square in the rule “The Classroom”.

There is no need to trade pens since all pens are equal. Let’s introduce some title-specific actions.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Story Post: Proper Prefecture

I’d like to remind Quirck that prefectures are mandatory.  Pen->Blue

Proposal: Membership Drive

Times out 2 votes to 3. Failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 19 Oct 2012 03:34:01 UTC

Add a new Dynastic Rule to the ruleset.  Call it “[MNT] Mentoring” and give it the following text:

When a Student uses a blog post to request to become a Student, or unidle, for the first time in the current Dynasty, they may nominate a single other Student as responsible for recruiting them.  If they do, and later author a Proposal that is enacted, and anyone makes a Story Post citing both the blog post containing the nomination and the proposal, the nominated Student scores.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Proposal: Prefecture wrap-up

Quorums 1-4. — Quirck

Adminned at 16 Oct 2012 13:29:28 UTC

The previous Prefecture ended abnormally due to idling, so I can’t assign a grade.  The Prefecture before that was nullified due to a rules change, so no grade there either.

Next up in the Prefect rotation is Quirck, so I’m giving em a blue pen.

Let me drop the quorum

Henri becomes idle, and quorum becomes 4.

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Joining

Could I, RaichuKFM, become a member of this Nomic game? Thank you and I hope I put this in the right spot.

Proposal: Cooperatice Victory

Fails 2-2. — Quirck

Adminned at 16 Oct 2012 12:50:57 UTC

Add a new rule to the ruleset.  Call it “Call ‘em in” and give it the following text:

A Student’s Victory Score is equal to twice their Projects plus the total Projects of all other Students who owe them a favor.  If a Student’s Victory Score is at least four times Quorum, that Student achieves victory.

Proposal: Let’s wrap this up then

Passes 5-2. — Quirck

Adminned at 16 Oct 2012 12:49:37 UTC

Add a new rule to the ruleset:

If a Student has Scored five Projects, they have achieved victory.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Story Post: Clucky Woz Ere

My name is the only name on the whiteboard!

It is interesting to note that when Ice made his post, technically Josh’s name was the only name on the whiteboard because he illegally updated the whiteboard to contain invalid pixels. However Bucky still accepted it so there is not much that can be done…

IceFromHell Woz Ere

The Whiteboard currently includes only my name.

Well, I just used Josh version and… Well, I do have a white Pen (:

Somehow I’m happy this project is broken (I don’t have a mouse again).

Story Post: Good Swot

I Score under Rule 2.10, [PPH] Proposal Homework:

Citations:

Proposal: Turtles All The Way Down, 7/10
Proposal: Pre-Position, 7/10
Proposal: Diversification, 7/10
Proposal: Squaring The Circle, 12/10

Story Post: Josh Woz Ere

The Whiteboard currently includes only my name.

“If a contiguous loop of non-white pixels of the same colour (the “Border Colour”) encircle at least one white pixel, and also encircle the words DO NOT ERASE written in the Border Colour, but do not encircle another contiguous loop of non-white pixels of the Border Colour, then no pixels which are both inside that loop and which are not part of the same contiguous monochromatic region as the loop may be altered.” The letter “o” in DO and NOT comprise contiguous loops of the border colours; therefore none of the existing loops are safe barriers by this definition. I therefore vandalised all of it.

90000 goes idle

Quorum drops to 4

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Proposal: Out of Mind

Quorums 5-0. — Quirck

Adminned at 12 Oct 2012 05:49:02 UTC

In the rule “Idle Students”, replace “For the purposes of the Ruleset” with:-

For the purposes of all Gamestate and the Ruleset

Per comments on Automatic for the People.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Just one question…

How specific must a reference for a rule be to be valid in a proposal?
I know that obviously minor typos are disregarded (as a reference to the rule “Prefcetures” would be), but would something like “The Prefectures” or “Whiteboard” be taken that easily?
I mean, there is nothing that forbids the existences of (sub)rules with those names, which makes it a possible scam material. Should I be alert to something of this kind, or would it be taken as refering to the “original” rules?
Thanks in advance.

Proposal: Squaring the circle

Quorums 4-0. — Quirck

Adminned at 12 Oct 2012 05:48:07 UTC

In the rule entitled The Whiteboard, after the words “and also encircle the words DO NOT ERASE written in the Border Colour,” add:

but do not encircle another contiguous loop of non-white pixels of the Border Colour,

So only the innermost circle counts, unless they’re different colours.

Tuesday, October 09, 2012

Story Post: Oops

It just occurred to me that Josh doesn’t own a white pen, making his last changes to the whiteboard illegal. I just edited the whiteboard, before realizing this, but my changes (even if we undo his) are completely legal, since I own both white and black pens (and his alterations were just white and black).
In a simpler version: this last version is legal; I’ll just keep it that way.

Prefecture Address

My Prefecture will be simple and straightforward: I will be looking to add depth to existing sub-games, specifically the whiteboard, pen ownership and bullying, and will not be looking to introduce a victory condition. I will favour proposals that introduce limited, smartly designed daily actions to the ruleset.

Monday, October 08, 2012

Proposal: Prefect Bugs

Fails 1-4. — Quirck

Adminned at 11 Oct 2012 01:04:46 UTC

Change the name of the rule “Prefectures” to “[PFC]  Prefectures”.

In that rule, after the text

Once this Prefecture Address has been posted, the Prefecture officially starts and the Student may change their Pen colour to Purple.

to

Once this Prefecture Address has been posted, the Prefecture officially starts and the Student may change their Pen colour to Purple. If, 48 hours after their appointment, they have not posted the Prefecture Address, their Prefecture starts anyway and ends after one additional minute.

1)Allowing the prefect rule to make students score
2)Keeping one Prefect from hogging the spotlight indefinitely by refusing to post an address.

Story Post: Prefect Example

I’m appointing Josh as Prefect, since he wrote the proposal in the first place.  Keep in mind that abusing the position’s power to further your own goals at the expense of the dynasty WILL result in a lower grade.

Proposal: Nobody’s Prefect

Passes 4-1. — Quirck

Adminned at 10 Oct 2012 13:17:00 UTC

In the rule “Pens”, replace “Any Student with a Purple pen is known as a Prefect. At any time, no more than one Student may possess a Purple pen. The Professor has a special Pen which, while not Purple for the purposes of the ruleset, can write in Purple ink.” with:-

  • Any Student with a Purple pen is known as an Aesthete.
  • Any Student with a Blue pen is known as a Prefect. If more than one Student is a Prefect, then all Blue pens are immediately replaced with Black ones.

Replace the second paragraph of the “Prefectures” rule with:-

If at any time there is no Prefect, the Professor may change any Student’s Pen Colour to Blue by making a story post to that effect. This Student may respond in a comment to that Post specifying their plans and priorities for their Prefecture.

And replace its fourth paragraph with:-

If a Student has been a Prefect for more than 7 days, any Student may set that Student’s Pen Colour to Black. The Professor should then, at their first opportunity, make a story post giving the former Prefect a grade, expressed as a percentage score, for their Prefecture. If the score is higher than 75%, the Student Scores.

Rename the rule to “

 Prefectures”.

In the rule “Trading”, after “and if both the Trader and Tradee have a Pen Colour,” add:-

and if neither pen is Blue,
Set a random non-Idle Student’s Pen Colour to Blue.

Switching Prefects from Purple to the non-die-rollable Blue, which makes things easier. Also dropping the fiddly Professorial selection rules (at one Prefect a week, we’ll be lucky if even half of us ever get a Blue pen), adding a what-actually-happens for weird cases where we have two Blue pens (such as a Prefect idling and returning), and banning the swapping of Prefect-coloured pens.

Proposal: Just passed by…

Self-killed. Failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 10 Oct 2012 02:19:04 UTC

Rename the rule “Prefectures” to “

 Prefectures”

To allow scoring.

And what if i don’t want to become a Prefect…..

Proposal: Automatic for the People

Self-killed. Failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 10 Oct 2012 02:18:43 UTC

Set a random Student’s Pen Colour to “Purple”.

Proposal: Diversification

Times out 4 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 10 Oct 2012 02:17:54 UTC

This proposal corrects Proposal: Licence to Kilroy (citation).

In the rule Kilroy Woz Ere, replace all instances of the word “Professor” with “Professor or Prefect”.

The measures set out in Licence to Kilroy are insufficient.

Proposal: Licence to Kilroy

Times out 3 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 10 Oct 2012 02:17:23 UTC

In the rule “Kilroy Woz Ere”, replace “If the Professor replies to that post with a comment containing a FOR voting icon within 48 hours of it being posted, then that Student Scores.” with:-

If the Professor agrees that the Whiteboard only contained that Student’s name at the time of posting, he should reply to that post with a comment containing a FOR voting icon within one week of it being posted: upon his doing so, that Student Scores.

Upping the Emperor check to a full week and adding a suggested condition.

Monday, October 08, 2012

Unidle Request

Would an admin please unidle me? Thank you.

Saturday, October 06, 2012

Proposal: Text Homework

Timed out and passed, 3-0. Josh

Adminned at 08 Oct 2012 12:13:18 UTC

If the Proposal titled “Pre-Position” (citation) failed, ignore all the white text from the following Proposal.

In the rule “Prefecture”, replace

The Prefect has a weak veto power. They may use it by casting a VETO icon as their vote on a Proposal, but it only counts as a veto if the Professor comments on the same proposal with the word “ratified” written in Purple ink. The Prefect also has a mild influence on deferential votes; votes of DEFERENTIAL are considered to be the same as the Prefect’s at a rate of 0.5 per DEFERENTIAL vote (i.e., x DEF votes count as x/2 votes of the same type as the Prefect). This effect is only in place on a proposal while the Professor has not voted for that proposal; if the Professor has voted on that proposal then DEF votes are resolved normally and the Prefect’s vote is ignored for the purposes of resolving the proposal.

with

The Prefect has a weak veto power. They may use it by casting a VETO icon as their vote on a Proposal, but it only counts as a veto if the Professor comments on the same proposal with the word “ratified” written between two “:” signs. The Prefect also has a mild influence on deferential votes; votes of DEFERENTIAL are considered to be the same as the Prefect’s at a rate of 0.5 per DEFERENTIAL vote (i.e., x DEF votes count as x/2 votes of the same type as the Prefect). This effect is only in place on a proposal while the Professor has not voted for that proposal; if the Professor has voted on that proposal then DEF votes are resolved normally and the Prefect’s vote is ignored for the purposes of resolving that proposal’s DEFERENTIAL votes.

In the Rule “The Classroom”, replace

Whenever the Professor stands over a Desk, all the Desks next to it are said to be in the Professor’s Area of Influence

with

Whenever the Professor stands over a Desk, this Desk and all the Desks next to it — just like all the Desks next to the one the Prefect currently occupies — are said to be in the Professor’s Area of Influence

In the Sub Rule “[BUL] Bully”, replace

When a Student is Cornered and any of the Desks surrounding him are inside the PAoI, he may make a new Post (invoking this Sub Rule by name) claiming to have “snitched the bullies to the Professor”. If he does that, he Scores, and all the Students occupying Desks next to him have their Desk value set to a new random value. If this new value ever makes two Students occupy the same Desk, it is randomly generated again.

with

When a Student is Cornered and any of the Desks surrounding him are inside the PAoI, he may make a new Post (invoking this Sub Rule by name) claiming to have “snitched the bullies to the Professor”. If he does that, he Scores, and all the Students occupying Desks next to him have their Desk value set to a new random value. If this new value ever makes two Students occupy the same Desk, it is randomly generated again. Also, if the PAoI responsible by the scoring of the Cornered Student was the one generated by the Prefect, the Prefect that generated it Scores.

This Proposal may not be regarded as a Correction for the purpose of the Rule “[COR] Corrections”.

In white, both the Purple Ink and the Prefect’s vote problems were corrected.
In black, giving a little more power to the Prefect, and making classroom gameplay more dinamic.
Also, correcting an error in the PAoI description: the Desk the Professor is currently in should also be counted as in the PAoI.

Also, I liked the correction’s format, so I’ll still be using it even if I — eventually — score (:

Proposal: Pre-Position

Quorums 5-0. — Quirck

Adminned at 07 Oct 2012 14:22:01 UTC

If there is a rule entitled Prefecture, add the following immediately after the words “A Prefect may act as a proxy for the Professor in certain matters”:

pertaining to setting the theme and direction of the Dynasty. Additionally, they have weakened versions of some of the Professor’s tools

If the rule does not continue to say “, described in this Rule.” then add that at the end of the newly added sentence.

Between the second and third paragraphs of that rule, add the following:

The Prefect has a weak veto power. They may use it by casting a VETO icon as their vote on a Proposal, but it only counts as a veto if the Professor comments on the same proposal with the word “ratified” written in Purple ink. The Prefect also has a mild influence on deferential votes; votes of DEFERENTIAL are considered to be the same as the Prefect’s at a rate of 0.5 per DEFERENTIAL vote (i.e., x DEF votes count as x/2 votes of the same type as the Prefect). This effect is only in place on a proposal while the Professor has not voted for that proposal; if the Professor has voted on that proposal then DEF votes are resolved normally and the Prefect’s vote is ignored for the purposes of resolving the proposal.

 

An ersatz Emperor should have the trappings of an Emperor.

Saturday, October 06, 2012

Proposal: Perfect Prefect

Quorums 5-0. — Quirck

Adminned at 07 Oct 2012 14:18:56 UTC

If the Proposal titled “Turtles, all the way down” (citation) failed, this Proposal does nothing.

In the Rule “Prefectures”, replace

no Student may be appointed as Prefect if that would mean that they had been Prefect at least twice more than another Student

with

no Student may be appointed as Prefect if that would mean that they had been Prefect at least twice more than another Student, which means that at no time a Student can be appointed as Prefect more than x+1 times, where x is the number of times the “Student which had been appointed the least” was a Prefect.

and in the same Rule, replace

A Prefect may act as a proxy for the Professor in certain matters

with

A Prefect may act as a proxy for the Professor in certain matters, described in this Rule.

This fixes two things: makes the first text unambiguous, and regulates the powers of the Prefect to be gamestate. What these powers would be, I think, should yet be proposed.

Proposal: Some Arimaa

Quorums 5-0. — Quirck

Adminned at 07 Oct 2012 14:16:24 UTC

In the rule “The Classroom”, change “If a Student occupies a Desk, that Student may - as a daily action - change their Desk number to that of any unoccupied Desk which is next to their current Desk.” to

If a Student (the “Elephant”) occupies a Desk number X, they may - as a daily action - perform exactly one of the following:
* a step: change their Desk number to that of any unoccupied Desk which is next to their current Desk;
* a pull: choose a Student (the “Rabbit”) occupying a Desk next to the Desk X, perform a step, and then set the Rabbit’s Desk number to X;
* a push: choose a Student (the “Rabbit”) occupying a Desk number Y which is next to the Desk X, change the Rabbit’s Desk number to that of any unoccupied Desk which is next to the Desk Y, and then set the Elephant’s Desk number to Y.
However, a Student may not perform a pull or a push when they are in the PAoI.

If you do not move, others will move you :)
As of now, one may occupy a Desk in the middle and protect himself from being a Victim.

Story Post: Kevan Woz Ere

The current Whiteboard contains my own name and that of no other Student.

Although Josh attempted to add his own name to the Whiteboard using a Black Pen yesterday, he illegally added many brown, purple and blue pixels at the same time. Rule 2.9 only allows him to replace the Whiteboard with an image “which has had one or more pixels changed to RGB value of that Student’s Pen color and no other changes made”. Reverting to a legal gamestate leaves only my own name on the Whiteboard.

Proposal: Turtles, all the way down

Passes 3-0 with one unresolved DEF. — Quirck

Adminned at 07 Oct 2012 03:07:20 UTC

In the rule entitled Pens, change “Black” to “Black or Purple” in the line which reads “If a Student’s COLOR roll results in Black, they may roll again.”

In the same rule, change the which reads “Any Student with a Magenta or Purple pen is known as a Prefect” to read as follows:

Any Student with a Magenta pen is known as a Hall Monitor.
Any Student with a Purple pen is known as a Prefect. At any time, no more than one Student may possess a Purple pen. The Professor has a special Pen which, while not Purple for the purposes of the ruleset, can write in Purple ink.

Add a new rule, entitled Prefectures, to the ruleset:

A Prefect may act as a proxy for the Professor in certain matters. A period in which there is an active Prefect is known as a Prefecture, and may be referred to as the “n’th Prefecture of x”, where x the the name of the Prefect and n is the number of Prefectures they have had.

If at any time there is no Prefect, the Professor may appoint a Student to be the Prefect by making a story post to that effect, provided that the appointment does not violate any other conditions detailed in this paragraph for Prefect eligibility. No Student may be Prefect twice in a row, and no Student may be appointed as Prefect if that would mean that they had been Prefect at least twice more than another Student. The nominated student should then, at their earliest opportunity, post a Prefecture Address specifying their plans and priorities for their Prefecture. Once this Prefecture Address has been posted, the Prefecture officially starts and the Student may change their Pen colour to Purple.

A Prefecture may last for no more than one week. At the end of that week, the Student who was the Prefect ceases to be the Prefect and may no longer undertake any Prefect-specific actions; any Student may then remove the Purple pen from their record in the GNDT. The Professor should then, at their first opportunity, make a story post giving the former Prefect a grade, expressed as a percentage score, for their Prefecture. If the score is higher than 75%, the Student scores.

If any Student has a purple pen when this proposal is enacted, change that Student’s pen to another colour as per the procedure set out in the rule entitled Pens.

Another tack on the emperor-as-a-success-factor question: allowing for mini-dynasties in which players can experiment with Emperor behaviour, and get graded for it.

Thursday, October 04, 2012

Proposal: Desk Job

Quorums 4-0. — Quirck

Adminned at 05 Oct 2012 11:57:17 UTC

If the proposal Location, Location, Location (citation) passed, reword the rule “The Classroom” to:-

The Classroom is composed of 16 Desks, numbered from 1 to 16 and arranged in a 4x4 square as follows:-

1….2….3….4
5….6….7….8
9…10…11…12
13..14…15…16

(The points are only used to make the positions clearer.) Two Desks are said to be next to each other if they connect directly vertically, horizontally or diagonally (e.g. the Desk 1 is next to 2, 6 and 5, and no other Desk). Whenever the Professor stands over a Desk, all the Desks next to it are said to be in the Professor’s Area of Influence (PAoI, for short).

Each Student may occupy one Desk, and the number of this Desk is tracked in the “Desk” column of the GNDT. (If a Student does not occupy a Desk, this is tracked as a “-” in that column.) If a Student occupies a Desk, that Student may - as a daily action - change their Desk number to that of any unoccupied Desk which is next to their current Desk. If a Student does not occupy a Desk, that Student may change their Desk number to that of any unoccupied Desk.

The Professor may stand over one Desk, and the number of this Desk is tracked in the “Desk” column of the GNDT. (If a Professor is not standing over a Desk, this is represented with a “-” in that column.) The Professor may, as a Daily Action, change his Desk value to any Desk number, or to “-”.

When a Student joins the game or unidles for the first time in this dynasty, they do not occupy a Desk.

If the Professor’s Desk value is “0”, change it to “-”.

Mostly just tightening the wording up and picking a clearer metaphor for the Professor’s desk, but fixing the serious problem of new Students not being assigned a Desk. (By reframing it as “students start with no desk and must pick one”, it also prevents any game-crashing errors should we gain a 17th Student.)

Thursday, October 04, 2012

Proposal: Full Favor Economy

Quorums 4-0. — Quirck

Adminned at 05 Oct 2012 11:55:00 UTC

Add a new Rule to the Ruleset.  Call it “Favors”, make the rule “Trading” a subrule of it, and give it the following text:

Each Student has a GNDT field “Favour”, which may name one other Student or idle Student. If a Student has a non-blank Favour field, they are considered to “owe a Favour” to the Student or idle Student named in it. If two Students owe each other Favors, any Student may blank both their Favor fields. A Student with a blank Favor field may set their Favor field to another Student at any time. A Student may blank any Favour field that contains their own name, at any time.

If a Game Action is a Favor Action from a Student (the Agent), any other Student with a blank Favor may set their Favor to the Agent to take that action, and the Student to whom the Agent owes a Favor may blank the Agent’s Favor field to take that action.  No Student may take more than one Favor Action with the same Agent in a day or in any given 6-hour period.

Reword the rule “Trading” as follows:

If a Student (the “Trader”) wants to borrow a Pen that belongs to another Student (the “Tradee”), and if both the Trader and Tradee have a Pen Colour, then the Trader may swap the Pen Colour values of the Trader and the Tradee as a Favor Action from the Tradee .

The pseudo-daily is to prevent Students from completely reversing a Favor relationship for two Favor Actions at once, or two cooperating students from taking a large number of consecutive Favor Actions.

Story Post: I’d Like To Thank The Academy…

Braggity braggity brag brag. As the first to score, shouldn’t I get some kind of bonus? Like scoring again? And then get a bonus for being the second to score as well?

Proposal: Bullying

Quorums 4-1. — Quirck

Adminned at 05 Oct 2012 11:52:44 UTC

If the Proposal titled “Location, Location, Location” failed, this Proposal does nothing.

Add a new Sub Rule to the Rule “The Classroom”, named “[BUL]Bully”:

This Sub Rule shall not take effect until 48 hours from it’s ennactment have passed. After that time, any Student can edit this Sub rule to remove this Paragraph.

The Professor is not regarded as a Student for the purpose of this Sub Rule.
Whenever a Student is occupying a Desk that does not have a non occupied Desk next to it, that Student is said to be Cornered, and this notation is valid for the Rule “The Classroom” and any of it’s Sub Rules.
When a Student is Cornered and all the Desks surrounding him are outside the PAoI, any Student in a Desk next to him may make a new Post (invoking this Sub Rule by name) claiming to have “made a new victim”. If they do that, all the Students that occupy Desks next to that Cornered one Scores.
When a Student is Cornered and any of the Desks surrounding him are inside the PAoI, he may make a new Post (invoking this Sub Rule by name) claiming to have “snitched the bullies to the Professor”. If he does that, he Scores, and all the Students occupying Desks next to him have their Desk value set to a new random value. If this new value ever makes two Students occupy the same Desk, it is randomly generated again.

Proposal: Location, Location, Location

Reached quorum 5 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 05 Oct 2012 09:22:12 UTC

Add a new Rule to the Ruleset, the “The Classroom”:

The Classroom is composed of ‘Student Desk’s organized in a 4x4 square, each which corresponds to a unique number from 1 to 16. The Students shall always occupy one (and only one) of those desks, and, with the exception of the Professor, never the same Desk occupied by other Student.
The Professor have his own desk (which corresponds to the number 0, and is also part of the Classroom) and is the only one who can occupy it.
The number of the Desk a Student currently occupy is tracked in the “Desk” column in the GNDT.
The Professor may, as a Daily Action, change his current Desk number to any other he wants.
Any Student may, as a Daily action, change his own current Desk number to any Desk he wants, as long as it is not already occupied by another Student, and it is next to the Desk he is currently in.
A Desk doesn’t exist if it’s not mentioned in this Rule.

The Desk’s positions in The Classroom are as follows:
..........0
1….2….3….4
5….6….7….8
9…10…11..12
13..14…15..16
(the points were only used to make the positions clearer)

Two Desks are said to be next to each other if they connect directly vertically, horizontally or diagonally (e.g. the Desk 1 is next to 2, 6 and 5, and no other Desk). The Professor’s Desk is never next to any other Desk.
Whenever the Professor occupy a Desk different from his own, all the Desks next to it are said to be in the Professor’s Area of Influence (PAoI, for short).

Create a new column in the GNDT called “Desk”, set the Professor’s Desk value to 0 and randomly set the Desk values of the other Students (with the DICE16 command). If this action ever makes 2 Students ocuppy the same Desk, randomly set the last value again.

Proposal: Nomic Rules OK

Reached quorum 4 votes to 2. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 05 Oct 2012 09:20:15 UTC

Add a new rule, “[WOZ] Kilroy Woz Ere” with the following text:-

If a Student believes that the current Whiteboard visibly incorporates their own name but the name of no other Student, then they may make a Story Post with the title “[Name] Woz Ere”, where “[Name]” is their own name. If the Professor replies to that post with a comment containing a FOR voting icon within 48 hours of it being posted, then that Student Scores.

Proposal: Professor Unwin

Reached quorum 4 votes to 3. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 04 Oct 2012 13:29:10 UTC

To the rule “Teacher Training”, add the following bullet point to the bulleted list:-

During the preceding 48 hours, three or more Students made a comment that included the question “Huh?”, on the same post, and that post was either made by the Professor or included a comment from him. Such “Huh?” comments should only be made in response to the Professor being unnecessarily oblique or mysterious.

Making deliberately unclear and confusing comments can be useful if you want to tactically disorientate your opponents, but unless we’re playing an intentionally cryptic dynasty (which I don’t think we are) it’s not very appropriate from an Emperor who’s meant to be leading the game and guiding uncertain voters. Bucky’s done it a couple of times so far.

Idling

Klisz and Murphy both idle out. Quorum is now 4.

Tuesday, October 02, 2012

Proposal: Vote Hook

Reached quorum 4 votes to 1. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 03 Oct 2012 12:15:29 UTC

Enact a new Rule, “[HTH] Helping Hands”:-

If a Student (the “Helper”) makes a Story Post that invokes this rule by name and has Citations to three different Proposals, and if:-

  • All of those Proposals were made on or after the 1st of October 2012.
  • The Helper voted FOR all of those Proposals.
  • None of those Proposals were made by the Helper.
  • The first cited Proposal was a Correction.
  • The second cited Proposal had an arrow vote on more than half of its EVCs, including one on the Helper’s EVC.
  • The third cited Proposal was made by a Student who, at the time of its proposal, not yet Scored under the rule “Proposal Homework”.

...then that Student Scores.

Although we are encouraging certain types of proposal by rewarding the proposer, this is also a mild disincentive for anyone to actually vote for them. (I’ve caught myself erring on the side of AGAINST for a couple of proposals that I’d have waved through in any other dynasty, simply because all else being equal I am voting on whether or not I’d like an opponent to gain a - possibly quite rare and valuable - point.)

So let’s try an overelaborate reward system to encourage people to vote for these proposals!

Proposal: Students Without Borders

Reached quorum 5 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 03 Oct 2012 12:13:23 UTC

If the Proposal Do Not Erase (Citation) passes replace the text

inside that loop may be altered.

with

which are both inside that loop and which are not part of the same contiguous monochromatic region as the loop may be altered.

in the rule “The Whiteboard”

Technically, if we have a border that is a circle of radius 100 and has a thickness of ten, only the pixels on the very outside of the border can be removed under the current pending proposal. The rest of the border is contained within the larger circle of radius 109 and thickness one. As such, it could take lots of work to actually erase a border and edit the other contents of the whiteboard. We should allow the entire border to be erased, not just the very outside edge of the border.

Tuesday, October 02, 2012

Proposal: Highlighting

Reaches quorum 5 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 03 Oct 2012 12:11:44 UTC

In the rule “Penmanship”, change the text

While the font HTML remains in place, that blog post is considered to contain Ink of that colour.

to

While the font HTML remains in place, that blog post is considered to contain Ink of that colour, and to have that colour for the purpose of dynastic rules.

Add a new subrule to the rule “Penmanship”.  Call it “Highlighting” and give it the following text:

At any time, a Student may edit one of their Story Posts that is less than a week old by changing the ink color of Black text in that post to their Pen Colour.

This is more or less a prerequisite for the rainbow posts proposal.

Proposal: Restrictions on Restrictions

Self-killed, failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 03 Oct 2012 12:10:42 UTC

Add the following paragraph to the end of the rule “Teacher Training”:

If this list of conditions contains 5 or more items and at least 60% of them are struck through, then all votes of DEFERENTIAL are ignored, and any Proposal the Professor casts a vote of VETO shall not be Vetoed, Enacted or Failed for the following 48 hours counted from the Professor’s vote. During this period, if at least three Students posted a comment on that Proposal containing the phrase “unreasonable Veto”, the Proposal can again be Enacted or Failed, but not vetoed. Also, during this period, any valid votes casted (following the instructions of the Rule “Votable Matters”)  are calculated for the purpose of Enacting or Failing the Proposal. If that Proposal is pending for more than 48 hours, it should be ignored for the purpose of calculating the oldest pending proposal. This paragraph takes precedence over the Core Rules.

This Proposal is a correction, with the Tenure proposal as its citation.

Kevan’s idea of banishing Veto power is, I think, too rough. This correction gives the Students the power to challenge a Veto casted, without removing the ability to cast a Veto. The exactly number of Students that should disagree with the Professor’s Veto can be changed, of course (and I’d put Quorum, if more players were actually active). The DEFERENTIAL part though is nice, since a Professor who isn’t compliyng with his obligations should not be “trusted” (using the idea of the DEFERENTIAL definition on the rules). Also, as pointed by Kevan, the 5 items should not be a problem.

Proposal: Unruliness

Fails 1-4. — Quirck

Adminned at 03 Oct 2012 05:28:04 UTC

Add the following as a new rule to the ruleset, entitled Spud Gun:

As a weekly action, a Student may fire their Spud Gun.

When a Student fires their Spud Gun, they get a number of shots equal to the number of full days it has been since the Professor last made or voted on a votable matter or official post.

For each shot a Student has, they may chose a single other Student to be their target. For each target thus selected, they roll DICE6 in the GNDT. On a result of 1 or 2, the target Student gains a Bruise. Each Student’s number of Bruises is tracked in the GNDT and defaults to zero.

Add a new rule to the ruleset, entitled Distractions and Swots:

For each Bruise a Student has, their number of projects is considered to be one less.

At any time, provided they have more than 5 Bruises, a Student may make a comment to the GNDT saying “It’s not my fault I’m a nerd”, reduce their Bruises by 5 and increase their Projects by 1. This does not count as Scoring.

Proposal: Do Not Erase

Quorums 6-0. — Quirck

Adminned at 03 Oct 2012 05:27:22 UTC

To the rule “The Whiteboard”, add:-

If a contiguous loop of non-white pixels of the same colour (the “Border Colour”) encircle at least one white pixel, and also encircle the words DO NOT ERASE written in the Border Colour, then no pixels inside that loop may be altered.

Proposal: Tenure

Can’t enacted with five votes against. Failed 1-5 by Kevan.

Adminned at 02 Oct 2012 03:33:40 UTC

If the proposal “Incentives” failed, then add the following paragraph to the rule “Teacher Training”:-

If this list of conditions contains five or more items and at least 60% of them are struck through, then Proposals may not be vetoed and all votes of DEFERENTIAL are ignored. This takes precedence over the Core Rules.

This proposal is a correction, with the Incentives proposal as its citation.

Josh’s suggestion of having a sufficient number of poor behaviours end the game and undo all gameplay to that point would, I feel, be an error. I suggest we simply revoke the Professor’s veto and deferential powers. And on a lesser note, although a 60% cut-off point is reasonable, it’s only two out of three at the moment; I think we should encourage some further conditions before we start using it.