Thursday, July 08, 2021

Proposal: A Moment Frozen In Time

Self-killed. Josh

Adminned at 09 Jul 2021 19:21:22 UTC

Create a new dynastic rule, “Dynastic Delay”:

When a proposal modifies the dynastic part of the ruleset, the “Ruleset” wiki page is updated immediately to apply the effects, but the dynastic part of the ruleset is not modified immediately; rather, the specified updates to the dynastic ruleset are applied at the next time the Crypt Settles or a Declaration of Victory is enacted. This overrides the normal method of enacting a proposal.

The dynastic part of the ruleset is therefore not tracked on the current version of the wiki page “Ruleset”, but rather via the history of the wiki’s “Ruleset” page, checking to see what it said at the most recent point in time at which the Crypt Settled, a Declaration of Victory was enacted, or this rule was created. The current version of the page “Ruleset” tracks the updates to dynastic rules that will be applied in the future, in addition to tracking the core, special case and appendix rules.

Admins may, at any time, update the blognomic.org blog sidebar to contain a link to the current (rather than future) dynastic ruleset (e.g. via use of the wiki’s “permalink” feature), and should do so whenever the link is missing or out of date.

There hasn’t been an Expedition since Monday, and the reason is that people have been waiting for proposals to enact before spending their Puissance (a delay that has become much longer recently because many proposals have timed out despite having become Popular hours earlier). This is leading to the game moving very slowly (as different people were waiting for different proposals and they haven’t been enacted in batches like they usually are). In order to fix this, make it so that there’s never any benefit to waiting. Sadly, this looks a little more complex than it actually is, in order to avoid orphan variables (or in this case, orphaned pending ruleset updates).

Note that only changes by proposal are delayed; if something breaks, we can use a CFJ to fix things (although I’m hoping that won’t be necessary). In case you’re wondering, it is possible to change the history of a wiki page via CFJ (although I’m definitely hoping *that* won’t be necessary!).

Probably this should become a Special Case rule in the future – lots of dynasties would benefit from it – but it’s hard to track the equivalent of Entering the Crypt / the Crypt Settling between dynasties.

Comments

Clucky: he/him

08-07-2021 04:07:23 UTC

was fine most of the dynasty. there was no run yesterday because there was some outstanding CfJs that needed to get resolved, meaning it was just today that someone did an action that delayed things. and i’m not actually sure that was done as a result of waiting for a proposal to pass so I’m not sure if this would help.

Kevan: he/him

08-07-2021 07:15:42 UTC

This fixes waiting for supported proposal to enact, but not waiting to see whether a proposal is supported or not. If someone puts up “repeal Denizens, no refunds” then I’m going to want to see how voting goes before placing any more Denizens, even if I know that rule update will wait politely until the next cycle.

Which would maybe suggest that it’s the eight-hour discussion window that’s getting in the way here, if the “wait to see if the proposal is supported or not” often has an artificial eight-hour delay on it.

[Clucky] “some outstanding CfJs that needed to get resolved” - true, although we seem to have forgotten about using the [Pressing] tag for those.

Kevan: he/him

08-07-2021 10:48:59 UTC

against

lemon: she/her

08-07-2021 12:02:51 UTC

against seems v complicated for everyone to deal with & not necessary enough to be worth it

Janet: she/her

08-07-2021 15:54:44 UTC

against. Philosophically, I don’t like delaying the effects of proposals.

Clucky: he/him

08-07-2021 16:09:44 UTC

against

Josh: he/they

08-07-2021 16:51:41 UTC

against

Raven1207: he/they

08-07-2021 18:19:41 UTC

against

ais523:

09-07-2021 02:23:18 UTC

against s/k I still think this problem needs fixing, but it’s clear that this particular fix would create more problems than it solves.