Thursday, June 25, 2009

Proposal: Administraive Stuff #2

Passes 8-4—yuri_dragon_17
(Did I do this right?)

Adminned at 27 Jun 2009 10:15:29 UTC

In the glossary replace:

# Unless otherwise specified: When “X” is a number, to spend X of a numeric value “V” means to subtract X from V (i.e. replace V with V-X); no action may be taken which requires spending X of a numeric value when the subtraction would result in a number which is illegal as a replacement for that value (e.g. if the value represents a variable which is restricted to non-negative integers, but the subtraction comes up negative).

with

# Unless otherwise specified: When “X” is a number, to spend X of a numeric value “V” means to subtract X from V (i.e. replace V with V-X).
# No action may be taken which could require setting a gamestate variable to an illegal value. (e.g. spending X of a numeric value that must be non-negative when the subtraction would result in a number which is negative).

I think this covers most cases. Obliviously its best to explicitly ban such actions in the rules they are described in, but incase we forget this covers it.

Comments

Psychotipath:

25-06-2009 15:22:00 UTC

for

Shem:

25-06-2009 15:44:47 UTC

for

redtara: they/them

25-06-2009 16:00:10 UTC

for

Kevan: he/him

25-06-2009 16:14:48 UTC

“Could”? Don’t you mean “would”?

Clucky: he/him

25-06-2009 16:18:49 UTC

“could” is used for situations like:

“Roll a DICE50 and subtract the result from your points”

If you have 40 points, someone would argue that this action would not always set their points to negative, and so can be taken. “Could” prevents this.

Bobbikk:

25-06-2009 17:15:49 UTC

for

Kevan: he/him

25-06-2009 18:13:09 UTC

Wouldn’t it also cover “a player may update their nickname at any time by editing the GNDT field” and “a player’s nickname must be a noun”, though? Because I could change my nickname to something other than a noun, the entire “update your nickname by editing the GNDT” action can’t be taken at all, even by people who are trying to use it legally.

(“Spending” a random number of points sounds a bit of a strange and obscure case, unless I missed something last dynasty.)

Clucky: he/him

25-06-2009 18:54:29 UTC

Which is why we have ‘require’.

You could change your nickname to an illegal value, but you could not be required to change it to an illegal value.

Klisz:

25-06-2009 19:18:14 UTC

against  Kevan seems correct here.

Qwazukee:

25-06-2009 20:29:54 UTC

against because, if Kevan is correct, this is disastrous. If it’s reproposed with would, I’ll vote for.

Qwazukee:

25-06-2009 20:30:43 UTC

As an administrative sidenote, Kevan, how can someone become a wiki Admin?

Clucky: he/him

25-06-2009 20:32:09 UTC

But Kevan isn’t correct. Unless someone changed the definition of require. Me thinks Qwaz is just upset than he can’t write good proposals and so I vote them down =P

Qwazukee:

25-06-2009 20:44:32 UTC

*shrug* Maybe. Or maybe I know that you are good with loopholes (see: The First Dynasty of Amnistar) and I want to make sure you’re not making one here.

I only get one vote.

Clucky: he/him

25-06-2009 21:53:15 UTC

Because I haven’t some hundred times expressed full support of exploiting possible loopholes in dynastic rules and avoiding or plugging possible loopholes in the rest of the ruleset.

Wakukee:

25-06-2009 22:19:45 UTC

Dependent clause, I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Thinking over the possibilities here, “would” would be more secure, but it doesn’t look like this could cause a problem unless we made another poorly worded rule. So CoV imperial

Qwazukee:

25-06-2009 22:21:15 UTC

That arrow was me, obv. CoV imperial

Wakukee:

25-06-2009 22:34:53 UTC

CoV imperial From the REAL Wak.

Wakukee:

25-06-2009 22:35:56 UTC

against

redtara: they/them

25-06-2009 23:02:45 UTC

against Kevan has a point. I’d support it with “would”.

Clucky: he/him

26-06-2009 00:55:06 UTC

Would doesn’t work though. If you guys don’t think ‘could require’ is clear enough, someone else come up with something.

Darknight: he/him

26-06-2009 01:01:44 UTC

imperial

Shem:

26-06-2009 01:13:06 UTC

against  as Kevan

redtara: they/them

26-06-2009 01:15:26 UTC

CoV.  for I forgot the implications of “require” lol

Amnistar: he/him

26-06-2009 01:24:45 UTC

for Require negates the issue of optional could actions.

Kevan: he/him

26-06-2009 10:42:08 UTC

Fair call on “require”, which I’d overlooked in the nickname example, but it still seems too broad to say “if there is any way - however obscure - that an action could result in an illegal value being set, then all usage of that action is illegal”.

If a commonly-used action has a random effect, and someone realises (or scammishly reveals) that there’s a 0.01% chance it’ll try to move a player to an illegal location, then that entire action shuts down (possibly in reaction to a DoV - “you couldn’t have won, because if you’d rolled a 999 for your final attack, and a 1 for your damage roll, it would have set Bucky’s hit points to an illegal value, therefore you could never have attacked”).

What problems does “would” have? In the “roll DICE50 and subtract from your points”, it doesn’t seem too damaging for a player with 25 points to either lose 1-25, or (half the time) lose zero. “Subtract DICE50 from a non-negative variable” is clearly something that we’d have to fix anyway.

Amnistar: he/him

26-06-2009 12:09:19 UTC

I’m not sure, if an action could potentially result in an illegal gamestate then it means there is a problem with that action that needs to be resolved.  Otherwise, as you said, someone could attempt an action and get a result which would be illegal, thereby dissallowing him from taking an action then attempt said action again (as the rules stated he wasn’t able to take the action, thus did not, so it doesn’t count) rinse and repeat.

With could, it means we HAVE to fix it so that actions that require a response are unable to result in an illegal ruleset, which is, in theory, something we should be doing anyway.

Qwazukee:

26-06-2009 13:47:54 UTC

Passing 8-3 . . . I think.

Kevan should unidle, btw.

Kevan: he/him

26-06-2009 14:52:55 UTC

Rinse and repeat isn’t a problem if the repeated action “could not be taken”; you won’t gain anything each time through the loop, you’ll just bounce off the illegal results until you hit a legal one.

Afraid I’ve got too much work on at the moment to unidle, I was just lurking a bit as the new dynasty dawned.

Clucky: he/him

26-06-2009 15:42:26 UTC

So obviously the real soultion is to cover all cases in the rules we write. But I would rather err on the side of caution and in the case where we forgot to define it in the rules, prevent potental abuse by preventing the action all togeather as I can see the potential for an action that has positive or negative effects, but a user finding a way to negate the negative effects.

ais523:

26-06-2009 16:43:11 UTC

against I think I can see ways to do a full takeover of BlogNomic based on a rule like this. Imagine that someone somehow sets up a situation where voting on a CFJ would set a gamestate variable to an illegal value; in some dynasties, that sort of thing could even be accomplished without a proposal.