Friday, December 20, 2019

Consultation: streamlining Hiatus

The following is a proposal draft (see notes):

[Core] [Special Case] [Appendix] Mind the gap

1. In rule 4.1 (“Keywords”), insert in its appropriate alphabetical position in the glossary a new definition—

Hiatus
When BlogNomic is in Hiatus, Dynastic Actions may not be taken, and new Proposals may not be submitted. Unless otherwise stated, Proposals may not be Resolved during Hiatus.

2. Amend rule 1.7 (“Victory and Ascension”) as follows.

For the third paragraph (beginning “If there is a pending DoV…”) substitute—

While there is a pending DoV, BlogNomic is in Hiatus.

and join this paragraph with the one preceding it.

Three paragraphs down, omit “When a DoV is failed and there are no pending DoVs, Hiatus ends.”

In the next paragraph, for—

If that Person does not wish to retain their new status, they may pass the role of Bookman to another Person by making a post to that effect, provided they haven’t yet made an Ascension Address for the new Dynasty.

substitute—

That Person may pass the role of Bookman to another Person by making a post to that effect, provided they haven’t yet made an Ascension Address for the new Dynasty.

For the next paragraph—

A DoV may not be started in the period between an enacted DoV and that DoV’s Ascension Address.

substitute—

Between the enactment of the DoV and the posting of the Ascension Address, no new DoV may be made and BlogNomic is in Hiatus.

and join this paragraph with the one preceding it.

In the next paragraph, omit “Hiatus continues until the”.

3. Replace rule 3.3 (“Seasonal Downtime”) as follows—

Every year from 24 December to 26 December (inclusive), BlogNomic is in Hiatus, and no game actions may be taken that are described in the rules “People” and “Victory and Ascension” (with the exception of Voting in DoVs).

4. Replace rule 3.4 (“Dormancy”) as follows—

If there are fewer than five People, then BlogNomic is in Hiatus. During this time, Proposals may be Resolved unless another rule applies that states otherwise.

5. In rule 3.8 (“The Traitor”), in the second paragraph—

If there is no Traitor for the current Dynasty, the Bookman may secretly randomly select a Person (other than the Bookman) and privately inform them that they are the Traitor for the current Dynasty.

after “current Dynasty,” insert “and BlogNomic is not in Hiatus,”.

It’s a big proposal and I don’t want to mess it up (being a newbie and all); I’ve discussed some aspects of it in Slack, but it would be difficult to get into all the details there.

So I’m putting it here, in the hopes that any observations and ideas will ease its passage in an actual proposal once the circumstances allow it.

(The “bill” was written with the assumption that “Abdication paperwork” passes; if it doesn’t, adjustments will have to be made.)

The last part, about the Traitor, is an addition I’m not entirely sure is needed: appointing a Traitor during a DoV Hiatus would probably be pointless. A Dormancy or Downtime Hiatus might be different, however, so I’d like to hear opinions on this. We could, of course, add the prohibition to the Hiatus definition in the glossary, but I’m reluctant to give it such prominence.

Comments

Madrid:

20-12-2019 13:00:33 UTC

Looks good to me, except for “if they see fit”. We can remove that conditional.

The Duke of Waltham: he/him

20-12-2019 13:47:31 UTC

I suppose “may” does all the job there, doesn’t it? All right, removed.

Also, I’ve finally realised what bothered me about the (pre-existing) wording “in the period between an enacted DoV and that DoV’s Ascension Address”: it wants to refer to the DoV’s enactment, but one might interpret it as the submission of a DoV that was subsequently enacted. I doubt such an interpretation would stand, but still.

The Duke of Waltham: he/him

20-12-2019 13:57:17 UTC

I still don’t like the reference to a “DoV’s Ascension Address”, and the rule still reads pretty technical. It needs to flow better.

What about this for a final version?

“When a DoV is enacted, all other pending DoVs are failed, and a new Dynasty begins in which the Person who made the DoV becomes the Bookman. That Person may pass the role of Bookman to another Person by making a post to that effect, provided they haven’t yet made an Ascension Address for the new Dynasty.

“In the period between the beginning of a Dynasty and its Ascension Address, no new DoV may be made, and BlogNomic is in Hiatus.

“The new Bookman makes an Ascension Address by posting…”

The Duke of Waltham: he/him

20-12-2019 14:01:55 UTC

I really like this change, but I suppose it doesn’t work for Metadynasties; they don’t have DoVs or Ascension Addresses, so there’s no Hiatus, right?

The Duke of Waltham: he/him

26-12-2019 22:07:46 UTC

I’ve updated the proposal in two places.

Firstly, I’ve concluded that a single paragraph works best for all immediate consequences of enacting a DoV.

Secondly, I’ve refined the exception’s exception in the “Dormancy” definition, so that it works better for overlapping Hiatuses: (“unless another rule applies that states otherwise”, addition in italics). I’m not sure this two-word addition changes anything, but the recursiveness of the exceptions in the Hiatus definition and here make me a little uneasy, so I want to emphasise the difference of scope between them.

Kevan: he/him

28-12-2019 14:27:46 UTC

This is a bit of a slog to follow, if I’m honest: maybe this (and all other) tidying is better done as a series of wiki edits on a placeholder page, so that we can easily make side-by-side comparisons?

It might well be easier all round if we built up to a single “replace the core and appendices with the version at [link]” proposal, rather than having to have a full vote on changing one word and some brackets.

The Duke of Waltham: he/him

29-12-2019 00:41:47 UTC

I’d actually prefer this: my hands-on approach is well-suited to wikis, especially when it comes to copy-editing such as you describe above (necessary as it might be in making the Ruleset feel like a single document).

We’ll just have to watch our methodology when it comes to major changes, so that we focus each time on a different thing. Otherwise it’s easy to break something, discarding cumulative improvements going a long while back. And people will still need to be convinced to carefully study all the changes, and then vote for them, which might seem more difficult this way.