Thursday, December 10, 2009

Proposal: Core rules gamestate challenge patch

Antiquorumed, 8-1 -Darth

Adminned at 10 Dec 2009 16:12:48 UTC

In rule 1.7 “Gamestate Tracking”, add

All updates to the GNDT are logged - if a Adventurer feels that an alteration made less than one week ago goes against the Rules (as they were at the time of the alteration), he may simply undo the effects of that alteration. If such an undoing is disputed, a Call for Judgment shall be raised.

If the factual accuracy of a record of the gamestate in the GNDT, or the rules listing on the wiki page http://blognomic.com/wiki/index.php?title=Ruleset, is not challenged by a GNDT comment, blog post, comment, or edit or edit summary on the wiki page in question for a week, then that record of the gamestate is considered to have been correct at the time it was made; if it was originally incorrect, the gamestate is changed to what it would be if that record had been correct. Additionally, if a proposal, CFJ or DoV made after this sentence was added to the rules is not marked as invalid at any time during the week after it was posted to the blog, then it is considered to have always been valid, and if it was originally invalid, the gamestate is changed to what it would be if that proposal, CFJ or DoV had been valid.

as a new paragraph immediately before the last paragraph, then delete

All updates to the GNDT are logged - if a Adventurer feels that an alteration goes against the Rules (as they were at the time of the alteration), he may simply undo the effects of that alteration. If such an undoing is disputed, a Call for Judgment shall be raised.

from that rule.

In other words: if there’s a mistake in the gamestate or rules and we don’t notice it for a week, that mistake becomes law. The GNDT and wiki page are probably watched closely enough to prevent people scamming this by editing incorrect changes into the gamestate record and hoping nobody notices; likewise, this only checks validity of future CFJs, proposals and DoVs, so that invalid official posts far in the past don’t suddenly become valid because nobody remembered to mark them valid.

I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, but the mild controversy about how the last dynasty ended shows that this is needed; in this case, the DoV was valid although people weren’t sure about it, but imagine if it had happened the other way round (the DoV was invalid but nobody noticed); we’d end up with a different Emperor from who we thought we had! Recovering from that sort of thing makes up about 90% of the gameplay at B Nomic; we really don’t want BlogNomic to end up like that too.

Comments

Josh: Observer he/they

10-12-2009 14:02:47 UTC

Eh. Don’t we usually common-sense these problems away? Not very nomic-y, perhaps, but I think you’re too trusting of people not to break rules letter-by-letter while hoping that no-one notices. (An admin could, for example, change a key word while enacting another proposal - the manual checking and following up will increase the burden of play dramatically, and that’s the best case, we-find-them-and-they-fail scenario.)

Kevan: he/him

10-12-2009 14:55:37 UTC

against Agreed; it’s boring enough having to do a word-by-word diff when someone proposes a minor change as “here, replace the whole rule with this new version” - I don’t want to have to do that every time an admin enacts a proposal. And I dread the idea of a “ha, you idiots were playing by the rule you voted for, but I changed an ‘l’ to a ‘1’ when I enacted it last week” victory.

Ending up with a different Emperor seems very easy to imagine. If Wakukee’s DoV had turned out to be illegal, I suspect we’d have just given up on the dynasty and had a quick round of voting for the next Emperor. I can’t imagine how this could make up “90% of the gamplay” in a Nomic.

Klisz:

10-12-2009 15:03:36 UTC

@Kevan: Unfortunately, it takes up 70% of Fresh Nomic’s gameplay…

ais523:

10-12-2009 15:19:13 UTC

@Kevan: if Wakukee’s DoV had turned out to be illegal, I imagine NOI would have tried to cast PROUST, and hilarity would have ensued. Now, imagine that happening halfway through this dynasty…

IMO, it’s a lot more exploitable without this rule than with. An admin could, for example, change a key word while enacting another proposal, then everyone would play according to the rules on the wiki, giving the admin a huge advantage when they went and used the rule as originally written.

ais523:

10-12-2009 15:19:45 UTC

(Also, the wiki does diffs between versions automatically, making checking a lot easier…)

Kevan: he/him

10-12-2009 15:43:19 UTC

Okay, some small chaos with PROUST there, but it would blow over in a day or two. And I really don’t think anyone would go along with a retroactive CfJ raised halfway through a dynasty (although I can imagine an angry mob wanting to bring down an Emperor who belatedly revealed that his ascension had been illegal, we’d do something other than retroactively returning to the previous dynasty).

I think any “huge advantage” from enacting a rule illegally would get pretty short shrift from the other players; I can’t imagine a sneaky admin would survive a DoV that openly hinged on having broken the rules earlier in the game.

(Wiki diffs would show up illegal tweaks of existing rules, but you’d have to find some other means to check that a new rule exactly matched the proposal that enacted it.)

Josh: Observer he/they

10-12-2009 17:03:31 UTC

Indeed; the problem with this proposal is that it provides a route for illegal actions to become legal. If the sneaky admin were caught at the DoV stage, I’d rather we had a means to punish them or revert the error than they being able to say, “No, look, it’s been more than a week. It’s legal now.”

against

NoOneImportant:

10-12-2009 17:06:45 UTC

This would make it “legal” in the sense that it would continue to affect the gamestate, but not “legal” in the sense that they couldn’t get banned over it.

Klisz:

10-12-2009 17:15:23 UTC

against

Clucky: he/him

10-12-2009 17:36:42 UTC

I feel like it is already standard practice not to CfJ mistakes more than a few days old, but limiting this is limiting. If something serious enough occurred that we want to go back and fix it, we should be able to.

Kevan: he/him

10-12-2009 17:56:33 UTC

We’d still be able to fix things, under this rule - they’d just default to being legal, rather than illegal. (Well, we’d mostly be able to fix them. Fixing a sneakily-inserted “Playername may veto any proposal, CfJ or DoV” would be tough.)

For what it’s worth, the Nomic I played that had an “old mistakes become legal after 48 hours” rule had a lot of “Wait, how did you get $514 so quickly?” “By cheating, three days ago! Heh heh.” - it was fun, and would be fine for one dynasty, but I think it’d wear a bit thin as a core rule.

TrumanCapote:

10-12-2009 18:21:28 UTC

against

Bucky:

10-12-2009 18:57:07 UTC

against .  This is the purpose of DoVs - a passed DoV legally starts a new dynasty even if for some reason its author had not legally achieved victory, so that afterwards the gamestate is the same either way.

Klisz:

10-12-2009 19:12:21 UTC

@Bucky: Yes, but there was the chaos over whether the DoV could even have been legally made in the first place.

NoOneImportant:

10-12-2009 19:15:24 UTC

@DC: Yes, but the DoV succeeded, thus making those concerns moot even if they were correct… right?

Josh: Observer he/they

10-12-2009 19:17:21 UTC

Not necessarily, as a CfJ can invalidate a DoV. I’d be tempted to grandfather it, though.

Klisz:

10-12-2009 19:31:02 UTC

@NOI: Not just concerns over whether he actually won; concerns over whether he could have legally posted the DoV.

TrumanCapote:

10-12-2009 19:35:21 UTC

When I won my dynasty, it was technically illegal due to my failing a few proposals I should not have, due to the queue.  But no one noticed this (including me) until after my DoV had passed, at which point I noted that rule saying “if a Quorum of Adventurers have voted on the DoV and more than half of those votes were in favour, then the DoV passes.”  At the time, at least, everyone felt this settled the matter.

It seems like this is another unwritten rule we have, or at least an unwritten standard: A CfJ can invalidate a DoV, but I think we wouldn’t go back on a DoV vote unless something truly egregious and shitty was done.* 

This is a very long and roundabout way of saying what Bucky said, that this already exists for DoVs, but we really shouldn’t give people the latitude to do it everywhere.

*Then again, for the last four years all I’ve done is skim the interesting proposals and CfJs every two weeks-ish, so I might not be the best expert on what the consensus is.

TrumanCapote:

10-12-2009 20:37:55 UTC

When I won my dynasty, it was technically illegal due to my failing a few proposals I should not have, due to the queue.  But no one noticed this (including me) until after my DoV had passed, at which point I noted the rule saying “if a Quorum of Adventurers have voted on the DoV and more than half of those votes were in favour, then the DoV passes.”  At the time, at least, everyone felt this settled the matter.

It seems like this is another unwritten rule we have, or maybe an unwritten standard: A CfJ can invalidate a DoV, but I assume we would only do this for an egregiously shitty or manipulative DoV.*

This is a very long and roundabout way of saying what Bucky said, that this already exists for DoVs, but we really shouldn’t give people the latitude to do it everywhere.

*Then again, for the last four years all I’ve done is skim the interesting proposals and CfJs every two weeks-ish, so I might not be the best expert on where consensus stands.

Darknight: he/him

10-12-2009 20:54:40 UTC

Man, make one mistake in reading a rule and the debate that follows can make ya feel like a twit lol.  imperial

Josh: Observer he/they

10-12-2009 20:55:42 UTC

It seems like this is another unwritten rule we have, or maybe an unwritten standard: A CfJ can invalidate a DoV, but I assume we would only do this for an egregiously shitty or manipulative DoV.*

That’s pretty much my feeling.

redtara: they/them

10-12-2009 21:09:28 UTC

against

Klisz:

10-12-2009 21:16:42 UTC

We’re almost to Anti-Quorum, and it’s only been 8 hours. I love winter.

In fact, if Wak votes against, we’ll elevate all the way to Anti-Quorum automatically…

Darknight: he/him

10-12-2009 21:17:50 UTC

against COV lol.

Klisz:

10-12-2009 21:26:30 UTC

7 against. Need 1 more vote to kill this.

NoOneImportant:

10-12-2009 21:59:38 UTC

against

Just to be done with it.

digibomber:

10-12-2009 22:00:23 UTC

against

Oze:

10-12-2009 22:09:01 UTC

against

Klisz:

11-12-2009 00:08:45 UTC

Digibomber, you aren’t a player yet.

spikebrennan:

11-12-2009 00:11:35 UTC

against
and I call WP:SNOWBALL