Tuesday, May 27, 2025

Proposal: Editor’s Desk

Withdrawn

Adminned at 27 May 2025 15:56:10 UTC

Add a new rule named, “Editor’s Desk,” with the following text:

Any “Drafter” may propose to send any other “Drafter’s Plan” to the “Editor’s Desk” by naming the “Drafter,” the “Drafter’s Plan,” and the reason for sending it to the “Editor’s Desk” in the proposal. If the proposal passes, the named “Drafter’s Plan” is now considered “on the Editor’s Desk,” and is not considered gamestate while on the “Editor’s Desk.” The “Drafter” whose plan was sent to the “Editor’s Desk,” in order to reinstate their plan as gamestate, must prove they have met the required correction(s) by editing their entry, after which they must submit a Story Post - Votable Matter entitled, “Letter to the Editor [Name of Drafter’s Plan],” stating the requested corrections have been implemented. Other “Drafters” must vote FOR or AGAINST based on the accuracy of the revisions.

Reasons for proposing to send a “Drafter’s Plan” to the “Editor’s Desk” must be at least one of the following:

X Does not meet all required Mandates as designated under the Claims on the Draft Board
X Does not include at least one hyperlink to another relevant page on Blognomic
X Does not include the terms, “summary” or “gameplay” or a combination of the two within a heading
X Includes a rule regarding the creation of a gamestate involving a form of random resolution
X Does not include an alternate name for the Emperor/Supervisor as an inherent description of the starting gamestate

In the same rule, include the following subrule named, “Sabotage:”

Other “Drafters” may not edit any “Drafter’s Plan” other than their own. If a provable instance of a “Drafter” editing any “Drafter’s Plan” other than their own can be presented publicly and factually, with evidence, the Supervisor shall immediately delete the offending editor’s “Drafter’s Plan.” The offending “Drafter,” if they wish to reenter a “Plan” as gamestate, they must create an entirely new “Drafter’s Plan,” with a uniquely distinct theme and different ruleset than that which was deleted.

The bane and blessing of the writer’s existence, the dreaded editor’s desk…

Comments

Josh: he/they

27-05-2025 07:21:24 UTC

Congrats on your first proposal! I’m going to vote against it but please don’t be discouraged - you’ve taken a chunky first swing and so there’ll be plenty to work on.

The main problem is that the ruleset cannot easily define something as not being gamestate, and likely shouldn’t. Gamestate is defined as being ‘any information which the Ruleset regulates the alteration of’ - saying that something ceases to be gamestate but comes back into gamestate when defined edits have been made doesn’t make any sense.

There’s a secondary problem, in that the Editor’s Desk rule would define something that could be done by proposal, but the definition isn’t needed as a proposal can already be used to do all of those things anyway.

My objection to the Sabotage rule is more aesthetic - when you detail something that someone is not permitted to do and then describe the sanction for doing it then what you are actually doing is weakening the instruction, as you are setting a cost that a player may choose to pay rather than maintaining the strictness of a flat prohibition. The ruleset already de facto forbids editing other players’ Plans (by not permitting it) - that is sufficient, as illegal edits can be freely reverted.

against

Verba:

27-05-2025 07:40:31 UTC

Excellent feedback, especially regarding the “Sabotage” rule. That bit was there simply as a contingency should someone seek to alter another’s work in order to attempt to use this proposal to remove someone’s “Plan” from (what I perceived to be) the “legal” gamestate. I missed the bit about it being illegal to edit others’ work (I should have assumed such a necessary rule would be in place). I’m glad it’s an assumed (never know how intrinsically underhanded a Nomic site may be).

I also see what you mean by gamestate. In theory, something that isn’t gamestate cannot be altered as it simply doesn’t exist within the structure to be altered.

I suspect I would need to alter the language to the effect of “removing” the “Drafter’s Plan” from the possibility of being included within the atomic calculation regarding potential win conditions as that is the aim of this particular proposal.

To speed things along, I will also vote against this proposal in order to withdraw it.

against

JonathanDark: Puzzler he/him

27-05-2025 11:39:18 UTC

Regarding contingencies against malicious editing: gamestate is only alterable when a rule allows it to be, and only in the manner in which the ruleset specifies. Each Drafter’s Plan becomes editable gamestate, and only by that Drafter, with this text in the ruleset:

While a Draft is a Plan, it is considered gamestate. The Drafter who created it is permitted to edit it, except in ways that would cause it to no longer be a Draft.

If the text had said “A Plan may be edited” instead of “The Drafter who created it is permitted to edit it”, then you would have cause to be concerned.