Thursday, November 01, 2012

Proposal: Enquire Without

Passes 4-2. — Quirck

Adminned at 03 Nov 2012 12:53:01 UTC

Enact a new rule, “Inquiries”:-

As a weekly action, and if no Inquiries have been called within the past 72 hours, then any Editor may Call an Inquiry by reducing their Journalistic Integrity by 1, choosing a Newspaper to investigate (the “Guilty” Newspaper, which must be a Newspaper which has the highest number of Skeletons among all Newspapers), taking any surname from this list and making a post with a title “The [Surname] Inquiry”, where [Surname] is the chosen Surname. This is known as an Inquiry Post, and it must mention the name of the Guilty Newspaper and a list of two or more Subjects (the “Scope” of the Inquiry).

An Inquiry Post is treated as if it were a Wire Post containing one Neutral Event for each Subject in the Inquiry’s Scope, each with a Location of United Kingdom. A Newspaper may not run a Story on an Inquiry Post if it is the Guilty Newspaper named in that post.

If an Inquiry Post is more than 72 hours old and it has not already announced its Findings, then any Editor may announce its Findings by posting a comment to this effect on the Inquiry Post. Upon doing so, the Guilty Newspaper loses 1 Skeleton and has its Journalistic Integrity halved (rounding towards zero).

Reproposal with some tweaks, since it only attracted three votes last time.

posted by Kevan at 01 Nov 2012 10:11:59 UTC Comments (11)

Comments

Josh: he/they

01-11-2012 10:22:34 UTC

against The freedom of the press is vital in holding public figures to account.

Josh: he/they

01-11-2012 10:26:47 UTC

(Out of character, I also have a problem in that this makes Skeletons a net detriment - the most you can gain for a single Skeleton is 1 Reputation point, and in all probability you will lose more than that.

Also, this doesn’t quite sit well with negative JI scores - why does running an inquiry into a paper with -4 for JI actually improve its score in that category?

I think I would like this is there was a way for the “guilty” paper to defend itself - having the investigated paper be assumed guilty by the fact of the inquiry, not it’s outcomes, may be true to life but it’s not an entirely satisfying mechanic!)

Kevan: he/him

01-11-2012 10:46:06 UTC

A Departmental Firing Skeleton can get you two Reputation, if there are two Wires in play that don’t match your current Stances.

Given the idea that negative Reputation is no better or worse than positive (certainly for “Humour” and “Balance”), I thought rounding to zero seemed the best way to apply a penalty to it. Thematically: if a Newspaper was proudly flaunting its lack of Journalistic Integrity, the Inquiry findings would force them to curb it.

scshunt:

01-11-2012 14:41:13 UTC

for

Josh: he/they

01-11-2012 15:10:15 UTC

If this passes (which it will do, because it doesn’t hurt anybody right now) then I’ll lose 3 JI for having gained 2 Reputation, and then no-one will ever generate a skeleton again. This doesn’t seem like either a fair or desirable mechanic.

Kevan: he/him

01-11-2012 15:22:27 UTC

[Josh] You’ll lose 2 JI in the Findings and you’ll potentially be 1 Reputation behind any Newspapers who can report on the Inquiry while you can’t. But whoever initiated the Inquiry will be down 1 JI.

I suppose a tweak to encourage Skeletising would be to restrict Inquiries to the single Newspaper which has the most, so that Editors would tend to be as bad as each other (and if someone jumps out in front of the pack, it’s as safe to spend another Skeleton yourself to catch up, as to raise an Inquiry about it).

RaichuKFM: she/her

01-11-2012 16:20:46 UTC

imperial

Larrytheturtle:

02-11-2012 00:12:40 UTC

imperial

scshunt:

02-11-2012 05:35:28 UTC

CoV against because this mechanic is very much a race mechanic; the guy in the lead is racing everyone else to run an inquiry against him.

Kevan: he/him

02-11-2012 11:21:41 UTC

How is that a race? If the “guy in the lead” (an Editor with the highest Reputation but also the highest Skeletons?) gets in first and launches an Inquiry against himself, he has to pay 1 Journalistic Integrity for the privilege, and still gets penalised by the Inquiry’s Findings at the end.

Bucky:

02-11-2012 18:21:14 UTC

imperial