Saturday, March 31, 2007

Proposal: E’s a Complex Creature

Vetoed.—Chronos

Adminned at 01 Apr 2007 12:37:30 UTC

If the Proposal “Creature’s Gotta Eat” passed, this proposal does nothing.

Add a new Rule titled “Complexity” with the following text:

Each Lifeform has a value called “Complexity”, which is tracked in the GNDT.  A new Lifeform begins with Complexity equal to:
*C - 1, where C is the Complexity of the active Lifeform with the lowest Complexity, or
*1
whichever is greater.  A Lifeform may not take any action which would result in any of eir Evolutionary Variables’ having a value greater than eir Complexity value.  Whenever a Proposal is resolved, if a Lifeform’s counted vote had the effect of a FOR vote and the resolved Proposal passed, or if the Lifeform’s counted vote had the effect of an AGAINST vote and the resolved Proposal failed without being self-killed or vetoed, then the Lifeform’s Complexity increases by 1.  If the Proposal was not self-killed or vetoed, then the Admin resolving the Proposal shall roll DICE3 once.  On a result of a 1, then the Complexity of all Lifeforms that have not already had eir Complexity increased from the Proposal by this Rule increases by 1.

If the Proposal “Trivial Proposals (trivial)” passed, add the following sentence to the Rule Complexity:

Resolution of a Trivial Proposal does not result in Complexity increases from this Rule.

Initialize all Lifeforms’ Complexity to 1.

The purpose of this is two-fold.  The first is to provide a ceiling on the max Evolutionary Variable, like Amnistar’s suggestion without tying it to a specific Evolutionary Variable (which may or may not make sense).  The second is to provide another resource (which will be addressed if this proposal passes) that is slightly less volatile than DNA as well as add another layer to strategic voting.  Though it’ll still exist, at least there might be a rational reason to vote for a proposal that looks like it will pass.

posted by Axeling at 31 Mar 2007 03:25:00 UTC Comments (8)

Comments

Seebo:

31-03-2007 11:52:45 UTC

“if the Lifeform’s counted vote had the effect of an AGAINST vote and the resolved Proposal failed without being self-killed or vetoed”
So, even more incentive to shoot down everyone’s proposals, or to SK your own if they look like they’re going to fail? This has too many uses beyond how I assume you intended it.

Seebo:

31-03-2007 12:03:13 UTC

Oh, and, err… This thing:  against

ChronosPhaenon:

31-03-2007 13:50:52 UTC

Admin’s Hell!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! against

Clucky: he/him

31-03-2007 14:16:44 UTC

veto

Because it not only ruins the strategic voting (now people are encouraged to vote FOR simply to complexity++) but it also gives benifits depending on which way people vote. Meaning somenoe, even though they dislike a proposal, might vote FOR simply because the need the complexity boost. I like the idea, but find a better way to implement it.

Axeling:

31-03-2007 20:10:16 UTC

Well, I of course am not claiming to know all the ramifications of the proposal, but here was my thought process in any case.

I did realize that the way it’s worded, that obstructionism might be a problem, which is one of the reasons that I made self-killed proposals not count.  If it looks like people are shooting down a proposal just to get the complexity, then the author can just self-kill and no one gets anything.  Thus, this gives an incentive for people to vote for a decent proposal (it will get passed, and they also get a complexity point to boot).  The other reason to make SK’s/vetoes not count is to prevent people from making a proposal just for obtaining complexity (though a group of people could conceivably do this, but this is no different than DNA and as the rules stand right now).

I also am not sure that it ruins the strategic voting.  As it currently stands, there is no reason to vote for a proposal that looks like it will pass if one votes against it, since that just gives 8 DNA points to the author.  Now, there’s a trade-off; the 8 DNA points to the author vs. 2/3 of a complexity point for you.  I think that the overall effect of the proposal will be to encourage votes and speed up the game.  If a proposal looks like it’s going to pass, people will be more likely to vote for it, and thus it’s more likely to reach quorum.  If a proposal looks bad and like it’s going to fail, then more people will vote against it, or the author will self-kill.  In both cases, there will be fewer proposals holding up the queue.

I do realize that it’s more work for the admins, but a lot of that work is done with the DNA (have to determine who’s voted; who votes for/against).  The bulk of the work is updating another field for the Lifeforms, but I think we should move to a more distributed model for doing that anyway.

But yeah, I’m open to another mechanism if you guys think it’s flawed, or any other suggestions.

Hix:

01-04-2007 01:09:17 UTC

If you repropose in some other incarnation, I would suggest doing away with any bonuses from failed proposals.  And the DICE.  (i.e. just make it my 1 complexity point vs. author’s 8 DNA points in the case where it passes)

I like how it makes my vote matter more on proposals that are likely to pass.  As opposed to the current system, which incentivizes everyone to let proposals squeak by with the minimum number of FOR votes.

Axeling:

01-04-2007 01:48:32 UTC

Thanks.  I’m not too attached to the getting the point from rejection (though I don’t think it would necessarily hurt either).  The for vote part is more important.

The reason I had the dice is that I didn’t want to penalize people who couldn’t vote on every proposal.  This way, they still get something (like how they get the lower of two values for DNA).  Also, if the roll is a 1, it simplifies the bookkeeping, since everyone will just get a point.

Seebo:

01-04-2007 06:01:52 UTC

As Hix mentioned, getting proposals to pass by higher margins wouldn’t be a bad idea (since right now reaching quorum is near impossible) and I would probably vote for something that gives incentives to vote For. Not a LOT of incentive, just enough where it’s actually worth considering whether to vote strategically or not.

What I anticipate happening is that 90%+ proposals will be trivial, and people may vote down excellent proposals while trying to strategically vote, and make the author re-propose them trivial anyway. I hope I’m wrong…