Friday, June 20, 2025

Proposal: Even Cooler Acronyms

Add a subrule to the rule “Acronym” called “Acroname”, with the following text:

There is a publicly tracked Acroname, which is either empty or a flavor text string of two to thirty alphabetical letters, defaulting to empty.

Acrospecify is an atomic action with the following steps:
* Choose whether to use an English word from the [[EFF Wordlist]], or the name of a currently active Worsmith.
* If the first option is chosen, set the Acroname to a publicly randomly chosen word from the [[EFF Wordlist]].
* If the second option is chosen, publicly randomly select a currently active Wordsmith and set the Acroname to that Wordsmith’s name, with any characters other than alphabetical letters removed.


If the Acroname is empty, the Puzzler may Acrospecify.

We can set up a way to make Backronyms for the Acroname later- I simply wanted to set up the potential for word-based acronyms as well as randomly generated ones, since the Ascension Address uses DRAGON as an example. The reason for the Acroname being up to 30 letters is because that seems to be the character limit for Wordsmith names.

Comments

JonathanDark: Puzzler he/him

20-06-2025 03:08:59 UTC

So just to be clear, the options for the Puzzler are to either select an English word of the Puzzler’s choosing or a random Wordsmith’s name?

I’m wondering if it would be better to have the Puzzler choose a random English word, for example from the EFF Wordlist. I’d personally rather not want to choose a specific English word on purpose without any other guidance.

DoomedIdeas: he/him

20-06-2025 03:18:06 UTC

I’m happy to make that change! I forgot we had the EFF Wordlist, and couldn’t think of an easy way to randomly choose a word from the Merriam Webster dictionary.

ais523:

20-06-2025 04:06:19 UTC

I’m almost wondering whether it’s worth adding a link to that list to the appendix – it comes in useful so often.

Clucky: he/him

20-06-2025 05:52:09 UTC

Not sure we need both. Definitely open to the idea of forcing the Acronym to be a real word though arrow

Josh: he/they

20-06-2025 06:48:21 UTC

for

JonathanDark: Puzzler he/him

20-06-2025 14:23:49 UTC

for Pass-and-fix is fine by me. It’s not fundamentally broken, especially since there’s no action to take on an Acroname yet. I’m just expressing my personal preference on the selection of the Acroname.

Darknight: he/him

20-06-2025 14:38:23 UTC

for

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