Monday, October 31, 2011

Proposal: More VM Cleanup!

Times out and fails 4-8-1.

Adminned at 01 Nov 2011 21:34:07 UTC

REPRESENTING: comex, Spitemaster, Murphy, Bucky

Amend the Rule entitled “Calls for Judgment” by replacing

All Players may cast Votes on that CfJ to indicate agreement or disagreement with the position taken in that CfJ. Pending CfJs continue until they reach a Quorum of FOR Votes, a Quorum of AGAINST Votes, or until 48 hours have passed since they were posted. After this time, if more than half the cast Votes are FOR Votes, the CfJ may be enacted by any Admin by updating or correcting the Gamestate and Ruleset as specified. Otherwise, the CfJ fails. A Failed CfJ has no further effect.

with

A Pending CFJ may be Resolved by an Admin if it has a Quorum of FOR Votes, a Quorum of AGAINST Votes, or if it has been open for voting for more than 48 hours. When a CFJ is Resolved, it is to be Enacted if it has more FOR Votes than AGAINST Votes and Failed otherwise. When a CFJ is Enacted, the Admin Enacting it shall update the Gamestate and Ruleset as specified in the CFJ.

or by replacing

All Players may cast Votes on that CfJ to indicate agreement or disagreement with the position taken in that CfJ. Pending CfJs continue until they reach a Quorum of FOR Votes, a Quorum of AGAINST Votes, or until 48 hours have passed since they were posted. After this time, if more than half the cast Votes are FOR Votes, the CfJ may be enacted by any Admin by updating the Gamestate and Ruleset, and correcting the GNDT and other gamestate tracking entities, as specified. Otherwise, the CfJ fails. A Failed CfJ has no further effect.

with

A Pending CFJ may be Resolved by an Admin if it has a Quorum of FOR Votes, a Quorum of AGAINST Votes, or if it has been open for voting for more than 48 hours. When a CFJ is Resolved, it is to be Enacted if it has more FOR Votes than AGAINST Votes and Failed otherwise. When a CFJ is Enacted, the Admin Enacting it shall update the Gamestate and Ruleset, and correcting the GNDT and other gamestate tracking entities, as specified in the CFJ.

whichever is appropriate.

Amend the rule entitled ‘Resolution of Proposals’ by removing

Proposals the Emperor has Voted to VETO are considered vetoed, and such a Vote cannot be changed. Proposals the author has Voted against are considered self-killed unless the Emperor has Voted VETO on them, or they have fulfilled one of the other requirements to fail a proposal before the author’s self-kill Vote is placed.

and by replacing the first bulleted list with

* It has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal Quorum, has been open for voting for at least 12 hours, and has not been vetoed or self-killed.
* It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours, it has more than 1 valid Vote cast on it, more valid Votes cast on it are FOR than are AGAINST, and it has not been Vetoed or Self-Killed.

and by replacing the second bulleted list with:

* It could not be Enacted without either one of the Votes AGAINST it being changed, or the set of Players being changed.
* It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours and cannot be Enacted.
* It has been Self-Killed or Vetoed.

Rewrite the rule entitled ‘Special Proposal Voting’ to read

When a player casts an explicit vote AGAINST their own Proposal, this renders the Proposal Self-Killed, even if the author later changes their Vote. The Emperor may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a proposal; when the Emperor casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the author later changes their Vote.

If a Player other than the Emperor casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Emperor. When the Emperor has a valid Vote other than VETO on a Proposal, then all votes of DEFERENTIAL are instead considered to be valid and the same as the Emperor’s Vote for the purposes of other rules unless otherwise specified.

Amend the rule titled ‘Dynasties’ by removing the sentence reading

The Emperor may Vote to VETO any Proposal.

Amend the rule titled ‘Votable Matters’ by replacing

Any Player may cast their Vote on a Votable Matter by making a comment to the official post that comprises that Votable Matter using a voting icon of FOR, AGAINST, DEFERENTIAL (only if the Votable Matter is a Proposal), or VETO (only if the Votable Matter is a Proposal and the Player is the Emperor).

with

Each Player may cast one Vote on a Votable Matter by making a comment to the Official Post that comprises that Votable Matter using a voting icon of FOR, AGAINST, or DEFERENTIAL. Additional voting icons may be permitted in some cases by other rules. A valid Vote is, except when otherwise specified, a Vote of FOR or AGAINST. A Player’s Vote on a Votable Matter is the last valid voting icon that they have used in any comment on that Votable Matter. Additionally, if the author of a Votable Matter has not used a valid voting icon in a comment to the post, then the author’s Vote is FOR. A non-Player never has a Vote, even if they were a Player previously and had cast a valid Vote.

Amend the rule entitled ‘Victory and Ascension’ by replacing “Voting” with “Votable Matters” and by replacing the first bulleted list with

* It has been open for voting for at least 12 hours, has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal a Quorum, and either the Emperor has Voted FOR it or it has no AGAINST Votes.
* It has been open for voting for at least 24 hours, has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal a Quorum, and has a number of AGAINST Votes lesser than half of Quorum, rounded down.
* It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours, has a number of Votes that exceed or equal Quorum, and more than half of its valid Votes are FOR.

and by replacing the second bulleted list with

* It has been open for voting for 12 hours and has enough AGAINST Votes that it could not be Enacted without one of those Votes being changed.
* It has been open for voting for at least 12 hours, and it could not be Enacted without either at least one of the Votes AGAINST it being changed, or the set of Players being changed.

Amend the Glossay entry for ‘Effective Voting Comment (EVC)’ to read

A Player’s Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter means that Player’s Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Player’s Vote on that Proposal.

Rewrite these rules to move some to better places and clear up various random rough edges, especially in DEFERENTIAL. A notable change is allowing explicit abstensions on CFJs and DOVs, which were only previously disallowed due to complication really, but now can be added with little effort. This also fixes the ages-old bug that caused Votes to not become valid if made before a Player joins or de-idles (and would only ever cause some headaches to the admin resolving it rather than accomplishing anything). Also, votes of DEFERENTIAL are considered EVCs, so one could abstain in a metadynasty and still have the EVC rider trigger.

Oh, it also fixes a bug that we can’t vote while in Hiatus.

Apologies for the quite-long proposal. I considered it, but I am not deliberately introducing any scams with this proposal. That would be mean since most of you won’t read through it all.

posted by scshunt at 31 Oct 2011 03:22:06 UTC Comments (23)

Comments

Spitemaster:

31-10-2011 04:47:36 UTC

for

arthexis: he/him

31-10-2011 05:40:19 UTC

for Looks good to me, but I will CoV if needed after other rules lawyers have taked a good look at it.

omd:

31-10-2011 06:08:28 UTC

for

Prince Anduril:

31-10-2011 08:04:10 UTC

against

scshunt:

31-10-2011 08:32:03 UTC

Prince Anduril: Any reason?

Kevan: he/him

31-10-2011 11:22:19 UTC

This leaves open the loophole of CfJs being enactable multiple times, and also opens up the new loophole of failed CfJs being enactable in the future, by removing “A Failed CfJ has no further effect.” (Ais523 will appreciate this for his dictatorship CfJ.)

I don’t know if rewording DoVs to require votes that “exceed or equal a Quorum” (“a Quorum of Players called Coppro!”) is a typo or a scam.

SingularByte: he/him

31-10-2011 11:28:43 UTC

against

scshunt:

31-10-2011 12:55:19 UTC

Kevan: No, this doesn’t leave that loophole open. A Votable Matter is either Pending, Enacted or Failed. Once it’s Enacted or Failed, it is no longer Pending.

Additionally, “a Quorum” is not a typo, it is correct grammar.
“a Quorum” is a number, “Quorum” is not.

ChronosPhaenon:

31-10-2011 13:52:56 UTC

against Per Kevan. The most dangerous bug here is the cutting off of ““A Failed CfJ has no further effect.””

The “a Quorum” thing is a problem, too, since Glossary defines what is Quorum and what is word Quorum is used without qualifying. “a Quorum” may be read as a qualified Quorum.

“The Emperor may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a proposal; when the Emperor casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the author later changes their Vote.” makes it possible for the Emperor to “unveto” a Proposal.

“Amend the rule entitled ‘Victory and Ascension’ by replacing “Voting” with “Votable Matters”—> There are 6 occurences of “voting” in that rule. I’ve already changed the relevant one, since the “rename” clause of my previous Proposal should have changed it - i just missed this specific reference when enacting it.

There is no such a thing as a “Glossay entry”.

As a suggestion, make it piecemeal when you repropose it. I mean, don’t try and change all VMs at the same time. By touching everything at once you make it hard to other people changing them while your proposal is pending.

All in all, I’d vote for most of the changes, if proposed separatelly and the pointed bugs were corrected.

southpointingchariot:

31-10-2011 14:17:36 UTC

against

Kevan: he/him

31-10-2011 14:51:30 UTC

[coppro] Fair point, I thought “pending” was floatingly undefined. You are using a mix of “Quorum” and “a Quorum” here, though.

scshunt:

31-10-2011 15:12:06 UTC

> The “a Quorum” thing is a problem, too, since Glossary defines what is Quorum and what is word Quorum is used without qualifying. “a Quorum” may be read as a qualified Quorum.

“If the word Quorum is used without qualifying which subset of Players it is referring to, it is referring to a Quorum of all Players.” - see the last usage of the word, which is as a noun. Perhaps this could be cleared up, but it’s certainly not scammable (and if it is, it’s certainly less scammable than the present ‘Quorum of FOR Votes’)

> “The Emperor may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a proposal; when the Emperor casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the author later changes their Vote.” makes it possible for the Emperor to “unveto” a Proposal.
Typo, but not fatal. The proposal is Vetoed as soon as the Emperor casts a VETO and nothing makes the proposal become un-Vetoed.

> “Amend the rule entitled ‘Victory and Ascension’ by replacing “Voting” with “Votable Matters”—> There are 6 occurences of “voting” in that rule. I’ve already changed the relevant one, since the “rename” clause of my previous Proposal should have changed it - i just missed this specific reference when enacting it.

The remaining instances of the word are caught by the bulleted lists, so aren’t affected. Thanks for pointing out the sloppiness though.

> There is no such a thing as a “Glossay entry”.

Yes there is, it’s an entry in the Glossary. If anyone thinks that’s ambiguous, I’ll leave the game.

>As a suggestion, make it piecemeal when you repropose it. I mean, don’t try and change all VMs at the same time. By touching everything at once you make it hard to other people changing them while your proposal is pending.

> All in all, I’d vote for most of the changes, if proposed separatelly and the pointed bugs were corrected.

I would just find a bunch of allies to propose them all at once because I value proposal slots and this game rewards proposals, making it harder since you can’t count on all of them or none of them being enacted. Then we would all score a ton of SP by virtue of them being enacted. Additionally, there are only a few viable split lines and the resulting proposals would have to cover for each other, so the net result would be far more complicated.

Furthermore, every pointed-out bug is not valid (and if the enacting admin feels strongly about mixing up “Quorum” and “a Quorum”, then he’s free to correct the grammar).

southpointingchariot:

31-10-2011 15:35:14 UTC

CoV imperial

ais523:

31-10-2011 16:05:16 UTC

against It’s a bad idea to vote through a mass core rules cleanup unless everyone is on board with them.

Pavitra:

31-10-2011 16:09:18 UTC

against per rules lawyers.

ChronosPhaenon:

31-10-2011 19:22:35 UTC

> I would just find a bunch of allies to propose them all at once because I value proposal slots and this game rewards proposals,

No, this metadinasty rewards proposals, not this game.

> Then we would all score a ton of SP by virtue of them being enacted.

Yes you can do that. Please notice that I’m representing nobody with my core proposals, and I’ll keep it that way. I’m not here to win this metadinasty, but to rewrite some core rules that need attention.

scshunt:

31-10-2011 21:17:30 UTC

> No, this metadinasty rewards proposals, not this game.
By definition, that’s what this game is right now. This may change.

> Yes you can do that. Please notice that I’m representing nobody with my core proposals, and I’ll keep it that way. I’m not here to win this metadinasty, but to rewrite some core rules that need attention.

As it happens, I disagree with the proposal to make core proposals eligible, but I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Amnistar: he/him

31-10-2011 22:51:54 UTC

against Too much done all at once.  I’m not going to read through that much and unless it’s all co-dependant on each other it can be split into sections.

omd:

31-10-2011 23:23:07 UTC

Since I’m feeling undiplomatic today…

Let’s go through the reasons people have found to vote against this proposal.

> This leaves open the loophole of CfJs being enactable multiple times

Actually it fixes it.

> , and also opens up the new loophole of failed CfJs being enactable in the future, by removing “A Failed CfJ has no further effect.” (Ais523 will appreciate this for his dictatorship CfJ.)

If some hypothetical insane future wording were introduced.

> I don’t know if rewording DoVs to require votes that “exceed or equal a Quorum” (“a Quorum of Players called Coppro!”) is a typo or a scam.

Just because there is a pathological interpretation doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

> The most dangerous bug here is the cutting off of ““A Failed CfJ has no further effect.””

In Agora there is a similar clause, stating that proposals which are not adopted cannot take effect; it’s best described as a holdover from an earlier, vaguer wording where it might have been necessary.

> “The Emperor may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a proposal; when the Emperor casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the author later changes their Vote.” makes it possible for the Emperor to “unveto” a Proposal.

Just because an explanatory clause is misworded doesn’t mean the main clause doesn’t get the job done.

> “Amend the rule entitled ‘Victory and Ascension’ by replacing “Voting” with “Votable Matters”—> There are 6 occurences of “voting” in that rule.

But no occurrences of “Voting”.

> There is no such a thing as a “Glossay entry”.

Good thing admins can correct typos in the ruleset at will.

>  It’s a bad idea to vote through a mass core rules cleanup unless everyone is on board with them.

It might make sense to conclude this without considering the objections, if this wasn’t a dynasty where proposal slots are fairly valuable and usually filled up.

> All in all, I’d vote for most of the changes, if proposed separatelly and the pointed bugs were corrected.

And you’re sure that voting against the others wouldn’t leave the Ruleset as a redundant and illogical mismash of old and new?

ChronosPhaenon:

01-11-2011 01:27:58 UTC

>> All in all, I’d vote for most of the changes, if proposed separatelly and the pointed bugs were corrected.

>And you’re sure that voting against the others wouldn’t leave the Ruleset as a redundant and illogical mismash of old and new?

I’m sure you don’t have to mess up with CfJs mechanics when clearing up DoVs’, and so on. You are touching too many things at once. Recycle, reduce, reuse. Keep it simple.

The problem here is that you are not clearing things up, but messing them around. Not only changing words, but altering mechanics. And doing so in many places at the same time. There are too many movable parts.

You can answer that it is not so how many times you want, it will still be the truth, sorry.

As I said, I’m not against the changes per se, but you are doing it in a manner that may be prejudicial to BN.

And, please, stop saying this metadinasty valuing of proposals is the reason to not to things in a sane manner.

omd:

01-11-2011 04:28:29 UTC

fwiw, don’t blame coppro for that comment, it was me (comex).  (Also, it’s “dynasty”, not “dinasty”.)

Darknight: he/him

01-11-2011 05:00:11 UTC

against

BellEt:

02-11-2011 02:45:12 UTC

against