BlogNomic: The First Dynasty of Desertfrog

But I’m not above changing my vote in ~47 hours if this actually looks likely to pass…

first, I’m against this in terms of gameplay. All this basically does is let everyone get the best machine, while if someone joins later they don’t. thats just not fair, and takes away the fun of earning the robots.

more importantly, I’m against this on principle. You should never reward people for voting FOR your proposal. I don’t even know why we allow it. People should be able to vote on proposals simply with “Will this improve the game” in mind. I already dislike rules that reward your for writing proposals that pass, because it means the question becomes “Will this improve the game enough to let this guy gain an advantage” but generally I can tollerate those.

This, however, is even worse. By voting AGAINST a player runs the risk of being put as a significant disavantage. They are encouraged to vote FOR so that they don’t get screwed if everyone else votes FOR. You own personal feelings about “is this a good move for the game” lose out to “do I want to risk everyone getting a better robot than me”

It’s fine to allow this kind of prisoner’s dilemma subgame - the ethics of rewarding some players at the expense of others is a matter for the voters, and these things usually get voted down out of a sense of fairness. It’s worse when someone tacks an “anyone who votes for this gets a prize” clause onto a larger proposal, but in practice that kind of thing will just attract against votes.

Mostly because the queue’s a little thin, and an active player could miss a chance to cast a vote before this went through.