Monday, June 23, 2025

Proposal: Playing Along

Popular, 7-0. Enacted by JonathanDark.

Adminned at 24 Jun 2025 18:16:15 UTC

In the rule “Backronym”, add a subrule named “Yielding” with the following text:

Each Wordsmith has a publicly tracked Status that is either Playing or Yielding, defaulting to Playing. If a Wordsmith has not posted a Backronym since the most recent Acrogenerate, that Wordsmith may set their Status to either Playing or Yielding at any time. A Wordsmith whose Status is Playing is said to be a Playing Wordsmith, and a Wordsmith whose Status is Yielding is said to be a Yielding Wordsmith. Yielding Wordsmiths may not post Backroynms.

In the rule “Backronym”, add a subrule named “Reminders” with the following text:

If at least a quorum of Wordsmiths have posted a Backronym since the most recent Acrogenerate, the Puzzler should privately send a message of their choice to each Playing Wordsmith who has not posted a Backronym since the most recent Acrogenerate, if the Puzzler has not done so for that Wordsmith in the past 24 hours.

In the rule “Acronym”, replace the text “either a) it has been at least 96 hours since the last time Acrogenerate was performed or b) every Wordsmith” with “every Playing Wordsmith”.

In the same rule, add the following bullet point just before the last step in the Acrogenerate atomic action:

* Set every Wordsmith’s Status to Playing.

Comments

Kevan: Yard he/him

23-06-2025 19:35:16 UTC

What do you think we’d be gaining by having some players “Yield” and opt out of the writing-acronyms game, that we wouldn’t get from them idling?

JonathanDark: he/him

23-06-2025 20:11:48 UTC

If they’re having a bad stretch of 2-3 real-life days where they can’t get time to think about their Backronym, but they don’t want to go through an entire idle-unidle cycle and are still interested in picking it back up after those 2-3 hectic days, this provides a way for them to play nice and not hold up everyone else.

JonathanDark: he/him

23-06-2025 20:13:04 UTC

Honestly, if no one ever changes their Status to Yielding, then the only “cost” we bear is an obsolete gamestate variable.

Kevan: Yard he/him

23-06-2025 20:30:11 UTC

Fair enough. It seems a bit marginal as a way to voluntarily pass turns, when it’s possible to just quickly post a not very good Backronym instead (which you’re guaranteed to get at least get 1 point for).

Some other useful bits and directions in here, though.

for

JonathanDark: he/him

23-06-2025 22:14:15 UTC

Understood. I’m happy to have that part repealed later if it winds up being underused or not used at all.

DoomedIdeas: he/him

24-06-2025 00:18:29 UTC

for

Darknight: he/him

24-06-2025 01:08:30 UTC

for

DeactivatedUser4498:

24-06-2025 05:19:11 UTC

for

Josh: he/they

24-06-2025 08:14:12 UTC

for

Trapdoorspyder: he/him

24-06-2025 18:01:13 UTC

for