Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Proposal: Prposal: Blogstate and Gamestate

Cannot be Enacted without CoV (1-8).
Failed by Hix.

Adminned at 04 Jul 2006 22:08:09 UTC

Alter the last bullet under Rule 3 “Glossary” to read as follows:

Gamestate is defined as any information which the Ruleset regulates the alteration of, such as Travellers’ names and the blog colour scheme.  The Blogstate is defined as the information about the Gamestate available on the blog, such as posts, the ruleset wiki, and the GNDT.  The Blogstate is merely a reflection of relevant aspects of the Gamestate; in case of a discrepancy, the Gamestate is controlling.  If the Blogstate is altered in a way that creates a discrepancy between the Gamestate and Blogstate it has no effect on the Gamestate.

If more than half of the comments voting on this proposal contain the phrase “finish it” replace the following text from Rule 1.7:

All updates to the GNDT are logged - if a Traveller feels that an alteration goes against the Rules (as they were at the time of the alteration), e may simply undo the effects of that alteration. If such an undoing is disputed, a Call for Judgment shall be raised.

with

All updates to the GNDT are logged - if a Traveller feels that an alteration goes against the Rules (as they were at the time of the alteration), e may simply undo the effects of that alteration. If such an undoing is disputed, a Call for Judgment shall be raised.  If a Traveller feels that an alteration of any part of the Blogstate causes it to deviate from the Gamestate e should take action to inform the other Travellers of eis belief and to revert the Blogstate so that it correctly reflects the Gamestate so far as it is within eis power to do so.  Any such reversion should be done in a manner that creates a record of the change and disagreements about such reversions should be resolved by Call for Judgment.

I feel that after the events of the last dynasty some clarifiation on this topic is in order.

Comments

Thelonious:

04-07-2006 13:19:32 UTC

“eis” isn’t a spivak pronoun but this can be corrected under Rule 1.1 at the time of enactment.

Otherwise for

Thelonious:

04-07-2006 13:32:00 UTC

Also, the rule is a bit misleading in that it suggests that the blog colour scheme is regulated by the rules.  However, I see nothing in the rules that regulates it.

Kevan: he/him

04-07-2006 15:17:42 UTC

Hmm. This seems to overlook the problem of a GNDT error going unnoticed for a long time - I don’t like the idea that we could get to the end of a Dynasty and somebody could say “Surprise! I should have gained 5 followers instead of 1, four weeks ago, which means that my fifteen mining actions and ten building actions actually gave me five palaces, in the invisible Gamestate (which I have been tracking in a local text file)! I win!”

A Nomic I used to play had a rule that any incorrect gamestate changes more than 24 hours old became legal, if nobody noticed them in that time (and excessive abuse could always be undone with a proposal). Which is perhaps how we’re playing it here, unspokenly.

Hix:

04-07-2006 15:19:18 UTC

against

Thelonious:

04-07-2006 15:27:17 UTC

Kevan makes a good point - and suggests a good remedy (although I’d probably make it 48 or even 72 hours rather than 24).

CoV against

Rodney:

04-07-2006 19:04:04 UTC

against I don’t think I’ve ever voted on a prposal before.

TAE:

04-07-2006 19:43:54 UTC

My concern with Kevan’s suggestion is that it ultimately condones cheating.  This is because if you can get an error to stand for more than some period of time it becomes permanent.  Under my version a person who acts as Kevan fears will have broken rule 1.7 (“If a Traveller feels that an alteration of any part of the Blogstate causes it to deviate from the Gamestate e should take action to inform the other Travellers of eis belief and to revert the Blogstate so that it correctly reflects the Gamestate so far as it is within eis power to do so”).  Perhaps we need to put some teeth into this, but I don’t think pro-cheating rule is the solution.

To make matters worse, in a dynasty like the last one, there were only a very small number of people who could have definitively stated that a change to the blog was or was not allowed within the ruleset.  Making failure to notice errors (or cheats) grounds for them to become accepted seems likely to create an incentive for players to engage in precisely the sort of opportunistic, outside the rules play that nearly became a problem in the last dynasty.

If the majority of people think that Kevan’s solution is correct then I will repropose with that language.

Hix:

04-07-2006 19:53:19 UTC

We don’t need Kevan’s language either.  We have CfJs to resolve disputes.  If the incorrect presentation of Gamestate is thought to be the result of cheating, we CfJ it.  If it’s recent, we correct it.  If it’s very old, we decide if it’s important enough to warrant a CfJ.

Angry Grasshopper:

04-07-2006 23:55:19 UTC

Blogstate what? I like the glossary addition but I think that the amendment to 1.7 is superfluous.

against

Bucky:

05-07-2006 00:10:04 UTC

against too confusing.

Kevan: he/him

05-07-2006 01:07:17 UTC

against There might be a compromise in legalising cheating but still punishing it, without necessarily being able to undo it perfectly.

Greth:

05-07-2006 01:25:10 UTC

against

Coldspell:

05-07-2006 04:56:39 UTC

against