You created this whole Nomic-themed dynasty based on the roll-off mechanic ostensibly as an April Fools joke and accurately predicted how it was going to play out (“five days of sprint scamming”). Now that the prophecy has been fulfilled, I feel like you’re backpedaling and trying to block the people who joined the Nomic themed dynasty from playing Nomic by punishing them for playing by the very rules you created in the scenario you set up.

If we’re not going to give ais the win, at what point to we just say end the Lacuna and keep playing? (Rhetorical question, I’m working on the proposal.

I thought the idea was to show the explicit weightings. I get that the top is 25% and the bottom is 15%, but what is the spread? e.g. is “Development of scams and pooling agreements with other Nomicers” closer to 25% or closer to 15%?

It’s a weak complaint on my part, so I’m giving this a for now. I could switch to revising it if Josh wanted to revise it yet again.

@Zack I would be enthusiastic about reopening the game! I proposed it earlier in the dynasty and it got shot down but if a proposal to resolve the dynasty by keeping on playing looks like passing then I’ll withdraw this happily.

If it can’t then we need a resolution of some kind. The idea isn’t to punish anyone - just to land somewhere that doesn’t immediately get shredded by CfJs. I’ve said it elsewhere but it bears repeating that I don’t think that ais currently deserves the win on merit and should certainly not be considered the winner of first resort, so the page is blank as to how things get resolved thereafter.

I will say that saying things like “you’re backpedaling and trying to block the people who joined the Nomic themed dynasty from playing Nomic by punishing them for playing” seems all very needlessly loaded and confrontational. I understand that there is some tension between the pre- and post-invasion players; that’s not my business. I can’t win so I don’t have a horse in this race, i see myself purely as a neutral arbiter.

@JonathanDark I’m really keep to avoid anything getting reverse-engineered and challenged.

To be honest Josh I am feeling pretty defensive as you keep using what I interpret to be pretty charged statements and accusatory language, like saying “I’m not the one being stolen from”, saying that the players who unidled were breaking etiquette, and now calling it an “invasion” which has a clearly negative connotation. You have said you’re not passing personal judgement but it’s hurtful when you say things like that.

I am ready to let bygones be bygones but it seems like you don’t want us here.

Sorry you feel that way! I’m really just describing what I’m seeing - I have also said that I find the move funny and that I think it makes sense for those who did it, so it’s not all negative - but if you don’t like the language I’m using then you should see what some of the other users are saying. Worth considering whether a legit move can also have an impact on other players!

To be very clear, though, I simply do not care - I think your move was valid and if any of y’all win then good on you for it. If I say “invasion”, “theft”, then there’s no vinegar to it. I think that’s what the move was, but I also think it was both legitimate and funny. Own your heist!

(For clarity, I do think that attempting to rope in other idle players, and stir barely-active active players, into the winshare was a bit bullshit - that’s just destroying the game for fun rather than rigourously pursuing ones self-interest. But that’s not what’s up for election here, and in any case I think you kept your hands clean on that, Zack.)

how is taking advantage of the wording of proposal that was already going to end a dynasty “destroying the game”? The game was already supposed to be over.

really getting tried of this negatively charged language around stuff like “destroying the game” and “tried to force the proposal through” and “We’re not having people rushing in to win a dynasty that they’ve not even played in.”

It’s created an incredible hostile atmosphere and turned what was a fun moment last night into an incredibly sour one

that being said, I’m tempted to defer to Kevan here, given he’s the one who actually explained why the chop in Lacunexit mattered a bit more than a standard dynastic chop

@Clucky “How is kicking over the table just before the last move was taken destroying the game, the last move was going to end the game anyway”

Stacking in as many players as you can to divide winshare, literally whipping people to do it to make the outcome as meaningless as possible, for literally no purpose other than to remove any possible meaning from the outcome, just turning the endgame into a random soup, is destroying the game a bit, sorry! Anyone who cared about the outcome prior to it happening had their sandcastle kicked over for lols, if that hurts your feelings as a sandcastle-kicker then I don’t know how to make that better but it is essentially what happened, people who were deliberately building something had it destroyed while they were sleeping because the destroyers thought it was funny. Had it being people unidling to make a winning move I would have had nothing but support, tagging people who weren’t even online to join the dogpile was kicking the table over. I’m glad you had a fun moment last night, I had a bit of a laugh at it this morning but I can’t avoid having sympathy for people who were playing a game and trying to win it. I don’t think you or anyone else deliberately acted in a way you perceived as anti-game but the effect was that the game that was being played is now in a state where it’s hard to rescue - I do admire Zack for trying though.

If your ‘fun moment last night’ made people upset and cross - and I hope you’re not denying that it has - then maybe that’s the thing to reflect on, rather than your feelings being hurt by their feelings beind hurt, you know?

subjective “leave it up to Josh” and the whole “* Equity held as of this gamestate edit.” both rub me the wrong way, but I’ll ultimately just abstain and let the people actively playing in the dynasty before the rest of us joined make the call

But also… does this work

“such that the top-weighted factor accounts for 25% of each Nomicer’s Merit Score and the bottom-weighted factor accounts for 15% of each Nomicer’s Merit Score.”

I get how its intended to work, first one is worth 25%, next three are worth 20%, last one is worth 15%. I get say, a 0/10 on the first one, a 3/10 on the second one, a 5/10 on the third one, a 5/10 on the 4th one and a 0/10 on the last one. So that is 0*.25 + 3*.2 + 5*.2 + 5*.2 + 0*.15 = 1.6 merit score.

But the way this is written, it seems like it might technically be saying that “25% of each Nomicer’s score must come from the top rated factor”. So if my merit score is 1.6, my top weighted factor has to be 0.4.

I think I’m done here. We literally hashed out why it was so upsetting for someone to call in as many people as possible to unidle and reinitialise for the stated motivation, and I quote directly here, that you felt “injecting some chaos into the end seemed like fun”.

If you’re still going to play the wounded act that I wasn’t *friendly* enough about it at, I repeat again, three in the goddamn morning, then I can’t be bothered here. I’m idling.

who did I whip into doing anything?

I do have sympathy for Kevan, which is why I’m abstaining from voting on this

On the other hand, JonathanDark and DoomedIdeas both seemed to fully support the moves I did and enjoyed them. And the others just acted hostility rather than bothering to explain anything and thus I have a hard time having sympathy for either of them.

who did I whip into doing anything?

(NB I am using the parliamentary use of the term “whip”, as in to rally support behind a common position, rather than the equestrian one)

I think at this stage it’s worth saying that what’s happened has happened and it’s best that we move forward from the status quo. But much like the end of Misty 3 I suspect we’ll be picking over the etiquette questions for a while. Plenty of time to address it again with the heat taken out later.

Involving pooling agreements here is interesting because a) some definitely existed (I will admit to being part of at least one), but b) I don’t think that they’re generally public. It’s unclear how exactly you’d determine their existence (I’m assuming that there are several that I’m unaware of).

I also think it would be an improvement for the Merit Scores to be public, but this rule doesn’t actually ban doing that during or after the dynasty.

Also worth noting: Merit Score is an Orphan Variable, because the rule doesn’t explicitly say “privately tracked” – if it did, then it would become illegal to make Merit Scores public until after the dynasty. I think that might make the “choose the most Meritous” action impossible to perform.

To speak for myself, I enjoyed it because the group as a whole rejected my attempt to determine a fair Equity split based on what was achieved so far. I think the sentiment was that we should let things play out. Well, we had a loophole that allowed idle people to join, so that played out, and I supported it, not as a retribution, but as a normal consequence of having the choice of buttoning things up or leaving open a gap, and going with the option that leaves a gap.

I think it’s important to occasionally allow the chaos to happen to fully appreciate what’s really on the table when deciding between one approach or another. This took away from a possible win on my part too, supporting the chaos, but at that point it felt like group consensus that we should not close things up too neatly, so we didn’t, but we also didn’t try to address the gap before opening the gates again, so here we are.

Not an Oprhan Variable, I think, as there is a “reasonable manner in which it can be determined from other gamestate variables”.

And I think I am prohibited from disclosure after the event:

If a piece of information is described as being tracked secretly or privately by the Imperator (including secretly random selections), then that information may only be revealed by the Imperator when the ruleset allows it

On pooling agreements, and scams for that matter, if this passed it would be legal for players to declare them to me before I made my evaluation.

At that point, from my perspective, if you read the chat history JonathanDark and Doomedideas have both positively reacted to the current happenings in chat. As have Raven and Darknight. So you literally had a quorum of Nomicers supporting the move with no one pushing back against it. Everyone seemed to be having fun with it, and so it felt reasonable to let other people join in the fun. I don’t consider that “whipping” even from a parliamentary use.

@Josh: It can’t be determined by anyone but you, because it’s subjective.

I can send you information on my behind-the-scenes shenanigans if this looks like passing.

@Clucky I did support the unidling. I’d appreciate if you did not continue to claim my support for “your moves”, as once you decided to undermine the effort people put into this dynasty, as well as openly state that you were aiming for “maximum chaos” instead of accepting the end result of proposals you supported, my support for any of your actions ended. Thank you.

Out of the options we’ve had for determining a winner, this one seems to be one of the better ones. If Josh is concerned enough about the math involved that he’d prefer to rewrite this proposal, I’ll be happy to switch my vote to a Revise.

for the best I guess

EAV while I wait to see what happens with Play Ball

Play Ball is quorate - but this can’t be resolved for 20 hours anyway, so I’ll leave it for the players to decide which way they want to go.

Josh, are you planning to withdraw this Proposal shortly before the 24-hour mark if Play Ball remains quorate?

I’m a little concerned with what happens if somehow both this Proposal and Play Ball reach quorum. Strictly speaking, this one was proposed first and would enact and be effective first, but it would also mean that we denied a quorum of people the chance to play out the dynasty purely by timing. That outcome doesn’t feel right.

Let me rephrase that: I’m a little concerned with what happens if somehow both this Proposal and Play Ball are enactable, but this Proposal is enacted first due to its position in the queue.

@JD Yes, if Play Ball is quorate when this hits 23.5 hours I’ll probably withdraw it.

But I’d prefer it if players gave a firm steer on which direction they prefer rather than forcing me to make a call unilaterally.

That’s fair. Then let me change my vote to as playing on appears to shaping up as a viable option, in order help provide a clear direction. Nothing against the proposal on its own, but given the two options, I do have a preference as long as we can eventually agree on the “starting point?” for playing on.

Darknight is currently voting for both, for whatever reason; I’m not sure how that would or should be factored in if quorum on one trumps quorum on the other.

I suppose a player may well vote FOR two such proposals to indicate that they want the older one to pass, but if it doesn’t then they have no objection to the newer one happening instead.

(I hadn’t previously voted on Play Ball because I was lukewarm on it. I’ve now voted, if a firm lane pick is helpful.)

I am not sure how I feel about this one, but definitely want Play Ball to pass if this one fails. So my FOR on the latter proposal is on that basis.

Confirming that I’d prefer this to Play Ball, when the time comes.

After thinking about it for a while, I’ve decided that this is my first choice over playing on – I’ve already played through this dynasty once and I’m not sure it would make sense to play through it again, especially as most of the players don’t seem to currently be aiming to improve their Equity position, which can be done even before “Play Ball” passes.

But I will vote for both proposals, as if they both fail it would be a disaster.

To revise my earlier statement: with Kevan, ais and DoomedIdeas all saying they prefer to wrap it up rather than continue, I’m currently leaning more towards enacting this and vetoing the other if the status quo stays as it currently is.

There’s also the question of how SingularByte might have voted on this if Clucky hadn’t provoked them into idling upthread. I guess there’s enough leeway in the process here for you to hang back on fully completing it and raise a CfJ, if you informally conclude in side notes that SingularByte would have otherwise been the most Meritous.

(There’s also enough leeway for you to either skip all the “should then” steps or deliver a verdict of “you all have lovely proposals, 100% each”, and then freely pick a winner by breaking the tie based on anything at all! Let’s hope Clucky doesn’t have an especially convincing Simpsons gif to share on Discord about this.)

I didn’t provoke any to do anything can we chill with the weasel words?

It’s clear from SingularByte’s comment above that your attitude caused them to stop playing this dynasty. I’m not suggesting provocation in the sense of you consciously trying to make the dynasty’s earlier players leave by acting in a certain way towards them, just that it had that effect.

“Provocation” is a pretty negatively charged word. i don’t see how it’s at all helpful to assign blame to me for something another person did on their own accord. You could’ve just gone “there is also the question of how SingilarByte might’ve voted if they hadn’t decided to idle” and left it at that, but instead you choose to make it about me and I don’t see how that is helpful (especially when all I did in this thread was ask people to stop using negativity charged language as it was getting rather tiring and then point out that from my perspective multiple people were supportive of my actions at the time I was doing them and no one pushed back)

Yeah, I think the lack of accountability from you makes it very hard for anyone else to move on, I wouldn’t expect any of this to go away quickly.

“If you’re still going to play the wounded act that I wasn’t *friendly* enough about it at, I repeat again, three in the goddamn morning, then I can’t be bothered here. I’m idling.”

Whether you’d like to be assigned blame or not, SB made it clear that he was idling due to your behavior. To claim that SB idled purely of his own accord would be to lie by omission. I cannot speak for SB, but I can reasonably assume from his comments and messages that he would not have idled if not for the Unidling/Reinitialising, and more specifically, if not for the issues he had with the conversation between you two. Since you have so many qualms with other players’ word choices, I’d recommend also looking into your own comments before you start throwing stones.