Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Proposal: Three Gods

Timed out and enacted, 7-1. Josh

Adminned at 17 Sep 2010 08:10:56 UTC

Upon the enactment of this rule, the Befuddled called Josh may at any time create a new Competition, provided that the Competition consists of the following text, allowing for minor corrections and tweaks based on feedback or further rule changes:

Three Befuddled are also Gods. One is the God of Truth, one is the God of Falsehood, and one is the God of Randomness. The Gods were selected by the Competition Poster when the Competition was first posted.

Truth always speaks truly, Falsehood always speaks falsely, but whether Randomness speaks truly or falsely is a completely random matter. Your task is to determine the identities of the Gods of Truth, Falsehood and Randomness by asking three yes-no questions; each question must be put to exactly one god. Asking a Befuddled if they are a God counts as a question which the God must answer in character. If a God is asked a question that it cannot legally answer (for example, asking Truth is the answer to the question being asked is no) then they will answer with *exploded head*. Questions may be put to Gods via any medium (email, IRC, PM, questions in this thread etc) and it is the responsibility of the Gods to ensure that they answer no more than three questions from any Befuddled. A God may not ask another God a question in this competition.

Clarifications:

* It could be that some god gets asked more than one question (and hence that some god is not asked any question at all).
* What the second question is, and to which god it is put, may depend on the answer to the first question. (And of course similarly for the third question.)
* Whether Random speaks truly or not should be thought of as depending on the flip of a coin hidden in his brain: if the coin comes down heads, he speaks truly; if tails, falsely.

The first Befuddled to post a correct match of the Gods with their identities as Befuddleds in the comments to this entry wins 5 IQ from each of the Gods and the Competition poster, and one Medal. If seven days have passed from the posting of this Competition, then the Competition poster may mark it as complete by commenting as such and setting the post to closed. At this point, no Befuddled may submit an answer, and the Competition Poster and each of the Gods may take 1 IQ from each Befuddled to have asked a question, and the Competition Poster may also award himself 1 Medal. If a God goes idle before the end of the competition then it is forfeit; no-one may lose of gain IQ or Medals as a result of it.

The initial Gods will be chosen at random from the Befuddleds who vote on this proposal.

posted by Josh at 15 Sep 2010 10:08:55 UTC Comments (14)

Comments

lilomar:

15-09-2010 14:44:29 UTC

for

Klisz:

15-09-2010 14:45:14 UTC

for

Bucky:

15-09-2010 17:09:33 UTC

against .  “A Competition cannot force Befuddleds to do something, or prevent Befuddleds from doing something, like a rule can”

Josh: Mastermind he/they

15-09-2010 18:04:13 UTC

“(It can, however, specify circumstances in which IQ could be transferred and/or Medals awarded, and those circumstances can include performing, or not performing, various actions.)”

This doesn’t force anyone to do anything. I suppose that’s more of a problem, in that there’s nothing to prevent the Gods from cheating.

Bucky:

15-09-2010 19:08:31 UTC

It illegally places restrictions on how the Gods answer questions (e.g. not more than three from the same Befuddled)
Given how you are selecting the Gods, it also allows someone to transfer IQ from someone not in the competition.

Josh: Mastermind he/they

15-09-2010 19:15:23 UTC

Actually, it sets out the actions that Gods can perform to earn IQ or medals. Nowhere does it say that the Gods *must* answer questions a certain way; it specifies the actions that they must perform in order to be eligible for contest entry. That needs fixing, but I’m not sure that it does in the way that you suggest.

Not sure what you mean on the second point; IQ is taken from people who have asked questions (who are thus in the competition) or from the Gods themselves (who are, by implication, also in the competition).

In any case, the proposal does give me licence to make minor edits to the text of the competition before posting it. It would be nice, however, if we could get some activity taking place of some sort.

Bucky:

15-09-2010 19:26:57 UTC

Given that Gods are selected when the competition is made, there will be (at certain times) Gods who have not posted to the competition.  As written, if someone wins before one or more Gods comments, they still get their IQ drained.

Josh: Mastermind he/they

15-09-2010 19:31:02 UTC

That would be remarkable.

Granted, though, that’s a valid issue. Not an insurmountable one, however.

Darknight: he/him

16-09-2010 01:15:09 UTC

for

Bucky:

16-09-2010 01:50:00 UTC

At this point, the objections raised would require more than ‘minor edits’ to correct, to a scammable extent.

Josh: Mastermind he/they

16-09-2010 06:22:09 UTC

@Bucky - you’ve only raised one objection that’s stuck, which can be fixed with a one-line addition. We’re still well in the realm of minor edits.

Kevan: he/him

16-09-2010 10:10:56 UTC

for Given that Bucky was allowed to create a competition without even telling us what it was going to be.

ais523: Mastermind

16-09-2010 20:24:06 UTC

for given that Bucky’s strategy seems to be to create a farmable source of IQ, then shut everyone else’s attempts down, which doesn’t really make for an interesting dynasty.

EvilToaster:

17-09-2010 13:29:18 UTC

for