Thursday, June 13, 2013

Declaration of Victory: Well, that was easy.

Not so easy. Fails 1-11 (amusingly, Wakukee is not the 1 in favour).
Ienpw III

Adminned at 13 Jun 2013 08:23:54 UTC

Based on rule 2.1 (Truth) and the Truths wiki page, I believe that I have just achieved victory.

It was pretty simple. Gamestate is defined by the ruleset as “Any information which the Ruleset regulates the alteration of.” (Other things have been defined as gamestate, but only through rules, such as one from the First Dynasty of Wakukee stating that “The universe exists, and is Gamestate.”) Rule 2.1 (Truth) claims the existence of the wiki page and states that everything on it is true. However, it does not regulate the alteration of the page. As such, it is not considered gamestate, and can be legally changed at any time. It does, however, affect gamestate, as everything on it is considered true for the purposes of the game. I thus legally edited the page, and added truths stating that I have achieved victory and that the page is now gamestate (so it can no longer be legally altered).

I should make it clear now that my intentions are (should this pass) to give the next dynasty to Skju, who I have talked to about this. He would keep the current theme and rules (though he would change the truths rule to be less broken) and continue the second dynasty of Skju as if nothing had happened.

Comments

RaichuKFM: she/her

13-06-2013 01:40:44 UTC

against I do believe this is a giant waste of time, and am opposing you out of spite. I mean, honestly, why just slow the game down since you just stated nothing would change?

Also, “If a new wiki page is created by a proposal and its contents are not specified in that proposal, that new wiki page shall be created blank.” I would venture this counts regulating the alteration of any wiki page, making them all gamestate, and I would further venture that an action not explicitly allowed or disallowed that effects gamestate is not legal.

Wakukee:

13-06-2013 01:45:01 UTC

Well, that would theoretically make every wiki page gamestate, which would raise more problems that it fixes. I do recognize your issues with it, however, but consider the opportunity to achieve victory worthwhile if possible.

Wakukee:

13-06-2013 01:54:11 UTC

At any rate, we should really change the rules defining gamestate, as they are currently exploitable because there is no rule in place to stop the alteration of something that is not gamestate, but does affect gamestate.

kikar:

13-06-2013 01:54:27 UTC

against You can’t go around changing wikis per you own whim, atleast as I understand how the game, every change to a wiki needs to be voted on or described in the rules section. As there was no rule allowing you to make the change, I suspect (but still need to find proof) that this is invalid.

kikar:

13-06-2013 01:55:19 UTC

blah. I can’t type. I meant “as I understand the game”. The “how” slipped in somehow.

Wakukee:

13-06-2013 01:58:12 UTC

Well, the wiki isn’t just gamestate. Most of it is histories and other random pages, like a list of improvements suggested to the site. Those can be lageally changed at any time. The truths page was just another one of those pages, as it wasn’t gamestate. Ordinary wiki pages CAN be changed on a whim, legally.

redtara: they/them

13-06-2013 02:05:45 UTC

I think this would have been legal a week ago before the line that Raichu quoted was added, but it’s a week later, so I think that the Truths wiki page counts as gamestate.

I do not agree with Wakukee’s interpretation that every wiki page is now gamestate - the rule only applies to those created by proposal.

for for a good catch, but against per the recently amended rules.

Wakukee:

13-06-2013 02:13:33 UTC

That is actually a great point. Creation and alteration are not really the same thing, but I do see that point. I could also argue that the proposal did not create the truths page, so that line doesn’t actually apply to the page. It only states that the page exists, it did not say that it should be created. I’m not that committed to winning, though.

nqeron:

13-06-2013 02:17:47 UTC

@Ienpw III - what line was this?

against

“Gamestate
Any information which the Ruleset regulates the alteration of.”

“There is a wiki page called Truths which consists of an ordered list of statements, all of which are True.”

The Ruleset and Gamestate can only be altered in manners specified by the Ruleset.

creating a wiki page is information regulated by the ruleset, and is therefore gamestate. Note, that this therefore only applies to wiki pages made by proposals.  Therefore, they can’t be altered except by proposal. (Since Proposals can always alter Gamestate).

nqeron:

13-06-2013 02:17:59 UTC

@Ienpw III - what line was this?

against

“Gamestate
Any information which the Ruleset regulates the alteration of.”

“There is a wiki page called Truths which consists of an ordered list of statements, all of which are True.”

The Ruleset and Gamestate can only be altered in manners specified by the Ruleset.

creating a wiki page is information regulated by the ruleset, and is therefore gamestate. Note, that this therefore only applies to wiki pages made by proposals.  Therefore, they can’t be altered except by proposal. (Since Proposals can always alter Gamestate).

Wakukee:

13-06-2013 02:21:20 UTC

Read the line more closely. It isn’t about information regulated by the ruleset, it’s about information which has it’s alteration regulated by the ruleset. The alteration of the page is not regulated, so the page is not gamestate.

He meant the line “If a new wiki page is created by a proposal and its contents are not specified in that proposal, that new wiki page shall be created blank.”

Clucky: he/him

13-06-2013 02:23:10 UTC

How did I know just looking at the player name that this would be a completely bogus claim?

against

a) “Atoms who wish to become Admins may sign up with a username for the Ruleset Wiki” is enough to classify the whole wiki as gamestate, given that signing up for a username to the Ruleset Wiki counts as an alteration.

b) Yes, this technically means you can’t edit harmless wiki pages. But given its normally harmless, there isn’t any real purpose in stopping.

c) Most importantly, “The First Dynasty of Skju” is a completely meaningless name with no official reference in the game. There is nothing in the ruleset which actually says the first dynasty of skju is this one, its just nomenclature we use for easy reference. If you had just done “Wakuee has achived victory” then you might’ve had an argument, but I don’t see you getting around this one.

Larrytheturtle:

13-06-2013 02:27:30 UTC

against

nqeron:

13-06-2013 02:28:08 UTC

against

An Atom who has a choice in whether to take an action defined by a dynastic rule may not take that action if both of the following conditions are true: a) the action’s effects are limited to changing values tracked in the GNDT and/or similar gamestate-tracking entities (such as a wiki page), and b) the action would change one or more of those values to an illegal value.

“such as a wiki-page” implies that wiki pages are Gamestate.

Clucky: he/him

13-06-2013 02:30:22 UTC

Gamestate needs to be alterable nqeron. Technically static GNDT values that the ruleset doesn’t say how to alter aren’t gamestate either…

Wakukee:

13-06-2013 02:31:32 UTC

Yeah, I completely agree with c there. We should really change how gamestate s defined, however, as I believe the editing of wiki pages is completely legal if their normal alteration is not covered in the ruleset.

Wakukee:

13-06-2013 02:31:37 UTC

Yeah, I completely agree with c there. We should really change how gamestate s defined, however, as I believe the editing of wiki pages is completely legal if their normal alteration is not covered in the ruleset. against

Clucky: he/him

13-06-2013 02:36:23 UTC

at least you added the “this page is now gamestate” so we can properly clean up the editing rules so they are non-ambiguous without someone else trying the same thing only with “xxx has achieved victory”

Wakukee:

13-06-2013 02:38:32 UTC

Yeah, that was intentional. The comment about the first dynasty was there for the same reason, so that if the rule was not repealed for the next dynasty, the statement would not still apply.

Cpt_Koen:

13-06-2013 02:43:02 UTC

against whatever

Skju:

13-06-2013 02:49:50 UTC

against Clever, we know, but we also implicitly know that “Truths” is gamestate, or, at the least, not amenable by straight editing. This is, at one level, the purpose of this dynasty: to patch logical holes by formalizing, axiomatizing, unifying the system. As I said, though, this DoV a waste of time.

RaichuKFM: she/her

13-06-2013 02:51:38 UTC

Yep, pretty much an important thing to fix getting brought up in a way that wastes 12 hours.

scshunt:

13-06-2013 05:15:47 UTC

for

Raichu’s argument doesn’t hold water. The page was never specified to be created.

RaichuKFM: she/her

13-06-2013 05:17:57 UTC

What about Skju, Clucky and nqeron? Also, Wakukee doesn’t even support himself after Clucky’s point C.

Kevan: he/him

13-06-2013 11:38:47 UTC

Unrelated to given arguments, there’s also the fact that “A keyword defined by a rule supersedes the normal English usage of the word.” - when Wakukee says “it is considered true for the purposes of the game”, he is making a short but contestable leap from “it is a statement which has the quality of True”. (“There is a wiki page called Truths which consists of an ordered list of statements, all of which are True.”)

“These particular statements are True, and by inference other statements may or may not be True” seems like a reasonable enough definition of what “True” means within the confines of the game.

Sphinx:

13-06-2013 14:02:33 UTC

against
What Kevan said.

Tavros:

13-06-2013 14:14:02 UTC

against per Kevan. To me, it still seems, despite all the arguments given above, that the page “Truths” is not gamestate (as of a day ago, at least). But the capitalization of the word “True” suggests that Truth is a special, rules-defined concept distinct from the concept of actual truth,

Cpt_Koen:

13-06-2013 15:20:40 UTC

Given that neither that rule nor any other elaborates on that notion, I think True is hardly “defined by the rules”...