Thursday, June 19, 2025

Proposal: Word Play

Popular, 7-0. Enacted by JonathanDark.

Adminned at 20 Jun 2025 18:02:49 UTC

Add a rule named “Backronym” with the following text:

A Backronym is a blog post with the Story Post category in which the only words in the title of that post are English words that can be found in a dictionary search at https://www.merriam-webster.com/, and where the letter that begins each word in that title must match a letter in the Acronym where the position of the word in the title is the same as the position of the matching letter in the Acronym, e.g. the beginning letter of the first word must match the first letter in the Acronym, the beginning letter of the second word must match the second letter in the Acronym, and so on. A Backronym’s title must have the same number of words as there are letters in the Acronym. The body of a Backronym may contain any flavor text of the author’s choosing. For the purposes of this rule, the title of a Backronym is the text that its author wrote and does not include autogenerated text by the blog software.

If they have not done so since the last time Acrogenerate was performed, a Wordsmith may post a Backronym. A Backronym is either Open or Closed and defaults to Open.

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

Each Wordsmith has a publicly tracked number named Points that defaults to 0.

A Scoring is a comment on a Backronym with a single instance of the text “Score X”, where X is a number between 1 and 5 inclusive, along with any flavor text. Any Wordsmith may make a Scoring on a Backronym as long as all of the following are true:
* That Wordsmith did not author that Backronym
* That Backronym was posted less than 48 hours ago
* That Backronym is not Closed

Wordsmiths may make multiple Scorings on a Backronym, but only the most recent will be considered as that Wordsmith’s Scoring on that Backronym. Wordsmiths are strongly encouraged to include the reasons why they chose the number that they did in their Scoring.

If a Backronym is Open and was posted at least 48 hours ago, the Puzzler should perform a Resolving on that Backronym. A Resolving is an atomic action with the following steps:
* Post a comment to that Backronym with the text “This is closed”
* For each Wordsmith that posted a Scoring to that Backronym, select the most recent such Scoring by that Wordsmith and record the number X in “Score X” of that Scoring
* Calculate the median value among all of the recorded numbers of that Backronym, rounded down to the nearest integer, and add the result to the Points of the author of that Backronym

Once the Puzzler has performed a Resolving on a Backronym, that Backronym is Closed.

This may seem like a complete game, and it is if that’s all you want out of it, but there are avenues of expansion such as: more scoring criteria than just the one, backronyms on specific topics, hidden agenda scoring, rounds with specific acronym sizes, a different way to choose acronym letters. Get creative!

Comments

DoomedIdeas: he/him

19-06-2025 18:43:05 UTC

for

Josh: he/they

19-06-2025 19:06:45 UTC

for

Darknight: he/him

19-06-2025 19:12:07 UTC

for

Trapdoorspyder: he/him

19-06-2025 19:23:03 UTC

for

Raven1207: he/they

20-06-2025 00:29:09 UTC

What’s the TL;DR of this proposal

JonathanDark: Puzzler he/him

20-06-2025 00:56:32 UTC

tl;dr - When there is an Acronym, you can make a Story Post where the title contains the words you come up with to make up that Acronym. Then the other players score what you came up with.

Example: if the Acronym is “WWJD”, you might make a Story Post with the title “White Water Just Dissolves”. Then the other players would score it by commenting “Score 1” or “Score 5” (range is 1-5)

Another player might post “What Would Josh Decide” for the same Acronym. You can then score their post. You can score anyone’s post but your own. And you can change your mind up to 48 hours after the post.

Clucky: he/him

20-06-2025 05:37:32 UTC

for

Raven1207: he/they

20-06-2025 07:59:57 UTC

@JD Ty

for