In many periods of history, Agora has had some sort of invasion
protection rule. This normally serves two purposes: protecting Agora
from a large influx of new players who are aiming to gain control over
the ruleset; and making counterscamming more interesting (typically,
when Agora is in "invasion mode" some aspects of scams become harder to
pull off, but sometimes some become easier).
Even before the recent events at BlogNomic, I was considering re-adding
such a rule. Now, it seems like it may be fairly urgent.
This time, I thought of a twist that seems logical and hasn't been used
before. In order to defend against an invasion, you need to identify a
set of players who likely have Agora's interests in mind. Previously,
was done either using wins, or using duration of registration. However,
it strikes me that probably the best measure is Ribbons; they stick
around even after deregistration, they're intended as a very difficult
long-term goal that players can work on over many months or years (thus
they're at power 3 to make it hard to make them easier), and they tend
to be accumulated naturally even by players who aren't trying for them.
This also means that the anti-invasion rule can serve something of an
economic purpose: by giving a political advantage to players who have
more Ribbons, it gives an incentive to collect them.
And now, the proposal.
I submit the following proposal, "Agoran Festivals", AI 2.1:
{{{{
Create a new rule, "Festivals", power 2.1:
{{{
Festivity is a singleton switch, whose possible values are integers
ranging from 0 inclusive to the number of defined types of Ribbon
exclusive, and defaulting to 0. While Agora's Festivity is 0, Festivity
is tracked in the Tailor's monthly report. Otherwise, it is tracked in
the Tailor's weekly report. Changes to Festivity are secured.
If Agora's Festivity has had the same nonzero value for 14 days or
more, any player may flip it to 0 by announcement.
A player who owns at least N types of Ribbon may Start a Rank N
Festival, where N is an integer greater than Agora's Festivity, with 4
Support from players who own at least N types of Ribbon. Upon doing so,
Agora's Festivity is flipped to N. Exception: A player may not do so if
Agora's Festivity has had a value greater than or equal to N within the
past 21 days.
A person who owns a number of types of Ribbon equal to or greater than
Agora's Festivity is known as Festive. Other persons are not Festive.
}}}
[The 4 support requirement is designed to ensure that there are at
least 5 Festive players at the start of the Festival. This is to
prevent scams by a group of heavily-decorated players. Additionally,
basing it entirely on Support makes it hard for a flood of new players
to interfere with it, and allows restrictions to be introduced near-
instantaneously and thus beat out any timing scam.
It's possible to extend a Festival via progressively starting new
Festivals of higher rank, until you reach a value too high for enough
players to have enough Ribbons.]
Create a new rule, "Festival Restrictions", power 2.1:
{{{
While Agora's Festivity is nonzero, the following apply:
(a) Non-Festive players are never considered Supporters of a dependent
action;
(b) Non-Festive players cannot flip the Imminence of any proposal;
(c) Quorum for Agoran Decisions is equal to half the number of Festive
players, rounded up;
(d) Each Festive player has the maximum possible voting strength. All
other players have the minimum possible voting strength.
While Agora's Festivity is zero, the paragraphs above have no effect
and are ignored.
}}}
[Things that Non-Festive players can still do: hold office; judge CFJs;
submit proposals for someone else to pend. In other words, they can
still largely participate, and in particular, they have just as much
ability to earn Ribbons (and thus become Festive) as other players do.]
}}}}
--
ais523
