Proto: RFCs (AI=1.7)
[A new proposal mechanism for Ephemeral rules. Inspired by Asimov's short
story "Franchise", where every year a computer picks a single "most
representative" American as the Voter of the Year...
Alternately, it could be seen as an inversion of the idea of Moots: they
converted the CFJ system to work partially like the proposal system, so here is
a proposal to make the proposal system work like the CFJ system (including, for
possibly the first time ever, explicitly inviting written feedback on proposals
rather than just up/down votes).
I promise this is not a scam.
Intended as my entry into the competition I just started, connecting the
proposal and CFJ systems - "currently unrelated" is a bit of a stretch, given
the above existing connection of Moots, but I think this is a more substantive
bridge.]
Create a new Power-1.7 Rule titled "Requests for Comments":
Any player CAN submit a Request for Comments (RFC) by announcement,
specifying a set of desired changes to the gamestate. E may
optionally bar one person from the RFC.
At any time, each RFC is either open (default), suspended, or
assigned exactly one judgement.
When a RFC has no judge assigned, the Arbitor CAN assign a
player to be its judge by announcement, and SHALL do so within a
week. For this to succeed, e must choose that player randomly
(with equal probability) from the set of eligible judges, using
an adequate selection mechanism such that any player can readily
verify the manifest impossibility of eir having influenced the
outcome (including by selecting between purportedly independent
selection mechanisms).
The eligible judges for an RFC are all players who voted on the
most recent decision to adopt a proposal to be resolved, except
the caller and the person (if any) barred. If this would leave
no one eligible, the base set is instead all players, with the
same exceptions.
Create a new Power-1.7 Rule titled "Judging RFCs":
Starting three days after an RFC is called, if it is open and
assigned to a judge, then that judge CAN assign it a valid
judgement by announcement, and SHALL do so in a timely fashion
after this becomes possible. E is strongly encouraged to
accompany eir judgement with substantive arguments as to why the
suggested changes would have a positive or negative impact on
the game, and any other factors influencing eir decision.
The valid judgements are APPROVE, DISAPPROVE, and REVISE. The
last of these must be combined with a revised set of gamestate
changes; when a judge assigns it, e SHALL design the revised
changes to accomplish the same general aim as the originally
submitted ones.
RFCs are subject to reconsideration, Moot, retraction, and
excess using processes identical to those of CFJs.
A judgement on a RFC is final when it can no longer be subject
to a Motion to Reconsider or entrance into Moot, and was first
assigned at least seven days ago. When a RFC gains a final
judgement of APPROVE or REVISE, its power is set to 0.9, and it
attempts to apply the (possibly revised) specified changes. The
Arbitor SHALL announce it has done so in a timely fashion
afterwards.
[Just to be clear, a RFC can't take effect after "three days"; that's the
minimum before a judgement can be entered, but the judgement then has to stew
for another seven. The restriction is just to make it more likely that people
can raise issues before it's entered rather than using reconsideration/Moot -
it would feel a little weird to me for a decision on a rule change, even a
preliminary one, to be made before any significant number of players had a
chance to look at it.
The "seven days ago" clause is intended as a failsafe but redundant: once 7777
is resolved, a judgement can only become un-Mootable by either remaining
un-Mooted for seven days or being AFFIRMED after a seven day voting period.
An example of an adequate judge selection mechanism: the Arbitor could announce
at a certain time a function used to determine the judge based on the hash of
the sixth Bitcoin block to be mined thereafter, then wait a while and announce
the result.]
