On Sat, 23 Dec 2017, David Nicol wrote:
> Initially, (1994?) Nomic World was a MUD, before MUDs started getting
> called MOOs. Synchronous communication was difficult with players from lots
> of different time zones, and voting was done with some persistent game
> objects. A lot of serious discussion actually happened by e-mail because
> otherwise it was difficult to keep track of it.
IIRC, one of the "game objects" was a message board system, if you were
in a room with a message board you could enter "message board" mode
and it acted like a newsgroup (remembering which messages you had read,
etc.). There were separate boards for proposals, CFJs, discussions, etc.
Since others could see you and chat while you were reading/writing, it
was basically as if you were playing agora, but logging into email also
logged you into IRC. (Don't remember using actual email to play but sure
some people did).
One of the big issues (relevant now) was that we treated the "game
state" as a platonic thing from the beginning, and the state of the game
objects frequently didn't match the platonic state (eg as decided by CJFs),
which caused particular difficulties with the moderators. So after it
moved to Agora (email only, with gamestate reflected in after-the-fact
records), there was considerable resistance to going back to being
restricted by programming-driven "reality".
Nomic World ran ~Aug 1992 to Jun 1993.
> The transition to Agora Nomic, mailing list based, was relatively painless.
>
> it certainly makes sense to augment with other technologies, but "archaic"
> is in no way a meaningful criticism, and is false. You know what would be
> archaic? Paper mail, that's what. Oh no, that would be positively modern.
> You know what would be archaic? in-person conventions. The players must all
> physically convene at Agora Island every five years to agree on the rules
> until the next convention...
>
> On Sat, Dec 23, 2017 at 4:31 PM, VJ Rada <vijar...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > personally i dislike the mailing list but it's not that hard to log on
> > to gmail compared to a forum, it doesn't really bother me at all.
> >
> > On Sun, Dec 24, 2017 at 5:27 AM, Reuben Staley <reuben.sta...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > > Using a mailing list over a forum is the same type of argument add using
> > > IRC instead of a chatroom. Yes, it's an archaic form of communication.
> > > Yes, other software might have more features. But the thing is that you
> > > get to choose what client you want to use. You have far more choice with
> > a
> > > mailing list and less with a forum. The issue is, are those changes
> > going
> > > to be worth it?
> > >
> > > On Dec 23, 2017 07:16, "Cuddle Beam" <cuddleb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >> Seeing how activity and Office-holders are waning, I'd like to know how
> > >> people would feel about transitioning Agora off a Mailing List and onto
> > a
> > >> different kind of substrate.
> > >>
> > >> I personally find our mailing list-only system to be archaic and makes
> > >> Agora's human cost to be even "playable" quite high, versus having a
> > GNDT
> > >> or something to handle tracking gamestate.
> > >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > From V.J. Rada
> >
>
>
>
> --
> “no man should be compelled to do what the laws do not require; nor to
> refrain from acts which the laws permit.” Calder v. Bull (U.S. 1798)
>
