DIS: Re: BUS: The People's Bank of Agora -- like the RBoA, only communist!

[Ben Caplan]

On Monday 13 October 2008 06:00:30 pm Ian Kelly wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 4:53 PM, Elliott Hird wrote:
> > 20. An Comrade can transfer one instance of an Eligible Currency
> > to the PBA by
> > announcement. Upon doing so the target currency's exchange rate
> > goes down by 1,
> > then a number of coins equal to the exchange rate of that
> > currency are created
> > in the transferrer's possession. This is referred to as a
> > "deposit".
> >
> > 21. An Comrade can transfer an amount of coins in eir possession
> > equal to the
> > specified target currency's exchange rate to the PBA, as long as
> > the PBA has at
> > least one instance of that currency. Upon doing so one instance
> > of the target
> > currency is transferred from the PBA to the Comrade who
> > transferred the coins,
> > then the target currency's exchange rate goes up by 1. This is
> > referred to as a
> > "withdrawal".
>
> I join this contract.
>
> I deposit a 7 crop for 10 coins.
> I transfer 9 coins to the PBA to withdraw a 7 crop.
> I deposit a 7 crop for 10 coins.
> I transfer 9 coins to the PBA to withdraw a 7 crop.
> I deposit a 7 crop for 10 coins.
> I transfer 9 coins to the PBA to withdraw a 7 crop.
> I deposit a 7 crop for 10 coins.
> I transfer 9 coins to the PBA to withdraw a 7 crop.
> I deposit a 7 crop for 10 coins.
> I transfer 9 coins to the PBA to withdraw a 7 crop.
> I deposit a 7 crop for 10 coins.
> I transfer 9 coins to the PBA to withdraw a 7 crop.
> I deposit a 7 crop for 10 coins.
> I transfer 9 coins to the PBA to withdraw a 7 crop.
> I deposit a 7 crop for 10 coins.
> I transfer 9 coins to the PBA to withdraw a 7 crop.
> I deposit a 7 crop for 10 coins.
> I transfer 9 coins to the PBA to withdraw a 7 crop.
> I deposit a 7 crop for 10 coins.
> I transfer 9 coins to the PBA to withdraw a 7 crop.
>
> -root

This doesn't do what you think. Each of these deposits only gets you 9 
coins, so the whole post has no net effect except to make you an 
Comrade.

Re: DIS: Re: OFF: [IADoP] resolving Mad Scientist election

[Ben Caplan]

On Monday 13 October 2008 02:35:06 pm ais523 wrote:
> Wooble wrote:
> > This message serves to initiate the Agoran Decision to choose the
> > holder of the Mad Scientist office. The vote collector is the
> > IADoP, and the eligible voters are the active players.
>
> This looks to me very like an attempt to initiate the decision,
> rather than intent to initiate the decision (which is what R107
> requires).

I think it's clear that the intent of the quoted message was to 
initiate the decision.

DIS: Re: BUS: Farewell...?

[Ben Caplan]

On Monday 13 October 2008 01:59:43 pm ais523 wrote:
> I won't attach the message in question as evidence, just in case I
> end up getting Left in a Huff too; instead, I submit the following
> URL as evidence:
> 008-October/014528.html>.

By what logic does include-by-reference work for judicial evidence, 
but not publication of Cantus Cygneus?

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: AAA - Secretary of Agriculture Report

[Ben Caplan]

On Monday 13 October 2008 01:44:46 pm ais523 wrote:
> On Fri, 2008-10-10 at 15:36 -0500, Ben Caplan wrote:
> > I intend, without 3 Objections, to set each of the following
> > exchange rates:
> > 8 crops55
>
> Note that it's mostly me who's responsible for the bank's glut of 8
> Crops; having two 8 Ranches, I've been generating them fast enough
> that they're one of the first things that I exchange. If you lower
> the rate too far my incentive to sell my 8 Crops will reduce.

That's kind of part of the point; if 8 Crops are being deposited more 
than they're being withdrawn, then we're above fair market price. 
Ideally there should be neither glut nor drought.

Note also that most of the rates are being dropped, so that 55 chits 
will be more expensive/valuable than 55 chits is now.

Pavitra

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Alternate contestmaster-switching mechanisms

[Ben Caplan]

On Monday 13 October 2008 01:01:44 pm comex wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 1:55 PM, Ian Kelly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:
> > R2136 used to include the requirement that a contest be "fair to
> > all contestants" in order to be a contest
>
> Among the problems with that was that a contest which ceased to be
> fair automatically ceased to be a contest, perhaps without anyone
> knowing (http://agora.qoid.us/rule/2136#406379).  Reinstating the
> requirement pragmatically might be better received, but would
> probably break lots of things (is the RBoA fair to all contestants
> if persons with more crops can more easily get chits? etc...)

Isn't Without 3 Objections, in effect, a pragmatic requirement to be 
fair?

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Alternate contestmaster-switching mechanisms

[Ben Caplan]

On Monday 13 October 2008 12:27:27 pm Taral wrote:
> Isn't it a rule that anyone can join a contest and that contest
> must award points "fairly"?

I don't think so. There might be a proposal coming up to that effect.

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Alternate contestmaster-switching mechanisms

[Ben Caplan]

On Monday 13 October 2008 11:50:00 am ais523 wrote:
> On Sun, 2008-10-12 at 12:05 -0500, Ben Caplan wrote:
> > I retract that proposal, and submit the following AI=1, II=1,
> > entitled "Creative contest switching v.2":
>
> This is an incredibly bad idea. Goethe deregistered over root's
> equity contest scam (which I was involved in); this would make the
> scam not only work, but written into the ruleset as a legal
> possibility. (I thought about exploiting it rather than telling
> everyone, but that would likely lead to chaos with nobody gaining
> more than anybody else.)

Can you elaborate on how this might be exploited?

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Re: OFF: Distribution of proposals 5765-5778

[Ben Caplan]

On Monday 13 October 2008 11:59:46 am ais523 wrote:
> On Sat, 2008-10-11 at 09:36 -0700, Ed Murphy wrote:
> > > 5777 O 1 1.0 ais523  Export
> >
> > AGAINST x 5 ("Export Bootstraping" [sic] should only trigger if
> > the B proposal has the same text as the proposal that created
> > "EB")
>
> If you like the idea, could you reconsider that? The way proposals
> work in B, the first proposal called "Export" that could trigger
> the rule will be the one with the same text as Agoran proposal
> 5777.

You could vote conditionally on the proposal texts being identical.

DIS: Re: BUS: Incorporate the Bank

[Ben Caplan]

On Monday 13 October 2008 11:17:45 am Roger Hicks wrote:
> Without three objections I intend to amend the RBOA agreement as
> follows: {
> Replace section 2 with:
> {{
> Any person who owns a non-zero number of Chits may become party to
> this agreement by announcement. Parties to this agreement are known
> as Bankers. The Bankers shall act collectively to fulfill the
> obligations required of this contract.
> }}
> Create a new section with the text:
> {{
> Any Banker may initiate a Bank Motion by announcement. A Bank
> Motion may specify one or more of the following actions:
> * A change to the exchange rate for a currency
> * Any action the RBOA can perform as a person
> Each Banker may either approve or disapprove of a Bank Motion by
> announcement. A minimum of two and a maximum of seven days after
> the initiation of a Bank Motion any Banker may resolve that Motion.
> At the time of resolution, if the total number of chits owned by
> Bankers who approved of the Motion exceeds the total number of
> chits of Bankers who disapproved of the Motion, then the Banker who
> resolves the motion shall carry out any actions specified by that
> motion. The Banker is authorized to act on behalf of the RBOA for
> the purposes of resolving said Motion.
> }}
> }

Good idea, but not far-reaching enough. This mechanism should be 
instead of, not in addition to, action Without 3 Objections; and 
amending the contract should be a Bank Motion as well.

Still, you've got my non-objection.


Pavitra

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Caste Cycling

[Ben Caplan]

On Monday 13 October 2008 08:10:48 am Benjamin Schultz wrote:
> 4.  Caste changes will avoid promoting / demoting a player who paid
> for eir own demotion / promotion respectively within the four weeks
> prior to the caste change, unless the Rules require this change and
> there are no other options valid under the Rules.
Probably simpler to use the old wording, but substitute "possible and 
permissible" for "possible".

> 5.  Caste changes will void promotion or demoting a player whose
"will avoid promotion"


There may be an unavoidable conceptual problem here.

If you specify "best as possible", then the contract could require you 
to act in a way that R2211 says you CAN must MUST NOT act.

But, if you specify "best as possible and permissible", even if you 
word it as "required by the Rules", then R1742 allows another pledge 
to override the Policy by *requiring* you to act in a certain way.

Perhaps you could say something like "unless required by a Rule other 
than R1742".


Pavitra

Re: DIS: Proto: The Commonwealth of Agora

[Ben Caplan]

On Sunday 12 October 2008 07:20:23 pm Ed Murphy wrote:
> Change the title of Rule 1950 to "Voting on Senate Decisions", and
> amend it by replacing each instance of "democratic decision" with
> "Senate decision", and by prepending this paragraph:
>
>       Each first-class player represents a state in the Senate.
>
> Change the title of Rule 2156 to "Voting on House Decisions", and
> amend it by replacing each instance of "ordinary decision" with
> "House decision", and by prepending this paragraph:
>
>       Each player represents a number of districts in the House.

This could be taken to imply avatar theory.

In general, I'm not a huge fan of this particular theme (I didn't like 
The Republic of Agora either).

"Alderman" breaks the long-running Agoran tradition of gender 
neutrality (at least in the Rules proper -- certain contracts follow 
the B tradition). I'd rather call it City Elder or something.

All in all, I'd much rather just rename "ordinary" to something 
like "oligarchical" or "aristocratic".


Pavitra

DIS: Re: BUS: Intent to make Werewolves a cross-nomic game

[Ben Caplan]

On Sunday 12 October 2008 02:00:39 pm Ed Murphy wrote:
>   1g) All communications pertaining to this contract are to be
> posted to at least one forum of each nomic in which it is a
> contract.

This should probably specify "public forum".

Also: does "are to be" mean "SHALL be" or "are ineffective unless"? 
(Preferably the latter.)

Pavitra

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Bank notes

[Ben Caplan]

On Sunday 12 October 2008 12:05:37 am Roger Hicks wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 17:57, Ben Caplan wrote:
> > I withdraw 3 VP for 268 chits.
>
> 281 chits, I think, and you only have 115, so I'm considering this
> to fail.

I'm pretty sure I have a bazillion chits, so this should succeed.

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Re: OFF: [Assessor] Voting results for Proposal 5731

[Ben Caplan]

On Saturday 11 October 2008 07:36:05 pm Ed Murphy wrote:
> Taral wrote:
> > On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 3:35 PM, Benjamin Schultz 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >> I harvest 869 from these crops, the power of a recently amended
> >> rule (mutated to power 2), for 6 random crops.  Yay for high
> >> seed ratios!
> >
> > Funny how this is coming up so often now. I bumped it from 1x to
> > 3x ages ago because nobody was using it... now I'm wondering if
> > that was too high...
>
> At 1x, you could spend 3-4 known crops to gain 1-3 random crops. 
> Not hard to figure out why that didn't get used.
>
> At 3x, you can spend 3-4 known crops to gain 3-9 random crops. 
> That seems reasonable to me.  (Both the recent cases involved
> 3-digit rule numbers with power >= 2.)

Maybe 2 + 2*power would be better; random gain ranges from 4 to 8. 
This would be more useful at low powers, but not so useful as to be 
abusable.

Oh yeah, and definitely floor(n*x) not n*floor(x).

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: The Subgame

[Ben Caplan]

On Saturday 11 October 2008 03:38:32 pm Elliott Hird wrote:
> On 11 Oct 2008, at 21:05, Ed Murphy wrote:
> > H. Ambassador BobTHJ, I suggest flipping recognitions as follows:
> >   Normish   -> Friendly
> >   Nomic 217 -> Neutral
> I agree, but with Normish -> Neutral and Nomic 217 -> Friendly.

Normish is better-established, and has an Agoran "face" partnership. 
Objectively, Murphy's way makes more sense.

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Semipermanent markers

[Ben Caplan]

On Saturday 11 October 2008 02:16:41 pm Taral wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 9:34 AM, Ben Caplan
>
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >> > [Allowing transfer of Markers to oneself shouldn't be horribly
> >> > abusable (as allowing transfer of Markers from oneself to
> >> > others would be), and could make it easier to set up useful
> >> > redemptions.]
> >>
> >> Nonsense.
> >
> > How do you think it's abusable? Anyone who can act on my behalf
> > to transfer markers from emself to me can do much worse than
> > that.
>
> I was nonsense-ing the "easier to set up useful redemptions" part.

Ahh... I see the flaw in my plan now. Yes.

DIS: Re: BUS: Semipermanent markers

[Ben Caplan]

On Friday 10 October 2008 11:39:02 pm Taral wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 9:34 PM, Ben Caplan
>
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > I intend, without Objection, to amend The Note Exchange as
> > follows:
>
> I object
>
> > [Allowing transfer of Markers to oneself shouldn't be horribly
> > abusable (as allowing transfer of Markers from oneself to others
> > would be), and could make it easier to set up useful
> > redemptions.]
>
> Nonsense.

How do you think it's abusable? Anyone who can act on my behalf to 
transfer markers from emself to me can do much worse than that.

ps. I am assuming that Marker transfer would only occur when the 
transferor had been offered a reasonable bribe to do so.

Re: DIS: Russian Roulette - obligations.txt

[Ben Caplan]

On Friday 10 October 2008 04:40:18 pm Ed Murphy wrote:
> Only on ehird's end; it wouldn't prevent me from revealing the
> password (I'm not a party, only the AFO is).

How would you find out the password unless someone (e.g., the AFO) 
illegally revealed it to you?

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Proposed AAA change

[Ben Caplan]

On Friday 10 October 2008 09:05:52 am Roger Hicks wrote:
> {
> Once each week for each Operator, a farmer may mill by destroying
> two crops e owns. E then forms a mathematical expression using the
> values of those two crops and the value of the chosen Operator
> exactly once each, and e evaluates the expression over the finite
> field of integers modulo 11.  If the result is a number, e gains
> one Crop of the corresponding type for each Mill e owned at the
> beginning of that week with the corresponding Operator.
> }

What about:

{
Once each week, for each mill e owned at the beginning of that week, a 
farmer may mill by specifying two crops e owns. E then forms a 
mathematical expression using the values of those two crops and the 
Operator of that mill exactly once each, and e evaluates the 
expression over the finite field of integers modulo 11.  If the 
result is a number, e gains one Crop of the corresponding type.
}

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Proposed AAA change

[Ben Caplan]

On Friday 10 October 2008 04:19:52 pm Ian Kelly wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 2:04 PM, Ben Caplan wrote:
> > Presumably the miller is supposed to be the farmer whose mill is
> > milling. In a mill rental (let Alice be renting eir mill to Bob),
> > Alice's mill is consuming Bob's crops and giving the result to
> > Bob. (This is effectively what people do nowadays, but with more
> > steps.)
>
> The miller is the farmer doing the milling, not necessarily the
> farmer who owns the mill where the milling is being done.  This is
> indicated by the definition of miller in section 10.

Oh, I see what you're doing now. "Miller" in your version means 
what "baker" means in mine. Yeah, that works.

... I like being able to mill at any time, though. I wonder if 
BobTHJ's can be made to work without funky side effects.

Re: BUS: Re: DIS: Russian Roulette - obligations.txt

[Ben Caplan]

On Friday 10 October 2008 03:49:32 pm Ian Kelly wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 2:29 PM, Ben Caplan
>
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > It might be less clear to someone who knows what the encrypted
> > text *really* says:
> >
> > Russians SHALL NOT eat cake.
> >
> > In a timely fashion after joining, each Russian SHALL reveal the
> > encrypted text to a non-Foreign forum, unless another Russian has
> > already done so.
>
> Not long enough.  The uncompressed obligations.txt file is 1006
> bytes. Which means that if Murphy's post is accurate, then the
> password is about 30 characters long if the file uses \n for
> newline, or about half that if it uses \r\n.

Theoretically, it could include random noise as well, like this:

The following text has no effect:
{
ntaeouasnoediracd.u',ntbkhaenhkeaosnehjkr df20394u.hlrhrD .auk oaoeai 
RCDNutd  ,OARUDrdRDUNAtbTNJUAE rkcduNUJETD eoaua\ suaoedbnoae eona ue 
tdeuoa  Jntsaoedurcs,eubdoekantdkacdprcdprccabkr8,d.p9l0gp9g ioaiu ar 
toenhduatneo antue oaduatne duacdeou nc.do.e urcdp rdhka. d,.pd i',.u 
cndueoaird asuoe icdp.aercdaoaeou euo eu oauaeoip'dpy. cddcnsoaeu sns 
uesdcraoiesctioaeuntdhaoneudcp'8drp,.rchoaeutnkd nto ksacud oeanhouc. 
anotdaoesnd asoeudsrcaprcdhl.9p8idnch;itnparsda scr,r.dhpu'a. ieu eu4 
pcrdaoeirsrc doaeu'3dhriupa.-skasncbdkpu rschbpk noaehsrdhrplirsc hia
}

(for some value of "eona ue tdeuoa".)

Re: BUS: Re: DIS: Russian Roulette - obligations.txt

[Ben Caplan]

On Friday 10 October 2008 03:23:01 pm Kerim Aydin wrote:
> On Fri, 10 Oct 2008, Elliott Hird wrote:
> > On 10 Oct 2008, at 21:16, comex wrote:
> >> snip
> >
> > I initiate an equity case regarding Russian Roulette, parties:
> > me, AFO, Embassy.
> >
> > It was clearly not envisioned that the text inside the zip would
> > be revealed.
>
> You might think so... I cannot possibly comment.

It might be less clear to someone who knows what the encrypted text 
*really* says:

Russians SHALL NOT eat cake.

In a timely fashion after joining, each Russian SHALL reveal the 
encrypted text to a non-Foreign forum, unless another Russian has 
already done so.

Re: DIS: Russian Roulette - obligations.txt

[Ben Caplan]

On Friday 10 October 2008 03:16:38 pm comex wrote:
> Parties to Russian Roulette SHALL NOT reveal the password to the
> zip file this text file is contained in, publicly or privately in
> any forum or other method of communication (the password in
> question is "").
(...)
> ehird MUST email the password to the zip file including this text
> file to the newest party to Russian Roulette within 1 day of eir
> joining.

If this is indeed the encrypted text, then ehird may be in trouble.

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Proposed AAA change

[Ben Caplan]

On Thursday 09 October 2008 11:36:38 pm Ian Kelly wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 9, 2008 at 9:14 PM, Ben Caplan 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > On Thursday 09 October 2008 05:34:37 pm Ian Kelly wrote:
> >> 10. A farmer's milling queue is initially empty. A farmer (the
> >> miller) may add milling jobs to the end of any farmer's milling
> >> queue by announcement, with the consent of that farmer. At the
> >> beginning of each week, after Digit Ranches produce crops, each
> >> Mill processes and removes the first available milling job with
> >> a matching Operator, if any, from its owner's milling queue.
> >
> > I don't think this works the way you want. For example, if Alice
> > adds a milling job to the end of Bob's milling queue, and Bob
> > owns no mills of eir own, then the job will never be processed.
> >
> > Maybe like this
> >
> > 9. (...)
> > used in the expression is destroyed from the baker's possession
> > if possible, and then if two crops were so destroyed, one crop of
> > the result is created in the baker's possession.
> >
> > 10. The milling queue is initially empty. A farmer (the miller)
> > may add milling jobs to the end of the milling queue by
> > announcement, optionally specifying a farmer (the baker); if no
> > baker is specified, it defaults to the miller. At the beginning
> > of each week, after Digit Ranches produce crops, each Mill
> > processes and removes from the milling queue the first available
> > milling job, if any, with a matching Operator and miller equal to
> > the Mill's owner.
>
> I don't see what difference it makes.  In your version, if the
> miller has no mills, the job still never gets processed.

Presumably the miller is supposed to be the farmer whose mill is 
milling. In a mill rental (let Alice be renting eir mill to Bob), 
Alice's mill is consuming Bob's crops and giving the result to Bob. 
(This is effectively what people do nowadays, but with more steps.)

In your version, if Alice adds a job to Bob's queue, it's still Bob's 
mill milling Bob's crops into Bob's possession. In mine, it's Alice's 
mill milling Bob's crops into Bob's possession.

ps: I just found a small bug in my version, should specify that the 
baker has to consent.

Maybe I don't really understand where you're going with this. Can you 
provide an imaginary transcript of an example rental? Here's mine.

Alice: [a-b] SELL: rent (+ Mill) 1 VP
Bob: [a-b] FILL: 3+4
(time passes; now is beginning of next week)
(Alice's queue iterates. Bob loses one each of 3 and 4 crops, and 
gains a 7.)

DIS: Re: BUS: Proposed AAA change

[Ben Caplan]

On Thursday 09 October 2008 05:34:37 pm Ian Kelly wrote:
> 10. A farmer's milling queue is initially empty. A farmer (the
> miller) may add milling jobs to the end of any farmer's milling
> queue by announcement, with the consent of that farmer. At the
> beginning of each week, after Digit Ranches produce crops, each
> Mill processes and removes the first available milling job with a
> matching Operator, if any, from its owner's milling queue.

I don't think this works the way you want. For example, if Alice adds 
a milling job to the end of Bob's milling queue, and Bob owns no 
mills of eir own, then the job will never be processed.

Maybe like this

9. (...)
used in the expression is destroyed from the baker's possession if
possible, and then if two crops were so destroyed, one crop of the
result is created in the baker's possession.

10. The milling queue is initially empty. A farmer (the miller) may 
add milling jobs to the end of the milling queue by announcement, 
optionally specifying a farmer (the baker); if no baker is specified, 
it defaults to the miller. At the beginning of each week, after Digit 
Ranches produce crops, each Mill processes and removes from the 
milling queue the first available milling job, if any, with a 
matching Operator and miller equal to the Mill's owner.

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Breaking the rules

[Ben Caplan]

On Saturday 04 October 2008 10:13:57 pm Kerim Aydin wrote:
> On Sat, 4 Oct 2008, Ian Kelly wrote:
> >> On behalf of The Law-abiding Partnership:
> >> {
> >>  The Law-abiding Partnership registers.
> >>  The Law-abiding Partnership claims, to Agora, that it is the
> >> ambassador. }
> >
> > An obvious breach of the contract, which we seem to have no means
> > of enforcing.
>
> If it doesn't enforce itself, it is not a partnership.  The rule
> doesn't say that the partnership test is "claim to devolve
> responsibilities and fail" it says "devolve responsibilities".
>
> As a recordkeepor I will not include this partnership as a person
> until it proves that it does devolve responsibilities.

It requires its parties to ensure that it obeys the rules. Back before 
Take It To Equity, the partners could be prosecuted for the 
partnership's rule breaches.

I still thing TITE was a bad idea.

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Happy Birthday!

[Ben Caplan]

On Saturday 04 October 2008 01:07:11 pm Taral wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 4, 2008 at 5:52 AM, ehird 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > What comes next? o.o or O.O?
>
> O.O of course.

Eww, little-endianness?

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: AAA - Secretary of Agriculture Report

[Ben Caplan]

On Friday 03 October 2008 02:24:08 pm Charles Reiss wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 12:17, Roger Hicks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:
> > On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 15:45, Ben Caplan 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >> Well... flaming bobba smurf.
> >>
> >> All right.
> >>
> >> Let's see what I've got here.
> >>
> >> FARMER   0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  X WRV
> >> Pavitra 8 5 612  7 11  2
> >> (transactions)  +7 -7-4 +1   -5 -7-11
> >> 7  1 1  5  6 72
> >>
> >> I harvest the numbers of proposals 5710 and 5730.
> >>
> >> Pavitra
> >
> > Fails. You have no 0 crops (unless I'm missing something?)
>
> I think the message was supposed to indicate that Pavitra deposits
> 7 1 crops, 4 3 crops, 5 7 crops, 7 8 crops, and 11 9 crops, then
> withdraws 7 0 crops, and 1 4 crop.

No, I forgot that my RBoA transactions were inside the "don't do this" 
wrapper, so I thought I had those crops unspent.

Pavitra

Re: DIS: Re: OFF: [Herald] The Scrolls of Agora

[Ben Caplan]

On Wednesday 01 October 2008 09:18:24 pm Benjamin Schultz wrote:
> On Sep 30, 2008, at 7:14 PM, Kerim Aydin wrote:
> >  CHAMPION BY:
> >CARDS  Goddess Eris, Goethe, Murphy, OscarMeyr, root
> >   MANIAC  Craig, root
> >  PARADOX  Goethe, Murphy, root, BobTHJ, ais523, ehird
>
> I just realized that root would have qualified for the patent title
> Groovy (for winning three different ways), if we hadn't repealed it
> prematurely.  Is it worth bringing back?

Totally, man.

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Proposal: take away the monster's deputy badge

[Ben Caplan]

On Wednesday 01 October 2008 05:07:01 pm Ed Murphy wrote:
> Pavitra wrote:
> > On Wednesday 01 October 2008 02:26:17 pm Geoffrey Spear wrote:
> >> I submit the following Proposal entitled "No More Monster
> >> Deputy":
> >>
> >> In Rule 2193, remove:
> >
> > That's boring.
> >
> > [Makes fast and sudden deputisation a perk rather than a
> > superpower.]
>
> Wait.  What?

Rather than allow the Monster to deputise recklessly (as is currently 
the case), my proposal restricts the Monster to wait until the 
officer has violated a deadline, just like normal deputisation. I 
left out requirements (c) and (d) from 2160 because they didn't seem 
necessary.

I don't want to just take away Monstrous deputisation, because I think 
it's a cool and interesting power. It just needs to be weakened a 
little. I think requiring the Monster to wait for a time limit does 
that. (Note, specifically, that the Monster can't hijack the 
privileges of any office whose officer is punctual.)

If that doesn't answer your question, then please restate it at 
somewhat greater length than "Wait. What?", because I'm not entirely 
sure I see what you're getting at.

Pavitra

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Proposals

[Ben Caplan]

On Wednesday 01 October 2008 05:01:41 pm Elliott Hird wrote:
> On 1 Oct 2008, at 22:35, Ben Caplan wrote:
> > I believe it was decided that the most natural Monsterization
> > of "judgment" was "Monsteredict". Can you write a script to make
> > that kind of analysis?
>
> Did I say it'd produce the most natural monsterization all the
> time?

You did imply it would do an acceptable job as Mad Scientist. I don't 
think that's possible for a computer program.

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Proposals

[Ben Caplan]

On Wednesday 01 October 2008 03:20:04 pm Elliott Hird wrote:
> On 1 Oct 2008, at 20:54, Ed Murphy wrote:
> > Make it a bit more grammar-specific and I'll support it for
> > Mad Scientist.
>
> Heh, it wouldn't be able to do Monsterization atm, but I could
> definitely write one - detecting nouns shouldn't be too hard.

ORLY?

I believe it was decided that the most natural Monsterization 
of "judgment" was "Monsteredict". Can you write a script to make that 
kind of analysis?

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: How to win by bribery

[Ben Caplan]

On Wednesday 01 October 2008 12:53:00 pm Geoffrey Spear wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 1:36 PM, Kerim Aydin wrote:
> > Hold on here.  Now we get to the point where a legitimate
> > communication is held up.  Does this violate R101 participation
> > rights?  -Goethe
>
> On the other hand, in a case where the sender of the message didn't
> take the reasonable step of sending email from an address that was
> subscribed to the mailing lists, I don't think eir rights are being
> violated by bouncing the message.  It's trivial to subscribe the
> new address to the list and of course e retains the right, if not
> the ability, to send from eir previously-subscribed address.

... Maybe. I believe the precedent is that the message counts iff it 
was made in a good faith attempt to communicate with the other list 
subscribers.

Pavitra

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Re: OFF: Distribution of proposals 5727-5730

[Ben Caplan]

On Tuesday 30 September 2008 10:53:00 pm Kerim Aydin wrote:
> On Tue, 30 Sep 2008, Ben Caplan wrote:
> >> 5731 D 0 3.0 Goethe  Loss of Privileges
> >
> > AGAINST. Still feels rough around the edges.
>
> How can something be rough that was part of Agora for at least 10
> years?  -G.

If the fitted part is no longer fully compatible with the modern 
system?

I don't know. It just doesn't feel right.

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Re: OFF: Distribution of proposals 5708-5726

[Ben Caplan]

On Sunday 28 September 2008 08:40:45 am ihope wrote:
> Rule 36 states that Rule 4E83 is a synonym for Rule 83. Since we
> don't have a Rule 83, we're still safe.

I'm pretty sure Rule 36 states that It Could Always Be Worse.
http://encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php/Rules_Of_The_Internet
(Not Safe For Work.)

DIS: Re: BUS: Re: OFF: Distribution of proposals 5708-5726

[Ben Caplan]

On Saturday 27 September 2008 06:20:41 pm comex wrote:
> We have no Rule
> 400
>0, so I think we're safe.

Interesting. I read "4E83" to mean 0x4E83, which would be R20099. So 
we're safe either way.

Pavitra

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: AAA - Secretary of Agriculture Report

[Ben Caplan]

On Thursday 25 September 2008 04:37:45 pm Kerim Aydin wrote:
> Overall I think it's up to the officer (or contestmaster) recording
> the transactions to decide if it's straightforward and if it is,
> assume the conditional works as intended and if it's not
> straightforward, the officer should reject it and say why.

This seems an extremely reasonable policy.

H. SoA BobTHJ, did it work?

Pavitra

DIS: Re: ?spam? BUS: Judgement in CFJ 2166

[Ben Caplan]

On Saturday 27 September 2008 11:04:50 am ais523 wrote:
> I intend, with 2 support, to appeal my own judgement of CFJ 2166,
> suggesting REMAND; that way I can judge all 3 CFJs together as an
> effectively linked assignment, rather than having to try to
> synchronise all the individual CFJs one appeal at a time.

I support, as this seems sound reasoning.

Pavitra

DIS: Re: BUS: Three proposals

[Ben Caplan]

On Saturday 27 September 2008 01:07:26 am Ed Murphy wrote:
> Proposal:  Judicial Declarations
>   A judicial declaration published by a judge as required by
>   the rules in conjunction with a judgement is self-ratifying,
>   provided that that judgement remains in effect.  Such a
>   judgement may be inappropriate due to the content of this
>   declaration, rules to the contrary notwithstanding.

This sounds very easily abusable, considering the recent tradition of 
judicial corruption. If this passes, I think my Favor might turn out 
to have been a *very* good investment.

Pavitra

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: why wait?

[Ben Caplan]

On Friday 26 September 2008 03:43:20 pm Ian Kelly wrote:
> I think you'd have a hard time justifying that a partnership
> without human intervention is a partnership.

Didn't we discuss recently whether you can have a partnership that 
requires but not enables its members to ensure that it follows the 
rules?

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: why wait?

[Ben Caplan]

On Friday 26 September 2008 02:25:32 pm Kerim Aydin wrote:
> I utterly reject that notion.
>
> There's nothing tortuous about it.  No matter how you slice it,
> there's a set of conscious, thinking, Turing-test-passing entities
> that have fundamental controls that are behind every shell we've
> allowed to register, that are "final" causal agents, in that things
> are sent because "they" want them to be sent.

The problem is: treating persons and identities platonically like this 
creates huge snarls if we ever mistake (or are misled regarding) a 
person's identity or existence. For the sake of pragmatism, for 
ratification, for the long-term sanity of the game state, it is (if 
not currently the case) a *good idea* to treat players as legal 
fictions, as avatars and shells. There may be abuses in the short 
run, but it's better than another Annabel Crisis.

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Re: OFF: [CotC] CFJs 2168-69 assigned to root

[Ben Caplan]

On Thursday 25 September 2008 03:04:51 pm Elliott Hird wrote:
> On 25 Sep 2008, at 20:55, Geoffrey Spear wrote:
> > I believe R2200 was created in direct response to the original
> > judgment in that case, almost specifically to allow us to
> > consider Canada a nomic.
>
> Point: IRCNomic was renamed to Canada just after its peak of
> activity.

Yes, but R2200 was created in consideration of the *other* Canada.

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: AAA - Secretary of Agriculture Report

[Ben Caplan]

On Thursday 25 September 2008 01:03:46 pm Kerim Aydin wrote:
> 1.  I do 1.
> 2.  I do 2.
> 3.  If 2 failed, I didn't do 1.
>
> It's very arguable if #3 actually, legally works.  The
> "simultaneous but sequential" is no longer in the rules but is also
> kept by (recent) CFJ and a controversial series of them at best.

I believe the way I structured my message avoids that 
retroactive-cancellation problem.

I do apologize for the finicky conditional, but I really don't want to 
make a major transaction like that and end up losing most of my crops 
for no benefit.

DIS: Re: BUS: why wait?

[Ben Caplan]

On Wednesday 24 September 2008 08:20:35 am Geoffrey Spear wrote:
> I recommend a sentence of
> EXILE with a tariff of 180 days.

R1504 prescribes "the middle of the tariff range... for severe rule 
breaches amounting to a breach of trust." The middle of the tariff 
range in this case is 90 days. Is what e did really *significantly 
more* severe than a "severe rule breach[] amounting to a breach of 
trust"?

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: AAA Change

[Ben Caplan]

On Thursday 25 September 2008 12:31:43 am you wrote:
> On Thursday 25 September 2008 12:29:59 am I wrote:
> > redundant
>
> Whoops, BobTHJ got to it first.

Nope, it was Wooble. I AM A COMPLETE IDIOT

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: AAA Change

[Ben Caplan]

On Thursday 25 September 2008 12:29:59 am I wrote:
> redundant

Whoops, BobTHJ got to it first.

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: AAA Change

[Ben Caplan]

On Wednesday 24 September 2008 03:41:50 pm Ian Kelly wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 2:30 PM, Roger Hicks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:
> > In Section 7 remove:
> > {{
> > The owner of a Land MAY change its name by announcement.
> > }}
>
> Perhaps someone will volunteer to keep an informal record of Land
> names?

(I assume the problem is that renaming adds 50% to the number of 
messages every time subsidization rolls around.)

I like named lands; how would it be if the SoA could name lands at 
creation, and farmers can request specific names in advance?

Re: DIS: BUS: Re: OFF: Distribution of proposals 5700-5707

[Ben Caplan]

On Tuesday 23 September 2008 07:46:51 pm Dvorak Herring wrote:
> I vote as follows:

NttPF

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: test

[Ben Caplan]

On Tuesday 23 September 2008 06:21:38 pm Ian Kelly wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 20, 2008 at 9:21 PM, Ben Caplan
>
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > This is a test message.
>
> We have precedent that the content of the Subject header has no
> bearing on the effect of the message.  I doubt that the
> X-Agora-Game-Action header would either.

But the name of the header explicitly labels the accompanying text as 
an Agora game action.

DIS: Re: BUS: test

[Ben Caplan]

On Saturday 20 September 2008 10:21:09 pm Ben Caplan wrote:
> This is a test message.

Check the headers.

Re: DIS: Proto-contract: Locations

[Ben Caplan]

On Tuesday 23 September 2008 04:25:18 pm Ian Kelly wrote:
> It seems like it would be difficult starting out.
> 
> In summary: capitols need to be defensible.

You're right, of course. Do you think it would be helpful to start 
with more compasses -- say, twenty?

Re: DIS: Proto-contract: Locations

[Ben Caplan]

On Tuesday 23 September 2008 04:07:12 pm Ian Kelly wrote:
> Will this be a contest?  Otherwise, I don't see any purpose.

Looks like it, yeah. Adding score code now.

Re: DIS: Proto-contract: Locations

[Ben Caplan]

On Tuesday 23 September 2008 03:31:51 pm Geoffrey Spear wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 4:27 PM, Ben Caplan
>
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > On Saturday 20 September 2008 07:24:47 pm Ben Caplan wrote:
> >> I (do not, yet) agree to the following, become a cartographer,
> >> and become Cartographer-General :
> >
> > Comments? Anyone?
>
> I'm a bit skeptical, if only because when Locations were
> rules-defined (and a lot less complicated than this), they didn't
> get used.

I seem to remember that there wasn't as much structure to them back 
then. Locations were contracts, and required a nontrivial amount of 
creativity to (effectively) make just one. Here, I've tried to design 
a self-sufficiently interesting subgame.

Maybe if it were a contest and you could win points that would help.

Re: DIS: Proto-contract: Locations

[Ben Caplan]

On Saturday 20 September 2008 07:24:47 pm Ben Caplan wrote:
> I (do not, yet) agree to the following, become a cartographer, and
> become Cartographer-General :

Comments? Anyone?

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: More /dev/null stuff

[Ben Caplan]

On Tuesday 23 September 2008 11:51:34 am Ian Kelly wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 10:47 AM, comex <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > On Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 12:43 PM, ais523 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:
> >> I call for judgement on the statement "If a non-pledge contract
> >> has no parties, it can be amended by unanimous consent of its
> >> parties."
> >
> > Trivially FALSE.  It is impossible for no parties to give
> > consent.
>
> If "unanimous consent" just means that every member of the set
> consents, then unanimous consent of no parties is trivially
> obtained. The problem in my view is that no party is able to
> specify what the change should be.

The problem is this: does "by unanimous consent of its parties" 
mean "by any party with the consent of all parties" or "by any person 
with the consent of all parties"?

Pavitra

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Is the Monster a person?

[Ben Caplan]

> > > {{{
> > >  A person is an entity that has the general capacity to be
> > > the subject of rights and obligations under the rules. }}}
>
> I read the sentence as "A
> person is hereby defined to be an entity that has the general
> capacity to be the subject of rights and obligations under the
> rules."

I read it as "A person is a type of entity, and has the general et 
cetera."

Under your style of parsing, a sentence like
  Points are a currency. (R2179)
would be interpreted as "'Points' is defined to mean a currency."
So I could create a pledge making myself recordkeepor of each of 100 
different flavors of jellybean (each flavor its own currency), create 
a jellybean of each flavor in my possession, and win by score.

Footnote: beware of relying on reductio ad absurdum in Agora; R217 
means that occasionally the absurdity is true. You may actually be 
right. But I hope not.

Pavitra

Re: DIS: Re: ?spam? BUS: Emergency exit, part 2

[Ben Caplan]

On Sunday 21 September 2008 12:53:38 pm Kerim Aydin wrote:
> Now looking back, I think the committee never got around to
> actually awarding (or denying for that matter) the degree (that was
> when degree- awarding mechanisms were pretty cumbersome).  -Goethe.

Perhaps you should resubmit?

Re: DIS: Live-action in Agora

[Ben Caplan]

On Sunday 21 September 2008 12:59:19 pm Ed Murphy wrote:
> Pavitra wrote:
> > I don't know about historical precedent, but I think it might be
> > fun to create a fast-paced subgame to play at conventions,
> > something like legislators meeting in session. (This might also
> > be a good way to attract new players.)
>
> Which conventions?  (I attend one in the Los Angeles area that runs
> three times a year; I tried kicking off a F2F game last September
> using Suber's initial rules, but no one expressed interest.)

I don't really know. Most likely the basic requirement is the number 
of Agorans in attendance (at least three, I think).

I suspect a lot of the problem you had was that you tried to start a 
new nomic from scratch, using a well-known ruleset. Nomics, as far as 
I can tell, have a hard time starting up, before they become (1) 
established and active, and (2) culturally distinct from other 
nomics. A nomic with few players and no interesting subgame 
infrastructure has very little going for it.

This is why I proposed a subgame: to bring Agora's pre-existing 
interest and weight to the gaming table.

Re: DIS: Live-action in Agora

[Ben Caplan]

On Saturday 20 September 2008 05:52:52 pm Sgeo wrote:
> I remember that things seemed like they were occuring live when
> Olipro joined and I was trying for the Win by Extortion. What other
> events in Agoran history have had these sort of live-action events?

I don't know about historical precedent, but I think it might be fun 
to create a fast-paced subgame to play at conventions, something like 
legislators meeting in session. (This might also be a good way to 
attract new players.)

Re: DIS: Draft ruling in CFJ 2152

[Ben Caplan]

On Sunday 21 September 2008 10:06:10 am Benjamin Schultz wrote:
> On Sep 21, 2008, at 10:59 AM, Elliott Hird wrote:
> > DISCHARGE. He could not have assigned them.
>
> Please elaborate on how the technical issue makes Discharge
> appropriate.  E had *some* way of communicating with the Agoran
> community, as shown in the evidence.

I don't see how merely being able to communicate with the community is 
sufficient. If e couldn't publish messages, e couldn't take game 
actions.

Re: DIS: Re: ?spam? BUS: Emergency exit, part 2

[Ben Caplan]

On Saturday 20 September 2008 09:35:06 pm ihope wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 20, 2008 at 9:59 PM, Ben Caplan wrote:
> > Proto-proto: Make power ordinal rather than cardinal, and
> > organize the ruleset by power. Occasionally we would have rules
> > like "rules below this one can be changed with AI >= 2". Early
> > (powerful) rules would include "defining terms is secured".
>
> What do you mean by ordinal rather than cardinal? If you mean the
> mathematical concept of ordinal numbers, rational numbers would
> really do just as well, as every countable ordinal number is order
> isomorphic to a set of rational numbers, not to mention that we
> won't have infinitely many rules any time soon anyway.

I mean that we wouldn't have phrases like "this rule takes precedence 
over all other rules that would interfere with ", we wouldn't 
have separate rules for precedence within equal power and unequal 
power, and everything would be much simpler.

Actually, it's equivalent to just never having any two rules be of 
equal power.

Letting power be any (unused) rational number would work well, I 
think, except that the distribution of powers could get weirdly lumpy 
over time. Allowing the Rulekeepor to reassign power as long as e 
didn't change the comparative (ordinal) power of any two rules might 
be ok.

Pavitra

Re: DIS: Re: ?spam? BUS: Emergency exit, part 2

[Ben Caplan]

On Saturday 20 September 2008 08:05:42 pm comex wrote:
> Really, the Agoran power system is completely broken.  Any
> high-power Rule that uses a term defined in a low-power Rule is
> potentially a conduit for a "power escalation" by a scamster, and
> often is.

On Thursday 09 January 2003 05:49:54 pm Steve Gardner wrote:
> On Wed, 8 Jan 2003, Ed Murphy wrote:
> > > In general, I do not believe it is possible to make an
> > > absolutely immutable Rule.
> >
> > Indeed, I believe Goethe's suggested Power-4 Rule can be defeated
> > by the following Power-1 Rule:
> >
> >   Except for this Rule, "repeal" is defined as the
> > natural-language definition of "butter".
> >
> >   Except for this Rule, "fnord" is defined as the
> > natural-language definition of "repeal".
> >
> >   One second after this Rule is created, another Rule is
> > automatically created with the following text:
> >
> > Upon the creation of this Rule, Rule  is hereby
> > fnorded.
>
> To my mind, this is an example of 'amendment by stealth' of the
> kind discussed in CFJ 858. I think it conflicts with the Rules the
> meanings of whose terms it tries to change.

H. CotC Murphy, would it be possible to get CFJ 858 into the database?

Pavitra

Re: DIS: Re: ?spam? BUS: Emergency exit, part 2

[Ben Caplan]

On Saturday 20 September 2008 08:54:26 pm Kerim Aydin wrote:
> > http://www.nomic.net/~nomicwiki/index.php/AgoraTheses doesn't
> > list any thesis of yours.  Where can it be found?
>
> Hrm, I don't know.  It was about three computers ago on my end, the
> only other place it ended up was on the mailing list which afaik
> there's no accessible archive.  -Goethe.

Perhaps it's here?
http://www.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-business/2003-January/000457.html

Re: DIS: Re: ?spam? BUS: Emergency exit, part 2

[Ben Caplan]

On Saturday 20 September 2008 08:51:14 pm Kerim Aydin wrote:
> making that broader adjustment was, for some reasons I don't quite
> recall, the subject of some interesting discussion which never came
> around to an agreed-upon fix.
>
> -Goethe.

Proto-proto: Make power ordinal rather than cardinal, and organize the 
ruleset by power. Occasionally we would have rules like "rules below 
this one can be changed with AI >= 2". Early (powerful) rules would 
include "defining terms is secured".

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Re: OFF: [CotC] CFJ 2101 assigned to ais523

[Ben Caplan]

On Saturday 20 September 2008 08:13:45 pm Kerim Aydin wrote:
> On Sat, 20 Sep 2008, comex wrote:
> > Is this the line to be drawn for such a strong term as
> > "explicit"?
>
> Already very well and directly (almost identically) covered in CFJ
> 1290. -Goethe

Reading the arguments on 1290, it seems that the consent was taken as 
being self-evidently implicit and not explicit, and the controversy 
was whether the rules at the time required consent to be explicit. H. 
Judge solublefish ruled that they did not. Now, however, we do 
require "explicit, willful consent", so by the nature of the 
arguments in CFJ 1290, it would be more natural to say that equations 
are (strictly, were, but let's not get our tenses too confusing) not 
automatically binding.

Re: DIS: Re: ?spam? BUS: Emergency exit, part 2

[Ben Caplan]

On Saturday 20 September 2008 08:19:44 pm Kerim Aydin wrote:
> Nice example, since the creation of the fountain was due to such a
> scam. It's called a "ladder scam".  This was the subject of my
> thesis, and I believe Andre's as well.  IIRC I think I recommended
> at the time a tweak to R754 but I think we just accepted it as part
> of the game at the time.

You know, a traditional part of nomic scams is *closing the loophole 
afterwards*.

DIS: Proto-contract: Locations

[Ben Caplan]

I (do not, yet) agree to the following, become a cartographer, and 
become Cartographer-General :

{
1. This is a public contract and a pledge. The name of this contract 
is The Explorers' Club.

2. Any person can join or leave this contract by announcement.

3. Rank is a party switch with values Patron (default) and 
Cartographer. A party can flip eir rank by announcement. Rank CANNOT 
be changed by any other means.

4. This contract CANNOT impose any obligations on patrons, clauses to 
the contrary notwithstanding.

5. The Cartographer-General is the recordkeepor for all assets and 
switches defined by this contract.

5. Any cartographer other than the Cartographer-General can become the 
Cartographer-General by announcement, thereby causing any previous 
Cartographer-General to cease to be Cartographer-General.

6. Any party can amend this contract without 3 party objections.

7. Locations are a class of non-fungible liquid asset. If a location 
is ever not owned by a cartographer or the Lost and Found Department, 
it is immediately transferred to the Lost and Found Department.

8. Compasses are a currency. When a first-class party becomes a 
cartograhper for the first time, seven compasses are created in 
eir possession.

9. The Cartographer-General CAN create, destroy, and transfer 
locations and compasses only as required by an enforceable judgement 
on equation in an equity case regarding this contract.

10. Sovereignty is a location switch with values Sovereign (default) 
and Free. A cartographer can flip the sovereignty of any sovereign 
location e owns.

10. Adjacency is a switch possessed by sets of two distinct locations, 
with values Disjunct (default) and Adjacent. Adjacency cannot be 
flipped except as specified elsewhere in this contract. Two locations 
are adjacent to each other if and only if the set of those locations 
has its adjacency flipped to adjacent.

11. A cartographer can by announcement spend three compasses to create 
a location in eir possession, provided that both of the following 
conditions are fulfilled:

a) e specifies a name that is not the name of any existing
   location; the location is created with that name.

b) e specifies at least one location that either e owns or is
   free; the new and specified locations are adjacent.

12. A cartographer can by announcement spend three compasses to lay a 
road between two disjunct locations, provided that for each such 
location either e owns the location or the location is free. The two 
locations become adjacent.

13. The Club Headquarters is a free location in the possession of the 
Lost and Found Department.

14. Expedition is a cartographer switch with set of possible values 
equal to the set of all locations. The Club Headquarters is the 
default expedition.

15. A cartographer can by announcement spend a compass to flip eir 
expedition (travel) to any location that is adjacent to eir current 
expedition. When e does so, if e is not the owner of the new 
location, then the owner of that location gains two compasses.

16. Capitol is a switch possessed by each cartographer that owns at 
least one location, with set of possible values equal to the set of 
all locations that e owns. The default capitol of a cartographer is 
the location that e has owned longest. A cartographer can spend 5 
compasses to flip eir capitol.

17. When a cartographer (the invader) successfully travels to the 
capitol of another cartographer (the defender), the following events 
occur:

a) One-third of the defender's compasses, rounded down, are
   transferred to the invader.

b) The defender's capitol is transferred to the invader.

18. If a first-class cartographer has owned no compasses and no 
locations for the past seven days continuously, then e can by 
announcement call for restitution of honor by announcement to gain 
three compasses.

19. When creating a location, a cartographer can destroy a land as 
defined by the Agoran Agricultural Association instead of paying the 
compass cost, provided e clearly specifies in the announcement of 
location creation that e is doing so.
}

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Emergency exit, part 2

[Ben Caplan]

> >> No, it has the problem that anybody with 12 friends can do
> >> anything they want.
> >
> > Isn't this true of the proposal system in general, for
> > sufficiently large values of 12?
>
> The proposal system's 12 (actually higher than 12, of course) gets
> bigger whenever 26 gets bigger. A with-support rule's 12 does not.

That could be fixed.

I probably wouldn't vote for the proposal as it currently stands, but 
I agree with the general principle.

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Emergency exit, part 2

[Ben Caplan]

On Saturday 20 September 2008 05:53:58 pm Ian Kelly wrote:
> No, it has the problem that anybody with 12 friends can do anything
> they want.

Isn't this true of the proposal system in general, for sufficiently 
large values of 12?

DIS: Re: BUS: [Ambassador] Foreign Relations

[Ben Caplan]

On Tuesday 16 September 2008 04:06:15 pm Roger Hicks wrote:
> Nomic   Preferred forum URI
> ---
> B Nomic mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> BlogNomic   http://www.blognomic.com/
> FRC mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Nomicapolis http://nomicapolis.net/wiki/Main_Page
> Nomicidehttp://community.livejournal.com/nomicide/
> Nomicronmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> PTomic
> http://www.doctorwhoforum.com/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=159628
> ParaNomic XPmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Dragonomic 
> http://www.roleplaymarket.com/board.aspx?topicID=14739

We really should get around to recognizing the PNP sometime. And 
Normish, while we're at it.

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: A CFJ

[Ben Caplan]

On Tuesday 16 September 2008 03:55:31 pm Ian Kelly wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 2:16 PM, invalid invalid <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:
> > I call for judgement on the following issue:
> > {
> > I submitted a proposal in my recent post
> > }
> >
> > -- Anonymous
>
> UNDETERMINED.  Who is to say that this anonymous poster is the same
> as the previous one?

They come from the same email address.

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Judgements, CFJs 2086 and 2087

[Ben Caplan]

On Tuesday 16 September 2008 02:08:10 pm Charles Reiss wrote:
> They say that they happen at the time date-stamped on the message.
> This is not the same thing as simultaneously, since in the magical
> universe of the rules we can order actions that occur at the same
> instant.

Incidentally, this is exactly what I was trying to get at with my 
judgments on CFJs 1975-6, which somehow got interpreted as a "quantum 
uncertainty" theory of timing.

Pavitra

DIS: Re: BUS: Kindness

[Ben Caplan]

On Wednesday 03 September 2008 03:36:00 pm comex wrote:
> I initiate an equity case with respect to the AAA.  The state of
> affairs by which events have not proceeded as envisioned by the
> contract is that tusho has violated section 15 of the AAA agreement:
>
> 15. Creating proposals or CFJs for the clear and primary purpose of
> Harvesting the ID numbers assigned is a breach of this contract.

To be honest, I'm not sure this creates an inequity in itself. If 
someone then tried to harvest the CFJs, then equity should take away 
their WRVs, but as it is I don't see what should be done equity-wise 
to "fix" the situation.

Pavitra

Re: DIS: Re: OFF: [CotC] CFJ 2077 assigned to comex

[Ben Caplan]

> > > ==  CFJ 2077 
> > >Ivan Hope is a player
> >
> > Is there anyone who thinks this should not be judged FALSE?
>
> hmm... would not judging it FALSE make it TRUE? I think it ought not
> to be judged FALSE, but on moral grounds not Agoran-rules grounds.
> ihope hadn't really intended to deregister, despite posting a
> message doing so...

OTOH, morally speaking, shouldn't ihope be made to bear the 
consequences of posting noise to the PF?

Re: BUS: Re: DIS: Partnershpis can't do anything anymore

[Ben Caplan]

On Wednesday 13 August 2008 11:03:13 pm Ed Murphy wrote:
> define some useful label for X's role in the matter.

"Executor"

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: I do.

[Ben Caplan]

On Wednesday 13 August 2008 12:38:12 pm Kerim Aydin wrote:
> On Tue, 12 Aug 2008, Quazie wrote:
> >[snip]
>
> TIATEOISIRIEIJIDISISISIRITILISIRITIPICIRICISIOIWIIILISICIEIIIFIR
> IVILIDIBISIEIUILILILISIMITIEISIRIBIHIHIHISIPIP-PIMIDIDIWINIAIWICIJIP
> IDIDICISIOICIDIDIWILICISIWIAISISIIISIPILIEIBAWRISIATHPAFALT.

This is a/an (?) example of [I do a bunch of stuff] ... what's 
THPAFALT?

DIS: Re: BUS: I do.

[Ben Caplan]

On Wednesday 13 August 2008 12:03:46 am Quazie wrote:
> I stand.
Ineffective, you cannot generally flip your own posture to standing.
> I register. 
Ineffective, you are already a player.
> I support.  i object.
Ineffective, it's not clear what you're supporting/objecting to.
> I I  I lean.  I sit.
Probably effective.
> I cfj. i explode.
Probably ineffective, as 'cfj' is followed by a period rather than a 
colon, 'i explode' seems to be a separate statement rather than the 
question of inquiry.
> I recuse. I vote.
Probably ineffective due to lack of direct objects to transitive verbs.
> I hem.  i haw.  I hug.
Probably effective. We have a tradition of respecting creative 
paraphrases like "I lie down" for "I become supine".
> I submit.  I propose.
Probably ineffective, no direct object.
> I call.  I judge.
Ditto.
> i win.
False, hence ineffective.
> I lose. 
This may be relevant to The Game, if it's still around.
> I inactive.
Probably effective.

Net effect: you become sitting, hugging, and inactive.

I think.


Pavitra

DIS: Re: OFF: [Assessor] Voting results for Proposals 5668 - 5672

[Ben Caplan]

On Tuesday 12 August 2008 09:40:39 pm Ed Murphy wrote:
> }{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{
>}{
>
> Proposal 5670 (Democratic, AI=2, Interest=1) by Murphy, Zefram,
> Michael But what is truth?
>
> Zefram and Michael are co-authors of this proposal.  Goethe is a
> co-author of this proposal if and only if e publically accepts it
> during its voting period.
>
> Change the power of Rule 2149 (Truthfulness) to 2, and amend it to
> read:
>
>   A person SHALL NOT make a public statement on a matter
> relevant to the rules that is intended to mislead others as to its
> truth (or, in the case of a public statement that one performs an
> action, its effectiveness).
>
>   For the purpose of this rule:
>
> a) Merely quoting a statement does not constitute making
>that statement.
>
> b) Any conditional clause or other qualifier attached to a
>statement constitutes part of the statement; the nature
> of the whole is what is significant.
>
> }{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{

This is ineffective, as Rule 2149 no longer exists.

(Normally Zefram would say this, but as e's abdicated eir 
Rulekeeporship, someone else has to do it.)

Pavitra.

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Werewolves has been stalled for nearly a month

[Ben Caplan]

On Tuesday 12 August 2008 07:04:01 pm Geoffrey Spear wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 6:53 PM, Ben Caplan
>
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Note that one more false lynching will end the game in favor of
> > the werewolves. Please only vote to lynch Zefram if you genuinely
> > believe e is a werewolf, not merely out of revenge for
> > inconvenient inactivity. That would be suicide.
>
> Why, do the losers get deregistered too?

No, they just lose the round and don't get any points. I meant 
Werewolf::suicide, not Agora::suicide.

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Werewolves has been stalled for nearly a month

[Ben Caplan]

On Tuesday 12 August 2008 04:56:10 pm Elliott Hird wrote:
> 2008/8/12 comex <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> > On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 5:26 PM, Ian Kelly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:
> >> I nominate Quazie and Zefram.
> >
> > I second Zefram.
>
> And how. (I second/third Zefram.)
>
> tusho

Note that one more false lynching will end the game in favor of the 
werewolves. Please only vote to lynch Zefram if you genuinely believe 
e is a werewolf, not merely out of revenge for inconvenient 
inactivity. That would be suicide.

Pavitra

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Proposal: Repeal Rule 101!

[Ben Caplan]

On Tuesday 12 August 2008 07:14:59 am Kerim Aydin wrote:
> On Tue, 12 Aug 2008, Elliott Hird wrote:
> > Proposal: Repeal Rule 101!
> > Adoption index: 3.
>
> Word of advice:  If you want this to work, make this power 3.1,
> enact a Rule (power 3.1) that says "Rule 101 CAN be repealed by a
> Proposal of power 3.1".  *Then* repeal Rule 101, then repeal the
> power 3.1 Rule (all in the same proposal).
>
> Otherwise it's trivial to claim that repealing Rule 101 removes
> rights, and R101 has precedence over the current rules governing
> rules repeal.
>
> -Goethe

Okay, how about if we just delete the preamble from R101? We're not 
removing any rights, just the definition of the word "right".

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Proposal: Repeal Rule 101!

[Ben Caplan]

On Tuesday 12 August 2008 11:50:46 am you wrote:
> On Tuesday 12 August 2008 08:54:45 am Elliott Hird wrote:
> > Repeal rule 101.
>
> I come off hold, as I want to be able to vote against this.
>
> Pavitra

In particular, I think we should keep rights ii, iii, and viii, and 
probably also v, vii, and maybe vi.

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Proposal: Repeal Rule 101!

[Ben Caplan]

On Tuesday 12 August 2008 11:19:26 am ais523 wrote:
> I think R101 is here to stay; it's also possible to claim that any
> change to the ruleset that makes it possible to repeal rule 101 is
> an indirect method of removing rights. (If there's a rule that
> allows repealing rule 101, that rule itself is removing rights, so
> by rule 101 it cannot have been created in the first place). Does
> the Town Fountain predate rule 101? If it does, we might have a
> chance...

No, merely creating the possibility of removing rights does not in 
itself constitute such a removal. For similar reasons, it is possible 
to repeal R1698 without contradicting R1698.

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Dealing with the ihope issue.

[Ben Caplan]

On Monday 28 July 2008 03:14:11 pm I wrote:
> Resolving this probably will require a close reading of rule 2178.
> There would superficially appear to be a conflict in this case
> between its second-to-last and last paragraphs.
>
> For reference:
> 
      If the text of a potential contract is published with a clear
      indication that the contract will be public when it forms, then
  it is identified as a public contract when it becomes a
  contract.

      Changes in the text or membership of a public contract do not
      become effective until they are published.

It seems to me that the last paragraph has no effect unless the text in 
question is a public contract, which cannot be the case unless it is a 
contract, which cannot be true unless it has two parties, which in 
this case requires that ihope successfully became a party to it.

Thus, I see two possible interpretations of the situation:
(1) the membership of the contract did not "change"; the contract 
came into being as a contract with the set of parties {Sgeo, ihope}.
(2) paradox: public contract -> no unpublished changes -> ihope not 
party -> not contract -> not public contract -> last paragraph of 2178 
does not apply -> ihope's agreement to contract was effective -> two 
parties -> contract -> public contract.

At first, I suspected that there might be two copies of the contract, 
one public with only Sgeo as a party and one private with both Sgeo 
and ihope, but upon closer examination I believe that the rule does 
not support this. (In particular, the contract did not allow for 
itself to be a pledge, so with only Sgeo as party it could not be a 
contract and hence not a public contract.)

Pavitra

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Dealing with the ihope issue.

[Ben Caplan]

On Monday 28 July 2008 03:06:35 pm Elliott Hird wrote:
> 2008/7/28 Geoffrey Spear <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> > Logged or not, your IRC channel isn't a Public Forum.
>
> And you don't have to agree to contracts in a Public Forum.

Resolving this probably will require a close reading of rule 2178. 
There would superficially appear to be a conflict in this case between 
its second-to-last and last paragraphs.

For reference:

      If the text of a potential contract is published with a clear
      indication that the contract will be public when it forms, then
      it is identified as a public contract when it becomes a
      contract.

      Changes in the text or membership of a public contract do not
      become effective until they are published.


Pavitra

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Reformed Bank of Agora report

[Ben Caplan]

On Thursday 24 July 2008 09:25:08 pm ihope wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 6:56 PM, Buddha Buck <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:
> > On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 6:23 PM, Quazie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > wrote: I try one more time, and then give up if i fail
> >
> >> Without 3 objections I intend to chagne the RBOA contract as
> >> follows:
> >
> > Is "to chagne" a term of art I'm not aware of?
>
> Though "to change" is one possible interpretation, it's also an
> abbreviation of "champagne", so this is ambiguous and therefore
> ineffective.

AFAIK, "champagne" is not a verb. Hence "change" remains the only 
plausible interpretation.

Re: DIS: CotC site update

[Ben Caplan]

On Wednesday 23 July 2008 06:01:27 pm comex wrote:
> Hmm... it would be nice if you could release some sort of periodic
> database dump for us to play with.

Seconded.

DIS: Re: BUS: comex learns vi

[Ben Caplan]

On Monday 21 July 2008 12:11:32 pm comex wrote:
> (Still looking for an editor that will allow me to edit text wrapped
> in the Agoran style without having to unwrap it first.)

Try nano + Ctrl-J.

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Proposal: Department of Corrections

[Ben Caplan]

On Saturday 19 July 2008 09:20:41 pm comex wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 19, 2008 at 10:07 PM, Roger Hicks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:
> > I submit the following proposal in reference to
> > http://zenith.homelinux.net/cotc/suspects.php:
> >
> > Department of Corrections
> > AI: 1
> > II: 1
> > {
> > Upon the adoption of this proposal comex is awarded the patent
> > title "Habitual Offender"
> > }
>
> But, but...
>
> I've only been GUILTY six times.

Which is still more than anyone else.

DIS: This is getting ridiculous

[Ben Caplan]

H. Distributor Taral, how would you feel about establishing a separate 
agora-judicial list?

Pavitra

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: We all have our ehird moments

[Ben Caplan]

On Tuesday 15 July 2008 01:25:39 pm Elliott Hird wrote:
> 2008/7/15 Ian Kelly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> > Ah.  I would suggest that, in keeping with legal practice we
> > should instead split "persons" into "natural persons" and
> > "artificial persons", and have R101 assign rights only to the
> > natural variety.
> >
> > -root
>
> Yes. This is essentially what I was suggesting.

Isn't this what the current concept of first-class versus 
non-first-class persons is?

Also, R101 can be amended as follows:
{
Delete the second sentence of the preamble.

If you're really paranoid, insert a one-second delay here.

Mess with other stuff.
}

Re: DIS: Werewolves status update

[Ben Caplan]

On Monday 14 July 2008 08:41:47 pm Ed Murphy wrote:
> I still need 3 more votes on whether to lynch Pavitra.

May I suggest "no". (I posted what I think are fairly reasonable 
arguments why to do so some time back.)

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Proposal: Prerogatives imply choice

[Ben Caplan]

On Monday 14 July 2008 06:57:43 pm ihope wrote:
> Unless the CotC did something stupid, like act on behalf of the
> Justiciar to say both.

Which, in the Spirit of the Game, is not at all implausible.

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Proposal: Prerogatives imply choice

[Ben Caplan]

On Monday 14 July 2008 06:45:00 pm Quazie wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 14, 2008 at 4:39 PM, Ed Murphy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:
> > Proposal:  Prerogatives imply choice
> > (AI = 2, please)
> >
> > Amend Rule 2019 (Prerogatives) by replacing section b) with this
> > text:
> >
> >  b) Justiciar.  Within three days after an appeal case comes
> > to require a judge, the Justiciar CAN declare that case either hot
> > or cold by announcement.  If the Justiciar has not so declared,
> > then the Clerk of the Courts SHALL NOT assign a panel to that case
> > during this period.  If the Justiciar has so declared, then the
> > Clerk of the Courts SHALL assign a panel including (hot) or
> > excluding (cold) the Justiciar, if possible.
> >
> > Upon the adoption of this proposal, the Prerogative of Justiciar
> > is assigned to the person (if any) to whom the Prerogative of
> > Default Justice was assigned immediately before the adoption of
> > this proposal.
>
> In the event that it is neiter hot nor cold, it is room temperature.
> What is the protocal for a room temperature appeal?  I assume that
> it need not include or exclude the Justiciar, but i just want to
> make sure.

I think that in that case the normal protocol for panel assignment 
prevails.

Can the Justiciar change eir mind? What happens with multiple 
declarations?

Pavitra.

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: It's completely logical

[Ben Caplan]

On Monday 14 July 2008 06:22:28 pm ihope wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 14, 2008 at 7:06 PM, Ian Kelly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:
> > As an aside, your statement could also be parsed as (I => (R ^
> > ~G)) ^ (~I => (~R ^ G)), which is false for any assignment of I.
>
> Assuming ^ is XOR and R and G are both false, that expression you
> devised is false for all I. The statement I actually made is true if
> and only if I initiated the CFJ.

I assumed ^ meant AND, which also yields ((~R ^ ~G) => ~S).

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Re: OFF: [CotC] CFJ 2019a assigned to Wooble, avpx, Taral

[Ben Caplan]

On Monday 14 July 2008 06:09:59 pm Ian Kelly wrote:
> Seriously?  In my experience, Default Justice is a curse, not a
> bonus.

Perhaps we should have some way to abdicate prerogatives; they are 
theoretically supposed to be rewards, I think.

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: It's completely logical

[Ben Caplan]

On Monday 14 July 2008 05:51:06 pm Ian Kelly wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 9:55 PM, Ben Caplan
>
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > On Sunday 13 July 2008 10:45:42 pm ihope wrote:
> >> Either the sky is always red or, if I do not hereby initiate an
> >> inquiry case on this sentence, then the sky is always green.
> >
> > (R v (~I => G))
> >
> > Since ~G, it follows that I (ihope127 does in fact call said CFJ).
> > Although ~R, (false v true) evaluates to true.
> >
> > TRUE.
>
> Your reasoning appears circular.  You have to assume the statement
> to be true before you can determine that I follows from ~G.
>
> -root

Oops. Let's try that again.

Call the original statement S. [That is, let (S == (R v (~I => G))).]

Since ~G, ((~I => G) => I). Then (S => (R v I)). Since ~R, it follows 
that ((R v I) => I). Hence (S => I).

I think the sentence is effectively equivalent to "I call for judgement 
on this statement." The precedent of CFJ 1903 may be relevant here.

Pavitra

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: We all have our ehird moments

[Ben Caplan]

On Monday 14 July 2008 02:29:45 pm comex wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 14, 2008 at 3:27 PM, comex <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > It's not really that much of a stretch to let contracts do that
> > stuff, especially considering the analogy with partnerships.
>
> In fact, if I'm blind, preventing me from delegating the
> responsibility to use email clients to a secretary or friend would
> infringe my right of participation in the fora.

Unless you have a software screen reader.

Re: DIS: Re: BUS: Proposal

[Ben Caplan]

On Monday 14 July 2008 12:21:10 pm Elliott Hird wrote:
> 2008/7/14 comex <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> > Proposal: a probably unsuccessful attempt at deregistering ehird
> > because I forgot to vote AGAINST 5582
>
> Stop being a dick.

I support ehird's intent to cause comex to stop being a dick.

Re: DIS: Protos on truth and identity

[Ben Caplan]

On Monday 14 July 2008 11:02:04 am Kerim Aydin wrote:
> On Mon, 14 Jul 2008, Ben Caplan wrote:
> > On Sunday 13 July 2008 11:43:28 pm Ed Murphy wrote:
> >>   A public claim intended to mislead others (whether directly
> >> or indirectly) regarding one's identity constitutes a false
> >> statement, and SHOULD be severely punished.
> >
> > A person SHALL NOT make a public claim intended to mislead others,
> > either directly or indirectly, regarding eir identity.
> >
> > [Less clunky, and allows infractions to be punished against a
> > power-3 rule rather than a power-1 one.]
>
> Do you mean that any Rule containing a SHALL NOT can be punished at
> power-3 because it violates MMI?  Has that interpretation been
> tested?

No, R2170 (into which the paragraph in question is protoproposed to be 
inserted) is power-3.