Re: DIS: Re: BUS: (@Promotor) Proposal Submission - Democratization
I do agree with that Officers should be rewarded somehow, but my main issue here is how the democracy is run, not Officer rewards. Maybe we could keep those rewards somehow without any nerfs while limiting or nerfing other things? I've attempted a "Officer salary" proto, anyways. I'm also sorry if I got too negative On Friday, May 19, 2023, Kerim Aydin via agora-discussion < agora-discussion@agoranomic.org> wrote: > On Fri, May 19, 2023 at 11:47 AM Yachay Wayllukuq via agora-discussion > wrote: > > So, only someone who already is in power and a beneficiary of the system > > should be entitled to propose change things? > > Er, I never said you couldn't propose. I was giving you feedback on > how I felt about voting for it. > > It's a generally interesting point you raise, in that we've (over the > years) frequently discussed about not being too entrenched, and giving > new players the ability to jump right in without huge handicaps. That > said, we are a small community, that takes some service to maintain > via officers, and it makes sense to give longer-serving players at > least something of a boost - it's not fair to their genuine effort > over months to achieve a certain position (become "already in power"), > to say a brand-new player jumps in with equal footing. Also, in > particular, rule changes often impact officers' jobs, so it seems > quite reasonable to give them a bit more say in changes that could > include their office duties. > > And the thing with my "accusation" is - you've already done it once, > to be fair. We'd been playing with proposal-based radiance awards for > about a year, which were seen as fairly minor rewards for encouraging > the writing of good proposals. But within a short time of joining the > game, your own voting patterns - making something uncomfortably > "political" that was never intended or played that way - became > onerous enough that you basically crashed the system (brought us to > the point of repealing it, rather than deal with your voting > patterns). In doing so, the collateral damage included removing > radiance awards for Judges, so Judges no longer get a little bonus for > judging. I honestly thought that was a bit thoughtless. This is > exactly what I want to avoid again, so I'm quite skeptical about > arguments to repeal something that gives bonuses or reward-for-labor > (especially longstanding 'service' offices where people aren't just > running their own subgame for less than a week :) ) when there's no > concrete proposal of anything to compensate. > > But enough negativity there (sorry) - I don't mean for this to express > any actual metagame annoyance, just thoughts about power tradeoffs and > design, and I very much look forward to seeing if nix's ideas might > work. > > -G. >
Re: DIS: Re: BUS: (@Promotor) Proposal Submission - Democratization
On Fri, May 19, 2023 at 11:47 AM Yachay Wayllukuq via agora-discussion wrote: > So, only someone who already is in power and a beneficiary of the system > should be entitled to propose change things? Er, I never said you couldn't propose. I was giving you feedback on how I felt about voting for it. It's a generally interesting point you raise, in that we've (over the years) frequently discussed about not being too entrenched, and giving new players the ability to jump right in without huge handicaps. That said, we are a small community, that takes some service to maintain via officers, and it makes sense to give longer-serving players at least something of a boost - it's not fair to their genuine effort over months to achieve a certain position (become "already in power"), to say a brand-new player jumps in with equal footing. Also, in particular, rule changes often impact officers' jobs, so it seems quite reasonable to give them a bit more say in changes that could include their office duties. And the thing with my "accusation" is - you've already done it once, to be fair. We'd been playing with proposal-based radiance awards for about a year, which were seen as fairly minor rewards for encouraging the writing of good proposals. But within a short time of joining the game, your own voting patterns - making something uncomfortably "political" that was never intended or played that way - became onerous enough that you basically crashed the system (brought us to the point of repealing it, rather than deal with your voting patterns). In doing so, the collateral damage included removing radiance awards for Judges, so Judges no longer get a little bonus for judging. I honestly thought that was a bit thoughtless. This is exactly what I want to avoid again, so I'm quite skeptical about arguments to repeal something that gives bonuses or reward-for-labor (especially longstanding 'service' offices where people aren't just running their own subgame for less than a week :) ) when there's no concrete proposal of anything to compensate. But enough negativity there (sorry) - I don't mean for this to express any actual metagame annoyance, just thoughts about power tradeoffs and design, and I very much look forward to seeing if nix's ideas might work. -G.
Re: DIS: Re: BUS: (@Promotor) Proposal Submission - Democratization
You could say that to anyone disadvantaged who wants to change how things are, it's not particularly insightful (or accurate, in this case). So, only someone who already is in power and a beneficiary of the system should be entitled to propose change things? I don't think my situation is as bad, though, since I'm an Officer with a Voting Strength bonus myself, and I have enough pocket change to afford fielding the Dream of Power if I wanted to. I think I'm reasonably close to a neutral position in how much I lose or gain from this. Still, it's an interesting accusation. On Fri, May 19, 2023 at 6:49 PM Kerim Aydin via agora-discussion < agora-discussion@agoranomic.org> wrote: > On Fri, May 19, 2023 at 9:43 AM Yachay Wayllukuq via agora-discussion > wrote: > > > > I don't intend to design an economy, because I don't think I'm competent > > enough to do so. I'll try to contribute where I can, though. > > > > Ah, the typical take-away power with a promise, but an unfulfilled > one. No worries. Power grabs are fine with me, but let's not cloak > it as some kind of "I'm doing this altruistically to solve a bigger > design problem." > > -G. >
Re: DIS: Re: BUS: (@Promotor) Proposal Submission - Democratization
On Fri, 2023-05-19 at 09:59 -0700, Kerim Aydin via agora-discussion wrote: > On Fri, May 19, 2023 at 9:50 AM ais523 via agora-discussion > wrote: > > I sometimes feel like half my arguing at Agora is dedicated to trying > > to persuade people not to repeal the economy. > > > > It rarely works, and the consequence is that most of the time we don't > > have a functional economy. (Having a history of the economy being > > repealed is *also* a problem because it makes it harder to get a new > > economy off the ground – why invest if you think that everything is > > likely going to end up repealed again in the future?) > > Define "works"? tbh, I mostly prefer the periods with no/very limited > economies, because I like the various different subgames on their own, > and whenever we have a "full" economy, then subgame wins become far > too transactional and full of contracts/meta-subgame deals to be very > playable as a standalone competition. "Works" as in inspiring either a replacement economy, or some other sort of replacement gameplay. What normally happens is that there are a few half-hearted attempts to create something new that don't go anywhere, and then the lists fall mostly silent for a few months. Meta-subgame deals don't necessarily require an economy to happen, just two or more subgames. (See, e.g., snail and Murphy trading a stone win for a horse win – as far as I can tell, that transaction didn't involve the economy at all.) The real fix for those, based on experience at other nomics, is to either design the subgame in a way that makes it hard for that sort of deal to have any influence on the subgame, or to create a rule banning players from cooperation for a subgame win. They also don't necessarily seem to happen even when there are lots of subgames and a strong economy (e.g. in the AAA era, the *other*, non- AAA, subgames basically got to run autonomously and I don't recall anyone trying to buy or sell advantages in them; and trading subgame- defined assets seems to have been the intended gameplay of the AAA). (Another interesting data point: Promises were originally partially intended as a method of letting people mint their own currency, backed by things like officer perks. This use never caught on, however, even though there have been times where it could have served as a replacement for a repealed economy. One of the things that I'm hoping for with my Raybots proto is that we end up with tradeable Promises backed by Raybot actions rather than player actions; because Raybots have a limited lifespan, we'd have a currency that naturally decays over time, and because they don't create ongoing obligations on any of the human players, there would likely be less aversion to creating them.) -- ais523
Re: DIS: Re: BUS: (@Promotor) Proposal Submission - Democratization
On Fri, May 19, 2023 at 9:50 AM ais523 via agora-discussion wrote: > > On Fri, 2023-05-19 at 09:37 -0700, Kerim Aydin via agora-discussion > wrote: > > On Fri, May 19, 2023 at 9:26 AM Yachay Wayllukuq via agora- > > discussion wrote: > > > With radiance and Stamps seemingly on their way out, I believe that your > > > Officer salary problem is part of a larger problem of Agora overall > > > needing > > > a proper economy again, not a voting strength problem. > > > > So offer that as a package? In my experience, when things are taken > > away with the promise of new things to be added later, those things > > stay taken away, and the new things never arrive. > > I sometimes feel like half my arguing at Agora is dedicated to trying > to persuade people not to repeal the economy. > > It rarely works, and the consequence is that most of the time we don't > have a functional economy. (Having a history of the economy being > repealed is *also* a problem because it makes it harder to get a new > economy off the ground – why invest if you think that everything is > likely going to end up repealed again in the future?) Define "works"? tbh, I mostly prefer the periods with no/very limited economies, because I like the various different subgames on their own, and whenever we have a "full" economy, then subgame wins become far too transactional and full of contracts/meta-subgame deals to be very playable as a standalone competition. -G.
Re: DIS: Re: BUS: (@Promotor) Proposal Submission - Democratization
On Fri, May 19, 2023 at 9:50 AM ais523 via agora-discussion wrote: > > On Fri, 2023-05-19 at 09:37 -0700, Kerim Aydin via agora-discussion > wrote: > > On Fri, May 19, 2023 at 9:26 AM Yachay Wayllukuq via agora- > > discussion wrote: > > > With radiance and Stamps seemingly on their way out, I believe that your > > > Officer salary problem is part of a larger problem of Agora overall > > > needing > > > a proper economy again, not a voting strength problem. > > > > So offer that as a package? In my experience, when things are taken > > away with the promise of new things to be added later, those things > > stay taken away, and the new things never arrive. > > I sometimes feel like half my arguing at Agora is dedicated to trying > to persuade people not to repeal the economy. > > It rarely works, and the consequence is that most of the time we don't > have a functional economy. (Having a history of the economy being > repealed is *also* a problem because it makes it harder to get a new > economy off the ground – why invest if you think that everything is > likely going to end up repealed again in the future?) > > I'd much rather take the route of trying to get the Radiance/Stamps > system functional again, than of trying to repeal it. (Stamps in > particular are one of the most powerful "new player perks" we've seen, > and I suspect that that's a good thing.) I'd especially be against > repealing it without a replacement. > > (Incidentally, IIRC many of the "officer perks" that Yachay is talking > about elsethread were intentionally added a few years ago, during a > time when there was no functional economy, as an attempt to give the > officers some sort of reward – because there was nothing economic to > reward them with, we needed to use some sort of more direct reward > instead. Some of them are still around nowadays, like the Gray Ribbon.) > > -- > ais523
Re: DIS: Re: BUS: (@Promotor) Proposal Submission - Democratization
On Fri, 2023-05-19 at 09:37 -0700, Kerim Aydin via agora-discussion wrote: > On Fri, May 19, 2023 at 9:26 AM Yachay Wayllukuq via agora- > discussion wrote: > > With radiance and Stamps seemingly on their way out, I believe that your > > Officer salary problem is part of a larger problem of Agora overall needing > > a proper economy again, not a voting strength problem. > > So offer that as a package? In my experience, when things are taken > away with the promise of new things to be added later, those things > stay taken away, and the new things never arrive. I sometimes feel like half my arguing at Agora is dedicated to trying to persuade people not to repeal the economy. It rarely works, and the consequence is that most of the time we don't have a functional economy. (Having a history of the economy being repealed is *also* a problem because it makes it harder to get a new economy off the ground – why invest if you think that everything is likely going to end up repealed again in the future?) I'd much rather take the route of trying to get the Radiance/Stamps system functional again, than of trying to repeal it. (Stamps in particular are one of the most powerful "new player perks" we've seen, and I suspect that that's a good thing.) I'd especially be against repealing it without a replacement. (Incidentally, IIRC many of the "officer perks" that Yachay is talking about elsethread were intentionally added a few years ago, during a time when there was no functional economy, as an attempt to give the officers some sort of reward – because there was nothing economic to reward them with, we needed to use some sort of more direct reward instead. Some of them are still around nowadays, like the Gray Ribbon.) -- ais523
Re: DIS: Re: BUS: (@Promotor) Proposal Submission - Democratization
On Fri, May 19, 2023 at 9:43 AM Yachay Wayllukuq via agora-discussion wrote: > > I don't intend to design an economy, because I don't think I'm competent > enough to do so. I'll try to contribute where I can, though. > Ah, the typical take-away power with a promise, but an unfulfilled one. No worries. Power grabs are fine with me, but let's not cloak it as some kind of "I'm doing this altruistically to solve a bigger design problem." -G.
Re: DIS: Re: BUS: (@Promotor) Proposal Submission - Democratization
I don't intend to design an economy, because I don't think I'm competent enough to do so. I'll try to contribute where I can, though. On Fri, May 19, 2023 at 6:40 PM Kerim Aydin via agora-discussion < agora-discussion@agoranomic.org> wrote: > On Fri, May 19, 2023 at 9:26 AM Yachay Wayllukuq via agora-discussion > wrote: > > With radiance and Stamps seemingly on their way out, I believe that your > > Officer salary problem is part of a larger problem of Agora overall > needing > > a proper economy again, not a voting strength problem. > > So offer that as a package? In my experience, when things are taken > away with the promise of new things to be added later, those things > stay taken away, and the new things never arrive. > > -G. >
Re: DIS: Re: BUS: (@Promotor) Proposal Submission - Democratization
Most newer players aren't going to know how to navigate the game and competently use mechanics like Stones or Dreams (I still don't know how Stones are meant to work). And even then, there's an opportunity cost in it all. A player that already is well-off can afford to use their Dream for things other than the Wealth one, a new, poor one, has to make a much harder choice. But, yes, this would nerf Voting Strength bonuses across the board, which aligns with my intent of wanting to equalize it all. On Fri, May 19, 2023 at 6:28 PM nix via agora-discussion < agora-discussion@agoranomic.org> wrote: > On 5/19/23 11:26, Yachay Wayllukuq via agora-discussion wrote: > > But, no. I don't think that any player deserves ~4 times the voting > > strength of a newbie, regardless of the reason. I want other players to > be > > able to play nomic, especially newbies, and they need a relevant amount > of > > voting strength in order to do so. I want them to matter. > To be clear, being an officer only gives you at most twice as much. The > players with more than that have more because of things unrelated to > having an office, like the Power Stone and dream. > > -- > nix > Prime Minister, Herald > >
Re: DIS: Re: BUS: (@Promotor) Proposal Submission - Democratization
On Fri, May 19, 2023 at 9:26 AM Yachay Wayllukuq via agora-discussion wrote: > With radiance and Stamps seemingly on their way out, I believe that your > Officer salary problem is part of a larger problem of Agora overall needing > a proper economy again, not a voting strength problem. So offer that as a package? In my experience, when things are taken away with the promise of new things to be added later, those things stay taken away, and the new things never arrive. -G.
Re: DIS: Re: BUS: (@Promotor) Proposal Submission - Democratization
On 5/19/23 11:26, Yachay Wayllukuq via agora-discussion wrote: But, no. I don't think that any player deserves ~4 times the voting strength of a newbie, regardless of the reason. I want other players to be able to play nomic, especially newbies, and they need a relevant amount of voting strength in order to do so. I want them to matter. To be clear, being an officer only gives you at most twice as much. The players with more than that have more because of things unrelated to having an office, like the Power Stone and dream. -- nix Prime Minister, Herald
Re: DIS: Re: BUS: (@Promotor) Proposal Submission - Democratization
On Fri, May 19, 2023 at 5:28 PM Kerim Aydin via agora-discussion < agora-discussion@agoranomic.org> wrote: > On Fri, May 19, 2023 at 5:51 AM Forest Sweeney via agora-discussion > wrote: > > > > > Let's give everyone a more equal chance to be relevant. > > > > > So right now, Officers' only reward is increased voting strength (I > believe), and the game is growing with lots of new players so > officers' work is getting harder. Yes, and as a (new) Officer, I'm aware of that. Fortunately, other offices have other advantages. The Tailor can arbitrarily hand out Gray Ribbons, the Assessor gets an exceptional first-move advantage on scamming new rules, the Arbitor can subtly but significantly mold the whole game itself through interpretation by fudging who gets which CfJ. Other offices get other similar advantages through their own special actions, some, like Ricemastor (which only tracks and has no special actions of its own), arguably gets none of that kind. But *even then*, they still get ribbon benefits as well (eg. Green, Emerald; which may not be attractive for the hyper-veterans, but they are still benefits which may motivate newer players and serve as 'payment' still, like myself). None of those things would change. > And of course, an influx of new > players *already* dilutes that strength. What do you have in mind to > compensate for their time & effort if you nerf their only benefit? > > -G. > It's curious that you'd take that position. But, no. I don't think that any player deserves ~4 times the voting strength of a newbie, regardless of the reason. I want other players to be able to play nomic, especially newbies, and they need a relevant amount of voting strength in order to do so. I want them to matter. With radiance and Stamps seemingly on their way out, I believe that your Officer salary problem is part of a larger problem of Agora overall needing a proper economy again, not a voting strength problem.
Re: DIS: Re: BUS: (@Promotor) Proposal Submission - Democratization
On Fri, May 19, 2023 at 5:51 AM Forest Sweeney via agora-discussion wrote: > > > Let's give everyone a more equal chance to be relevant. > > So right now, Officers' only reward is increased voting strength (I believe), and the game is growing with lots of new players so officers' work is getting harder. And of course, an influx of new players *already* dilutes that strength. What do you have in mind to compensate for their time & effort if you nerf their only benefit? -G.
DIS: Re: BUS: (@Promotor) Proposal Submission - Democratization
On Fri, May 19, 2023 at 2:08 AM Yachay Wayllukuq via agora-business <
agora-busin...@agoranomic.org> wrote:
> I submit the following two Proposals:
>
> Title: Democratization (low AI version)
> AI: 1
> Author: Yachay
> Co-Authors: None
> /*Comment: I'm fine with rewarding officers and such with more voting
> power, but it seems obscene to me when certain players can have almost four
> (4!!!) times the voting power of a newbie. It's too greedy, too
> controlling, too much.
>
> Let's give everyone a more equal chance to be relevant.
>
> This is a low AI version. Amending the rule that gives players the default
> 3 Voting Strength would require a AI-3 Proposal, which seems difficult to
> pass or at least, it would be very easy to block.*/
>
> If the Proposal named "Democratization (high AI version)" is ADOPTED, then
> this Proposal does nothing. Otherwise:
>
> Create a new power-1 rule titled "Democratization" that says:
>
> {Each player has their voting strength increased by 5.}
>
Unfortunately, voting Strength is secured at power=2.
>
>
> Title: Democratization (high AI version)
> AI: 3
> Author: Yachay
> Co-Authors: None
> /*Comment: I'm fine with rewarding officers and such with more voting
> power, but it seems obscene to me when certain players can have almost four
> (4!!!) times the voting power of a newbie. It's too greedy, too
> controlling, too much.
>
> Let's give everyone a more equal chance to be relevant.
>
> This is the high AI version. This is tidier, as it keeps it all in the same
> rule, but it would be harder to pass/easier to block because of its
> enormous AI requirement.*/
>
> If the Proposal named "Democratization (low AI version)" is ADOPTED, then
> this Proposal does nothing. Otherwise:
>
> Amend the first paragraph of Rule 2422 (Power 3) to read in full:
>
> {The voting strength of an entity on an Agoran decision is an integer
> between 0 and 15 inclusive, defined by rules of power 2 or greater. If not
> otherwise specified, the voting strength of an entity on an Agoran decision
> is 8.}
>
(Personally, I'd rather just split the difference with a power=2 rule than
to modify such a high power rule to do the same thing)
--
4st
Referee
Uncertified Bad Idea Generator
