Re: DIS: Thesis Snippet
G. wrote: On 5/25/2020 12:41 PM, nch via agora-discussion wrote: I wanted to send along a small snippet of the economy thesis I'm working on to get feedback. My main questions are 1) What kind of information does everyone want for each economic system and Your two examples are an interesting contrast in that they are probably the "longest between resets" and "shortest between resets" systems, but you don't get a sense of that from your descriptions - so maybe a "frequency of reset" or similar? Also, how thorough is a reset and what triggers one (may be directly on a schedule, or by wins and/or other events which tended to occur about this often during that era).
Re: DIS: Thesis Snippet
On 5/26/2020 4:47 PM, James Cook via agora-discussion wrote: > > Misrepresentation is a risk but c'est la vie. I think there's even > some risk of that in my current weekly summaries. > My favorite stories are when it ends up totally different from whatever my perception of events was.
Re: DIS: Thesis Snippet
> I'm aware of all these arguments and at one point would have endorsed them. > However I've generally over time come to the conclusion that idiosyncrasy, > which expresses culture and identity, has as much (or more) value as > standardization does. Thus, I'm not inclined to change the way I express > something unless there's a pragmatic benefit. That's a good point. Little differences can be nice. I like writing "colour", "centre", etc when I know Americans are reading. - Falsifian
Re: DIS: Thesis Snippet
> "Broader problems" and "what was fun" are actually really difficult to tackle. > Both would require diving into a-d much more, which is a very high-traffic > list, > and trying to interpret people's contemporary feelings. It's both more work > and risks misrepresenting people. Understood. I've thought about diving into some short time interval of the past and trying to analyze it in depth, to produce something on the level of my weekly reports. It would for sure be slow going, though, even for an interval of a few active days, since I'd probably need to keep doing side searches. (I also sometimes fantasize about a lightning quick Agora-focussed email archive search tool.) Misrepresentation is a risk but c'est la vie. I think there's even some risk of that in my current weekly summaries. - Falsifian
Re: DIS: Thesis Snippet
On Tuesday, May 26, 2020 6:29:26 PM CDT James Cook via agora-discussion wrote: > On Tue, 26 May 2020 at 23:18, nch via agora-discussion > > wrote: > > On Tuesday, May 26, 2020 6:10:25 PM CDT James Cook via agora-discussion wrote: > > > One nitpick: I'm not sure how to read the last two dates. I can infer > > > it's not day/month/year but not sure if there are year-month-day > > > conventions that use slashes. > > > > They are in MM/DD/YY format, which is common in the US (under the argument > > that it mirrors the way people tend to say dates IE "May 26 2020" = > > 05/26/20. I'll make the years 4 digits, but I'm indifferent to the order > > overall as long as it's clear. > > Sure, that's fine. > > The argument you give is language-dependent. When I was in school in > Canada I think the convention was DD/MM/YY which makes sense in > French, but is confusing when you're right beside a MM/DD/YY country. > I think Mandarin dates are almost literally said as -MM-DD. Agora > is an English-speaking community, but I think it's good to aspire to > more portable dates. > > According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_and_time_notation_in_Canada > Canada now recommends -MM-DD (yay!) but it also says > year/month/day is used for shelf life. > > I personally like -MM-DD because the endianness is consistent > (largest-to-smallest both within the numbers and overall) and also > because lexicographic sorting means sorting by date. > > - Falsifian I'm aware of all these arguments and at one point would have endorsed them. However I've generally over time come to the conclusion that idiosyncrasy, which expresses culture and identity, has as much (or more) value as standardization does. Thus, I'm not inclined to change the way I express something unless there's a pragmatic benefit. -- nch
Re: DIS: Thesis Snippet
On Tuesday, May 26, 2020 6:16:45 PM CDT James Cook via agora-discussion wrote: > > 1) What kind of information does everyone want for each economic system > > and > > Off the top of my head: > * the basic mechanisms (yes, flow charts are helpful) Noted > * rule bugs and broader problems with the economies, so we can learn > from the past > * what was fun or otherwise good about them (G.'s note about election > platforms was interesting) Bugs are largely irrelevant, since the rest of the rules change so much that they often work differently than they would now. "Broader problems" and "what was fun" are actually really difficult to tackle. Both would require diving into a-d much more, which is a very high-traffic list, and trying to interpret people's contemporary feelings. It's both more work and risks misrepresenting people. > * I don't know if they'd be easy to find, but anecdotes about > week-to-week life under past economies would be nice. (I guess under > Coins, anecdotes could just be things like G. offering a purse for > shortest wording of a rule, or the fact that the Registrar tends to > order zombie auction lots by coin balance? Coins are fairly simple I > guess.) Also a pony please while you're at it. True anecdotes have the same issue as above, and unfortunately I'm not as ol- experienced as G, so I can't "source:me" for anything pre-2014ish. On the other hand, I could link to a couple sample reports from the time period, which might provide a more 'objective' version of what an anecdote would bring. I'll keep that in mind. Thanks for the feedback! -- nch
Re: DIS: Thesis Snippet
On Tue, 26 May 2020 at 23:18, nch via agora-discussion wrote: > On Tuesday, May 26, 2020 6:10:25 PM CDT James Cook via agora-discussion wrote: > > One nitpick: I'm not sure how to read the last two dates. I can infer > > it's not day/month/year but not sure if there are year-month-day > > conventions that use slashes. > > They are in MM/DD/YY format, which is common in the US (under the argument > that it mirrors the way people tend to say dates IE "May 26 2020" = 05/26/20. > I'll make the years 4 digits, but I'm indifferent to the order overall as long > as it's clear. Sure, that's fine. The argument you give is language-dependent. When I was in school in Canada I think the convention was DD/MM/YY which makes sense in French, but is confusing when you're right beside a MM/DD/YY country. I think Mandarin dates are almost literally said as -MM-DD. Agora is an English-speaking community, but I think it's good to aspire to more portable dates. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_and_time_notation_in_Canada Canada now recommends -MM-DD (yay!) but it also says year/month/day is used for shelf life. I personally like -MM-DD because the endianness is consistent (largest-to-smallest both within the numbers and overall) and also because lexicographic sorting means sorting by date. - Falsifian
Re: DIS: Thesis Snippet
On Tuesday, May 26, 2020 6:10:25 PM CDT James Cook via agora-discussion wrote: > One nitpick: I'm not sure how to read the last two dates. I can infer > it's not day/month/year but not sure if there are year-month-day > conventions that use slashes. They are in MM/DD/YY format, which is common in the US (under the argument that it mirrors the way people tend to say dates IE "May 26 2020" = 05/26/20. I'll make the years 4 digits, but I'm indifferent to the order overall as long as it's clear. -- nch
Re: DIS: Thesis Snippet
> 1) What kind of information does everyone want for each economic system and Off the top of my head: * the basic mechanisms (yes, flow charts are helpful) * rule bugs and broader problems with the economies, so we can learn from the past * what was fun or otherwise good about them (G.'s note about election platforms was interesting) * I don't know if they'd be easy to find, but anecdotes about week-to-week life under past economies would be nice. (I guess under Coins, anecdotes could just be things like G. offering a purse for shortest wording of a rule, or the fact that the Registrar tends to order zombie auction lots by coin balance? Coins are fairly simple I guess.) Also a pony please while you're at it. - Falsifian
Re: DIS: Thesis Snippet
> === > Summarized Timeline > === > 2000Stems begins [1] > 04/24/03 Stems Ends, Tabla Rasa Begins due to Proposal 4486 [2] > 12/05/16 Shinies Begins I like reading about Agoran history, so thanks for this work. One nitpick: I'm not sure how to read the last two dates. I can infer it's not day/month/year but not sure if there are year-month-day conventions that use slashes. Personally I'm a fan of -MM-DD everywhere* but I think anything with a 4-digit year would clear it up. - Falsifian *I still haven't bothered to reform the Registrar report date format since I took it over from D. Margaux, but I don't pretend to lead by example...
Re: DIS: Thesis Snippet
On Monday, May 25, 2020 4:24:56 PM CDT Kerim Aydin via agora-discussion wrote: > Your two examples are an interesting contrast in that they are probably > the "longest between resets" and "shortest between resets" systems, but > you don't get a sense of that from your descriptions - so maybe a > "frequency of reset" or similar? I do have some ideas for taxonomy but I'm waiting to have more of the systems covered so I can tell which categories make the most sense. I'll keep accrual/ reset period in mind as a possible one. Thanks! -- nch
Re: DIS: Thesis Snippet
On 5/25/2020 12:41 PM, nch via agora-discussion wrote: > I wanted to send along a small snippet of the economy thesis I'm working on > to > get feedback. My main questions are > > 1) What kind of information does everyone want for each economic system and Your two examples are an interesting contrast in that they are probably the "longest between resets" and "shortest between resets" systems, but you don't get a sense of that from your descriptions - so maybe a "frequency of reset" or similar? One feature I'd note for Stems is that within certain limits, the different officers controlled the throughput of their respective currencies - A particular feature was officers running on genuine economic platforms like "If elected I'll increase the indulgence supply" (with their opponent then calling them "soft on crime" or something). So maybe a field for "supply controlled by...", (which kind of combines with "frequency of reset" or "gameplay speed" as I think of it[0]). [0] if all of the systems involve pay-to-pend (most do?), maybe "rate of proposal pending" is a common metric, I dunno. > 2) are the flowcharts good? Look clear to me!
