[Nomic] Proposals

[Adam Biltcliffe]

On Sep 22 2004, John-Joseph Wilks wrote:

> The following proposals appear to be around (in no particular order):

Here are my current standings and opinions on each of them, since we seem 
to have something approaching a summary going:

> 1. Remove all text after the word 'world' from Rule 3, The List of 
> Voters, since it is no longer necessary now the game exists. On this I 
> vote Aye.

Yep, I've already given consent to this.

> 2. The Rule of Autoadoption. I reserve my vote on this, pending 
> discussion on whether we really want people to be able to arbitrarily 
> join without the notification or consent of any of the current players, 
> which I suggest may not be a good idea. Perhaps a simple majority of the 
> game consenting?

I don't consider this to be a particularly likely problem, which is why I 
consented to this proposal anyway, but I feel that Martin's proposal that 
before a player can join an existing member must assert that they are not a 
lizardman from Antares IV handles the situation perfectly.

> 3. The Rule of Nicknames:
> I vote aye to this in the current form.
> 
> 4. The Rule of Structured Names, with the proviso for rules mentioned 
> during proposals included. Aye.

Yep, yep.

> 5. The Rule of Assumed Consent: I counterpropose this rule in the 
> following form: A player shall be deemed to have consented to a proposed 
> change to the Rules if all of the following hold: a) The proposal was 
> made at least 48 hours ago. b) They have sent at least one message to the 
> mailing list during that time. c) They have not explicitly expressed that 
> they do not consent for that change to enter the gamestate.

I object to your counterproposal on the grounds that it still doesn't 
address the primary objective of introducing assumed consent, namely that 
it should allow a way for the game to progress in the face of complete 
inactivity on the part of one or more players.

> 6: The Law of Lexicography
> Aye.
> We can argue about who has to keep it up to date later :)

I'm not giving consent to this, but I will happily do so to any version 
which makes it clear how updates are to be made (unless I don't like it, of 
course).

> 7: The Rule of Dispute Resolution Nay, I'm afraid, I don't think the 
> game has time for that sort of process, and a majority of that form is 
> unlikely to work nicely. We do need something to do this, but I'm not 
> sure that's the way. A random selection of judge might work better, or 
> the player on the lowest number of points, should we ever get a points 
> system.

I also decline to give consent.

> 8. The Rule of Plausible Deniability.
> Aye.

Refusing to pass comment until it could be introduced without creating 
inconsistency in the rules.

> I also propose the following:
> 
> N. The Existence of the Committee. There shall exist a Committee, which 
> shall contain a number of Posts. Each Post shall consist of a Title, 
> which can be assigned a member of the List of Players, and a list of 
> duties which the member holding that Post shall perform. The list of 
> Posts follows:

In essence, I approve. However, I prsent the following (short) list of 
objections:

* There is no List of Players, only a List of Voters. If people think the 
two should be synonymous, fine, but right now we're still open to the 
possibility that there can be a separate list of people who want to 
interact with the game in other ways but not vote, or people who want to 
vote but nothing else.

* I feel the phrase 'duties which the member holding that Post shall 
perform' is dangerous. The rules have no mandate over the behaviour of any 
entity which exists in the real world; specifically, the rules cannot 
require a player to do something without allowing for the possibility that 
they do not. I'd suggest changing this to 'duties which the member holding 
that Post is expected to perform', and later we can introduce a rule 
allowing us to impeach them or something if they don't

* The sentence 'The list of Posts follows' should be removed, since it does 
not. I'd prefer for later rules to just say "The Committee shall contain 
the Post of Librarian" rather than go back and modify this rule every time 
we want to add something to the Committee.

* Let's have a more exciting name than 'committee'.

adam