:s/it's clearly not/\=''/

Aye.

Some comments. This is not a condition to my vote, rather a suggestion on how to approach some ambiguous points around this proposal.

• "the Message Concluding the Previous Turn": is the message posted via git-ssb by the previous proposer wrapping the result of the vote on their own proposal, excluding any subsequent messages either by other players, or by a Judge on the same turn, either on git-ssb or elsewhere.
• "and you may create": you is the player starting the next turn, and he may or may not excercise his right
• Blessed (or divinely special) Rules: are currently not defined by any rule, so assumed to be normal proposals until someone defines them otherwise. These proposals will still require a vote.
• In case of Devine Intervention, the turn will only conclude when both proposals (if the proposer exercised their right to propose two, it's clearly not) are voted on.

Great explanation, thanks. I like it.

amendment over-writes existing rules

I think this is the case. An amendment ideally should contain the full text of the new amended rule, to avoid confusion as to which parts are being amended, left out, or included.

However doing so after the vote is not something I support, for obvious reasons.

I propose that we all agree to temporarily turn a blind eye on the following rules:

• 105 (everyone needs to vote before a turn is complete)
• 203 (vote must be unanimous) which, as discussed earlier, this amendment acccidentally re-introduces.

This would allow us to move on. We can fix things later. This proposal as is makes that task much easier going forward, if we ignore the above rules for a few turns.

haha @Zach! I hear you. In fact right now we can't even agree on the definition of bar! :smile:

Like I mentioned before, I initially approached this game as a strict game like ThermodyNomic (see this discussion). My initial proposal was verbose, not because I like long rules, but because I wanted to make sure all ambiguity in that rule was rooted out.

I think that is not the direction that most here want, and that's ok because I can adjust my own expectations and still engage in the experiment. Like you say, we may end up with an unsustainable game, and that's ok if was never meant as a serious attempt at governance. And who knows, maybe we can make it and some order may rise out of chaos!

Either way, we all learn something from it and that's what matters the most.

In summary, let's do whatever is necessary to get past this silly and boring stage of the game where we can't seem to pass any rule. I'm sure we can all at least agree on that.

@Soggypretzels

If that is the case it would also overwrite the first sentence of rule 301 making rule 304 have no effect whatsoever and effectively repealing 301 as 203 would take precedent over 304

Good point. That's the case.

If amendments worked that way

They do. An amendement replaces not just a rule's text, but even their number. See 108.

203 basically is saying "if this rule doesn't get replaced in 2 rounds, it will automatically change to..."

When debate was taking place over how to implement rule 301

301 takes precedence over 203, but did not amend it, otherwise 203 would no longer even be there. See 108 again.

So if you want to play by the rules, and as you well pointed out, if this proposal passes we're back to a unanimous vote, without time limit. I agree that that may not have been the intention of the proposal.

If you want to turn a blind eye on some of the rules, and the majority agrees, then I'm ok with that too. This is clearly not shaping up to be a strict rules style game by any means. It would certainly help with 105 too (lets all agree that we don't need to call judgment at the end of every vote to move on).

i'm not sure i understand what this is trying to say. does this mean non-active players who return can vote on past proposals to pass or fail them now?

Oh, yes I forgot to add that to my points. I believe that's exactly what it means.

Basically I think this is 302 in a much shorter albeit slightly ambiguous form: Those who vote are 'active', and a majority of ayes == aprove proposal. Simple.

It still doesn't work around 105 like 302 would have, but we can always judge away players like we did in the past. At least now we don't have a 24 ticking bomb.

Aye, based on the following interpretations:

1. it amends 301, rather than add a new rule, meaning easier to cleanup later;
2. it removes the definition of 'active player' but still refers to it, providing much needed flexibility at this early stage (i.e. if only 2 people vote, we can say that they are the only active players)
3. it removes the 24 hour period from the vote, meaning a good rule isn't automatically defeated due to lack of participation (which wouldn't be the case anyway, due to the point 2)

Note: I selectively ignored the last sentence of the rule, which seems to directly contradict the first sentence. Rule 111 doesn't actually prohibit this kind of rule from being aproved. Like @mix said originally, we don't need to get it all right at first.

Aye.

Anyway, to proceed to the next round please vote 'aye'. @dominic already voted in the other thread, so we need 4 more.

@nanomonkey, yup. I assumed that, since I voted early, you were waiting to take advantage of rule 204 and vote 'nay' towards the end of the voting period, like you did in the previous turn. Was surprised to see that you didn't vote at all within that period. Anyway, it was 2 votes short of the required amount, so even if you had voted it would not have passed.

@mix's thanks for your response. As Judge for this turn, I will make the necessary end-of-turn formalities.

The votes for this turn, within the allowed time, were as follows:

active players:

• @soggypretzels (aye)
• @ktorn (aye)
• @dominic (aye)
• @dinosaur (aye)
• @alanz (aye)
• @nanomonkey
• @dangerousbeans
• @happy0

Non active players. Their votes only count as a signal to become active player in the next turn:

• @mix
• @zach! (signaled)

The vote required at least 80% of the 8 active players to vote favorably. 80 * 8 / 100 = 6.4. Since we currently don't have fractional votes, the proposal required at least 7 favorable votes.

With 5 favorable votes the proposal is defeated.

@nanomonkey's score: round((303-291)*(5/8))-10 = round(7.5)-10 = 8-10 = -2
(rule 202 states "round to nearest integer", in the case of 7.5 I rounded up)

---

In order to complete the current turn, I hereby rule that the following players be momentarily stripped of their status as player, in order to work around rule 105:

• @nanomonkey
• @dangerousbeans
• @happy0
• @mix

As per rule 301, these players will not be active players in the next turn and their vote will not count, but should they vote it will signal their intention to become active for the subsequent turn.

In summary, for the next turn:

active players:

• @soggypretzels
• @ktorn
• @dominic
• @dinosaur
• @alanz
• @zach!

Non active players:

• @mix
• @nanomonkey
• @dangerousbeans
• @happy0

Even though @mix is not an active player, he is still a player and can initiate his turn as soon as we receive a majority of votes from all other players, as per rule 212.

@nanomonkey, don't worry. If we carry on like this we will soon only have 4 or less active players which, if you do the math, means that votes will require unanimity again and this rule would be obsolete anyway!

It's my turn to be Judge, so let me ask @mix if he wants to carry on playing before proceeding.

aye

Just checked the revision and it looks good to me.

@dominic you're right, I had actually done it right first, and later forgot about the rounding when I posted. Thanks for the correction.

@dominic btw, I think we should close this and calculate my points. I suppose in this case I can do it myself.

Rule 202 is not clear on how to handle non-votes, but since technically all 10 players counted towards the quorum of the voting, I think they should also count towards the calculation of the score (i.e. non-votes were implicit unfavourable votes)

Therefore: (302-291)*(7/10) - 10 = -2.3

If we ever create a book of records may it please reflect the fact that I was the first player to achieve a negative score! ;)

@dominic

@soggypretzels judgement (excellent btw) only momentarily removed @mix and @Zach! as players as a temporary work around for 105, so that my turn could complete, but immediately reinstated them back as players after that.

My interpretation of rule 301 is that a non-active player is still a player, so aside from their vote not counting, there are no restrictions to their ability to start their turn. This would not be the case under 302. Until 302 or similar is introduced, players who go really missing will require more permanent removals by a Judge. Perhaps this manual process may suffice and we don't actually need a 302-style rule to do it automatically.

btw, if anyone wants to pick up this draft and propose it again I will support it.

aye

As soon as this turn is complete, and since I invoked judgement, I give my consent in advance for the next player to start his turn.

The 24 hour voting window has expired and, since fewer than 80% of active players have voted in favor of the rule change, the proposal is defeated.

I invoke the Judge for this turn, @Soggypretzels, and ask that @zach! be temporarily removed as a player so that this turn can complete.

@mix

with @nanomonkey's nay, your explicit-implicit-nay, and 2 hours left it's likely that this proposal will be defeated. Which is obviously not what I had in mind, but which I'm happy to accept because we're playing by the game rules. For me, more important than this proposal, is that we do stick to the rules by waiting for the last vote before advancing to the next turn. Either that or we request from this turn's Judge, @Soggypretzels, to decide that @Zach! is no longer a player for the purposes of this vote (ironically doing manually what this proposed rule would do automatically in the future).

Aye.

The voting period has opened.

According to rule 301 we now only have 24 hours to vote, so voting closes at August 13 2017, 16:00 GMT.

I'm leaving home soon. If no one comes up with a major objection, I think we can just use this PR discussion for the voting.

Oops, I messed up those links.

These should work for those with git-ssb-web: dominic/nomic and ktorn/nomic.

@dominic pretty sure I have. Is it not showing?

@alanz in that case I could just ammend the my proposal so that the vote of the re-joining player doesn't count towards the quorum for the voting on that turn, but that would defeat my original objective of having casual players being able to simply drop-in to vote on a particular proposal.

I did think about this issue when @Soggypretzels added the active player definition towards the end of the discussion of 301, and mentioned it in the discussion, but didn't want to delay things any further.

Like @mix mentioned before, we don't need to make everything perfect from the begining. The idea is that we can change things later. If everyone agrees that players should be able to drop-in for single turn votes then we can amend 301 later, and if this rule passes then they can already do that if they are careful when doing so like I mentioned above.

Another comment, I'd rather avoid cluttering the rule with explicit overrides, when we can later amend the rules that need amending. This means living with temporary 'bugs' that can be easily worked around.

In this case someone who wants to re-join the game but doesn't want to vote against the current proposal, can wait until almost the end of the voting period in order to ensure that their re-entry doesn't affect the voting result (i.e. that they are not a pivotal voter), unless their objective is to vote against the proposal.

I interpret that someone can only be an active player under 301 when they are also a player under 301

bah, that second 301 should obviously read 302...

@John, regarding your other points:

2) That's a great idea. But maybe in a separate rule? 302 is already quite verbose.

3) I definitely meant the last state as a result of changes due to game rules even while the individual is reserve. If that is not clear how do you suggest it read?

@John
Great feedback, your first point deserves special attention.

Please note that the definitions of active player under 301 and player under 302 are very different. The good thing is that 301 states "An active player is a player..." and since 302 is defining player then is also impacting active player. When someone is not a player, by definition is also not an active player. This is intentional. I have examined the possible interactions between 301 and 302. Let's examine when someone votes, or not, in consecutive turns N and N+1:

Under 301 alone:

	Votes in turn N+1.	Doesn't Vote in turn N+1.
Votes in N.	vote counted.	implicit vote against.
Doesn't vote in N.	no vote.	no vote.

The reason why there is the implicit vote against is because 302 requires 80% of active players to pass a proposal, so a no vote from an active player basically counts against the proposal.

Under 302 alone:

	Votes in turn N+1.	Doesn't Vote in turn N+1.
Votes in N.	vote counted.	no vote.
Doesn't vote in N.	vote counted.	no vote.

Pretty basic really. No explanation required.

So far so good, now when you put the two together what happens?

I interpret that someone can only be an active player under 301 when they are also a player under 301. If someone falls under reserve, and are therefore no longer a player then it automatically removes their active player status too, even if 301 states otherwise. In other words, 302 should take precedence over 301. If this needs to be explicit in rule 302 then I shall add it.

So here's the result of 301 and 302 as I interpret it:

	Votes in N+1.	Doesn't Vote in N+1.
Votes in N.	vote counted.	no vote.
Doesn't vote in N.	implicit vote against.	no vote.

Someone re-joining the game will always see their vote count against the proposal, regardless of how they vote. This is because even though they are a player under 302 and explicitly count towards the quorum, they are not an 'active player' under 301 and therefore their vote is not actually counted.

Is there a case to handle this case by having 302 explicitly override 301 and count the vote?

Aye

OK, if everyone is happy with that I'll go along too.

BTW, I started a discussion for # 302.

Actually, my definition of (active) player may be overly flexible. We'll see in the next round.

I'm happy to vote on this one as an ammendment of rule 203.

If an ammendment replaces the old rule with the new one (and assigns the new rule number), does the git commit also need to remove the old rule from the list?

I blame @dominic for this! The initial PR was nearly there! :D

I'm working on the definition of player for the next rule, which is basically similar to @soggypretzels' active player but a bit more flexible.

So you can either just refer to 'player' in this one, meaning it may be re-defined in the next turn (if it passes), or I can add the definition in the next turn, in which case we will have both definitions for 'player' and 'active player' to mean slightly different things.

That could be interesting! :)

I hope I'm wrong but seems like the initial set of rules are too restrictive by requiring both that all players vote and that the vote is unanimous. All it takes is one player not voting and it all gets stuck. I will probably support this proposal (even if it falls short of my preferred simple majority) just because it's a step in the right direction.

In the next turn (mine) you can expect that much needed workaround for #105.

BTW, not sure if you noticed that rules #105 and #111 are in conflict from the very begining.

105

[...] Every eligible voter must participate in every vote on rule-changes.

111

[...] The proponent decides the final form in which the proposal is to be voted on and, unless the Judge has been asked to do so, also decides the time to end debate and vote.

Surely according to #105, which has a lower ordinal number and therefore (according to #211) takes precedence, the "time to end vote" is only reached when the last elegible voter has cast their vote.

@dangerousbeans I agree with you, which is why I think it's ok for us to try that slightly messy workaround to #105 (i.e. redefine 'player') than a more tidy transmutation + amendment of the rule. Surely that can come later.

That rule has it's days counted ;)

PS: @cel no worries.

The cool thing about keeping it implicit (just ignoring non-voters) is that we would silently drop players that abandon the game. No crud.

@dominic, just to make it clear. I agree that rules should be explicit. I think a rule should explicitly state that non-voters are not players! :)

@dominic

There are ways you could work around this without transmuting this rule

True, as @alanz already mentioned, we could simply ignore non-voting players. In other words, define 'player' as anyone who votes on the current turn (a non-voter is not a player), which could be interpreted as paradox vs #105, or simply working around it.

@soggypretzels' last suggestion of automatically attributing a 'vote' (let's call it ABSENT) to non-voting players is basically a similar approach, but more explicit. We could find ourselves having ever increasing ABSENT votes (voting crud) as players abandon the game and never return. It could also have an undesired impact on the quorum calculation.

The cool thing about keeping it implicit (just ignoring non-voters) is that we would silently drop players that abandon the game. No crud.

I think that ABSTAIN votes (explicit votes) should still be allowed and count towards the quorum.

The question then is, when a player misses a vote and becomes a non-player, what is the procedure for re-joining as a player. Would they need to re-apply, or simply voting again is an implicit re-join? What about their turn? If a player misses a vote the turn before their turn, are they still expected to take their turn or does it auto-skip to the next player?

BTW, my main concern early in the game is to try and keep things both fluid and flexible. Allow people to join and leave at will without affecting the experience for others (i.e. without getting stuck on votes for too long or rejecting good rules due to inactive players). I'm happy that @soggypretzels already started down this path.

PS: what's the trick to do proper @nick links in these comments when running git-ssb-web from the terminal?

@Soggypretzels, yes you beat me to it. Just re-read the rules and was going to mention #111.

Actually, as it stands that rule gives a lot of power to the player whose turn it is. Of course it's not in your interest to rush the discussion and/or voting, but you could also keep it going for quite a while. It would require the involvement of a Judge to overrule that for the round.

BTW, I know we don't have the 24 hour thing in place yet, and looks like it's good that we don't.

We have been discussing this for about 18 hours, which leaves around 6 hours, and I'm about to go to sleep. I wouldn't want to ABSTAIN by inactivity due to missing the voting deadline by just a few hours.

Just noting that we need to think about this when adding timing thresholds. Perhaps explicitly lock the proposal for voting and only start counting from that moment. But in that case we could also use an informal limit on pre-vote discussion.

@alanz +1 for allowing explicit ABSTAINs (not the same as, but more or less aligned with the proposal I have in mind for my turn).

With regards to the proposal under discussion, I also agree that we should lower the voting threshold. And even if the proposal is not as radical as my suggestion, it is still a step in the right direction.

Having said, not touching rule #203 for 2 rounds would actually automatically bring down the threshold to what I suggest. So I'm in two minds about supporting this.

Damn, this game is already awesome.

@alanz you might still run into a situation where a player responds to the call for roster but then goes inactive when the actual vote starts, and it would add another layer of latency to the rounds.

I think the vote is the active roster. (inactive players are still in the game roster of course).

For new players who have not yet participated but want to join, we can probably add them to the roster for the following round being played.

It's still debatable if ABSTENSIONS should incur a point penalty. I'm in two minds about that. But I do agree that we should encourage participation and discourage sitting on the fence strategies. My main reason for supporting the concept of ABSTENSIONS not counting as NAY votes is to prevent situations where good rules aren't passed due to player inactivity.

OK, a couple of suggestions:

1) The way I interpret the word "unanimous" is ALL players vote FOR/AYE.

As soon as we start talking about percentages, to allow for inactive players, which I totally agree with, then we should drop the "unanimous" from the rule.

2) IMO players who do not vote should be called ABSTENSIONS, not AGAINST/NAY.

What I mean is that the 80% figure you suggest should be 80% of all votes received in the allowed period of time. Foe example:

10 players: 6 AYES / 1 NAYS / 3 ABSTENTIONS

Of all 7 votes received, AYES got 6 (85.7%) and NAYS for 1 (14.3%).

If ABSTENSIONS are counted as NAYS then obviously the result would be very different: Of all 10 votes (including abstensions), AYES got 6 (60%) and NAYS/ABSTENSIONS got 4 (40%).

If we take the second route, and count ABSTENSIONS as NAYS, then I suggest we lower the passing percentage to a simple majority (50%+).

hmm, not sure why my '@matt' did not tag you. I'm using git web ssb (an issue within the issue) :smile:

@matt yes it is, and one could argue that depending on the size of the thread it is more practical to go back/forward than to scroll up/down between thread and reply. as usual it depends.

Fixed it by re-cloning the repo and symlinking node_modules/patchcore to the ../../patchcore repo, which was already cloned. See mentioned thread above for context.