B$ Help: Ideas Summit Program Guide

Welcome to the 2006 Blog$hares Ideas Math Summit

This is the official Program Guide for the event. Below, you will find a schedule, instructions, and educational links for those who want more information about each subject discussed. All participants will have the opportunity to discuss the issues brought up, but this will a heavily moderated event to mitigate the problems found in IRC discussions. Please enjoy the Summit!

Transcript
Discussion Thread

Schedule

I. Greeting and Introduction (IslandDave)
II. Technical Notes (SubWolf)
III. Ideas History (MrPilot)
IV. The Central Question (JustJames)
V. Proposal: kucinichworldpeace
VI. Questions / Answers on this proposal
VII. Proposal: Passer
VIII. Questions / Answers on this proposal
IX. Mission Statement: Game Improvement Commission (IslandDave)
X. Open Floor for All Questions
XI. Wrapping Up (IslandDave)
XII. Post Summit Games

Instructions

* Access the Summit through this direct link to the Summit, or by connecting through your own chat client to irc.wyldryde.org and /join #summit. If you need help, please PM an Administrator.

* There are three Flash demos, courtesy of tengrrl, to help you get set up properly for the Summit. To view these demos, you must have a Flash-enabled Browser. First-time IRC visitors should view this demo, and users who already have registered nicknames in the IRC network should use this demo. Finally, there is this demo to help you learn how to gain a voice to ask questions during Q&A periods. Text instructions for these steps are listed below.

* If you do not have your correct nickname upon joining the room, please type

/nick newnicknamehere

replacing 'newnicknamehere' with whatever you want to be known as (preferably your B$ player nickname). To ask questions or make comments during the Q&A periods, you will need to register your nickname with services by typing

/register makeupapasswordhere youremailhere

replacing the placeholders with your specific information.

* Please refrain from changing nicknames or doing any other distracting activity in the channel once the program has begun. It is often hard enough to keep up with conversation without such things.

* The #summit channel will remain moderated throughout the event, which means only operators and voiced status users can speak.

* There will be 3 question and answer periods. To 'raise your hand' during those periods, type

/notice MrPilot Q

Users will be recognized in the order they /notice, so while you are awaiting your turn, please pre-type your comments or question. Note that you can only write 3 full lines of text in this channel, so break every couple of sentences if needed.

* You will know it is your turn to be heard when a status change for you to +v is announced in the channel.

* When you are finished entering your comments or questions, please type 'end' to let us know you are done.

I. Greeting and Introduction

1. Help documentation

2. BlogShares in WikiPedia

3. Roles of players in BlogShares.

II. Technical Notes

4. A major database crash in August 2003, a sign of things to come.

5. BlogShares--Closed Down stated the notice Seyed posted on the site in early December, and here is JustJames' post on the matter.

6. BlogShares Reopened by Santa Cruz Tech headline on the B$ blog from December 19, 2003, though the post body has been lost.

7. January 2004 was a busy time for Suburban Wolf and company dealing with the SQL database.

8. BlogShares For Sale? Seriously, it was up for bids on ebay in May 2004.

9. Crash and Recovery was a post born out of frustration. The Board of Directors and admin spent dozens of hours on database crashes of 2005. It was eventually solved to the relief of everyone.

III. Ideas History

What are Ideas

10. Ideas Help Node

Launch-to-Crash: Seyed Era

11. Industries Introduced by Seyed on May 5, 2003 as 'experimental'.

12. Ideas and Artefacts came into the game on June 30, 2003.

13. FAQ on Ideas was Seyed's explanation of the confusing subject.

14. Ideas Market was launched August 9, 2003.

15. Idea Bonds were introducted in September, 2003.

16. A WebArchive snapshot from Dec 13, 2003, after the crash but before the site was officially back in operation.

Rob/C/Jay Era

17. The Great Idea Crash of 2004 was an oddity not repeated (thankfully).

18. Idea Production Frequency was switched to once in 24 hours to ease system load. Not a popular decision.

19. Idea Transaction Limits for Non-Premiums were put in place in April, 2004.

20. Changes to Idea Production and Market instituted in May 2004.

21. SubWolf's post from June 2004 detailing production and pricing.

Alan Dean Era

22. New Ideas Pricing Algorithm from Alan, the main thread for discussing this proposal, and its sudden, unexpected implementation.

23. Prevention of Rare Idea Escalation shows an adjustment made to the math algorithm, which was the last major change made to Idea Math.

24. Rapid Inflation, started by Anders Ohlsson, highlighted the key problem with the current idea math, there is only an inflation market with no serious downward pressure and no risk.

Current Era

25. Black Friday started the current era with a 10,000/1 revaluation of both Ideas and cash.

IV. Central Question:

26. Idea Valuations: A Nod Toward Greater Realism, a post by mars/iris securities which led to a discussion with Alan about idea pricing.

27. Idea Pricing Discussion was godfather of this Idea Math Summit, and took place as the first conceptions of this event were being made.

28. New Idea Pricing Proposal was a the result of some admin brainstorming for fun, proactive, and relatively code-simple ways to affect Idea pricing. Lots of solid serious discussion on this.

V. Kucinichworldpeace's Proposal

29. KWP's Math Proposal.

VI. Passer's Proposal

30. Passer's Math Proposal.

IX. Mission Statement: Game Improvement Commission

31. Math Team forming post by Jay putting a call for the charter Math Team members.

32. Original Math Team Charter

33. Geeks and Cops by Jay which gave some focus to the differences between BSEC and Math Team. The many changes have come over time to the roles of each group.

34. GIC Charter.

Task Group 1:

35. Changes to P/E made in May, 2003.

36. Raise/Remove $25 Cap on Incoming Blogs, by Admiral Justin, is one of many requests to revisit this issue.

37. Discussion on the future of Raiding is a thread on a controversial subject, the impact and desirability of Raiding in the game (less of an issue now that Idea revaluation has taken place).

38. Discussion on the Future of Raiding: Part II is a long followup discussion.

39. Profit-Maximization of Idea Production, a high-math proposal by Alan to change Idea production math.

Task Group 2:

40. A Few Idea Stats, a post by Island Dave researching, compiling, reporting, and analyzing some game economic data.

41. 2003 Market Data could be researched in comparision to other web.archive pages and current numbers.

Task Group 3:

42. Caption Contest

43. BlogShares Blogging Contest #2, one of a series of successful contests.

44. BlogShares Survivor-esque Challenge is the most complex competition ever attempted in the game. Lots of fun was had, but there were also many glitches in the process.