MeFiNo | The MetaFilter Nomic Game

I ask that each of those posting types to be considered individually.

I feel you, jay, but you'll have to address:

(1) How the issue affects completion of the current turn
(2) Rule 116

'Cause right now I don't think I can rule on that, or if I did, not the way you and I would prefer.

Non-player voting is more simple. I rule that non-players may not cast votes in polls. I hold off on ruling about the other categories.

I also rule that the penalty for a non-player voting in a poll shall be deactivation of the non-player's account.

116. Whatever is not prohibited or regulated by a rule is permitted and unregulated, with the sole exception of changing the rules, which is permitted only when a rule or set of rules explicitly or implicitly permits it.

116 is about players. Nomic does not claim to unregulate real life and unprohibit robbing banks. Likewise, non-players are not bound by any nomic rules.

Limiting participation in official gameplay to only players does not infringe upon the rights of those players. Non-players do not have any more rights to access those threads than a spambot does. By analogy, the stranger at the next table has no right to steal your pieces or drown out your debates.

Besides, if 116 were a problem, wouldn't 116 let us do this?

Can you explain what you mean about completion of the current term?

BTW I've always thought 116 was a dodgy piece of work. It works better in reverse, "No game state change may occur except as permitted by the rules." Mind you, I'm glad that one's represented in the Constitution, it just makes for a messy nomic.

I'll buy your Rule 116 argument.

Also, I change my ruling on the penalty above to: a penalty for a non-player voting shall be imposed as the site admin (jay) determines appropriate, as a TOS violation.

Judges may, however, settle only those questions on which the players currently disagree and that affect the completion of the turn in which Judgment was invoked. - Rule 212

Besides, if 116 were a problem, wouldn't 116 let us do this?

No, if rule 116 applied to non-players, it would prohibit us from regulating this.

I think the difference in the way we're reading 116 is the intentions for when something comes up that nobody thought about before.

"No game state change may occur except as permitted by the rules." would be more of a default deny rule than the 116 in the rules, which is a default permit rule.

When is your tenure over, anyway? When this is closed and 309 is posted?

When:
(a) The vote on 309 is over; and
(b) All open judgments are resolved; and
(c) a majority of players consent to move on

I'm making a summary of the judgments in effect, so people have somewhere to reference WTF is going on. That way, the next Judge, at the beginning of the next turn, can invoke judgment on the necessity of extending rulings (possibly modified) into his turn.

It could become a shadow rule set, passed down from turn to turn. I'm not sure if that's good or bad.

jay, you've got the power and obviously you are dying to do it. Why don't you just pull the plug on Abron's account and be done with it?

Just stop pretending that you are actually playing nomic. From my perspective you are playing "nomic but everyone has to do it in the particular style I think is fun".

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Whatever happened to blindly following the ruling of the judge, AAA? ctmf is the judge here and has determined that jay should deal with non-players voting as TOS violation. Should a non-player vote this turn, I'm sure jay will follow ctmf's judgement exactly.

Your repeated strange and baseless accusations suggest that you might have joined the glue-sniffing hordes here.

Whatever happened to blindly following the ruling of the judge, AAA? ctmf is the judge here and has determined that jay should deal with non-players voting as TOS violation.

If that is indeed the case I am fine with that, ssg. But the discussion above looks just like that to me - a discussion. The Judge and DA having a chat about how they can get that no-good so-and-so off the streets.

If there is an official judgment up there amidst the banter, I would respectfully ask that honourable Judge ctmf spell it out a little more clearly.

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This is an actual judgment:

Non-players may not cast votes in polls. A penalty for a non-player voting shall be imposed as the site admin (jay) determines appropriate, as a TOS violation.

The rest is "a discussion. The Judge and DA having a chat about how they can get that no-good so-and-so off the streets."

I'm thinking of getting into the glue import industry.

Correction: The rest is "a discussion. The Judge and DA having a chat about how they can get that no-good so-and-so off the streets" without breaking the rules.

I think a fairer place to start would be determining if Abron is indeed a sockpuppet. Assuming he is and figuring out how to kick him out of the game seems like the cart before the horse, you know?

As always I will be obediently following the ruling of the judge. But there isn't much for me to do here, aside from carrying on. Abron seems damned either way. He can try to play an get his account yanked, or sit around not playing.

If you are feeling chatty, ctmf, I would love to get some insight into why you decided to do the 180 after (309-2).

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I just had a peek at the logs to unravel who the sockpuppets are and I admit I'm surprised.

That behavior doesn't surprise me at all, jay. As the admin I think you have a responsibility to keep that sort of stuff out-of-bounds unless you are instructed to do so by a judge.

I am sorry, because I don't have anything against you personally, but I do feel this isn't the first time you have abused your position of power as admin, and I am really frustrated by that.

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To be totally honest, I always felt that the spirit of the game required a judgment such as the most recent one. I couldn't figure out how the Rules allowed me to do that at first, so I rashly made the 309-2 judgment.

Since that judgment bothered me, I researched further and had the revelation that the issue of allowing players to join (clearly required by 116) and whether a sock puppet is or is not a player were separable, and thus the rules allowed the common-sense version of the judgment (now in effect.)

So I corrected the judgment. I would have preferred to be right the first time, and apologise for the confusion.

I knew it. AAA is shelleycat.

Elaborate on that. On Spork I changed a Yes/Yes proposal to a Yes/No proposal, and since everyone then voted No I don't think there was a real dispute, especially after an invocation was never later called.

What else have I done to warrant this (yes) personal series of defamations?

How much personal attack is allowed before it's no longer gameplay?

"As the admin I think you have a responsibility to keep that sort of stuff out-of-bounds"

As an admin I have a responsibility to look at the system logs, and I haven't shared any knowledge gained from that within the scope of the game.

Or, AAA and shelleycat are living in the same house. Logs can be misleading.

I didn't want to bring the spork thing up here, jay, as I already made my decision to walk away from that game based on your action there.

Let''s see what ctmf has to say regarding the newest invocation.

And honestly, jay, I am not attacking you personally. I just strongly disagree with you on what constitutes "admin duties" and what it means to be a host of a game. In terms of the setup and everything else I think you are doing an excellent job, really.

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Or, AAA and shelleycat are living in the same house. Logs can be misleading.

Exactly. As I said earlier, there are probably a good number of us playing this game from the same building (or at least through the same gateway) in Lviv. Hey, why don't we have a meetup? :)

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There is a scrap of real indignity in my challenges because I'm running around under my real name.

I really do try to keep from gaining advantages, for both integrity and the fact it would be pointlessly boring to cheat at nomic.

AAA, your style of play is downright disturbing sometimes, but I appreciate the handshake. Back atcha.

Meetup - I was going to suggest a game of 1000 Blank White Cards. Let's start a geography thread.

If I understand ctmf's ruling I am within my non-bannable rights to continue posting in threads. I strongly disagree regarding my status because this seems like lots of fun and I really want to play. But to avoid banning I will not vote on 309, but will instead post a non-official opinion in that thread when it comes up.

Once 309 is done, I will again declare myself a player and await the storm of protest and flatluigi's judgment.

We will now begin the group sing along:

We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome some day

Oh, deep in my heart
I do believe
We shall overcome some day

You can't deny, Abron is a tenacious little bugger. I wonder how long it will take before he gets bored and gives up?

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shelleycat is my mefi username, my flickr account name, my librarything and twitter username, and probably a few others. It's linked to a consistant posting history, single persona and photographs. If AAA, or anyone else, was using it here as a sockpuppet I'd be mightly pissed off ("I" being the girl in those photos, the person behind the mefi account). But I'm guessing none of you really believe that.

I assume jay has looked at AP addresses. Which, of course, is not always a great way of figuring stuff out. For a start right now I'm 500 kms away from anywhere I've posted here before as well as at a totally different company. I sometimes post from my wokplace near home. I recently changed ISPs at home. Not to mention that IPs in NZ are generally assigned dynamically so every time my home internet connection gets reset I get a new IP (which was happening a lot hence the new ISP). So my account probably has a whole list of IP addresses associated with it. They should all somehow show I'm in NZ but then I could be using a proxy service to hide even that. I guess though the variety doens't really show what you're looking for for sockpuppets, e.g. posting from the same IP address. I'm pretty sure I'm the only NZer and that none of you work at either of my companies, but with the volatile IP address thing if you were we could easily look like sockpuppets even when we're not.

I don't quite get why Abron would chose a username so similar to one already in play if he really is a different person. If you're so keen on taking part why not be yourself, even just a little bit? Surely Abron can see why to the rest of us (or, I guess, to at least some of thr rest of us) it looks like the account was set up just to fuck with us.

That way, the next Judge, at the beginning of the next turn, can invoke judgment on the necessity of extending rulings (possibly modified) into his turn.

I think you're overextending the "New Judges are not bound by the decisions of old Judges" provision of Rule 212. Nowhere does it say that the effect of a Judgment ceases at the end of the turn in the absence of any other Judgments.

Chuck, there is nothing preventing someone from doing something that would not be permissible under the last turn's judgement.

116. Whatever is not prohibited or regulated by a rule is permitted and unregulated, with the sole exception of changing the rules, which is permitted only when a rule or set of rules explicitly or implicitly permits it.

There is no rule created when a judgement is made. Any player is able to ask the new judge re-interpret the rules and the new judge may do so differently, so there isn't any way for a judgement to last more than a turn.

Chuck, there is nothing preventing someone from doing something that would not be permissible under the last turn's judgement.

You mean physically preventing someone from doing something against the previous turn's judgment? Of course there isn't. But it's just as true that there's nothing physically preventing players from doing many things that are against the rules. We don't conclude that those things aren't really against the rules just because they're physically possible.

Any player is able to ask the new judge re-interpret the rules and the new judge may do so differently

And if they do so, the prior judgment no longer holds. If no one does so, I argue that the prior judgment is still valid.

Nowhere does it say that the effect of a Judgment ceases at the end of the turn in the absence of any other Judgments.

Interesting. I guess I just always assumed that that was so.

And if they do so, the prior judgment no longer holds. If no one does so, I argue that the prior judgment is still valid.

I'm not sure I see the difference. If you want to do something that goes against a previous turn's judgement, you can either do it and wait for someone else to invoke judgement or invoke judgement yourself and then do it if allowed. The end result is the same.

ssg, what, if anything, do you believe prevents a player from doing something against the current turn's judgment? And how is it different than doing something against a previous turn's judgment? The only difference I see is that doing somehing against the current turn's judgment makes it less likely (but not impossible) that the current judge would rule it to be legal. But given that a single judge may change his mind from his earlier judgment on the same turn, the "try it and see if anyone invokes judgment" seems just as legitimate (or illegitimate) either way.

Chuck, nothing prevents anyone from doing anything. If someone does something against the current turn's judgement, then I'd argue that they are acting in bad faith because they have no reason to believe that the judge has changed his or her mind. I don't think the very small possibility that the judge might rule differently during the same turn is at all comparable to the significant chance that the next judge will see things differently.

If someone does something against the current turn's judgement, then I'd argue that they are acting in bad faith because they have no reason to believe that the judge has changed his or her mind.

I would agree with that. But I would further argue that doing something against a previous turn's judgment, if not yet overturned by a different judge, is equally in bad faith. I don't see the possibility that a judge might overturn the judgment (whether this is very unlikely, because it is the same judge, or moderately likely, because it is a different judge) as a justification for the act.

Get a ruling from a judge that your proposed (illegal-according-to-a-previous-judgment) action is legalfirst, then do it. That doesn't seem an excessive burden.

It seems to me that Abron is not planning on breaking the judgment anyways, look at what he says he'll do. But if we all agree that judgments continue to hold after a turn is over*, that they are as firm as rules, hey great I am all for that. I remember a judge a few turns back doing unpopular things, and the reaction was a mix of from "Don't worry, it is only applicable this turn" to "We can just ignore anything that is obviously against the rules."

*I am talking here about, for example, setting up the special forum for new player requests - to me that is behavior that indicates "Once a judge has said it, it is always so."

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I don't see the possibility that a judge might overturn the judgment (whether this is very unlikely, because it is the same judge, or moderately likely, because it is a different judge) as a justification for the act.

I think you are making a circular argument. You assume that the judgement is still in force ("a judge might overturn the judgement"), which is what you are trying to argue for.

A judge may well rule many actions illegal, whether or not judgement had been invoked on the issue at hand in previous turns, but that doesn't mean we should be forced to ask the judge before we do anything at all dubious.

I think you are making a circular argument. You assume that the judgement is still in force ("a judge might overturn the judgement"),

That's a semantic quibble at best. "Overturn" was perhaps inaccurate, but the argument still holds if I restate it more accurately as "...the possibility that a judge may rule differently than a judge ruled previously..."

but that doesn't mean we should be forced to ask the judge before we do anything at all dubious.

Oh, I quite agree. But I wasn't arguing that we should be forced to ask the judge before we do anything at all dubious. I was arguing that we should be forced to ask the judge before we do anything that has previously been ruled illegal (and not superceded by a subsequent ruling).

I don't think the language matters at all here. Even saying "the possibility that a judge may rule differently than a judge ruled previously" requires that the previous turn's judgement has some sort of power in the current turn.

But I think this is drifting away from the main point. Rule 116 lets us do what we wish as long as it isn't against the rules. I don't see anything in the rules that leads to the conclusion that interpretations of rules, i.e. judgements, become part of the rules. As rule 212 tells us that "New Judges are not bound by the decisions of old Judges" I don't see any reason to believe that any particular interpretation of the rules lasts beyond the end of a particular judge's tenure.

I was arguing that we should be forced to ask the judge before we do anything that has previously been ruled illegal (and not superceded by a subsequent ruling).

I agree with that in the general case. The Joining the Game judgment in particular explicitly expires itself at the end of turn 309, though.

310 should be exciting. Glad I'm not the judge of that one.