I will make a last attempt at assuming that we are all playing nomic here in good faith...
Judge ctmf, I put these questions to you:
Should jay be permitted to look into server logs in order to benefit himself as a player?
Is it right and acceptable that, if a player is also the main site admin, he use the extra powers and information at his disposal to benefit his own game position?
Should the main site admin also be a player in the game?
Discussion: I know that jay of course can do all of the above things, but in a just world there would be a Chinese curtain in place to prevent him from doing so. He is not looking to stop cyber-attacks or spambots here, or prevent malicious viruses or trojans. He is using his admin powers to gain an edge over the other players.
In my own defense, I was on that page for legitimate reasons, it's the main drupal log. Unravelling the puppetry was a side effect.
If I now have an unfair advantage over the other players, I will immediately surrender the complete (but IP-masked) log at the Judge's order. Most of the rest could be gleaned from watching the Who's Online list.
I have also used my administrative powers to look up email addresses to contact individual players.
Again, jay, please do accept my honest statement that I am not trying to attack you personally. You have done an excellent job in setting up this space for us to play.
Oh and I changed the default theme and accept any punishment doled out for that.
That is actually a very good (and sticky) question.
I'll want to think about that for a bit. In the meantime, I welcome discussion.
Some points I think discussion should address:
Can I settle this question, i.e., does it affect the completion of the current turn?
Has any rule been broken?
Is protection required against a rule being undetectably broken?
Can a player reasonably have the two hats of admin and player, similar to the Judge/Player conflict of interest.
Clearly, a site admin must look at the system logs. The question is, is doing that prejudicial to being a player?
Also, outside the context of the game, consider that jay is hosting the site voluntarily, as a favor to the rest of us, so we can all play. Kicking jay out of his own game is not an option. Think of something else.
I thought with the new theme you guys were going to start paying.
It has an effect on the current turn in the following way:
jay now has additional secret information about what IP addresses the different users are logging in from. This means that he has concrete factual evidence to prove who is / is not a sockpuppet or duplicate account. He knows what all of the rest of us can only speculate about. This is information he may or may not share with the Judge, players he feels are allies, or the whole userbase.
This means that he is voting on the current proposal from an advantageous position compared to the other non-admin players, and that he can share that knowledge at his own discretion to effect the votes of other players. That strongly effects the completion of this turn.
IPs prove nothing. I could be letting other players use my system as a web proxy.
I'm all for posting the entire list, IP addresses and all. In fact, why not have IP addresses tacked onto each comment right there in the open? I never got why people care about hiding such stuff and don't see why the lies should be be uncovered. As has been mentioned before IP addresses are easy enough to change or mask.
I'm sure no one agrees with me on this though.
Oh, if only we were playing a game where we could change the rules, then we could enact such a provision!
As it is, rule 116 seems to allow jay to do these things, fair or not. No one ever said our current rules were fair.
Oh, if only we were playing a game where we could change the rules, then we could enact such a provision!
Chuck, that's exactly how I felt when I signed up my sockpuppet. gerryblog mentioned how we should change the rules to disallow such a scenario. But it seems that most everyone wanted to force things to be fair, even when the rules had nothing to say on the subject.
I personally would love a ruling to have jay look at any IPs that have accessed more than one account and reveal those pairs (or triples) of accounts.
I would love someone to make a good case for where in the rules duplicate accounts are not allowed. ctmf's "spirit of the game" seems a little weak. Isn't the spirit of nomic to be exploiting loopholes and finding the weaknesses in the rules, and turning those to your advantage? People who want to play fair should go play backgammon or something...
You are the next judge, flatluigi, so your dream can come true very easily. :)
"Isn't the spirit of nomic to be exploiting loopholes and finding the weaknesses in the rules"
No, the spirit of nomic is to have a nice time playing a game with a changing ruleset, which some people seem to have missed.
Sockpuppetry is outright lying and violates the spirit of any game.
See, jay, that's why you and I are having such a difficult time understanding one another - we are playing two different games. I am having a nice time. How's it going with you?
Sockpuppetry is outright lying and violates the spirit of any game.
Have you ever played poker, jay?
The players are around the table, cupping their hands. Jay, the host, notices by observing his CCTV system that Aaron is bluffing.
J: "Nope, you can't raise, Aaron. You are only holding a pair of 3s and ctmf has three aces."
A: "Umm, could you keep that quiet please, jay? I am trying to play cards here."
*ctmf reaches in and grabs the pot*
A: "Jay, what's up, could you please stop watching that cctv feed?"
J: "It doesn't matter, Aaron, ctmf has more chips and could have outbid you - he would have won that pot regardless. Hey guys, what do you think of the spinach dip? I made it from scratch."
A: "Yeah, the spinach dip is fantastic, jay, you've really pulled out all the stops."
C: "Delicious spinach dip, real nummers. Jay, could you make sure to keep your eye on that camera? Aaron is a sneaky bugger and we don't want any more of his BS."
*nods of approval from around the table*
*Aaron cries, play continues*
I don't think that analogy holds. I think one more accurate is you paid into the pot only once but are trying to play several hands.
Yes, there are games where lying is part of the rules. I play hold'em monthly.
But I'll venture that nearly everyone else joined MeFiNo assuming one person, one vote. If it's just me, that's fine, but this early sneakage seems underhanded to me and detrimental to our efforts to get a reasonable game going. We're stuck in Suber-land when we could be doing so much more.
We already lost half the player list. I don't mind losing the game. I do mind losing nice players.
And the spinach dip thing is probably the most valuable lesson to be learned about democracy from playing nomic.
If it's not against the rules, then it's not against the rules. Stop trying to subvert our game, Jay.
I'm all for posting the entire list, IP addresses and all.
If IPs are going to be made available publically, I'm going to start playing through Tor. When I joined, I believed certain information, like my IP and email address, would be kept private.
Yeah, I'm against posting the IPs, but I'm all for posting the connections.
If it's not against the rules, then it's not against the rules. Stop trying to subvert our game, Jay.
If it's not against the rules, then what I'm doing isn't against the rules. Whatever it is you're accusing me of.
And I'm not the only one of the opinion that sockpuppetry is the real subversion to the game, so likewise, stop twisting it around like that.
Except, of course, if everyone I think agrees with me about the one-person-one-vote thing is a sockpuppet with a secondary agenda.
Don't get me wrong, I like meta-players, I think InterNomic's self-joining was the pinnacle of nomic history. But already?
If it's not against the rules, then what I'm doing isn't against the rules. Whatever it is you're accusing me of.
I'm talking about "sockpuppetry." Based on the rules as they currently stand, no one except a judge may rule on who is and isn't an eligible player.
You can post our IPs or whatever without it breaking the rules. Just don't do anything that breaks the rules!
I don't mind losing the game. I do mind losing nice players.
Do you think I am a nice player, jay? I like you, do you like me? :) I think Abron likes you, too.
As ctmf doesn't seem in a rush to act on this, jay, I'm willing to make a deal for withdrawal of this invocation. I know that your intentions are the best and you are running this thing in good faith and with the best intentions.
Will you pledge to:
I don't think this is an unreasonable request, and such a gentleman's agreement would satisfy me and I am sure the other players here as well.
That's essentially what I would order anyway. I'm just not sure that's controllable in the context of the game, or if it's more of a TOS/User Agreement/Privacy Statement thing at the site level.
If necessary, I can order the last bullet point.
Does closing a poll (i.e., preventing people from changing votes) after the voting period ends count as editing, tampering with, altering, or changing it?
I find it problematic that people can change votes on a poll even after the voting period ends, with no visible record that the vote was changed to be problematic in case of a dispute about the outcome of a vote, and if it is possible for jay to close polls, I wholeheartedly endorse him doing so, at least at the point when it is generally agreed that a vote has ended.
Any of the players who requested limited admin rights can close polls. I don't think this is in the same category of admin "abuse". I agree, we should probably get something in the rules about who declares a vote over, and what happens then.
While I personally have no problem with jay posting anything about me he can find in the server logs, as I said before I'm sure others don't agree. And that's fair too, IP addresses etc are generally considered private information. So I'd support a gentlemans agreement as Aaron outlines.
That's all reasonable, and I expect no less from the administrators of other games I play.
That isn't a pledge, jay. Given you want that in other games you play, will it be what you will pledge and strive to do here in your own sandbox?
OK, I both reject AND denounce the statements of my former pastor--- wait
Yes, I make the posted pledge until the game says otherwise.
Fantastic, jay! I happily withdraw this invocation.