From: gardner@cs.monash.edu.au ()
Subject: Nomic World Game 2:A Brief Summary
Keywords: nomic, law, self-reference, self-modification
Organization: Computer Science, Monash University, Australia
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 00:41:06 GMT


Hello everybody,

I thought I would send you a brief note attempting to encapsulate the
some of things that have been going on in the month or so that game 2
has been going on.

Firstly, I get the impression that this game is running *fast*. In the
first month (we began Oct 9), we have voted on 56 proposals. 29 passed,
27 failed, another 8 or so are up for vote at this time. There is,
contrary to the impressions I received from players of previous nomic
games, a distinct possibility that someone may eventually win on points.

I do not intend to offer transcipts from the bulletin board in the game.
The archive for game two is already quite enormous (146K - 600 notes or
thereabouts), and I can get it to you if you're interested. And, of course,
you are all very welcome to log in anytime and check out the situation.
(See the end of this post for login details.)

At a very rough guess, legislation has concentrated generally in 3 areas:
scoring (the largest category by far), procedures for proposing and voting
on proposals, and dealing with new and old players. 

Before I deal with the 3 areas, however, it is interesting to note that
a similar pattern to that which developed in game 1 developed in game 2
also, seens at the appropriately abstract level of description (if you'll
pardon the Hofstadter-like disclaimer -:).

In game 1, a slow, cautious start to the game was followed by an explosive
attempt to break the deadlock. A similar pattern was observed in game 2.
In game 1, the deadlock was the result of the unanimity requirement, and
it was spectacularly broken by Lindrum's attempts at a constitutional coup
d'etat. Game 1 was dissolved in the ensuing crisis. The deadlock in game 2
was caused by a combination of two rules: supermajorities, and what we
call the 10-point rule, ie, the rule that awards 10 points to players who
vote against proposals that pass. We began with about 15 players. A block
of six points-grabbers developed, blocking all proposals, all hoping that
one of their number might relent so that they might be rewarded. In the
period Friday Oct 9 to Tuesday Oct 20, 9 proposals, most meritorious,
either failed, or would clearly do so.

My attempt to break this deadlock occurred early Wednesday morning, Oct 21.
I offered a points incentive to yes voters in excess of what the 10-point
rule offered to vote no. I offered the incentive to players prepared to
vote yes to Simple Majorities, and to another proposal that would later
be the cause of much confusion and controvesy, Early Decision (which allowed
proposals to be tallied before the seven day voting period had elapsed if
(i) 3 days had expired, and (ii) enough votes had been cast to *ensure*
the proposal either passed or failed, if no player changed their vote. 
Changing one's vote is permissible in our game.). The game exploded. In
the ensuing chaos, 20 further proposals were added in the following 18
hours, many offering fantastic points incentives to vote for them, others
proposing to outlaw such activity.

Thus, the first and greatest focus of legislative activity has been scoring.
After numerous amendments, the scoring situation has been modified 
considerably from Suber's original idea. The Prisoner's Dilemma feel
of the original situation has been dissolved, to be replaced by a system
that rewards "political vision" by intensifying the Bandwagon Effect: it
rewards you for voting with proposals that pass, and it rewards you for
voting against proposals that fail. Further modifications are in the
pipeline. Additionally, a 1 point penalty has been imposed for invoking
judgement.

The second major area of legislative activity has been modifying the
procedures for proposing procedures. A system of seconding has been
introduced, wherein a proposal must be scrutinized and publicly approved
by a seconder before it can be put to the vote. The role of the seconder
is supposed to be to examine the proposal for possible bugs and conflicts
with existing rules. There is a points incentive for seconders to do their
jobs well: a 2 point bonus to the seconder if a proposal s/he seconds
passes, and a 2 point penalty if it fails.

Lastly, several proposals have been adopted that deal with the problem
of players entering and leaving the game, an area unaddressed by the 
Original Rules. Basically, loopholes that would have allowed players to
avoid penalties by leaving the game and rejoining have been closed. These
loopholes are part of a wider challenge to all of us at Nomic World: that
of adapting to what is really a very different style of Nomic play than
has ever been attempted before. 

As an example of ther subtleties that that can be involved, I include a 
post from last week:
-------------
110,219 conflict: vote YES to 1041 (Steve, Oct 30 12:39)

I believe that at this time, rule 219 (Win by Paradox) is wholly void
and without effect. I therefore believe that it is important that the
proposal (1041, by Ilt) to transmute 110 succeed. Here is my reasoning:

Rule 110 states that the state of affairs that constitutes winning the
game may not be changed from achieving n points to any other state of
affairs. However, it makes one specific exception to this: rules which
determine a winner when play cannot be continued may be enacted etc.
It might appear that this exception allows rule 219 to have its
intended effect. However, rule 219 oversteps its authority in this respect
since it goes further than just specifying a winner when play cannot
continue - it states that a winner may be determined by the judgement
of an action to be equally legal and illegal, or an action whose legality
cannot be determined with finality.

In the Original Rules (Suber's dinner-table version), the discovery
of such an action would have stopped play, because of the turn
structure of the game. With this new style of game, that is no longer
the case. In other words, this conflict is yet another subtle problem
arising out of our switch to this form of play.

Since 219 specifically mandates the selection of a winner under
circumstances explicitly prohibited by 110, I claim that 219 is
currently wholly void and without effect. Since I think that 219
is a fantastic rule, I think 110 ought to be amended to allow a
winner to be determined when an action is judged equally legal and
illegal, or when its legality cannot be determined with finality.

Fortunately, Ilt has already (on Oct 27) proposed to transmute 110.
I previously opposed its transmutation. I now support it, and hope that
you will do likewise: otherwise, one of the most interesting facets of
the game, winning by paradox, will disappear from our game.
-------------------

The only other area which requires comment is that of judicial reform.
Lindrum's crisis introduced to game 2 a strikingly different conception
of Judgement. Instead of the sweeping powers judges enjoyed in game 1, 
judges in game 2 have been restricted to declaring certain propositions
to be either TRUE, FALSE, or UNDECIDED. Judgements have been explicitly
restricted to decisions about game-custom, the interpretation of terms
within rules and such. Judgements are not rules and may not conflict
with rules. So far, this new system has worked very well, I believe.
At this time, a proposal to extend the scope of judgements to answer 
YES/NO questions is being voted upon.

To conclude, it has been a wonderful first month. I have enjoyed playing
this game immensely, and always look forward to logging in to find out
what's been going on. It will be fascinating to see where we go from here.

How to login to Nomic World:

For those on machines running Unix, "telnet 130.194.67.16 5000" logs
you into Nomic World. For those on machines running VMS, the exact
form of the telnet command will differ. The important thing is to discover
how to set the port to 5000.

Perhaps we'll see you there.
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*|__   |  |__   \  /  |__   |  *    "Open the pod bay doors, please, Hal."    *
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*gardner@bruce.cs.monash.edu.au*                                              *
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