DIS: phew!

Just wanted to congratulate everyone on the second-most busy month in
agoranomic.org discussion history (measured by bytes in archive file).

Just thought we might make it, but conversation died out in the final
few hours.

Just barely lost out to April 2005;  April 2005 had a April Fools
joke that resulted in posting repeated copies of most of the 
ruleset in discussion forum, so maybe that's not a measure of
discussion volume.  On the other hand, current archives
seem to have more html junk so maybe it's not a fair comparison.
In my day, we posted pure text and were *lucky*.

Bronze medal goes to January 2003, the height of the Annabel crisis.
That was true discussion, in text, that was.

Well done!

-Goethe

Re: DIS: phew!

Re: DIS: phew!

On 5/31/07, Kerim Aydin <kerim <at> u.washington.edu> wrote:
> Just barely lost out to April 2005;  April 2005 had a April Fools
> joke that resulted in posting repeated copies of most of the
> ruleset in discussion forum, so maybe that's not a measure of
> discussion volume.  On the other hand, current archives
> seem to have more html junk so maybe it's not a fair comparison.
> In my day, we posted pure text and were *lucky*.

We also had a rather large spike in activity around that time, as I recall.

-root

Re: DIS: phew!

Ian Kelly wrote:
> On 5/31/07, Kerim Aydin <kerim <at> u.washington.edu> wrote:
>> Just barely lost out to April 2005;  April 2005 had a April Fools
>> joke that resulted in posting repeated copies of most of the
>> ruleset in discussion forum, so maybe that's not a measure of
>> discussion volume.  On the other hand, current archives
>> seem to have more html junk so maybe it's not a fair comparison.
>> In my day, we posted pure text and were *lucky*.
>
> We also had a rather large spike in activity around that time, as I 
> recall.
>
> -root
>
that was around when I came around, and cards were around.  There was 
much going on.

Re: DIS: phew!

On 5/31/07, Roger Hicks <pidgepot <at> gmail.com> wrote:
> I've heard Annabel mentioned several times. Is there someplace I could find
> a synopsis of this crisis?

I don't think that anybody has ever written up a thesis on the
subject, so your best bet is probably just to go digging through the
archives from January/February 2003..

In a nutshell, a player named Annabel played for a few months in 1999
and again for a couple of weeks in 2001.  A couple of years later, it
was revealed that "Annabel" was in fact an illegal dual registration
and was never an actual player, throwing the game state into a morass
of uncertainty, which was somewhat complicated by a lack of archives
from before 2000.

Some contend that the fall-out from the Annabel crisis was never
properly resolved, and that we are no longer playing Agora as a
result.

-root

Re: DIS: phew!

Ian Kelly wrote:
> On 5/31/07, Roger Hicks <pidgepot <at> gmail.com> wrote:
>> I've heard Annabel mentioned several times. Is there someplace I 
>> could find
>> a synopsis of this crisis?
>
> I don't think that anybody has ever written up a thesis on the
> subject, so your best bet is probably just to go digging through the
> archives from January/February 2003..
>
> In a nutshell, a player named Annabel played for a few months in 1999
> and again for a couple of weeks in 2001.  A couple of years later, it
> was revealed that "Annabel" was in fact an illegal dual registration
> and was never an actual player, throwing the game state into a morass
> of uncertainty, which was somewhat complicated by a lack of archives
> from before 2000.
>
> Some contend that the fall-out from the Annabel crisis was never
> properly resolved, and that we are no longer playing Agora as a
> result.
>
> -root
>
It would be interesting to make a list of all the 
scams/disputes/oddities that have happened over the years.

DIS: phew!

Quazie wrote:
> that was around when I came around, and cards were around.  There was 
> much going on.

Oh yes, it looks like there was lots of cards proto'd by quazie, as
well as quazie's first scam... I thought that was a bit later.
Yes, a good month!

-Goethe 

DIS: VC salaries

Quazie, as primary controller of HP2 wrt its IADoP duties, can you
please confirm or correct the following VC salaries?

Assessor   - Murphy (held the office all month)
CotC       - no one (comex only held the office since May 20,
                      previous holder Goethe has deregistered)
Herald     - OscarMeyr (held the office until May 23)
IADoP      - HP2 (held the office since May 7)
Promotor   - Zefram (held the office since early May 15)
Registrar  - OscarMeyr (held the office all month)
Rulekeepor - Zefram (held the office all month)

DIS: Re: BUS: Proto: Knuts!

Ed Murphy wrote:
>      When a player registers, e receives a random number of Knuts
>      from 1679 to 1974 (inclusive).
>
>Upon the adoption of this proposal, each player receives a random
>number of Knuts from 1679 to 1974 (inclusive).

These should specify who makes the random selection.

How are Knuts acquired other than this?

>      Wheezes may be purchased according to the terms of an Agoran
>      contract called the Wheeze Catalog.

I think the Wheeze Catalog should be in the ruleset.

>      Wheezes may be used once per day by announcement.

By anyone?

>                                                         When a Wheeze
>      is used, a random number from 1 to 11 (inclusive) shall be chosen,

Again, who makes the random selection?

-zefram

Re: DIS: phew!

On 5/31/07, Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly <at> gmail.com> wrote:
> In a nutshell, a player named Annabel played for a few months in 1999
> and again for a couple of weeks in 2001.  A couple of years later, it
> was revealed that "Annabel" was in fact an illegal dual registration
> and was never an actual player, throwing the game state into a morass
> of uncertainty, which was somewhat complicated by a lack of archives
> from before 2000.

In particular, "harvel" held the office of Assessor for some time
after "Annabel" deregistered, producing about 30 reports of adopted
proposals.  Back then we didn't have rule 2034, which pragmatises the
resolution of Agoran decisions, and we had a long tradition, with
occasional objectors, that players are persons, not avatars for
persons.  Together this suggests that when "Annabel" deregistered,
"harvel" did as well, meaning that those reports were invalid and
without effect.  Ultimately, a plurality of Agorans decided to Pretend
It Hadn't Happened to avoid a tedious recalculation of the gamestate.
The lesson here is that while platonism may be Ideal, most of its
shadowy instantiations are Bad.

> Some contend that the fall-out from the Annabel crisis was never
> properly resolved, and that we are no longer playing Agora as a
> result.

This seems to come from a platonistic theory of identity.  One could
probably make an argument along the lines of Parfit's reduction of
identity that post-Annabel Agora is ``close enough'' to pre-Annabel
Agora to count as the same thing.

--

-- 
Maud Lynn