Agora Nomic

Agora Sky News, vol. ½

2017-09-13T18:57:34+00:00

Crisis Strikes Agora

It has recently come to light that the modern Agoran economy is built on a foundation of tissue paper and lies, as it turns out that the rules only give people permission to partake in the economy without giving them the ability to do so. An emergency fix to this problem is currently being considered; if one wishes to partake in banishing the state of emergency caused by the lack of oversight in the implementation of the economy, now is the time to act. This instability (along with some issues external to Agora), has led long-time player ais523, to take a hiatus from Agora. This paper wishes them well on their break.

-天火狐

Election Season Closes in Agora

Elections for the following positions occured and were resolved as follows:

ADoP: VJ Rada, with 2 votes (tie broken in eir favour)
Herald: G., with 5 votes
PM: VJ Rada, with 3 votes
Regkeepor: Aris, with 3 votes
Reportor: 天火狐, with 5 votes

-天火狐

Body-snatchers Rampant; Caution Advised

Unconfirmed reports state that there have been a string of body-snatching incidents recently. Symptoms of having one’s body snatched include, but are not limited to making pledges that one doesn’t remember, and waking up in an unknown location with cards and being forced to make an insincere apology. All persons are advised to keep all doors closed at night, and ensure that one’s assets and charges are secured.

-天火狐

Borduria Leadership Vacant; Region in Turmoil

After the unexpected vacancy of the region’s governer, citizens of Borduria are faced with an even larger uncertainty. Dry drought conditions over the summer has led to a poor wheat harvest in the region, affecting many local industries, most of which are agrian in nature. Without a clear leader, the future of the region is unclear, although many citizens questioned appear to be stoic about the situation; no doubt that many remember the wars between Agora and other nomics of days gone past. As of printing it is currently unknown when the good citizens of Borduria is expected to have a governer again.

-天火狐

Agora Today

2017-06-05T21:56:11+00:00

The Major events

A surge of philosophical discussion took hold of Agora. This resulted in a lot of CFJs and the deregristration of some players. After that, activity cooled down somewhat and the dust seems to have settled now.

Politics

The Junta of ais523 is still in effect. The loophole that enabled the scam has been closed however. The deregristration of nichdel left the offices of Assessor and ADoP vacant, which have since been picked up by Quazie.

Legislation

Several legislation projects are under discussion: The development of the economy, a reform of the judicial system, and ways to introduce more gameplay. There is also a proposal competition revolving around fixing existing problems with the ruleset.

Science

Several experimental Agencies have been established that attempt to produce subNomics or other games.

Academia

Votes for the Silver Quill of 2016 can be submitted currently. G. was awarded the degree Associate of Nomic (A.N.) for his thesis “A Multi-Tiered, Multi-Controlled Currency System”.

Editor’s Notes: As the new editor of the Agoran newspaper I thank my predecessor nichdel for his work on the newspaper and express my hope that e will come back to Agora.

Thesis: A Multi-Tiered, Multi-Controlled Currency System

2017-05-24T16:21:35+00:00

A Thesis Submitted to Agora in Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Associate of Nomic

This is an outline of the currency system that was in place when I began (2001) and ran until 2003, a good long time for Agora. It was active and the source of much game play at the time. It was installed before my time, but my understanding is that credit should go to Steve for the major points of this system.

The basis of the system was a currency called Stems (from Stem cells). Every player got a basic salary in Stems, and Officers got a higher salary. But the thing about Stems were, they were very limited in use. You couldn’t transfer them to anyone else, or buy much with them. They just accumulated.

Instead there were three currencies that were useful:

Papyrii
- A single Papyrus made a Proposal distributable.
Indulgences
- Penalties for breaking rules or other judicially-bad things were measured in Blots. Blots gave you game penalties (lowered votes, kept you from winning). An Indulgence would destroy a Blot.
Voting Entitlements (VEs)
- Hold a VE, get an extra proposal vote. Max voting power 5.

How did you get these currencies? Each month, an Auction would be held, auctioning off a certain number of each currency. The auction currency was Stems, that was really all you could use them for.

Furthermore, each player had a Role. Scribes (papyrus), Acolytes (Indulgences), and Politicians (VEs). Only players holding the correct role could bid on the correct currency. And roles could only be changed once a Quarter, so you had to plan ahead.

Additionally, each currency was tied to an Office: the Promotor for papyrus, the Clerk of the Courts (Arbitor) for Indulgences, and the Assessor for VEs. Each Officer could control their own currency supply by deciding (in a fixed range) how much to auction each month, and also had the ability to tax (collect a % of everyone’s holdings for that currency). Total circulating currency was fixed; direct creation of currency was tightly-controlled and rare, mostly the currencies circulated between players and a Bank. Power over currency supply made these offices desirable, and elections were actually fought based on monetary policies.

Just by the “nature” of play, each currency had a different liquidity.

Papyrus were the bread and butter of activities (in addition to making proposals distributable, you could use them for other parliamentary procedures such as Chambers). Winning at this time was by Points (the original Nomic system), and most of the ways of scoring were voting-related: the old Nomic Prisoner’s Dilemma or other scoring rules, which made proposal-manipulation part of the gameplay.
Total VE supply was pegged to the # of players in the game, and permanent votes were powerful. So these became the real estate in the game; precious, commanding high prices at auctions, rarely changing hands.
Indulgences were volatile. The judicial system allowed players to “ticket” each other for minor infractions just by announcement, only needing CFJs if the facts were contested. A day late on a report? Someone gives you a Blot. Sometimes, when players conspired for scams or political plays, all would break the same rule and many would get Blots. Then Indulgences would be priceless. Other times, they were nearly worthless.

Some auctions were snoozers. Some were hotly contested. Various features made for occasionally very hotly-contested events (if a player left the game while still having currencies, all their holdings would be auctioned off as a single lot - very very valuable).

What made this so successful? Part of it was situational; for various reasons, there were some very hotly debated topics (and long-term rivalries) that made proposal and vote struggles very tense and contested. Second, there were a good 20+ active players, a high point (if you look at “departures in 2001” in the Registrar’s report, you see many departures - this was the decay of the 2000-2001 boom).

Part is of course my own nostalgia.

But I think there were two parts that made the system itself work well.

First, this system hit a real sweet spot in decision and contestable “exciting” points. Grind with Stems, make strategic decisions with Roles, play them out with the other currencies. Offices with “power” to set policies that had gameplay impacts. Winning was related, but not the whole purpose of currencies. There was enough variety that each “exciting moment” had a different quality and tactics, but not so many options that we were lost in the weeds.

Secondly, as noted by Ørjan, “the three-currency system was also carefully thought out for the purpose of encouraging an economy with meaningful trading - something which we hadn’t really managed before. This required making it impossible for a player to alone produce everything e needed, thus both the roles and the three different kind of assets.”

Finally, I think we had a period of strong stability in the underlying Rules. At the time, we had players both from the computing world, but also a lawyer or two. The Rules interpretations/CFJ tended to be very “practical” (following intent) rather than letting a twisted wording loophole break things (though some true “infinite loops” and other twisty ideas got through and were respected). The stability was such that a whole family of concepts - Debt, Contracts, Bonds - were made privately (and sometimes added with rules) and some holdings built up over the full 2-3 years that the system lasted.

All in all, it was a Pretty Good Time in Agora.

The Hopefully Weekly

2017-05-24T16:21:35+00:00

The Short and Sweet

A successful scam, several new players, and more activity than Agora has seen in a long time! Current discussion and actions focus on improving and filling offices, economics, and agencies.

Economics

Estates have been instated. A discussion about the future of the economy rages on.

NB: The shiny pending system has been temporarily suspended by the Junta. Ais523 is the only person that can pend a proposal. E has offered to do so for anyone that pays Agora a small donation of 5 shinies. Editor’s note: actually 4 shinies.

Winning

Ais523 and nichdel received wins via Junta.

Many ribbons have recently been claimed.

A couple agencies related to Trust Tokens have been created, hopefully bringing more action to that win condition.

Law and Order

Quite a few CFJs have been issued and judged in recent times. See G.’s site for more info [1].

Power Shifts

After a successful scam, nichdel and ais523 received wins and ais523 now leads a Junta [2]. The mechanism for the scam currently remains open at the time of writing.

Currently four elections are underway [3]. This is part of a larger initiative to fill every office [4]

Offshore Organization

Several players are currently working together to improve the way we record and display reports outside the mailing list. Much work is remains and many things are subject to change, but a provisional front page already exists [5].

Footnotes

[1] https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/

[2] https://www.mail-archive.com/agora-business@agoranomic.org/msg28111.html

[3] https://www.mail-archive.com/agora-business@agoranomic.org/msg28187.html

[4] https://www.mail-archive.com/agora-business@agoranomic.org/msg28119.html

[5] https://agoranomic.github.io/

The Times of Agora

2017-05-21T22:20:30+00:00

Editor’s note: this report failed, due to incorrect deputization timing.

Winnings

In the past week, the Herald’s report has been brought up to date. The Herald has also initiated an attempt to grant wins to all players by Apathy and a Victory Election. They have also issued an intent to grant a badge to all persons participating in the Great Agoran Revival, long may the period reign.

Languages

After 天火狐, issued an attempt to amend eir organization, a recent CFJ has been called to decide whether he was a member of the organization and whether all messages are ambiguous. After this further discussion ensued about playing Agora in other languages, Publius Scribonius Scholasticus intends to write a thesis on this topic.

GitHub

In the past week, GitHub has become a popular means for drafting reports and automation has been a hot topic. However, after discussion, it was decided that this did not yet warrant legislation.

What goes here?

2017-05-21T00:23:30+00:00

The main things that can go here are theses, reports, newspapers, other publications, and any other writings on Agora. I hope this is helpful. –PSS