The Ace of Spades Contest
This is an HTML-ised copy of the Application to Create an Organisation
that Player Goethe submitted on 6 March 2002:
Regulations for the Ace of Spades
- Regs 101-114
- Immutable Regs for a "general" contest that includes a voting
mechanism.
- Regs 115-125
- Immutable Regs for Cards
- Regs 200's
- Mutable Regs for Card distribution
- Regs 300's
- Hand Marking Regs
Immutable Basics
- 101.
- This is a Champion's Contest called the Ace of
Spades. Regulations 101-125 are Immutable and may only
be changed by the unanimous consent of all Members. Regulations
with any other number are Mutable. Immutable Regulations have
precedence over all Mutable Regulations. Within the Immutable
or Mutable Regulations, lower numbered Regulations shall have
precedence over higher numbered ones unless a Regulation
specifically claims or defers precedence to another. If any
Regulation conflicts with the Rules of Agora, the Rules of Agora
shall have precedence.
- 102.
- The Contestmaster is Goethe. A Player may become a Contestant at
any time by informing the Contestmaster, with no Entry Fee.
- 103.
- Contest-related communications are considered Public if they are
sent to all current Contestants (not all Players). Objection and
Support are as in the Rules except that only Contestants may give
Objection or Support for Contest actions. If these Regulations
define a Fee, that Fee is payable to the Contest Fund rather than
the Bank.
- 104.
- If a class, instance, or value for an instance of information is
designated by these Regulations as Public, the
Contestmaster shall reveal it to any or all Contestants upon
request or in required Reports. Undesignated information is
Public by default. If information is designated as
Secret, the Contestmaster shall not reveal it to any
Player. If information is designated Private, a subset
of Contestants shall be defined by these Regulations as having
Need To Know status (NTK) for that information. The
Contestmaster shall reveal that information upon request to
those with NTK for the information, and to no others.
- 105.
- The designation of a piece or type of information as Public, Private
or Secret, and the NTK status of Contestants with regard to
particular information, may be changed only as specifically
allowed by the Regulations. Such changes may not be retroactive
in terms of past information. NTK status refers to the most
limited scope of information unless otherwise specified.
- 106.
- Mutable Regulations may be designated as Secret or Private,
in which case, the existence and Number of the Regulation shall
be Public, but the content of the Regulation shall be revealed
only as designated by the Regulations. All Immutable Regulations
are Public.
- 107.
- Any Member may submit a Proposal to the Contestmaster
for a single new Mutable Regulation. The Proposal must include
a proposed number for the Regulation and the proposed contents
of the Regulation. The Proposal may specify that the the
Proposal is private. If the proposal is private, initially only
the proposer is NTK for its contents. The proposed Regulation
number must be 200 or greater, and less than 1000. The
Contestmaster may propose Public or Secret Regulations.
- 108.
- The Contestmaster may choose to place any received Proposal Up for
Vote, by publicly announcing the Proposed Regulation's
Number, its contents if it is Public, and that it is Up for
Vote. The Contestmaster is urged to refuse placing Proposals Up
for Vote only if they are fundamentally against the spirit of
the Contest or would make the Contest utterly unplayable if
adopted.
- 109.
- Every Contestant may submit one vote to the Contestmaster
for each Proposal that is Up for Vote. This vote may be either
FOR or AGAINST. Votes may not be retracted once placed.
- 110.
- At any time starting 72 hours after a Proposal is placed Up
For
Vote,
- if a majority of the current Contestants have
submitted FOR votes, the Proposal is Adopted.
- if a majority of the current Contestants have
submitted AGAINST votes, the Proposal ceases to
be Up for Vote and the Proposal fails.
- 112.
- If a Proposal is Adopted, the proposed Regulation takes effect with
the given Regulation number, at the moment that the Contestmaster
publicly announces that it has been Adopted. If the number of the
Proposed Regulation is the same as the number of an already existent
Mutable Regulation, the older Regulation is automatically repealed
and ceases to have an effect on play.
- 113.
- The Contestmaster shall publish a weekly Report containing useful or
requested information relevant to the Contest, as e sees fit.
- 114.
- A Player may file a request for judgement with the Contestmaster,
who has the authority to adjudicate all conflicts arising from these
Regulations, although final judgement authority may lie with the
Rules of Agora. As the result of a request, a Contestmaster may
judge, among other things, the interpretation of a Regulation,
whether a Contestant has broken a Regulation, or whether a
Contestant has broken a Private Agreement made binding by the
Contest. In response/redress to a request for judgement, the
Contestmaster may perform the following actions without 3 Objections
or with Majority Support:
- Add, remove, create or destroy cards from Hands or the
Deck;
- Remove a Player from Contest membership;
- Repeal a Mutable Regulation, especially if the
Regulation creates an infinite loop or otherwise
makes continued play impossible.
Immutable Play Rules
- 115.
- There exists a currency-like set of Property-like entities called
Cards. Each Card may have one or more descriptors as allowed by
these Regulations. Cards which have an identical set of descriptors
are fungible. The possession or descriptors of particular cards may
be public, private, or secret.
The Contestmaster is the Mintor and Recordkeepor of Cards. The
Contestmaster may modify the ownership or existence of any Card, but
only as allowed by the Regulations.
- 116.
- The Cards in a Player's possession are known as eir Hand. The
Contest Fund is known as the Deck. A Player may transfer any Card
from eir Hand to another entity by informing the Contestmaster,
unless other Regulations specifically prohibit the transfer.
- 117.
- If the Contestmaster "deals" a Card to an entity, e acts on behalf
of the Contest to transfer said Card from the Deck to the entity.
If a Card is dealt "at random" it shall be chosen by the Dealer from
all Cards in the Deck with equal probability. Cards are dealt at
random unless otherwise specified.
If, at any time, more than one card is required to be dealt to a
subset of Contestants, cards shall be dealt, one to the first member
of the subset, one to the second member, etc. until all required
cards are dealt. The sequence of the Deal shall be in
ascending order of the Contestants' first joining dates for the
Contest.
- 118.
- A Hand's worth is a real number of Marks associated with the Cards
in a Contestant's Hand, and in the Hands of other Contestants. At
any given moment, a Hand's worth may only depend on the
current disposition of Cards among Contestants. In particular, it
may not depend on past dispositions of Cards, or Agoran Properties
not defined by these Regulations. If for some reason a Hand's worth
is undefined or uncalculatable, its worth is zero.
- 119.
- The Marking Regulations are all Regulation with a number of
300 or greater.
A Hand's worth is calculated by the Contestmaster applying the
lowest-numbered Marking Regulation to all hands simultaneously,
followed by the next highest Marking Regulation, and so on until the
highest numbered Marking Regulation is applied.
This calculation procedure shall not change the possession of actual
Cards in a Player's Hand, although it may cause other Marking
Regulations to act as if hands were changed for that calculation
only. Regulations that are not Marking Regulations may mandate
changes in Card possession but this is not a part of this
calculation.
- 120.
- The Regulations shall define that a Moment of Reckoning occurs. At
that moment, all Regulations and Contest Properties become Public.
ASAP after the Moment of Reckoning, the Contestmaster will calculate
each Contestant's Hand Worth based on the Regulations and Hands at
the Moment of Reckoning. Any Contestant with a Hand worth equal to
the highest (positive real) Hand Worth becomes a Finalist. There
is no other way to become a Finalist.
- 121.
- If there are one or more Finalists, the Contestmaster will select
one Finalist at random from the set of Finalists (with equal
probability). E will then post, to the Agoran Public Forum, a
Notice of SemiGeniosity awarding, to the selected Finalist,
the Patent Title Semigenius. If 72 hours have passed since a
Finalist was made a SemiGenius, and no Player has Won the Game
as defined by the Rules of Agora, another Finalist shall be so
selected.
- 122.
- A Moment of Reckoning shall not occur before April 15, 2002. If a
Moment of Reckoning has not occured before the beginning of June 10,
2002, a Moment of Reckoning occurs.
- 123.
- Cards with the descriptor Mauve shall always be defined. Mauve
Cards shall have no other Descriptor. There shall always be at
least one Mauve Card in the Deck. If at any time this condition
ceases to be true, a Mauve Card shall be created in the Deck. If a
descriptor of a Card ceases to be defined, all cards of that
descriptor become Mauve with no other descriptor.
- 124.
- When a Player becomes a Contestant for the first time, two Mauve
Cards will be created in eir Hand before any Mutable Regulations
are applied to the Player. An instant before each Moment
of Reckoning, a Mauve Card shall be created in the Hand of every
Contestant that possesses zero Cards.
- 125.
- Cards may be exchanged simultaneously between Contestants via Offers
communicated to the Contestmaster. An Offer is made when an Offerer
expresses desire to the Contestmaster to exchange Cards of certain
descriptors, with other identified Contestants, for Cards of other
descriptors.
The identity of the Offerer may be Private (anonymous), the Offerer
may request that the Contestmaster forward the Offer to the
identified Contestants without revealing eir identity. The Offerer
may withdraw the Offer at any time before it is accepted.
A Contestant to whom an Offer is made may accept the Offer
(anonymously or not) by communicating acceptance with the
Contestmaster. If, at the moment of acceptance:
- The Offer has not been previously accepted;
- The Offer has not been withdrawn; and
- Both parties possess the Cards to fulfill
their part of the Offer,
then the effect of the acceptance is to cause the Cards
constituting the Offer to be simultaneously exchanged. If the
indicated conditions are not fulfilled, the Contestmaster will
communicate the reason for the failure to all involved parties.
Mutable Card Setup/Dealing
- 200.
- A Moment of Reckoning shall occur at the beginning of May 15,
2002.
- 205.
- Every Card shall have exactly one of the following descriptors,
also called Suits;
- Mauve;
- Red;
- Black;
- Green;
- Hearts.
- 210.
- When this Regulation takes effect, 20 Cards of each defined
Suit are created in the Deck. If the number of cards in the
Deck ever drops below 10, then 4 Cards of each Suit shall be
created in the Deck before any more Cards are Dealt.
- 215.
- When a Player becomes a Contestant for the first time,
e shall be dealt 7 cards randomly from the Deck.
- 220.
- Two or more Contestants may form an Alliance by mutual
agreement forwarded to the Contestmaster. A Contestant
may leave an Alliance by informing the Contestmaster, who
shall then inform all other members of the Alliance. If
two or more Alliances have the same membership, they shall
be considered the same Alliance.
- 225.
- The following classes of information is Public:
- The number of Cards in the Deck;
- The number of Cards in each Contestant's Hand.
- The number of Cards dealt to any Contestant.
- The number of Cards transferred between Players,
and the timing of each transfer.
- Who has NTK for the contents of any given Private
Regulation.
- Vote Counts when a Proposal is no longer Up for Vote.
- The totaled worth of all Hands in each Alliance.
- The number of Contestants in each Alliance.
- 230.
- The following instances of information are Private:
- The descriptors of each Card in a Contestant's
Hand, with NTK beloning only to the Contestant.
- The descriptors of Cards transferred between
Contestants, with NTK belonging only to parties
involved in the transfer.
- The identity of Contestants in a given Alliance
is NTK only to the Alliance's members.
- 235.
- The following values of information are Secret:
- The Hand Worth of each individual Contestant.
- Vote counts for a Proposal Up for Vote.
- A Contestant's Vote on a Proposal.
- Who is ITK for any information other than
Regulation contents.
- 240.
- There are two types of NTK defined, Full NTK and Limited NTK.
Both types of NTK act as NTK defined in the Immutable Rules,
however, they differ as follows:
- If a Contestant has Full NTK for the current value of an
instance of Private information, e may inform the Contestmaster
that another Contestant be granted either Full or Limited NTK
for the current value of that information, in
which case the named Contestant is granted said status.
- If a Contestant has Limited NTK, e may not grant NTK for that
information to any other Contestant.
If the type of NTK is not set by the Regulations, it is Limited
NTK.
- 245.
- If a particular Regulation is secret, a Contestant may make
its current value Private, with emself alone having Full NTK, by a
publicly naming the requested Regulation and paying a Fee equal to
one of each defined type of Card. If the Regulation is not secret
at the time of this transferrence, the Contestmaster shall return
the paid Fee from the Deck.
- 250.
- The Contestmaster may make a Secret Regulation Public, or
give a public hint about a Secret Regulation, without
Objection.
Marking Instructions
- 310.
- The Hand worth of every Contestant's Hand is set to zero.
- 320.
- For every non-Mauve Card in a Contestant's Hand, 1 Mark is added to
eir Hand worth.
- 330.
- For every Mauve Card in a Contestant's Hand, 4 Marks are subtracted
from eir Hand worth.
- 340.
- [This Regulation is Secret].
- 350.
- [This Regulation is Secret].
- 360.
- [This Regulation is Secret].
- 370.
- [This Regulation is Secret].
- 380.
- [This Regulation is Secret].
- 390.
- [This Regulation is Secret].
- 400.
- [This Regulation is Secret].
[ First hint: None of these initial Secret regulations directly
reduce the value of a hand. Some increase hands more than others. ]
- 410.
- The lowest Hand Value among the Contestants in each Alliance is
calculated (one value per Alliance). After these calculations, the
lowest hand value for each Alliance is added to the Hand Value of
each Contestant in that Alliance.
- 999.
- If, after the preceeding Marking Regulations are applied,
two or more Contestants are tied for the highest Hand Worth,
those tying hands are rescored as if three more cards were
dealt to each of them from the Deck, unless one or more of the
tied Hands have already been so rescored.
Michael Norrish <Michael.Norrish@cl.cam.ac.uk>
Last modified: Tue Apr 9 10:40:20 BST 2002