Revised Game Play Session Scheduling Initiative

Yeah, another 24 hours later. What are you going to do if 90% of the people quit because of that extra 24 hours. Will they? Heck if I know, but I'm not interested in trying it to see if they will.

And if Joe Harker had waited a few more hours before playing there would have been no controversy at all.

We had already waited 72 hours for something which should not have been an issue in the first place. The people demanded accountability of an official, they got it in the form of the 1st poll in that series, and then others jumped in with completely unnecessary followup actions. The whole rest of the incident could have been avoided if we had just accepted that first result.

You are right, it should not have been an issue at all but the DP made a move and others tried to ignore it. I'm not sure which poll you're referring to. Is it some poll before the one I put up about holding us to Joe Harker's move?

And despite it all the controversy did occur and we are here in this thread to craft a rule to avoid further scheduling problems - be they depriving us of a fair chance to give input or burden us with delays. I am not trying to submit a rule that will cause delays but I am trying to ensure we all get a fair chance to participate. Why don't you stop trying to scuttle this process DaveShack and help us make a law that will protect our right to participate without causing undo delays?
 
And if Joe Harker had waited a few more hours before playing there would have been no controversy at all.
Do referees call every borderline penalty or foul? It takes a choice to make it a controversy. Here's where we differ. I prefer to let things slide for the good of the game. (Edited, had hit submit before coming back to change this to what I wanted to say.)

You are right, it should not have been an issue at all but the DP made a move and others tried to ignore it.
Some people followed instructions, and did ignore it. It should have been ignored, and in fact expunged.
I'm not sure which poll you're referring to. Is it some poll before the one I put up about holding us to Joe Harker's move?

Think 2 polls before the one you opened. If we had taken the results of the very first poll, accepted what the game told us, played the session on Friday using that poll's very definite answer (attack on turn 0 with a two square attack) and skipped all that followed, we probably would have advanced the game 10-20 turns further this month and a bunch of people would have needed fewer antacids.
 
And despite it all the controversy did occur and we are here in this thread to craft a rule to avoid further scheduling problems - be they depriving us of a fair chance to give input or burden us with delays. I am not trying to submit a rule that will cause delays but I am trying to ensure we all get a fair chance to participate. Why don't you stop trying to scuttle this process DaveShack and help us make a law that will protect our right to participate without causing undo delays?

Reply to the edit. :)

The rule as stated is one which I am personally likely to infringe. Not because of malice, or because I want to infringe anyone's rights, but because I'm not perfect. Why would I agree to a rule which will land me directly in the pokey?

The rule has mandatory delays, even when no delay is actually needed. If I schedule a session for 10pm and want to change my mind at 5pm that day to start at 12:30am, I can't do it under the rule. It's not going to change the instructions. It's not going to deprive someone from giving input. Even if it's rescheduled for the next day but less than 24 hours into the future, who is it going to hurt? It's only going to hurt me, by depriving me of the right to play.
 
I must say you don't give up easily and that's good but you do return to your habit of spreading your truth as the absolute truth we should all listen to.
No, I do not confuse scheduled starts with actual starts. That's why section two is included. It give the DP reasonable wiggle room to start the game play session.
Really, that's your opinion. If I look at the replies in this thread I cannot see how others agree with you.

Well, I think it fits better here since this proposal has to do with scheduling the playing of the save and announcing the schedule beforehand. The reason for including these is to let everyone know what's going on with the upcoming session in one post.
Still, it could be placed in the Playing The Save Act too. More baldly: why not merge both Acts?

No, that's not what I mean at all. I see no reason whatsoever to treat the scheduling of offline and online sessions differently. It is equally important to know when either type is to be played and for the same reasons. The scheduling initiative was NOT put forward to ensure the chat goers of the world don't miss the start of a chat.
No, it is created to give DP's ample time to post their instructions.

What I did mean by this section was to differentialte between regular play sessions and those special sessions where only one action is to be performed so subsequent actions can be discussed in the forums. The purpose of including this is so everyone will know what is to happen and to avoid unnecessary stays.
If you just wrote that instead of what you did write...

This prevents a DP fromannouncing a session and then playing it several days later.
But why do you want that? What is the problem with it?

I disagree. Without an ending deadline there is nothing to stop a DP from announcing a session, starting it within the given time frame and then just leaving his or her computer on with the save open for days and saying the paly is continuing. In other words, without an end deadline the start deadline is too easily ignored.
No, please tell me this is a joke. Do you actually believe this is something that may happen? I admit, life is bizar but this is really over the top.

Um, I don't think any oopsie is my proposal can compare with the recent judicial OOPSIE. What happens to a DP rule violation is NOT up to the judiciary it is up to the people. Having an objective rule in place, where we can validate things by timestamps is a great thing.

What you're saying is that if this is an oopsie then it's OK, the Judiciary made one too after all. An eye for an eye...

The propsal deals with the sort of situation we had perfectly. Joe Harker could not play the save according to his announcement. If this rule had been in place, all he would have had to do was make a new announcement with a new time and off we go. This proposal is good because it does not matter WHY the save couldn't be played - any reason (lack of computer, judicial stay, attack by German longbows, whatever) means the sesssion has to be rescheduled.
Again: why? So you can attend it?!
 
Why don't you stop trying to scuttle this process DaveShack and help us make a law that will protect our right to participate without causing undo delays?

Sure, I'll try.

We need a mechanism to delay a play session due to legitimate reasons, which does not then give anyone a way to force a delay for illegitimate reasons, and which does not introduce automatic and unnecessary delays. Some reasons why a delay might be necessary, or at least a good idea, might be:

A previously unknown problem or opportunity is discovered, too late to make a decision on the new info during the normal instruction sequence. For example a trade is overlooked, or the tech needs to be changed, or we didn't notice a military buildup.

A judicial review is opened, a poll is reviewed for validation, or other meta issue.

The subject of a delay may either cause instructions to be changed, or not. If the result of the delaying event does not need a change of instructions, then play can start after the event is taken care of, and no further delay is necessary or wanted.

If instructions do need to change, then the session must start no earlier than completion of new instructions. In this case, and this case alone, it is necessary to have a set amount of time.
 
Perhaps you could talk to dad and get a guarantee of a couple hours of computer time at a given time. Perhaps you could find another computer that you can use. Perhaps you shouldn't be DP if you don't have reasonable access to computer and the Internet. With the situation you describe there's no guarantee you can even play within 24 hours! Perhaps you should be contributing to the game in some other capacity besides DP right now.


That is of course is worst case scenrio and one of the reason i want to play last is because i know my dad has some studio days allowing me to play the save unhinder.
 
That is of course is worst case scenrio and one of the reason i want to play last is because i know my dad has some studio days allowing me to play the save unhinder.

See there are solutions. I'd be willing to bet that those in the DP poll would be willing to swap places here and there if they knew you had a certain day you could play unhindered. The key is that we'd still have to know ahead of time what days those are. Bringing stuff like this up allows us all to work together to find ways we can all participate at the level we want to while sticking to the rules we've agreed on.

We need a mechanism to delay a play session due to legitimate reasons, which does not then give anyone a way to force a delay for illegitimate reasons, and which does not introduce automatic and unnecessary delays.

That mechanism is for another initiative. My thinking is that if we set forth some hard and fast deadlines then this will cause DPs to be more attentive to scheduling their sessions more accurately and will also allow those who place stays to know beforehand the ramifications of their stay. Knowing a stay will cause such and such a delay will most likely reduce the number of stays requested and enacted. I am sympathetic to the idea of not causing undo automatic delays. Unfortunately there are other initiatives being bandied about that take my attention and time away from working on this one.

In the past controversy I did not want a 24 hour extention - all I wanted was for the polls on the controversy to end before play was started. A few short hours. The real problem I have is that I thought the polls would close before the session. If there had been a proper announcement of when the session was to start then I would have known they wouldn't have closed in time. I could then have asked Joe to hold off until they closed. If he had fine, if he hadn't then I could do nothing. Without a proper announcement we had an investigation which resulted in a defanged law and this thread. We need to fix what last term's judiciary messed up.

The rule as stated is one which I am personally likely to infringe. Not because of malice, or because I want to infringe anyone's rights, but because I'm not perfect. Why would I agree to a rule which will land me directly in the pokey?

The rule has mandatory delays, even when no delay is actually needed. If I schedule a session for 10pm and want to change my mind at 5pm that day to start at 12:30am, I can't do it under the rule. It's not going to change the instructions. It's not going to deprive someone from giving input. Even if it's rescheduled for the next day but less than 24 hours into the future, who is it going to hurt? It's only going to hurt me, by depriving me of the right to play.

Well, I don't think we should write rules that allow for you to just change your mind willy-nilly on something as important as when you'll play the save. Hoestly, I have nothing against a two and a half hour delay. As I said earlier the windows are negotiable. But I would not vote for allowing you to change your mind and playing the save ten or twelve hours after your original scheduled time. Is three hours a reasonable window for starting play with six hours to play? What are the windows you can live with?

There are other responses I'd like to make but I'm not sure I have time. I will try to reply to Hyronymus but that may have to wait till morning.
 
No matter what time we choose, the sword is still dangling over every DP's neck because you haven't withdrawn the punishment section. Getting taken out of the current month's DP pool and being ineligible for next month is far too severe for any offense short of one which would cause a forum ban. Being a few minutes later than the specified time window, no matter how long that window is, surely cannot be serious enough to warrant such a harsh action.

Remove the penalty and leave it up to the people, then we can seriously talk about reasonable timeframes.
 
What about six hours? The DP must begin their play session within six hours of the posted time in their TCIT. I also don't like the time limit on how long they can play either. I know my last session lasted three and a half hours and I recall you DG veterans talking about some lasting as much as twelve hours, if not longer.

We all have RL issues and sometimes our scheduled time needs altered. We have a three and a half month old daughter, so being exact won't work. I work at night, she works during the day, so I can't just have her watch her if I'm playing my turnset during the week. Relax on the time freeze, or at least make it something that is more comfortable.
 
6 hours would be wise, given the Atlantic time differential.

Having 24 hours, does mean we do not need schedules at all.
 
The scheduled time has two purposes:

Setting a time by which instructions must be given
For an online session, telling people when to get on the chat

We've agreed that notice must be given to give time for instructions to be posted, and that the notice has to be at least 24 hours to allow officials in all timezones. That was agreed months ago.

We don't need to discuss chats.

Imposed delays (obstructions, stays, etc.) are the trigger point for this proposal, if I understand right. Instead of targeting the real problem we're discussing a proposal which shotguns all situations. It's a "gee, if there had been a rule which requires 24 hours notice of a rescheduled time, then Joe wouldn't have been able to play" rule. Why not target something like "if play was delayed for a reason, then the reason it was delayed has to expire before play can resume".

Then we don't need arbitrary limits.
 
Imposed delays (obstructions, stays, etc.) are the trigger point for this proposal, if I understand right. Instead of targeting the real problem we're discussing a proposal which shotguns all situations. It's a "gee, if there had been a rule which requires 24 hours notice of a rescheduled time, then Joe wouldn't have been able to play" rule. Why not target something like "if play was delayed for a reason, then the reason it was delayed has to expire before play can resume".

Then we don't need arbitrary limits.

DaveShack, the revised poropsal was put forth simply because last term's judiciary basically made the original game play scheduling initiative meaningless. The ruling was that the original initiative does not require an exact time when scheduling a game play session. Other problems that arose from that case were related to the imposed stoppage of play: one defense was that Joe made an announcement to play on the sixth and that announcement was good enough for when he played several days later. I'm not about to put forward a law that targets only judicial stays when this sort of defense can be used for any delay.

Remove the penalty and leave it up to the people, then we can seriously talk about reasonable timeframes.

Let's get some reasonable time frames in place and then we can talk about removing the penalty. Or you can just try giving a good reason for removing the penalty. I can't think of any yet.

What about six hours? The DP must begin their play session within six hours of the posted time in their TCIT. I also don't like the time limit on how long they can play either. I know my last session lasted three and a half hours and I recall you DG veterans talking about some lasting as much as twelve hours, if not longer.

We all have RL issues and sometimes our scheduled time needs altered. We have a three and a half month old daughter, so being exact won't work. I work at night, she works during the day, so I can't just have her watch her if I'm playing my turnset during the week. Relax on the time freeze, or at least make it something that is more comfortable.

Six hours seems too long for starting the session especially if there's no end time limit. Also, you're arguring that someone may not be able to find time to start paying within six hours but then I'm to believe that once they start they can sit and play for 12 hours straight? :confused: Having run a few chats in my day I know how they tend to prolong game play. A chat can easily turn a half hour game play session into four hours. But chats have also taught me that it's certainly possible to schedule a session 24 hours in advance and have it begin within an hour of the scheduled time.

I've got no problem putting forth a proposal with relaxed time frame that we can all be comfortable with. I just have not heard any suggestions other than not having these windows. There was a time when I agreed with that but the judiciary pretty much changed my mind with their recent ruling.

Do you have a specific suggestion for what is more comfortable?
 
I don't understand why you would want to limit when the DP may end his session. That will almost certainly result in a messy problem where a DP is forced to end a session, which has run long, mid-turn to avoid being banned from being DP for two months.

I can't imagine a DP starting the save and pretending the session is taking 3 days as you've suggested. Surely a DP attempting a tactic like that will be removed from office by the citizens, we've already discussed ways for doing this after a small indiscretion by a DP a few terms ago.

Time limits on the start of a session make sense to me, a DP should be able to schedule the start of their session with a reasonable degree of precision. In my opinion a DP should not start a turnchat before their scheduled time because that is very likely to result in the DP starting before citizens have posted their input our officials have posted their instructions. 2 hours seems a reasonable margin for the realities of scheduling these events around real life.

As for a time limit on when the session should begin after the scheduled time, I think a larger margin is reasonable, all citizen input should be in, and all official instructions are required to have been posted by the scheduled start time, a delay won't stifle input. 6 hours seems reasonable to me for the start of the session, as for the end of the session, the DP should end the session when the save has been played, not by some arbitrary limit.

Another issue is how should a replacement take over if the DP is not present? I think the best way to work this is that a DP should be able to request that someone else play the save in their place, if they are unable to attend. Otherwise nobody else should take over play in order to avoid a double play situation.

Finally on the issue of stays we should make an official policy on how stays will be handled, and it should be included in the scheduling initiative to ensure that these two aspects of session scheduling are in sync with each other.
 
DaveShack, the revised poropsal was put forth simply because last term's judiciary basically made the original game play scheduling initiative meaningless.

I believe you're mistaken on this point. I think that if the current judiciary allow themselves to rule honestly in a JR on the point, that they'd rule that the "verdict" in that case applied only to that situation.

Or you can just try giving a good reason for removing the penalty. I can't think of any yet.

My earlier post gives a reason, but I'll summarize it again to make it easier to find. Two reasons:
  1. The stated penalty (a month plus remaining time in the current month off the DP pool) is longer in duration than the longest "normal" forum ban. That seems overly harsh given it can be triggered for as little reason as starting play 1 minute early or late.
  2. The people should be deciding what the penalty should be on a case by case basis. That's how we have always done things in the Democracy Game, and I see no reason to change it by mandating a specific penalty for this one case.
 
I believe you're mistaken on this point. I think that if the current judiciary allow themselves to rule honestly in a JR on the point, that they'd rule that the "verdict" in that case applied only to that situation.

Well, I 'd hate to speak for the judiciary but I don't see how they could rule that inexactness applies only to Joe Harker in July 2007. The judicial procedures in place at the time that ruling was made specifically called upon the judiciary to state the reasons for their verdict. It is fair to assume these statements were meant to act in the same way as a judicial review. (I'm sure you'll explain the intent if I'm mistaken about this.)

My earlier post gives a reason, but I'll summarize it again to make it easier to find. Two reasons:
  1. The stated penalty (a month plus remaining time in the current month off the DP pool) is longer in duration than the longest "normal" forum ban. That seems overly harsh given it can be triggered for as little reason as starting play 1 minute early or late.
  2. The people should be deciding what the penalty should be on a case by case basis. That's how we have always done things in the Democracy Game, and I see no reason to change it by mandating a specific penalty for this one case.

Well, your first point is reasonable in a way. I was operating under the impression that each DP really only gets to play once per term since the DP pool is so large. Easily fixed though. We'll make it the penalty be they are skipped the next time their turn in the DP pool comes up. That's what I was tryin gto suggest anyway.

As for your second point, I've lost all faith in the people AND the judiciary applying our laws. But how about we use a mechanism similar to the old confirmation poll? The penalty is automatic but any citizen (other than the DP who violated the rule) can put up a poll to have the punishment waived and the people can decide that way.

@grant2004: I think I answered your question about the ending deadline in a reply to DaveShack I edited in while you were posting.
 
What, you've never seen a ruling for a subsequent case come to a different conclusion than the previous case? Happens all the time in RL, no reason it couldn't happen here. It doesn't even have to overrule the previous result, it merely defines the law for a broader, narrower, or different set of conditions, depending on circumstances.

Obviously we can't perform a JR in this setting, I'm only speaking to what is possible.
 
Furthermore, there are no "identical cases" in the real world. Each case differs from another in (subtle) details, even though the type of case may be identical.
 
What, you've never seen a ruling for a subsequent case come to a different conclusion than the previous case? Happens all the time in RL, no reason it couldn't happen here. It doesn't even have to overrule the previous result, it merely defines the law for a broader, narrower, or different set of conditions, depending on circumstances.

But precedent carries alot of weight in a legal system, especially one that purports to treat everyone equally. I guess I'll defer judgement on this until a subsequent case arises.

Finally, I have time to respond to Hyronymus. :)

I must say you don't give up easily and that's good but you do return to your habit of spreading your truth as the absolute truth we should all listen to.

But the absolute truth is the absolute truth. :D And, no, I do not give up easily.

Really, that's your opinion. If I look at the replies in this thread I cannot see how others agree with you.

As I've said before I'm willing to negotiate on the start window. 12 hours is definately too long. 6 also seems too long. As I've also said before this must be looked at along with the ending deadline. Do you have a specific counter-proposal?

Still, it could be placed in the Playing The Save Act too. More baldly: why not merge both Acts?

Look how much work it takes to get one proposal to a vote. Trying to update or merge two at a time is even worse.

No, it is created to give DP's ample time to post their instructions.

No, it was created to let citizens have ample notification of when the save will be played. I know why it was initially proposed becasue I proposed it.

If you just wrote that instead of what you did write...

You are right and the wording will be made clearer in this proposal.

But why do you want that? What is the problem with it?

The whole point of the initiative is to let citizens know when the save will be played. By allowing a loophole that lets a DP play anytime after the scheduled start the inititative loses force and fails to do what it is intended to do. Why do you want to let DPs play several days after they schedule a session?

No, please tell me this is a joke. Do you actually believe this is something that may happen? I admit, life is bizar but this is really over the top.

It is possible. To tell the truth I never thought I'd see a DG judiciary rule that the game play scheduling initiative did not mean the DP had to post the exact time he was to play. I guess I've gotten a little paranoid in my old age. Why are you against a deadline for gettign the session ended?

What you're saying is that if this is an oopsie then it's OK, the Judiciary made one too after all. An eye for an eye...

If you really think the judiciary made an oopsie then why aren't you trying to help correct it?

Again: why? So you can attend it?!

No, I do not attend game play sessions. The reason is that citizens will have a proper notice (or warning if you will) of when the save will be played. Once agian, that is what this initiative is about.
 
Indeed, this initiative is about properly informing people about a gameplay session. If I announce a gameplay session today, scheduled for tomorrow but not commenced until wednesday (for whatever reason), does that make the announcement improper?
 
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