{% raw  %}
(Failed to have a degree awarded)

A History of Agoran Wins, 2009-present
by ais523

Since registering in Agora in early 2008, I have observed many wins
take place; although the existing records (the Herald's Report and
Murphy's website at http://zenith.homelinux.net/winners/, which was
very useful in preparing this thesis) are useful at giving the names
of the winners and the reasons for the wins, most wins have more
background to them than is obvious by a cursory reading of the
reports. In this thesis, I attempt to document the backstory behind
and history of Agoran wins over the last one and a half years or so,
in order to give both veterans and new players a better idea of how
Agora has been won in the past. Hopefully, this will be expanded in
the future to go further back in Agoran history, although the further
back in time you go, the more I could do with help from other people
who were there at the time. Ideally, we would get the history of every
win ever, but I appreciate that many wins are lost in Agora's distant
past and lost mailing list archives.

So here are the wins since 2009, in reverse chronological order:

===
coppro by Legislation: Proposal 6745 passing.
Relevant proposals: 6740; CFJs: 2809, 2809a; rules: 2188/1
}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{

Proposal 6745 (Purple, AI=1.0, Interest=0) by coppro
Huh?

[coppro wins.]


}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{

This proposal was a relatively simple victory proposal, distributed in
the same batch as proposal 6740 (which gave victory to anyone who
didn't acknowledge its existence while it was being voted on). The
proposal passed with 5+5 votes FOR, and 5+2+1 votes AGAINST (the
ordinary voting system at the time worked stone-paper-scissors style
with people in the same Chamber as a proposal submittor getting the
voting limit of 5); 5 of the votes FOR were from coppro (presumably
for obvious reasons), and the other 5 were from Tiger, who cast a
blanket-FOR vote in an attempt to cast a vote on proposal 6740 without
mentioning it. With relatively low numbers of players voting at the
time, the 10 votes were enough to swing the votes.

There was some controversy about the victory, in that there was a
dispute about whether the proposal counted as a victory proposal due
to the square brackets. (The proposal was apparently submitted as a
test of this.) The initial brief judgement, stating that it was, was
appealed asking for more detail and to consider a specific
hypothetical example (of the bracketed phrase occuring after a
proposal body which would have given a win via a non-Legislation
method); the rejudgement focused on the fact that nobody had attempted
publicly pointed out the interpretation of the proposal as containing
nothing but one nonbinding comment until after it was adopted.

===
G., Warrigal, comex, ais523, woggle, Spitemaster, allispaul, Yally,
BobTHJ, Murphy, Tiger, Andon by Legislation: Proposals 6683-6685
passing.
Relevant proposals: 6683, 6684, 6685; CFJs: 2782, 2783; rules: 2130/11,
2290/0, 2279/1, 2284/3
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
ID: 6683
Title: Up Red
Author: G.
AI: 1.0
II: 1
Chamber: Red

All active players whose Title is unambiguously Red at the time the
voting period for the decision to adopt this proposal ends are hereby
awarded a Win.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ID: 6684
Title: Up Purple
Author: G.
AI: 1.0
II: 1
Chamber: Purple

All active players whose Title is unambiguously Purple at the time the
voting period for the decision to adopt this proposal ends are hereby
awarded a Win.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ID: 6685
Title: Up Green
Author: G.
AI: 1.0
II: 1
Chamber: Green

All active players whose Title is unambiguously Green at the time the
voting period for the decision to adopt this proposal ends are hereby
awarded a Win.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

An attempt by G. to produce some interesting gameplay based on
Chambers failed rather spectacularly when the three proposals -
intended to create interesting gameplay based on rule 2284 - managed
to all pass without significant attempts to cause some to pass and not
others. The combined effect was to give a win to /every/ player
simultaneously, apart from those who were inactive or only recently
active (due to rule 2130). Interestingly, the proposals had rather
different votecounts (as a rather obvious side effect of the
Chamber/Title-based voting system), with 6683 passing 5/4 (due to some
erg expenditure by coppro and nobody having a high voting limit on
it), 6684 passing 12/8 (with comex and coppro, the only Purple
players, both voting FOR and so overwhelming the other players), and
6685 passing 12/10 due to FOR votes by everyone but ais523 and woggle.

The only controversy surrounding the proposals was about what the
effect of such a large number of simultaneous wins was; it was judged
that the wins for each proposal were all actually simultaneous rather
than occuring in some order (thus Red players won before Purple
players, who won before Green players; CFJ 2782); and that as a
result, there was no Speaker (CFJ 2783).

===
comex by Clout
Relevant proposals: (none); CFJs: 2767, 2616; rules: 2134/6, 2255/4,
2279/0
comex wrote (24.02.2010 01:04:46):
{{{
Hear ye, hear ye!  ais523 is now the speaker.

On Tue, Feb 23, 2010 at 8:02 PM, Sean Hunt <rideau3@gmail.com> wrote:
> I come off hold.

Hear ye, hear ye!  coppro is now the Speaker.

> I Form a Government:
> c.       - Chief Whip
> Yally    - Cabinet Secretary
> coppro   - Admiral of the Navy
> ais523   - Justicar
> Murphy   - Majority Leader
> Tiger    - Minister without Portfolio
>
> I go on hold.

Hear ye, hear ye!  I am now the Speaker.

I change my Title to Purple.

This is a win announcement: my voting limit on an ordinary decision to
adopt a proposal with a Chamber of Purple initiated at this time would
exceed the combined voting limit of all other players on that
decision.
}}}

After a series of failed attempt earlier in the same day, a combined
effort by comex and coppro to alter the Government such that comex had
a higher voting limit on a Purple decision than everyone else put
together finally managed to do things in the right order, thus netting
comex (then called c.) a win by Clout. The maths worked out as
follows: comex, being Purple, had a base voting limit of 5 on Purple
decisions (as e was the same color as eir hypothetical decision, for
obvious reasons), times 1.5 (due to just having been given Chief
Whip), compared to three active Green players with a voting limit of
2, and one active Red player with a voting limit of 1. (coppro was
inactive at the time, to aid in the scam.)

The win was generally considered to have worked; CFJ 2767 was called
to challenge a particular typo (relevant because Yally tried to block
the win by changing Title), but it was judged trivilaly true based on
the precedent of CFJ 2616.
===
coppro by Renaissance
Relevant proposals: 6153, 6222; CFJs: 2403, 2545; rules: 2199/9

Renaissance is a long-standing win condition where players can win by
performing a wide range of tasks at least once each; coppro achieved
it by gaining eir final ribbon (the Indigo one, traditionally the
hardest to get) by gaining the degree of Bachelor of Nomic. Here's how
e gained the others:
(+R) Proposal 6222 changed a Power-3 rule.
(+O) Proposal 6153 was unanimous.
(+G) coppro held Grand Poobah for a month in April 2009.
(+C) coppro deputised for IADoP on 6 April 2009.
(+B) coppro judged CFJ 2403.
(+K) coppro imposed a sentence in CFJ 2545.
(+W) coppro had never deregistered (there were two ways to get the
     White Ribbon; this is arguably the easier one).
(+M) coppro had acknowledged Agora's Birthday in 2009.
(+U) coppro had previously won (originally by High Score via a scam).
(+V) coppro gained the Patent Title Minister without Portfolio.
(+Y) coppro had been the contestmaster of the active contest 3-Scroll
     Rodney for a month.
===
coppro, comex by Lotto
Relevant proposals: (none); CFJs: (none); rules: 2260/7
coppro wrote (07.12.2009 22:16:16):
{{{
I play Presto!, indicating Edmond Dantes and Presto!.
I play Drop Your Weapon, indicating Yally and Change Ball.
I play Discard Picking, indicating Change Ball.
I IBA-withdraw a Justice Ball.

I hold one of each Ball card; I platonically satisfy the Winning
Condition of Lotto; one of each such Ball cards is destroyed.
}}}
comex wrote (08.12.2009 02:04:14):
{{{
I play Discard Picking, naming Goverment Ball.
I play Discard Picking, naming Change Ball.
I play Discard Picking, naming Justice Ball.

I Win by Lotto.
}}}
Lotto was a win condition associated with the Cards subgame; get one
of each of the super-rare Ball cards, and you won the game. coppro
eventually assembled enough cards to combine a Change Ball stolen from
Yally (via forcing him to drop it, then picking it up from the discard
pile), a Justice Ball bought from the IBA (a contract that worked as
an automated bank), and a Government Ball e had already, to trigger
the victory condition. comex followed up by grabbing all three Ball
cards from the discard pile, and used them himself to get a followup
win.
===
Murphy by Renaissance
Relevant proposals: 5404; CFJs: 2572; rules: 2199/8

Renaissance is a long-standing win condition where players can win by
performing a wide range of tasks at least once each; Murphy achieved
it by gaining eir final ribbon (the White ribbon, another hard one to
get) when comex gifted it to em via naming em as eir mentor (an action
that can only be performed once ever), apparently for nothing in
return. (Just to be sure, Murphy made sure to remove any Rests e might
have before trying to gain the win, as one of their effects was to
block victories.) Here's how e got the others:

(+G) Murphy held Conductor for a month in May 2008.
(+K) Murphy imposed a sentence in CFJ 2572.
(+M) Murphy had acknowledged Agora's Birthday in 2009.
(+U) Murphy had previously won (the ribbon was for High Score).
(+Y) Murphy had been the contestmaster of the active contest 
     for a month.
(R, O, C, B, V, I) Murphy gained 6 Ribbons via proposal 5404, which
gave players Ribbons as a conversion from the old VC system.
====
BobTHJ by High Score
Relevant proposals: (none); CFJs: 2732; rules: 2187/6
BobTHJ wrote (09.11.2009 16:08:51):
{{{
I have decided to cease maintaining nomic.bob-space.com and step back
from Agora for a bit. I will attempt to do so without leaving things
in a state of dissarray. My site is updated through Tue, Nov 3 23:34,
just prior to the resolution of proposals 6549-6564, and I will post
unofficial copies of my reports to that date to the lists to give the
officers replacing me a starting point, and I will also leave the
history I have tracked up and available at nomic.bob-space.com for a
period of time.

Therefore I take the following actions:

For each proposal number between 6549 and 6564 inclusive, I harvest
that proposal number. Then for each such harvesting, I award myself 4
y-points (a total of 64 y-points).

This is a win announcement: The player BobTHJ has a score x+yi such
that x * y >= 5000. (I'm fairly certain my score at this point is
102+110i), and thus satisfies the win condition of High Score.

I leave the AAA.

I resign all offices I hold.

My intention is (by not having to devote time every day to keeping it
up to date) to work on the automation I created and improve it by
making it a collaborative tool that all Agorans can contribute
recordkeeping data to. Then perhaps it can be used again to track
Agoran gamestate without bogging me down in the process.

BobTHJ
}}}

The AAA was a long-running Agoran contest that formed the basis of the
economy through much of 2009, providing some of the game's most stable
transferrable assets. BobTHJ did the complex duty of maintaining it
for several months, but recently e had been rather behind on eir
duties; upon making the decision to resign, e did a huge amount of
harvesting, leading to a huge infusion of points, easily enough to win
under the rules at the time (there were two separate sorts of points,
x and y, and having x*y >= 5000 gave the win).

The play was rather controversial, not in whether it had succeeded,
but in whether it was against the spirit of the contest, especially as
BobTHJ had made the points assignments to emself when other players
had tried to harvest proposal numbers for points earlier. This lead to
the calling of an equity case (CFJ 2732, as it happens the last equity
case ever), asking for BobTHJ to be punished somehow in order to bring
the contest back into balance, over BobTHJ's protests that awarding
the points in that order was actually to the benefit of its other
members; the case was not judged for over two months (mostly because
with a contest as large as the AAA, few players were eligible judges,
and even those who were didn't judge the case on time). In the end,
the rules defining equity cases were repealed before the case was
actually judged, and so nothing was ever done as a result.
===
coppro, ais523, comex, ais523, coppro: Solitude
Relevant proposals: (none); CFJs: (none); rules: 2245/0, 2229/3
ais523 wrote (27.09.2009 22:54:29):
{{{{
Actions on behalf of comex in this message are via the Scumbuddies
contract.
Actions on behalf of coppro in this message are via the contract that e
published during eir recent win by Clout attempt.
Actions on behalf of Walker in this message are via a contract
publicised as part of the message.

I act on behalf of comex to cause em to, without objection, make Quazie,
Sgeo, and Yally inactive. (This may fail if the players in question are
already inactive; IIRC Yally is.)

I hereby publish the membership {ais523, Walker} and text of the
following contract, and flip it to Public with Walker's consent (e is
named c-walker in the contract):
{{{
This is an equitable and initially private contract. Only C-walker and
ais523 can join this contract.

ais523 CAN (but is not required to) cause this contract to become a
public contract, and C-walker consents to such a change.

If this contract is public, then ais523 CAN once act on behalf of
C-walker to cause em to become inactive, and CAN once act on behalf of
C-walker to cause em to become active. It is envisaged that ais523 will
use both of these abilities in relatively quick succession, so that
C-walker stays at eir original activity status.

If this contract is public, then ais523 CAN, for one distribution of
proposals of ais523's choice, act on behalf of C-walker to cause em to
retract votes on Agoran Decisions about whether to adopt proposals in
that distribution, and act on behalf of C-walker to cause em to vote on
such decisions. C-walker SHALL NOT retract any votes made this way.

ais523 CAN terminate this contract by announcement.
}}}

I act on behalf of Walker to cause em to become inactive.

I act on behalf of comex to cause em to leave the PBA.
I leave the PBA.
I play Stool Pigeon, targeting the PBA.

As the PBA is second-class, attempting to create a rest in the PBA's
possession should create one in the possession of each of the following
persons:
- 0x44
- Elysion
- Murphy
- root
- Sgeo
- Warrigal
- woggle
- Wooble
and possibly other persons, depending on the current status of the PNP.

I play Absolv-o-Matic to destroy a rest in my possession.  (Disclaimer:
This might fail.)

I act on behalf of comex to cause em to do the following:
- comex plays Absolv-o-Matic to destroy a rest in eir possession.
- comex plays Absolv-o-Matic to destroy a rest in eir possession.
(Disclaimer: This might fail.)
- comex becomes inactive.

I play Stool Pigeon, targeting Pavitra.
I transfer Dunce Cap to Tiger.
I become inactive.

At this point, coppro wins by Solitude. (This does not require a win
announcement; I'm just pointing it out.)

On behalf of coppro: coppro becomes inactive.
I become active.

I win by Solitude.

I become inactive.
On behalf of comex: comex becomes active.
comex wins by Solitude.
On behalf of comex: comex creates a Rest in eir own possession.

I become active.
I win by Solitude (again).

I create a Rest in my own possession.
On behalf of coppro: coppro becomes active.
coppro wins by Solitude (again).

I play Absolv-O-Matic targeting comex.
I play Absolv-O-Matic targeting myself.
On behalf of coppro: coppro becomes active.
On behalf of Walker: Walker becomes active.

-- 
ais523
}}}}

Back towards the end of 2009, much of the gameplay revolved around
contracts, binding agreements that even allowed one player to perform
actions on behalf of another; in particular, this allowed many players
to take actions in the same message, setting up a sudden change in
gamestate. Solitude was a victory condition which allowed a player to
win if every other active player in the game was simultaneously barred
from winning; this scam used several different methods to achieve
this, including inactivity (either due to players actually be
inactive, or by agreeing to allow themselves to be made inactive as
payment for some past favour), by spreading Rests (punishments
normally given for breaking rules, but which could also be used
tactically), and via the Dunce Cap (a card that blocked wins), with
the heart being the observation that many of the players of Agora were
responsible for maintaining the PBA (a partnership operating as a
bank, where players had to agree to be responsible for its actions in
order to make trades or own currency as a method of hopefully reducing
scams), and thus using a Stool Pigeon card to punish the PBA
effectively spread the punishment to most of the players of Agora.

The result was that only the three scamsters (ais523, comex (then
called c.), and coppro) were active and capable of winning, and they
took turns becoming inactive and active again, with the actions
coordinated via contract, in order to share the wins. ais523 and
coppro chose to also demonstrate a bug in the victory condition's
cleanup procedure (creating a Rest and immediately absolving it in
order to reset the rule's ability to trigger) in order to gain a
second win via the same method; comex declined.

===
coppro by Clout
Relevant proposals: (none); CFJs: (none); rules: 2134/5, 2156/12, 2260/4
coppro wrote (15.09.2009 15:19:40):
{{{
Sean Hunt wrote:
> For each of the following players, I intend, without objection, to
make
> em inactive (I know it's broken now but I hope the Assessor will pass
> the proposal to repair it quickly).
> 
> woggle
> Schrodinger's Cat
> JonnyRotten
> The Count
> yuri_dragon_17
> 
> -coppro

Having received no objections, I make all the quoted players inactive.

Here is a quick guide to the caste of all active players:

Alpha:
  ehird
  coppro

Beta:

Gamma:
  C-walker

Delta:
  ais523
  c.
  Tiger

Epsilon:
  BobTHJ
  Murphy
  Pavitra
  Quazie
  Sgeo
Xwooble (+1)
  Yally

Savage:
  É™
  The Normish Partnership II
  IBA

I publish the text (below) and list of parties (coppro, ais523) of this 
private contract to flip its Publicity to Public:
[12:29:12]  <coppro>  I agree to the following, binding under the rules 
of Agora: {coppro SHALL as soon as possible transfer a Penalty Box and
a 
WRV to ais523. coppro CAN once, at any time in the month following the 
creation of this contract, act on behalf of ais523 to put em on hold. 
The first time in the next 3 months that ais523 sets up a scam for a
win 
by Solitude with Stool Pigeons, e shall ensure coppro...
   ...wins due to the scam, and may act on behalf of coppro to go on or 
off hold to perform the scam. Either party CAN and MAY make this 
contract public by publishing its text and parties.}
[12:30:05]  <ais523> coppro: "to cause em to go on and/or off hold", 
probably
[12:30:12]  <ais523> I may need to toggle your activity multiple times 
to give us both wins
[12:30:18]  <ais523> and you missed a "to cause"
[12:30:21]  <ais523> apart from that, I agree
[12:30:39]  <coppro> ok, I agree as well
[12:30:50]  <coppro> (to your amendments, that is)

I a Penalty Box and a WRV to ais523.

I publish the text (below) and list of parties (coppro, ehird) of this 
private contract to flip its Publicity to Public (permission was 
obtained elsewhere):
[17:06:17]  <coppro> I agree, binding under the rules of Agora, that 
ehird will allow me to act on eir behalf once to go on and off hold 
(independently of one another)
[17:06:27]  <ehird> I agree to that too.
[17:06:33]  <ehird> (binding under the rules of Agora)

I publish the text (below) and list of parties (coppro, c-walker) of 
this private contract to flip its Publicity to Public:
{ coppro can act on behalf of C-walker to play Local Election decrease 
an Epsilon's caste and to go on hold long enough to allow coppro to win 
by Clout, at which point e will increase c-walker's caste twice. All 
parties consent to publicizing this contract by publishing its text and 
parties. }

I publish the text (below) and list of parties (coppro, comex) of this 
private contract to flip its Publicity to Public:
<comex> I agree to the following contract: { coppro CAN act on my
behalf 
to inactivate me by announcement. }
<coppro> I agree to comex's contract.

I transfer a Local Election to c-walker (note: because his holdings are 
ambiguous; e owes me one back). I act on behalf of c-walker to play 
Local Election naming Wooble.
I act on behalf of c-walker to put em on hold.
I act on behalf of comex to put em on hold.
I act on behalf of ehird to put em on hold.
I act on behalf of ais523 to put em on hold.

Caste of active players:
Alpha:
  coppro

Beta:

Gamma:

Delta:
  Tiger

Epsilon:
  BobTHJ
  Murphy
  Pavitra
  Quazie
  Sgeo
  Yally

Savage:
  É™
  The Normish Partnership II
  IBA
  wooble (+0)

Besides myself, there is 1 Delta and 6 Epsilons, for a total of 8
votes, 
except that BobTHJ has 6 Rests and thus has 0 votes. This following is
a 
win announcement: On an ordinary Agoran Decision initiated at this
time, 
my voting limit would exceed the combined voting limits of all other 
player, causing me to satisfy the Winning Condition of Clout and win
Agora.

(note: c-walker's caste increases will come after a caste reset is 
verified to have occurred, since otherwise I'm in violation of the 
contract.)

-coppro
}}}

Clout, a victory condition that has existed since 2007, allows a
player to win if they have a higher voting limit than everyone else
put together; it's interesting in that the way it works changes
radically every time someone changes the voting system. At the time,
the voting system was based on Caste, where players had a voting limit
of 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, or 8, cycling upwards (then back to 1) over time;
additionally, Cards were available to manipulate other player's Castes
(in particular Local Election, which reduced a Caste by one level).
Therefore, coppro, by idling four players via four different submarine
contracts (mostly agreed over IRC) and reducing the Caste of another,
was able to use eir status as an Alpha to outvote everyone else,
giving em a win.

The win was uncontroversial (the "I a Penalty Box and a WRV to
ais523." typo was picked up on but didn't affect the scam itself, and
was quickly corrected); it's interesting to note that ais523 later
used eir submarine contract with coppro to coordinate a win by
Solitude (summarised earlier in this thesis), and thus coppro gained
two wins from the one contract.
===
coppro by Paradox: CFJ 2650.
Relevant proposals: (none); CFJs: 2650; rules: 2110/5, 2166/11,
2240/0, 2240/1
(CFJ 2650: "I CAN destroy The Pier by announcement".)

Paradox has the longest tradition of any Agoran win condition;
although rule 2110 only dates back to 2005, rule 219 - in the initial
ruleset - said something very similar (the condition itself has been
repealed and re-enacted over the ages). The idea is simple: if you can
make a statement relevant to the game that cannot accurately be
described as true or false, but is not vague or nonsensical, and there
is sufficient information to determine its truth value, then you win
if nobody appeals the resulting CFJ for two weeks.

CFJ 2650 was judged to be only the second genuine win via an actual
paradox in Agora's history (there are four others, but all exploited
loopholes in the paradox rule itself). The situation was this: coppro
had constructed a contract that created The Pier, an asset which could
not be transferred, due to rule 2166 (it was defined as fixed), and
which was automatically transferred to the Lost and Found department,
also due to rule 2166 (as coppro defined active players as the only
ones who could own The Pier, and immediately went inactive). By
finding a contradiction within a single rule, e managed to get around
the ruleset's normal methods of resolving contradictory rules. (At the
time the CFJ was called, rule 2240, which prevents such issues in the
present Agoran ruleset, was in its rule 2240/0 form, which only
blocked contradictory precedence claims within a rule; the paradox was
fixed by amending it to the present rule 2240/1 form, which resolves
any contradictions within a rule.)

===
ais523, Wooble, comex, Tiger by Musicianship
Relevant proposals: (none); CFJs: (none); rules: 2126/61

In Agora's Birthday in 2009, the rules-based basis of the economy was
Notes, a form of currency that belong to one of twelve different
pitches. (The Agoran Agricultural Association was probably the
/actual/ driver behind the economy.) Unlike all future forms of
rules-defined currency, there was no limit to how many Notes a player
could collect, and nothing that caused them to decay over time; thus,
it was possible, and indeed customary, to hoard huge stockpiles of
Notes if a player had no other use for them. By the end of June,
players had pretty much got bored of the Notes system, so it was
informally agreed to wait until Agora's Birthday so that those players
who had stockpiled Notes could gain a win, and then replace it.

As a result, by the time June 30 00:04:30 +1200 rolled around (the
reason for the unusual timezone turning out to be that Michael Norrish
happened to be in New Zealand when Agora started), there were huge
stockpiles of unused Notes, and no real reason not to spend them. Four
players, therefore, were able to use their Note stockpiles in order to
form the tune of "Happy Birthday", and thus win:

ais523 started off the festivities by playing Happy Birthday in the
key of C flat major, purely using Notes e had stockpiled:
{{{
On Wed, 2009-06-17 at 16:40 +0200, Jonatan Kilhamn wrote:
>                           C#    D#       F#    G#    A#
> Player                 C     D     E  F     G     A     B     Total
>                           Db    Eb       Gb    Ab    Bb
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> ais523                 3  3  5  5  8  4 19  2  7 13  6 23      98
Required for a Happy Birthday:
>                        .  2  .  2  2  .  9  .  3  .  2  5
(I have not, as far as I can tell, spent Notes since that report.)

I spend Notes as follows:
Gb Gb Ab Gb Cb Bb
Gb Gb Ab Gb Db Cb
Gb Gb Gb Eb Cb Bb Ab
Fb Fb Eb Cb Db Cb
to satisfy the Winning Condition of Musicianship, and I win by
Musicianship.

Happy birthday Agora, by the way!
}}}
Wooble followed up by absolving emself of Rests, and then playing
Happy Birthday in F major:
{{{
Happy Birthday, Agora!

I spend D#D# GG to destroy my 2 rests.

If I have any more rests (which I don't believe I do), I spend, in
order:
DD EE FF AA to destroy them.

I spend:
CCDCFE
CCDCGF
CCCAFED
A#A#AFGF

to satisfy the Winning Condition of Musicianship, and I win by
Musicianship.
}}}
comex (then called "c.") joined in in E major:
{{{
I make the following transpositions:

G# A# F -> C#
A# D B -> C#
G# B F# -> C#
B B G -> D#
C B G# -> D#
G# G B -> E

I spend BBC#BED#BBC#BF#EBBBG#ED#C#AAG#EF#E to satisfy the Winning
Condition of Musicianship.

-- 
-c.
}}}
and Tiger finished off with the traditional C major:
{{{
I think I just rolled off the MwoPs list, so here goes:

If I can, I spend the notes:
GGAGCB
GGAGDC
GGGECBA
FFECDC
to sing the song "Happy Birthday", satisfying the Winning Condition of
Musicianship. I win by Musicianship. The previous sentence is a win
announcement.

-- 
-Tiger
}}}

Also of note were that BobTHJ, coppro, and Murphy all attempted to sing
Happy Birthday themselves (there were a /lot/ of spare Notes going
around). Eventually, the "semi-Conductor" Tiger was brought in in
order to settle who'd actually got the complicated note trades and
transpositions correct; BobTHJ failed due to attempting to sing an Ab
note despite not owning one; Murphy failed due to being short of Eb
notes; and coppro sang out of key, spending the wrong notes for the
third line of the tune. As a result, the birthday lead to only the
four Musicianship victories.

===
ais523 by Renaissance
Relevant proposals: 5555, 5701; CFJs: 1932, 2028; rules: 2199/6

Musicianship was not the only win tied to the Birthday festivities.
Then, as now, there was a Ribbon that could only be gained on Agora's
birthday; after having messed up the timezone calculations in 2008,
ais523 had had to wait until 2009 before gaining the Magenta ribbon
for a birthday celebration, thus meaning that Agora's Birthday in 2009
had five wins at different times in the same day. Here's how e gained
the others:

(+R) Proposal 5555 changed a Power-3 rule.
(+O) Proposal 5701 was unanimous.
(+G) ais523 held Notary for a month in August 2008.
(+C) ais523 deputised for Speaker on 6 September 2008.
(+B) ais523 judged CFJ 1932.
(+K) ais523 imposed a sentence in CFJ 2028.
(+W) ais523 had never deregistered.
(+U) ais523 had previously won (originally via Paradox).
(+I) ais523 gained the degree Master of Nomic.
(+V) ais523 gained the Patent Title Champion (a nice past bug in the
     Ribbon rules, meaning that V was redundant due to U).
(+Y) ais523 had been the contestmaster of the active contest Enigma
     for a month.

===
coppro, comex: High Score
Relevant proposals: (none); CFJs: 2592 rules: 2187/5, 2198/5, 2136/30

"If a contract states that one or more of its switches have certain
values, then they do." Several players noticed that this particular
part of rule 2198 had rather dangerous implications; although
originally intended only for the purpose of allowing contracts to
specify whether they were intended to be private or public, equitable
or legalistic, there were other switches associated with contracts,
and thus a contract could be created with those switches at any
setting. The most exploitable use of this was to set a contract's
contestmaster, thus making it into a contest and capable of awarding
points; rule 2136's protections against changing a contestmaster were
useless in the face of a contract that was created as a contest, as
the contestmaster was never actually changed.

coppro and comex abused this by creating a huge number of rigged
contests in a short length of time; it was a simple matter for the
contests to award them enough points to win, due to the large number
of them. Interestingly, the contestmaster was "costanza", a person who
was not actually a player and who has not been observed at Agora
before or since; it seems that coppro and comex recruited a friend
from outside Agora to act as the contestmaster for them.

The main controversy that resulted from the scam was as to what would
happen to everyone else's score as a result of the resulting score
reset. The rules at the time caused everyone but the winners to lose
80% of their points a week after a win by high score, unless it was
declared as a "skunk" and not a legitimate win (skunks left the win
intact, but removed its effect on the scoreboard, thus meaning that
scams based on points didn't affect legitimate scoring). There were
two score resets from legitimate wins pending at the time, and a CFJ
was called to determine whether skunking the obvious scam-win would
also incidentally skunk those two legitimate wins, leaving the
scoreboard in a rather lopsided state. CFJ 2592 eventually found,
almost a month later, that the scam could be skunked without affecting
the other wins that took place at around the same time.

===
Murphy: High Score
Relevant proposals: (none); CFJs: (none); rules: 2187/5, 2233/1, 2234/2

Earlier in the same day, the heavily ID-number based Agoran
Agricultural Association had demonstrated why it was the driving force
behind the economy by providing Murphy with the last 40 x-points that
e needed for a legitimate win by High Score, after e exploited the
numbers of the proposals 6358, 6359, 6372, 6373, and 6374 in order to
get 8 points from each one. (Although there had been a very recent win
by High Score, score resets were delayed a week, and Murphy managed to
get in and win during that week.) Here's how e got the other 54
x-points and 28 y-points needed to achieve an x*y product of 2500:

26x, 26y for contestmastering (Fantasy Rules Contest, The Cookie Jar)
 4x,  0y from Enigma
20x,  0y from earlier AAA actions
 4x,  2y left over from a past points reset

===
Tiger: High Score
Relevant proposals: (none); CFJs: (none); rules: 2187/5, 2233/1

Tiger wrote (15.06.2009 00:06:24):
{{{
Scoreboard on 8 Jun wrote:
>Tiger           35+21i

Cookie Jar awards on 11 Jun wrote:
> * 13 y-points to Tiger

Enigma awards on 13 Jun wrote:
>I award 4 y-points to Tiger (...) I therefore award
>another 22 y-points to Tiger.

Enigma awards correction wrote:
>To correct Enigma awards, I revoke 4 x-points from
>Rodlen and award 2 y-points to Tiger.

AAA awards on 14 Jun wrote:
>I award 12 points to Tiger.

Sum: 47+62i
47 * 62 = 2914

The rest of this message is a win announcement, and this sentence
serves only to identify it as such.
Tiger has a score x+yi such that x*y>=2500. No other player has such a
score.
}}}

As opposed to Murphy's win a few days later, Tiger's slightly earlier
win gained most of its y-points from Enigma rather than from
contestmaster awards, as e was not a contestmaster at the time. (The
AAA may have been a good source of x-points, but it was not so good at
providing y-points.) Tiger provided a useful breakdown of the source
of eir recent points as part of the win announcement, but here's where
the other 35 x- and 21 y-points came from:

26x, 12y from The Cookie Jar
 9x,  9y left over from a past points reset

===
Wooble: Championship (Nomic Wars III)
Relevant proposals: (none); CFJs: (none); rules: 2242/1, 2124/10

Wooble wrote (12.05.2009 13:34:31):
{{{
Actions on behalf in this message are authorized by private contracts.

I withdraw my objection to the creation of a Medal in the possession
of Nomic Wars III.

I act on behalf of ais523 to withdraw eir objection to the creation of
a Medal in the possession of Nomic Wars III.

Having received only 1 objection, from Arnold Bros, BobTHJ (on whose
behalf I act) creates a Medal in the possession of Nomic Wars III.

I perform the Battle Action (destroying 2 Maneuvers in my possession)
of creating a new War-rule with the following text: {{The
contestmaster SHALL cause Nomic Wars III to transfer a Medal to Wooble
unless e has already done so.}}

I perform the Battle Action (destroying 1 Maneuver in my possession)
of incrementing the War-rule I just created.

I act on behalf of ais523 to perform the Battle Action (destroying 1
Maneuver in eir possession) of incrementing the War-rule I just
created.

I act on behalf of BobTHJ to cause Nomic Wars III to transfer a Medal to
me.

I transfer 4 WRVs and 2,3,4 and 5 Digit Ranches to ais523.

I transfer 5 X crops, 8 2 crops, and 17 5 crops to BobTHJ.

--Wooble
}}}
(N.B. this message did not actually cause the scam win due to timing
issues; a later message repeating the second half of the scam
corrected it, but this message demonstrates how the scam worked.)

Win by Championship used to be one of the simplest win methods
intended for "legitimate" wins; contests could be given Medals
(without two objections), and if the Medal was transferred to somebody
else (presumably via the rules of the contest), then that player won.
In this way, if a contest was deemed a fair and interesting one,
players could collectively allow it to award a win.

There were only three Medals given out ever; Three-Scroll Rodney's was
never won by anyone before that contest ended, Enigma's had earlier
been won legitimately, and the third? Unlike those two legimitate
contests, Nomic Wars III (an attempt to recreate the earlier ill-fated
contests Nomic Wars II and Nomic Wars I) looked like a terrible
candidate for a Medal, with obvious loopholes in its rules (in
particular, it was possible for two players working together to
cooperate to win the contest instantly). Thus, the attempt to give it
the Medal instantly gained three objections, from ais523, Wooble, and
ehird (under the name Arnold Bros.). Given that the two necessary
objections had already been reached, Agora quickly lost interest in
the obviously doomed intent.

ais523 noticed a way this could be exploited; a conspiracy with BobTHJ
(the contestmaster of Nomic Wars III) and Wooble allowed for Wooble to
gain a win, when ais523 and Wooble simultaneously withdrew their
objections to the creation of the medal, leaving only the one
objection, past which it was possible for BobTHJ to create the medal.
(ais523 and BobTHJ both profited from the scam due to Wooble bribing
them with large numbers of AAA assets.) The attempts to carry out the
scam within Nomic Wars III initially failed (as BobTHJ hadn't
initialised it and ais523 wasn't a member), but this was quickly
fixed, allowing for the scam to succeed on the second attempt (which
was basically just a repeat of the second half of the initial
message). (It should be noticed that this was not the only way in
which the contest was broken; Tiger managed to drain all the points
and Medals from the contest shortly afterwards with a solo scam, and
would have won from it if Wooble hadn't taken the Medal first.)

The rules have since been patched to prevent a repeat of the scam;
withdrawing an objection to an action now blocks that action for 24
hours, giving other players a time to make their own objection if they
suspect a scam like this is happening.

===
Wooble: High Score
Relevant proposals: (none); CFJs: (none); rules: 2187/5

Wins tend to come in spurts for some reason; and Wooble demonstrated
this by winning twice on the same day, both a scam win via
Championship and a legitimate win via score. Wooble's last 40 points
had both come the day before, 20 x-points from The Cookie Jar and 20
x-points from the Fantasy Rules Contest, giving him a point product of
89*31 = 2800 and a win - especially impressive because e was the
contestmaster of the AAA, and thus unable to gain points from it
directly. (Most of the point gains were via abusing The Cookie Jar's
massive ability to output points.) Here's where the other 49 x-points
and 31 y-points came from:

  4x,  0y from the Fantasy Rules Contest
 14x, 14y for contestmaster duties for the AAA
 15x, 15y from The Cookie Jar
  8x,  0y from Enigma
  8x,  2y left over from a points reset

===
root: Championship (Enigma)
Relevant proposals: (none); CFJs: (none); rules: 2242/1

root wrote (02.05.2009 17:43:51):
{{{
On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 8:14 AM, Alex Smith <ais523@bham.ac.uk> wrote:
> On Fri, 2009-05-01 at 20:19 -0400, Sgeo wrote:
>> On Fri, May 1, 2009 at 7:53 PM, Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com>
wrote:
>> > Zing! Vext cwm fly jabs Kurd qoph
>>
>> Will we all get to learn what the Clues were?
>
> The Secret Answer no longer exists (now the Medal's been given away),
so
> the restriction on revealing information about it is lifted. I'll now
> publically post all the Clues that anyone was given.
>
> {{{
> G1:
> The secret answer consists of seven words.
> The secret answer consists of two sentences.
>
> S1:
> The fourth word of the secret answer is the common English
> name for a type of small flying insect.
>
> G2:
> A recent Google search for the secret answer, without
> quotes, produced "about 174" results. It produced "about
> 407" when quotes were used (yes, more than without, for
> some reason).
>
> S2:
> The fifth word of the secret answer is a common slang word
> for "injections".
>
> G3:
> If all letters were removed from the secret answer, leaving
> only non-letter characters, it would be "!      ." (without
> the quotes). It does not end with a newline.
>
> S3:
> The first word of the secret answer is an interjection that
> is arguably onomatopoeic, referring to a short high-pitched
> humming noise.
>
> G4:
> No word of the Secret Answer is longer than four letters
> long. No word of the Secret Answer is shorter than three
> letters long.
>
> S4:
> The second word of the secret answer is an archaic word
> which means "distressed" or "agitated".
>
> G5:
> The Secret Answer is, technically speaking, gramatically
> correct English. However, it contains at least one proper
> noun, and at least one archaic word; therefore it is not
> the sort of utterance likely to be encountered in practice,
> and might confuse an automated spelling or grammar checker.
>
> S5:
> The seventh word of the Secret Answer is a letter of the
> Hebrew alphabet.
>
> G6:
> There are exactly three capital letters in the Secret
> Answer. They are K, V, and Z, although not necessarily in
> that order.
>
> S6:
> The sixth word of the Secret Answer refers to a member of
> an ethnolinguistic group who mostly live in Iran, Iraq,
> Syria, or Turkey.
> }}}
>
> I'd be interested to hear from root as to how e solved it, or indeed
> from anyone else who made progress solving the puzzle. I'm also
curious
> as to how much back-room dealing was going on; the only evidence of it
I
> saw was root buying Clues in the PF, but of course there could be a
lot
> more I don't know about.

Through trading, I had all the clues except G2 and G5.  I managed to
figure out the words "Zing", "Vext", "jabs" and "Kurd" from the clues.
 I googled those words, and the first result contained the answer.  I
thought the fourth word was probably "bee" but wasn't sure, so I
didn't use it in the search.

-root
}}}

The only legitimate Championship win ever was via the Enigma contest
(interestingly, root did not actually cash in eir Medal until much
later, when comex did it for em; root was apparently adamant to avoid
winning just yet, to the extent of creating a Rest in eir own
possesion in order to avoid it, but comex destroyed the Rest in order
to force em to win). Enigma was a contest where most weeks, one or
more "moderately difficult" questions were asked, and contestants had
to send in the answers privately; on puzzles which were marked as
Championship Puzzles, a correct answer earned its contestant a Clue
towards a larger puzzle that ran throughout the entire contest, with
the contestant gaining the opportunity to ask for a clue about a
specific part of the answer (although they couldn't choose which
part), or about the answer as a whole. root managed to obtain several
clues via correct answers, and most of the others via trading clues
with other players (in some cases making trade offers in public), thus
leading to the eventual answer, "Zing! Vext cwm fly jabs Kurd qoph.",
and earning the Medal.

===
comex by High Score
Relevant proposals: 6194; CFJs: 2450, 2451, 2451a; rules: 2187/4,
2234/2, 2125/4, 2215/0

comex wrote (17.04.2009 13:18:52):
{{{
On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 10:43 PM, Ed Murphy <emurphy42@socal.rr.com>
wrote:
>      As soon as possible after the end of a month, for each contest,
>      the player (if any) who was its contestmaster for at least 16
>      days during that month MAY once announce that e performed duties
>      related to that contest in a timely manner during that month,
>      subject to other rules regarding truthfulness.
>
>      As soon as possible after a player makes such an announcement,
>      the Scorekeepor CAN and SHALL by announcement award, for each of
>      the contest's axes, N <axis> points to that player, where N is
>      either the number of players who were contestants of that
>      contest at any time during that month, or the number of points
>      awarded by that contest on that axis during that month,
>      whichever is less.

I hereby announce that I performed duties related to Enigma in a
timely manner during this month.
I hereby announce that I performed duties related to Enigma in a
timely manner during this month.
I hereby announce that I performed duties related to Enigma in a
timely manner during this month.
I hereby announce that I performed duties related to Enigma in a
timely manner during this month.
I hereby announce that I performed duties related to Enigma in a
timely manner during this month.
I hereby announce that I performed duties related to Enigma in a
timely manner during this month.

Please note that in general all statements in Agoran messages should
be fact-checked for accuracy so that you are not misled!!

I CFJ on the statement: The Scorekeepor SHALL award me 6N points as
defined by Rule 2234 in relation to Enigma.

Arguments:

Whether or not "MAY once announce" implies "MAY NOT thereafter
announce", I am not the contestmaster of Enigma and the paragraph and
its restrictions do not apply to me.  However, if you read it
carefully, "such an announcement" is clearly simply an announcement
"that e performed duties related to that contest in a timely manner
during that month".  I made such an announcement, so the second
paragraph _does_ apply.

The proposal clearly intended to make false such announcements illegal
due to truthfulness, and I NoV against myself for violating Power=1
Rule 2215 by making the above statements; but I contest that NoV,
because in context I don't think anyone will be misled, any more than
anyone was misled the last time I made an obviously incorrect
announcement.

If someone proposes bringing back real truthfulness I will probably
vote for it as eagerly as I voted for the opposite not too long ago
(same for repealing rests, btw).  O changing winds...
}}}

Immediately upon proposal 6194 being inacted, comex pounced on a bug
in the new wording of rule 2234 (now on version 2234/2); the rule
permitted players to do something that they could do anyway (announce
that they had been the contestmaster of a contest), and rewarded em
for doing so (giving them points for running the contest). Eir exploit
was simply to make a number of false announcements to have been the
contestmaster of Enigma, then the most active contest in terms of
players and point allocations (and thus worth the most for running),
in order to gain enough points for a quick victory. As this was
obviously going to be challenged, e called the inquiry case (2450) as
to whether this had worked emself, leaving Tiger to accuse em of
violating the rules and start the criminal case, 2451.

Although comex had managed to avoid violating rule 2215/0 (via the by
now time-honoured scam of making a statement so ridiculous or
obviously untrue that nobody could be expected to believe it, and thus
lie without being misleading), e was successfuly prosecuted for
violating rule 2125 (via performing a rule that the rules stated e MAY
perform under certain circumstances, when those circumstances didn't
hold); the judge, Taral, gave a detailed linguistic analysis of rule
2234/2. (Especially relevant was that comex stated the wrong month in
eir announcements, and thus could not rely on the announcements having
an otherwise-legal timing.)

However, merely breaking what the rules say you MAY do (as opposed to
what you CAN do) does not stop a win in Agora, especially as comex's
punishment for the rulebreaking was the relatively low 3 Rests (which
was hotly debated in the discussion forum). After CFJ 2451 had been
judged, its arguments were used as evidence that the announcements
were effective in the first place (as otherwise there would have been
nothing to prosecute); judge ais523 did a separate analysis of the
situation, finding first that the announcements were possible (after
all, sending arbitrary messages to an email server is generally
possible), then that the announcements were of the form required, and
then that all six of them counted. The end result was that comex got a
slap on the wrist and 6 months' worth of pay for running Enigma, a
contest e wasn't even the contestmaster of; and a couple of weeks
later, once all the Rests were cleared, the Scorekeepor had actually
assigned the points (e was waiting for confirmation that they were
deserved), and e was again capable of winning, Wooble did the win
announcement for em (perhaps to avoid comex's high score disrupting
legitimate attempts to win by points).

===
coppro, root: High Score
Relevant proposals: 6175; CFJs: 2477; rules: 2187/4, 2201/1, 2143/6,
2215/0

coppro wrote (28.04.2009 03:50:15):
{{{{
The following is a Win Announcement:

root and coppro have scores x + yi such that xy >= 2500.

Explanation:

Last Monday, root issued a Scorekeepor's report with both emself and
myself listed as having 50 + 50i points. points are assets, so that
portion of the report is self-ratifying. I issued three CoEs against the
report - one alleging that Murphy's score was incorrect, one alleging
that my score was incorrect, and one alleging that root's score was
incorrect.

The first CoE was blatantly incorrect. After accepting the latter two,
root later denied it. According to rule 2201, { If e denies the claim,
then the original document is ratified one week after the denial, unless
it is challenged again (subject to the same requirements) during that
period.} The document was not challenged during that period, as such, it
has now ratified as it has been more than one week since the denial.

Now, since someone is no doubt going to do this anyway, I might as well
get the jump on this. I CFJ {coppro has won the game at least once.}

I also submit a proposal entitled {Fix self-ratification}, AI 3, II 3,
with the following text:
{{{
Amend rule 2201 by replacing:
{{
      b) A claim of error, appropriate for matters of fact.  The
         publisher of the original document SHALL respond to a claim
         of error as soon as possible, either publishing a revision or
         denying the claim.  If e denies the claim, then the original
         document is ratified one week after the denial, unless it is
         challenged again (subject to the same requirements) during
         that period.
}}
with
{{
      b) A claim of error, appropriate for matters of fact.  The
         publisher of the original document SHALL respond to a claim
         of error as soon as possible, either publishing a revision or
         denying the claim. Until e does so, the claim is outstanding.
         After a claim is denied, the original document is ratified one
         week after the denial, unless it is challenged again (subject
         to the same requirements) during that period, there is an
         outstanding claim at the time of the denial, or the officer has
         published a revision to the document as required by this rule.
}}
}}}
}}}}

It's nice to have a scam this clear-cut, and with a useful explanation
accompanying it in the same message. Basically, what happened was that
coppro, a relatively new player at the time, had noticed a loophole in
the self-ratification rule (2201/1): if multiple CoEs were made on the
same message, with some accepted and then others denied, then the
denials caused the original, incorrect report to self-ratify (causing
the gamestate to be updated to match the report, a mechanism normally
used to avoid subtle bugs due to incorrect reports building up over
time). coppro recruited root, then the Scorekeepor, to aid the scam; a
false Scorekeepor's report giving coppro and root 50+50i points each,
just enough to win, was obviously challenged immediately, but by
coppro emself, who made a deliberately incorrect claim of error along
with the two correct ones. After the two acceptances and the denial,
the original incorrect report ratified, giving coppro and root their
wins; although the scam could have been blocked by anyone who noticed
(via an additional CoE, or maybe CFJ), nobody blocked it (although
ais523 noticed, e refrained from blocking the scam in order to gain a
set of Ministers Without Portfolio more favourable for em). The
resulting CFJ (2477) was turned down by three judges (the first being
root; a random timing accident lead to em being the only possible
judge, but e recused emself for obvious reasons), before being judged
straightforwardly TRUE.

Of course, with a win like this one that depended on publishing
blatantly incorrect information, a discussion started as to whether it
was legal (as opposed to possible, which it clearly was). Although the
ruleset had previously (in rule 2143/5) contained a provision stating
that officers were not allowed to publish incorrect information as
part of their duties, it had been accidentally repealed by proposal
6175, and rule 2143/6, in force at the time, did not punish such
behaviour, but rather listed a different provision twice (the proposal
amended the wrong paragraph). (The bug was later fixed in rule
2143/7.) The only truthfulness rule at the time, therefore, was rule
2215/0; root avoided this by using a deliberately suspicious title and
score, thus trying to lead to a score that was obviously incorrect
(and thus not misleading); coppro was less lucky here, and took a
1-Rest penalty for eir incorrect CoE (which e did not try to contest).

===
ais523 by High Score
Relevant proposals: (none); CFJs: (none); rules: 2187/4

The Agoran Agricultural Association gave ais523 the last 20 x- and 14
y-points e needed to get a winning score; e spent 3 x-points in order
to reduce eir score to, according to the scorekeepor at the time,
76+34i, with a product of 2584, which, despite ais523 believing e had
more (78+34i), was still enough to win. (Strangely, my calculation
writing the thesis now makes it 75+34i; perhaps the exact value will
never be known. It's all enough, anyway.) Here's where the other 58
x-points (that I can find...) and 20 y-points came from:

 -3x, +2y  in a points trade with Tiger
 -2x,  0y  in a points trade with Billy Pilgrim
 14x, 14y  as contestmaster pay for Enigma
 17x,  2y  from other Agoran Agricultural Association activity
 25x,  0y  from the Fantasy Rules Contest
  7x,  2y  left over from the last score reset.

===
G., OscarMeyr by Junta
Relevant proposals: 6130; CFJs: (none); rules: 2223/0, 2243/0

Murphy wrote (15.03.2009 23:01:02):
{{{
[Note:  Additional actions above "Text of adopted proposals".]

(snip)
*6130  D1  3.0  ais523      Open It Up
(snip)
            6121  6122  6123  6124  6125  6126  6127  6128  6129  6130

ais523        F     P     A     F     P     P     F     A     F     F
comex         P     F     A     A     A     A     A     A     F     F
Dvorak He     F     A     A     F     A     F     F     F     A     F
ehird         F     F     A     F     A     P     F     F     F     F
Goethe        F     F     A     F     A     P     F     F     F     F
Murphy        F     A     A     F     F     F     F     F     F     F
OscarMeyr     F     F     F     F     F     A     F     F     F     F
Pavitra       F     A     F     F     F     F     F           F     F
Taral         F     A     A     A     F     A     F     P     F     A
Tiger         F     A     A     F     A     F     F     P     F     A
Wooble        P     A     A     P     A     F     F     F     F     A
Yally         A     A     F     F     A     F     F     A     A     F

AI            2     3     2     3     2     2     2     3     3     3
VI            9     0.5+  0.3+  4.5   0.5+  2    11     2     5     3
F/A          9/1   4/7   3/9   9/2   4/7   6/3  11/1   6/3  10/2   9/3

Quorum        7     7     7     7     7     7     7     7     7     7
Voters       12    12    12    12    12    12    12    11    12    12

(snip)

As permitted by the rule created by Proposal 6130, I cause Rule 2223
(Win by Junta) to amend itself by appending this paragraph:

      Murphy, Goethe, and OscarMeyr CAN cause this rule to make
      arbitrary rule changes by announcement.

I spend Ab Ab to destroy one of my Rests.
I spend Ab Ab to destroy one of my Rests.
I spend Ab Ab to destroy one of my Rests.

This is a win announcement stating that Murphy, Goethe, and OscarMeyr
satisfy the Winning Condition of Dictatorship.

As permitted by both Rule 2223 and the rule created by Rule 6130, I
cause Rule 2223 to amend itself to read:

      This rule intentionally left blank.

Proposal:  Close it up
(AI = 3, II = 0, please)

Repeal the rule created by Proposal 6130 (Open It Up).

Amend Rule 2223 (Win by Junta) to read:

      When a rule comes to state that one or more persons CAN cause it
      to make arbitrary rule changes by announcement, all those
      persons satisfy the Winning Condition of Dictatorship.

      Cleanup procedure:  Those persons SHALL as soon as possible
      amend the rule so that it no longer states this, and SHOULD
      amend the rules to prevent this condition from being achieved
      again in essentially the same way.


Text of adopted proposals:

(snip)

}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{

Proposal 6130 (Democratic, AI=3.0, Interest=1) by ais523, Goethe
Open It Up

Create a Rule with the following text and a power of 3:

  If a rule (other than this one) exists that mentions the
  possibility of a player causing a rule to make rule changes by
  announcement, any player can cause that rule to amend itself by
  announcement.



}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{
(snip)
}}}

This is a nice example of how there are two ways to force a scam
proposal through: either make the loophole so subtle that nobody spots
it, or make it so obvious, but seemingly subtle, that everyone assumes
they're the only person who saw it and thus will be the one to exploit
it. In this case, ais523 (and some coconspirators, coppro and comex)
thought e was doing the first, but was actually doing the second.

Proposal 6130 was marketed as a way to prevent an "obvious scam" by
G. (then called Goethe) passing, by making it too risky to force
through because otherwise anyone could exploit it; the loophole was
the fairly obvious one that a rule that met its condition, rule 2223,
already existed. Past then, it would simply be a matter of timing who
exploited the trivial dictatorship loophole first; an automated
cronjob acting on behalf of ais523 tried to exploit it one minute
after the proposal passed, but it was futile, as a second conspiracy
containing G., OscarMeyr, and Murphy the Assessor was also aware of
the loophole and exploited it in the very same email that assessed the
proposal. With two separate conspiracies trying to force proposal 6130
through, it's no surprise that it passed.

Murphy, G., and OscarMeyr's use of the dictatorship was a very simple
one, incidentally; they simply amended the Win by Junta rule to
trigger itself, got the win from it, and then blanked the rule,
preventing anyone else exploiting the same loophole, and thus
rendering the cronjob useless. (ais523's use would have been to pass
the dictatorship on to a non-player partnership, thus exploiting a
secondary loophole in the new Open it Up rule, that it only affected
players.) In an unfortunate (for Murphy) twist, though, e had done
things in the wrong order, accidentally setting the win off /before/ e
destroyed all eir Rests, and thus e failed to win along with eir other
two coconspirators (especially embarassing, as the dictatorship was
easily powerful enough to remove Rests).

===
ais523 by Clout
Relevant proposals: (none); CFJs: (none); rules: 2134/5, 2126/58,
2156/11

ais523 wrote (28.02.2009 23:57:15):
{{{
I spend D F# A to increase Murphy's caste to Alpha.

-- 
ais523
}}}
ais523 wrote (01.03.2009 00:00:07):
{{{
Without objection, I make Billy Pilgrim inactive.
Without objection, I make j inactive.
Without objection, I make cmealerjr inactive.
The AFO goes on hold.
I spend C  Eb G  to reduce OscarMeyr's caste to Savage.
I spend C  Eb G  to reduce Dvorak Herring's caste to Savage.
I spend C  Eb G  to reduce woggle's caste to Savage.
I spend C  Eb G  to reduce Tiger's caste to Epsilon.
I spend C# E  G# to reduce Tiger's caste to Savage.
I spend C# E  G# to reduce Siege's caste to Savage.
I spend D  F  A  to reduce Goethe's caste to Epsilon.
I spend E  G  B  to reduce comex's caste to Epsilon.
I spend B  D  F# to reduce Taral's caste to Savage.
I spend B  D  F# to reduce Yally's caste to Savage.
I spend A  B  C# D  E to increase my own caste to Alpha.

Castes now:
8 = Alpha     ais523
5 = Beta      (nobody active)
3 = Gamma     (nobody active)
2 = Delta     (nobody active)
1 = Epsilon   Pavitra, Sgeo, comex, Goethe, Wooble
              (also ehird, but e has a voting limit of 0 due to Rests)
              (also Murphy, but e has a voting limit of 0 due to Rests)
0 = Savage    OscarMeyr, Dvorak, woggle, Tiger, Siege, Taral, Yally
              (and possibly others)

If an ordinary decision were intiated right now, I would have a voting
limit of 8 on it, being an Alpha; and the other players combined would
have a total voting limit of 5.

The following sentence is a win announcement, and this sentence serves
to clearly label it as one. ais523's voting limit on an ordinary
decision initiated at this time would exceed the combined voting limits
of all other players on that decision.

I win by Clout.

-- 
ais523
}}}

Different economic systems and different voting systems make for
different sorts of win by Clout. In this case, the Caste system was
influencable by Notes, a combination that would not come up again in
any future win by Clout; and as the first win by Clout ever, it had
never come up before either. This was half an economic victory, due to
the number of Notes required, and half a scam; the way that Caste
rotation worked at the end of a month was that Alphas were demoted to
Epsilon automatically, but the promotions were done by hand. As a
result, at the very start of a month, the average Caste was lower than
usual, making it easier to demote lots of people to low clearances.
Combined with /raising/ Murphy's Caste to Alpha the month before in
order to cause two players to platonically fall to Epsilon,
inactivating inactive players, and, as an AFO member, causing that
partnership to idle via its rule that any of its members could make it
perform actions, ais523 could just-about afford to reduce everyone
else's Caste to a sufficient extent that it added up to only 5, whilst
keeping 8 for emself; thus, ais523 was able to outvote anyone else,
triggering the win condition for Caste.

The win was uncontroversial, although G. immediately reduced ais523's
Caste to Savage in order to prevent em getting an advantage in actual
voting; this ironically caused ais523 to end up with a lower caste
after the win than anyone else, as a win by Clout resets everyone's
Caste to its default.

===
comex by Junta
Relevant proposals: 6072, 6084; CFJs: 2376, 2386; Rules: 2223/0,
2238/?, 107/10

[rule 2238 was never officially assigned revision numbers, and thus a
revision number cannot be cited by this thesis]

comex wrote (11.02.2009 02:20:11):
{{{
(Warning: this message is automated, sent from cron due to timing
issues.
I apologize for the previous tests.)

On behalf of ais523: ais523 retracts all eir votes on the decision about
whether to adopt Proposal 6072 and votes FOR on that decision.  (I have
previously agreed to a contract with em that lets me do this.)

I retract all my votes on the decision about whether to adopt Proposal
6072 and vote FOR that decision.

I cause Rule 2238 to amend itself to read:

      comex CAN cause this rule to amend itself, or perform arbitrary
      rule changes, by announcement.

      comex CAN modify any attribute of a proposal, including AI and
      text, by announcement.

I hereby modify the text of Proposal 6072 (which would have been failed
due to insufficient power anyway, btw) to read:
{

If Rule 2238 exists, change its Power to 3 and amend it to read the
following; otherwise, create a new Power=3 Rule with the following text:

      comex and ais523 were here (unlike Rodlen).

      comex CAN cause this rule to amend itself, or perform arbitrary
      rule changes, by announcement.

}

I hereby change the adoption index of Proposal 6072 to 3.

I CFJ on the statement:
 * It is possible for a Rule to change a proposal's text.

Arguments:

Suber's rule in the subject is no longer in the Agoran ruleset, but I
forsee arguments that this doesn't work because a proposal, as a
'document
outlining changes to be made to Agora' (R106), is necessarily immutable
(corresponding to the standard requirement that amendments to proposals
must be performed by retraction and resubmission).  Although some types
of
documents (such as public documents and official documents) are
immutable,
I don't think 'document' implies immutability.  For example, Rule 754
implies that a contract is a legal document; Rule 2166 refers to a rule
or
contract as a 'backing document'; and Rule 1586 temporarily defines
'document' as 'rule or contract'; rules and contracts can be amended. 
Alternately, in ordinary language, amendable texts such as the United
States Constitution are referred to as 'living documents'.  Therefore,
there is nothing implicit in the definition of a proposal to prevent one
from being amended; as the attributes of proposals are not secured, it
is
possible for a Rule to (grant permission to) amend them.
}}}

After ais523 and the AFO had won as a result of a dictatorship gained
from an earlier scam (documented later in this thesis), the issue
remained as to whether comex, the third member of the dictatorship,
could also win, given that e had Rests at the time that blocked em
from winning, and that the previous attempts of the conspiracy had
failed. (It's pretty rare to get a situation in a nomic where someone
has a dictatorship, but there's no obvious way to convert it into a
win; and comex was determined to do so by expanding the scope of eir
power-1 dictatorship into a full power-3 dictatorship that allowed em
to do anything.) Upping the stakes was an informal bet between
G. (then Goethe) and comex, which was made semi-official in proposal
6084, which threatened to punish comex and ais523 with a taunting
Patent Title if they didn't manage to increase the power of the
dictatorship to at leat 2 by the time the proposal passed.

The chosen method to increase the dictatorship was via timing scam;
just before proposal 6072 passed, comex used the dictatorship to
change its text and adoption index to change it from an underpowered
but popular proposal that would have done nothing, to a high-powered
and scammy proposal that gave em a dictatorship; the major argument
was about whether a power-1 dictatorship was enough power to interfere
with the proposal like that, although comex's argument was that none
of the higher-power rules specifically stated that proposal attributes
could not be changed, and thus it was legal on the basis that what the
rules - even low-powered ones - say counts if no rule contradicts
them; the main counterargument was that changing the text of a
proposal while it was being voted on might invalidate decisions about
whether to adopt it, because the decisions were now about something
else.

As usual, the mess was sorted out by CFJ over the course of several
weeks. CFJ 2376 addressed whether proposals could be amended in theory
(it turns out that they could be); CFJ 2386 addressed whether the
amendment prevented the proposal passing in the normal way, and it
turned out that it didn't. Judge Wooble compared proposals to rules,
in that if a rule is amended while a proposal to change it is pending,
it doesn't invalidate the proposal even though it now means something
else; likewise, amending a proposal while it's being voted on
apparently doesn't invalidate the attempt to adopt it. (It also helped
that rule 107 used the specific example of "the adoption of proposal
4781", indicating that the proposal's text was unlikely to be
relevant, but rather that its ID number was the relevant part.)

===
Murphy by High Score
Relevant proposals: 6020; CFJs: (none); Rules: 2187/4, 2187/3, 2186/4

Legitimate wins by High Score are some of Agora's most common; this
one happened about a week after the score was actually achieved, due
to Murphy getting the wording of the win announcement wrong first time
(failing to explicitly specify it as a win announcement). Ironically,
Murphy had already had reached the old win condition of 100 points
when the win condition was amended away (by proposal 6020, which e
helped author!) underneath em, forcing em to scramble for the
newfangled y-points in order to regain eir status of having a winning
score, and gaining those points almost entirely from Enigma.

Here's where eir 116 x-points and 23 y-points came from:

  0x,  2y from the Agoran Agricultural Association
 14x,  0y as contestmaster pay for Werewolves
  0x, 21y from Enigma
  2x,  0y claimed from the Points Relay Service
100x,  0y from the conversion of points to x-points when rule 2187
          was amended

===
ais523, the AFO by Junta

Relevant proposals: 6069; CFJs: ; rules: 2223/0, 2238/0, 2126/58, 2222/0

comex wrote (02.02.2009 21:57:41):
{{{{
The AFO publishes the following. (Please note: Other actions are
present after the resolution.)
{{{

Voting results for Proposal 6069:

[This notice resolves the Agoran decision of whether to adopt the
 following proposal.  For this decision, the options available to
 Agora are ADOPTED (*), REJECTED (x), and FAILED QUORUM (!).]

*6069 O 1 1.0 comex               <none>

            6069

ais523       8F
AFO          8F
comex        8F
Dvorak He     F
Goethe        A
Murphy       3A
OscarMeyr    5A
Pavitra       A
Taral        8A
Wooble        A

AI           1
VI           1.3+
F/A          25/19


Text of adopted proposals:

}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{

Proposal 6069 (Ordinary, AI=1.0, Interest=1) by comex
<none>

Create a rule that reads:
{
Anyone CAN cause this rule to amend itself by announcement.
}

}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{

}}} (End on-behalf-of-AFO section.)

I assign the Rule created by proposal 6069 the ID number 2238 and the
title "Self-Mutability".

I cause Rule 2238 to amend itself to read:

      comex CAN cause this rule to amend itself by announcement.
}}}}

The Junta rule allows a player - or group of players - to win if they
manage to get a dictatorship over the game (proved by amending a rule
to state that the conspirators can cause it to make arbitrary rules
changes by announcement, even if the rule is lying when it states
that). Proposal 6069 clearly and obviously creates a rule that can be
made to state anything, including that, and was soon amended into the
appropriate phrasing to give ais523, comex, and the AFO a win; thus,
the only complexity involved in the scam is as to how the proposal
managed to pass in the first place, which was like this:

comex wrote (02.02.2009 21:55:04):
{{{{
On Mon, 2009-02-02 at 16:36 +0000, Alex Smith wrote:
> I agree to the following private contract, named "6069":
> {{{
> This is a private contract, which only comex and ais523 can join.
>
> Both ais523 and comex CAN terminate this contract by announcement,
> and/or make it public by publishing its text and membership.
>
> Votons are a currency, tracked by ais523. Any player can create a
Voton
> in eir own possession with 2 Support; this is known as "making the
> contract Democratic", or simply as "making 6069 Democratic".
>
> comex CAN act on ais523's behalf to cause em to vote on, and/or
retract
> votes on, the Agoran Decision on whether to adopt the proposal with ID
> number 6069.
>
> comex CAN act on ais523's behalf to cause em to spend up to 4 C#
notes,
> and SHALL NOT do so except to boost eir on voting limit on the
proposal
> with ID number 6069, or the Agoran Decision concerning whether to
adopt
> it.
> }}}
I agree. I have just published the text of the contract named 6069;
its membership is
{ais523, comex}. I make the contract named 6069 a public contract.

I spend a G# note to increase the AFO's voting limit on proposal 6069 by
1.
I spend a G# note to increase the AFO's voting limit on proposal 6069 by
1.
I spend a G# note to increase the AFO's voting limit on proposal 6069 by
1.
I spend a G# note to increase the AFO's voting limit on proposal 6069 by
1.
I spend a G# note to increase the AFO's voting limit on proposal 6069 by
1.
I spend a G# note to increase the AFO's voting limit on proposal 6069 by
1.
I spend a G note to increase the AFO's voting limit on proposal 6069 by
1.


The AFO spends an E note to increase ais523's voting limit on proposal
6069 by 1.
The AFO spends an E note to increase ais523's voting limit on proposal
6069 by 1.
The AFO spends an E note to increase ais523's voting limit on proposal
6069 by 1.

The AFO spends an E note to increase comex's voting limit on proposal
6069 by 1.
The AFO spends an E note to increase comex's voting limit on proposal
6069 by 1.
The AFO spends an E note to increase comex's voting limit on proposal
6069 by 1.
The AFO spends an E note to increase comex's voting limit on proposal
6069 by 1.

I act on behalf of ais523 to cause em to spend a C# note to increase
comex's voting limit on proposal 6069 by 1.
I act on behalf of ais523 to cause em to spend a C# note to increase
comex's voting limit on proposal 6069 by 1.
I act on behalf of ais523 to cause em to spend a C# note to increase
comex's voting limit on proposal 6069 by 1.
I act on behalf of ais523 to cause em to spend a C# note to increase
comex's voting limit on proposal 6069 by 1.

In case that didn't work:

I spend a G# note to increase the AFO's voting limit on the decision
of whether to adopt proposal 6069 by 1.
I spend a G# note to increase the AFO's voting limit on the decision
of whether to adopt proposal 6069 by 1.
I spend a G# note to increase the AFO's voting limit on the decision
of whether to adopt proposal 6069 by 1.
I spend a G# note to increase the AFO's voting limit on the decision
of whether to adopt proposal 6069 by 1.
I spend a G# note to increase the AFO's voting limit on the decision
of whether to adopt proposal 6069 by 1.
I spend a G# note to increase the AFO's voting limit on the decision
of whether to adopt proposal 6069 by 1.
I spend a G note to increase the AFO's voting limit on the decision of
whether to adopt proposal 6069 by 1.

The AFO spends an E note to increase ais523's voting limit on the
decision of whether to adopt proposal 6069 by 1.
The AFO spends an E note to increase ais523's voting limit on the
decision of whether to adopt proposal 6069 by 1.
The AFO spends an E note to increase ais523's voting limit on the
decision of whether to adopt proposal 6069 by 1.

The AFO spends an E note to increase comex's voting limit on the
decision of whether to adopt proposal 6069 by 1.
The AFO spends an E note to increase comex's voting limit on the
decision of whether to adopt proposal 6069 by 1.
The AFO spends an E note to increase comex's voting limit on the
decision of whether to adopt proposal 6069 by 1.
The AFO spends an E note to increase comex's voting limit on the
decision of whether to adopt proposal 6069 by 1.

I act on behalf of ais523 to cause em to spend a C# note to increase
comex's voting limit on the decision of whether to adopt proposal 6069
by 1.
I act on behalf of ais523 to cause em to spend a C# note to increase
comex's voting limit on the decision of whether to adopt proposal 6069
by 1.
I act on behalf of ais523 to cause em to spend a C# note to increase
comex's voting limit on the decision of whether to adopt proposal 6069
by 1.
I act on behalf of ais523 to cause em to spend a C# note to increase
comex's voting limit on the decision of whether to adopt proposal 6069
by 1.

I act on behalf of ais523 to cause em to vote FOR on the Agoran
Decision of whether to adopt proposal 6069, eight times.
The AFO retracts all its votes on the Agoran Decision of whether to
adopt proposal 6069.
The AFO votes FOR on the Agoran Decision of whether to adopt proposal
6069, eight times.
I vote FOR on the Agoran Decision of whether to adopt proposal 6069,
eight times.
}}}}

This was a typical example of a timing scam - actions being taken with
precise timings, such that nobody else has a possibility to interrupt
them. The messages in question were sent either side of the voting
period ending, meaning that a proposal that looked like an obvious
fail was suddenly turned round into a quick pass, and then assessed
before anyone could jump in and set voting limits on the proposal back
to sane values. Although the ruleset at the time barred voting limits
from higher than 8, even when temporarily boosted on one proposal, a
one note = one vote rule was used to boost the voting limit of
multiple conspirators (the AFO was a partnership which comex, among
other people, could cause to take arbitrary actions, so there were
only two humans involved), and thus gaining many more than 8 extra
votes, outvoting the rest of Agora using them.

G. (then Goethe) had actually guessed that something like this was
coming (although not the exact details), and attempted to warn the
rest of Agora to make the proposal Democratic (and thus impossible to
manipulate voting limits on); however, e was widely ignored, and
eventually given the patent title of Cassandra by proposal as a
result.

As with many scams, though, there is a twist in the tail; comex was
unable to win at the time due to having Rests, and thus did not gain a
win at the same time as the other members of the conspiracy. The
dictatorship thus remained for quite some time, as comex attempted to
find a way to increase the power of the resulting rule beyond 1 and
thus override the rule that players with Rests could not win;
eventually, e found a way to achieve the win, as documented elsewhere
in this thesis.
{% endraw  %}
