Editing Round 9/History (section)

== The Break Age (1 Feb 2021 - 24 Feb 2021) ==

The Break Age was the culmination of previous proposals that led to the first major breakages of Round 9 in the middle of February. 

=== Stuck Ducks ===

The first major crisis of the game struck when the ducks got stuck. On 1 February 2021, Trungle posted a draft proposal<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/518856008605499402/805696974321614909</ref> that would introduce the mechanic of ponds. Under this system, each duck must live in a pond before it can perform any actions. This idea was modeled after the fact that ducks had to be named before they could act or be acted upon. There were a few suggestions, which Trungle implemented. The proposal was created on 2 February 2021 as Proposal 🦆 🏘️.

{{Proposal Box
| name=🦆 🏘️
| text=
Enact a new rule entitled "Ponds" which reads:
:There exist ponds in the land. The number of ponds is initially equal to the number of ducks in existence, divided by four and rounded down. Whenever a new duck is created, any player can roll a d6. If the result is 6 then a new pond is created.
:
:Each duck lives in up to one pond. The owner of a duck can move that duck to a pond that it does not already live in by stating that they do so in #game-actions. Unless that duck did not live in a pond before being moved, it loses one quack. Players cannot move ducks that already live in a pond and possess no quacks. Players cannot interact with a named duck that does not live in a pond in any way other than to move it to a pond.
:
:At the beginning of each voting period, each duck loses one quack for each duck of its same color in the pond it lives in, not including itself. It also gains one quack for each duck of a different color that lives in that pond.
:
:Ducks on scouting missions are not considered to live in any pond until they return. They cannot be moved, and return to their most recent home pond when they are retrieved.
}}

In retrospect, the problems with this proposal should have been obvious. When a duck is on a scouting mission it doesn't live in a pond and player cannot interact with ducks that don't live in a pond. The intent was that the duck just wouldn't get the diversity benefits if it went on a scouting mission. There really needed to be two different terms for these two concepts, and if there were at any point in drafting, it hardly matters now.

The proposal nonetheless passed. It was submitted on Wednesday, which is during voting period 1, thus it went into effect the next Saturday (5 February 2021) at the end of voting period 2. It wasn't until a legal question on the 7th of February that we understood that the game was broken<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/518856008605499402/808044906164912200</ref>.

Indeed, every duck that was on a scouting mission when proposal 🦆 🏘️ passed could not be retrieved. The fix proposal came on 7 February 2021 (moonroof, Proposal Unstuck Ducks).

{{Proposal Box
| name=Unstuck Ducks
| text=
In the rule Ponds, replace the second paragraph with the following text:

:Each duck lives in exactly one pond. Any duck that does not live in a pond may be assigned a pond at any time by its owner by posting in #game-actions. If the duck is not on a scouting mission, it moves immediately to that pond. If the duck is on a scouting mission, it will return to that pond when it returns.
:
:Players may move ducks from one pond to another by spending one quack from that duck and posting in #game-actions. Players cannot move a duck (after its initial assignment) that does not have any quacks. 
:
:If a duck does not have an assigned pond, it must be assigned a pond before any player may interact with that duck.

In the rule Ponds, replace the fourth paragraph with the following text:

:Ducks on scouting missions cannot change their pond assignment, except to be assigned one. They are not considered to be in the pond while on a scouting mission.
}}

With Proposal Unstuck Ducks, the gamestate was slated to be fixed on February 12th. Every player with ducks on a scouting mission would just have to wait it out. The proposal passed without incident, but, as we'd soon discover, another breakage was about to rear its ugly head.

=== Amend The Rules, Quack ===

Here's a question: does submitting a proposal count as a game action? The text "all game actions mentioned in the rules can be performed by announcing them in the channel #game-actions" in the rule Actions at the time<ref>https://infinitenomic.miraheze.org/w/index.php?title=Round_9/Ruleset&oldid=702#Actions</ref> may imply that only actions taken in #game-actions count as game actions, but another interpretation implies that the relationship may not be exclusive. No proposal had been submitted with a duck word since those had been enacted. There was an initial push to resolve this with a normal proposal (Random Internet Cat, Proposal 🔥, 14 Feb 2021), but in the end we decided to resolve it by emergency metaproposal ([idle account], Metaproposal 9-1-1, 15 Feb 2021). The latter did nothing but enact the former from a meta perspective. The round entered a State of Emergency on 14 February 2021 and, after passing the Metaproposal, returned to normal play on 17 February 2021.

{{Proposal Box
|name=🔥
|text=
Enact, amend, and repeal round rules so that the round ruleset is equivalent to the ruleset at https://infinitenomic.miraheze.org/w/index.php?title=Round_9/Ruleset&oldid=702 .

Modify the round gamestate in arbitrary ways, other than modifying the round ruleset, so that it is what it would be if the state at https://infinitenomic.miraheze.org/w/index.php?title=Round_9/Gamestate&oldid=699 was true and accurate at the time this proposal was submitted and if the ruleset at the time this proposal was submitted was the current ruleset.

Amend the rule "Proposals" by replacing "Any player may make a proposal by sending a message in the channel #proposals." with "Rules to the contrary notwithstanding, any player may make a proposal by sending a message in the channel #proposals, and no other restrictions may be imposed on this method."

Comment without any effect on this proposal: quack
}}

The ruleset state referenced in Proposal 🔥 and by extension MP 9-1-1 erroneously excluded the effects of Proposal Unstuck Ducks meaning that for a second time players could not access their scouting ducks. Wotton reproposed the idea a few days later (Proposal The Ducks That Time Forgot, 19 Feb 2021).

=== The Second Simultaneity Scare ===

Earlier in the round there arose confusion about events that happened at the same time but had no ordering to them (See [[{{FULLPAGENAME}}#The Simultaneous Proposal Scare|The Simultaneous Proposal Scare]]). That edge case was cleared up for proposals, but the same issue manifested with some other events. One in particular was the {{Sc|Duck God}} gaining a God Egg. That happened at the start of a voting period at the same moment that proposals were enacted. Which one, then, would be applied first? The answer was indeterminate.

idle thought they had the solution to the issue. Their proposal would assign a real-number initiative value to each gamestate-changing event, then resolving such events by initiative value, breaking ties first by the order which the rule defining that event was enacted, then by character-length of the defining rule for that event, then by arbitrary order if any permutation of the ambiguous events would lead to the same ruleset. If this final case did not apply then those events would not occur (Proposal 🕐 ⏯️ 🔧, 20 Feb 2021). This proposal was met with poor reception, but it sparked discussion about this issue.

The next person to try a fix was finsook. Their proposal was written in GitHub Gists<ref>https://gist.github.com/Mathnerd314/e5d12a12e200b2dbfa5e5146ac6ec16b</ref><ref>https://gist.github.com/Mathnerd314/0e12fd033c581b898193b7d9b89f18f6</ref>. It rose out of skepticism concerning the viability of applying events by the Rule's enactment date. This proposal instead prescribed an ordering for the ruleset. Events in rules placed earlier would happen earlier. Neither Proposal 🕐 ⏩ 🔢 🧦 🥢 (20 Feb 2021) nor Proposal mini-🕐 🔢 (21 Feb 2021) ended up taking effect.

The issue with these proposals is that they were general solutions but seemed to add far more complexity than was actually necessary for our edge cases. In the end, Proposal 📜 ➡️ 🥚 (Trungle, 23 Feb 2021) and its two patches, Proposal 📜 ➡️ 🥚 🩹 (Trungle, 23 Feb 2021) and 📜 ➡️ 🥚 🩹 2 (Trungle, 24 Feb 2021) provided a more case-by-case handling of the situation, which turned out to be less contentious. These proposals all passed.

{{Proposal Box
| name=📜 ➡️ 🥚 
| text=
Amend the rule "Proposals" by replacing the following text:

:The voting period for all proposals made in Period One is Period Two. The voting
period for all proposals made in Period Two is the next weeks Period one. Once a
proposal's voting period ends, if there are more votes in favor than against,
the proposal takes effect. If the number of votes in favor is tied with the
number of votes against, the proposal takes effect if the proponents' ducks have
more Quacks than the proposal's opponents' ducks.

with:

:The voting period for all proposals made in Period One is Period Two. The voting
period for all proposals made in Period Two is the next weeks Period One. At the
end of every voting period, then, for each proposal in the order that they were
submitted, if there are more votes in favor than against that proposal then
takes effect. If the number of votes in favor is tied with the number of votes
against, the proposal takes effect if the proponents' ducks have more Quacks
than the proposal's opponents' ducks.

Amend the rule "Duck God" by replacing the following text:

:On 0000 UTC every Sunday, the Duck God gains one God Egg.

with:

:Each Sunday, immediately after all proposals have taken effect, the Duck God gains one God Egg.
}}

{{Proposal Box
|name=📜 ➡️ 🥚 🩹
|text=
If the following text appears in the rule "Proposals":

:if there are more votes in favor than against that proposal then takes effect.

then replace it with:

:if there are more votes in favor than against that proposal then it takes effect.
}}

{{Proposal Box
|name=📜 ➡️ 🥚 🩹 2
|text=
If the following text appears on the rule "Duck God":
:immediately after all proposals have taken effect

then replace it with:

:immediately after all proposals passed in the previous voting period have taken effect
}}