Round 9/History: Difference between revisions

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To take this one step further, while proposals which simply specify relative orders (e.g. "Event X happens after event Y; event Z happens before Y") can certainly solve the problem -- they did in this round -- it is not hard to imagine it getting very tiresome and progressively more difficult to specify the order you really mean when there are, say, five events at the same instant. idle and finsook's proposals to add more boilerplate for simultaneous events (also in {{Heading|The Second Simultaneity Scare}}) did not pass but indeed have merit for a round where even more actions take place at the same time than in Round 9.

=== Gaining Items when You Join ===

Since the first day of the round, players gained a duck upon joining. And a loophole in this exact clause is what caused the downfall of the round in the end. If players are to gain items immediately after they join the round, that should be handled with delicacy. I can think of a minor modifications that would have patched the loophole right up: say that you only gain a duck the first time you join the round. Simple, but not perfect if you want people to be able to rejoin and start afresh. If that's your goal, then consider the following further thoughts:

# Define who can own items. Players in the round? Anyone who has joined before? Can no one own them? These ambiguities allowed the Day of Infinite Ducks scam.

# Place restrictions on registration. If you can leave and join again in the same instant, then you can quickly generate more items than you'll ever be able to use.

# Place restrictions on trading for a period after players join.

These ideas don't guard against every potential scam, but they certainly make scamming a more arduous task.

== References ==

@@ Line 805: / Line 805: @@
 To take this one step further, while proposals which simply specify relative orders (e.g. "Event X happens after event Y; event Z happens before Y") can certainly solve the problem -- they did in this round -- it is not hard to imagine it getting very tiresome and progressively more difficult to specify the order you really mean when there are, say, five events at the same instant. idle and finsook's proposals to add more boilerplate for simultaneous events (also in {{Heading|The Second Simultaneity Scare}}) did not pass but indeed have merit for a round where even more actions take place at the same time than in Round 9.
+=== Gaining Items when You Join ===
+Since the first day of the round, players gained a duck upon joining. And a loophole in this exact clause is what caused the downfall of the round in the end. If players are to gain items immediately after they join the round, that should be handled with delicacy. I can think of a minor modifications that would have patched the loophole right up: say that you only gain a duck the first time you join the round. Simple, but not perfect if you want people to be able to rejoin and start afresh. If that's your goal, then consider the following further thoughts:
+# Define who can own items. Players in the round? Anyone who has joined before? Can no one own them? These ambiguities allowed the Day of Infinite Ducks scam.
+# Place restrictions on registration. If you can leave and join again in the same instant, then you can quickly generate more items than you'll ever be able to use.
+# Place restrictions on trading for a period after players join.
+These ideas don't guard against every potential scam, but they certainly make scamming a more arduous task.
 == References ==
 <references />