lawguide/lawguide.tex

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\section{\#offtopia law guide}

This document is merely a summary of the most important laws helpful for everyday
activity. Most important parts are the first two sections `Behaving' and `Logs'.


\subsection{Behaving}

\begin{itemize}
\item Calling women subhuman; making racist, homophobic, or transphobic
comments; calling people with disabilities leeches and subhuman;
telling people with mental illnesses to kill themselves; or other comparable acts
are to be prohibited, except in cases of clear sarcasm.

\item If someone lays out a boundary to you, you are to respect it. No ``jokes'' where you
repeatedly violate it after being specifically told so. If you violate a boundary by accident,
apologise.

\item Mark NSFW content. Linked NSFW content should be marked, preferably with
\texttt{NSFW} or \texttt{[NSFW]}.

\item Avoid funkicking.
`Funkicking' is where you kick someone just for fun, or for some insignificant reason.
Exception to this is if the person you're `funkicking' does not mind the fun kick.

\item Do not kick idlers, unless for abuse or clear violations of channel law.

Idlers are defined as people whose last activity has been 5 minutes ago (where activity
implies messages or nick changes as a response to something in the channel), or who
have marked themselves away (e.g. by \texttt{bbl}).

\item \url{https://gitlab.com/sortie/mmmm/blob/master/mmmm.txt} (MMMM).
A collection of rules and guidelines that evolved from horrors that won't be mentioned
here; currently in helpful form. By new ancient law, MMMM is lawful.
\end{itemize}


\subsection{Logs}

\begin{itemize}
\item There is a public log that logs the last hundred lines of the channel, except those that
begin with \texttt{nolog:} or \texttt{[nolog]}. \texttt{nolog}
messages cannot be ratified and must be responsibly handled by channel members.
\item Publishing channel logs otherwise without explicit agreement from the channel is
prohibited.
\item The gopher server serving the public logs is allowed to collect IPs, requested paths,
and user agents of connecting users; these are not retained for over a month except in cases
of abuse.
\end{itemize}


\subsection{Voting}


\subsubsection{Basics}

At every moment, there is an active proposal and a vote count.

If a vote that doesn't refer to the current active proposal is cast, the active proposal
changes to the new proposal, and the vote count resets to 0. A filibuster resets the vote count to 0. Bar a few exceptions detailed below, it also sets the active
proposal to itself.

A vote increments the vote count by 1 after change of proposal (if required).

When the vote count reaches 3, the active proposal becomes a law.


\subsubsection{Syntaxen}
There are several different kinds of syntaxes for voting on laws. They're all based
on the original syntax of \texttt{:D}, with various modifications.

\begin{itemize}
\item \texttt{:D} \quad The most basic form. Votes for the current active proposal.

\item \texttt{:D\~{}N} \quad  Votes N proposals back. Is 0-indexed, so \texttt{:D\~{}0} is equivalent to \texttt{:D}.

\item \texttt{:D\^{} :D\^{}\^{} :D\^{}\^{}\^{} ...} \quad Equivalent to \texttt{:D\~{}N}, where N is the number of `\^{}'s.

\item \texttt{nick: :D, nick: :D\~{}N, nick: :D\^{}} \quad Same as without the \texttt{nick: } prefix, but instead refer to the relevant proposal
made by `nick'. \texttt{nick, } can be used instead of \texttt{nick: }.
\end{itemize}


\subsubsection{What counts as a filibuster/proposal?}

We get it. It's hard to determine what filibusters and what is a legitimate proposal. Here's
a handy table:

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\begin{tabular}{p{0.6\linewidth} | p{0.15\linewidth} | p{0.15\linewidth}}
\textbf{Message}                                                                           & \textbf{Filibusters?}  & \textbf{Proposal?}      \\ \hline
:D and its variants.                                                                       & No.                    & No.                    \\
:D: or D: and their variants.                                                              & Yes.                   & No.                    \\
Messages redacted in the public logs or messages intended to be redacted.                  & Yes.                   & No.                    \\
Automatic bot messages.                                                                    & No, unless disruptive. & No, unless disruptive. \\
First join.                                                                                & Yes.                   & Yes.                   \\
Kicks and mode changes on users.                                                           & Yes.                   & Yes.                   \\
Other network messages such as joins, parts, kills, nick changes, or channel mode changes. & No, unless disruptive. & No, unless disruptive.
\end{tabular}


\subsection{Additional stuff}

\begin{itemize}
\item In cases where there is disagreement on whether something passed, the
authoritative log's point of view is used.
\item The person who opens the vote on a proposal must provide the law to lawrememberer,
if requested to do so.
\item Zero-width spaces in votes are to be ignored.
\item It is a good custom to vote on one's own proposal last.
\end{itemize}


\subsection{Terminology}

\begin{itemize}


\item \texttt{filibuster}: Anything that is sent on the channel, and can stop a
law from being passed, is known as a filibuster. This is in line with the literal meaning,
``obstructs progress in a legislative assembly''.

\item \texttt{inner party}: A loosely defined group of people who are more active
with channel work, and have additional rights with ChanServ. Find out who it consists of
by knocking on the nearest secret door.

\item \texttt{law}: A passed proposal. A proposal requires three contiguous votes
by unique non-bot members of the channel to be passed.

Laws need not effect active behavior on the channel, and can be passed because of
Rule of Funny.

\item \texttt{lawrememberer}: The people responsible for maintaining the lawlist,
currently notably `nortti', `shikhin', and `wolf' but anyone can sign up.

\item \texttt{lawspeaker}: The person who interprets and clarifies the law,
currently `nortti'.

\item \texttt{malcompliance}: The act of complying in the worst possible manner. Or,
as the Finnish define it, ``following the letter of the law while pissing on the spirit''.

Examples:
\begin{quote}
``Hey could you test sortix?'' ``test -f sortix.iso \# Yep. It's a file.'' \\
``I'll have something strong to drink'' *gives aqua fortis*
\end{quote}

\item \texttt{new ancient law}: A law that has always been true, 
but was only recently discovered and either ratified or recognized.


\item \texttt{proposal}: Anything that can be ratified as a law is a proposal.


\item \texttt{triminority}: The three required to pass a law. Can be used to refer to
an actual group, or a hypothetical group.

\item \texttt{vote}: Anything described under `Voting.Syntaxen'.
\end{itemize}

\end{document}