Noticing a striking lack of transparency, activity, accountability, or even a coherent governing platform in our government, we, Markov Walker and Dan, are announcing our candidacy for SF0 Senate.

Our incumbent Senators seem to believe governing amounts to creating a checklist of "for" and "against". Once elected, we will remind our colleagues that it is not enough to be in favor of a strong economy, better education, or against villiany. We must do something to build a strong economy, to improve education, and to oppose villiany.

We present a platform of unprecedented scope and clarity. We've broken down our platform into four parts: an economic plan, our social policy, a reform of our government process, and our ongoing education effort. In all cases we elaborate on the current state of the SF0 community. We then present our plan for improving our current situation with as much detail and clarity as we can provide.

Markov Walker and Dan: serious candidates with serious solutions.

Economic Plan

We've identified two entangled economies within SF0, Points and High Score awards. We've developed a comprehensive economic plan to revitalize these economies, and push them towards prolonged growth, creating prosperity for all SF0 characters.

The Economics of Points

For those who are not intimately familiar with how our voting economy works, I present a brief summary. You are awarded a fixed number of points for simply clicking the submit button for a task. Other players may choose to vote for your submitted proof, thereby awarding you 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 points. Those points are deducted from the voting player's voting pool and added to your Score.

Your voting pool starts at 500. Every time you vote, the number of points you choose to award another player is deducted from your voting pool. For every 2 points you earn, whether from the initial award for submitting a Proof of Praxis, or from the votes of other players, 1 point is added to your voting pool.

Keep this in mind, and let's talk stimulus.

Economic stimulus is a controversial policy in Washington. The Obama administration has justified the current deficit spending policy by citing a multiplier effect. They claim that every unit of government spending adds 1.5 units to total GDP. Others call this a new voodoo economics. Read that article to try to understand what a stimulus multiplier of 1.5, or 1, or .5 would mean for the economy and for reasonable economic policy.

In SF0, government stimulus voting has a multiplier of 0.5. In fact, all trades of votes yield half again the aggregated point value (APV, figured as Score + Voting Pool). Voting yields both more points, and more voting.

We will implement an economic stimulus plan targeting players most in need: those with a low voting pool, who would vote but lack the funds to do so, and those with low Score, who want to aim high in their Praxis but can only sign up for the level one Tasks.

Critics of this plan will surely point out that this plan is expensive, and wonder how we plan to fund it. Any compulsory taxation by the SF0 government would be unprecedented, and is simply out of the question. Some of our funds will be generously donated to us by private SF0 players. But unlike Washington, SF0's government is capable of producing, rather than merely redirecting wealth. As your elected officials, we pledge to fund our stimulus program by completing more, higher scoring tasks.

To demonstrate our plan, we will be making the following offer during the campaign season: vote on this task and tell us one of your task completions. We will each vote for that completion in the same amount that you vote for this task. You will have more points without having lost anything from your voting pool.

SF0's point economy makes it possible for your government to actually give you a free lunch. We deliver that possibility.

The High Score Economy

The High Score "economy" is quite different from the points economy, and in a real sense, it's not an actual economy. But it's entangled with the points economy in important ways, so it is important to address as we discuss our economic plan.

A critic of our stimulus spending program might accuse it of distorting the competition for high score tasks. We have two responses to this.

In the initial phase of our stimulus program, during the campaign, we spend our stimulus funds on a task of the receiver's choice. This may be used to distort the competition for high score completions. But 1) this phase will be for a limited time, 2) it is likely to be used by players to bring attention to their most undervalued tasks, enriching the SF0 experience for us all, slightly, and 3) competitors can use the same policy to level the race again.

Our long term stimulus policy will focus on spending points on tasks that are not likely to affect who claims the highest scoring task. Player Photograph tasks are excellent opportunities for stimulus spending without unfairly knocking down a previous High Scorer.

High Score economic policy is complicated by a simple fact: it is a zero sum game. Achieving a High Score on a Task usually entails denying another player a high score on that Task.

Usually. For Tasks with no completions, simply completing a Task gets you a High Score. This points the way towards expanding the High Score economy, and it's a plan the current administration has already promised and failed to uphold: Add more Tasks to the game.

Adding tasks to the game enriches all players in many ways. It broadens our options, adds diversity to the Praxis we enjoy, and gives us more ways to earn valuable points and High Score badges. The current era promises a new Task every day. An ambitious goal, and I can't blame the current administration for not meeting that goal. But they've fallen so far short, trickling new tasks in at an abominably slow pace, that we believe the time has come for a referendum.

Social Plan

Sf0 is a thriving community of wild diversity and what it needs is to keep current. We need resources and knowledge bases that keep us abreast of the sf0 dynamics while they are happening.

We look to target two major problems with this community.

1. Documentation
2. Community space

Documentation

As it is currently written and laid out, the sf0 website uses many words and phrases that are uncommon to the average man’s lexicon. Indeed even placement of buttons and links can be esoteric and hard. Candidates Walker and Dan aim to highlight and improve the resources that make this system easier to learn.

The wiki is currently hidden. Our aim is to bring more clarity and understanding of the mechanics of SF0, in our economic, bureaucratic, and social platforms.

Once in the Senate we will not be able to revolutionize the design, nor have access to rewrite any of the set ups. But we can promote knowledge of the wiki and we can get to work on making it useful to the members of Everyday Life. A lot has happened throughout the history of this game. Let’s stay current!

We will update the wiki with valuable information and do our best to keep it current, so that new members can learn about the history of this fine community and learn tips to make their proofs easier and better.

And this propels us straight into point two.

Community Space.

Right now we have comments going up like this:



And we have Praxis going up that look like this:



Now, we firmly believe in the right for the above to exist inside of the game. If the above Praxis is an act of one player’s wish to subvert the system in order to force other players to interact with his work in the form of flaggery, more power to him. However, most likely, this person didn’t intend to get flagged out of existence. More likely he was overwhelmed by the sheer possibilities and found a community area devoid of helpful links and devoid of a place for him to ask questions.

We want to also make it clear that there is another way to play. Another way to communicate and interact with the game and its characters.

Candidate Dan pledges to create an Official Unofficial Forum where those interested can go and discuss (and even argue, as it is clear there is some heated opinions that will need to be met out) how to build the perfect praxis.

Though we acknowledge that the “perfect praxis” most likely doesn’t exist. Striving to achieve it and discussing: what makes a praxis enjoyable, what makes a praxis unenjoyable, what makes a quality proof, what makes a quality community player, and what makes a good task are vital in pushing forward and keeping current.

Though we will always believe in—and support—creativity, imagination and diversity in tasking, we are also passionate about creating a space for community members to have access to templates. There is no reason for new players to reinvent the wheel or be forced to “lurk more.” Let’s get them into tasking and tasking efficiently right away. Let’s get them current!

For many of us, Candidate Walker included, the absence of any clear statement of what the game is about or how it is played creates a mystique that draws us in. But many other potential Players are left out by this. Not finding a clear description of what playing SF0 actually entails, many leave without giving the game a try. Not having a standard, clear, up to date resource to point new players to is a liability that hurts the community. There is a balancing act here; resources should be easy enough to find that the frustrated and confused can find them while those who want to figure the game out for themselves will not accidently stumble into them. Candidates Dan and Walker believe that our current situation leans too far towards obscurity.

While there is something to be said for a smaller community of more dedicated Players, there's also benefit to making our community more accessible to new Players. There is a tension here, and we think the current social situation tilts too far in the direction of a smaller, more tight-knit community. Regardless of whether the community ultimately agrees, the time is now for more open discussion of the matter.

Political Reform

Transparency is our ultimate political goal. No candidate has laid out as comprehensive and detailed a platform as we have. Transparency is not just a goal for the Campaign Trail: we promise to struggle for transparency in government once elected.

We've identified two cases of appalling government secrecy: SF0's rules, and the addition of new Tasks to the game.

Transparency in the SF0 rules

The rules are reproduced below:

It is strictly prohibited to:

1. Kill other players, except in designated player killing areas.
2. Steal valuable possessions from the corpses of already dead players.

These rules raise several questions we should expect our government to answer. How often are players killed outside of the designated player killing areas? Which areas are the most dangerous for a player to travel? What is being done to find rogue player killers, and what will be done with them once they are caught? How often are player's corpses looted, and what is the punishment for looting another player's corpse?

We will set up a method for players to report unsanctioned player killings and corpse lootings so that statistics will be available to the SF0 playing public and investigations can be launched to expose wrongdoing.

The secret rules are even more problematic.

Secret Rules are as follows:

hQIOA/ANbTCY1ta1EAf/WExhE/HUr2ddRvmVZqT/6ev+nY+APv+NnScB0mVywIoH fojccahUxx1h27sWE/8TN9iAPlB1rg+Y5dg0v/B2oFA/1czLUkV6BJSppzCjNpbX fclRfW0juOB+ro3Gpkj8V+J5L4RZSThEB1L766CG8RoMafkpeAO9G0nttt/3Uc3Q +y+EtVpiYIPfRGUk9j4exrPclmMc09mpN8C4AeT7NREft4kjfL7dZGXPLZ8MHAY0 T/SnYQKpvBjR+oII7Ti3dZm6qI2Wkgts5VuKRuFY0WMxB6Xou8KLWjJVagIMnXm0 phzVN80Qp2fUIqfsjqgyA7Z7QBPnzHtnDTFfZ+2OJQgAyie0K1NdtviskY6CqKIK SRltTfySoecQjnNhNIVWt68ljHo0r5UYtBifbwzvGmkMJ7iqTyl8TMm5i9eNUiY/ ic8dQEJvYs+oNqychOiTjEfadAAYa94qu+pxzfWiLrzlYmE9FprIGgBxypn9HbnL JCVbFM/ZYt/j8yGDozjOeSy65xUnrsgaEEIlbfKlkP7/FLyzr89HGf2WX62lezNk xz8IbfU4qUZ2eMOoFawimy3NQ+Lj1hICcS8xKN4c/zAvon5eJxe4o3WlTjW6kIXb siy9FG/MgaHRQvZ4vjqootQ7F7ukbWy/SVCQTrw6DGU63vQlU4/AEg+CzMPLuUcO a9LAHgESETuYKhta9ZdSvndcJlzRpdYL5mWq+LkCAo0NUOvF87CX/A1R10DvogAr WTjPugFK7yXLFJONrYHMAeB/WG8Xt6U5d1RUl82G9maIgoDgNyubNfKpgYRo5FXE qewuMWc1X/LSV4aHw6MIhzm1qqJvn0iTbcUP0/W2IohPyKwD2K9JvcMKD0/WBMS/ gJ9ZHXT4mmBSR3B6rBdEeYnIYbPpbwJZ5V48B3yx0ocHyGtyfekzybnui4nNSd50 zi8UpzrD/fcQHgHPkwli+IqT30OcXz5lX+K5UolCRxg96Q== =1lnK

However, thanks to the hard work of Lizard Boy and Cthulhu Kitty, we have a much better understanding of the Secret Rules. Candidate Markov pledges his support and assistance to any effort crack the secret rules.

Transparency in the Task approval process

The Era of Everyday Life promises a new Task added every day. We all know who creates the new Tasks. Us. The Players of this game. Click on the Create a new task link, fill out the form, and whoosh! Your new Task idea is whisked away to... where?

It's kept amongst the other pretired Tasks. Those Tasks that have been suggested but not added to the game. Where is that list, and why can't you see it?

To see all the pretired tasks, a player must simply have an active account for a certain amount of time (90 days) and recieve a certain amount of votes (40). Once you meet these criteria, a link appears on the Task screen. Where you can filter Tasks by Task status, there once were two options: Active and Retired. Once you meet the above criteria, a new link appears: Un-scored. This leads to the pretired Tasks.

This is our first step towards the Task approval transparency we are campaigning for. We want to make it known to all players exactly how new Tasks get added to the game. All interested players should be able to observe the debate among the decision makers and understand the decision making mechanics that sort those Tasks that enter the game from those that do not.

Currently, the game's administrators must approve a suggested task before it enters the game. We wish revise the system so that we may add new Tasks to the game more frequently, while still maintaining the high Task quality you've come to expect. Our proposal is to allow senior players as well as administrators to add new Tasks to the game. This could be restricted to only level 8 players, and to only one Task a week per player, to keep the new Task quality high.

Enhancing Education

Candidate Walker has, since his first days in the SF0 community, worked to improve education here on SF0, particularly in the areas of science and math.

One of Markov's first tasks elaborates several properties of Euler's constant and demonstrates a proof of Euler's identity, one of the most celebrated results in all of mathematics. He also educated SF0 players the Markov property, often used in statistical modelling, using a random walk through one day's events as an example. And he introduced several fundamental concepts of Information Theory using an interactive demonstration and by evaluating the Proverb "A picture is worth a thousand words".

Most recently, candidate Walker examined politics and technology during the Reagan/Bush years via several media artifacts produced during that time.

Candidates Walker and Dan believe in the importance of art and creative expression in an education program. But art, music, and creative writing are already well represented on SF0, and we both participate in these activities as well.

But this ticket offers unique eductaional opportunities in math, sciences, and other academic pursuits that enriches our educational experience and that is not currently offered by our incumbent Senators or candidates.

Updates from the Trail

The candidates' speeches

Visual aids for Markov's speech:
Probability Semiring:
K = ℜ⁺∪{∞}
0 = 0
1 = 1
x⊕y = x+y
x⊗y = xy

Expectation Semiring
K = 〈ℜ⁺∪{∞}, ℜⁿ〉
0 = 〈0, 0〉
1 = 〈1, 0〉
〈p₁, v₁〉⊕〈p₂, v₂〉 = 〈p₁+p₂, v₁+v₂〉
〈p₁, v₁〉⊗〈p₂, v₂〉 = 〈p₁p₂, p₂v₁+p₁v₂〉