Enigma

Parties

Text

1) This is an Equitable, Public contract named Enigma.

2) The purpose of this contract is to be a contest that encourages
asking and answering puzzles of moderate difficulty. If for any reason
this contract is not a contest, all clauses of this contract except
clauses 1-5 inclusive have no effect.

3) Any person CAN become a member of this contract by announcement. A
"contestant", for the purpose of this contract, is a person who is party
to this contract, but not its contestmaster.

4) The contestmaster of this contract CAN be changed without three
objections.

5) The contestmaster CAN amend this contract without member objection.
If this contract does not have a contestmaster, instead any party to it
CAN amend it without member objection.

6) For the purpose of this contest, a puzzle is a body of text clearly
identified as such, accompanied by its correct answer, and either sent
privately to the contestmaster by a contestant (hereafter its author)
who has not previously submitted a puzzle during the same week, or
submitted by the contestmaster in a private message to emself (the
contestmaster can only submit one puzzle per week this way). The
author of a puzzle SHALL NOT disclose its answer to any other
contestant (other than contestants which share a basis member with the
author), nor to any non-contestant player of Agora, until after its
answer submission period ends.

7) For the purpose of this contest, an eligible answer is a correct
answer to a puzzle sent privately to the contestmaster by a
contestant whose basis is disjoint from its author's basis, during that
puzzle's answer submission period (which begins when the contestmaster
publishes it and ends one week later), and for which that contestant did
not attempt to submit another answer for that puzzle later in the answer
submission period. (Eligibility is evaluated instantaneously, so an
answer which is eligible can become ineligible if another answer is
later submitted for that puzzle by the same contestant.)

8) The correctness of a given answer is left to the contestmaster's
discretion. In particular, if the contestmaster believes that a
puzzle cannot reasonably be answered correctly without having its
correct answer disclosed by the author, then e may treat all
non-author answers as incorrect. In addition, if the contestmaster
believes a puzzle is sufficiently trivial to not be interesting,
than e may award points (and Clues, if appropriate) as if all non-author
answers were incorrect. Also, if a puzzle obviously only has a small
range of possible answers (for instance, if it is a true or false
question), the contestmaster may and SHOULD treat an answer as incorrect
unless its submitter gives extra reasoning to explain why that answer is
correct.

9) As soon as possible after the end of each week, the contestmaster
SHALL publish a list of all puzzles submitted during that week; this is
not a requirement if the list is empty, but in such a case the
contestmaster SHOULD nevertheless announce that there were no puzzles.

10) The answer submission period for a list of puzzles ends one week
after it begins. As soon as possible after the end of a list's
answer submission period, the contestmaster SHALL attempt to award
points in the order stated below, except that no points are awarded for
puzzles for which no eligible answers were submitted. For the purpose of
this clause, contestanthood is measured at the end of the answer
submission period.

a) For each eligible answer, in order of submission, its author gains:
- 5 x-points, if it was the first eligible answer on that puzzle, and
the puzzle was the only one on its list; or
- 4 x-points, if it was the first eligible answer on that puzzle, but
there was more than one puzzle on that list; or
- 3 x-points, if it was not the first eligible answer on that puzzle,
but the puzzle was the only one on its list; or
- 2 x-points, otherwise.
As an exception to this, if more than 6 eligible answers are submitted
on a puzzle, all point awards for that puzzle under this section are
reduced by 1 x-point.

b) For each puzzle, its author gains 11 y-points, minus 1 y-point for
each eligible answer which was submitted on that puzzle; no y-points are
awarded this way if this would result in a negative number of y-points
being awarded, or if no eligible answers were submitted on that puzzle.
If an attempt to award points this way would fail due to too many points
being awarded, all such rewards are reduced by the same integral number
of y-points, choosing the minimum integral number of y-points to reduce
by such that all the awards in question succeed.

11) Enigma's contestmaster CAN and MAY create a Medal in its possession,
if permitted by the rules and using the mechanisms specified in the
rules. When doing so, the contestmaster must privately think of, or
already have thought of, a Secret Answer, a string of characters, and
SHALL publish its MD5 hash in the same message in which e creates the
Medal. The Secret Answer must stay constant for as long as Enigma
posesses a Medal, and ceases to exist when Enigma ceases to possess a
Medal.

The contestmaster SHALL NOT reveal the text of, or other information
about, the Secret Answer, except as permitted to and/or required to by
either the text of this Contract or by the Rules. This restriction
specifically does not apply to contestants, who MAY share, keep secret,
barter with, or do anything else with information about the Secret
Answer they discover.

A "Championship Puzzle" is a puzzle designated as such by the
contestmaster whilst publishing it. Puzzles SHOULD be designated as
Championship Puzzles if Enigma owns a Medal, and the contestmaster
believes they are neither too easy nor too difficult.

Within a week after the end of the answer submission period of a list of
puzzles, for each contestant who submitted an eligible answer on a given
Championship Puzzle, the contestmaster SHALL as soon as possible
privately reveal to em either a Specific Clue or a Generic Clue, which
is information about the Secret Answer which must be true, but MAY (but
does not have to) be misleading. If that answer was the first eligible
answer to be submitted on that puzzle, the contestmaster SHALL instead
reveal to em both a Specific Clue and a Generic Clue. A Specific Clue is
a clue that mostly reveals information about a localised part of the
Secret Answer; a Generic Clue is a clue that mostly reveals information
about the Secret Answer as a whole. When submitting answers for puzzles,
contestants SHOULD specify whether they want a Specific Clue or a
Generic Clue, and the contestmaster SHOULD honour this preference if
possible; if a contestant does not specify a preference, the
contestmaster SHOULD use a suitable method of randomisation (which need
not be public) to decide whether to give a Specific or Generic clue, in
the case where only one is given. All Specific Clues given due to
answers on a given puzzle should be the same, and all Generic Clues
given due to answers on a given puzzle should be the same.
If at least one point is awarded by the contestmaster due to a
Championship Puzzle authored by a contestant, the contestmaster SHALL
reveal a Specific Clue and a Generic Clue to the author of that puzzle.

The contestmaster CAN and MAY transfer a medal from Enigma to the first
contestant who publishes the Secret Answer, and SHALL do so if it is
clearly labeled as the Secret Answer, or when it was pointed out that
that contestant published the Secret Answer. Medals owned by Enigma
CANNOT be transferred otherwise. When choosing a Secret Answer, the
contestmaster SHOULD choose a Secret Answer unlikely to be published
except in connection with this contest. Contestants SHOULD verify an
attempt to publish the Secret Answer against the provided MD5 hash
before publishing it, so as not to unduly give away information to
other contestants.

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page revision: 21, last edited: 26 Jul 2009 22:45
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