Return a character specification like this character, but comprising only those properties this gossip is interested in.

Return a location specification like this location, but comprising only those elements this gossip is interested in. If none, return nil.

Infer a new knowledge item from this item, following this rule

Integer representation of how interesting this character is to this gossip. TODO: this assumes that characters are passed as keywords, but, as documented above, they probably have to be maps, to allow for degradation.

Integer representation of how interesting this location is to this gossip.

Boolean representation of whether this character is interesting to this gossip.

True if anything about this news item is interesting to this gossip.

True if the location of this news item is interesting to this gossip.

TODO: write docs

TODO: write docs

Return a gossip like this gossip, which has learned this news item if it is of interest to them.

Return a list of knowledge entries that can be inferred from this news item.

Topics of interest to gossip agents. Topics are keyed in this map by their verbs. The keys associated with each topic are the extra pieces of information required to give context to a gossip item. Generally:

• actor is the id of the character who it is reported performed the action;
• other is the id of the character on whom it is reported the action was performed;
• location is the place at which the action was performed;
• object is an object (or possibly list of objects?) relevant to the action;
• price is special to buy/sell, but of significant interest to merchants.

Notes:

Characters:

TODO but note that at most all the receiver can learn about a character from a news item is what the giver knows about that character, degraded by what the receiver finds interesting about them. If we just pass the id here, then either the receiver knows everything in the database about the character, or else the receiver knows nothing at all about the character. Neither is desirable. Further thought needed.

By implication, the character values passed should include all the information the giver knows about the character; that can then be degraded as the receiver stores only that segment which the receiver finds interesting.

Locations:

A ‘location’ value is a list comprising at most the x/y coordinate location and the ids of the settlement and region (possibly hierarchically) that contain the location. If the x/y is not local to the home of the receiving agent, they won’t remember it and won’t pass it on; if any of the ids are not interesting So location information will degrade progressively as the item is passed along.

It is assumed that the :home of a character is a location in this sense.

Inferences:

If an agent learns that Adam has married Betty, they can infer that Betty has married Adam; if they learn that Charles killed Dorothy, that Dorothy has died. I’m not convinced that my representation of inferences here is ideal.