On Wed, 2023-11-08 at 15:47 -0500, Janet Cobb via agora-business wrote:
> On 11/8/23 15:40, 4st nomic via agora-official wrote:
> > This is a self-ratifying document. (Please do not object to this report
> > outright, instead, submit a CoE so I may make the appropriate correction
> > upon the next report).
> > I swear, to the best of my ability, that the following is true and correct,
> > under penalty of no faking:
> >
> > The following are players and the hats they are wearing:
> > Player Hat
> > --- --
> > Gaelan is wearing a giant question mark as a hat.
> > Murphy is wearing history itself as a hat.
> > Janet is wearing a pointy purple witch hat.
> > cuddlybanana is wearing a banana hat.
> > ais523 is wearing THE SUPER ULTIMATE WINNER'S HAT.
> > snail is wearing the helix fossil as a hat.
> > juan is wearing the entrance gates of Agora as a hat.
> > Aris is wearing a hat.
> > 4st is wearing the number 4 as a hat.
> > Yachay Wayllukuq is wearing a regular old ghost as a hat.
> > blob is wearing emself as a hat.
> > Anneke-Constantine is wearing the movie Constantine as a hat.
> > kiako is wearing a different hat.
> > Kate is wearing Beatrice (bird form) as a hat.
> > Zipzap is wearing a zipper as a hat.
> > nix is wearing anarchy as a hat.
> > omd is wearing this report as a hat.
> > innalienableWright is wearing as a hat.
> > beokirby is wearing the same hat.
>
> I affirm, under penalty of no faking, that I am not wearing a hat, nor
> was I at the time of the above-quoted message.
>
> I note each of the following infractions, in order:
These notings are all with respect to rule 2471, so it's worth taking a
look at what is actually required to violate the rule: the statements
have to be either intended to mislead or labeled as being under penalty
of no faking (the latter is true for all these statements), and the
author has to know (or should have known) that the statement is false,
or believe the statement to be false.
Some of these statements are obviously false; for these statements, 4st
should have known that the statement were false, and thus making it is
a violation.
Some of these statements are, from 4st's point of view, likely but not
certain to be false. Due to a bug in rule 2471, these are infractions
only if 4st believed the statement to be false (it is not sufficient
for 4st to not believe the statement to be true), and if the statement
is in fact actually false. It seems quite plausible that 4st made the
statements not knowing or caring whether they were true or not, as
opposed to actually believing them to be false, in which case there is
no infraction.
As such, many of these come down to the definition of "believe" – in
particular, is it possible to believe something if you've never thought
about whether it's true or not? I checked a few dictionaries, and many
of them said that "believe" has a connotation of not being absolutely
certain; as such, when making a wild stab in the dark as to an unlikely
statement about someone else, it seems semantically as though the
person making the statement believes it to be false, even if they
aren't sure.
This means that:
- for statements that are physically impossible or almost so, an
infraction was committed (making a statement under penalty of No
Faking that the author should have known was false);
- for statements that are not physically impossible, but unlikely,
an infraction was committed (making a statement under penalty
of No Faking that the author believed was false), unless the
statement was actually true;
- for statements that are plausible, no infraction was committed
because the author probably did not believe the statement to be
false (even though e did not believe it to be true).
It's also worth thinking about the punishments here. As far as I can
tell, each statement is a separate infraction, meaning that even a
minimum punishment is likely to end up very large – disproportionate to
the actual damage to Agora that has been done by the message (which is
nonzero, because it may confuse new players into thinking that a
nonexistent office exists, but not as high as the rule). In most cases,
though, there is no choice in punishment anyway; the Class of all the
infractions below is 2, and the Base is 0 for the first investigated
infraction, 1 for the second, and 2 for the rest.
For each infraction I investigate below, I have given it a name,
consisting of a number in square brackets placed immediately before the
action that investigates it.
> * 4st publishing a falsy statement that Gaelan is wearing a giant
> question mark as a hat explicitly under penalty of No Faking, in
> volation of Rule 2471 (No Faking).
[1] I investigate this infraction, specifying a 0-Blot penalty – by a
preponderance of the evidence, 4st believed the statement to be false.
> * 4st publishing a falsy statement that Murphy is wearing history itself
> as a hat explicitly under penalty of No Faking, in
