>Proposal 5531 (Democratic, AI=3, Interest=2) by Murphy >Rules as Binding Agreement
An interesting attempt at giving Agora a distinctive constitution. I'd vote FOR this if it were adequately clear and consistent. > Other persons who participate > in Agora SHOULD abide by the rules, but do not become party to > them unless they explicitly intend to do so, e.g. by entering > into a non-rule contract. This seems contradictory. Entering into a non-rule contract does not seem like explicit intent to be a party to the rules or to obey the rules. It does involve intent that *the contract* be adjudicated by the rules, but (so far) that intent can be implicit. It's also unclear on which other things might make a non-player be a party to the rules. An explicit definition of "participation in Agora" might help here: maybe some instances of "player" in the rules should become "participant". The "SHOULD" should be replaced by a straight criterion for being a party to the rules-as-contract. > An equity case CAN be initiated by any party to the contract > (or by any person, if the contract is the rules) I think this extension is not required, given an appropriately extended membership of the rules-as-contract. > The members of the bases of the parties to the contract are all > unqualified to be assigned as judge of the case, unless the > contract is the rules. ... > the judgement is in effect as a new binding agreement between > the parties, acting in conjunction with the original contract. A judgement in an equity case regarding the rules, then, is a binding agreement between all participants. But it's not the rules. So an equity case on it can't be judged by any participant. >Change the power of Rule 1742 (Contracts) to 3, Some flaws in (the wording of) R1742 have shown up in recent months, and really ought to be fixed before applying it to the rules. There's been argument about "member" and "party" possibly having different meanings; they should be explicitly synonymous wrt contracts. There have also been cases where we're not clear on whether an agreement was intended to be a R1742 contract. There should be an explicit specification of the degree of formality required to make a R1742 contract. (I suggest making it stricter than at present, by requiring that the contract be written and that it explicitly state that it is intended to be governed by the rules of Agora.) >[Remaining changes mostly just avoid excluding non-players from >certain general situations.] Most of this is worth doing even if the proposal as a whole fails. > All persons are prohibited from falsely claiming, to any nomic, > to be the ambassador. Interesting rule to interpret under the contract regime. Under the current system, the rules regard themselves as absolutely sovereign, so (for the purposes of Agoran jurisprudence) this requirement would be binding on absolutely all persons. Under the contract system that you proposed, it's binding on players and some non-players, with other non-players under a SHOULD. Who do you actually intend it to bind? I think this provision is a good thought experiment for the partyhood and bindingness issues discussed earlier. For the record, when I drafted that clause I specifically intended it to bind players and no one else (even active non-player participants). I thought that controlling non-players' claims was not necessary, because without playerhood their claims to ambassadorship would lack credibility. >[For reference, here is Zefram's laundry list of 10/29/07: > >> you need a power=3 rule to characterise the ruleset as a contract. Got that. >> You need to be explicit about who the parties are, Not explicit enough. >> and that has to >> be consistent with the rules that impose obligations on non-players >> and with R101's bill of rights. Nearly got it. The explicit "participant" terminology might sort it. >> You need to review all the >> constitutional and playerhood rules, modifying them to fit the >> contract paradigm. Many things appropriately broadened. Seems OK. >> You need to be clear about whether the rules are >> a R1742 contract, and if they are then R1742 probably needs to be >> upmutated quite a bit. Not explicit, but I think it's reasonably clear that the rules would be a R1742 contract. >> You need to be clear about the constitutional >> position of equity judgements regarding the rules. Also not explicitly addressed, and as noted there's a bug in that area. I think explication would be wise. >> You need to be >> clear about the role of the criminal court within a contract and as >> applied to contracts generally. Reasonably clear that equity and criminal courts both apply, both to the rules and to non-rule contracts. >> You need to be clear about where >> contractual obligations are rooted. Not explicit, and I think it's not sufficiently clear. -zefram
