On Sun, 16 Nov 2008, Ed Murphy wrote:
>> 2008/11/17 Ed Murphy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>>> Aha. I initiate an inquiry case on the following statement,
>>> disqualifying comex:
>>>
>>> Neither Proposal 5956 nor Proposal 5962 has been adopted.
>>
>> Arguments:
>>
>> Strong precedent is that one-off increases work.
>
> What strong precedent? I don't remember that clause being invoked
> even once (until now) since it was enacted.
Well, I'm not aware of any precise precedent when there's a conflict
between a continuous defined state and an instantaneous change.
R2156 defines voting limit continuously:
The voting limit of an eligible voter on an ordinary decision
*is* eir caste at the start of its voting period
so any rule that purports to change the voting limit away from this
value is in conflict with R2156.
R2126 purports to do a one-off shift, and *does* in fact have a higher
precedence due to number. So this can be read either as a direct
conflict in which case R2126 wins, or, as Murphy argues, this is the
instantaneous perturbation and return to defined state (with no
conflict). At one time, there was a vague theory that if there's two
choices, one that creates a conflict and resolves it by precedence, and
another that doesn't create a conflict, that one should choose the
lack-of conflict option. But I think that's more "judicial preference"
rather than "precedent".
There's a considerably stronger argument that basic definitions (e.g. "a
player's VP is (by definition) eir caste) effectively claims precedence
(in the R1030 sense) over non-definitional changes from that definition.
This would favor R2156, and not even allow the "instantaneous switch"
which seems a little dubious. I don't remember it being written in
those words, but one could probably trawl the CFJs for arguments that
effectively say this (that a property can not stray from its definition--
e.g. calling a VP something other than "its caste" is as nonsensical as
setting a numerical index to be "a bunch of grapes").
-Goethe
