Gratuitous: On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 1:00 PM, Kerim Aydin <[email protected]> wrote: > that a proposal *is*, by its very nature and > definition, a precise text in a precise and immutable version, that > other properties; AI, ID number, etc. are secondary, and that a > different textual version is a different text and therefore a > different proposal (or not a proposal).
Suppose I submit a proposal, and it gets distributed; but during the voting period, I realize that I submitted it with insufficient AI. It's a perfectly fine proposal so I submit a new proposal with the same text, but different AI. Now, these proposals have the same text; hence, if proposals consist of their text, they are the same proposal. The proposal I just submitted is in the Proposal Pool, but the older one is a distributed proposal hence not in the Proposal Pool. How can a proposal be in the Pool and not in the Pool at the same time? If you say that it was removed, but later readded, suppose that instead I had immediately submitted my fix (but not retracted the insufficient-AI version for some reason), but the Promotor only distributed the first version. So we have Proposal 1 - text "foo baz", AI=1 (distributed) Proposal 2 - text "foo baz", AI=2 (undistributed) Again, by your logic, these are actually one and the same proposal which I merely submitted twice. Well, the proposal has already been distributed by the Promotor when he published 'Proposal 1'. There is no need for the Promotor to distribute the second one, as it's the same as the first one which e already distributed. Besides, how can the same proposal have two different adoption indices? Can I change the AI of an existing, distributed proposal by resubmitting it with a different AI? If they are the same proposal, there is no reason why this would not work: the AI of a proposal "may be set by the proposer at the time of submission". The only way around this is to argue that a proposal also includes its AI and II (which is dubious given a reading of the relevant rules); thus, "Repeal all rules" AI=1 is different from "Repeal all rules" AI=2, but the same as another "Repeal all rules" AI=1. But I myself have had the honor of submitting proposals identical to those previously submitted by other players, even with the same AI. Then the same arguments apply: as long as we treat a proposal as the sum of its parts, the original and my copy are the same proposal and ought never to have been given different ID numbers and voted on separately-- and yet they were. Hence, game custom in fact dictates the opposite to what Goethe suggests: a proposal is _not_ the sum of its parts but a distinct object created at the time of submission. There is no language in any rule to suggest that this object acts any differently from other entities in the game, so we may assume that it is tracked in the gamestate and the Rules generally have the power to modify it. Although the rules governing proposals take precedence over Rule 2238, they do not attempt to secure the mutation of proposals which can therefore be done by any rule (there is plenty of precedent for this). > For example, in order to "clearly identify" a text with two versions > (as required by R683 and R208 for voting and resolution), I would > argue that, if two versions exist, the version must be identified at > each vote (e.g. it is not enough to identify a "report" in general > to ratify, one must identify a specific copy of the report). This > might lead to various parts of the process (but not all of it) > breaking depending on how and when identifications are made, or it > might simply reinforce the procedural evidence for accepting > argument #1. On the contrary, the text does not need to be identified at all! Although rule 106 requires that the text of a proposal be published when the voting period for the decision about whether to adopt it is initiated, the Agoran Decision rules themselves simply require the matter, and therefore the proposal, to be clearly identified. If there are two proposals with the text "Repeal all rules", AI=2, 'whether to adopt the proposal with text "Repeal all rules" and AI=2' would *not* clearly identify a proposal and could not be used to initiate the decision. However, "whether to adopt proposal 1234", as long as everyone knows which proposal is numbered 1234, is completely unambiguous even if the text changes, because the same proposal is concerned.
