On Thu, 27 Jun 2013, Fool wrote: > On 27/06/2013 8:55 PM, Kerim Aydin wrote: > > > > Of course, this raises the age old question of whether, if e does an > > "illegal" thing, whether it actually fails (since we haven't differentiated > > IMPOSSIBLE from ILLEGAL here at all...) > > > > Okay, for the sake of argument: then that also applies to all players, not > just Blob. Also, to the Speaker.
Well yes, in part. If the rules don't say it can be done in the first place, it's generally taken to be impossible. E.g. you can't say "I cheat and win" and win, because the rules don't give any way to win just by saying so. If the rules forbid something, but can't stop it from happening, then it's illegal, but can't be deemed to have "not happened". Examples are prohibitions on speech: "the Speaker can't reveal secret votes until after the voting period ends". Well, obviously, you can, and we can't claim it "didn't happen". If the votes are revealed, they're revealed. This is a gray area. If the rules say that e must forfeit before e does *anything*, then just by posting a message whose first words aren't "I forfeit", e has broken that rule. And clearly, the breakage was something that can't be taken back (the fact that e wrote the email was the breakage, and that can't be taken back). So if the crime is the message itself, then the crime doesn't actually impact the action that the message would *otherwise* have according to the rules (a valid vote, or a CFJ) - that still happens. Or does it? Not very satisfying either way IMO.
