Well, #1 judgement was a rousing success. Don't get a third chance.
Here's an outline of my new logic for discussion:
1. There is a process, can be informal, or somewhat informally
specified. omd's announcement of intent was good enough to start
a review process.
2. The DEFAULT "common law" review process is Announce Intent, Wait at
least N, Announce Change via Rules mechanism. There is a general
cultural assumption that this is sufficient, and looking from the
outside, it seems like a reasonable method depending on the length
of N. N is undefined in the current ruleset. What's "reasonable"?
3. I agree with the Caller that "reasonable" can vary by circumstance,
and the rules are silent on the issue (in full judgement, I'll give
a couple examples of when N can be short and still be reasonable.
There may be examples where longer times are necessary, too).
4. However, common law (or Agoran culture if you prefer) clearly
centers around 4 days. No other specific number has been mentioned,
and both sides of the current controversy are clearly basing their
strategies around the "4 days" limit, so it's a strongly held
assumption, even if the precedents around it are weak and lost in
the mists of time.
5. If omd HAD announced a specific N at the beginning (e.g. "3 days")
then we could have a specific discussion on whether it was
"enough" under the circumstances.
6. But omd did not specify N. So we have two choices:
a. An arbitrary time that omd had in eir brain, that omd
may not have decided upon when announcing intent; or
b. The cultural default.
7. omd was clearly "counting" on us making that assumption, then
pointing out that the assumption wrong. Now, if omd had shown
the assumption was wrong due to a hidden specific rules loophole,
that's how the game is played.
8. However, e's not showing us that. E's just pointing out that
the rules are silent on the issue, so maybe shorter times are
possible.
9. Which is a point well-taken, a Rules definition would clear a lot
up. But absent that, using the cultural default to define a
default N for a public process is more compelling, and reasonable.
Conclusion: omd's announcement was formal enough to start the
process, but "4 days" is enough of a common-law assumption that it's
the default minimum time, *unless* omd specifies differently at the
outset (if e does so specify, there's no guarantee the shorter
time would be reasonable, but it would be open to discussion).
